The Haunting of Autumn Lake (19 page)

Gentry was smiling at her, and Autumn could swear his eyes were alight with admiration. His expression caused a little wave of goose bumps to trickle over her arms.

“They amble here and there…maybe even take a stroll over to the old graveyard to see what the Specter has been up to,” she continued. “I think they find a house with a fireplace still glowin’ inside…and they sit down outside it, embraced in each other’s arms, and watch the soft, silvery smoke risin’ from the chimney…breathe in the comforting scent of burning applewood or cedar. And when the moon is almost spent, they hurry across the old covered bridge and return to Daddy’s pumpkin patch…waltzin’ all the way across it. And then, just before the sun rises, they linger in each other’s arms, kissin’ just the way lovers do for a long, long time…until, at last, Clarence helps Clementine back onto her post and hops onto his. And they spend the day watchin’ over Jethro and the other pumpkins until Daddy gets them all harvested and on their way.” She smiled and gazed at him, her heart near to bursting with love. “And before winter comes…once the pumpkin field is all bare, except for the ones Daddy lets go to seed for next year’s crop…Daddy and Mama tuck Clarence and Clementine safely into the barn…always making sure they’re embracin’, warm and safe together, until the pumpkin crop begins to sprout the next spring.”

Gentry knew he was crazy—or at least he knew what he was thinking was crazy. He wanted Autumn Lake—wanted her forever! It was true he was nobody—an orphan, a cowboy with no family, no real means, no property, nothing to offer a beautiful young woman like Autumn. But he did have one thing he could offer—his heart. And wasn’t a man’s heart worth something?

He glanced back over his shoulder a moment. Ransom and Vaden were sitting on the picnic quilt, rapt in conversation with each other. Still, the sun hadn’t set yet. It was too bright to attempt anything too passionate there in the pumpkin patch with Autumn’s parents looking on. He’d have to bide his time. Eventually it would be darker; eventually Ransom and Vaden wouldn’t be looking. Eventually he could talk to Autumn about what had happened in the covered bridge the day before—what would be happening at that very moment if her parents weren’t so close by.

“I think there’s somethin’ I oughta tell you, Autumn,” he said.

Autumn gulped. Gentry’s dimples had disappeared, his pleased expression having been exchanged for a frown. Her heart began to ache with preparing to be broken.

“And wh-what’s that, Gentry?” she asked.

He inhaled a deep breath and answered, “That as soon as the sun sets, your harvest moon has risen, and your Daddy ain’t so close…what happened between us at the bridge yesterday ain’t gonna seem like nothin’ compared to the kissin’ I’m gonna do with you tonight.”

He turned then, strode to the picnic blanket, and plopped down next to Vaden. Autumn could only stand, mouth hanging agape, in astonished and elated awe.

❦

The sun did set, and the beautiful, celestial pumpkin of autumn did indeed rise. But all of the glory of the harvest moon could not keep Autumn from blushing every time she looked at Gentry. It could not still her heart’s mad pounding of glorious hope and anticipation.

At first she thought he’d only been teasing her—flirting with her because she’d just finished telling him of Clarence and Clementine’s romance. But as the night descended and wore on, she began to think Gentry had meant what he’d said, for every time their eyes met in glance or lingering gaze, there was such a look of smoldering aggression burning in his that Autumn knew he had meant what he’d said.

And when she watched Gentry ask for one of the two lanterns her daddy had brought to help light their way on the walk home—when she saw her father smile and her mother glance over her shoulder and wink at her—her heart swelled with bliss!

“Your daddy gave me permission to walk you home by way of the covered bridge, Miss Autumn Lake,” Gentry said. “Would you be so kind as to allow me to do so?”

The butterflies swarming in Autumn’s stomach, the goose bumps that broke over her arms and legs as Gentry reached out and placed one of her hands in his, were thrilling beyond description!

“O-of course,” Autumn stammered, suddenly quite nervous. She hadn’t known Gentry was planning to kiss her the day before. But she did know now, and it rather frightened her a little.

Gentry smiled and tugged at her hand, leading her in the direction of the old covered bridge and the long way home.

Autumn glanced back over her shoulder to see her mother toss an encouraging wave and her father grinning with amusement. It appeared her parents held no argument against Gentry, and it comforted her to know it.

The harvest moon flooded the harvest landscape with an orange and mellow light. All the world looked golden and restful. Autumn was certain they would not even need her father’s lantern to find their way.

