Ever Bound Read online

  “What did you do with them?” She looked behind me and wrinkled her nose.

  “Oh, the smell. That’s the dead ones from last Saturday. I throw out everything that’s not cat fish, and I let the turtles loose.”

  “Gross.” She jerked her hands into her lap as if the ground was somehow dirtier now. Grass and dirt from the rocks fell on her pink and black dress. “You kill them?”

  “There’s no use for them to be in there tugging at my toe all the time. That’s what I do to little irritating things that pull on my line.” Now that I’d gotten over the initial embarrassment, she really wasn’t such a bother. But her reactions were funny.

  “Wow, you really know how to treat a lady.” She sighed, looking out at the water. “So, do you eat the fish you catch?”

  “Yep. After Mama chops their heads off and cleans out their guts.” I took out my pocket knife and began whittling a stick. “You ever put a worm on a hook?”

  Annabeth looked at the worms pulsating through the dirt. “No, but I’d try anything once.”

  “Well, then.” I took out a hook and a worm. Grinning, I held them in front of her angelic, surprised face.

  Up close, she had smoother skin and a more innocent smile than Grace. Looking a little green, Annabeth took the worm with her forefinger and thumb.

  “You just stab it into its head and push it through, like this.” I used a hook and worm for demonstration.

  She turned greener but set her jaw. With precision, Annabeth stabbed the hook right through the worm. Who’da thought?

  “You have potential.” There was something about a girl who could wear a dress like that and didn’t mind a little dirt.

  Her eyes settled on my face as she batted her eyelashes. Not coyly. None of her movements seemed planned. She was genuine. When she looked back up to me, I had to look like an idiot, staring.

  For a moment the air was thick around us.

  Something strange heated my stomach, and my fingertips tingled to touch her cheek. So I did. I leaned closer, not minding if my lips touched a girl.

  “Potential for what?” Grace’s icy voice shattered the moment. “Mama is looking for you.”

  “Is she now?” Annabeth turned to look at her sister.

  Grace stood at the top of the bank with her hands on her hips and a fierce glare in her eyes.

  “She is. And I promise Daddy won’t be happy to know you’re down here doing God knows what with a young man.”

  Annabeth tossed a piece of grass into the pond. “There’s plenty about you I don’t tell.”

  Sure that a ball of snakes had begun writhing in my stomach, I stared at the water. I shouldn’t have felt nervous that Grace had found me talking to her sister, but I did.

  Grace scaled the embankment and slipped a time or two.

  “Maybe you can teach me how to cast next time?” Annabeth patted my arm and got up.

  Grace’s face turned bright red. “Oh, I’m telling all right.”

  “Well, you can finish what I started, then. Here.” Annabeth put the impaled worm in Grace’s hand.

  Grace shrieked and tossed it to the ground. “Ugh. You little…”

  “Ah, ah, ah. No foul language. Remember Mrs. Cobb’s lesson.” Annabeth sauntered to the easier path to the house and made it up the incline with ease.

  As she stared after her sister, Grace’s knuckles were white on her clenched fists. “You can’t get a good husband if you don’t carry yourself properly. And rolling around in dirt, playing with worms is nowhere on Mrs. Cobb’s etiquette list.”

  Annabeth sang her way through the woods.

  Oddly, the air was thicker when Grace was close, making it harder to breathe. A fleeting urge to gather my things passed. I wouldn’t let her run me off from what I enjoyed most. I dug my fingers into the dirt. With them soiled, maybe she wouldn’t try to hold my hand.

  “So what were you two doing?” Grace had a weird tone in her voice.

  “I showed her how to put a worm on a hook.”

  “How disgusting. She’ll never be a lady.”

  “I think it’s good that your sister isn’t scared to try new things.” I don’t know where the courage to say it came from.

  “New things? Then you and I can try something new.” Grace spun toward me, shoved me back on the grass, and put her mouth all over my face. After a series of odd caresses and sucking noises, she finished the kiss.

  I hadn’t moved my mouth.

  “You need a little practice is all. Now that you’ve kissed me, father will be ecstatic. He’s always wanted me to court a strong, capable young man.”

  I turned and stared at her with incredulity.

  “We can get married, but between now and then I won’t lose you to someone else. Men have needs. I understand that more than anyone. Just know, before you turn your eyes on to anyone else, I’d be glad to oblige. There’s no use for you to look at another female.”

  It was time to go to the cottage.

  “We make the best match. It only makes sense that we’d end up married after courting for so long.”

  “We’ve never—I mean. I don’t know. We need to slow down.” I didn’t want to say too much, but I didn’t want to say too little, either. I couldn’t have her going home and telling her father I wanted to marry her.

  “Oh, Colby! I knew you felt the same.” Grace acted as if I had just proposed to her, not the other way around. She threw me back on the ground and kissed me again.

  This time, I rolled her safely off me and gathered my things. “I think I need a little time to myself and some space, if that’s okay.”

  Fear and rage flashed through her eyes, but the rage was gone before it was really there.

  She grabbed my hand with both of hers and walked with her head on my arm most of the way back to the main house. Grace clung so tightly to my arm it was as if another body had attached itself to me.

