CHAPTER
28

How had a picnic designed for courtship turned into an exercise in stripping the skin from each other’s souls? Zach blew out a breath and gripped the back of his neck, as if the action would anchor him when his entire being was adrift.

This wasn’t how the evening was supposed to go. He and Abby were supposed to be sitting on a blanket by the creek, eating fancy hotel food, and sharing kisses. Not standing in the middle of an emotional briar patch, confessing secrets that held the power to destroy everything they’d built.

Yet in the midst of that poisonous bramble, a gentle hand alit on his arm, and his barbed surroundings retracted some of their thorns.

“Zach.” It wasn’t a demand but an invitation. One he couldn’t resist.

He looked down at his wife and nearly wept when he saw compassion shining in her soft brown eyes. Like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline, he reached for her, cupping her face in his hands and bringing his mouth down upon hers.

His kiss was rough, desperate, afraid. Even so, she made no effort to pull away. In fact, she clasped his shoulders and rose up on her toes to meet him. He could taste the salt of her tears, reminding him that she’d already blazed the trail. Brave, wonderful woman. He’d offered to help her run from her fears, but she’d turned and faced them. Faced him. He could do no less.

Curbing his rising passion, Zach softened his hold and eased his lips from hers. Abby’s eyes were slow to open, and with her moist mouth still upturned, he found her impossible to ignore. He had to press two tender kisses to her lips before he found the strength to pull away.

“How do you deal with it?” he asked, his voice scratchy and hoarse, the words he never spoke aloud scraping against his throat as he forced them out. “The guilt of knowing your actions hastened a man’s end?”

Abigail’s breath shuddered, but her hand slid down his arm, over his wrist, and into his palm. Her fingers twined with his, and for the first time in nine years, the weight on his soul lessened just a little.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she started walking toward the creek, turning along the grassy shore to follow the stream’s winding path. She dragged him along with her. Not that he minded. It felt good to move, to have an outlet for all the pent-up emotion ricocheting around inside him.

“It’s not easy,” she finally said. “Especially when Sophia won’t let me forget.”

Zach nodded. “Mine hits me fresh every time I see Logan.”

Her steps faltered as she craned her neck to look at him. “Evie’s husband?”

“Yep.” Zach cleared his throat. “His father is the man I killed.”

“Oh, Zach.” Those beautiful eyes swam not with disappointment or accusation but empathy—a commodity he’d never thought he’d find. “How awful for you. Is that why you moved to Honey Grove? To keep from having to see him every day?” Suddenly her eyes sparked. “He didn’t make you leave, did he? To keep you away from Evie? He seemed pleasant enough at the wedding, but if he’s keeping you from your sister, I’ll grab my frying pan and–and . . .”

He grinned, then bopped the end of her nose. “No need for frying pans, sugar. At least not where Logan is concerned. I might take one to Mrs. Longfellow one of these days, but that’s another matter.”

How had he managed to hitch himself to the one woman in all of creation who not only understood his past but stood ready to fight for his future? The miracle of it made his head spin. All he could do was thank God for antiquated laws and prejudiced council members. If Abigail hadn’t proposed to him . . . well, he didn’t want to contemplate how bleak life would be without her.

“Logan’s a good man,” he said as they resumed their stroll along the water’s edge. “We might not be the best of friends, but he’s good to Evie, and he’s forgiven my part in his father’s death.”

“Have you forgiven yourself?”

The quiet question slipped between his ribs to stagger his breath.

Abby squeezed his hand. “That’s the hardest part, I’ve found.”

A thickness crept up Zach’s throat. “How do you manage it?”

“Little by little. I take comfort in scriptures that talk about how God removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west, how he will remember our sins no more, how he urges us to cast our cares on him. But to be honest, whenever I see Sophia, the guilt twinges in my heart and tempts me to believe that I’m not worthy of such forgiveness.”

