Chapter 25
June 4, 1936
I have to see Samuel today. I wanted to wait until my bruising went away, but I fear he will leave soon, and I need to tell him how much his kiss meant to me…
When I arrived at the oak, he wasn’t there. My heart sank. Did he leave?
In my heart, I knew it was likely he had, and I was foolish to think someone would wait for me so long. But still, I followed the tracks to the abandoned house he slept in, hoping beyond reason he might have stayed. I hefted the bag of food, clothes, an extra blanket, and a bar of soap I’d brought for him.
The old, wooden porch steps and boards creaked beneath my feet. A wasp buzzed around the top of the doorway and I ran inside. The sound of the door squeaking on its hinges sent a shiver up my spine. I slammed the door shut, to keep the flying intruder out, then looked around.
An old fireplace rested in the far corner of the main room, covered in cobwebs and soot. A sofa, dusty and rat-chewed, sat crooked in the middle of the room, surrounded by more evidence of the pests that had feasted on it. A fat cockroach crawled up the wall near my head, and scattered pieces of newspaper and an old tin can covered the floor. I stepped deeper into the house, searching my surroundings. Of all the things I did see, I saw no sign of him. No clothes, no pencils, or drawing pad. Nothing. I dropped the sack, the contents spilling around my feet as my heart hammered.
He left without saying goodbye.
Forcing my feet to move, my legs heavy, I ran back outside, behind the house, and down toward the pond. He wasn’t there either. Nowhere. He was nowhere.
Panic attacked my chest as my lungs and stomach heaved. He left. I dropped to my knees in the grass and cried. For him. For me.
For us.
The one person who had ever shown me such care, such love, had vanished.
I sat there, my face in my hands, sobbing, my head aching all over again as it had the past several days.
A sudden, soft caress grazed my shoulder, and I jumped to my feet, spinning to find…
“Oh, Samuel!” I threw my arms around him. He hadn’t left me.
Joy overfilled me as the tears fell faster down my cheeks, and I squeezed with all my strength.
His warm embrace wrapped around me, and he kissed me until I grew dizzy.
When we pulled back, he gently took my face in his hands. His beautiful sea green eyes turned a stormy gray, and his jaw formed a rigid line as he studied me.
“Why?” He clenched his teeth. “Why did he hit you?”
He caressed my cheek with his long fingers, and I leaned into his palm. “Because I disobeyed,” I lied.
I would never tell him Papa hit me because I took the paper. I hadn’t known Samuel long, but our souls were connected. If I ever told him the real reason, he would surely think it was his fault. The truth was, I would steal the paper a thousand times over and suffer the same consequence if it allowed Samuel to do what he loved…because I loved him.
“Real men don’t hit women.” He moved his hands to my shoulders and lightly squeezed. “No matter how much land or wealth they have. Do you understand me, Myrtle?” Tears filled his eyes.
“Yes.” I cried.
“I would never hit you, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I repeated between sobs.
He pulled me into him, shoving the un-bruised side of my face into his chest. His arms wrapped tighter around me as we stood there and cried. Together.
“I love you, Myrtle,” he whispered. “I know it sounds crazy and seems rushed, but I do. I really love you.”
His confession reassured any doubt I had ever had about us, not that he had given me reason to doubt him or our love, but the cruel world that I lived in did.
“I love you, too,” I choked out as I clung to him.
Neither one of us had much family. Him by circumstance, and I by circumstance and choice, but our love, what we shared, was strong enough for anything.
Our mouths locked as he gently pulled me down to the ground. The sack that I had brought sat next to us. He must have picked it up from the house before he found me by the pond.
Samuel parted from our embrace and spread the blanket on the ground. I stretched out beside him, and together we lay, wrapped in each other’s arms under the clear blue sky. We didn’t say much. There was no need. We were two different stars on two different galaxies merging together as one infinite force.
Papa would never agree to us being together, but I wanted Samuel to know how much I loved him. I propped on my elbow and studied his features, his pointed nose, his wide jaw that matched his equally wide shoulders. I let my gaze travel down to his thin waist then back up as I leaned into him and placed a gentle kiss on his lips, a kiss that sealed us.
He wrapped his hands around me and pulled himself on top of me. He used his tongue to taste my lips, while his palm moved under my dress and up my leg. My heart raced as an equal, unexplainable ache began to course between my thighs. The higher he moved his hand, the more dire and pleasurable the ache became.
