17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

A far calmer Isa trotted up Sol's driveway just as the hot-pink sun set over the Hereford pasture, washing everything in a romantic glow. Sol and Poppy's whimsical white house was cast in a rose hue, and Isa's stomach dropped at seeing another wagon parked beside Sol's in the yard.

Junior had returned with his brother's family in tow.

Two dining tables stood end to end between the tree and the cozy front porch. The children played on the rope swing while the men hung lanterns on hooks along porch eaves. A dark-haired woman busily set the table. Ben, Junior's older brother, surreptitiously patted the brunette woman's bottom as she walked by. She glanced back at him playfully, mouthing something. Lucy. Junior's sister-in-law was lovely, inside and out.

She was also observant. Isa's teeth clenched together. If something was wrong, Lucy would be the first to notice and drag Isa into a room to spill her secrets.

Hog loped to her, jowls flapping, tail wagging. Poppy saw this and waved from her rocking chair in a porch corner, baby Agatha at her breast.

Isa considered rebuffing the greeting. Instead, she raised a hand, her features smooth and posture relaxed. The decision not to confront her brother's wife was sound. Poppy had just given birth and was gracious and caring, and any withholding of information was most assuredly made with good intentions.

Ben and Lucy's three boys, aged seven to eleven, walked cautiously toward Mirage with their mouths agape. Living on a ranch where their father bred quarter horses, they knew a quality horse when they saw one. Seeing the awe in their eyes made an honest smile spread across her face.

"You may want to stay back," she warned them, dismounting. "I'm not entirely certain how she feels about children."

"I can get a sugar cube from Aunt Poppy's kitchen," offered the middle boy, Samuel. He had riotous brown curls and mischievous hazel eyes.

"Here. Try these." Isa reached into her saddlebag and brought out a handful of sweetened grain compacted into little biscuits. "You know how to hold your hand?"

Samuel rolled his eyes and took the biscuit without deigning to comment.

The oldest boy, Matthew, said solemnly, "Yes, ma'am." He was his father's mirror image with heavily lashed blue eyes and hair black as a raven's wing.

"And you?" Isa asked the youngest boy sternly.

"Yes'm." Lucy's last child had a shock of nearly white hair and vivid cerulean eyes. He was always smiling, even when he got into trouble. Which was often. Isa wondered if Junior had been like little Jack as a boy.

"Wonderful." She dropped a biscuit into Jack's hand, which remained properly flat and still.

Mirage took the treats with gentle, nibbling lips, her ears perked forward and her stance friendly. When she licked each hand for crumbs, the boys laughed. At the swing, Timothy and Ally shouted and began running in their direction.

"Don't run at horses, you'll scare 'em that way," Samuel shot over his shoulder.

"I'll get 'em," Matthew said calmly. He rounded up the two excited children and held their hands. Then he showed them how to hold the treats so they didn't get their fingers bitten. Ally looked scared at that and decided not to feed the horse after all. Isa chuckled and picked her up. The child was light as a feather.

"Here, you can sit on her." Glancing at the other children, Isa asked, "Would you like to accompany me and put Mirage up for the night? I'll show you the best places to scratch her."

Together, the five of them walked beside the horse, chattering and telling stories, with little Ally perched proudly up top. Isa was grateful for this disruption from her twisting, calamitous thoughts. She took her time showing the children the steps to get Mirage bedded down for the night. By the time the spoiled horse was curried, fed, and watered, the little lean-to stable was filled with eerie, opaque shadows. Timothy and Ally clung to Isa's riding skirts while Samuel told spooky stories.

"Samuel, if you keep on this way, the younger children will never go to sleep," Isa chastised, dismayed that, as the only adult around, she had to take on the uncomfortable responsibility of reprimanding another person's child. Typically, it was she who got into trouble for instigating mischief with the cousins.

"I ain't scared," Timothy said. That bravado was immediately snuffed when a shadow moved in the corner of an empty stable.

Narrowing her eyes, Isa pushed the children behind her and walked forward. It could just be a barn cat stalking one of the rats that was after horse grain.

A hulking figure with a burlap sack for a head exploded out of the dark corner, and all the children screamed. Isa's throat closed up; she reflexively balled her fist and slugged one of the cutout eyeholes. Ally began to cry.

