Heart of Mercy (Tennessee Dreams) Read online

  A wave of alarm saturated her expression. “What is it?”

  “My mother had an affair,” he whispered. “With your father.”

  He waited for the angry scream, the leaping up from the sofa, and the instant tears of denial. Instead, she stared at him, unspeaking, her face unreadable, her eyes searing.

  “Did you hear me?”

  She blinked three times. “I think I did, but…I’m not sure I heard right.”

  He massaged the tops of her hands with his thumbs. “Unfortunately, you did.”

  She gave her head several quick shakes. “What?”

  He let spill all that Persephone had told him, and in the telling, he watched her face show a myriad of expressions, everything from piqued interest to bewilderment, from doubt to utter disbelief, and finally to full-out shock. He fought the impulse to just stop, to shield her from all he’d learned, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He’d heard the truth, and she deserved to know it, too. She started to cry, so he held her, but then she pushed back, wiped her eyes, and asked him to retell certain portions of Persephone’s story, which he was glad to do.

  With the information finally settled in her brain, she gave a little sniffle and adjusted her position, tucking a bare foot beneath her. Her bent knee made contact with his, but she didn’t react; she just let it rest there. She looked briefly at her clasped hands, then met his gaze again. “So, you confronted your mother. How did she take that?”

  “She fainted.”

  She covered her mouth, so that all he saw were her big, bloodshot brown eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” he added hastily. “She’s fine now. But knowin’ I’d found out about the affair nearly threw her over the cliff.”

  “I don’t understand how the two of them…I mean, weren’t they supposed to be archenemies? What would draw them together?”

  “I wondered the same, so this is where it all gets very interestin’…and disheartenin’ at the same time. You recall I had twin brothers who died of scarlet fever when they were two.” She nodded a few times and leaned in. “I was just three, so I don’t really remember. What I do recall is how I became invisible to my mother after their deaths. She withdrew into a shell of her own makin’ and refused to come out. I’m not sure she ever has. What you see with her is a big pretense. She tries to appear all put together and in control, but it’s just a façade.

  “Accordin’ to Mother, my father tried to console her after my brothers died, but it didn’t help; she just got angry with him. She couldn’t understand how he could go on with life. Lookin’ back, I suppose he wasn’t much better off; he just showed his grief in different ways, mostly by keepin’ his distance. Over time, they lost the ability to care for each other, speakin’ less an’ less, till the only reason they communicated was to fight about one thing or another.

  “In those days, Mother didn’t have much use for me, either. I know, you’d think she would’ve looked at me and said, ‘I lost the twins, but I still have one son to care for,’ but it didn’t go like that. Some days, it was like she could barely tolerate the sight of me. She loved the attention those twins brought, everyone always swoonin’ and cooin’ over ’em, so when they died, that left her sort of stranded with me, and she never quite figured out how to handle havin’ only one child.

  “Anyway, Mother said the marriage basically died in those years of grievin’. Father worked long hours in the shop, then went to the saloon, often stayin’ out past midnight. I guess I wondered where he went but not enough to ask. Besides, I didn’t want him bitin’ off my head. By then, I’d learned to manage on my own, and I preferred to keep my distance. I figured the less I knew, the better off I’d be.

  “One day—this would’ve been a couple o’ years after your mother died—my mother was puttin’ away the laundry, and she found an envelope hidden under some clothes in one o’ Father’s bureau drawers. The seal was broken, so she pulled out the contents and read what she could only term a love letter.”

  “A love letter to your father?” Mercy’s voice had a gravelly tinge. “Who wrote it?”

  “Do you happen to know the name MaryLou Hardwick?”

  Her eyelids fluttered, perhaps with veiled curiosity. “Paris’s lady of the night? Yes, faintly, but she left town several years ago.”

  “Yep, after my father paid her a large sum to disappear.”

  “Your father? I don’t understand.”

  “Apparently, MaryLou and my father carried on an affair lastin’ four years. In the letter, she professed her love for him, and begged my father to get a divorce.

