The Rain Sparrow Read online

  She chafed at this morning’s wasted trip to Honey Ridge, squarely placing the blame on him, the odious Yankee. She’d gone to trade eggs for a bolt of red yard goods to use as quilt binding. Since the surrender, the whole world seemed drab and dark, but color brought cheer and liveliness to the women’s faces. Yesterday, Sarah O’Clary had absolutely beamed at the blue bordered shawl made by Josie’s hand. The poor woman had worn nothing but black long after the period of mourning had passed simply because she had nothing else. Not even a ribbon.

  In her fury at meeting him, Josie had not only wasted a trip to town; she’d endured a needless frown of disapproval from Charlotte. Young maiden ladies did not travel unaccompanied into town. A suitable escort was essential, especially since Tennessee was now riddled with an influx of scalawags and strangers and all sorts of unsavory characters. An unmarried woman’s virtuous reputation was to be protected at all costs.

  Little did her sister-in-law understand that such conventions were long dead, had died with the Confederacy, and Josie refused to be afraid anymore.

  Fear had gained her nothing. Indeed, her greatest fear had come to pass.

  Tom and dozens of other vital Honey Ridge men—boys she’d danced with and a few she’d kissed beneath the stars—had marched grim faced to a war from which they did not return. She bore the burden of Tom’s loss as much as the Yankees bore the responsibility. No Yankee would ever make her afraid again.

  “You’re starting another quilt?” Patience gathered her skirt and settled beside her. “Have you the time?”

  Josie paused to look at her sister, her chest squeezing with love and tenderness. She’d always thought of Patience as the other part of her soul. The good part. If she was a muddy, raging river, Patience was a pure, clear stream.

  Though a woman grown, Patience had never quite left behind her childlike sweetness. Add the wide, guileless blue eyes and baby-fine corn-silk hair, and Patience was a misplaced angel who only saw the good in everyone. She was every bit as pious as Charlotte, though far less irritatingly so.

  Josie added a green square to her tidy stack and ignored Patience’s concern about time. Work was never ending without the slaves anyway. “This is to be a gift for Margaret.”

  “Tom’s mother?”

  “She sent every quilt and scrap of extra clothing she owned to Tom during the war, always worried her son was cold or in need. Did you know she covered herself with an old horse blanket, having told not a soul of her deprivation on Tom’s behalf?”

  “Mrs. Foster is a dear lady. Let me help.” Patience took up a faded shirt with ripped elbows.

  “I thought Charlotte assigned you to the peach orchard.” Josie had trouble keeping the snarl out of her voice.

  After Edgar’s death and even now, after Charlotte had wed the Yankee captain, the woman organized the household and farm chores like an army general. Everyone had duties that kept them slaving from dawn to dusk. Thankfully, Josie sewed better than either Patience or Charlotte did and spent many hours in that pursuit, though she did her part in the fields and mill whenever necessary.

  Everyone did. They had no choice. Thanks to the hateful, thieving Yankees.

  Patience began to snip the buttons. “Peaches are picked, Josie. Can’t you smell the jam?”

  She sniffed the air and caught the scent, though she’d missed the sweet, sticky smell in her fury at him. Lizzy and Charlotte would be in the kitchen, and if she was fair, she’d admit that no one worked harder than Charlotte Portland Gadsden. The fact that circumstances forced such labor was the thing that kept Josie at a rolling boil much of the time.

  If not for the hideous war and the greedy Northerners who were bent on destroying her Southern lifestyle, she and Patience could focus on parties and beaus and pretty clothes.

  Now the Yankee interlopers bought up farms and businesses for a few dollars, grabbing what didn’t belong to them, showing their true colors, so that gentle Southern women were reduced to hoeing corn and wearing rags.

  Let them brag of emancipation and equality. She knew the truth hiding in their black hearts. The North had always been jealous of the South.

  They were here, stealing, taking over. Like Will and his cousin.

  “I met the Yankee in town this morning,” she said, and her harsh tone brought Patience’s worried eyes to hers.

  “What Yankee?”

  “The captain’s cousin.” She never called William Gadsden by his given name. To do so might indicate she liked the man, and she refused to give him that honor. He was, by all rights, a usurper.

  “The miller? Mr. Eriksson?”

  “That’s him. Ugly as a mud puppy.”

  Patience’s eyes widened more. “He’s green?”

  A giggle burst forth at her sister’s gentle wit.

  “Green, slimy and crawls on his belly. Like all Yankees.”

  “I daresay he’s handsome like Will.”

  “You think the captain is handsome?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Don’t be silly.” She did, however, think the new millwright might be handsome beneath his traveler’s untidiness. For those few minutes when she’d deemed him a savior, she’d almost found him attractive. Indeed, her pulse had fluttered at the sheer strength of the tall, muscular man and at the way he’d easily lifted her off the ground with warm concern in his voice and light blue eyes. Why, she absolutely shuddered to remember.

  All along he was another Yankee scalawag come to take what her family had worked to build since the Revolution. They were like rats, these Unionists, nibbling away at the South.

  “I don’t wish to speak of him or to him ever again.”

