Ever Bound Read online

  When she was sure no one was listening, she turned to me. She clutched her school supplies nervously to her chest, when all I wanted her to do was grab my hand, or both of them. It didn’t matter. “Will you please not report this to my father or the authorities? I think you scared Drew Cobb enough to keep him away for good.”

  I nodded.

  “He’ll just turn it around on me, and everyone will want to know why I was alone with him in the woods in the first place.” Her chest heaved as she smiled so brightly I almost couldn’t look at her.

  How could she still care? It had been so long.

  She kissed my cheek.

  I remained lifelessly still, staring into her eyes.

  In all the last few moment’s drama, I’d forgotten that Annabeth didn’t know the truth. Sure, she knew her sister, but she didn’t know exactly how bad things had gotten. She didn’t know that I’d been…

  I never in a million years imagined it’d be her I’d have to explain to.

  “Are you all right? Because all that back there—I know you were in a moment of stress and that you probably don’t feel that way about me. I mean. You don’t have to feel obligated—”

  Her big brown eyes widened as I grabbed her books from her hand and tossed them to the ground.

  Joy swelled inside me as I pulled her out of sight of anyone at either of our houses. I yanked her to me and looked into her eyes. I had to kiss her. It wasn’t just a need. It was for survival.

  My hands disobeyed all my moral principles as our lips collided. She had to know how I’d suffered watching her slip away into the clutches of someone who could never deserve her. The sweetness of her mouth disintegrated the world around me. Digging deep for integrity, I put space between us and caught my breath.

  God’s words transposed themselves from my Bible into my head. “It’s not good to touch a woman lest he take her for his wife.”

  I didn’t think her father would go for that without some very extensive pleading.

  This would be the most difficult thing I’d ever done in my life.

  “I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes. “I’m no better than Drew Cobb.”

  “Don’t ever say that. There’s not another man on this planet as good as you, Cole.” Even if it had agitated me in the past, she made me a new person, so a new name was only fitting.

  “Did you mean it?” With my forefinger, I tilted her head and drew her gaze into mine. I needed to know if her words of love were to stop me from committing the ultimate crime or if she really felt them.

  She was silent as she stared up at me. Her cheeks flushed and her hair fell from its updo.

  Had I done that? I quaked with happiness. Who cared? I was holding her. It was all that mattered.

  “What you told me in the forest? I don’t think I heard wrong.”

  She bit her lip and looked at my chest. “I mean, if that’s okay, I guess—”

  “Surely you aren’t asking my permission to love me?” I could have crushed her in a bear hug, but she was so fragile. The strong, indignant girl who turned my bones to mush and sent my blood boiling was so small compared to the world around her. I would give my last breath to protect her from it.

  “Cole Kinsley, would you mind terribly if I’ve fallen head over heels, foolishly, and quite blindly in love with you?” She met my gaze and slid her soft hand down my cheek.

  And I’d only thought I’d fallen for her in the forest. I had never truly loved until that moment.

  After her question, I remembered her sister. What she’d done. What she’d stolen from me and now from Annabeth.

  Annabeth deserved to know the truth. And when she learned the truth, she’d think I was lying.

  Nobody could use magical powers to bewitch a man into their arms. It was fairly easy to get most men into a woman’s seductive grip, so would Annabeth believe that I wasn’t like other men?

  After her sister pulled one of her wounded animal routines and convinced Annabeth I had in fact seduced Grace, Annabeth would hate me.

  How would I ever be able to let her go?

  Maybe after a few days, weeks, months, she would love me so much that when I did tell her, she’d believe me. She’d know enough about my true character that she’d know I’d never lie.

  “I don’t deserve you.” I cupped her cheek. “I could spend a lifetime staring into your eyes.”

  “I honestly thought you hated me for the longest time.” She linked her arms around my neck.

  “The way you yell at me all the time, I thought you hated me.” I pulled her as close as possible.

  She kissed my nose, but winced. “I’m a little sore. I think I was on top of a rock in the woods.”

  “I wish you’d let me kill him. I could make it where no one would ever find him.” I really could have and would have if the prospect of never seeing her again hadn’t been real.

  “You’re not that kind of man. I can’t help but notice how you are with the workers. You do their chores so they can spend time with their small children. You nurse sick animals back to health, and even if one is unfortunate enough to not make it through an illness, you shed tears. Don’t be mad. That house is terribly boring. I have to have something to focus on. Who better than a perfect person to watch from the shadows. You love life. And now…”

  “And now I love you. I do. I couldn’t say that a few days ago. I felt it, but every time I considered it, I think I broke everything I touched.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought you would never have me.”

  “Now, I’ll never let you go.”

  It was a girly thing to have your legs turn to mush, but she held me up. I couldn’t have stood if she hadn’t had her arms around me. I almost got my rear full of thorns leaning back on the wall, but she jarred me back to reality.

  “If we’re going to be smart about this, we have to be more careful. We can’t be out in the middle of the yard like this.” She pulled from my embrace.

  I grabbed at her arms and playfully brought her back to me. “I thought you were never going to let me go.”