"Ow, shit!" cried a masculine voice, muffled by the burlap sack. "Why'd you do that?"

Junior!

"Because you deserved it!" Isa shouted, pushing his shoulders for good measure. He stumbled backward, holding his face and laughing. "Come, children. Let's tell your mothers what mean old Uncle Junior did to you." She plucked a sniffling Ally up and marched out of the stable.

"Aw, come on. I was just playin'!" Junior called after them, pulling the sack from his head to touch his left eye.

The other adults peered up at the hullabaloo in the well-lit front yard. Isa stopped the children halfway to their parents. With Ally still on her hip, Isa crouched to their level and whispered, "What do you say you and I get back at Uncle Junior?"

Five pairs of eyes gleamed, especially Samuel's and Jack's, and they all gathered in to listen to her plan.

SOL WAS SOON privy to the prank Isa and the children were cooking up, and he'd supplied a length of rope, and red and yellow paint. Sol was keeping Junior busy while Isa and the young ones huddled around the rope in the weak light of the kitchen window. Lucy and Poppy checked on them occasionally, smiling benignly at their secretiveness. Finally, the huddle broke, and the children skipped, giggling, to their positions.

Isa, gingerly holding the painted rope in her hands, scampered behind the outhouse. It was absent of any light, and her breath streamed from her mouth in white gusts from the dropping temperature. In the recesses of her mind, inflamed emotions threatened to rupture. Every cousin of anger and betrayal was a finger's breadth away from escaping. Part of her wished to give the emotions free rein. She'd drop the sticky rope, stomp over to Junior, call him a liar and a dozen other names, and disappear from Dogwood without another word.

A greater, more rational part of her knew such antics were melodramatic and beneath her. She'd be apart from her family for months—possibly a year—while she toured Europe. Why should one no-good, lying snake take time with family away from her?

"Yeah, I must've left it in the outhouse," came Sol's faint voice from the front of the house.

Isa straightened in readiness, holding her steaming breath in.

"Don't know why the hell you'd do that," Junior muttered from a yard away. Lantern light undulated across the grass, and his footsteps paused. "What are you youngsters up to?"

Ally giggled nervously. Isa bit her lip. Then Samuel saved the day. "We're playin' hide and seek."

"Well, you're not doin' a very good job standing out in the open like that," Junior snorted.

"It's Jack's turn. He runs slow as a turtle in mud." The lies slid so easily from Samuel's lips that Isa felt a stab of sympathy for his mother.

Junior's footsteps continued. Light illuminated the outhouse. Isa tucked her body even tighter along its back, the tacky rope dangling in her hands. As soon as the door shut behind Junior, Isa burst into action. Just off the path, she furtively laid the rope along the grass, manipulating it until it looked coiled and ready to strike. After shushing the children, who held their sides in silent laughter, Isa scurried back into position. Muttering could be heard in the outhouse—whatever fool's errand Sol had sent Junior on had proved to be fruitless.

When the outhouse door swung open, Isa jumped out and screamed, "Snake!"

Junior, who hadn't taken more than one step, saw the painted red and yellow rope and cursed. The lantern dropped, and everything was doused in darkness. The children screamed with laughter. It was common knowledge that both Stone men were deathly afraid of snakes, and a trickle of satisfaction soothed some hurting part in Isa.

"Let that be a lesson to you," she said in the darkness.

She turned on her heel toward the well pump, intending to wash her hands before her fingers were stained forevermore with paint. Two strong, vise-like arms wrapped around her.

"You're gonna pay for that," a voice growled in her ear, the humid warmth sending gooseflesh down her arms and spine.

"Get off," she grunted, attempting to flip Junior from her person. It only managed to bring him flush against her back. In the protection of darkness, he nuzzled her neck. Then he bit it gently and forced her to her knees. Her physical response to this was instantaneous and wholly unwelcome, and she gasped inaudibly with want and hate. In a last effort to keep her dignity, Isa screeched, "Children…get him!"

