A Girl Called Samson (12)

His nose wrinkled and his mouth twitched. He scratched at his cheek like he was trying to find the words. “Maybe not in the regular sense.”

“Not in any sense.”

“That’s not true, Deborah. You’re not pretty—”

“I’ve never tried to be,” I interrupted.

“I don’t say that to hurt you. I’m trying to explain.”

“I’m not hurt.” I would have been hurt had he lied to me and said that I was. I knew my worth was not in my looks.

“You’re not pretty,” he repeated. “But there’s something about you. And it makes a person take note. Something in your eyes. Ma has it too, though with her it’s because she knows and loves us so well. It’s something different with you. It’s like you’re daring a man to challenge you, to tell you no, or to take you on.”

“What has gotten into you, Nathaniel?” I asked, stunned. “First you’re mad, and now you’re going on about my looks. And why are you suddenly calling me Deborah?”

“That is your name,” he ground out, angry again. Nathaniel was wiry and slim, and not much taller than me, but he’d always held himself above me. Above us all. Perhaps it was his position in the family. He was twenty-three, yet he acted as old as the deacon, though his opinions weren’t always as predictable.

A shock of dark hair fell over his forehead, but he kept the back and sides shorter than the fashion, because he couldn’t stand the brush of it against his neck. Mrs. Thomas or I took the shears to his hair once a month and the blade to his cheeks every morning to keep his thick, black beard at bay.

He wore his responsibility as eldest well and often spoke for his brothers; I wasn’t surprised that he was speaking for them all now. I was simply stunned at the subject matter.

“I think we’re all a little bit in love with you. Or maybe it’s just admiration. But you could have your pick of the lot of us. David, Daniel, and Jeremiah are too young. Francis and Phineas are too, if you ask me, even though they’re both older than you.”

“Jacob is sweet on Margaret Huxley.”

“All right. Well maybe not Jacob,” he snapped. “But if you don’t decide which one of us you like, and soon, it’s going to cause problems between us. It already has.”

“It already has?” My head was spinning. Nat had lost his mind. “But you’re full grown . . . Why would you want me? I’m only fifteen.”

“Ma was sixteen when she married Pa. He was my age.”

“B-b-but . . . I’m b-b-bound until I’m eighteen.”

“I’m not asking you to go anywhere.”

“What are you asking me?”

He folded his arms and then unfolded them, like he wasn’t certain where to put them. Then his jaw hardened and he reached for me, his hands on my shoulders, like he was about to deliver some very bad news and wanted to hold me up.

Then he kissed me. It was just a firm press of his lips on mine, though I’d had no time to purse them or prepare at all.

“Nathaniel!” I was so surprised, he could have pushed me over with the straw still stuck in my hair. “You don’t even like me,” I whispered.

“Yes, I do.” His dark eyes flashed and he kissed me again, though his hands never left my shoulders.

His lips were dry and his cheeks were prickly, but it was not unpleasant. It was an odd sensation, his face so close to mine, feeling the tickle of his breath and seeing the spike of his lashes before I closed my eyes.

I wasn’t sure I liked it. I wasn’t sure I didn’t. But I did not kiss him back. I didn’t know how. Nathaniel may have taught me to shoot, but he gave no instruction now. He stepped back, his hands falling away, and I blinked at him in wonder.

“You can’t say it never occurred to you,” he said softly.

I shook my head. It had never occurred to me.

“I would have waited. But the world feels upside down. I’m out of time.”

“But . . . you have been like brothers to me. And none of you ever let on.”

“Sure we have. If you paid more attention to being what you are instead of trying to be what you aren’t, you’d have set your cap on one of us a long time ago.”

I didn’t much care for that assessment. “You really want me to choose?”

He studied me for a moment, and his eyes dropped to my mouth, considering. I wouldn’t have minded if he kissed me again, especially now that I was expecting it. It might help me decipher how I felt.

He picked a piece of straw out of my hair. “Yes. I want you to choose. I want you to choose me.”

The barn door squealed and Nat stepped back, well out of reach. There would be no more kisses and no more clarity.

“Nathaniel?” It was Mrs. Thomas, and her voice was sharp and her step quick. “Phineas says he’s leaving. Heading for Boston. He says you can’t stop him. Nobody can. What in heaven’s name happened?”

Nat sighed and I flushed, and he strode from the barn without explaining anything to his mother or me. Mrs. Thomas watched him go, but she didn’t follow him.

“War is coming,” Mrs. Thomas murmured, raising her eyes to mine.

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t certain whether she spoke of the country or the battle building in the house, and I was too shaken by Nathaniel’s declaration to focus on anything else.