  “Mother said that after he read this, she flew into a rage. She packed all my father’s things and set them on the porch. Of course, when he got home, he wanted to save face, promised her he’d stop seein’ MaryLou, if she would only let him stay. I’m not sure what all transpired between ’em, but she ended up givin’ him another chance, and things between them smoothed out for a time. Before long, though, he started comin’ home late again, and she knew he was seein’ MaryLou.

  “One afternoon, Mother was drivin’ the buggy home from town when one o’ the wheels fell off and landed her in a ravine. I recall the incident. I was fifteen. She told us an older gentleman had come along, tended to her bruises, used his horses to pull her wagon out, and fixed her wheel right there. As you’ve probably guessed by now, that ‘older gentleman’ was none other than your father. They had an immediate attraction, my mother said, despite the longstanding feud between their families. They started talkin’ ’bout how lonely they both were, and before she knew it, they were meetin’ on the sly.”

  Mercy rubbed her forehead. “I would have been eleven. I told you how my father spent a lot of time away from home, but I figured he was either working or drinking at the saloon. It didn’t seem suspicious to me, but then, how would I have known what signs to look for? I do know he was lonely, but an affair with your mother? I can hardly believe it. Especially considering the awful things he said about the Connors clan.”

  Sam nodded. “My parents always railed on your family, maybe even more so after Mother’s affair wound down. Accordin’ to her, it lasted only a few months. Once my father found out, it didn’t take long for the relationship to unravel.”

  “How did he come to learn about it?”

  He gave a sarcastic smile. “Their trusty foreman, Virgil Perry, spilled the beans. Mother had no clue Virgil had been spyin’. He gathered what he called ‘incriminatin’ evidence’ and blackmailed my parents. As long as they paid up, he vowed to keep his mouth shut. And that arrangement continues to this day. I told my mother she has exactly two weeks to tell the truth, to her relatives and yours, before I inform Virgil his little jig is up. If I tell him too soon, he’ll beat Mother to the punch, and, knowin’ Virgil Perry, the story will get the wrong slant…not that Mother’s version will be much better.

  “At any rate, Mother says both affairs, hers and Father’s, ended abruptly, and that’s when Father withdrew a good sum of money from the bank and sent MaryLou packin’. As for Oscar, Mother said he got fightin’ mad at Ernest for bringin’ the whole thing to a halt. He claimed to have genuine feelings for Mother, but she told him she couldn’t, in good conscience, continue seein’ him, not after Father found out. After that, Oscar started sendin’ my father scathin’ letters, callin’ ’im a two-timin’ husband nowhere near good enough for my mother, and threatenin’ to tell the town about his escapades with MaryLou. This went on for years, until it finally met its end in that fateful showdown in eighty-four.

  “Mother and I didn’t talk about this, but Persephone told me Solomon Turner saw the whole thing. He would have testified, but the judge refused, claimin’ he was an unreliable witness.”

  “I never heard anything about that.”

  “I never did, either, but I plan to pay Mr. Turner a visit tomorrow.”

  “Do you think that’s wise? He’s getting up in years. Maybe he’d just as soon forget what he saw and heard.”

 
“I’ll go easy on ’im. I also plan to call on my cousins Frank and George, Persephone’s brothers. If her hunch is right, they’re the ones responsible for breakin’ our window.”

  “Are you sure? Why would your own cousins…?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Were they also responsible for Barney’s disappearance?”

  “Persephone wasn’t sure.”

  Mercy sat in stunned silence while they both pondered private thoughts, the room fallen so still, Sam could hear Barney and Roscoe’s breathing from a chair across the room, where the two lay tangled in a big black-and-white ball.

  “My parents never patched up their relationship,” Sam went on, “but they kept up the façade of a happy marriage, Mother puttin’ on a big show for the public during the trial. She had me fooled.

  “When my father died, I think her so-called grief stemmed more from guilt than anythin’ else. My mother is a walkin’ mess, and I plan to disown her, just as soon as I can put this whole business behind me. The way I figure it, the sooner everybody discovers the reason this feud has gone on for so long, and realizes how ridiculous it is to keep it alive, the quicker I can be done with her.”

