Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (36 page)

She held his gaze for a long moment. There seemed no reason to doubt what he had just told her. “I understand what it says,” she said, reaching out to touch the musty-smelling paper. “My great-grandmother agreed to sell three hundred acres of land to Justin M. Sayers in exchange for the sum of one dollar plus goods received, to wit, a plot of three thousand acres of land. And services rendered, I mustn't forget that. What I want to know is what it means.”

Reid raked a hand through his hair and clenched the back of his neck. Keeping his gaze on the table, he said, “The document is what's known as a Counter Letter. It's a binding agreement between two parties for the private transfer of property; Louisiana is one of the few states where it's legal. By this agreement, Lavinia agreed to transfer to Justin three hundred acres of land in exchange for three thousand that he owned elsewhere. The dollar is just a legality. Don't ask me about the services rendered, because I don't know.

“According to the description of the three hundred acres, the land was a part of Lavinia's mother's estate, which she inherited on her death, a parcel of land fronting on what was then the only highway leading into Greenley. There is no question that it was hers to dispose of as she pleased.

“The land she got in return was virgin timberland with a river boundary and several creeks running through it, though with no major access roads at the time,” Reid pointed out. “All in all, I don't think it was such a bad deal.”

She gave him a look of irritation. “It was an excellent deal from a business point of view. Do you realize that those three thousand acres eventually became the game reserve? Do you have any idea what it would be worth today?”

“I know, and it occurred to me, yes,” he said dryly.

“So my great-grandmother and your great-grandfather, who had once been lovers, lived on opposite sides of the game reserve with nothing between them except a lot of trees.”

Reid propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin on it. “With a well-worn trail between them, one still visible when I was a boy.”

“You're joking,” she said.

“Cross my heart.”

Cammie met his open gaze for a long moment before she looked down at her coffee cup. She took a swallow of the coffee-laced brandy and felt its warmth and strength flowing through her. Putting down her cup, she reached out again to touch the musty document. “There's nothing in this we couldn't have guessed, if we'd tried,” she said. “So why didn't you show it to me?”

He shrugged without meeting her gaze. “You seemed so sure of what you wanted to do with the mill. Maybe I thought you ought to have the opportunity.”

“What about all your concern for people instead of woodpeckers?”

“So I'm not a man of strong principles. Does it matter?”

“I think you are,” she said soberly, “and I think it does. I think, in fact, that you decided Lavinia got the short end of the stick years ago, and you intended to make it up to the present generation, which is to say, to me. Never mind that it was your great-grandfather, and his son after him, and his after him, who built the mill and worked to make it a success. Never mind that it was your heritage.”

“You're wrong,” he said tightly.

“Am I? Tell me, then, that you weren't going away and leaving it? Tell me that you didn't intend to present your heritage to me for the sake of — of past love and even services rendered. Tell me, what makes you think that I would take it, knowing it wasn't rightfully mine!”

“Now, Cammie—” he said, his head coming up in alarm.

But she hurried on without stopping. “I'm not like Lavinia, Reid. I need more than generosity and memories. I don't intend to retreat from the trouble and the gossip and devote my life to charity and good works.

I'm not ashamed of a thing we've done. And I won't settle for less than love.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide and unseeing. Abruptly, he sprang to his feet, turning away from her to stand with his hands braced on the cabinet. Over his shoulder he said with strained vibrancy, “You don't know me, Cammie.”

“What is there to know? You were trained to do a job for many and good reasons, and you did it to the best of your ability. Men have done it before, and not been branded killers or animals for it.”

“Kindness,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “Do you know that's the first thing I remember noticing about you? You were maybe five or six, and we were at vacation Bible school. A little boy, just a toddler, fell down and scraped his knee. You dried his tears and wiped away the dirt and blood with the hem of your dress. Then you picked him up, though he was nearly as big as you were, and carried him to his mother. I remember…”

He trailed off, then began again, his voice softer. “And I used to watch you walk around wildflowers instead of stepping on them, and pick up spiders and throw them out the window instead of killing them. I watched you for years, for the pleasure of it, and because you made me feel — glad inside. And I used to pretend that you were my sister. I showed you all my favorite places, and sometimes, when I was out camping or fishing, I'd talk to you, tell you all sorts of things. Because I watched you so closely, I knew you understood people, knew their strengths and weaknesses and the things they most disliked about themselves. I knew that you kept them at a distance, kept them from trespassing on the too-tender places inside you by using words, turning their weaknesses against them.”

“That wasn't so kind,” Cammie said.

“It was self-protection. If you hadn't used words and anger for defense, there would have been nothing left of you; they would have taken it all. Somehow, I never thought you would do it to me.”

“But I did.”

He bent his head, even though she couldn't see his face. “I decided, in my teenage arrogance, that I didn't want you for a sister, that I needed more than that from you. So I caught you where you couldn't get away from me easily, and I tried to show you. And you took the gladness and used it to keep me away. Only I had no defense against you, had never needed any. And so — I was torn apart inside.”

“No,” she said, “you couldn't be.”

A short sound between a laugh and a groan shook him. “Well, I thought so, at any rate, though I suppose I did it to myself. I left, went into service, refused to feel much of anything for anybody, even the woman unlucky enough to be there when I decided I could get married if you could. And it worked, for a long time.”

He was silent for so long, lost in memories of which she had no part, that Cammie was afraid he couldn't, or didn't intend, to go on. Forcing the words from her tight throat, she said, “Until Israel.”

“Yes,” he said on a whispering sigh, “until Israel. Shall I tell you about it? Do you really want to hear?”

