[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek (4 page)

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Authors: Jan Watson

BOOK: [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek
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She shook her head to think of that man standing on her doorstep with his flowers. His presence threatened the careful plans she’d laid to save her sister. She wouldn’t let him ruin Julie’s life. If he came back, she’d send for the sheriff. A few days in jail would send him packing. Nobody would be the wiser about her sister’s predicament if he stayed away.
She paused and stared at the hall mirror. A red-haired reflection looked back at her. She leaned closer. Were those crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes? Was that a strand of gray springing like a corkscrew from her head? What had happened to the Grace she wanted to be? Wasn’t she once as vibrant as Julie? Didn’t she have her share of suitors?
Grace hadn’t slept a night through since her father had taken to his bed. A night nurse was out of the question, for it was her duty to care for him. Her sacrifice was taking its toll, but tired as she was, she’d have to be extra vigilant until she was sure Will Brown had slunk back to the mountains.
She spotted a film of dust on the table in the front hall. She’d have to speak to the housekeeper. And she needed to talk with the cook. They had to come up with something her father would eat. She smoothed the front of her dress and adjusted her spectacles. She felt better. There was work to do.
 
Will stood under the apple tree that night for hours, just waiting. A cold wind whipped around him. He wished he’d brought something warmer than the jacket that had failed to impress Julie’s sister.
But finally, toward morning, his longing brought Julie to him. She carried a pillowcase stuffed with necessities. When he pulled her up behind him on the horse, the swell of her belly pressed against his back. He didn’t stop to question her then but reined in the horse after they’d gone far enough to escape her wild-eyed sister, tethered the animal in a grove of trees, made camp, and lit a fire.
He sat beside her and held his hands out to the fire. “Do you have something to tell me?” he asked.
She wouldn’t look at him, but he heard the anguish in her voice. “Will, I’m sorry.”
“Julie, honey, tell me.”
Loud, wailing sobs broke the stillness of the night. “Oh,” she cried. “Oh, please don’t take me back. I don’t care if you don’t want me anymore, but take me someplace safe, somewhere I can raise my baby.” She jumped up from her place by the fire and ran a short distance before he caught her and lifted her face to his own.
“What have I done to you?” he said.
She leaned against him, no longer crying. “I was so afraid, Will. Grace said you wouldn’t come back and that you wouldn’t want me if you did. She planned to send me to a home where they would keep my baby.” Her long, shuddering sigh spoke to his heart of her weeks of fear and suffering, but she looked at him directly as she asked, “Am I just damaged goods to you now? Do you hate me?”
The fire popped and crackled its song of warmth as he circled her with his arms. He would have laughed had he not been afraid of hurting her feelings, making light of her fears. “Julie,” he said, “I’m so sorry for what I’ve caused, but it was all out of love. I can’t fault your sister for her anger, but nobody is taking our baby.”
“She wouldn’t let me leave the house since . . . since she found out. She stopped going out to teach, and I had to stay upstairs . . . I couldn’t even see Father.”
“Honey, how did you know I’d come? How did you know to meet me by the apple tree?”
“I believed your promise.” She settled into his embrace. “I’ve been watching from an upstairs window for weeks. I prayed you’d come before Grace sent me away.”
He made her a pallet from the blanket roll he carried on the back of his saddle, but she wouldn’t leave his side, just sat snuggled up beside him as if he were her savior instead of the man who’d caused such pain. She didn’t want to talk anymore, and as the minutes passed he could hear her even breathing as she slept. She seemed fragile as a skim of ice on the creek to him, like one wrong move might make her shatter.
He couldn’t sleep, which was just as well, because he needed the whole night to pray for guidance and forgiveness.
Toward morning he felt at peace, and he dared move his arm from around her. “Julie, honey, wake up. We need to get going.”
She woke with a start, then stood and stretched. “You’re still here,” she said, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I’ll never leave you again,” he said, his promise as good as any proposal on bended knee. “We’ll wed as soon as we get home. Troublesome Creek is as good a place to raise a young’un as you’ll ever find.”
She stood in front of the dying fire as the sun began its climb. Tucking her hands underneath her arms, she flapped her elbows and belted out a loud crow of joy and triumph.
He thought he’d never stop laughing as he fixed them a bite of breakfast and then broke camp. And as far as he could tell, Julie never looked back during the long journey.
Before the sun set on the day they arrived in Troublesome Creek, the young sweethearts were married by Will’s uncle in the church in the shadow of the mountains. Will’s kin and friends accepted Julie and her condition with open arms.
The couple set up housekeeping in the cabin Will’s father had left him, within walking distance across Troublesome from Will’s friend Daniel and his wife, Emilee. Emilee became Julie’s teacher and complimented Will on marrying such an avid pupil, so eager to learn homemaking skills. After choking down many skillets of burned corn bread, dozens of plates of half-raw fried potatoes, and too-many-to-count, flat-as-a-pancake biscuits, Will could have kissed Emilee when his bride finally set an edible meal on their wobbly kitchen table.
Their baby boy was stillborn on a warm spring morning. Two daughters followed during the next few years—one born too early and one who died in her father’s arms after a time of struggle. Her little heart was too weak to give her color. Three small graves, all in a row, rested at the foot of Will’s parents’ plot in the Brown family section of the cemetery.
Despite their tragedies, Will and Julie’s passion never wavered. Julie obviously loved her new home and the mountain people. And though usually wary of strangers and obsessively clannish, the folks on Troublesome Creek loved her right back.
 
