Lady of Light (37 page)

“J-just explain all this to B-Beth and Ian,” she sobbed. “They’re y-young, and haven’t the experience yet to understand the p-possible consequences of their actions. But if you t-tell them …”

“Oh, I plan to tell them all right. But I also plan to send Ian away for a while, too. It’s for his own good. It’s past time that boy realize people mean what they say. If he doesn’t, he’s never going to have a chance in this world.”

“H-how can you be so hard-hearted?” Claire wrenched her face free and glared up at him. “He’s but a lad, not far from your age when you robbed your father and first ran away from home. Yet your father didn’t condemn you or refuse to give you another chance!”

“No, my pa didn’t,” her husband quietly replied, though his face suddenly had the appearance of one ravaged by painful memories. “First, though, I had to learn a few things the hard way, before I was ready to come home and start over. And that’s what I’m thinking Ian needs to do.”

“Am I not to have any say in this?” she demanded, her tears drying in the heat of her growing wrath. “He
is
my brother, after all.”

“And I’m your husband.”

“So you’re asking me to choose, are you?”

“I think Ian, when he continually ignored all the warnings you must have given him, made the choice for all of us, Claire,” was his simple reply.

She stared up at Evan, so furious she could no longer find words to hurl back at him. As hard as it was to admit, much of what he had said was true. Ian’s refusal to heed her warnings
had
brought them to this impasse. But Ian was young, troubled, and needed their help. Help that Evan had now decided must be withdrawn.

The minutes ticked by, pressing down on her until Claire felt as if she might suffocate. Yet all the while, she yearned for her husband to take her into his arms, soothe away her tears, and promise that somehow, some way they’d work this out. Work it out like they had the other problems this night, like they always had before.

But Evan just sat there, silent, his expression impassive, until Claire thought she’d scream. Finally, she could take the tension no longer. Pushing to her feet, she pulled a pillow and extra blanket from the bed and strode toward the door. As she reached for the door, a soft, sudden scuffle of feet on the other side alerted her to the fact that someone had been listening there.

Claire yanked open the door and stuck her head into the hall. A flurry of feet, a brief glimpse of a nightshirt, and then Ian’s bedroom door closed silently. She opened her mouth to call out to her brother, then thought the better of it. Without a backward glance, Claire clutched her pillow and blanket more closely to her and walked from her room.

Somewhere deep in the night, Claire was awakened from a fitful sleep on the parlor sofa by the kitchen’s back door opening softly, then closing. She lay there for a moment, gathering befuddled thoughts, listening to the heavy tread of footsteps gradually fading away.

It was either Ian or Evan, she realized. An impulse to rise and seek out whoever it was filled her. Then, with an anguished sigh, Claire turned and pulled the pillow over her head. She couldn’t deal with any more anger, any more pain this night. The morrow would be soon enough as it was.

Breakfast the next morning was so tense for the MacKays that even the hands noticed. The men kept their usual joking and jibes to themselves, then hurriedly finished their meals and left. Evan departed soon thereafter to see to a few chores before church services. Anything, he decided, was better than enduring another minute of the somber atmosphere and the recriminating looks directed at him by both Claire and Beth.

A half hour later, his chores completed, Evan wasn’t in any more of a mood to return to the house than he had been when he left. His head ached, his eyes felt like he had rubbed them with grit, and he was bone tired. Another cup of coffee was definitely in order, though, so he headed up to Hannah and Devlin’s house.

As he expected, both were in the kitchen, just finishing up their own breakfast. All four of the children were there, too, and their cries of pleasure at his arrival heartened Evan. At least here, he was welcome. At least here, he could relax and bask, if only for a short while, in the warmth of a happy family.

“Well, to what do we owe the honor of this visit?” Devlin asked, lowering his leg from the chair he had it propped on and pushing it over to Evan. “I would’ve thought, after staying up so late at the town dance, you’d be sleeping in this morning.”

“There were some problems,”—he waited until Hannah finished shooing the children out to get them dressed for church—“that cut short our stay in town last night. It’s a long story, but Ian and Beth were caught kissing behind the town hall, Noah Starr found them, then Claire. And then, as if things weren’t already bad enough, Brody Gerard got in the middle of it. I ended up fighting him, with Ian getting his nose broken—”

“Whoa, hang on a minute!” Devlin cried, holding up his hand. “Sounds like you really
did
have some problems there. Now, start from the beginning, and this time fill in all the important details.”

“Yeah, the details,” Evan muttered, “like Claire knowing all along that Beth and Ian were getting a mite too friendly, and …”

By the time Evan had finished the whole sad, sordid tale, Hannah had returned to the kitchen. “And then I told Claire,” he said with a sigh, glancing up at Hannah, “that Ian had to be sent away. She, of course, wasn’t at all happy with that, but what else could I do?”

Devlin exchanged a troubled look with his wife. She walked to the back door and took down her jacket.