“Please,” she answered, the single word no more than a ghost of sound.

He tilted his head back. “There was this little girl. We called her A. J. because that was as close as we could come to her name. She was five or six, and her hair was soft brown with red-gold lights in the sun. Sometimes when her baby brother fell down, she would pick him up and dry his tears and clean his scratches with the hem of her skirt. Then she would carry him home to their mother, though he was nearly as big as she was. She had a smile like the sunrise and she loved to laugh. She was so gentle, and reminded me in so many ways of you. And she trusted me.”

“Reid,” she said, her voice aching.

“No, wait.” His voice was ragged and there was a faint shiver along the tops of his shoulders. “I felt the explosives taped to her with miles of duct tape that day, too much to tear away, too tight to cut. I saw the terror in her eyes. She knew what her uncle had done to her, Cammie. She knew. And so did I, because I had read the reports just in on him the night before. Too late to stop her coming. Too late to stop the gladness she gave me. And I had to choose. I had too—”

“You did the right thing,” Cammie said in desperation for the pain she heard in every strained syllable he spoke. “There was nothing else.”

“Did I Cammie? Did I? I felt the explosives and I saw the timer, and I knew there was only seconds left. Seconds can be a lifetime, Cammie. God — do you remember how I held you at Evergreen, how easily I could have broken your neck?” He stopped. When he went on, the words were no more than a vibration of sound. “Her neck was smaller, more fragile. She was dead before the explosive went off. I killed her, Cammie, as I held her.”

The soft intake of her breath was the only sound. He didn't need it.

“There might — just might — have been a tiny chance that I could have ripped the explosive off her, one infinitesimal chance for life. But I had to choose, and I chose life for me and my men, death for her. I killed her. I did it, no one else. And I don't know, will never know, if I did the right thing.”

She was on her feet, plunging toward him before the last word left his lips. She caught his elbow, turning him to her. She saw his eyes, feverishly blue and brilliant with tears, before she wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight with her face pressed against his collarbone. The deep breath he drew told her she was hurting his chest, bruised by the bullet that hit him, though he would not let her know. Immediately, she eased her grasp, though she would not release him.

“Listen to me,” she said with a fierce sob catching in her throat. “You are only a man, not a god with the power of life and death. People do terrible things to each other for mindless reasons, but you are not responsible. You did what you were trained to do and what compassion and love required of you.

You kept that child from pain, but you did not cause it. Mourn the death of a precious, living being if you must, but you are not allowed to destroy yourself over it. You can't, because I won't let you.”

She drew back to look at him, her eyes wide with the fullness of giving she felt inside. Taking the hem of her shirt, she wiped the salt moisture that was caught in the hollows under his eyes. In sure and steady tones, she went on. “I love you, Reid, for all the things you are inside, all your tenderness and caring, and yes, for the strength of purpose that can make you kill — or permit you to stand and face death for some stupid reason that has nothing to do with bravery. Love can heal, I promise, if you will let it.”

“Cammie—” he whispered.

“No, it's my turn. I knew you watched me, and I wanted you to, all those years ago. Only I was too afraid, too shocked to my soul at how you made me feel, to let you come close to me. I married Keith because you went away and I thought you were never coming back. If you go away from me again, I will follow you, whining, every single step you take, every mile, every league, across every body of water. You will not bury yourself in some sadistic contest for a cause that should stay lost. No, and nor will you go looking for an easy death. Before I let you do that, I'll kill you myself. I'll do it with love and compassion, because it may be a better choice, if not the only one.”

The old house creaked in the abrupt, breathless quiet that fell as she stopped speaking. Outside, the wind blew and the rain made a soft drumming.

“I suppose you might at that,” he said with bemusement in his face. He touched her hair, stroking it, watching the red-gold lights that shivered along the strands. A line appeared between his eyes. “God, but I was so afraid you wouldn't be able to pull the trigger back there. I thought only two things could make you do it, self-defense or—”

“Or what?” She couldn't prevent herself from pushing for an answer.

“Fear for someone you loved.” The words were fretted with doubt.

Her hold tightened. “You were right.”

“Do you have any idea how I feel about you? Can you even begin to understand what it meant to me to have you come to me that first night at Evergreen? You are my naked angel who banishes nightmares. You are everything that is bright and good and perfect that ever happened to me. But I won't let you spend the only life you have standing between me and my demons, and I won't let Greenley turn what we had into something ugly.”

She stiffened a little. “My life is my own, and how I spend it is my business. As for what people say, I'm sorry that they have no other interest, but they can't make the rules for what I do. Nor can you.”

“I wouldn't try,” he said. “But I have to live for myself, with myself.”

She pushed against his chest a little, carefully avoiding the place where the bullet had bruised him. “What of the mill?”

“Keep it, sell it, do whatever you think best.”

“It isn't mine.” The words were tight.

“Let Gordon sell it, then. Only hold on to all the environmental safeguards you can.”

“Fine, that's settled.”

“What, no plea for the trees and the birds?” he asked, his voice soft.

“Woodpeckers. And yes, I still care, and would like to save every sapling, every single feather of every bird of all kinds, every rabbit and squirrel and raccoon and armadillo. But as a wise man once told me, people are more important.”

“There will be a fair-sized amount of money coming from the sale. You can take it and buy all the old stands of mixed timber you can find, then dare a single soul to cut a tree or harm a creature.”

“I could, but I won't be here.”

He stared down at her with the blue of his eyes turning slowly dark. “No?” He paused, then tilted his head, a crooked smile curving his mouth. “You'll be behind me? Every step? Whining?”