  She slapped at my arms and giggled. “You know what I meant. I have to get to the house before anyone suspects anything. We’re going to have to hide for a while.” She kissed my lips, jerked sideways away from my teasing hands, and dashed toward her house.

  Chapter 6

  As soon as I walked in the door of my house and put my books down, Pop asked me to go to the main house to work on the rose maze. Any other day, my pulse wouldn’t have quickened, but the thought of being near Annabeth’s dwelling with good cause was exhilarating. A little too quickly, I obliged and went out the door.

  With a long pair of scissors from the barn, I cut back stray roses.

  It was so hot that I had to flee my shirt. It was soaked with perspiration and made me itch.

  “Cole.” A young lady’s voice but not the right one.

  Despite the heat, a chill broke out on my body.

  “Will you please meet with me at the pond this evening?” Grace said.

  “I can’t. You should be inside. Resting.” Without making eye contact, I continued my work. How dare she ask me to meet her? Much less at that godforsaken hole in the ground. I had a great weapon in my hand. I could have—

  “I really need someone to talk to.” Grace clutched her skirts and dropped them beside me as her hand reached for my arm.

  “I’m pretty sure you ruined your chances of talking to me when you put something in my food and tore my virtue away from me.” I backed away from the roses. The maze didn’t deserve my wrath. The piece of art was too beautiful for me to be near when I was angry.

  Her skirts rustled in angry swishes as she fled. The door to the main house slammed.

  * * * *

  That night, oddly, the Rollins invited our family to dinner at the main house.

  In the dining room, seated around the table were my mother, my father, Mr. Rollin
s, Mrs. Rollins and Mrs. Rollins’s sister. She and her daughter had come for a visit.

  I was glad for the distraction because this had already turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable evenings of my life. I would be in the room with Annabeth and Grace at the same time.

  I couldn’t turn down the Rollinses, nor could I hide under my bed. I would have preferred counting cracks in the floorboards to sweating profusely in my Sunday best while under the speculation of Annabeth’s whole family.

  “Well, don’t you look lovely,” Mrs. Rollins said to one of her girls. Up till then, neither had entered the dining hall, and the long table was almost full of the guests and family members. China clinked, napkins rustled, and the servants rattled pans in the kitchen as they prepared to enter with the food.

  I was afraid to look up to see to whom the rustling of skirts belonged. It was a fifty-fifty chance. I looked up.

  Good thing I wasn’t a gambler.

  “Thank you, Mama.” It was Grace in a big, fancy, red dress. Her cheeks were smudged with a bit of rouge and her lips matched the dress in color. She would have been alluring if she hadn’t been the spawn of Satan.

  It was time to face my demons, or demon in this case. I said, a bit stiffly, “Yes, you do look nice.”

  Grace tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Following her were Grace’s cousins. She didn’t bother to introduce us as they took places across the table, a few settings down.

  The rich people at the table were dressed in the finest of frilly dresses and pressed suit coats with scarves tied around their necks, as if they were headed to some big ball.

  Pop’s Sunday’s finest paled in comparison to Mr. Rollins’s, but he fit right in. With his napkin on his lap and his elbows off the table, he was in a deep political conversation with the master of the house as if he never had been a farm hand.

  To my dismay, Grace had taken the place setting directly in front of me. She jerked her napkin open and slapped it into her lap.

  Annabeth entered the room. As she kissed her aunt and her cousins, she took up all the oxygen in the whole house.

  My chest swelled with admiration and awe. Every time I saw her, she grew more beautiful.

  Grace glared at me as I stared past her.

  Annabeth’s dress was purple and black. Without a bit of makeup, her skin glowed and her pink lips looked as if I’d just kissed them. Her dipping neckline was that much more troubling.

  As gentlemanly as I’d fooled her into thinking I was, it wasn’t the embroidery and beaded designs my eyes were glued to.

  She nodded to me and smiled.

  I tried to appear unmoved as Annabeth took the place setting between Grace and her oldest cousin.

  She was a year or two older than Grace with hair the color of straw pulled away from her face and higher cheek bones than either of the Rollins sisters.

  “Olivia, you remember Colby.” Annabeth placed her hand on her cousin’s arm.

  “Hello.” My pulse sounded like trampling horses in my ears at the mere sound of Annabeth’s voice.

  “I remember. He was a boy the last time we met.” Olivia took an inventory of me.

  Annabeth grinned.

  I was so used to being blamed, with a mere look from Grace, for any attention I received from other girls that sweat broke out on my forehead.

  “You should get acquainted,” Annabeth said with a mischievous smile. What was she trying to do? Get me in more trouble with yet another of the Rollins women? She had no idea how deep I was already sinking.

  Olivia raised an eyebrow as if she might consider it. “You have grown into a fine young man.”

  Translated, she wanted to get me down to the pond too.

  If Annabeth hadn’t been two people down, I might have given her a friendly little what-the-heck-are-you-trying-to-get-me-into kick.

  Annabeth gave me a wink.

  Grace clanked her fork loudly on her plate and huffed. “You just can’t stop flirting.”

  Mrs. Rollins cleared her throat meaningfully. “Remember your manners.”

  Annabeth ducked her head with a grin, primly folded her napkin, and delicately laid it on her lap.