“So,” Gentry began as they walked, “what was it had you pale as snow this afternoon in town, punkin?”

Instantly Autumn’s heart sunk to the pit of her stomach with a thud as the memories of Riley Wimber’s assault flooded her mind like a putrid soup.

“Oh, not much,” she lied. “I…uh…I think I just ate an apple that didn’t set too well on my stomach is all.”

Gentry stopped, set down the lantern, took hold of her shoulders, and turned her to face him. “You’re lyin’ to me, Autumn,” he accused. His expression was serious and severe.

“Gentry…I-I…” She tried to lie to him again, but she couldn’t. She could only plead, “Please don’t press me about it, Gentry. I-I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone or else—”

“Or else what?” he pressed, however. “Tell me. I know somethin’ happened. Your daddy and mama know somethin’ happened too. They’ve been exchangin’ worried glances all day since. Now tell me. I can’t fix it for you if I don’t know what it is.”

It was such a different moment than she’d envisioned—a painfully different moment. Autumn had thought they would reach the bridge, that Gentry would take her in his arms, hold her, kiss her, and send all thoughts and memories of Riley Wimber fleeing forever. But it seemed that was not to be.

“I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone, Gentry,” she explained again. “If I do, he’ll…I can’t tell anyone,” she whispered as tears escaped her eyes.

“I know you don’t want to talk about this right now, Autumn,” he said. His voice was low and stern, yet comforting somehow all the same. “But when I left you at the wagon to put my coat there, you were fine. But when you finally came back into the general store after heavin’ your guts into a barrel out back, you weren’t. And this ‘he’ you just tried not to mention…that wouldn’t be that dirty bastard Riley Wimber your daddy had to beat the to the ground for me that day in town awhile back, would it now?”

“I-I can’t tell you,” Autumn cried. “He said…it was nothin’. Really…he was just bein’…bein’ mean to me. He’s been bein’ mean to me for months now. I-I do all right with brushin’ him off most times, but—”

“Bein’ mean to you?” Gentry interrupted. “How? Just how has he been bein’ mean to you? Mean to you…like he was mean to you that day outside ol’ Doc Sullivan’s place?”

She looked up to him—was rendered breathless by the sight of his oh-so-handsome face, his shaggy hair that needed to be trimmed out of his eyes. His jaw was so square and strong—and so tightly clenched.

“It’s nothin’ to worry about, Gentry,” she lied. “And it’s certainly nothin’ to worry Daddy and Mama about. I can take care of Riley on my own.”

But it was too late. She’d confirmed Gentry’s suspicions, and she could see the anger expanding in him.

“Truly, Gentry,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders and slowly caressing his upper arms in an attempt to calm his rising temper. “It was nothin’ to worry about.”

“It made you sick, Autumn,” he growled. “What he done in front of Doc Sullivan’s office didn’t make you heave in a barrel, girl. Now you tell me what he did to you so I can go beat the—”

“Nothin’!” she exclaimed. “Please. And you can’t let on that I told you! He threatened to hurt you if I told anybody! He threatened to hurt Mama or Daddy…or even Aunt Myra or Uncle Dan! Please, Gentry! Please! Just take me to the bridge and make love to me like you promised. Please! Just kiss me, and Riley Wimber and all he’s ever done to me will go away. I know it will! Please, Gentry…don’t—”

“All he’s done to you?” he interrupted, however. “What has he done to you, Autumn? What did he do today?”

But she didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to tell him that Riley Wimber had kissed her. She knew Gentry would never want to kiss her again if he knew that Riley had—and how he had.

“Please, Gentry,” she begged, brushing tears from her cheeks.

Gentry inhaled a slow, angry breath, exhaling it just as slowly and more angrily.

“I ain’t much, Autumn,” he began in a low, irate voice. “I’m an orphan…raised in an orphanage from the time I was two years old. All I have from my past is a bunch of old letters written by my mother and dropped off with me at the orphanage. I can’t even read them because they’re in French or some such language. I ran away when I was twelve and started cowboyin’. I got one year worth of wages to my name…and nothin’ else. I’m a nothin’, Autumn…except for one thing.”

Autumn brushed more tears from her eyes. It was heartbreaking—the details of his childhood—but it didn’t make him nothing. He’d become everything to her! Immediately, and yet slowly, he’d seeped into her soul and overtaken her will and heart.