  “He’s going to be living here, Josie. You can’t be rude to a guest.”

  “Can’t I? Were the Yankees not rude when they invaded our home and stole our food and everything we couldn’t hide?”

  Let Reverend Watley preach of loving the enemy and praying for those who despitefully used her. Josie would never dishonor Tom’s memory with Union sympathies, and she could not believe a just God expected her to.

  Patience sighed and reached for a tattered pale green skirt. “Look, Josie, a color that’s lovely with your hair.”

  Josie gave her sister a soft smile. “I know what you’re doing, Miss Patience, but I will not be kind.” She put her scissors aside. “Let me see the cloth. I do so love green.”

  She held the silken fabric below her chin, admiring the softness and color. Inwardly, she debated. So many woman and children of her acquaintance did without adequate clothing. Did she have a right to be selfish with goods donated through the church? “I could make a lovely blouse for someone. Perhaps the reverend’s daughter.”

  “The color makes your eyes as green as leaves. Keep it, Josie, as payment for all the many dresses and shawls and quilts you’ve made for others.”

  “I don’t know if I should.”

  “But you want to.”

  “Of course I do.” She laughed, closing her eyes in jest as she rubbed the silky fabric along her cheek. “I look positively fetching in green!”

  Footfalls and the rustle of movement jerked her eyes open. Standing in the doorway were the captain and him, Thaddeus Eriksson.

  She dropped the green silk onto her lap, good humor as gone as her happy childhood.

  “Josie. Patience,” Will said, stepping closer. “This is Thaddeus Eriksson, my cousin, who’s come to take charge of the mill.”

  “Miss Patience, a pleasure, I’m sure.” The insufferable Yankee bowed slightly as if he were a gentleman.

  Josie rolled her eyes toward heaven.

  She would not rise. She would not be polite or welcoming, for he was not welcome. Not at all.

  “Miss Josie. We meet again.” Amusement danced in eyes the color of a summer sky.

>   A most undesirable shiver ran through Josie and infuriated her further.

  She tossed her head and sniffed. “Unfortunately.” Her nose tilted ever higher. “I hoped you’d get lost en route. Or be eaten by a tiger.”

  Patience sucked in a gasp, sweet eyes as round as cornflowers. “Josie!”

  Instead of seeming insulted, Thaddeus laughed. “Should I be afraid of tigers in Tennessee? Or only of the tigress?”

  Josie’s chest tickled with the need to laugh. Insufferable, amusing, handsome, dastardly Yankee. He could laugh all he wanted, but neither his laughter nor hers would change who he was.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.

  —Mark Twain

  Present

  CARRIE EASED HER foot off the gas pedal, aware that she was driving too fast around curves and over hills and up the mountain leading to the ridge for which Honey Ridge was named.

  Flashes of green flickered in her peripheral vision as she zipped past lush, verdant meadows bracketed by thick, dark woods and bisected by lazy creeks shining in the September sun.

  Hayden, the enigma, sat in the pushed-back passenger seat, his long legs stretched out as far as possible in the VW Bug.

  She was still surprised that he’d wanted to ride along. He didn’t know her, and other than his brilliance with words, she didn’t know him.

  Except she liked him and they shared a mutual concern for Brody. And she’d agreed to breakfast Thursday morning.

  Hayden seemed so...normal. Not like a rich and famous person with an elitist attitude.

  Nevertheless, those Ferragamo loafers Nikki had pointed out and the fancy watch glinting from his left wrist were dead giveaways that he was a successful man who lived in the stratosphere, not down here on planet small town with mere mortals such as the town librarian.

  He was far from the average Joe.

  What bothered her most about him wasn’t his penchant for death, nor was it his fault. It was the tingly sensation on her arms and neck whenever those smoke-colored eyes locked on hers.

  She knew the danger of those tingly sensations. If she ever married, and the jury was still out on that unlikely event, she wasn’t looking for tingles. Never again. She wanted a friend, a man who could discuss books and work beside her in charities and hold her through the storms of life, both figuratively and literally.

  A man of Hayden’s status would never look twice at a plain Jane librarian who barely knew Ferragamo from Freddy Krueger. To Hayden she was a resource, a living Google search. Carrie got that. She had no illusions about herself.

  Yet, here she was, driving along these narrow, hilly roads with Hayden Winters wedged into the seat of her Beetle. If she felt a little thrill of pride at being with one of the country’s favorite authors, she was, after all, a book person and a public librarian.

  A confused librarian with tingly arms.

  Following a brief drive through Honey Ridge and a meal of burgers, tots and ice-cream sundaes, they’d driven Brody to his empty house. He had to get home, he’d said, to feed Max, his pet lizard. Following this statement, he and Hayden had launched into a lengthy discussion about the care and feeding of the five-lined skink.

  The fact that Mr. Thomson was at work eased any immediate concern she had about the boy. If he was being mistreated, and she still wasn’t convinced on that front, Brody was safe with his father gone. An awful thought, come to think of it, that a child was better off alone than with a parent.

  She glanced toward Hayden. “I hope we’re wrong about Mr. Thomson.”

  He shifted as much as possible in the cramped seat to look at her. “We’re not.”

