***Well hey there, folks! Crazy coupla weeks, right? I hope everyone is safe and healthy and reading a ton of good books to distract themselves from reality. At long, long last, my employer has sent us to telework. Which means more opportunity to run off and get some writing and critiquing done right? One can hope...
I feel a little guilty giving you these chapters that have nothing to do with the main characters. It's an unjust pet peeve of mine when I read. I read for characters, not for plot, so it annoys me when I hunker down and get emotionally invested in the MCs and then have to suffer through whole chapters of these other random people just so the author can set up a series or some BS like that.
But uh... I kinda need to set up the series or some BS like that. So here's a chapter that has nothing to do with Amelia and Josh. It was kinda important that I get this little tidbit out there because, as you'll read, poor Katherine and Gabe aren't gonna be up to much besides moping until it's time to tell their story.
Anyways, here's a little aside before we return to our regular programming. Please stay inside and wash your hands. We'll get through this.***
Katherine
Her swollen feet ached, but she grit her teeth and kept walking, hurrying through the cemetery towards the trees. Besides, the torment in her heart put her silly feet to shame. But she had no choice. The way things were could not continue. It was too dangerous...
As she reached the treeline, a hand shot out from the darkness and grabbed her elbow. She didn't resist as Gabe drew her to him. No, she didn't resist, she melted into his warmth, gripping his shirt in her fists and shuddering with the agony of it all. One last embrace, not that he knew it. And while she was sinning, why not take it a step farther? Reaching up, she framed his face with her hands and brought him down for a kiss. One last kiss. Not that he knew that either.
The woods were loud. The world was teetering on the brink of fall, but it was still warm enough that the crickets and frogs were setting up a symphony, especially this close to the creek. They'd chosen this spot carefully-- close enough to the church that her walk was short. Far enough that there wasn't a risk of interference. Her husband didn't make a habit of walking in the woods, even when he was home. And she never came here when he was home.
She was breathing heavily when he finally broke off the kiss. She wanted him to kiss her forever, but no... no, it couldn't be.
"I was getting worried," he said plainly as he set her back, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Are your feet still hurting?"
Mute, she nodded and let him tug her against his side, taking some of her weight as they walked further into the darkness. Her chest burned with dread as he led her to a fallen tree, and she waited in pained silence while he draped his jacket over the damp wood for her to sit on. It was a courtesy, but mostly it was a precaution. Once, she had returned home with a dirt stain on the elbow of her dress. She had explained it away, but only after Jacob had bloodied her lip.
"I'm sorry for worrying you," she whispered, settling onto the trunk and pulling her legs up. He sat next to her and his arm fell across her shoulders, heavy but welcome.
"Don't apologize, Katie," he sighed. "I know you can't help when he leaves and when he's home. I'm not angry at you. I was just worried."
When they were kids, he wasn't so gentle with her feelings. Then again, when they were kids she wasn't so timid. It was a new habit he'd picked up through the years of her marriage. A necessity. She'd grown so used to the constant attacks and questions. Her mind knew that he would never hit her like Jacob did, but her heart wasn't so sure.
"I think it's because of the baby," she said, rubbing her stomach. "He's been home more. Paying more attention to me."
He huffed and tightened his arm around her. "I hate that."
"I know, but it isn't so bad. He's been... he's been good since I told him I was pregnant. Procreation..." she trailed off, feeling stupid. Then habit forced her to finish her thought. "Procreation is one of God's commandments."
Again he sighed, but said nothing. He sighed a lot these days. She was frustrating him. All she ever did anymore was frustrate him. He would be hurt by what she had to say, but it would be better for him in the long run. Less frustration. Less danger. Plus, Jacob was being good. He was pleased that she was pregnant. It was all he wanted-- for her to fulfill her duties as his wife. She had failed him. She had been unfaithful to him. She had hated him. She was a sinner, and the small earthly pain of his fist was a small price to pay for the salvation of her eternal soul.
Bracing herself, she swayed away from Gabe's hold, indicating that she wanted to be released. His arm dropped away and the air suddenly felt very cold. Stifling a shiver, she clasped her hands in her lap and stared at her thumbs.
"I can't come here, anymore," she said.
"We can find somewhere else," he answered with a shrug. "This is a little too close anywa--"
"No," she cut him off, giving her head one hard shake. "I can't meet you anymore. Anywhere. We need to stop this."
"Katie--"
"I'm a married woman, Gabe."
