The Outcast Read online

  He lost none of his warm appeal but she sensed a sudden toughness about him. “It is business to me, ma’am. I take my friends very seriously. I don’t like to see them hurting, either.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dodge, but you are mistaken if you thought I could do anything about that.”

  He stood, smile knowing. “I don’t think so, Patrice.”

  The familiarity made her bristle, then he completely disarmed her with his soft offer of, “If you ever need someone to talk to, I’ll be there for you.”

  She didn’t know how to respond. Dodge was Reeve’s friend. Would his confidentiality extend from accounts to acquaintances? She wanted to believe it would. She trusted Hamilton Dodge more than anyone else in the room, more than her own brother. But she let him walk away without revealing a hint of that hope.

  With his father’s friends and neighbors milling about inside under the gracious care of Hannah Sinclair, Reeve was left to his own devices. He made no effort to intrude upon the mourning of those who’d come, knowing it wouldn’t be well received. They hadn’t come because he’d asked them, and most of them would probably never set foot through the front door again now that Byron was gone. The situation demanded civility, and so far all were behaving, even Deacon and the rowdy Dermonts. But tomorrow, after Byron Sinclair was in the ground, things would change dramatically. Reeve didn’t kid himself about that for a minute.

  He cast a glance to where Dodge and Patrice were talking and happened to intercept her withering glare. He’d given up trying to predict the hot and cold of her moods, and now was not the occasion to demand an accounting from her. Having Byron die in a her presence, almost in her arms, had shaken her. Death was never easy to accept but having to be in attendance was an awful thing, especially for one as sheltered as Patrice. In a respect for her distress and her reputation, he stayed away.

  “Reeve, take some air with me.”

  Bemused, Reeve followed Tyler out onto the empty porch. The warm breeze erased the close smells of smoke, perfumes, and death lingering inside. Reeve pulled the clean air in appreciatively, then waited to learn what was on Tyler’s mind.

  Tyler walked to the edge of the cement porch. He stared down the green sweep of lawn to the whitewashed gazebo. Reeve wondered if he was remembering the stormy summer days he, Reeve, and Jonah sat within its shelter attaching flies to their fishing lines. Or the cold fall evenings he’d slept there under one of Reeve’s blankets, too drunk to go home. Or too scared. He must have recalled some of it, for in a sedate voice, Tyler began, “You and me, we been friends a long time, Reeve.”

  Curious as to where this was going, Reeve agreed.

  “I didn’t have too many friends. You an’ me, we kinda stuck together ‘cause nobody else’d have us. But I always liked you, Reeve. I still do. I got nothin’ against you or what you did. That’s why I want you to know this is nothin’ personal.”

  He turned. There was no fond recollection in his stare. His expression was deadened, his eyes chips of opaque glass.

  “You’ve got to leave here before someone dies.”

  Chapter 20

  “Are you saying it’s gonna be you or me?”

  Tyler shook his head, his stare never flickering. “That ain’t what I’m sayin’. Hell, I don’t want to hurt you. I got no choice in this.”

  “Yes, you do. Walk away, Ty. You can keep it from happening.”

  “You give me too much credit. I can’t stop things from being the way they are.”

  “Or you don’t want to. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted, to be a big fish in a small pond? Having folks looking up to you? You’re confusing respect with fear. Your daddy do that to your face?”

  The sudden shift of topic caught Tyler off guard. For an instant, his reactions were genuine. He flinched back, stare going dull as unpolished jade. Nervously, he wet his lips but couldn’t bring the words up to deny it. Instead, his voice hollow as a dry well, he said, “I got careless.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” Reeve could see he did. No one knew his circumstances better. “The pond stinks, Tyler. Get out before it sucks you under.”

  Maybe it was too late for the truth to reach Tyler Fairfax. Perhaps Reeve was counting on touching something in his old friend that no longer existed. He’d had enough things in his life trying to push him over the edge. If Reeve could just manage to restore that delicate balance.

  “Tyler, if you go through with what they’re planning, you’ll be just as bad as he is.”