I didn’t stop him. I knew what he was doing, what we were about to do. I’d overheard Belle telling Lila what a wife was expected to do to her husband. While I wasn’t Samuel’s wife, I wanted to be his in every possible way I could be.
“I’ll be gentle, Myrtle. I promise.”
My skin tingled from his tender touch, and a burning sensation ran through my veins. I wanted him to touch me everywhere. “I know,” I said as I opened up for him…
Once we were done, a deep red stained the blanket.
“Are you all right?” He brushed his hand along my cheek. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” I kissed his hand. “I’ve missed you.”
“As I’ve missed you.” He stood. “Let’s get you cleaned off.”
Completely naked, we jumped in the pond and used the soap I brought.
I wanted to lay on that bloodstained blanket with Samuel and make love all day, but I knew we couldn’t.
After we dressed, he reached for his pad, the pencil in his hand furiously scratching the paper.
“What are you drawing?” I sat beside him, twirling a piece of grass in my fingers, the same way he did the first time we met.
“You,” he said.
A blush crept across my cheeks “Don’t you have enough pictures of me?”
“Never.”
His eyes took on an intense stare—his drawing stare. When he placed the world on paper, everything become so serious, as if he tried to capture the rotation of the earth by hand.
“Making love becomes you. If I had my way, we would make love every day, and every day I would draw you.” He stopped his hand and stared up at me, his voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve fallen in love with the most beautiful girl in the world.”
As I sat there, enjoying the afterglow of his touch on my skin, his eyes changed from a happy glow to a stormy gray. The same angered look from earlier.
“What’s wrong?” My voice shook, scared to know the answer. Fear engulfed me as he stared at my bruises, afraid he had just noticed how ugly I was.
“Your Papa should suffer for what he’s done to you.”
“He was drunk.” I looked away.
“That’s no excuse.” He placed his pad on the ground, grabbed my hand, and squeezed. “Please,” he begged just as much with his voice as his body. “Leave with me on the train for New York.”
“And what would we do when we got there? I want to leave Papa, but…”
“Take the ship with me to Paris. We can make a better life for ourselves there.”
Can we really do that? How would we?
“Neither one of us have tickets for the ship. I don’t know how we would ever make it to Paris, let alone make a better life once we got there.”
“Leave those details to me, Myrtle. I will take care of you. You believe me don’t you?” He stared with a wide, sad stare. A stare scared to hope for fear I would say no.
“I do, Samuel. I do. But if I leave with you and Papa catches us, he will kill you. It’s not safe.” And while I may have been too selfish to tell him to leave, I wasn’t selfish enough to let him put himself in that much danger…for me. Us running…together…the blow from the whiskey glass would be child’s play compared to what I would surely suffer.
He unclasped my hand and stood, pacing the ground beside us. “I’m not afraid of him.” He puffed out his chest like a man ready to defend his honor.
“You should be.” I stood. “I love you, Samuel, I do, and I wish we didn’t have to sneak around and hide, but the truth is…Papa will never agree for us to be together.”
“I know.” He raised his voice then stopped pacing as he ran his hand through his hair, his face contorting in frustration. “I know,” he repeated, his voice lower that time. “That’s why I didn’t come rescue you after I found out you were hurt. I don’t want to make things worse for you. Believe me, I don’t, but I want us to be together. Always. We have to run away. We can leave. Tonight.”
Escape, tonight, from Papa. All my sorrow could be over.
I chewed on my finger as I thought it over. The train would come just after dark. Belle, Jo, and Lila ran through my mind. I had to see my sister get married—if I ran away, I had no idea when I would get to see her again.
The plan seemed so thrilling, yet so rushed. I couldn’t leave, yet.
“No, not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“I want to see my sister get married before we leave, but if you wait for me, then I will go with you.”
“When is that?” A desperate, silent plea crossed his face.
“A month. The fourth of July.” I nodded, praying he would just give me a few more weeks. “I will sneak out of the house that night after the wedding.”
“Okay.” He nodded, then stepped closer, squeezing my arms with his giant hands. “I love you, Myrtle. I’ll take care of you.”
“I know.”
He kissed me soft and slow—a kiss of assurance and a future, and I ran back to the house with the promise of forever…
My virginity is now gone, and my life seems as if it is finally going to begin. My hand shakes as I write this, because I have prayed so hard for this day to come. A day I never thought possible. I have finally found someone who loves me. Someone who finds me as beautiful as the rest of the world thinks Lila is.