One child—likely Samuel—made a war cry and pounced onto Junior's back like he would a bucking bronco. Isa was soon lost in the bottom of the dogpile while Junior screamed with contrived shrillness, trying to protect his head and face. A fresh lantern brought visibility back, and Sol, Lucy, and the others guffawed nearby. Isa had just managed to wriggle her way from the bottom of the pile, breathing hard with the effort, when a broad hand grabbed her ankle. Oh, no . She twisted her head to find Junior's gleaming blue eyes and face screwed up with the effort of holding her between breaks in the writhing bodies around him.

"Get. Back. Here." With inexorable strength, he slowly dragged her to him.

Weakened from the absurdness of it, Isa gave in…and laughed.

LUCY FILLED AN enormous platter with fried deer meat while Isa vigorously mashed potatoes with red-stained hands. No amount of washing could get the blasted paint off. She stoically accepted the good-natured ribbing of being caught "red-handed."

"Careful, you'll make glue," Lucy teased from the wood stove.

Isa paused thoughtfully. "Does Poppy have glue?"

From the hallway, Sol called, "Do not give her glue, shug."

"I hid it away when she and Junior arrived," Poppy replied from the worktable. She cut thick squares of cornbread and placed them in a gingham-lined basket.

"That's a shame," Isa sighed, smacking the wooden masher on the side of the bowl. Wiping her hands on a borrowed apron, she leaned into the hallway to speak to Sol. To her consternation, her brother had disappeared, and Junior was walking in. Hiding her dismay at being face-to-face with him, she asked, "Why don't you make yourself useful and bring all this food to the table?"

Mussed and grass-stained from his romp outside, Junior looked up from wiping his boots on the rug. "What makes you think I'd do anything for you?"

"Do it for Lucy."

"What makes you think I'd do it for her?"

His eyes sparkled at her.

She wanted to poke them out.

"Hey," Lucy said from the stove.

"Then do it for Poppy," Isa said through her teeth.

"Well, why didn't you just say so?" Junior edged past her into the kitchen, tugging her braid as he went. She knocked his hand away, and he laughed from deep in his chest. Poppy and Lucy smiled secretly at each other, and Isa peeled her attention from his broad back, seething. Hating.

On a return trip for more food, he whispered in her ear, "Have you told your family your New Year's plans?"

She didn't act coy. "No. I haven't."

"Why not?"

"It's hard." Her words were clipped.

"You'll have to tell them at some point. Secrets aren't good in a family."

"You're one to talk," Isa snapped. When he turned wary eyes on her, reminiscent of a wounded puppy, she grabbed a pitcher of water and escaped through the hall.

Supper was a fun outdoor affair despite the chill; the children were bundled up at one end of the table, the adults in flannels at the other. Lucy, Sol, and Junior shouted to hear one another over the din of childish laughter. Even the laconic Ben cracked wide smiles, his gold tooth glinting. Isa had a hard time finding her appetite and pushed her corn cob around in its coagulating pool of butter, forcing her rigid facial muscles into smiles at the appropriate times. Across from her, Poppy glanced at Isa often but was thankfully distracted into cutting Autumn's meat into small bites.

Isa strictly ignored Junior, whose laughter tapered off the more he looked in her direction.

Stop looking at me! she wanted to shout but stifled the impulse. College had taught her that women who threw tantrums were viewed as hysterical. Something to be laughed at. A woman ruled by her emotions was not a human capable of sophisticated beliefs and opinions of her own.

She took a sip of her warm apple cider and fed Hog from beneath the table.

During a lull in the conversation, Lucy asked from Isa's immediate right, "Isa, are you attending the Fall Dance this Saturday?"

Isa caught Junior straightening in his seat from her periphery. "I suppose."

Undeterred by this lackluster answer, Lucy pushed forward. "Would you like to ride with us? We can escort you since Sol is staying home with Poppy and the new baby."

Junior set his cutlery down. "I'm taking her."

Isa's mouth moved before she could stop it. "And have me on one arm and your fiancée on the other? I think not."

Sol and Ben were in the middle of a conversation and didn't seem to have noticed the hush that fell over the table. Poppy and Lucy looked at each other again, driving Isa to distraction. They both knew . They had known, and not once had they notified Isa in any of the letters they'd sent. Feelings of betrayal grew and tripled in size, whetting the razor edge of Isa's tongue.

Junior's jaw had turned granite-hard. "What are you talking about?"

"I believe she's speaking of Kristy Anne," Lucy piped in, cutting into her fried deer steak.