  Turmoil darkened his eyes and worked the lean angles of his face. Then the disturbance settled like ripples disappearing on deep waters. Reeve knew he’d lost his chance.

  Tyler walked the edge of the porch in his rolling amble, speaking casually while avoiding Reeve’s eyes. “I can only give you this one warnin’. Things will get worse if you stay. They won’t ever forget Jonah or which side you chose to fight on. Not as long as Patrice wears that engagement ring and you’re sitting here in this house atop the corpses of your brother and father.”

  Reeve’s insides chilled at the picture his friend painted but didn’t interrupt the deadly quiet of his words.

  “Your protection is gone, Reeve. You don’t have the squire to hide behind. When he’s put in the ground, they’ll come for you. You know that.”

  “I do.”

  Tyler confronted him with a brief flare of intensity. “Then get the hell out. Go far, far away. You don’t like them any more than they like you. Sell this place and get out. Start over. I would if I was you.”

  “But you’re not.”

  Tyler studied the set lines of his friend’s face, the determination in his eyes, and, resigned, he momentarily hung his head. Then he crossed to Reeve and encircled him with a lightning embrace. It took Reeve a startled second to respond. Then they held tight to one another, enfolding the times they’d shared, good and bad, with a fierce, almost-angry desperation. And then Tyler stepped back to surrender the friendship they would never know again.

  Features mobile and expressive, Tyler hesitated. Reeve thought he had something to say, but, in the end, he turned without comment or regret and walked away.

  Through a misty gaze, Reeve watched him go. He considered calling to him or going after him but did neither. Instead, he returned to the house and to the brandy he’d promised Dodge.

  And later, when the house was quiet, he mourned the loss of Tyler Fairfax as if he was burying him tomorrow, too.

  A misty drizzle darkened the morning gloom settling over the fresh earth of Byron Glendower’s grave. Several dozen had braved the weather to hear the preacher’s intonations, words echoing those spoken not so long ago over Jonah Glendower’s plot. Words Patrice was so heartsick of hearing.

  As soon as the short service was over, the mourners filed quickly to their carriages, not stopping to pay respects to the lone figure remaining with the gravediggers in the Glendower cemetery. Reeve stood motionless, head slightly bowed, rain plastering his hair against his brow, not at his father’s open grave but next to Jonah’s, his hand resting atop the cold stone. He didn’t respond to the press of Dodge’s hand on his shoulder, so his friend followed the others, leaving him to whatever grief moved behind the immobile planes of his face. When the banker walked past Patrice, water runneling off the brim of his low-crowned hat when he nodded, his words hung like the chill fog, bringing a shiver.

  He needs more than that from you, Patrice.

  What more could she give? What more could she afford to risk? She knew the squire’s ancient lawyer waited inside in Byron’s study to apprise Reeve of his father’s will. Was there a clause in there with her name attached? Inheritance of the Glade conditional upon his marriage to Patrice Sinclair? A twinge of pain stabbed through her heart as she allowed Deacon to lead her and their mother across the spongy ground to the shelter of the porch. There, Hannah, her eyes swollen from the weight of burying too many loved ones, went directly inside to change out of her sodden shawl. Patrice made to
follow when she saw her brother walk back out into the gloom. She paused to watch him, as he strode, unbent despite the worsening downpour, to meet with someone beneath the negligible cover of one of the Glade’s live oaks. Puzzlement grew to alarm when she saw that the man was Tyler.

  Their meeting was brief. Tyler did most of the talking, his gestures becoming more emphatic as Deacon shook his head. Patrice wished she could hear their words. Finally, Tyler jabbed a forefinger against the center of Deacon’s chest to punctuate his message then left her brother standing there for a long minute, apparently to mull over whatever Tyler deemed so important. Patrice grew chilled, wondering over the reason for their intense discussion. She had scarcely enough time to duck out of sight as Deacon turned toward the house once more. Caution warned not to let him see her spying upon his business.

