“You have to come stay with us, Annie,” Tom Cartwright said to her.

“You have to, Annie. We’ll make room. The children will love it,” his wife, Madeline, said.

“Absolutely not,” Annie replied. “I’ll do no such thing. I would never put your family in danger, and anyway, perhaps Gilly has just left town. People do, you know.”

“And not tell her mother?”

“You can’t have it both ways, Annie,” Tom said. “You’re worried about putting us in danger or you think Gilly has just left town without telling her mother.”

Annie shrugged. “There’s no reason to worry for me, though. Maybe Gilly made someone angry. I couldn’t say.”

“Annie,” Madeline said. “I was the one to find you two years ago, covered in blood with a knife still in your hand.”

“I’d just got done butchering. That’s all.”

Tom laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “I don’t think there is much more to say, Madeline. Annie is determined. Fire two shots in the air if you need me, Annie. Come along, Madeline.”

Annie watched them climb into their wagon. She bolted the door and turned the lamp down. She’d covered the window with newspaper and she stuffed the gun slots with rags. At least at night, there’d be no seeing her cabin and maybe seeing her in it. She sat, leaning against the front door to the cabin, her rifle over her lap. She would stay awake until sun-up and doze later in the day.

She let her head rest against the door and dreamt about the look in Matt’s eyes when she’d stood naked in front of him. She still couldn’t believe she’d done it; it had, as she knew it would, only deepened and broadened the pain of his departure. There were some moments when she could barely draw breath and would calm herself thinking of the spring to come when she would plant a new garden and be a year removed from her first sight of Matt Gentry.

She fingered the paper he’d written his address on that she kept in her skirt pocket. She could have gone with him. She could have faced his mother and moved on to another town or village and found work doing something. She could have done it.

What she couldn’t do was let them win. She couldn’t leave Teddy’s tormentors to be the victors. She purposefully went to into the post office when she made her rare trips to town just to look Miles Bertram in the eye. Inevitably, he looked away from her first and growled at her to make her business known or leave. She would die in this town, and in the process make them look at her for the rest of their lives.

Matt spent the following morning with Adam, checking the barns and the foals and the yearlings.

“You’ve done amazing things, Adam,” he said as they walked back to the house.

“Much of it was already set up or in the works by Daddy, but it’s true the last year or so have been profitable. The Paradise business of horses will miss his sense and his savvy. But there are people moving everywhere and doing all sorts of things, including inventions that will, no doubt, change things for all time. We have diversified a bit, and Daddy let me make many of those decisions. I’d like to show you the books and what our investments are doing and hear your opinions. I admit, I miss his council and am glad you’re here to give yours.”

“I’ve no business experience. I doubt I’d be helpful.”

“What are your plans, Matt? Have you formed any yet?”

Matt pulled his hat off his head and swiped at his pant leg, sending a cloud of dust into the air. “I haven’t. I’ll not impose, though, if you’re concerned.”

“Impose? What are you talking about? Daddy’s will was specific that we were all to benefit from Paradise’s success. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. Mother would have insisted anyway. The profits that are yours from the last few years are set aside, as are Olivia’s for a dowry of sorts. We prospered from the war, I’m sorry to say, even if I did spend the first year or two in the deep woods with the purebreds.”

“You’ve been the one doing all the work. It wouldn’t be right for me to benefit.”

“You act as though I’ve done this single-handedly. Daddy’s only been gone four months. Up until then, he held the reins, so to speak.” Adam slapped him on the back. “And you know what that meant. He’d have me out mucking stalls before sunrise everyday if Mother would have let him.”

“Supper is served,” Olivia called from the brick patio at the back entrance of the main room.

It was just he and Olivia and Adam for supper, it turned out, and they sat together at the small table in the kitchen where they’d often eaten when they were young.

“Where’s Mother?” Adam asked Mabel once they were served. “Did she go into town?”

“She spent the morning with Mr. Littleship and had her meal with him in his room. More biscuits, Mr. Matt? I’ve cobbled blueberries for dessert.”

Matt wondered what all his mother and Ben Littleship had discussed. It would be just like the old man to make something out of nothing. But when was Annie Campbell nothing? He pictured her as he last saw her, standing in the rain watching him drive away. What was he still doing here? He’d delivered Ben home. Why wasn’t he on Chester right this second, riding back to Bridgewater? And what would she say if he rode into her yard? He honestly didn’t know. He was beginning to feel, though, that she might be central to his life and to any future happiness he might have. What if she didn’t feel the same?

