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IT WAS A DECEITFUL October sky that promised peace and security. A chill spiked the autumn air, yet the late afternoon rays of the sun were warm. Isabella sat quietly in the corner of the porch with a book on her lap, but William fussed and fretted, refusing to close his eyes.
This was Annie’s favorite time of year, but she didn’t have time to enjoy the brilliant golds, the flashing reds, or the forest shimmering as if a thousand suns were burning through the trees.
Taking William in her arms, Annie sang a lullaby, consoling and rocking him until finally his head listed to the side. After swaying him gently for another moment, she leaned down to tuck him in his cradle.
As she straightened slowly, she caught a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye. The tall, stalwart soldier stood quietly beneath the limbs of a scarlet-leafed tree, making her wonder how long he’d been there. His bearing was erect, but his countenance grave, his eyes lit with a faraway gleam. Her gaze drifted to his horse, tied some distance beyond. Its frost-steamed breath indicated he’d been ridden hard, and had not been resting long.
Annie’s heart burst with joy at the sight of her husband after so many months of absence. But her first inclination—to run into his arms—was halted when she noticed the workings of the muscles on his face, and the stark desolation in his eyes. A heavy cloak of fear fell over her, immobilizing her, stealing her breath.
For a moment he looked away and searched the horizon, his eyes strangely forlorn in their quest. Annie felt her heart roll over in her chest, then plummet to her shoes—throbbing, aching, leaving her breathless, as if she had just been kicked. Something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Noticing her rising alarm, Jonathon strode out of the treeline, and rapidly reached the steps. He appeared colossal highlighted in the low sunlight, and stood regarding her with somber attention as if preparing himself for a duty he had no heart for. Annie wondered for a moment if he was injured or ill, but something cautioned her not to ask.
Although his face conveyed the agony of a lethal wound, it slowly occurred to her that it was not his own well-being troubling him. Annie stood quietly, wavering between dread and breathless anticipation. For a few long minutes, there was no speech, nothing but a sensation only true suffering can impart. Impulsively she leaned toward him, waiting for him to speak, her breath coming in short, uneven spurts.
“I have bad news. I felt the need to be the one to break it to you.”
His face was kindled with a raging fire of grief, his eyes gravely somber. The look struck her heart even more than his words. She began to tremble as panic set in, her pounding heart depending on sense now rather than thought.
Something deep inside her warned her of his purpose. Yet the words, when they did come, horrified her.
“Luke is dead.”
Three words. That was all.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you myself before—” His voice broke midsentence in a half-suppressed sob.
“No.” Annie covered her ears and backed away, struggling and trembling with sorrow and anger. She stared at him as he stood there silently...stoically...as if bravely fulfilling a duty that had nothing to do with him.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t react. Nothing. Not a single expression. The steadfast detachment on his face stoked flames of rage.
“No! You’re lying!” She ran at him headfirst, too full of pain and misery at the news of another loss to think straight. She hit him full force and felt like she had run into the side of a mountain. If he hadn’t grabbed her arms, she would have bounced off his massive form and fallen to the ground.
Jonathon held her against him, seeming to understand her reaction as tears replaced her anger, and then sympathy replaced the tears. He seemed so invincible. Unshakable. But of course he was hurting. Hadn’t he told her once that sending his men home in coffins was the heaviest burden he had to bear? And now his own brother had perished—and so had hers—and how many thousands of others?
Dear God. How many thousands of others?
Annie felt him shudder with suppressed emotion, making his concealed agony even harder to bear. His tearless grief—for her sake—wrung her heart. She pulled away and wiped her cheeks.
“Jonathon, I’m so sorry.” She reached up and blotted away a tear that left a trail down his cheek. “What can I do to help?”
“I was hoping you could tell Molly.” His gaze did not meet hers, but he spoke with the same quiet dignity that always characterized him. “I’m afraid I can’t...”
Annie took a deep breath and nodded, though her eyes brimmed again at the thought of telling the young woman of her husband’s death. Molly’s child...their child...due in a few weeks, would never hear the sound of its father’s voice or know his joyful spirit.
A pain squeezed Annie’s heart at the utter absurdity of the news. Dear Luke, with his irresistible smile and vibrant charm, was too young and vivacious to have crossed the mystic boundary, never to return. Impossible.
But Jonathon’s face confirmed the truth. The anguish there revealed a loss too deep for words. Merciless lines of torment carved ridges of pain on his face, even as he did his best to maintain his composure and control.
“Of course I will tell Molly, and take care of her...here.” Annie raised her chin slightly, attempting to muster the same strength her husband so easily displayed. But she felt her chin tremble and knew the effort only served to expose the depth of her grief and weakness.
“We are strongest in the broken places,” he whispered, gazing out over her shoulder, and speaking as if trying to convince himself rather than mollify her. His eyes appeared hollow, blank of all feeling but glassy despair.
She nodded, keenly aware of his suffering, and trying to keep her own emotions under stern restraint. But she remembered what Luke told her the last time she’d seen him, almost two months earlier.
Smiling and cheerful, he’d sensed her apprehension, and tried to ease her trepidation. “It’s a mistake to try to see too far ahead, Miss Annie,” he’d said in her ear. “The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
Then he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek—as he always did before taking his leave—and melted into the night.
Her attention flew back to Jonathon. There was so much to say, yet neither could find the words to say it.
He turned toward the cradle on the porch. “How is my little man? Asleep, I see.”
He knelt down to watch the sleeping baby. “And growing.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My, how he’s grown.”
“He looks more like you every day,” Annie said.
Isabella glanced up from her book and sent it flying as she ran over and grabbed Jonathon’s leg. “Papa!”
“Quiet now,” he said, hoisting her up. “Don’t wake your brother.”
The little girl wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Come read to me, Papa.”
A wind kicked up at that moment, and seemed to heave a great sob over the expanse of field behind them. Jonathon’s eyes sought Annie’s with a beseeching look that begged her to intervene.
“Give Papa a kiss, Isabella. He has to go.”
Isabella’s chin trembled as Annie’s had done, but the little one possessed such an old soul, she seemed able to perceive the heaviness of the moment and the importance of calm. She lay her head against Jonathon’s chest and embraced him tightly. “I love you, Papa.”
“I love you, little Bella.”
After a long hug with his face buried in her hair, Jonathon sat Isabella in a chair and turned to Annie. He smiled uneasily, failing to hide the new desolation settling on his face. Taking her into his strong arms, he kissed her tenderly—and more deeply than Annie expected. “I love you, Annie Wescott,” he whispered in her ear. “Never forget that.”
Annie leaned her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, willing herself to be strong for his sake. Knowing that time was ticking away, she held him tightly, soaking in the feel of him...the scent of him. Then she stood on her tiptoes, held his face in her hands, and kissed him again. “I love you Jonathon Wescott. Never forget that.”
Jonathon gazed deep into her eyes as if trying to convey an unspoken message, nodded once—and then strode off the porch without a backward glance.
As he gathered his horse and rode away, a cold wind rustled the leaves and dark, spiteful clouds flew across the face of the sun. Annie picked up Isabella, unwilling to watch the mist and shadows of dusk erase him. With her face buried in Bella’s hair, she was too consumed by sorrow to notice when he stopped at the edge of the woods for one final look at Lacewood.
With eyes misted over by a fresh round of tears, Annie turned toward the house, and prayed for mercy, telling God she could take no more.
But all too soon, she learned that she could.