  I had to talk to Mama.

  She’d know what to do.

  At the clearing between the house and the pond, Grace let go and almost skipped to her house. It was the first time my breathing was normal since she’d made her weird claim on me at the pond.

  I ran to my back door. After I was safely inside, I flipped the little latch and leaned against the door.

  “Why are you locking us in so early?” Mama’s confused smile met me as she wiped her hands on her apron.

  “Hold on. I gotta get the front one too.” I rushed through the house, then came back to Mama. “We need to talk. I think I’m in trouble.”

  Mama put a towel through her apron and motioned me to the table. With a laugh, she pulled out a chair. “It’s got to be the Kinsley good looks, and though you can’t help it, your charm seeps through even when you’re trying to send that girl in the other direction. You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”

  I plopped into the wooden chair and put my forehead on the table. “I don’t want to hurt her, but I don’t know what else to do. She’s so…”

  “Persistent?” Mama said.

  “Yes.” I looked up. “I feel like I can’t breathe without asking her permission, and I don’t know how it got this way.”

  Mama pulled out a chair and sat down. With her hand on my arm, she sighed. “You have to tell her exactly how you feel.”

  “But Pop will be furious if I do something to make us have to leave.”

  “He should understand more than anyone what you’re going through. Charles’s father tried to give him money, but there was a stipulation. He had to marry a girl he didn’t love. An arranged marriage. If Charles married her, it made your grandfather’s family richer. He was convinced that Eliza was the perfect woman for your father. She was a lunatic, so when your father met me, and we fell in love, he began to fear for my life. That’s why we move when he thinks she’s found us.”

  “What does Grandfather have to do with it?”

  “He probably stopped looking for Cha
rles years ago, but according to Charles, Eliza will never give up. She’s found us one time before, but we left before anything could happen.”

  “So, I need to keep us here as long as we can possibly hold out?”

  “I’m not going to put the weight of our problems on your shoulders anymore. You’ve been the victim of your father’s ghosts long enough. It’s time you lived your own life. Tell her how you feel. If that doesn’t work, we’ll leave.” Mama got up, hugged me, and wrung her hands as she went to the stove to start dinner.

  I would find a way get Grace to leave me alone without involving them in it, if at all possible.

  * * * *

  A few nights later, at ten o’clock, I woke to light tapping on my window. Behind the linen curtain, Grace’s face popped up.

  I stumbled back and almost knocked over my washbowl. I righted it and held in a curse word.

  She motioned for me to come out.

  I’d done well to avoid her the last few days. When I knew she didn’t have lessons of some girly sort, I made sure I was off in the woods as far from the house as possible. Wise to my plan, Mama rarely called for me, and Pop had asked few questions.

  I opened my window. “What on earth are you doing out there?”

  “I wanted to see you. Everyone’s asleep at the house, and Daddy’s out drinking again. I didn’t want to be there when he got home, and I know your parents go to sleep at nine.”

  “Well, here I am.”

  Grace’s smile fell away.

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” I slapped the curtains shut and pulled on my britches and shirt.

  Grace stood waiting under my window. As I approached, she jerked my hand into hers. In the other, she had an unlit lantern.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the barn.” She put a finger over her lips and looked around us before she pulled me out into plain view.

  I pulled my hand away. “I’ll go with you, but we have to talk.”

  She gave me a warning look. “I hope it’s nothing too terribly bad. It’s been an awful day. You’re the only person who can make me feel better.”

  Upon entering the barn, Grace lit the lantern. She dropped her housecoat onto the dirt floor. Her thin nightgown covered very little.

  I turned away. “You’re naked.”

  “Not yet.” She giggled.

  “This isn’t appropriate.” I took a feed sack from the pile in the corner, took Grace’s arm, and gently pulled her to a hay bale. After sitting her down, I covered her. “I’m not sure how else to say this to you. I don’t have the same feelings for you as you do for me. I care, but not in that way. You’re too pretty and too smart to settle for me. You need someone who returns your devotion.”

  “If this is about our social standing—”

  “It’s not. It’s about me. Us. I have tried to have feelings for you, but they’re just not there.”

  Grace’s face was pasty and blank. “I see.”

  I hated hurting anyone, but it had to be this way. I had to let her go.

  She dropped the empty feed sack, gathered her housecoat to her chest, and rushed out the barn doors. Maybe in a few days, she’d be able to speak to me again. If she didn’t, that may have been the best thing.

  I slept better that night than I had in weeks.

  Chapter 3

  A few days later, I walked up on Pop and Mr. Rollins deep in conversation. Pop’s hands were hooked in his suspenders while Mr. Rollins’s pressed suit looked to have come fresh from a tailor. The sharp pointed collar poked Mr. Rollins double chin as he talked, and his black dress shoes shone in the summer sun.

  I’d heard no more from Grace. I’d given her no chance to speak to me so far off on the property working. I’d hoped to give her some time without seeing me so she could recover from whatever feelings she thought she had for me. It’d worked out well so far.

  “Here he is now.” A smile broadened on Pop’s face. “Mr. Rollins has a proposition for you. If you dig all the holes for the rose maze, he’ll drop the rest of your debt.”