  Mercy crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her upper arms, as if to dispel a chill. “You sound so cold. Do you really plan to disown your mother?”

  “I certainly don’t want any kind of relationship with her.”

  “She’ll die a lonely old woman.”

  “If so, it’s her own fault.”

  “Don’t let a seed of bitterness take root in your soul, Sam. Once you start fueling it with fury, it’ll grow faster than a weed. You don’t want that to happen. Look what bitterness did to your mother.”

  He loved Mercy, but he didn’t need her preaching at him. Not now, not ever.

  30

  Mercy lay staring at murky shadows on the ceiling. Sam had left before dawn, before she’d had a chance to brew a pot of coffee or fry up an egg. He hadn’t even rapped on her door to say good-bye; he’d just slipped quietly down the stairs and disappeared into the early-morning dark, the owls still hooting, an occasional dog howling at the fading moon. It made her wonder if he’d slept at all. Perchance he’d lain awake all night, reviewing their conversation from the night before, then grown too restless to remain in bed. She prayed he would consider her caution not to let bitterness overtake him, for she knew how detrimental it could be. She’d seen it firsthand, when her ma died and her pa looked for someone to blame, making God his target.

  Obviously, the events of the last few days had changed Sam on certain levels. She didn’t see that spark in his eye, that jovial, teasing spirit, or that gentle, caring manner. Oh, he’d been nothing but kind to her, but more guarded. Even his kisses had been short-lived, if they’d happened at all, before they’d bidden each other good night. He’d spent little time with the boys yesterday, and she wondered what today would bring, especially if he followed through with his plans to visit his cousins as well as Solomon Turner.

  Frankly, the whole thing had changed her, too, but she refused to allow the disheartening news to chop away at her soul. Her father’s name had never been spotless, but this new revelation would drag it further into the mud and ultimately draw attention to her, whether in the form of sympathy or spite. Either way, she would do her best to keep her head high, her spirits uplifted, and her faith in God strong as ever. She could only pray Sam would do the same. If she’d learned anything about life, it was that when adversity struck, a person had one of two choices: focus on the Father in faith and extend forgiveness, or look inward and find bitterness and blame. She didn’t want to put herself in the second category. She’d seen too many examples of people it had ruined.

  After she’d read from her Bible and then gotten on her knees in prayer, a sense of peace and refreshment came over her. Things would work out. She didn’t know how, exactly; she just knew that when one fully surrendered to God, He had a way of making it work for the good of those concerned. Just as she had done after losing her precious friends to the fire, she chose to claim her favorite Bible verse, Romans 8:28: “And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.” God would work everything out for good—He had promised to!

  Aunt Gladys stopped by around eleven o’clock, after picking up a few supplies in town. “Just thought I’d stop in t’ tell y’ my house is too quiet since you children deserted me,” she said to Mercy when she opened the door.

  The boys ran to greet her, squealing, so she bent at the waist with open arms to enfold them in a hug. “Gracious me, you’d think you didn’t just see me yesterday mornin’.”

  Joseph snagged her by the hand and pulled her toward the living room. “Come see our great big fort, Aunt Gladdie.”

  The woman glanced over her shoulder and caught Mercy’s eye.

  Mercy grinned. “They’ve been working on it all morning, Auntie.” She followed the threesome into the living room, where the boys had fashioned a hideout of bedsheets and an oversized quilt spread across several dining room chairs.

  “My, oh my,” Gladys said, clapping a hand to her mouth. “This is quite a fort.”

  “We’s protectin’ ar town,” said John Roy, “’cause there’s enemies surroundin’ us.”

  “Well, I suspect they’ll skedaddle once they get wind o’ you fierce fellas. Never can be too careful.”

  “Who are the enemies you’re guarding us from?” Mercy asked.

