He’d wanted to meet Robbie, though not under these circumstances. Still, a rush of affection for the boy welled through him. Annie’s son. Just like her, too, with the same finely chiseled features and messy reddish-blond hair. The fear in her eyes as she’d knelt by her boy’s side had made him want to swallow her in his arms and hold her close until her worry ceased….
It was all foolish thinking. She shouldn’t be becoming so much a part of his thoughts, after so short a reacquaintance. The “if only’s” crowded into his mind. If only he had never gone to war. If only she had never married Stuart. If only her heart might turn toward his once again. If only. If only. For now “if only’s” were all they were.
And all they would most likely become.
Chapter Four
This is what comes of women gadding around the countryside, when they should be at home. You’ve been gone from this part of the country a long time, daughter. Pity your intelligence hasn’t improved in the interim.”
Annie lowered her head, not wanting her father to glimpse the tears needling her eyes. Wasn’t witnessing her son’s pain enough rebuke? Must he rub it in, salt on an already burning wound?
“A cat mothers its kittens better than you do your son. Who ever thought you were a fit person to bring infants into the world, I haven’t a clue.” Her father had returned home just minutes after Robbie was settled and had commenced with a verbal flailing ever since.
Her chin lifted ever so slightly. Brock Parker stood in front of the parlor mantel, his bulky frame and angry eyes menacing. Suddenly she was seventeen all over again, begging to be allowed to live her own life…
“You will do as I say.” Her father’s voice was harder than granite, and just as unyielding. The same tone he’d used time and again for every decision Annie tried to have an opinion on. “You’re only a woman, with no intelligence worth mentioning.” A phrase uttered countless times, reducing her to nothing more than an automaton.
Something within her shattered. Her reserve, her docile obedience, broke like glass and the physical shock of it nearly catapulted her to the floor. She gripped her hands together, ignoring the pain.
“Don’t you even care about me? I don’t love Stuart. We wouldn’t be happy together. Why should you care who I marry as long as he loves me and I him? What about what I want?” She was screaming, something she would never have done before, but now it hardly fazed her.
The blow that followed nearly threw her to the floor. Annie stared at her father, one hand pressed against her scalding cheek. Tears stung her eyes.
“It’s Travis Hart, isn’t it? You imagine yourself in love with him.”
She looked down, so her eyes wouldn’t betray the painful truth.
“What a stupid schoolgirl notion. He’s probably buried in enemy territory this very minute. Stuart is here. He is willing.” Her father grasped her shoulder with an iron grip. “And you will accept him!”
“You can’t even carry a conversation without dazing off. I don’t want to know what it was you were thinking about just now.”
The words vaulted her into the present. Her hands were slick with sweat, her knees shaking.
“For once in your life, Father, just leave me alone. Please.” She rushed from the room, down the hall, and into the empty dining room. There, she crumpled to the floor, hands pressed to her eyes, hot tears leaking through her fingers.
God, help me. I know I’ve sinned. I don’t deserve happiness, but would a morsel of stability be too much to ask? Or have I gone so far as to be undeserving of that, too?
What had induced her to come home? She would have been better off to have never left Galveston. Maybe it would be better to return once Robbie was well enough to travel, though leaving would mean reneging on her promise to Mrs. Miller to take over the town midwifery responsibilities.
Or perhaps she should start over somewhere new. A place where there weren’t memories hiding behind every door, where shadows of the past didn’t whisper in her ears.
“Annie.” This voice wasn’t full of her father’s gruff rebuke. Although it was deep and masculine, it didn’t resemble her father’s at all. The single word, her name, held kindness. Enough tenderness to bring her to her feet, with the help of a hand on her shoulder. And when he stood, he didn’t take his hand away, nor move backward. Instead, Travis Hart drew her into his arms, letting her rest her head against his chest, and sob out the anxiety of the past hour.
He was strength and gentleness all at once. She closed her arms tighter around his waist, her senses awash with soap and leather and sun-warmed cotton. His hand rubbed soothing circles across her back, and she let herself cry, feeling no shame in it. Truly, there was no shame in allowing emotion, though her father had always told her the opposite.
She pulled away, raising tear-blurred eyes to meet his. “Robbie. I must go see to him.”
“No. Josie is with him. You must sit down and tell me what it is you’re crying about.” He pulled out a dining room chair, and she sat. Taking the one beside her, he placed his hands atop hers. “And that’s a doctor’s order.” His smile ruined the effect of his commanding words.