  She’d just mounted the stairs when Deacon called to her. Arranging her features carefully, she looked to him, trying not to be obvious in her scrutiny of his mood. There was nothing to discover from the void of his expression.

  “Patrice, tell Mother we leave as soon as the rain lets up.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Home. Get your things together, all of them. We won’t be coming back here again.”

  Surprised, though she shouldn’t have been, Patrice blurted, “But Deacon—”

  “Don’t argue, Patrice. Do what I tell you.”

  It wasn’t the command. It was the faint plea in his tone that made her comply, fearing whatever had him so unsettled.

  “We’ll be ready.”

  He didn’t say anything. The slight drop of his shoulders spoke eloquently of his relief.

  Three hours later, their trunks were piled in the back of the shiny new carriage. Patrice took one quick look back at the house that should have been hers to call home. They hadn’t seen Reeve before their departure. Hannah protested it was rude not to thank him for his graciousness. Deacon replied that he’d taken care of the niceties. Patrice wondered. As sorry as she was not to have a final word, a final glimpse of the new master of Glendower Glade, she was relieved as well. It made not looking back once the carriage began to roll that much easier to bear.

  Though she never allowed the knowledge to surface fully, Patrice knew deep in heart and mind that they were leaving the Glade on a run so as not to be caught up in whatever retribution the citizens of Pride planned for Reeve Garrett.

  Patrice hadn’t been inside the Manor since workers bought by Tyler’s bribe took over the refinishing. After climbing the rebuilt steps to the entryway, Deacon held the door open to usher them in with poorly concealed anxiousness.

  “Don’t expect too much,” he told them. “It could never be the way it once was. There’s still more to do.”

  Hannah stopped and drew an awed breath. “Oh, Deacon. Deacon, it’s lovely.” She whirled to hug her son, weeping softly into his shirtfront. Over the top of her head, Deacon watched for Patrice’s reaction.

  Polished wood floors reflected in their mirrorlike sheen the wonders Deacon managed. Fresh paper lined walls edged in gleaming natural woodwork. The reupholstered rolled-arm sofa was restored to its place against the stairs, inviting a guest’s repose. Cleaned and reframed portraits of past Sinclairs looked down upon them in approval as a breeze from the open door stirred the prisms of overhead chandeliers into a tinkling dance. Patrice’s eyes welled up as she took it all in.

  “Is it home?”

  Deacon’s quiet question broke her reverie. She turned to him with a teary smile and watched his reserve collapse at her emotion-filled, “Yes.”

  When he freed one arm and opened it wide, she was quick to join her mother within the tight circle of family.

  “I couldn’t bear to give you any less,” he whispered against the tops of their heads. “Having you back here is worth everything. Welcome home.”

  Worth everything.

  Patrice squeezed her eyes shut, burrowing her face into her brother’s shoulder. She wouldn’t think about it. It didn’t matter now that it was done. All Deacon had done, was done for them, for their father’s dream and their future prosperity. She couldn’t condemn him for that, for seeing to duty above personal honor. And for the first time, as she felt him relax upon a satisfied sigh, she realized how awful it must have been for him to make the sacrifices to restore their world.

  Or the illusion of it.

  With an arm curved about each of them, Deacon gave mother and sister a tour of their refurbished home. Hannah couldn’t stop crying, and Patrice was close to tears herself. It was a magnificent restoration on the surface, and she enjoyed the feelings of security and tradition surrounding them, at least for this moment of her brother’s triumph. She couldn’t deny him that. She loved him too much.

  After a fine meal, Deacon consulted with Jericho behind the closed doors of his father’s study, while Patrice saw her mother off to bed. When she came back downstairs afloat on memories of the past, she found her brother in the parlor seated on the same sofa where he’d nearly lost his life to blood poisoning. The sofa was recovered, as was her brother. He stared pensively into the fire, long legs stretched out toward its heat, one arm draped along the carved trim of the sofa’s back. His other hand cradled a nearly empty snifter.

  “I’ve never seen Mama so happy.”

  He looked up, expression quiet, strangely vulnerable as he asked. “And you? Are you happy, Patrice?”

