Sweetbriar Read online

  “Ain’t you two got no place else to go so you can talk over old times without botherin’ me?”

  Agnes didn’t even turn to acknowledge Mac’s outburst. “Zeke, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to wait ’til supper to hear the news. Why don’t you come with me now?”

  Zeke was glad to get away from whatever was eatin’ at Mac. “I’d be pleased to, ma’am.”

  Mac stared for a moment at the closed door. So, Linnet was in a place called Spring Lick. He grabbed a half-full bottle of whiskey from the shelf and went to the old oak tree by the spring. He placed the bottle to his lips and hardly noticed the burn of the raw whiskey; he was used to the sensation by now.

  The girl ate at him, he thought. Night and day she ate at him. How many times had he gone to her empty cabin and looked around, remembering the hours they had spent there? It wasn’t that he missed her, it was just that she was like a sore that grew in him, a sore that hurt all the time.

  Mac drained the last of the whiskey and found there hadn’t been enough to stop his thoughts of Linnet. What was so different about her? He’d been in love with Amy Trulock but he’d gotten over her leaving him. Why did he still think of Linnet constantly? There was only one way to rid himself of her ghost, and that was to go to Spring Lick and see her. She’d probably be married now with two dirty, ugly kids and she’d be fat and tired like the other women. When he saw her like that then he’d be able to laugh at himself and he’d be content never to see her again.

  He smiled for the first time in a long while. It would be good to get her voice out of his mind, those precise little words, good to never again see those strange eyes that changed from gray to green to blue to angry flashes of red. He tried to suck more whiskey from the empty bottle but couldn’t and in anger threw it and watched it shatter against a distant tree.

  Linnet sat bent over a quilting frame, her needle flying in and out, while around her the women gossiped nastily, ripping Linnet’s friend Nettie Waters apart. Linnet didn’t dare say a word or she knew she’d cause the wrath of the people to come down on her own head.

  She’d been in Spring Lick almost a year now and she was counting the hours until she could leave. She’d left Sweetbriar in anger and haste, not considering the fact that she had no money, no one to help her. For months she’d worked at any job she could find, usually being some lazy woman’s maid. By the time she had reached Boston, her advancing pregnancy had made even those jobs difficult to find.

  Her daughter Miranda was born in a Catholic hospital for unwed mothers, and Linnet was urged to put the baby up for adoption. But Linnet looked into those blue eyes so like Devon’s and she knew she’d die before she parted with the child.

  In the hospital, her luck seemed to change, for she read an ad in a newspaper that a man in Boston was looking for a schoolteacher in Kentucky. Linnet wanted to return to the wilderness, wanted to raise her daughter away from the city, away from people who might call her child ugly names.

  Linnet applied to a man named Squire Talbot, and after six long days of waiting, she was given the job.

  It didn’t take her long to realize what a mistake she’d made. “The Squire,” as he wanted to be called, had found out that her story of being a widow was a lie and he assumed she was an easy woman. Once, on the trail into Kentucky, Linnet applied a heavy skillet to the Squire’s head, and the man began to get the message.

  But Linnet had made an enemy.

  The Squire stayed away from her, but his pride was hurt and he wanted revenge. He introduced her to the people of Spring Lick as Mrs. Tyler, widow, but within days they knew Miranda was an illegitimate child, and Linnet knew the Squire had told them the truth.

  The people of Spring Lick were narrow-minded gossips who used religion to back up whatever they wanted. At first the men of the town had seemed to expect favors from Linnet, but she’d been able to repulse them—and made more enemies. The women hated her because she tempted their husbands, and the men thought she should give them what they wanted because she’d obviously given it to some other man.

  Now Linnet tried to save every penny she made at teaching so she and Miranda could soon leave the town, where she had only one friend—Nettie Waters.

  “Miranda’s growing quickly, isn’t she, Linnet?” Jule Yarnall asked from across the quilting frame. “Tell us, does she look like your family or your…husband’s?”

  Linnet didn’t look at the woman. “She looks like my husband. At least she has his eyes. His hair was much darker, though.”

  The door burst open before the women could really get started, and a pretty woman entered, her clothes faded but clean and showing her good figure. “Linnet, I just got some wax goin’ for some candles and I wondered if you’d help me with the molds.”

  Jule protested. “Can’t Vaida or Rebekah help you, Nettie? They seem perfectly capable girls, or maybe they’re busy at other things?”

  Nettie gave her a deadly smile but no answer and then turned back in question to Linnet.

  Linnet smiled gratefully. “I’ll be glad to help.” She hastily put her sewing scissors, needle and thread in the little reed basket, before bending and scooping up Miranda. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were outside.

  “I figured now’d be a good time to rescue you since they’ve had enough time to finish with me and my family and it’s about time to start on you and Miranda.”

  Linnet had to laugh at Nettie’s correctness. Miranda pushed away from her mother and wanted to get down. Linnet held the little hand, and the two women slowed their pace for the child.

  “This sure is a beautiful spring,” Nettie said. “Nice time for a weddin’.” She looked shrewdly at Linnet. “When’s the Squire gettin’ back?”

  “I’m not sure.” Linnet avoided her friend’s eyes.

  “I guess you know he’s spreadin’ around hints that Miranda’s his, don’t you?” Nettie said quietly.

  “No!” Linnet gasped. “Even he—”

  “I wouldn’t put anythin’ past him. You’ve hurt his pride. Speak of the devil, look who’s comin’.”

  Approaching them was a tall, gray-haired man on a horse. He carried himself well and looked younger than his fifty years, his shoulders back, his stomach sucked in. He was a man used to getting what he wanted out of life, and Linnet suspected that her major appeal to him was her refusal of him.

  The Squire stopped his horse before the two women, his brown eyes smiling down at Linnet for a moment before he even saw Nettie and the baby. He tipped his hat. “Hello, Nettie. Everything all right at your house?”

  “Just fine, Squire,” she answered. “Ottis wants you to come by and look at some new corn seed he bought from some trapper. I don’t think it’s worth much, but Ottis seems to think each seed’s gonna grow a stalk of corn that’ll take four men to carry.”

  The Squire chuckled. “I’ll have to go by today and see the seeds. I wouldn’t want to miss anything like that. Is there no school today, Linnet?” He smiled down at her.

  “There will be this afternoon. Everyone begged so to have this morning off that I couldn’t resist the chance to play hooky myself.”

  “You’re too easy on the children, Linnet,” he said seriously.

  Nettie made a little noise in her throat. “How she handles them kids of the Gathers is beyond me. You know, Squire, you ought to speak to Butch. If he’d stay away from that store a little more and have a little say in them kids of his, they’d be a lot better off.”

  The Squire dismounted his horse, standing close to Linnet. “Nettie, you’re sounding more and more like Jule. She says I ought to do something with your oldest daughter.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Vaida and you know it. They’re just jealous ’cause she’s prettier’n any of their kids.”

  “Be that as it may, I still have to listen to all complaints. If Linnet has any complaints about the discipline of the schoolchildren, I’ll have to step in, but until then—” He broke off and the