"Or have you forgotten her?" Isa asked, stabbing a piece of meat and shoving it into her mouth. She rudely spoke around it. "You're probably not around enough to recall. I suppose she escaped your mind."

"Who?" Sol had finally noticed the dissension among the others.

Poppy, normally the peacemaker, said quietly, accusingly, "Kristy Anne. Junior's intended."

Ben shifted in his seat on the other side of Lucy. Isa set her chin on her hand, indicating an innocent interest in this turn of conversation.

"Hell, you're still walkin' out with that one? I thought she was just some skirt—er, lady —your ma shoved under your nose this summer." Sol winced apologetically at his wife.

"She is," Junior gritted out, staring holes into Isa's face.

Isa suppressed a derisive snort.

"And," he continued, "I haven't seen or talked to her since. She didn't take the hint to drop whatever intention she had with me. I don't plan on marrying."

"That's not what she and your mama are telling everyone who will listen," Lucy argued.

"I haven't been home to stop them, have I?" His tone grew steadily angrier.

Recklessly, Isa leaned back in her chair to peer around Lucy's trim back. "What about you, Ben? How do you like Miss Kristy Anne?"

Out of all of them, Ben was the most soft-spoken. But he was always honest. And it was honesty Isa wanted most of all. Scratching the back of his neck, Ben sighed. "I don't rightly know her. I've never even seen Junior spark her. Pa's wife gets matchmakin' notions in her head and can be a force to reckon with if she doesn't get her way."

"Kristy Anne sparks my mother and father more than she ever has me," Junior snapped, his hands fisted on the table.

Sol laughed at this.

"What's she like?" Isa asked, fluttering her lashes. "Ma says she's from good stock. Pretty. Social connections. Has supper with your parents every weekend."

"I wouldn't know." Junior's eyes warned her not to continue, which she blatantly overlooked.

"I highly doubt your mother and father would accept her if she wasn't at least obscenely rich," Isa said, laughing as if he were being very silly. Only the children were talking; all the adults were silent. All except Sol, who groaned.

"Isa, that ain't a nice thing to say—"

"No, let her say it. It's true," Junior interrupted. He gulped his water without meeting anyone's eye.

Ben looked uncomfortable.

Poppy cleared her throat. "Isa, have you a dress for the dance?"

Isa shrugged. "Mrs. Hobb said Franny will fix one up for me."

Lucy, who had glared at Junior for the last five minutes, pointedly turned in her chair to face Isa. "I have a red one that may fit you. The hemline is far too long on me."

"Red is for hussies," Junior said, scowling at Lucy's profile.

"A subject of which you're an authority," Isa shot back. "I'd love to wear your red dress, Lucy. It could make a statement. I wonder if Gareth Glen will attend."

"Gareth—that fellow we caught you kissin' a few years back?" Sol asked. "He's the deputy in Dogwood. What do you want him for?"

"A dance partner." Isa's smile was all teeth. "Is he married? Or engaged ?" She refused to look at Junior.

"Neither, but you don't need to be messin' around with him, Isadora." Sol wagged a finger at her. "Now that you're home, we don't need any scandals."

"Since when is dancing with a man in a public place a scandal?" Isa laughed scornfully.

Junior stood stiffly from his seat and dropped his napkin on his empty plate. "Supper was good Lucy. Poppy. I think I'm gonna go get Champ ready to head home."

"Oh, but you can stay the night," Poppy fretted.

"I won't put you out. It's been a while since I've been to the house. I need to check on some things." Junior kissed Poppy's cheek, shook Sol's hand, and clapped Ben's back. He didn't spare Lucy or Isa another glance.

Good. Go home and sulk.

"Look at him leaving without even offering to help clean up," Lucy muttered.

"Luce," Ben said lowly, frowning at Junior's departing figure. Lucy wrinkled her nose but quietened.

The rest of supper was subdued, and Isa returned her attention to her cold cob of corn. Agatha fussed in her basket, so Sol picked her up, kissing the crown of her head. "Come here, Carrot Top."

When the children began to rub their eyes, the men tended to their yawning offspring while the women quietly brought plates and platters into the kitchen. Lucy and Isa scraped plates over a slop bucket, the silence between them suffocating. Lucy opened her mouth several times, then stopped herself. Her dark, winged brows were set in a worried line over her eyes.

