To Win Her Heart (19 page)

“Thank you, sir. That’s very kind of you.”

Eden’s brows shot up as Chloe handed the bandbox to the young man, who vaulted up to the boardwalk to accept it. Usually the girl went out of her way to avoid men, but something about this McPherson fellow was different. He treated her as a gentleman did a lady, even though it seemed this was not his first encounter with her. Chloe needed the normalcy of being accepted, of being appreciated. And what could be more normal than a sixteen-year-old girl flirting and stepping out with a handsome young man on a well-traveled street?

“Chloe? If you feel comfortable with Mr. McPherson’s escort, I’ll allow him to see you back to the library while I pay a call at the smithy.”

Eden carefully gauged the girl’s reaction. Any hint of reluctance and she would immediately rescind the offer. But the girl fairly glowed with delight.

“Perhaps I can save Mr. Grant a trip by collecting the book myself that he had planned to bring in today.”

“Chloe.” McPherson whispered the word in a near-reverent tone. “All these months, I had wondered.” He gazed into her face. “ ’Tis a bonny name. For a bonny lass.” He offered his arm, and with a happy flush, Chloe accepted.

Eden watched the two walk several steps, wondering if she should follow. Then Chloe glanced over her shoulder, her wide smile giving Eden all the assurance she needed. They would be fine. More than fine, if she didn’t miss her guess.

Grinning, Eden strolled down the street in the opposite direction. As she neared the smithy, her stomach fluttered, much as she imagined Chloe’s had done a few moments earlier.

Levi.
She never dreamed she’d find a man so perfect. He wasn’t wealthy, he didn’t come from a politically connected family, but none of that mattered. She’d be proud to walk on his arm anywhere, even at one of her mother’s events.

Lost in her thoughts, she neglected to call out to him as she picked her way around the forge. A splashing sound drew her to the rear of the shop.

Ornery came out to meet her, and she stopped to pat his head and rub his ears. “Hey, boy. Where’s Levi?” she asked in a low voice. The dog turned and bounded toward the back corner. Eden followed until she cleared the far side of the forge. The sight that greeted her stole her breath.

Levi stood at the washstand, stripped to the waist. The damp hair at his neck glistened and curled, tempting Eden to see for herself if the strands really would wind themselves about her fingers. But even that thick sable hair couldn’t distract her from the impressive display of male musculature before her. Levi rubbed a towel over his chest, the tiny scrap seeming woefully inadequate for the task. Eden’s mouth went dry. He lifted the rag to his head briefly, then moved it to his back, his movements growing awkward as he tried to reach behind him.

An absurd urge to assist him shot through her. Then the rag moved lower, exposing more of his skin, and a new sensation washed over her. Sorrow.

Puckered skin glared at her, the remains of deep welts, where the flesh had been ripped and torn. Thick white lines crisscrossed over his back. Up and down. Side to side. One upon the other. Her own back ached as if trying to share in the pain of the lashes he had suffered. Tears welled in Eden’s eyes.

“Levi,” she moaned. “What happened to you?”

Levi spun around.

“Eden?” he croaked. For a moment he just stared at her, shock dulling his brain. Then he noticed her chin dip and her lashes lower over her eyes, and all at once reason returned. He snatched his clean shirt from the peg on the wall and thrust his arms into the sleeves as he twisted away from her.

The stubborn buttons refused to go through their holes. Levi’s thick fingers fumbled over the simple task. Blasted things. Why couldn’t he button the stupid shirt?

Because she had seen. Levi’s fingers halted, and he inhaled a shaky breath. Eden had seen the truth of his past written across his back. All the ugliness he had tried to forget shouted out his mistakes in gruesome detail. He’d thought he’d made his peace with sharing his history with her, but somehow words on a page seemed easier for a person to accept than the blatant testimony of mutilated skin.

Levi’s thoughts scattered, though, the instant she touched him. The muscle in his back twitched, but everything inside him stilled as the coolness of her hand penetrated the cotton of his shirt. Levi squeezed his eyes shut, her touch both magic and torture. He held his breath as she traced the ridges between his shoulder blades.