  Mr. Rollins glanced down the table and smiled at me as if we shared some secret.

  I nodded in return.

  A few seconds later, he did it again, then returned his attention to his wife and Mama as they talked about some sewing technique.

  With my hands on either knee under the table, I waited for my legs to stop shaking. I eyed the door. I could dart out of it, feigning illness.

  The smells from the kitchen were too enticing to pass up after the long day I’d had at the maze, so I decided to stay.

  When the cook brought in the food, we all started in on dinner. I ate a few bites but ended up rearranging the rest of it at least fourteen times.

  “Colby, you aren’t eating,” Mama said. She put her napkin down.

  I’d be forty-seven, and I’d still be her baby.

  “The heat. I’ll be fine.” I forced another bite but almost couldn’t swallow.

  Annabeth’s concerned gaze silently questioned me.

  “On that note, Colby, you’ll be glad to know”—Mr. Rollins stood, the sharp points of his collar giving his chins some relief. He lifted his glass—“you might not have to sweat the days away on the property if you play your cards right. Miss Peachtree has contacted me about your schooling. She and I are both in agreement that you are one of the brightest students she’s ever taught and that you need to spend your time not in the heat, wasting away like the other workers, but in putting your talents to use. For that reason, I am willing to offer you schooling in whatever field you’d like. I have spoken with an architect friend of mine who would love nothing better than to take you under his wing. Your father has voiced that you can’t leave to go to school, so I will hire the best architect to tutor you in the field if you so desire. You deserve this. You’ve worked hard.”

  I looked to Pop.

  He dipped his head and stared at the place setting in front of him.

  Was I supposed to be happy about this? It was already obvious that we weren’t part of the family and that we were poor, lowly farmhands just by the derelict condition of our clothes.

  Did Mr. Rollins really have to point it out in front of everyone that we didn’t have enough money to send me to a good school?

  I really wanted to crawl under something now. All I could muster was, “Thank you, Sir.”

  “And that would give you the perfect social standing to have your choice in the local ladies.” Grace took a bite of green beans, sliding her lips over the shaft of one.

  “Grace.” Mrs. Rollins turned a glare on her daughter, then back to her husband. “Charles, I think maybe this is a subject we should speak with the Kinsley’s about at a later date. But it’s a kind offer.”

  Charles waved his glass and wobbled. “I’m sure they’d be pleased to see their son doing more than hauling manure.”

  I almost choked.

  “And it would give him the opportunity to court ladies with a much higher social standing. After such a generous offer, it’d be in his best interest to choose wisely.” Grace chopped the green bean in half with her teeth.

  “That’s a kind offer, Mr. Rollins. One I’ll take into consideration.” I stood and slid my chair under the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to turn in early.”

  “I can’t believe you.” Mrs. Rollins gripped Grace’s arm with a gloved hand. “I’m sorry, everyone. Grace hasn’t been quite herself lately. And Charles just gets a little excited when it comes to education.”

  Forks clinked and glasses tinkled as they were placed on the table. Once again, Grace had made a spectacle of herself, and this time had done a wonderful job of pulling me into it.

  Annabeth stared straight ahead as I rounded the table and made my way to the door.

&nbs
p; Mrs. Rollins’s long earrings dangled as she jerked her head toward me. “I’m so sorry, Colby. We’ll talk soon.” She regarded the dinner party. “If you’ll excuse us for a few moments, I’m going to settle Grace into her room for the evening. I’ll return as soon as possible. Carry on with dinner.”

  I slipped into the hallway and leaned against the cool stone walls. I’d never been so embarrassed.

  Mr. Rollins wobbled toward me, his stomach making him front heavy. “My intentions were to honor your hard work. Not to embarrass you. After a few drinks, I forget myself from time to time. And Grace just says what she’s thinking without…thinking. I’ll admit I’d hoped if you were molded into a gentleman, you might decide to marry her. She’s told me of your affections.”

  I almost lost what little dinner I’d been able to eat on his shiny shoes.

  “With all due respect, sir, I don’t have any sort of affections for Grace. Your offer is kind, but I can’t accept.” I left him standing there, not caring if he fired me.

  Grace Rollins would never have me.

  I would run away with Annabeth on my arm if I had to.

  Afraid my legs wouldn’t carry me to the cottage, I waited for use of them again beside the patio door facing the rose maze. The fountain splashed in lulling tones and eased my nausea.

  Holding her skirts as if she were prepared to run, Annabeth rushed out the back door. She scanned the property.

  I took a minute to gaze on her as she scanned the yard. She was too beautiful to be true. Would we ever be together? Would her family allow it?

  Her mother seemed to be the only one with decency. Maybe she’d see my love for Annabeth and allow me to prove I was good enough.

  I clasped my hands around her waist, covered her arms with mine, and brought my lips to her cheek.

  Annabeth gasped, then rested her weight against me. “Please don’t leave. I’m so sorry. My family is crazy.”

  “It’s not your fault. I have to warn you, though. Your sister is going to try anything she can to come between us when she learns of my devotion to you. I’ve never been scared of anything, but I’m terrified of that day. She has your father uncommonly wrapped around her finger.”