Wolf Creek Widow (Wolf Creek, Arkansas Book 4) (17 page)

It wasn’t until he finished and went out to his bed in the barn and Meg and Nita were cleaning up the supper dishes that the older woman finally turned to Meg and said, “Maybe it’s none of my business, but I’m curious about what happened after I took the children inside Ellie’s.”

Meg finished drying a plate and turned to face her. “My mother did what she’s so very good at doing. She made me feel small and unimportant and...dirty.”

“She must have hinted that there was something going on between you and Ace,” Nita said.

“How did you know that?”

“No offense to you, but I’ve known a few people like her during my life and they all seem to think alike and act alike. Deep down, they’re unhappy, and everything they do is meant to make someone else feel bad so that they can feel better about themselves.”

Nita’s comment gave Meg pause. She’d never considered the idea of her mother being unhappy, especially when everything she did said otherwise. “She told me I was just like her, that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Because of Elton, I guess, and what she thinks is going on between me and Ace.”

Instead of taking offense, Nita laughed. “I’ve only known you a short time, child, and I can say with no hesitation that you are nothing like your mother—if she’s anything like the rumors about her.”

Urging a half smile to her lips, Meg turned to stack the plate with the others. “Thank you, Nita. And let me tell you...she’s all and more that you’ve no doubt heard.”

“Well, that’s too bad for you. But it’s even worse for her.”

Meg gave Nita a sharp glance. “What do you mean?”

“Only that she’s missed out on a lot of things by going out of her way to alienate you, and I imagine the older she gets, the more she realizes that.”

Confusion clouded Meg’s eyes.

“First of all,” Nita said, “she’s missed out on knowing a wonderful woman. I know how special my relationship with Ace is, and I can only imagine that if I had a daughter it might be even more special. What’s really sad is that she’s missing out on all the sweet and funny things Teddy and Lucy do, and they’re missing out on knowing what it’s like to go to Grandma’s house.”

Meg had never considered the things Nita mentioned. She’d been too wrapped up in her own disgust over her mother’s way of life and her shame in knowing that the whole town knew about how Elton had abused her. There’d been no room for worry about anyone or anything except how to get from one day to the next the best way she knew how. Ace and Nita Allen had opened her eyes to a lot of things. Like never considering how her mother had been robbed of many of life’s joys by choosing the lifestyle she had.

“Thank you, Nita,” she said, giving the older woman a brief hug.

“For what?”

“Being you, I guess.” She folded the dish towel and placed it on the edge of the counter. “Will you listen for the kids for me? I need to talk to Ace.”

* * *

As she expected, Meg found Ace sitting near the fire he’d built between the house and the outbuildings.

“Have a seat,” he offered, gesturing toward the hunk of wood next to him. “I wanted to talk to you about today.”

The statement took her by surprise. She’d made up her mind to try to explain how sorry and ashamed she was of Georgina’s behavior. She hadn’t expected him to raise the subject first. She sat on the stump and pulled her shawl closer.

“I’m sorry you had to see that this afternoon,” she told him, focusing her gaze on the blazing fire. “I’m afraid Georgie brings out the worst in me.”

“Because that’s what she sets out to do.”

“What?”

“She’s jealous of you.”

“Jealous?” Meg echoed, turning to look at him. “Why would she be jealous of me?”

“Because she doesn’t have the courage you do.”

Meg shook her head, not understanding at all.

“Right or wrong, you found a way out of the nightmare that living with her must have been.” His gaze probed hers in the flickering light of the fire.

“If I hadn’t gotten out of there...” She left the sentence unfinished.

She heard a soft hiss as he released the breath he’d been holding. “So,” he said, picking up his train of thought. “You got involved with Elton and more or less jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. As you’ve said, a bad choice. It takes a lot to rise above a situation like that, especially when you know everything’s a mess because you made bad choices.”

“Like you said, from the frying pan to the fire,” Meg told him in a cynical tone.

He nodded. “Maybe. But you still did a good job with what you had to work with. Your mother, on the other hand, was too weak when your father died to do what you did. It was easier to let her problems drag her down even deeper.”