He spent the next days getting to know his family again, learning more about Paradise from his brother and mother, and from Olivia, too. He wandered the grounds and the outbuildings and the woods behind them, most mornings. He slept most afternoons. He had some catching up to do on rest, he rationalized, and his mind was tired, too. Sometimes he just didn’t want to think of anything anymore, least of all how much, and how desperately, he missed Annie.

He found himself staring off into the woods or a fire for lengths of time in which he couldn’t remember thinking about anything in particular. Staring at the proverbial blank wall in his head, interrupted when someone cleared their throat or began speaking to him, startled and wondering exactly where he was. Unsure if his body and mind were winding down from six long years of torment, whether self-inflicted or not, or if he was possibly going mad. He didn’t think that was the case, but he wasn’t quite sure it wasn’t.

His mother found him standing in the main room late one evening, fingering a small crystal dove that had sat on the mantel for as long as he could remember. He thought it had once belonged to his mother’s mother and father, his grandparents. He would never meet them as they were long dead along with his mother’s sisters, aunts he would never know.

“Matthew?” she said.

“Who did this belong to originally? I’ve forgotten.” He held it to the light of the lamp.

“My father’s mother. It came from the old country with his parents and him and Aunt Brigid.”

“It’s odd to think of Aunt Brigid as a young girl.”

“Time passes on, and we hardly notice it until it has gone. I can still see the faces of my sisters, Emily and Ruth, and it’s been more than twenty-five years since their deaths.”

He looked at her, and she gazed back at him. “Do you think of them much?”

“Not as much as I did, but I include them in my prayers every night and thank the Lord that I knew them, and my mother and father, too. I pray for your father now as well.”

“Does it ever lessen? The pain of losing them.”

“It does, Matthew. Pain lessens or it would be difficult for most of us to carry on since we all have tragedy in our lives, some more than others, of course. In the end, I was hoping Beauregard would find his final reward. He was in considerable pain, and there was nothing I could do about it.” She looked at him. “We talked about you and where you might be. Near the end when he was in and out of consciousness, he would call your name and your sister’s and brother’s, too. You children were his world.”

“I miss Daddy, and I know I have no right to say it. I caused him heartache and you, too, but you’re here to make some small amends to. He isn’t.”

She tilted her head and studied him. “You’re not worried that your father was still angry with you, are you?”

“Maybe angry isn’t the right word. Disappointed is better.”

“Disappointed in you? Beauregard recognized himself in you. He saw your great anxiousness and desire for adventure, so like how he felt as a young man. You were his youth embodied, Matthew. He loved you desperately, and I think envied you to some small degree.”

It was an astounding admission and one Matt did not, or could not, completely believe. His father had envied him? Was it even remotely possible that he’d been running from a parent’s disapproval when there was none to run from? What had the last six years been about then?

“May I join you?” Adam inquired from the doorway.

“Please do,” Eleanor said and seated herself. “I’m hoping that Matthew will tell us about his ‘dunk in the river.’”

“I wondered what Ben has been telling you all those mornings you sit with him,” Matt said.

“Come. Sit down. I want to hear the story from you,” his mother said.

Adam leaned against the mantel, and Matt hesitated but sat down beside her on the couch. “Ben found me in a saloon,” he said and glanced at Adam. “He told me about Daddy, and we left the following morning. It rained continuously our whole trip other than an occasional brief respite. We came to the North River and I tried to convince Ben that we’d best wait for the river to go down. He didn’t agree and began down a steep rocky slope toward banks that had already overflowed.”

“He told me he was being a stubborn fool,” Eleanor said and glanced at Matt.

“Ben started down a path but was soon slipping in the mud and trying to settle his horse, who was balking. I was following a higher path that I thought might be less treacherous.” Matt took a deep breath. “His horse went down in the mud, end over end, and got caught in the branches of a tree in the water and drowned pretty quickly. I was watching Ben, and then the mud really started rolling down the hillside and a boulder came loose. It hit him in the leg and rolled on. I was above him, twenty-five feet or so away, and it took forever it seemed to get to him.”