  “We don’t know their names, but they cause lots o’ trouble, an’ they always want to fight and be mean,” Joseph explained. “Everybody in the town’s ascared o’ them, so we have t’ keep people safe.”

  Aunt Gladys slid Mercy another quick glance. “Well, you keep on protectin’ us, and we’ll all feel a lot safer.”

  As the boys resumed their play, Aunt Gladys slipped an arm around Mercy and led her out of the room. “Seems like them boys have heard talk ’bout all the feudin’.”

  “I suppose they’ve overheard some things, even though Sam and I have done our best not to say anything in front of them,” Mercy conceded. “They found out about the fight at the picnic from some neighbor boys. It couldn’t be helped.”

  “How are you doin’ with all of it, sweetie?”

  “Oh, just fine.” Of course, her answer came off a tad sarcastic. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “You know I would. Shall I help you?”

  “Nope, you go make yourself comfortable in the other room, and I’ll be right with you.”

  When she returned, she found her aunt seated next to the hearth, perusing a piece of paper. The woman glanced up, then went back to her reading.

  “What’s that?” Mercy asked, setting a cup and saucer on the round table next to her.

  Aunt Gladys held it out, and Mercy’s heart dropped. “Oh, that.”

  “You told me somebody snatched Barney an’ returned ’im in a crate with a note, but you never actually showed me the note.”

  “No, I didn’t think it was necessary.” Mercy sat down in a chair. “I’d completely forgotten about sticking it between the pages of that book.”

  With scrunched brow, Gladys went back to studying the wrinkled paper. “Humph. Interestin’.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I recognize the handwritin’.”

  “You do? Whose is it?”

  “It’s my brother Fred’s awful scrawl. I’d know it anywhere. And t’ top matters off, he can’t spell t’ save his sorry life, so that makes it the more obvious to me he wrote it.”

  “Uncle Fred? Aunt Gladdie, are you sure? Would he really do a thing like that?”

  “O’ course he would, the old coot.” She cut loose a low growl. “Just as soon as I leave here, I’m goin’ out to their place t’ give him a piece o’ my mind.”

  “But…it’s not yours to worry about. I don’t want you—”

  Gladys raised her palm in a halting manner. “Don’t sa
y another word, darlin’. I can handle my brother. In fact, I’d prefer to.”

  Mercy took a sip of tea, then lowered her cup and saucer gingerly to her lap. “Thank you, Auntie. Saves me from having to confront him.”

  Gladys waved an arm. “Don’t you worry your little self about confrontin’ your uncle Fred, or anybody, for that matter. You got enough stuff t’ fret over. I’m about as mad as a hornet right now, and I shall take pleasure in doin’ the honors.”

  Mercy drew in a deep, unsteady breath. If her aunt thought she was angry now, Mercy wondered how she’d react when she learned about her other brother’s affair with Flora Connors.

  ***

  Flora could barely drag herself out of bed in the morning, the way her stomach churned and her head pounded. Never had life looked so glum or insufferable. What did she have left? She’d lost her son, and soon she’d lose the rest of her family. What would her relatives say when she exposed her long-held secret? How could she possibly go through with it? She wasn’t sure, but if she didn’t, Samuel would spill the beans, and then folks would think even less of her. Oh, why had she been so foolish, giving in to her lustful desires those many years ago? Yes, she’d been lonely, and Ernest had started the whole business when he’d taken up with that tart MaryLou, but that hadn’t given her license to commit the same wrong. At least she hadn’t taken it to same degree. Still, as Samuel had said, the kisses alone were betrayal enough. Looking back, she knew she might have gone further, were it not for Ernest finding out. She’d liked Oscar Evans, until he’d turned on her for refusing to leave Ernest. And when he’d started sending threatening notes, why, everything had gotten plain ugly. In truth, he’d started losing his mind, and his excessive drinking hadn’t helped the situation.

  To save face, Ernest had insisted they try to go back to as normal a life as they both could manage, and while it hadn’t been easy, they’d much preferred that to having their reputations tarnished. Oh, such a mess they’d made—she’d made—by living a lie for so many years.