That was a feeling he could relate to. He didn’t even have to see Logan in the flesh. He thought about it every time he spied his father’s card case. He wanted the shame, though. Wanted the reminder of the consequences so he’d never repeat his mistake. But for the first time, he wondered if locking one foot in the past had kept him walking around in circles without really making any forward progress.

“After the accident,” Abby continued, “I stopped going out in public. I saw accusation everywhere I looked, though in truth it was more in my own mind than in the eyes of others. Thank the Lord for Lydia Putnam. She refused to let me hide away. When I stopped attending church and delivering her widow bread, she started barging into the bakery kitchen when Papa was on break. Rosalind abetted the ambushing, of course, allowing Lydia behind the counter where only family was permitted. At first Lydia tried to cajole and reassure me that the accident wasn’t my fault, but when that met with no success, she changed tactics. I still remember the day she marched into the kitchen and slapped her Bible down on the worktable with enough force to make the yeast bowl rattle. She jabbed a crooked finger into my face and said, ‘Abby Jane, quit being a hypocrite.’”

Zach’s head jerked toward his wife as she wagged a finger in the air, reenacting the scene. “A hypocrite?” he echoed, disbelief thick in his voice. He might deserve that moniker, but not Abigail. “Seems harsh.”

Abby smiled. Not a wide smile that exposed her dimples, but a soft, gentle one of fond remembrance. “She asked me straight out if I had sought the Lord’s forgiveness for my poor choice in climbing that tree. When I said yes, she asked me if I believed the Bible to be true. When I said yes again, she snorted and said that if I believed the Bible to be true, I wouldn’t be hiding away and wallowing in guilt when the Word clearly stated that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

“Guilt leads us to confession and repentance, she told me, but after we take it to the cross, we’re supposed to leave it there, not carry it around with us. Jesus’s burden is light. Guilt is heavy. Satan is the one who wants to increase our burden, to weigh us down with shame and despair, to steal our joy and the strength of the Lord that goes with it. Believing his lies instead of God’s truth makes us weak. Made me a hypocrite.”

Zach’s gut clenched. What did that make him? A heretic?

For years, Evie had bugged him about his lack of singing in church. Told him he looked like a grumpy bear when he just sat there with his mouth shut and his arms crossed. She took him to task for not praising the God who had provided for them.

He appreciated the Almighty well enough and understood the blessings he’d received even when he didn’t deserve them, which was most of the time. He sure as shooting didn’t deserve the woman walking beside him, the one sharing her heart, her pain, and her vulnerabilities with him without making a single demand in return. The one who innocently believed all he lacked was to leave his guilt at the cross when, in fact, he’d never made it to the cross in the first place.

He didn’t sing in church because the Good Book taught that he wasn’t to offer worship without first being reconciled with a brother who had a grievance against him. He figured having a grievance with the Big Man himself made the crime an even larger offense. Didn’t Jesus define a hypocrite as one who worshiped with his mouth and honored with his lips while his heart was far from God? Zach thought that by refraining from worship, he was keeping himself from being a hypocrite. Maybe he was, but holding back certainly did nothing to span the gulf between him and the Almighty. Why the Big Fella hadn’t just given up on him by now was a mystery Zach couldn’t fathom.

“But . . .” Zach drew Abigail to a halt, struggling to push the words through his rapidly constricting throat. “What if . . . I ain’t sorry? What if I haven’t confessed because I know I’d do it again if I found myself in the same situation?”

He braced himself for her horror. Her judgment. But all that came was a crinkling of her brow and a tilting of her head. She didn’t even say anything, just took a page out of his book and waited, trusting that he’d offer the explanation she deserved. She had more faith in him than he did in himself. It left him humbled even as it gave him courage.

He tugged his hand free of hers, then stripped out of his coat and laid it on the ground. Maybe he was just stalling, but he suddenly felt compelled to sit. As if that would make the tale easier to tell. It wouldn’t, but it would make it harder for his wife to run away from him once he was finished.