He leaned back against the back of the couch, resting his head and closing his eyes. He could feel the cold breeze and the mud in his boots and the terror, as if it were happening that very moment. A hand covered his as it lay on the couch. He opened his eyes and saw it was his mother holding his hand as if he were still a young boy in need of comfort. Although when did one lose the need for a touch from a loved one?

“You don’t have to tell us more, if you don’t want, Matthew,” she said.

“No. I’d rather get through the telling of it. I got to him, finally, and wrapped my belt around his leg above where the bone had come through his skin and his pants, and called for Chester. I had to wait as he picked his way through rocks and thick mud up over his hooves. I got Ben over Chester’s back and covered him with my coat. I was paralyzed, it seemed. I couldn’t go forward, but I knew that if I didn’t get moving I’d surely die and so would Ben. Chester nickered to me, and I just started trying to put one foot in front of the other.

“Ben had long since passed out by the time Chester and I made our way back up the hillside. I had wrapped his reins around my left hand and was holding Ben in place with my right as we turned a bend and found ourselves not ten feet from the river’s bank. And that’s when the whole hillside crumbled, taking Chester and me and Ben down into the water.”

Adam sat down in the chair across from the couch, leaning forward, arms on his knees. Eleanor was gripping Matt’s hand tighter.

“The water was so cold I could barely get my breath. I held the reins and Chester’s pommel with one hand and caught Ben under the arms with my other, and Chester swam the river. He neighed and jerked and I almost lost my grip. I think it was then he got a long gash in his side from some tree branches that were submerged and likely broken. I couldn’t see where we were for the rain and the current. I could barely keep my head above water.” Matt stopped to look at his mother. “I thought of you Mother, and of Daddy, too. It seemed as though Chester was weakening and I was losing my hold on the saddle and on Ben. I was certain I’d met my end, that the water would take us.”

“Dear Lord,” Adam whispered.

“But you survived,” his mother affirmed.

Matt nodded. “We did. Just as I was thinking that I couldn’t hold on one more second, I saw Chester’s back end come out of the water.”

“A rising phoenix,” Adam added.

“He dragged us clear. The last thing I remember was unwrapping his reins from my hand.”

Eleanor stood and bent down to him, holding his head in her hands and kissing his forehead. “I’m going to bed, Matthew. I love you. I don’t believe I can listen to more this evening.”

“I love you, too, Mother,” he said and watched her walk out the door.

“We’re lucky you’re still with us, and Ben, too,” Adam said. “One more bit of bad luck . . .”

“Or even another minute.” Matt looked his brother in the eye. “I really don’t know if I could have held on more than a few more moments. I was numb from the cold but I was aware enough to know I was losing consciousness. It was a close thing done.”

“We don’t know how far we’ll go or how far we can go until we’re tested. It seems as though you’ve been tested enough for two hundred men. Perhaps you’ve earned some peace. I hope you can find it here with us,” Adam said as he stood and stared down at him. “There’s only one other man who would’ve survived what you did, and that was Daddy. Although you may have even outdone him with this. Good night, brother.”

On the third night that Annie sat up, trying to stay awake all night and listening for sounds that weren’t natural to the woods, she fell sound asleep not long past midnight and woke when the birds began chirping. Her neck was stiff where it had lolled against her shoulder all the night through. Her behind was cold and sore and her hands had fallen asleep holding her rifle. She stood gingerly, moving herself around and trying to get the blood flowing to her stiff joints. She stirred the dying embers in the fireplace and added some wood. She would make herself coffee and think about what she was going to do.

She washed her face and hands, put on clean clothes, and brushed her hair. She sat at her table, sipping her coffee and stroking the yellow tablecloth. She’d made herself a prisoner. She couldn’t sustain a life such as this, nor would she want to. She was going to think very hard about how she would proceed, whether she’d hide in her cabin and maybe continue to plot revenge or conversely, how she would manage to survive. It was as if she was still on the ground, bare naked and holding Teddy, and could feel the rifles pointed at her and the fists and hands and other parts ready to do violence to her body.

She opened her cabin door and stepped outside, feeling the warm rays of the sun and smelling the coming autumn in the air. There were things to be decided and plans to be made, and maybe the sooner the inevitable confrontation began the better off she’d be.

