At his shake of the head, she grew angrier still. It didn’t matter that he looked different from everyone else or that he’d taken longer to learn to tie his shoes. Denying his needs was simply not Christian.
The familiar wave of frustration welled up, only this time it extended past the people of the Church and the fence line to include the man who’d refused to give her a job today.
She had to consciously loosen her jaw before speaking. “Let’s get you something, pumpkin.” Knowing how little she’d find, she tried the larder—two jars of pickled beets from last summer; the loaf of bread she’d been rationed this week, already moldy; and the butter in the crock, probably turned sour. This was what happened during the limbo between marriages. She’d practically been a child when Hamish had taken her. Children were fed in the refectory, but adult women were left to their own devices. She cut the mold off the bread, sniffed at the butter, and opened another precious jar.
I’m nothing, exactly like you, she thought, handing Sammy a cobbled-together meal you’d have to be starving to consider eating. And she’d been at her mama’s, eating chicken pot pie and beans.
He dug in with relish, and Abby’s anger inched up a notch.
“You feeling all right?” she asked, ignoring the urge to reach out and stroke his hair. Physical affection was another no-no. She remembered wanting it from Mama, even from Hamish at first. With a hot blush, she recalled the summer she and Benji had discovered touch. Noticing the look on Sammy’s face, she shut it down. “No?”
“Happened again.”
She stilled. “Another one of your fits?”
“Yeah.” He polished off the bread. Too fast. He needed more to eat and she was running low, and rations weren’t passed around for another two days.
“Tell me.”
“Out lookin’ for parts for Dinwiddy’s car. Din’t feel so good. Sat on the scraggly rock, you know, over by the old crash where I found that rusted-out bolt that time?” She nodded, knowing exactly where he meant. She and Benji’d done things on that rock. Things that had felt so good and been so wrong and, in the end, led to her marriage to Hamish, among other things. Sammy went there all the time, looking for parts in his constant quest to fix things. “Well, I got it again…that feeling like I was there and not. And then…” He stood abruptly, pushing back his chair so fast that it tilted before landing back on all four legs with a clatter. He came to squat in front of her, tilted his head to the side, and, grabbing her hand, put it to his head.
Oh, heavens, it was matted with blood.
“Sit down,” she ordered, rushing to grab the lamp and hold it closer. “You hurt yourself, honey.”
“Yeah. Hurts.”
“I know, Sammy.” She patted his shoulder. “All right. Let’s…” She looked around. Another few minutes wouldn’t change a thing, she supposed, but worrying him would serve no purpose. “Finish your dinner first. We’ll take a look at your cut after.”
“’Kay.”
It wasn’t until she’d gotten him cleaned up and snug in her bed, covered in her patchwork quilt, that Abby considered what would happen next. She folded herself into the chair beside the woodstove.
So much energy and expectation had gone into that man—the one she’d barely let herself think of since she’d crawled back through the hole in the fence—and now…nothing had changed.
Staring into the flames, she racked her brain for some other solution, another way out. But no matter how hard she tried, she came up with nothing.
Nothing besideshim, the grape farmer with the rolling accent and stern brow, the chilly eyes and hot, hot hands.
That meant one thing, no matter that she didn’t like it or that he most certainly wouldn’t either: she’d go back to him tomorrow. And this time, she wouldn’t leave without a job.
* * *
Luc had driven this far up the county road only once, and that had been the day he’d made the offer on the vineyard. As part of his due diligence, he’d investigated the entire area, in search of hidden nuclear power plants the real estate agent might have forgotten to mention. Well, and to scope out the neighbors. As his grandfather had drilled into his brain as a boy, your crop is only as good as your neighbor’s.
Turning into the sect’s drive, his first impression had been mixed: the sunny-yellow sign such a contrast to its words of imminent apocalypse, paint worn and fraying at the edges. Now, in the dark, his headlights found it. Just beyond was the gate, closed like so many others in the area—ostensibly to keep livestock in. He’d wondered about these people. Because who the hell needed a two-meter-high chain-link fence around a property this size? Even goats did fine with one meter of chicken wire.
No, that fence was strange. But good neighbors didn’t pry. Another one ofGrandpère’s rules. So after his initial meeting with the group’s leader—a strange man with a strange name—he’d established that they didn’t use harsh chemicals on their crops, and he’d taken off. Relieved to get away and, to be honest, relieved that they were so private. Both parties had made it clear during that single meeting that they weren’t interested in each other’s business. It had seemed perfect.
Which was another reason he was so irritated with that woman. How dare she ignore their unspoken agreement and invade his privacy like that?
Well, to hell with it. As he opened the truck door, the dog raised its head and made a noise not strong enough to be a whine. Luc hesitated, eye on the animal. Its paw shifted to nudge Luc’s leg. Although there was no strength behind it, there was something else.
“You don’t want to go there?” he asked.
The dog gave a low, rumbling response, which he could have sworn was assent—or a warning.
“I can’t keep you if you belong to them,” he argued, one leg out of the truck.