  I’d incurred more debt with books, clothes, and shoes for school. Here and there other things had come my way that I hadn’t exactly asked for. They’d been gifts from Grace.

  I nodded and looked at the paper. My hands shook. This would put me close to the house and close to Grace, but the longer I’d worked at the Rollins plantation, the more I’d grown to love caring for the property.

  “I’d planned to get an architect to design the whole thing. We don’t have the inside drawn up yet, but you could start the outside walls,” Mr. Rollins said.

  “I could draw in the rest if you’d like.” I looked at the rose maze dimensions.

  “You’ve learned enough arithmetic that you think you can do that?” Mr. Rollins sounded pleasantly surprised.

  “Yes, sir. I believe I have.” Glad for a distraction, I scanned the clearing in front of me. The rose maze slowly took shape in my mind.

  Mr. Rollins and my father left me to the figuring it took to start placing the trellis posts for the maze. Within a few hours, I placed the first few holes in three feet intervals.

  When I went home, it was later than usual and the house was quiet. I stepped into the kitchen where Grace sat at the dinner table. Across from her, a plate of mouth-watering stew, a heaping mound of potatoes, and a glass of ice-cold sweet tea waited for me.

  Grace smiled. “I thought you might be hungry. It’s sort of a peace offering.”

  After days of not seeing or hearing from her, this was good. I wanted us to work things out and be friends.

  She was a little overdramatic at times, but girls could be, I supposed.

  I neared the table and slid the chair out. “You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

  “After the way I’ve been toward you, I did. I needed to know you don’t hate me.” She stared at the plate.

  “I could never hate you.” I sat down. “You were just looking for that special someone. I always imagined everyone has a soul mate. When you find yours, there’s nothing that could stop the two of you from being together.”

  “You’re right. I’ll find him. When I do, I’ll never let him go.” She smiled sweetly. “Now, eat up. You’ll need a lot of energy for what’s to come.”

  “Yes. That rose maze is kicking me in the seat of my pants.” I took the fork laid out for me. After a few bites, I shoveled the food into my mouth while Grace giggled. I wiped my mouth with a fancy napkin she’d brought from the house. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  “It’s absolutely to be expected. Now, I’ll take the china back and let you rest. I took the liberty of feeding your mother and father, too, just before you came in. They’ve already retired for the evening. They were gracious enough to let us have this time alone to talk. You’re lucky.”

  “I wondered where they were. Yes. They’re good folks. I’ll wash the dishes and bring them up. You’ve done so much already.” I put my napkin on the table and finished off the tea.

  “If we’re going to be friends, I should tell you”—she pinched her nose—“you stink. If I were you, I’d bathe before sleeping.”

  I sniffed my shirt.

  She giggled and winced.

  “Wow. You’re right.”

  We both laughed.

  “I’d planned to bathe, anyway. I’m not sure if I like the new you. Pointing out my flaws. It was nice when I always smelled like roses and could do no wrong.”

  “I’m sure there’s plenty wrong you can do.” She winked and with a swish of her skirts left the kitchen.

  Well, that ended well.

  * * * *

  After washing the dishes and hurrying to the back steps of the house, I found a servant on her way in. She took the China and glasses back to the kitchen for me.

  As I passed the four-foot tall purple Sweet Williams growing against the main house, the breeze carried tinkling pian
o music. It was a sad but beautiful song.

  I’d heard it before when I’d taken late night walks through the trails in the woods. The wind carried the same excerpt to me a few seconds later, and I closed my eyes. Something about the music and the cool breeze calmed my twitching muscles.

  Just as I opened my eyes, a shadow passed over the curtain, and a girl in a white nightgown leaned out.

  I almost fell out into the moonlight.

  Her long wavy hair slid over her shoulders and fell over the threshold of the window. Annabeth Rollins.

  Falling backward, I landed on some sticks and made a horrible racket.

  When Annabeth turned her head toward the spot where I now huddled against the house, I caught my breath.

  Her hair lifted with each gust of breeze, as she regarded the dark purple-blue sky, her milky white neck looked soft enough to touch.

  A rock jabbed my buttocks, forcing a garbled noise from me. I scrambled closer to the stone wall.

  With a stare aimed in my direction, she looked over me.

  I crouched perfectly still.

  She drew her windows inward. After a few seconds, the candle in her room flickered and went out.

  Finally able to breathe, I fell back on the bed of pine needles and shoved the rock over into some bushes. If she’d seen me, there would’ve been no way to explain myself.

  She’d think I had been purposely spying on her.

  I’d had no idea that her room was the source of the music.

  Suddenly too tired to make the long walk to the waterfall, I started for the pond. My knees felt as though they might not even make it there, but I had to bathe before sleeping.

  After stumbling down the embankment, I stripped down and half washed my body.

  Exhaustion hit me like a ton of manure. I lay on the bank and rested my head. A rustle at the top of the path to the pond would have normally jerked me awake, but I was so weary my head floated.

  Standing above me, a blurry girl in a white nightgown stared down on my nakedness.

  In an attempt to roll over and cover myself, I looked like a fish out of water.

  She turned, floated down the embankment, and stood over me.