He huffed out a derisive laugh that made her cringe. "You've been married seven years, sweetheart, and I'd hesitate to call what you have a marriage. That bastard--"
"Please," she said through clenched teeth. "I took vows. I swore before God--"
"Who gives a rat's ass what you swore, Katie!" He shot off the rock, shoving his hands into his hair and spinning around, glaring at her. "He hurts you, sweetheart."
"I hurt him too," she murmured, unable to meet his gaze and speak at the same time. "I'm unfaithful to him. I des--"
"Don't you dare say you deserve it," he snarled, throwing his head back and glaring up at the spindly branches of the pines. When he lowered his gaze, his eyes glowed amber in the moonlight. Satan's spawn, her husband called him. She knew it wasn't true, but he did sometimes look the part. Especially when he was angry like this. He dropped to his knees before her and clasped her hands in his. "You were faithful to him for years, sweetheart. You upheld your end of the bargain. He started hitting you long before you ever turned back to me. Surely you see that."
"My love and my loyalty shouldn't be conditional. That isn't what faith looks like," she said, fighting tears as she pulled her hands away from his. "I made promises. To Jacob and to God. And just because I was faithful with my body doesn't mean I was faithful with my heart."
Sinking back onto his heels, he bowed his head as if in prayer. Then he lifted his gaze, and she saw the anger that lived inside him. Jacob was a spitting crackling bonfire of bitterness and rage. Gabe was like a bed of embers. He looked calm, but there was fury there. White-hot fury. "What about our baby? You think I'm going to stand by and let you raise our child with that monster?"
Our baby.
"It's not our baby, Gabe. It's mine. Mine and Jacob's."
He frowned and shook his head in incredulity, as if she'd just told him the sky was green and the sun rose in the west and set in the north.
"I never told you the baby was yours," she said firmly. "You assumed."
"You never set me straight," he fired back, rising to his feet, and wasn't just this their way? Gabe, always moving, on his feet, on his knees, pacing, waiting, pleading, holding her when she needed him, letting her go when she asked. And she, Katherine, sitting stock still. Trapped and powerless and motionless. Did he know how much she longed to follow him, to be the one who traipsed halfway across the county every night to see him?
"It was a fantasy."
"So the baby isn't mine?" he asked, his voice completely even and emotionless.
She forced herself to look him in the eye, daring him to question her honesty. "No," she whispered, and a part of her hoped he would show himself to be the devil everyone said he was. She wanted him to hit her in his anger, punish her for her betrayal, spin on his heel, and march out of her life. It would be so much easier that way.
His face went still, his eyes going momentarily blank. She tightened her spine, waiting for the blow that she prayed would come and knew wouldn't. Then, like a lantern flickering to life, the love came back into his gaze and his expression softened.
"It doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. It's a baby, Katherine. Your home is no place for a child."
"What do you suggest then?" she asked, making her own voice hard and cruel because he would never leave her if she didn't. He'd sit with her until the sun came and went a hundred thousand times. He'd argue with her to the rapture if she didn't make him bleed. "Shall I leave my husband and come live with you at the brothel? Shall I raise this child as a bastard? I want my baby to have a future, Gabe. A real future. What kind of future can you offer us? Will we raise a baby girl to be a prostitute? Bring up a little boy who beats people up for room and board?"
He took a step back as if she'd hit him. "Katherine..." he shook his head. "You're just trying to rile me up."
"I'm not," she said, raising her chin and cursing the many years they'd known each other. The many, many nights they'd spent, learning each other's souls in the quiet of secrecy. "I don't want to hurt you. I just want this child to have a good life. Jacob and I can provide that. He's been kind since I told him about my condition. He's pleased with me. He's excited to be a father. He's changed."
A snort of derision and a roll of his eyes. "You think that'll last?"
"Maybe it will," she said, lowering her gaze back to her hands. "Maybe it won't. But he won't hurt the child. I won't let him. I'll protect it."
"If you want to protect the baby, let me protect both of you, Katie," he pleaded, but she could tell by the hollow deadness of his voice that he knew the point was moot.
"No," she stated firmly, glaring at him. "I want this baby to have a good life. You cannot provide that."
"We'll leave like we talked about. We don't have to raise it in the saloon, sweetheart."
"What'll you do for work, Gabe? You have no skills."
"I'll learn some."
"And what will we do while you learn? What will we eat? Where will we live?"
"I'll figure it out."
"No, you won't. You don't have to, because I've already figured it out. I'm staying. I'm married to a man who can support me. I won't let him hurt my child. And I won't let this... this carnal... I won't this sinful thing that we are doing for the sake of our own pleasure continue to create a blemish on my soul and a danger to my safety. You have never protected me from him. All you've ever given me is comfort, and that comfort always came at the risk of further harm. You say you care about my safety but you continue to lead me down this path that puts me in more danger. It's no longer just my soul and my body at risk, and I can't let you carry me and my baby further from what is good."
