Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(74)

“Woman stuff,” Sam informed me.

“I have to leave for work in an hour.”

My brother’s face flashed surprise, quickly shuttered. “Oh. Right.” Churchwomen didn’t work out of the home. Cultural bombshell—I did. But neither of us said any of that. “I heard about the rainbow wig,” Sam said teasingly, his expression so much like the young boy he had been that I laughed and shook my head.

“Ben told you.”

“Ben told everybody. I’ll pick her up in sixty minutes.” He slipped out the door and closed it.

“Grilled cheese okay?” I asked my sister.

“And somathat lemony tea, if’n you’un got any?”

I remembered the cramps of my first cycle. Mud must be hurting. “My feminine relief mixture coming up. Lemon, ginger, and maybe some fennel this time?”

Mud shrugged and snuggled deeper, the cats walking over her, investigating. Jessie curled on Mud’s shoulder, purring. Cello, the scaredy-cat, crawled under the afghan, peeking out. Torquil leaped to the kitchen cabinet and sat, staring at me, her black head looking like she wore a helmet—Thor’s helmet, for which she was named.

I put butter in the skillet and started the sandwiches, heated water in the microwave, and ladled up some stew into bowls. I spooned my honey lemon preserves into the new infuser cup, then added a small spoonful of fennel seed, some dried black cohosh, dried raspberry leaf, and some black tea. When the microwave dinged, I poured boiling water over the mixture and brought a tray with tea and stew to the table.

Mud had pulled the afghan up to her cheeks and was watching me over the edge. The silence between us had grown but was still somehow comfortable. “I don’t like being a woman grown.”

“Oh?” I put her stew bowl, teacup, and the infuser near her.

“Brother Aden come by this morning. He said he was there to take breakfast with Daddy, but he was there to look me over. Gossip says, his son Larry is looking for a second wife. Gossip says, Brother Aden wants you’un to marry Ben and me to be affianced to his second son, Larry, Mary’s boy, to cement relations in the Nicholson faction.”

I went cold and still, even as a heated rage flushed through me. Brother Aden was a church elder and Ben’s daddy, and had been a family friend for years. He was older than the hills, and he was important in church hierarchy. Usually he was a progressive sort of man, though he did have two wives of his own, Sister Mary and Sister Erasmus. And Larry had one wife already. Voice steady, I asked, “What do the Nicholson womenfolk say about the gossip?”

“Mama asked me what I thought about Larry. I told her’un he smells like gun oil and spent ammunition. I told her’un I ain’t interested in getting married. She said, ‘Pshaw. All women want to get married. Even Nell. She likes Ben.’” Mud cocked her head at me. “You getting married to Ben? ’Cause if’n you are, I’d rather be Ben’s second wife than Larry’s. We’uns could all live here and be a family together.”

To hide my shock, I spun to the stove and flipped the sandwich. My hands were cold and shaking. I added a log to the firebox and adjusted the dampers to create a faster-burning fire. I turned on the overhead fans to distribute the heat. Keeping busy so I didn’t say any of the awful things that I wanted to.

“You’un’er thinkin’, ain’tcha?”

Face blank, I nodded slowly.

“You’un’s mad, ain’tcha?”

I nodded, the motion jerky. I moved the hot skillet off the hottest part of the stove and put the sandwiches on pretty plates, with roses around the edges. Wiped the skillet. Found some pretty folded napkins in the linen drawer and brought them to the couch. Placed them on the tray. Arranged it all so Mud could reach it. Pulled Leah’s favorite rocking chair over close and sat in it. The choice of chair was subconscious but telling.

Leah had not been entirely truthful to me when she and John had asked me to marry them, but she had been wise in lots of ways I never had been. And . . . I was twelve when I agreed to marry the Ingrams. That was how I’d always thought of it. That I’d affianced them both, a package deal, to tend to Leah as she died, and to marry John after that. Twelve. The same age as Mud, though I hadn’t had to come to John’s bed until I was fifteen and that had been far too young.

My breath was coming too fast and I felt light-headed. I wanted to sock something. Or shoot something. I folded my hands and studied them as Mud ate. When the tea had steeped enough, I strained and decanted it into her mug and pushed it close to her. “This is a different blend, but it’s good.” I nibbled on my sandwich though I was no longer hungry.

When I thought I could communicate my thoughts without screaming, I said, “Last time we talked, two days ago, you said you didn’t want to get married. Didn’t want to have children until after you were twenty-four.”

Mud sipped the tea and made a face that said, Not bad. Her fingers wrapped around the mug for the warmth, the same way I held my own, for the comfort. “I might not have a choice. Life don’t always hand a woman pancakes and blueberries. Sometimes it’s oatmeal and raisins. Or even cold pea soup with grease on top and stale bread. And if’n I got to marry and you’uns gonna marry, I’d rather be here on Soulwood. With you.”

My little sister was wise in the ways of the church. Wise as I had been, when I made a choice for safety. When I chose to marry John and Leah and move here, to avoid a worse fate. I managed a breath and said, “Or you could just come live with me.”