“I’m nothin’, Autumn…except a man who will not stand by and see a woman mistreated,” he growled. “Any woman! Not one. But I especially won’t stand by and do nothin’ when the mistreatin’ that’s goin’ on is to you! Do you understand me? That boy needs his teeth knocked out of his head for what he’s done to you! He oughta be hanged, in fact!”

“No, Gentry!” Autumn begged, however. “There’s a history between the two families. It happened long ago…and to my mother at the hand of Riley’s father. But my daddy promised my mother he would not let it drive him to do anything harmful to any man. And if Daddy knew that Riley was still tellin’ me he’s gonna…if Daddy knew that Riley forces his…that he forced his mouth to mine and—”

“Autumn!” Gentry roared then. “You cannot keep these kinds of things from the people who love you! Do you know how hurt your daddy would be…how angry and violent if he knew you hadn’t told him all this? And what about your mother? It would break her heart to know you’d been endurin’—”

“They can’t know, Gentry!” Autumn sobbed. “Please! They can never know. I’ll…I’ll just stay away from town for a while. I-I can just avoid him—”

“He kissed you?” Gentry interrupted, however. “Today?”

Autumn shrugged. For some reason, she felt the vile sensations that had been haunting her all day beginning to seep away a little—though she didn’t know why.

“It wasn’t really a kiss,” she told him. As desperation—desperation that he not think she was tainted, a used, dirty thing to be cast aside—she clutched the front of his shirt in her trembling fists and said, “It wasn’t a kiss, Gentry. Not the way you’re thinkin’. It was more of a…of a…it was vile and wet and rough. It was horrible! And I didn’t let him! You have to believe me! I would never have let him—”

She wept more tears as he reached out and took her face between strong hands. “You did nothin’ wrong, Autumn,” he said. “You do know that, right? You do know that he is the monster and you are only his victim, right? You did nothin’ wrong.”

Gentry was enraged—murderous in his thoughts even! But he knew how frightened she was of Riley’s threat to harm those she loved—even to harm Gentry himself. Riley Wimber wasn’t going anywhere that night. He’d be there in the morning for Gentry to track down and beat the bones out of. No doubt Riley knew Autumn well enough to know that she would never tell her Daddy or anybody else in her family about what had happened. He’d instilled enough fear for their safety in her. But what he hadn’t counted on—what Riley Wimber didn’t know—was that Autumn was beginning to cut the apron strings a bit from her parents. Gentry had seen the change coming in her since he’d arrived at the farm. The girl was less attached to her mother and father—still loved them with all her heart and soul—but she’d begun to venture out onto the lip of the nest, like a young bird getting ready to take flight. Riley Wimber hadn’t noticed it—the fact that Autumn was depending less and less on her parents and more and more on herself.

“You did nothin’ wrong,” he repeated. She needed reassurance that Riley was the villain—that she was as pure and sweet as the day she was born.

“B-but he kissed me,” she whispered. “And now that you know…you’ll never want to…”

So that was it. It wasn’t that Autumn wasn’t strong enough to overcome the emotional scarring Riley had inflicted; it was that she feared Gentry wouldn’t want her anymore. She truly was an innocent young thing, even if she was perched on the edge of the nest.

Burying his anger and lust for revenge, though he found it nearly impossible, Gentry inhaled, held the breath a moment to calm himself, and then asked, “Do you really think that I won’t want to kiss you again just because that coward put his mouth where mine belongs, darlin’?”

He grinned, for she needed reassurance. At that moment, Autumn needed reassurance more than she needed to see Riley Wimber’s face ground into the dirt under Gentry’s boot.

More tears streamed over her face, and she tried to look away from him, but Gentry held his hands steady, and her gaze did meet his once more.

“I was plannin’ on haulin’ you off to that ol’ bridge again tonight,” he said, trying to keep the residual anger from sounding in his voice. “But knowin’ you as I do, and since that big ol’ pumpkin up in the sky you love so much is shinin’ down all warm and gold on us…I don’t see any reason to wait for the bridge. Do you, punkin?”

The corners of her mouth turned up just a bit, and he saw the fear fading from her beautiful autumn-sky-colored eyes.

“Do you mean it, Gentry?” she whispered.

Gentry smiled, and as always, the sight of his dimples and the strands of wayward hair tumbling over his forehead warmed Autumn’s heart.