Heart of Mercy (Tennessee Dreams) (30 page)

“I did tell you I was goin’ out to my mother’s.”

She knit faster and faster
. Yarn forward and over needle; yarn forward and around needle; through the back loop; together; slip, slip, slip, knit three; slip, slip, purl.
Two big hands covered hers, forcing her to stop. Her shoulders slumped as her fingers stilled.
Here it comes
, she thought.
“Mercy, I want a divorce.”

“Wait on the L
ord
: Be strong, and let thine heart take courage.”
Yes, she’d been comforted by Psalm 27 just that morning, but it felt like a million years ago.

He released her hands and stood up straight. “Lay your knittin’ aside, Mercy. We have a lot to talk about.”

Still unable to bring herself to look at him, she stuffed her needlework in the burlap bag at her feet. “The papers being the number one item, I suspect,” she muttered.

His stockinged feet were firmly planted smack in front of her. “What papers?”

“The divorce papers. You may as well come out with it.”

“Divorce…what? I don’t want a divorce, Mercy. What made you think a thing like that?”

Relief flooded her veins like warm water rippling down a narrow valley. Still, she wouldn’t rejoice just yet. She dared glance up at him. “Well, you’d been gone for hours. What was I to think? You got home, ate a quick bite, and then left in such a rush….”

“Mercy—”

She batted at the air. “It’s fine, really. I don’t know what I was thinking, expecting anything more from a marriage of convenience.”

“Come here.” He bent down, took her hands in his, and helped her up. Right away, his arms encircled her, his chin resting on her head.

With hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his broad back, not because she wanted to but because it would’ve been awkward to leave them dangling at her sides.

“You’re somethin’ else when you get riled.” She could almost
hear
his grin, and she didn’t appreciate that he found the whole matter amusing.

“I’m sorry,” he added. “Will you accept my apology?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Your giving me a good reason why you chose your mother’s company over ours.”

He set her back from him and tipped her chin up with the tip of his finger. “Rest assured that I would have much preferred bein’ with you and the boys tonight. I’ve missed you, Mercy. It’s been three very long, tirin’ days.”

His eyes were pools of sincerity, and she felt a stab of guilt for having been so angry at him. Still, she wouldn’t rest until she knew the secret. She set her gaze on him, immediately distracted by a tuft of hair curling above his forehead. Oh, but she wanted to test its texture. Gracious, what she wouldn’t do for that sort of freedom. “I…I missed you, too. And the boys kept counting the days till your return. I will confess, though, they had a great deal of fun at Aunt Gladdie’s. She kept them busy helping her in the kitchen, and Mr. Gleason proved a patient tutor, teaching them to milk cows, for one thing. Of course, he pushed them on the swings for hours. The man’s a gentle giant.”

His hands moved up her arms, then slid down to her waist. A prickle of delight teased her belly. Without warning, he bent and touched his lips to hers, and her calm quickly shattered with an urgent need for more.
More
. Standing on tiptoe, she melded her lips to his, tightened her arms around his back, and listened to the song welling up in her veins.

I’m in love. Oh, Lord, I’m so hopelessly in love!

***

Sam ended their kisses while he still had a smidgeon of willpower. Another minute, and he’d be sweeping her up, carrying her to her bed, and claiming his husbandly rights! They’d agreed to kisses only, and he meant to keep his word, if it was the last thing he did. Besides, he had important news to tell her, and he needed his wits intact.

Flustered, he swept a hand through his hair, then gave his head a slight shake. “You’re gettin’ way too good at this kissin’ game, young lady.”

“Then why did you stop?” Her voice trembled with disappointment.

A dry chuckle rolled out of him. “Because it was the smart thing to do. Come on, let’s sit down over here.” He took her by the hand and led her across the room to the divan. “We need to talk.”

For the next several minutes, he summarized his visit with Persephone and Hank, doing away with all the preliminaries. Then he drew in a breath, wondering if he had the guts to go on but also knowing he had no choice. He angled his body toward her and took both her hands in his, fixing his gaze on her gorgeous, guileless face. “Now brace yourself, Mercy. I’ve got somethin’ to tell you that’ll shock you clear to your toes.”

A wave of alarm saturated her expression. “What is it?”