There. Those were the words she'd practiced in front of the foggy mirror above her dresser. She'd mouthed the words in silence, not daring to utter them aloud lest Jacob hear. Over and over she'd prattled them off, because she knew if she hadn't burned them into habit she'd never find the strength to say them to his face. She still couldn't. She said them to his feet.
Silence descended when she finished her speech. She waited for his retreating footsteps. For an explosion. Still, and forever, she waited for his fist. God, how she prayed he would hit her. She needed clarity. Certainty. She needed a sign from God that she was making the right decision. Instead, all she got was more confusion.
He didn't walk away. He resettled onto the fallen tree, his shoulder pressed to hers. Together, they breathed in the scent of pine. When he finally spoke, it was just one word. A word that shattered her. Hurt her more than Jacob's fists ever could.
"Tomorrow?" he asked, nudging her shoulder with his, and tears sprang into her eyes. This was their ritual. For as long as she could remember. Since long before Jacob started hitting her, long before Jacob married her, long before they grew from children into adults and saw more than friendship in each other's eyes. It had been their ritual since they were children, making grand plans to run off together and be bandits with nicknames so nobody would ever know that she was the preacher's daughter and he was the whore's son. They'd just be Blue Angel and Devil Dog, robbing trains and living in the mountains. Stupid nicknames. Stupid fantasies. But stupid as it may be, it was still their ritual.
Tomorrow? He had always asked, half teasing and half pleading.
I'll have to think about it, she had always answered, as if she was only just now getting around to considering it. As if she didn't lay awake each night and dream of running off with him.
I'll wait by the bridge, he always finished with a dash of hope.
She bit her lip. I'll have to think about it. It was their ritual. She'd never not said it. When Jacob asked for her hand, and she'd told Gabe they had to stop seeing each other from now until eternity, he'd still asked. She'd still given him hope.
Tomorrow?
I'll have to think about it.
I'll wait by the bridge.
There was no longer any room in either of their lives for childish games. There was no more room in her heart for hope.
"Not tomorrow," she forced herself to say. The words choked her. Strangled her. Pummeled her soul. "Not tomorrow. Not ever."
He sighed and stood, offering her a hand up. She ignored it, pushing herself off the fallen tree and waiting out of habit while he picked up his jacket, shook off the dirt and damp bark, and pulled it back on. In silence, they walked to the treeline together. When they reached the edge of the woods, he stopped and she kept walking, only to be brought up short by his hand around her wrist. She kept her gaze on the ground, strewn with pine straw and clumps of wilting grass.
Please don't make this harder.
"I'll wait by the bridge," he said, tipping her chin up with a finger and forcing her to meet his gaze. Jacob said he had yellow eyes, yellow like a rabid wolf, but she always thought they were a shade darker than yellow. Sort of coppery. Like the good whiskey her father used to keep in a decanter in the parlor.
"Gabe--"
"Every day, Katie. I'll be by the bridge every day, just before dawn. All you have to do is show up."
"I won't," she snapped at him, jerking her face away from his hand and stepping back, shaking her head. "Don't bother waiting, because I won't show up."
And then, before he could say more words and tear her heart into smaller, more ragged pieces, she turned and ran. She forgot her sore feet and her ungainly figure and sprinted across the field, past the cemetery, and through her garden to the back porch. Always in the past, she had stopped with her hand on the doorknob and turned, seeking out his silhouette in the darkness. She could never see him, but she always knew he was there, watching her until she disappeared into her house. It was the final step to their ritual-- him watching, her turning and sending her love into the shadows.
Tears now streaming down her face, she stumbled up the stairs, across the porch, and fumbled with the doorknob. She shoved the door open, fell inside, and slammed the door behind her. Jacob wasn't home. There was no one to awaken with her tears. She sagged back against the door and slid down it, arms wrapped around her chest. Was she cradling her baby or holding her heart together? She didn't know.
Raising her knees, she pressed her forehead against them and wept and prayed.
Lord, please guide my way. Help me be good. Help me protect this baby and heal Jacob's soul. I'm sorry I lost my way, but I'm not as strong as I should be. You tested me and I failed. I broke my vows, to you and to Jacob, and I know you have to punish me for what I've done. But please, please don't punish this baby. I'll do anything you ask of me, but please don't punish my baby. I'll care for Jacob. I'll learn to love him like you do. I'll help him heal his soul. I'll be true to him. I'll forget Gabe so he can forget me. Just please... please, God. Please don't punish this baby.