He lowered himself to the grass, propped up a knee, then held his hand out to her in invitation. Angel that she was, she didn’t hesitate. She settled atop his coat, folded her legs to the side, and braced one arm behind her for support. The other arm stretched toward him, her fingers coming to rest upon his thigh in silent encouragement.

“I was just thirteen when Seth, Evie, and I left the orphan train to make our own way. I’d spent a year livin’ on the streets in New York before gettin’ shoved into an overcrowded foundling home, so I thought I knew what it took to survive. I knew what it was like to go to bed hungry. I could handle that. What I couldn’t handle was watching Seth and Evie go to bed hungry. It like to tore my heart out. So I decided I would do whatever it took to make sure they had food in their bellies and a roof over their heads. I hired myself out as a stable hand so we could sleep in the livery. Did odd jobs for farmers in exchange for potatoes or anything else I could get my hands on. When I couldn’t find work, I stole what we needed. And as soon as I could pass for a man, which was around fifteen or so, thanks to an early appearance of facial hair and longer than average legs, I started putting my daddy’s gambling skills to work and made myself a place at the poker tables.”

“Your father was a gambler?”

Zach met her gaze and offered a self-deprecating grin. “Yep. Best on the Mississippi. No card game invented he couldn’t win.” He paused, his grin dissolving. “One way or another.”

She nodded in understanding, the edges of her mouth turning down just a bit in disapproval. But then, she should disapprove. Any person with a functioning moral compass would consider cheating wrong, and Abby’s compass pointed true north.

“For years, we scraped by,” he said. “Surviving but never able to get ahead. Evie was growing up in stables and back storage rooms, surrounded by men with foul mouths and shifty eyes. Seth’s asthma was worsening with the continued exposure to unsanitary conditions. It got so bad that we nearly lost him a time or two. I needed to get them somewhere safe. Somewhere clean. They needed a home. So when the opportunity presented itself to get them that home, I didn’t hesitate.”

He grabbed a clump of grass near his hip and tore it from the ground. If only tearing the ugliness from his past could be accomplished as easily. Squinting up at the sky, he opened his hand and let the grass float away on the breeze. Then, after blowing out a breath, he returned to his story.

“Word had spread around Pecan Gap about a card sharp who enjoyed luring men into deep play by dangling the deed to his family’s ranch as bait. When he was sure he had a winning hand, he’d up the ante with that deed, causing the others to either match it or fold, sacrificing the high stakes pot. Most folded. He walked away with hundreds of dollars each time. Until I earned my way into the game. I used every trick my daddy taught me. I out-sharped the sharp. Boosted his confidence, fed him the cards that would inspire him to wager the deed, then stole it out from under him by feeding myself the winning hand.

“I won that house for Evie and Seth and never gave a second thought to the family who’d be forced to leave.” Zach stared at the ground. He couldn’t look at Abby when he admitted the worst. Couldn’t watch the esteem die in her eyes. But he owed her the truth. “The day after I stole his house, Rufus Fowler committed suicide. Left his wife and kid not only without a home but without a man to provide for them. I destroyed that family. What happened to the Fowlers eats away at my soul, but I can’t repent if I don’t actually regret the sin I committed. My baby sister gained a safe place to grow up, and my kid brother got a healthy environment that healed his lungs. How can I regret that?

“I left gambling behind that night and swore to God that I’d never return, that I’d never pick up the cards again for personal gain. And I haven’t.” Zach ran a hand over his face. “But even knowing the destructive outcome of that night, if I had it to do over, I’d make the same choice.”

He finally forced himself to look Abigail in the face. Her hand remained on his leg. She hadn’t pulled away from him, but he knew this would change the way she saw him.

“You would undo what happened to Benedict Crowley,” he said, a tender smile curving his lips as her chin trembled and her eyes misted. He didn’t blame her for losing faith in him. How could he, when he’d never been worthy of it in the first place? “You’d make a different choice and preserve his life because you have a good heart. A righteous heart. You deserve absolution. I don’t.”