“I think I’ll just take a little walk while you men finish up here,” she said. Before Evan could protest that he’d like her to stay, Hannah was gone.

“I see your dilemma,” Devlin replied then, turning back to his cousin, “but maybe it’s a bit premature making such a harsh decision. Maybe you should think on this a while longer.”

“I
have
thought about it.” Evan hung his head and rubbed his throbbing temples. “I laid awake all night trying to figure out any other possible solution. But I’ve got responsibilities now, and one of them is my sister’s welfare. Pa trusts me to do the right thing while he’s gone. I can’t let him down. Not this time, not ever again!”

“The burden of trust and responsibility can be a heavy one at times,” the big foreman agreed. “But no one can carry them well without a big measure of compassion.”

“I
have
tried to be compassionate,” Evan protested, beginning not to like the direction this conversation was headed. “It’s just that I can’t see any answer other than sending Ian away. I can’t trust the two of them together anymore, yet how in the blazes am I going to keep them apart? You tell me that, Devlin.”

“But how is sending Ian away any different than running away from a problem, Evan? One way or another, you’ll be putting distance between you and it, rather than dealing with it.”

Evan’s eyes narrowed, and it was all he could do to keep a handle on his temper. “I don’t want to run away from anything ever again,” he said through gritted teeth. “But this isn’t something that’d just affect me, if I made the wrong call. And that scares me, Devlin.”

“It’d scare anyone. But no one said taking on the raising of a child, however old and troublesome he might be, was easy.”

“And what if Beth gets herself in a family way because of Ian? Then whose fault will it be?”

“We’re family, so it’d be all our faults. Most of all, though, it’d be Ian and Beth’s.” Devlin smiled. “I don’t think it’ll come to that, though. We’ve just got to help them, until they can see through it all to what’s right. We’ve got to be there for them, and guide them through it.”

Evan stared long and hard at his cousin. When had Devlin begun to deal with everything with such compassion? Compassion … what a strange word to use to describe the man sitting across from him. But, after all this time, the description fit him, and fit him well.

Had it been there all along, buried just beneath the pain and anger and frustration? Evan wondered. If so, how much of the man was the result of his finally coming to a peace within himself in loving Hannah, and how much of it was the resultant gift of wholeheartedly turning back to God? Evan suspected the startling change in his cousin was a little of both.

Suddenly, a deep weariness engulfed him. He was so tired of trying to be strong and decisive. Though he still believed sending Ian away was by far the easiest solution to the problem, Evan was no longer certain it was the
best
solution for anyone, himself included.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I need some help with this, Devlin. I’m afraid I’m about to make the biggest mistake of my life.”

“I’ll help you in any way I can, Cousin. In fact, I’d take it as an honor to help you.”

Evan opened his eyes, smiling at last. “Well, I think it’d be the other way around, myself, but one way or another—”

Footsteps sounded on the front porch, and a knocking came at the door. Devlin rose, hobbled the short distance to the door, and opened it. Sheriff Jake Whitmore stood there.

“Come on in, Jake,” Devlin said, stepping aside to motion him in. “The coffee’s still hot and—”

“Good,” the sheriff interrupted brusquely, noting Evan sitting at the kitchen table. “I’m glad you’re both together so I can get this unpleasant matter settled all the sooner.” His glance locked with Evan’s. “There’s been some more trouble in town. I thought it best to head out here first thing and see if we could get to the bottom of it, before it really gets out of hand.”

Beth, red and swollen-eyed, silently helped Claire clean up after breakfast, then immediately headed for her room. Ian never came down from his room at all. Claire gave a passing thought to going upstairs to check on him, then decided to let him sleep. No sense stirring anything up this morn any sooner than need be.

After dressing for church, Claire headed back downstairs for a cup of tea to calm her nerves. A soft knock on the kitchen door, a few minutes after she sat down with her tea, jerked her from her somber thoughts. She looked up just as Hannah’s pale blonde head peeked around the door.

“Mind if I join you for a few minutes?” the other woman asked.

Claire forced a smile of welcome. “Sure, come on in. I’m not certain I’ll be verra good company this morn, but you’re more than welcome to a spot of tea.”

Hannah removed her jacket, laid it aside, and quickly made herself a cup. Then she slid into a seat across from Claire. “Evan told us about last night,” she announced without any pretense at social conversation. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not that I can think of at this moment, save get Evan to change his mind about sending Ian away.” As she spoke, a great lump welled in Claire’s throat, and her eyes burned. There were no tears to ease the pain, however. She had cried out all she had last night.

“He’s very upset right now,” her friend offered. “It’s tearing him up to do this to Ian—and to you. But then, there’s Beth.”

“Aye, then there’s Beth,” Claire repeated woodenly.

“I also overheard him telling Devlin about Brody accosting you at Gates’ Mercantile, and then the fight last night.” She sighed and shook her head. “That man can’t seem to help creating heartbreak and pain wherever he goes.”