Finally, Lucy began, "Isa, I'm sorry we didn't—"

"It's fine," Isa interrupted evenly.

Lucy shook her head. "It isn't. He comes home sparking you while the rest of the town thinks he's engaged to be married to that—that woman. Junior's mother even put it in the paper!"

Isa's nostrils flared, but she held her tongue.

"But that's just like his mother. She's a termagant. I've not so much as heard him speak Kristy Anne's name—"

"And if I have to hear it again, I shall scream." It came out sharper than Isa intended. Lucy's lips parted in shock, and her dark eyes were wide upon Isa, who had never used anything but a level tone with her before. Dropping the jocundity, Isa whirled and whispered, "Why didn't you or Poppy ever say anything? We wrote dozens of letters to each other. Surely, you'd have found some opportunity to mention it."

From the dry sink, Poppy looked close to tears.

Lucy licked her lips, considering her words carefully. "Did something happen between you and Junior on the way home?"

"No." It came out hotly. Angrily. Isa could tell that neither woman believed her. "I'm just upset that you and Poppy handle me with kid gloves and treat me as though I cannot take… news . I hate being played the fool. I had a schoolgirl affection for him years ago, but I've moved on. What I don't understand is why the two of you can't."

"Oh, Isa. We're dreadfully sorry," Poppy whispered, her mouth turned down, her blue eyes swimming with compassion.

Feeling inexplicably hunted—and worse, embarrassed—Isa rubbed her eyes, worsening their irritated state. "I'm sorry, too. I just—I hate not knowing things. Being withheld information is a trial for me. And it shouldn't matter, anyway. It doesn't matter." But she couldn't speak further. Humiliation sealed her larynx with a horrible squeak, and rather than have her two best friends witness her loss of control, Isa squeezed past Lucy to speedily exit the kitchen. Nodding blindly at Ben and Sol, who were surrounded by the children in the parlor, Isa ascended the stairs toward the sanctity of her room.

"LEGS? YOU AWAKE?"

Sol's voice through the door was both welcome and infuriating. Isa watched her reflection in the tiny vanity's mirror. In her hands she twisted a tortoiseshell comb, glinting amber and gold.

"Yes, come in." Isa ran the comb through her hair, relishing every snag and snarl.

Sol slid in and shut the door gently behind him so as not to wake up the little ones. His tall presence was odd in her narrow childhood bedroom. He perched his narrow rear on the edge of her bed, watching her with a bemused expression. "I've seen you comb horse tails with a gentler hand than that."

"That is because they get fractious if you're rough."

"You're lookin' a mite fractious yourself, if you don't mind my saying."

"I do mind."

They made eye contact through the mirror, and his face sobered.

"You and Junior havin' a tiff?"

Isa returned her attention to her reflection. "We're always fighting. It's nothing new."

"He hasn't…"

The pause was so unnerved that Isa whirled on her backless stool. "Hasn't what?"

Sol shifted on her bed. "Hell, I don't know. He hasn't bothered you more than normal, has he? I know y'all spent an awful lot of time together during the trip here."

Never having enjoyed lying to Sol, Isa struggled to appear unaffected. "Of course not. He's like a brother to me. A particularly irksome one."

"Alright, don't fuss. I was just making sure no one was messing with my baby sister."

Isa wrinkled her nose, set her comb down, and reluctantly approached Sol for a one-armed hug. His long, lean arms wrapped tight around her. He ruined the moment the next instant by rubbing his knuckles against the part in her hair.

"Sol!" Hating that form of sibling torture more than anything, she pinched the skin over his ribs until he released her.

"Uncle!" he gasped dramatically, falling away. His broad, white grin drooped a little as he stood to leave. "You can always talk to me, you know."

"I know." The guilt of lying ate her alive. She swallowed past the discomfort.

"And if Junior—or any other man—tries to bother you, all you gotta do is tell me."

She lifted a brow. "What will you do? Committing a murder is a hangable offense. Not to mention, Ben will never speak to you again."

"I wouldn't kill anyone," Sol said blithely from the doorway. A promise lingered in his teasing hazel eyes. "But they'd damned sure wish they were dead."