I almost stopped, my heart flipping in my chest. “But—but my mother will be angry if I climb a tree.”
He either ignored me, or didn’t hear, because he continued forward in silence. I scowled to myself, heart pounding. Trees were not for climbing. That’s what Mama always said. That was whatallmamas said. But I knew by the mischief in his smile that Owen was not the sort of boy who commonly obeyed his mama.
Despite the qualms I felt, I continued to follow cautiously behind him, mostly because I didn’t know the way back to the house. At a small clearing, Owen stopped beside a thick tree trunk, resting a hand against it and peering up through its branches.
“This is the one,” he said. He bent over a nearby pile of sticks, moved them aside, and scooped up a dark burlap sack from beneath them.
I hurried over, eager to look inside. “What’s in there?”
“Acorns,” he replied in a whispered voice, widening the opening so I could peer inside. The sack was full nearly to the top with tiny acorns, bronze in the setting sunlight.
“What are we going to do with them?”
He smiled, mischief meeting his eyes with a twinkle. “You will see. But first we must hurry and climb the tree.”
I looked up slowly, inching my eyes along the trunk, to the branches and leaves. The tree seemed to touch the orange sky where dark birds cut through the air without a sound. I swallowed my nerves. Mama would never know if I climbed it. As long as I didn’t tear my gown, she would never know.
It was settled then. I nodded.
Owen climbed first, and I watched where he stepped and where his hands clasped the branches and knots in the bark. He climbed effortlessly, as if he had done so dozens of times. He was at the top. It was my turn.
Starting slowly, I made my way upward, realizing why this was the tree he chose. There were so many places to step, to place my hands that I was at the top without much of a struggle at all. My pride soared like the birds above us. They were much closer now—I felt like I could fly too. And maybe I could. I had climbed a tree, after all. How much more difficult could flying be?
Owen opened the burlap sack and positioned it directly above the path. He held a finger to his lips, warning me to be silent.
The sound of footfalls and lazy humming approached from down the path beyond the clearing. My eyes widened as I predicted Owen’s plan. An elegant woman who appeared to be the same age as Mama came into view below us. Before I could so much as gasp, Owen capsized the sack, showering her head in acorns.
The woman gasped enough for both of us, swatting at the air above her head as the acorns rained down on her like little hailstones. Owen was laughing as he pulled me back against the tree to a place where we couldn’t be seen past the new leaves and tangled wood.
“Owen Kellaway, if that is you, your mother will hear about this!” she shrieked from below.
He covered his mouth to keep from laughing.
After a final huffed breath, the woman stomped off, mumbling something about mischief under her breath. I didn’t know what to say as I watched Owen laughing. This boy was certainly the most atrocious boy I had ever met.
“She’s my mother’s friend,” he managed through a laugh. “She wants her silly girl to marry my brother one day. But I don’t like herorher daughter.”
“But that is no way to treat a lady,” I snapped, folding my arms.
He shrugged and started down the tree without a word. I watched him with renewed fear in my stomach. Climbing down seemed much worse than climbing up. Once his feet touched the ground, he glanced up at me, a question written on his face.
“Are you coming?”
Tears stung my eyes as I looked down at him, at the ground that felt so much farther from me than the sky. I didn’t want him to see my fear though, so I nodded and turned to my stomach, searching with my feet for a place to step. I found a place, a branch that was much too thin. The moment I released my grip, the branch snapped under my foot.
The ground rushed up at me, two arms reached for me, and then everything went dark.
CHAPTER 5
My brow furrowed into a scowl.
After I had fallen from the tree I recovered quickly, but it was not among my fondest memories.Owen Kellawaydid not exist among my fondest memories. After the tree incident, I had avoided him for the remainder of our visit, keeping to my room with a book or my dolls, trying to forget about that odious boy.
Seeing him now, ten years later, I knew that I must have never forgotten his face, because I could identify all the things that had changed. His hair was darker than the golden of my memory, but still lighter than brown. His jaw was much more solid, his brows and lashes dark.
His eyes had not changed. They were still blue, and they were still mischievous.
He hardly looked at me before pulling a chair close to Charles. “I assume this is the patient?”
