An Unlikely Love (15 page)

I try. I truly try, Grant. But every time I look at those grapevines I see my father's hand poised to strike. I see Lincoln, and all the hurt and misery and waste...

He lowered his hands and stared at the lush grapevines that surrounded him, let out a sound that was half moan, half growl. He couldn't bear the sight of them. He pivoted and headed down the hill, his boot heels striking the path with jarring impact.

No money...

No steamer...

No house...

I don't want you to say anything until everything is resolved. And I don't see how it can be...

He reached the bottom of the hill, turned left and ran along the path that followed the edge of the lake, away from town, away from the railroad station and the dock. He might not be able to outrun his thoughts and problems, but he could exhaust himself so they didn't hurt as much. He lengthened his stride, pumped his elbows and dragged air into his lungs.

He'd had it all planned, all figured out to the last detail—except one. There was no money. All those years he'd worked to improve the vineyard, to increase the yield, to grow hardier vines that would withstand the cold, to build his father's dream...

He ducked beneath the low-hanging limb of a maple tree and ran on.

And his wages...his share of the profits...nonexistent.
Gone.
What he had for eleven years of hard work was a mortgage. A
debt
hanging over his head. He was ensnared. Caught in a circle of circumstance that was not of his doing but that left him no way out. No matter which direction he turned in, he was blocked. Marissa had been right. There was no way to resolve the situation.

He ignored the agony of his straining lungs and pushed on, driven by frustration and anger. He couldn't sell the house and vineyard. That would clear the debt, but it would leave him and his mother without a home. They would have nothing. And with no money he couldn't buy a steamer or any other business. And because of his father's accident, he'd had to forgo his education and work the vineyard. He had no other skill...no other way to earn a living. No. He had no choice. He was shackled. Entangled by the vines. He had to keep the house and vineyard to provide for his mother, and to make his own living.

He broke through a band of trees into the small clearing where he had come as a child to dream his small-boy dreams and staggered to a stop, dropped to his knees and gasped for air.

Two years.

He could work his way free in two years. One year to pay off the mortgage and clear the house and vineyard of debt for his mother. And one year to earn enough to give him a good start in a new business. Barring any unforeseen problems or expenses, of course.

He flopped to his back on the ground, watched the sunlight war against the darting shadows of the clouds, then draped his arm over his eyes and let the question he'd been holding off come.

Would Marissa continue to see him while he managed the vineyard for two more years?

Chapter Thirteen

T
he sun was losing its battle with the cloud shadows. The landscape was turning dark. Marissa shoved her thoughts, as dark as the clouds, away and shifted in her chair so she could not see the grapevines. The fabric of her black gown rustled softly. She glared down at it, wishing she could rip it off and throw it away. She was so tired of all the somberness that constantly reminded her of her loss and grief. How could she forget it?

The kitchen door opened and she pushed at the curls that dangled on her forehead and smiled.

“They are all gone home.” Grant's mother smiled and took a chair. “You must be feeling very pleased about your fledgling group, Marissa. Your idea has borne fruit, though we are still trying to find our way.”

“This group was your idea, Mrs. Winston. But I thought the first meeting of the Twin Eagle Vineyard Shelter for the Abused went well.”

“Yes. Very well. The Twin Eagle Vineyard Shelter for the Abused. My, oh, my...” Mrs. Winston shook her head. A smile curved her lips. “I certainly did not expect the women to choose that name. Our Abba, Father, has a rather droll sense of humor.”

It was a notion foreign to her. “You think God has a sense of humor?” The idea was intriguing. She rather liked it.

“Of course. He made man, didn't He?”

Mrs. Winston's laughter was contagious. Her own bubbled up to join it, though she wasn't sure the subject matter was appropriate. God was treated with somber reverence, like a rather cruel, all-powerful entity simply waiting for the opportunity to punish someone for disobeying His commands in her home. “And you think that God is, in some ‘mysterious' way, responsible for the ladies selecting that particular name?”

“I do. Though there is nothing ‘mysterious' about it. The Bible says God will guide us continually and that He will ‘establish our thoughts.' And besides—” Mrs. Winston's eyes twinkled at her “—have you ever known five women to agree on anything that quickly?”

The laughter burst free. A paroxysm of amusement that made her sides ache and her eyes water. It felt wonderful.

“You should do that more often, Marissa. Your laughter is like music.”

She wiped her cheeks and eyes with her fingertips, fought against a rush of sadness at the thought of returning to her home where there was no laughter...none at all since Lincoln had died.

“What is it, dear?”