“I’m calling this meeting to order,” Eleanor Gentry said.

Matt was seated on the couch, his feet propped on a hassock, Olivia beside him with her head on his shoulder. It had been a busy few weeks as he tried to settle into a routine, and with harvest time approaching quickly, Paradise horses were in high demand. Adam was seated across from him in one of the brocade chairs, and Mother was at small writing desk moved from its position along the wall to between the couch and fireplace.

“Why are we doing this, Mother?” Olivia asked.

Eleanor stared at her daughter over the rims of her gold-framed spectacles. “We are doing this because we jointly own a company, The Paradise Corporation. Your father and I saw the lawyer in Winchester last year and he filed the papers accordingly. There were two majority stock holders, your father and me, with a fifty-two percent interest, and each of you owns sixteen percent. I have contacted the lawyer again as I realize that if I were to die today, you would each own an equal amount of the company and if there were disagreements, two of my children would be voting against the remaining child. I will not have it.”

“Is this really necessary, Mother?” Adam asked. “We’ve gotten on fine before. What’s to say we can’t continue?”

“We can continue, but we wouldn’t be realistic or wise. The three of you are at a marriageable age, and some a bit past.” She glanced at Adam. “Paradise may have three new parties, in the form of two wives and a husband, who would have their own points of view, and in Olivia’s case, her stock would legally belong to her husband on their wedding day as Virginia has not yet passed a law protecting a married woman’s right to property.”

“How ridiculous that I’m expected to surrender everything I bring to a marriage, yet a husband must not surrender anything of his. Men!” Olivia huffed.

“That is why it’s important that you choose wisely,” Adam said and continued under his breath. “And nothing like Mr. Dunderage.”

“Or I may never marry!” Olivia replied.

“What are you telling us, Mother?” Matt asked.

“I’m telling you that I’ve decided to change my will. On my death, Adam will have thirty-five percent interest and you and Olivia will have thirty-two and one half percent interest each.”

“Mother!” Adam said. “I’ve never claimed or wanted a controlling interest! It’s only bound to bring on resentment.”

Eleanor raised her brows. “Someone must be the decision maker. We cannot flounder when decisions must be made quickly concerning the herd. I would fully expect you to listen to your brother and sister and include them in all pertinent discussions, but the final decision must be made by you, and your brother and sister must follow your decisions. It’s the way of leadership.”

“I don’t understand the horse-breeding business, Adam,” Olivia said. “You do. You learned from Daddy and have an instinct for it.”

“But Paradise is no longer just horses, as you know. We’ve invested in a company that’s producing sewing machines for home use called the Sewing Machine Combination. It’s been profitable, and we may want to consider expanding our investment. Olivia has been researching a very young gentleman named Thomas Edison, brilliant we are told and making great strides in telegraphy I don’t understand it all but am not blind to the opportunities it could present,” Eleanor said. “There will be roles for Matthew and Olivia to play in those areas if they wish and perhaps a controlling interest in a separate enterprise that our family would own or invest in.”

Matt listened as his mother and Adam and Olivia continued to discuss matters he’d never given any consideration. He’d been off in the army or meandering around the countryside rather than facing responsibilities. What a fool he’d been! And how could he even begin to consider any of the ramifications of his life that this business structure implied when nothing was settled with Annie? He’d been at Paradise almost three full weeks, and he’d not stopped thinking of her; however, he was beginning to drag himself out of the mental fog he’d been in. He was going to have to pick a path and take a chance, he supposed. But how could he do it without her?

Eleanor closed her notes a short time later. “We will continue all of these discussions in two months when we meet like this again.”

“I am going to bed,” Olivia said. “I’m exhausted and going into town tomorrow.”

The door closed behind her, and Adam carried the writing desk to its proper place. “Anyone care for a cordial?” he asked.

“I’ll have a small glass of wine,” Eleanor said.

“I have asked you if you’d care for something for longer than I can remember and you’ve always said no,” Adam said as he poured.

“I’ve been worried about this meeting. I don’t want to cause trouble where there is none, but . . .” she began.

“I have to talk to Annie. I can’t think about all that was said tonight in any rational way without speaking to her first.”

Eleanor’s mouth was still open, as if anticipating finishing her sentence, and Adam stopped midstride on his way to be seated. He continued slowly and sat down.

“Annie?” he said.