“My mother had an affair,” he whispered. “With your father.”

He waited for the angry scream, the leaping up from the sofa, and the instant tears of denial. Instead, she stared at him, unspeaking, her face unreadable, her eyes searing.

“Did you hear me?”

She blinked three times. “I think I did, but…I’m not sure I heard
right
.”

He massaged the tops of her hands with his thumbs. “Unfortunately, you did.”

She gave her head several quick shakes. “What?”

He let spill all that Persephone had told him, and in the telling, he watched her face show a myriad of expressions, everything from piqued interest to bewilderment, from doubt to utter disbelief, and finally to full-out shock. He fought the impulse to just stop, to shield her from all he’d learned, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He’d heard the truth, and she deserved to know it, too. She started to cry, so he held her, but then she pushed back, wiped her eyes, and asked him to retell certain portions of Persephone’s story, which he was glad to do.

With the information finally settled in her brain, she gave a little sniffle and adjusted her position, tucking a bare foot beneath her. Her bent knee made contact with his, but she didn’t react; she just let it rest there. She looked briefly at her clasped hands, then met his gaze again. “So, you confronted your mother. How did she take that?”

“She fainted.”

She covered her mouth, so that all he saw were her big, bloodshot brown eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he added hastily. “She’s fine now. But knowin’ I’d found out about the affair nearly threw her over the cliff.”

“I don’t understand how the two of them…I mean, weren’t they supposed to be archenemies? What would draw them together?”

“I wondered the same, so this is where it all gets very interestin’…and disheartenin’ at the same time. You recall I had twin brothers who died of scarlet fever when they were two.” She nodded a few times and leaned in. “I was just three, so I don’t really remember. What I do recall is how I became invisible to my mother after their deaths. She withdrew into a shell of her own makin’ and refused to come out. I’m not sure she ever has. What you see with her is a big pretense. She tries to appear all put together and in control, but it’s just a façade.

“Accordin’ to Mother, my father tried to console her after my brothers died, but it didn’t help; she just got angry with him. She couldn’t understand how he could go on with life. Lookin’ back, I suppose he wasn’t much better off; he just showed his grief in different ways, mostly by keepin’ his distance. Over time, they lost the ability to care for each other, speakin’ less an’ less, till the only reason they communicated was to fight about one thing or another.

“In those days, Mother didn’t have much use for me, either. I know, you’d think she would’ve looked at me and said, ‘I lost the twins, but I still have one son to care for,’ but it didn’t go like that. Some days, it was like she could barely tolerate the sight of me. She loved the attention those twins brought, everyone always swoonin’ and cooin’ over ’em, so when they died, that left her sort of stranded with me, and she never quite figured out how to handle havin’ only one child.

“Anyway, Mother said the marriage basically died in those years of grievin’. Father worked long hours in the shop, then went to the saloon, often stayin’ out past midnight. I guess I wondered where he went but not enough to ask. Besides, I didn’t want him bitin’ off my head. By then, I’d learned to manage on my own, and I preferred to keep my distance. I figured the less I knew, the better off I’d be.

“One day—this would’ve been a couple o’ years after your mother died—my mother was puttin’ away the laundry, and she found an envelope hidden under some clothes in one o’ Father’s bureau drawers. The seal was broken, so she pulled out the contents and read what she could only term a love letter.”

“A love letter to your father?” Mercy’s voice had a gravelly tinge. “Who wrote it?”

“Do you happen to know the name MaryLou Hardwick?”

Her eyelids fluttered, perhaps with veiled curiosity. “Paris’s lady of the night? Yes, faintly, but she left town several years ago.”

“Yep, after my father paid her a large sum to disappear.”

“Your father? I don’t understand.”

“Apparently, MaryLou and my father carried on an affair lastin’ four years. In the letter, she professed her love for him, and begged my father to get a divorce.

“Mother said that after he read this, she flew into a rage. She packed all my father’s things and set them on the porch. Of course, when he got home, he wanted to save face, promised her he’d stop seein’ MaryLou, if she would only let him stay. I’m not sure what all transpired between ’em, but she ended up givin’ him another chance, and things between them smoothed out for a time. Before long, though, he started comin’ home late again, and she knew he was seein’ MaryLou.