Her throat constricted, ached at Mrs. Winston's caring touch. She looked down at Grant's mother's hand on hers, at the black fabric that encased both of their arms.
Both
of them. Yet Mrs. Winston somehow found joy, and the love and strength to care about another's hurt in the midst of her mourning.
She
got angry. Oh, she had joined the temperance movement because she wanted to prevent others from suffering the pain and shame and grief she had known, but it was anger and a strange sort of selfishness that motivated her, not love. She simply wanted the abuse, the waste of lives, to stop so she didn't have to think about it and remember anymore. That was why she so hated those vines on the other side of that railing. Why she couldn't bear to look at them. They made her remember.

“Marissa...”

Such concern in Mrs. Winston's voice and eyes. “I'm sorry. I was remembering my brother. And that there's been no laughter in our house for a very long time.”

“I'm sorry, dear.” Mrs. Winston's hand squeezed hers. “I can see your pain at having lost your brother. And I know the grief one bears at the loss of a child. But time will ease the grief, Marissa. You and your parents will all laugh again.”

The love and serenity in Grant's mother's eyes caused the desire, the
hunger
to know it for her own to rise in an overwhelming wave. She took a breath and braced herself for the shocked reaction her revelation of the truth would bring. “I know what you say about grief is true, Mrs. Winston. But it's not Lincoln's death that stole the laughter from our house. It's the fear and abuse. You see, my father is a secret imbiber. To the members of the community he is seen as a kind, upright and honorable man who is a loving husband and father, and a faithful Christian man who never misses a church service.” She hated the bitterness that spilled out in her voice but was helpless to stop it. “The truth is, when he's at home he drinks wine to excess and turns into another person altogether. He shouts and rages and pushes and strikes my mother or me without cause. Then, when his ire is spent, he goes to their room and collapses on their bed.”
Oh, the pain of speaking those words!

The metal of her mother's watch she'd clasped without thought dug into her fingers. Her face tightened. “Father's always remorseful, of course—once the wine leaves him and he wakes. This is my mother's watch—an ‘apology' gift to her from my father after a particularly bad beating. She was too bruised to leave the house for two weeks, but she had a costly watch for others to admire and then exclaim over her husband's generosity, when she was able to rejoin society.”

She pressed her lips together to stop from saying more, from letting the anger ruin this day as it did so many. Her breath caught as Mrs. Winston lifted her hand and slipped her fingers between the dangling pendant of the enameled watch and the black fabric of the mourning gown that covered her hurting heart.

“I don't believe you and your mother are the only ones who suffer pain from those blows, Marissa. Whenever I see this watch, I will pray for you and your mother, and for your father. He must be in terrible torment.”

It was not the response she had expected. Her father suffering torment? It was a possibility she had never considered. She rose, crossed to the railing and stared out at the trellised vines. Vines that could have produced the grapes that made the wine that had destroyed their family. “Grant once told me that you believe that God watches over His children, and that He will work a blessing for them into every situation. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

So calm...so sure
. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the turmoil raging within. “Even in loss and mourning?”

“Even then.”

There was a rustle of fabric. The whisper of the hems of a gown against the porch floorboards mingled with soft footfalls. Mrs. Winston gently clasped her shoulders and turned her around.

“Look at us, Marissa. We stand here together, each dressed in black, each mourning the loss of a dearly loved one, yet blessed, because in the midst of our grief and sorrow we have found each other, and you have found the gift of love in my son. How can I not believe?” Mrs. Winston reached up and her soft, warm hands cupped her face in a loving touch. “The Bible says, ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' Trust Him, Marissa. Trust the Lord. He'll work it all out.”

* * *

Grant pushed to his feet, the back of his shirt and pants damp from the still-moist ground. His head hurt. He grimaced and rubbed at his temples. The ache was all he had to show for the hours of intense thinking. It was for sure he didn't have an answer. At least, not one he wanted.

He brushed his pants legs and shirt free of bits of twigs and grasses and weeds, then straightened, looked around the small clearing and tugged his lips into a slanted grin. “Not a very manly reaction, Grant, running to your boyhood ‘hidey-hole.' Still, it's better than punching a hole in a wall, or ripping up the vines by their roots.” He slapped the flimsy branch of a sapling aside and left the clearing. “Nope, we can't have that. The house and those vines are all you've got. Well, them and the debt.”

He glanced toward the sun hanging low in the sky and broke into a ground-eating lope, left the path along the lake and started up the long, sloping hill. The trellised vines flowed by him on both sides, denuded now of their fruit. His trained eye picked out the signs of the damage done by last night's storm as he passed: a torn leaf, a cane ripped free of the wire support. He sucked air into his lungs and slowed to a trot to catch his breath and better assess the harm done. “Count your...blessings, Winston! If that storm had...hit a few hours earlier...”