He paused, and Meg knew he was trying to figure out how to make his point without bringing up Elton’s death.

“Now that things are different, you have a whole new life stretching out before you with new opportunities, new dreams and new choices.”

“I hope I do better this time.”

Ace got to his feet and kicked a log closer to the flame. A shower of sparks flew upward. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

She heard something in his voice she couldn’t put her finger on but didn’t like.

“The quarrel with my mother?”

“No. The things she said.”

Meg gave a shaky laugh. “You have every right to be angry. I was. Am. It was pretty embarrassing for her to imply there’s more between us than there is. Nita says Georgie likes making other people look bad so she can look better.”

“That’s because she’s unhappy. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Hearing that her mother was unhappy from both Ace and Nita was an eye-opener. There must be some truth to their claim, since they shared the same view.

“Then what is it?” she asked.

He turned to face her. “What about the other things she said? She made it pretty clear that she didn’t hold Indians in high regard.”

“Oh, well,” Meg said, waving a dismissive hand. “That was just Georgie trying to hurt me again.”

“And me,” he added in a low voice.

Meg sobered in a heartbeat. She’d been so wrapped up in her own anger that she’d given no thought to how her mother’s oh-so-casual comment had wounded Ace.

“I’m sorry.”

Ace turned to her again. “I’m not. It brought back a lot of memories I thought I’d put behind me. And it was a very good example of what life with me would be like if I were selfish enough to ignore my common sense and make you my wife.”

Meg felt as if her own heart stopped beating for a second or two, and then, when she’d thought the statement through, joy flooded her and she could breathe again. He’d just said that he cared for her and wanted to marry her! And then she recalled that little word
if
.
If I were selfish enough...

She got to her feet and went to stand in front of him, so close she could feel his warmth. Reaching out, she placed a hand on his chest. For an instant, he stiffened at her touch but then relaxed, almost, she thought, against his will. His heart beat strong and steady beneath her palm.

“You want to marry me?” she asked in a voice filled with wonder.

“More than anything this side of heaven.”

“Then I don’t understand. You must know that I feel the same.”

“Meg—”

“No!” she said, holding up a hand to silence him. “Don’t try to make me believe that what I feel for you is gratitude or that it’s too soon after Elton’s...death to feel the things I feel, or that I’ll always think of you as his killer. Of course I feel gratitude for all the things you’ve done for me, but it goes beyond that. I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel...for you.”

He grew very still, and she saw him swallow hard.

The tears started then, and with an agonized groan, Ace pulled her into his arms and rested his cheek against the top of her head.

“My parents and I went through the same sort of thing your mother put us through today, and believe me, it never gets any easier. You deserve better than that.”

She held him tighter, needing the strength she found from just touching him. “I’m strong!” she whispered in a fierce voice. “If you love me, I don’t care what people say.”

He tipped her head back so he could look into her eyes. “You are strong, Meg Thomerson. You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. But the taunts won’t go away, and hearing them won’t get easier. I know. It won’t work, Meg.”

All the progress she’d made the past weeks, all the joy she’d felt throughout the day, vanished like the red sparks shooting up into the inky darkness. She felt as numb as she had when she first woke up at Rachel’s. “But you overcame all that, and your parents loved each other in spite of it.”

“I overcame it, but not until I went to prison and almost killed my parents with grief. I don’t want that for our children. I won’t have it for you.”

The finality she heard in his voice left no room for compromise. Still, she was used to fighting for everything good in her life, and she wanted a life with him. “What if it’s what I want?”

Ace took her face in his hands and looked her directly in the eye. “You’ve said you don’t blame me for Elton’s death, and I do believe you, but whether or not you forgive me doesn’t matter. Whether or not God forgives me doesn’t matter. What matters is that I can’t forgive myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Meg said.

“From the first minute I saw you, I loved you.” He shook his head. “I’m a pretty practical man, but nothing about that moment was ordinary. I felt as if something in you was calling out to the most basic part of me and we were connected in some way. Maybe that isn’t love, but whatever it was, it was pretty overwhelming.