“Good morning, Ezra,” Annie said as she stepped into the butcher shop.

“Annie! Dear Lord! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to buy a chicken.” She smiled.

“You’ve got to get home. I’ll take you through the alleys until we get to the edge of town.” Dinson pulled his bloody apron over his head. “Papa? I’m stepping out for a moment.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she said with an anxious laugh. “I’m not sneaking out of town, Ezra. I live here. I’ve got shopping to do. Do you have a chicken to sell me?”

Dinson pulled the apron back over his head and leaned over the counter. “You know Gilly’s gone, don’t you?”

“I do.” She stared at him.

“And doesn’t that give you pause? Doesn’t it make you wonder how much trouble will be coming to this town if Thurman decides to be bolder than he already has?”

“I won’t be a prisoner. I’ve done it for the last two years, and I’m just done with it. I can’t change the past but I’ll be damned if I’m forced to relive it day after day after day.”

“You shouldn’t have to, and what happened to your brother should never have happened, but it did. We best leave things quiet, I think,” he said.

“Maybe that’s exactly what Gilly did, Ezra. Maybe she just quietly left.”

The butcher smiled sadly and leaned forward to whisper to her. “Maybe it is, Annie. Maybe that’s all it is, but I’ve never believed in coincidences. I find it hard to believe that in one day, Gilly was beaten so badly she nearly died, Jeremiah Thurman disappeared after telling his father he was going hunting near the North River—near your property—and Madeline found you covered in blood, a knife still in your hand when she came to check on you.”

“I was slaughtering a pig.”

“We can’t help you, Annie. We can’t protect you if you won’t listen to us.”

“I’ll take care of myself, until I can’t, Ezra. I appreciate you being concerned, but I’ve got to live my life.” She leaned over the counter. “And I’ll never, ever, ever ‘leave quietly’ because of the fact that townsfolk hung my brother in my own barn. I’ll never forget it, and I’m determined that they don’t forget it, either. Do you have a chicken you want to sell me or not?”

Dinson stalked out the back door and came in carrying a chicken wrapped in newsprint. “He’s fresh. Just dressed. Be careful, Annie,” he said and walked away from her.

Matt left the room abruptly after realizing he’d interrupted his mother and spoken aloud. Maybe he wasn’t sane after all, he thought to himself as he left the house and headed to the woods. The dark of the tall, thick trees was cool and calmed his racing heart. He found the stone slab near the old springhouse and sat down to think. There was no fooling himself. He had spoken aloud and spoken foolish words as well. I have to talk to Annie. I can’t think about all that was said tonight in any rational way without speaking to her first. He’d been feeling as if his life would settle down now that the war, the drifting, the river, and, perhaps, his acceptance that some of his angst had been magnified in his youth were all mostly behind him.

But the truth was he couldn’t move ahead. He couldn’t choose a path within his family or outside of it for a future without her. She was his woman, he believed, his near death bringing the chance meeting of two souls meant to be together for all time. He couldn’t say he loved her, but perhaps he did. It did make him recall a time when he and Adam had been in the barn loft, when Daddy had followed a woman and a man to their wagon from the house. He could hear his father’s voice as if he were speaking at this moment.

“I told you before, and I’ll tell you again. Eleanor Gentry is the soul of propriety, and kindness, and charity. I am not, but she is mine to care for and cherish. Don’t ever insult her, don’t ever speak to her again, for that matter. And if you do, I’ll let you know now that I would kill you with my bare hands and hang by the neck ’til dead before allowing her to be hurt or her name sullied, especially by the likes of the two of you. Get off this property and don’t ever come back.”

Daddy had loved Mother with every bit of himself and the anger and righteousness of his voice was that testimony. She was his to care for and cherish. But Mother had allowed it, loving her husband right back. What would Annie say if he told her she was his to care for and cherish? Even though he’d drifted away from what he’d been taught at Paradise, he was still a child of Eleanor and Beau Gentry, and was born confident. Why was he so terrified of what she would say?

He sat up when he heard rustling on the forest floor and his brother calling his name.

“You over at the springhouse?”

“Yeah.”

“Mother would like you to come back inside.”

“It’s late. Why don’t we all go to bed?”

“Brother, if you think Mother is going to let you go to bed after what you said, you have been gone too long.”