“Who did this to you?” Her voice came out in a broken whisper, and when he finally turned to face her, he saw tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Tears for him, for his pain.

Tears he didn’t deserve. For behind them, he could read the assumptions in her face. She believed he’d been treated unfairly, abused for no reason. And while it was true that the heavy-handed sergeants took pleasure in subjugating the inmates with a harshness that was unjustified, he was far from innocent.

Eden had not withdrawn her hand when he turned, and now it hovered lightly upon the side of his arm. He reached up and covered it with his palm, then brought those precious fingers to his mouth. He laid a kiss on their tips.

“There issth—” He slammed his lips closed. How could he slip like that? Now of all times. As if he wasn’t about to give her enough reasons to despise him. Levi bit down on his tongue and breathed through his nose. Back in control, he started again. “. . . much you don’t know about me, Eden. My former life.”

Deep furrows wrinkled her brow, but she brought her free hand up to his mouth and brushed her fingers over his lips, as if to comfort him for his stumble, as if to prove it didn’t repulse her. Tenderness welled up inside him. He loved this woman—her spunk, her intellect, her tender heart. It was that tender heart he wanted to protect. But he couldn’t spare her the hurt he was about to cause, not if there was to be any hope for the two of them sharing a life together. He could only pray for the Lord to speed her healing. And her acceptance.

“I know all I need to know, Levi.” The creases on her face smoothed, and she smiled. “You are a gentle, kind man of faith. You work hard and are more generous with your earnings than anyone I know. You—”

“Quit, Eden.”

Little frown lines crept back between her eyebrows, and he hated himself for putting them there. But he couldn’t stand to listen to her glowing description. It was too tempting to let her keep her delusions. “You
don’t
know me, Eden. Not the whole truth, anyway.”

“What are you saying?” She bit her lip.

“I’ve kept particular information hidden from you. Information I didn’t want you to learn becau—”

“You . . . you lied to me?”

She tugged her hand free from his grasp, and it felt as though she were pulling his heart from his chest. On instinct, he reached out to her and clasped her upper arm. But she just blinked up at him, like an animal caught in a trap.

“I didn’t lie to you, Eden.” He chafed her arm, alarmed at the way the color was draining from her face. “But I’ve done . . . more than one thing in my life that I’m not proud of. And they could have an impact on you if . . . well, if you and I . . .”

Feeling as if he were about to be dragged off to prison all over again, Levi clutched Eden to him and pressed his cheek to her hair. Inhaling deeply, he breathed in the light, flowery scent that always seemed to cling to her. She did not resist his embrace, but neither did she encourage it, and it scared him down to his marrow.

“I care about you, Eden. More than you can fathom,” he whispered hoarsely into her hair. “I want to be open with you. I want you to tru . . . er, to believe that you can rely on me, that you can . . . build a future with me.”

She said nothing, just stood limp in his arms. A stone sank in Levi’s belly. Gently taking her arms in his hands, he laid a kiss on her forehead, then set her away from him. Curling his fingers into fists to keep from reaching for her, he cleared his throat.

“I planned to give you a letter today.” He pivoted back toward the washstand and pulled down the book with the bulging cover that sat waiting on the high shelf. When he turned back, he held the book in front of him, not yet extending it to her. “I think the Lord knew I needed to have it ready.” Levi glanced up and met Eden’s shuttered gaze. He bit back a sigh. “I wrote everything down,” he said. “All you need to know.”

He willed his hands to move and pushed the book through the tension-filled air between them. She stretched out to receive it, her movements stilted. For a moment the book connected them, but then she drew it toward her, and Levi had to let it go.

Eden stared at the ground, her eyelids shielding her from the man she’d thought she’d known. Whatever tale his letter told, she wasn’t going to like it. Of that she was certain.

A shiver crawled over her. She should have brought a shawl. To fight off the chill. But the cold seemed to originate within. Making her numb. She hugged her arms around her middle, not caring that the book bumped against her hip. Not caring about much of anything.