“After that, every time I heard what Elton had done to you, I wished him dead.” He released his hold on her and sat back down, burying his face in his hands for long seconds. When he looked up, he faced her almost defiantly.

Seeing the agony in his expression hurt too much, so Meg closed her own eyes and plunged her clenched fists into her pockets to still their trembling.

“I’ve relived that day a thousand times,” he said. “I see him shooting at Colt and then turning the rifle toward me. And as we’re looking down the sights, eye to eye, I see that gloating smile of his, and I remember all the terrible things he’d done to you and how he jerked you up by your broken arm.”

He drew in a deep breath. “I know the facts say that I did the right thing. I saved Colt and myself, but the truth is that when I pulled that trigger, I wanted him dead. God have mercy on me, but I’m glad he’s dead. How can we base a marriage on that?”

His words washed over her, dousing her with a chilly splash of reality as she struggled to grasp his burden of blame while floundering around in her own. How often had she wished Elton was dead? And what about the fact that, like Ace, she felt no sense of loss, only a liberating sense of relief?

It was a sobering moment. Meg pressed her fingertips to her throbbing temples. Maybe he was right. Maybe they could never be happy with Elton’s death always standing between them. It seemed that, once again, joy was just out of reach.

She needed to confess her own guilt. She opened her eyes, expecting to see him sitting on the log. No one was there. She heard the crack of a twig at the edge of the forest and turned to see a tall figure disappear into the canopy of darkness.

Just like that, he was gone.

* * *

Breakfast was a solemn affair. Meg had hardly slept and Nita looked as if she’d spent a few wakeful hours, too. At one point, as she lay next to Teddy’s small, warm body, Meg had heard low voices coming from the kitchen. She’d thought about getting up and demanding to know why Ace had walked away from her, but realized that between them they’d said about all there was to say. If he wouldn’t accept her forgiveness and love, she had nothing else to offer.

Nita didn’t say what she and Ace had discussed, but she was quiet, unlike her usual cheerful self. They ate oatmeal with butter and brown sugar along with fried biscuits, dressed the children and went out to start the laundry.

It would take longer to fill the tubs today, since Ace wasn’t there to carry the water buckets.

“Where did he go?” Meg asked the question as she and Nita built the fires at the end of the three-sided enclosure Ace had built. He’d constructed a low fence about halfway back to keep the children safe from the fire. It kept them under Meg and Nita’s watchful eye while giving them ample room to play.

“Here and there,” Nita said with a shrug. “He said something about going to Oklahoma for a while. Then... I don’t know.”

Meg’s heart sank. It seemed he intended to put as many miles between them as possible. “Did you try to stop him?”

The smile Nita gave her said without words that she’d learned long ago that there was no stopping her son when he got something into his head. “He’s done this all his life,” she said at last. “It’s his way of working through things, finding his peace, if it’s to be found.”

Thinking of how she did her best thinking when she was at her quiet place in the woods, Meg understood. “When is he coming back?” Is
he coming back?

“I never know,” Nita told her. “He’s always just showed up when he has his mind clear.”

Meg wondered if he would just show up this time, or if the things standing between them were so insurmountable that he would never find his peace.

“Did he tell you what happened?”

Nita didn’t look up as she fed another log to the fire. “Yes.”

“Would you think I was a horrible person if I told you that even though I’ve reached the point of feeling sorrow for the fact that Elton died in sin, I haven’t been able to dredge up even the smallest bit of sadness or regret that he’s dead? Some days I think I’ll drown in that guilt, so I understand exactly how he feels.”

“Did you tell Ace that?”

“He left before I had a chance.”

“Maybe if he knew that, it would make a difference, but I’m not convinced that guilt is his problem. I think driving a wedge between the two of you made it easier to leave.”

Meg looked up sharply.

A gentle smile curved Nita’s lips. “I know you love my son, and I know that when you love someone, that love blinds you to many things. Asa loves you enough that he doesn’t want you and the children to go through the things he and I did while he was growing up. Though it may seem insignificant to you, he lived it, and he still remembers that pain.”