  There he went again. Laying those smoky eyes on her.

  He sounded so sure, the way he had the night of the storm.

  “Oh, Hayden.” She bit her lip and frowned his way.

  Hayden’s lips tightened; his nostrils slightly flared. “He said his dad doesn’t cook and isn’t home much. Where does the kid get his meals?”

  “School?”

  “He gets lunch. And if he’s lucky breakfast.”

  “Surely there’s food in the house.” She glanced at him, heart bleak. “Sandwich makings. Frozen pizza. PB and J.”

  “Are you confident of that?”

  Frustrated, she said, “No,” and vowed to find out. “His dad works. He can afford groceries.”

  “Admit it, Carrie. We both suspect something’s wrong in that house. Brody sends out signals.”

  “All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t rush to judgment. I wouldn’t be happy if someone assumed terrible things about me that weren’t true.” In fact, she’d hated it.

  Clint Thomson might be a hard man, even neglectful, but that didn’t necessarily make him an abuser.

  “Look, I don’t want to get involved, either, but the kid came to us.” His jaw was tight and maybe a little angry. “Hard to turn your back.”

  “There’s no law against befriending him,” she offered, conciliatory against his vehemence, a vehemence she found curious. Why would Hayden Winters, here for peace and quiet to write a novel, push so hard on the subject of a boy he didn’t even know?

  At the signal light’s clicking, Carrie turned down a dirt road, narrowed by the lush vegetation tumbling out of the woods.

  “The cat lady lives here.”

  He looked at her with interest. “An eccentric old woman with a million cats and not much else?”

  She brought the car to a halt in front of a row of native rocks placed neatly around the perimeter of the small house as if someone had intended to build a wall and had run out of steam. Knowing the cat lady, that was likely the case.

  “Not old but certainly eccentric. Coy Than Travers. Originally from Cambodia but married an American. Turns out his Cambodian business trips netted him more than a wife. He died a few years ago in a bad drug deal.”

  “Did she know he was trafficking?”

  “Hard to tell. The police don’t think so. Her English isn’t great, so she doesn’t communicate with too many people.”

  “Why would a librarian be delivering books to someone who can’t read English?”

  “I special-order for her in Cambodian. She’d like to improve her English, but since she never leaves the property...”

  A puzzled frown knit his brow. “Why not?”

  “Anxiety.”

  “Understandable after what happened to her husband, especially with her limited English.”

  “She says she can’t breathe in town and feels like she’s having a heart attack.”

  “That sounds like agoraphobia.”

  Carrie flashed a grin. “When I said that word to my sister, she shuddered and said she hated spiders, too.”

  Hayden’s lips curved. “I take it your sister’s not a word person like us?”

  Like us. The inclusion felt intimate.

  “Please don’t think Nikki’s dumb. She spotted your Ferragamo shoes right away, and she can identify the year and designer of every Oscar gown since 1980.”

  His steady gaze was both unsettling and reassuring. “No judgment from me. Your family’s close?”

  “Very.” She put the car in Park and cut the motor. “What about you? Any brothers and sisters?”

  “Only child,” he said lightly.

  “Being an only must be great, not that I’d trade the Riley brood for anything.”

  His eyes glazed and went empty. He turned his attention toward the little blue cottage, pointing. “Your cat lady. Should I stay in the car?”

  “Probably the best idea. She’s a bit skittish, and she totes a shotgun.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Lots of women around here own guns, especially
those who live alone.”

  “Do you?” His mouth twitched. “And should I be afraid?”

  In her best Terminator voice, Carrie teased, “Very afraid.”

  Hayden laughed, and the frost in his expression melted.

  She reached for the bundle of books on the backseat. The movement brought her in close proximity to the man filling up her passenger seat. Her shoulder brushed his.

  “Let me get them.” His voice came from very close to her ear. “I want to see how good my Cambodian is.”

  A pesky tingle skittered over her skin. Her pulse kicked up a notch. “You read Khmer?”

  The words came out breathy and soft.

  “Not a word.”

  Amusement filtered like sunlight past the attraction.

  “Silly. You can’t even move in this car. I’ll get the books.”

  She pushed open the door, but before she could pop the seat he grabbed the stack and handed it across the console.

  “Here you go.” His eyes held hers. The air hummed, and the space in the tiny car shrank until she could hear him breathe. A spell. He cast a spell.

  “Next time.” He sounded far more normal than she felt. “I’d like to meet her if she doesn’t mind.”

  Their hands brushed, and the subtle scent of expensive cologne swirled around in her senses.

  Next time. He planned to make more trips up the mountain with her?

  She snatched the stack and headed toward the small cropped-haired woman waiting tense as a fiddle string on the porch.

  Hayden Winters was a dangerous man. Dangerous not because of the dark and murderous imagination that made him famous, but because of the light he cast on her loneliness and the foolish infatuation that sprang up like dandelion weeds in her tidy inner garden.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  What does not kill you will likely try again.

  —Mr. B., undertaker

  HAYDEN WANDERED ALONG the creek bank bisecting the quiet woods that stretched behind Peach Orchard Inn. This morning his head was full of too many things.