“One afternoon, Mother was drivin’ the buggy home from town when one o’ the wheels fell off and landed her in a ravine. I recall the incident. I was fifteen. She told us an older gentleman had come along, tended to her bruises, used his horses to pull her wagon out, and fixed her wheel right there. As you’ve probably guessed by now, that ‘older gentleman’ was none other than your father. They had an immediate attraction, my mother said, despite the longstanding feud between their families. They started talkin’ ’bout how lonely they both were, and before she knew it, they were meetin’ on the sly.”

Mercy rubbed her forehead. “I would have been eleven. I told you how my father spent a lot of time away from home, but I figured he was either working or drinking at the saloon. It didn’t seem suspicious to me, but then, how would I have known what signs to look for? I do know he was lonely, but an affair with your mother? I can hardly believe it. Especially considering the awful things he said about the Connors clan.”

Sam nodded. “My parents always railed on your family, maybe even more so after Mother’s affair wound down. Accordin’ to her, it lasted only a few months. Once my father found out, it didn’t take long for the relationship to unravel.”

“How did he come to learn about it?”

He gave a sarcastic smile. “Their trusty foreman, Virgil Perry, spilled the beans. Mother had no clue Virgil had been spyin’. He gathered what he called ‘incriminatin’ evidence’ and blackmailed my parents. As long as they paid up, he vowed to keep his mouth shut. And that arrangement continues to this day. I told my mother she has exactly two weeks to tell the truth, to her relatives and yours, before I inform Virgil his little jig is up. If I tell him too soon, he’ll beat Mother to the punch, and, knowin’ Virgil Perry, the story will get the wrong slant…not that Mother’s version will be much better.

“At any rate, Mother says both affairs, hers and Father’s, ended abruptly, and that’s when Father withdrew a good sum of money from the bank and sent MaryLou packin’. As for Oscar, Mother said he got fightin’ mad at Ernest for bringin’ the whole thing to a halt. He claimed to have genuine feelings for Mother, but she told him she couldn’t, in good conscience, continue seein’ him, not after Father found out. After that, Oscar started sendin’ my father scathin’ letters, callin’ ’im a two-timin’ husband nowhere near good enough for my mother, and threatenin’ to tell the town about his escapades with MaryLou. This went on for years, until it finally met its end in that fateful showdown in eighty-four.

“Mother and I didn’t talk about this, but Persephone told me Solomon Turner saw the whole thing. He would have testified, but the judge refused, claimin’ he was an unreliable witness.”

“I never heard anything about that.”

“I never did, either, but I plan to pay Mr. Turner a visit tomorrow.”

“Do you think that’s wise? He’s getting up in years. Maybe he’d just as soon forget what he saw and heard.”

“I’ll go easy on ’im. I also plan to call on my cousins Frank and George, Persephone’s brothers. If her hunch is right, they’re the ones responsible for breakin’ our window.”

“Are you sure? Why would your own cousins…?”

“Exactly.”

“Were they also responsible for Barney’s disappearance?”

“Persephone wasn’t sure.”

Mercy sat in stunned silence while they both pondered private thoughts, the room fallen so still, Sam could hear Barney and Roscoe’s breathing from a chair across the room, where the two lay tangled in a big black-and-white ball.

“My parents never patched up their relationship,” Sam went on, “but they kept up the façade of a happy marriage, Mother puttin’ on a big show for the public during the trial. She had me fooled.

“When my father died, I think her so-called grief stemmed more from guilt than anythin’ else. My mother is a walkin’ mess, and I plan to disown her, just as soon as I can put this whole business behind me. The way I figure it, the sooner everybody discovers the reason this feud has gone on for so long, and realizes how ridiculous it is to keep it alive, the quicker I can be done with her.”

Mercy crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her upper arms, as if to dispel a chill. “You sound so cold. Do you really plan to disown your mother?”

“I certainly don’t want any kind of relationship with her.”

“She’ll die a lonely old woman.”

“If so, it’s her own fault.”

“Don’t let a seed of bitterness take root in your soul, Sam. Once you start fueling it with fury, it’ll grow faster than a weed. You don’t want that to happen. Look what bitterness did to your mother.”