Bits of green shredded leaves were everywhere. He trotted on up the slope studying the ground and frowned. It could as easily have been bits of grapes littering the straw spread beneath the rows to keep away weeds that would compete for the nutrients in the soil. If he hadn't pushed the pickers and gotten the harvest finished before the storm hit, he wouldn't have had money enough to pay off the note and this year's mortgage payment and have money left for operating and living expenses in the coming year. He would have had to go further into debt with another demand note. “Thank You, Lord, for...the blessings of good...weather and a completed...harvest.”

He jogged down a cross path to his left and then, again, turned uphill. The stone chimneys and the cedar shingles of the house roof showed above the vines on the crest of the hill. His stomach tightened. He slowed to a walk. The ocher-painted siding and upstairs window came into view. The shingled porch roof. They were there—shadow figures sitting on chairs in the darker depth of the porch. One with blond curls not even the darkness could hide.

Please, Lord...

He took a breath, combed his fingers through his hair and moved on. The click of his shoe's heels against the stone walk alerted them. Marissa rose and looked his way. Her eager smile took the breath he had left.

Help me, Lord...

He tugged his mouth into a smile and trotted up the steps. “Well, look at you two, all cozy and relaxed, drinking lemonade on the porch while a man works.” He shot a look at his mother, locked his gaze on hers.
Don't challenge me, Mother. Don't ask...

“I thought your work was over. Now that the harvest is in, I mean.”

He hadn't expected the question from Marissa. Her eyes widened as he moved closer. That was a mistake. She could see the condition of his clothes even in the darkness under the roof. “That storm last night was a bad one. I was checking to see how much damage was done and I got a little wet and messed up.”

“There must be quite a bit of damage since it took you this long, son. We had a bite earlier, but your dinner is in the warming oven. I'll go and—”

“Not now, Mother. I'll eat later. I have to get cleaned up.” He shot her a look of gratitude for not asking all those questions that were in her eyes. “It's almost time for the
Colonel Phillips
to make its last run, and I'm going to take Marissa home.” He managed another smile. “All the way to Chautauqua.”

* * *

The dark clouds that had spread over the sky all day stacked up in the west and erased the sunset. Marissa gripped the rail and smiled, safe and secure with Grant beside her, though the lake water was a churning black whisper below them.

“I am learning so much from your mother, Grant. She was absolutely wonderful with those women this afternoon. When they came to your house they were all tense and uneasy. And in a matter of minutes she had everyone relaxed and talking about starting a shelter for abused women and children as if they did it every day.”

“Mother has a way about her that puts people at ease.”

“She truly does. I sensed it the first time I met her, though I was so embarrassed I could hardly bring myself to look at her.”

The grin she loved slanted his mouth. “Why? Because I carried you up on the porch like a sack of grain and all but dumped you at Mother's feet?”

“
And
mussed my hair in the doing so badly I couldn't fix it!”

“I thought you looked pretty.” He slid closer along the rail. “No, more than pretty...beautiful.” His hand covered hers. His thumb slipped beneath the hem of her sleeve and drew slow little circles on the tender inside of her wrist.

“You did?” She drew a shaky breath, tried to will her pulse to stop skipping.

“Um-hmm. I like your hair sort of mussed up, with some of the curls hanging here...” He brushed the back of his index finger from her temple to her ear. “And here...”

The same warm, tender touch whispered along the skin from the hairline behind her ear to the top of her high collar at the nape of her neck. She forgot how to breathe. His fingers tightened and drew her forward, and his lips moved over hers. She melted against him, wanting their kiss to last forever.

When he lifted his head, she opened her eyes, took a breath and stepped back, gripping the railing for support. “Tell me what's wrong, Grant.”

He nodded and moved to stand at the railing beside her. The oil lantern hanging from the upper deck swayed back and forth challenging the darkness. The edge of its pool of yellow light gleamed on the sun streaks in Grant's hair with each pass. Her hand itched to touch them.

“I got some unexpected news when I went to the bank today. But let me tell you from the beginning. At least as far as I know it.” He leaned his shoulder against a support post and turned to face her. “Late this morning Dillon Douglas came to the house and gave me a bank draft to pay for the grapes he'd bought from us—me.” He glanced down at the black band on his arm then looked back up at her. “I keep forgetting.”

“I know. I do, too.” Her heart hurt for him. She knew that first raw grief.

“We had a harsh winter last year that ruined most of the catawbas and the harvest profits were small. My father took out a demand note for enough to see us through to this year's harvest. I knew I had to pay off that note, but the draft was for a sizable amount and I was still fairly well ‘set up' by it. My father and I had an agreement. Instead of earning wages, I managed the vineyard for a percentage of the profits. That money was determined at harvest and put into the account at the bank. It worked out well. If I had a need, my father would give me the money. I never touched the account, though I had a rough idea of the total amount due me.”