Sunday morning became their favorite time. Will and Julie would get up early and carry mugs of strong black coffee outside, regardless of the weather. Will added a fine tin roof to cover the porch, and they would sit in matching rockers with their coffee to watch the sun come up or the rain come down. Some mornings Julie was already out there when he rose, as if she couldn’t get enough of their mountain paradise.
When Will had finished his first cup, he’d refill hers and then bring out the Bible that had belonged to his father and read to her. Julie told him she’d gone to church every Sunday, but the Scripture never came to life for her until she heard it from his rich baritone.
“Will,” she’d said one morning after he read, “you make me feel as if I can just wrap God’s Word around me and wear it like a suit of clothes.”
One Sunday morning it was pouring. The rain ran off the corners of the roof in little rivers and splashed like a waterfall down the stone steps that led to the yard. A cool wind blew the damp their way, so he covered them with the quilt from their bed and read to her from their cozy tent.
The sweet smell of her breath mixed with the heady aroma of coffee that day as he read from Isaiah. “‘Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.’”
Nearly every Sunday she requested that Scripture again. She said it was her favorite.
 
Over the years Julie received many packages from Grace. Will would carry them in from the post office and watch Julie open lavender-scented toilet water, luxurious silk hair ribbons, expensive fabrics, and fashionable dress patterns. Julie never sewed dresses from those patterns though. Instead, Emilee helped her make the easy-fitting print shirtwaists and skirts favored by the women who lived on Troublesome Creek. As far as Will knew, every gift Grace had sent was tucked away in a trunk under their bed.
Will carried their letters back and forth for years—Julie’s to the post office and Grace’s back to Julie. He never asked her what was in those letters, but he often wondered if Grace was softening toward him. When their father finally died after a long, lingering illness, Julie was pregnant again so Will could not take her to the funeral or to visit her sister. Julie cried herself to sleep many nights. He knew her tears were filled with longing to see her sister. He swallowed his pride and wrote to Grace himself, begging her to come to Troublesome Creek to stay for a while with Julie. He waited and waited for her reply.
One day, toward the end of Julie’s fourth confinement, a fine, four-wheeled, leather-topped surrey was delivered to their door. Julie was delighted. She told Will it had been her father’s Sunday carriage. Inside, fastened to the horsehair seat, was Grace’s latest missive:
“Come home, both of you. Come home and bring the baby.”
That, of course, was impossible, for the mountains were in Will’s blood. He could not have lived any other place, and Julie could not live without her Will.
 
The baby had been easily born considering Julie’s small stature. Will had paced the yard with his best friend, Daniel, until he’d nearly worn it down to bedrock, he was so anxious. Daniel’s wife, Emilee, and Granny Pelfrey attended Julie.

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