I just pray for the courage to follow through with his plan.
****
Much like her aunt, Lesley and John’s first kiss was on the stump of the old oak. The train tracks were just as good of a place as any for them to reconcile.
At least, that’s what she wrote in the letter; the letter that fit in her small palm, yet held the giant emotions that fluttered her heart.
The bakeshop’s bell chimed above her head as she entered. Emma stood behind the counter nursing a cup of coffee.
Lesley glanced around. No one else. Good. “Slow day?”
“For a change. I know I’m supposed to hate when business is slow, but every once in a while, it’s nice just to sit back and relax.” Her friend placed the mug on the counter and poured a fresh cup of coffee for her.
“Thank you.” She placed the envelope on the bar and took the mug.
Emma’s gaze racked from Lesley’s hair down to her eyes. Eyes she knew were puffy and swollen.
“You look like you need it.”
Did she ever. However, what she needed more than the jolt of caffeine was a shot of rum to mix with her coffee. Sure would have beaten the contents of the sugar packet she stirred inside the mug instead. Lesley held up her sober cup to salute. “I do. I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“I believe I know someone else who didn’t either.” Emma took a slow sip of coffee, watching Lesley over the rim before she placed the mug back on the counter. “So, what brings you in here today? I know you didn’t just come to pay me a social visit, or drink my fabulous coffee.”
Time to spill. And while Emma still played nice to her—she knew the sibling’s loyalties belonged to John. As they should, and it was her turn to prove her loyalties were in the same spot.
Lesley took a fortifying sip. “Am I that readable?”
“You look sad.”
Sad, worried, scared…all the horrible emotions a person could experience plagued her as if she was the star of some dramatic made-for-TV romance. Fitting, since she’d acted as dumb as one.
“Can you give something to John for me?”
“I could.” Emma nodded. “Or…you could just give it to him yourself.”
Easier said than done. The man hadn’t returned any correspondence with her since the day before. Even if she’d kept his prized toolbox hostage, she doubted he’d dare to cross her door to get it back, despite how fun crossing thresholds in their past had been.
“The thought entered my mind, but since he didn’t show up for work today, I’m guessing he might not want to see me.”
“I don’t think he doesn’t want to see you. He’s hurt. In his mind, you picked your ex over him.”
“I know I handled everything terribly, but I promise I didn’t pick Peter over John, and that’s why I think it’s best you give this to him.” She slid the letter across the counter.
Emma stared at the envelope. “I know you didn’t, Lesley. I overheard some of your conversations with Peter outside. I heard how persistent he was, and I’ll admit, at first, I was irritated with you, but then, I put myself in your shoes. Being married to someone, no matter how short or how long, is a big deal. I could see how you would be…”
“So stupid.” Might as well just state the facts.
The baker smiled and tilted her head to the side. “I was going to say confused.” She placed her palm on top of the note. “I’ll be happy to try and help. Because I love my brother, and I know, deep down, he loves you. I’m going over there when I close up the shop.” Emma slid the note into the pocket of her apron.
“Thanks. This means a lot to me. I guess I’ll see you around.” Lesley turned to leave. She reached for the door handle when Emma spoke up.
“My friend, Roxy, texted me. She said Peter checked out of the hotel. She also said Big Mike came to take the little sports car back.”
A wave of relief spread over her like a cool breeze. The man finally clued in. “Good.” She nodded. “You know…Peter…he wasn’t all bad. Before he cheated, he made me happy.”
“I figured there had to be some redeeming qualities in him for you to care for him so much.”
“But since I’ve moved here, my tastes in men and modes of transportation have changed. I like men who drive trucks better. And in fact, there is one I love.”
“You sure?” Emma arched an eyebrow.
“Positive.” She gave her friend a wink, turned, and bumped into Seth on her way out.
“I’m sorry, Lesley.” He stepped out of her way, taking the open door out of her hands.
“My fault.”
He waited for her to exit, giving her a warm smile. “Have a good day.” He waved as he stepped inside the bakeshop.
She glanced over her shoulder. “You, too.”
But his attention had already averted to the tall brunette standing behind the counter. Emma’s face lit up as her gaze locked on John’s best friend. Lesley had been forgotten.
The ball of anxiety that had sat in her stomach since Peter arrived grew, causing the stress headache she’d experienced the day before to return. She hoped John hadn’t forgotten her so easily, too.
All she could do now was wait.