  She settled on the cushions beside him, nudging under his extended arm and tucking her slippered feet up beneath her. His breathing seemed to stop when she pillowed her cheek on his chest.

  “It makes me happy to see you like this.”

  He took in her evasive answer, then set his drink aside. His fingertips touched tentatively to the side of her face.

  “I’ve done this for us all, Patrice. To keep our father’s legacy alive. To give Mother back her memories. To see you have everything you deserve and more.”

  “And what do you get, Deacon?”

  He was silent for a long moment, apparently surprised by the question and unable to grab at an easy reply. He phrased his reasonings precisely but passionlessly.

  “All my life, I watched our father put heart and soul into the preservation of our name. That’s the one thing he instilled in me, over and over, that I was a Sinclair and that this was my destiny. Everything he did was to groom me to assume his place as head of this family, to take control the way he would have. I understood why he had to be harsh, sometimes cruel. It was to make me stronger, ready for this day.”

  To make him over into the man their father had been. Patrice understood, too. And suddenly that frightened her. Avery Sinclair had been a man of his times, content within the microcosm of Pride County where change never came and pride rested on the laurels of past glory. Unlike his son, Patrice had to wonder if her father would have survived the upheaval to their world. And that made Deacon the better, stronger man. Did he know that? Did he know the perfection he’d struggled to attain all his life had already been far surpassed?

  “You’re not Father, Deacon.”

  He took it wrong. His fingers tightened upon the cap of her shoulder, the embrace no longer inclusive but rather constraining. “But I will carry on with the things that mattered to him. I promised him that when he rode off to war. I vowed I’d see our family stayed together and that nothing we’d do would disgrace the name Sinclair. I watched you break our father’s heart with your rebellions and your disregard, but you were a child then. Grow up, Patrice. Grow up and take responsibility for your part in this family.”

  She cringed under his words, twisting inside for a way to escape them, finding none. He spoke the truth. She’d seen the pain, the disappointment in Avery Sinclair’s eyes whenever she fell short of the standards he set. Knowing that many times, she’d failed on purpose just to provoke him, brought her no pleasure now. He’d died to preserve their unchanging quality of life. The only time she’d ever given him a moment of unblemished pride was the da
y she’d accepted Jonah’s offer of marriage. How good it felt to bask in the glow of his regard, a reward well worth the sacrifice. That’s what Deacon meant. She recognized all her brother set aside of himself to be subordinate to their father’s ideals. But was it right and good for him to bow before the pressures of the past, or was he being cheated, were they all being cheated by the oppression of that rule?

  Then Deacon extinguished any further argument with an abrupt shift in tactics. Whether cunningly calculated or straight from the heart, it didn’t matter; his words had the desired effect.

  “You were right about one thing, Patrice. I can’t do it alone. The choices I’ve had to make—” He drew a deep stabilizing breath before he could go on. “I had no idea they’d be so … difficult. Just knowing you and Mother were here to support me made all the difference. Father never said so, but I’m sure he felt the same way. We do what we have to do to protect the ones we love. When we can’t do that … something just dies inside.”

  Patrice straightened slowly. A catch in her brother’s voice snagged her heart as well. He stared into the fire, expression taut, almost unreadable. Almost. Perhaps because of her own divided loyalties, she was extrasensitive to the same torments in another. His wistful anguish telegraphed loud and clear.

  “Deacon?”

  He glanced at her, gaze wary, veiled yet still vulnerable. She touched his jaw to keep him from turning away.

  “What happened while you were away? Was there someone?”

  The sadness in his faint smile devastated her.

  “It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to look back.”

  His air of resignation stemmed the questions forming on her lips. What happened? Who was she? Where is she now? And most importantly, Did you love her? Instead, she whispered, “Oh, Deacon, I’m so sorry,” and enveloped him in the wrap of her arms. He leaned against her, just for a moment, resting his head on her shoulder just long enough for her to know the depth of his heartache. She wanted to weep for his lost love because she knew he never would. And that was so sad to her.