“Eden, I—”

She shook her head. She couldn’t bear any more words. Not now. It was as if someone had snuffed the light and left her alone in the dark. Everything once familiar and comforting now had a sinister edge. She could feel disaster lurking, ready to pierce her with its secrets. She had to get away—to find the light again, before the darkness suffocated her.

She retreated a step. Then another. Ornery nudged the back of her leg with his nose and whined. Eden ignored him. Without meeting Levi’s gaze, she turned and staggered toward the entrance.

The bright sunlight did nothing to dispel the blackness that had wrapped itself about her heart. Eden rushed past people and shops along the street, seeing nothing more than a dark blur.

Home. She needed to be home.

Her house stood only a block and a half away, yet it seemed an eternity before her feet found the beloved walkway that led to her front porch. As she ascended the steps, the door opened.

“I was just changin’ the sign,” Verna greeted.

“Put it back.” Eden pushed past her housekeeper. “The library’s closed today.”

“What?”

Eden could feel Verna’s eyes on her as she headed for the stairs, but she offered no further explanation. All she could focus on was getting to her room before she completely fell apart.

Chloe waved from the open doorway of her bedroom. She wore her new bonnet and a sunny smile that dimmed as Eden strode by without acknowledging her with more than a glance.

“Miss Eden? What’s wrong?”

The girl’s voice followed her down the hall, but Eden couldn’t have explained even if she wanted to. How could she? Her reaction didn’t have an explanation yet. Just emotion. All she knew for certain was that she was about to shatter, and she didn’t want anyone around to witness it.

Finally reaching her sanctuary, Eden stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned her back against it. She closed her eyes, squeezing a tear from between her lashes. The droplet rolled down her cheek, tingling against her skin. It came to the edge of her face and dipped under the ledge of her jaw to cling to her throat. Why wouldn’t it fall? Why couldn’t it just release her and let her be?

Eden scrubbed at it, desperate to remove the feel of it from her skin. But as she scrubbed, more tears fell. She couldn’t erase them fast enough. Tremors attacked her legs next, stealing her strength. She wobbled to the bedpost, grabbed it for support, and sank to the mattress. She dropped the book Levi had given her atop the quilt. The cover flopped at the gentle jarring and a packet of folded papers several pages thick bounced into view.

Seeing the familiar ivory stationery brought the chill back to her bones. Her eyes glued to the visible edge of the letter, Eden lowered herself to lie on her side near the book and curled her knees up toward her chest. She clasped the hem of the sateen coverlet and pulled it up over her shoulders, burrowing into its folds. It took several minutes for her shivers to subside, but once the warmth from the bed quilt seeped past her clothes to relax her muscles, she found the courage to reach for Levi’s letter.

It took longer to find the courage to open it. She set it on the bed in front of her and traced the line of the fold with her finger.

This was Stephen all over again. She knew it, in the core of her being. Levi might not be abandoning her in order to pursue his fortune, but whatever was in this letter was going to prove that he was not the man she thought him to be. Just as Stephen hadn’t been. Only this time the hurt cut far deeper. For unlike Stephen, who had not inspired more than a warm admiration in her, Levi owned her heart. Like a fool, she’d surrendered it to him bit by bit until nothing was left.

A burst of anger erupted inside her. She hated secrets. Hated lies. Hated that the man she thought she loved had hidden things from her. It wasn’t fair. Why was she always the one paying the price for the faults of others? Why couldn’t a man just be who he appeared to be? Was that so much to ask?

Eden lurched up onto her elbow and grabbed the letter. Enough secrets. Time for the truth.

She waded into Levi’s confession, but in a matter of seconds her horrified spirit was drowning. Her lungs burned and her stomach cramped as she struggled to keep her head above the darkness that threatened to sweep her away. Not even in her wildest imaginings could she have predicted such violent atrocities.

Rebellion against his family.

Prizefighting.

Prison.

God help me.

She’d welcomed the attentions of a killer.