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She turned back to gouging the stick into her hand.
“Addie?”
Her eyes snapped as she raised her gaze to me. “James, I have very selfish reasons for wishing you wouldn’t marry her. Or anyone else. Anyone but me.”
The truth almost knocked me over. I managed to stay upright, thoughts tumbling like the rapids just upstream from the swimming hole. Addie wanted me?
“But you’re young and so pretty,” I said. “And talented. What would you want with me? You could have anyone.”
“I don’t care about anyone else. I care about you. I’ve loved you from the very first day I ever met you.” She hurled the stick into the water. I watched it sail out to the middle of the creek like a small boat. “I know you can’t—or won’t—feel the same. I didn’t mean for you to ever know.” Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she swiped them away. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “Never be sorry for love.” I needed to stay calm, handle her with the utmost care. This was the tender heart of an innocent. The sweet, sweet heart of Addie Barnes was on display before me.
“I can’t bear it, James.” A sob of misery rose from her and floated toward me. “She’s coming to my house. Myhome. Invading my family. Taking you. Not that you were mine to begin with.” She wiped away more tears with the backs of her knuckles before I came to my senses and pulled a handkerchief from my knapsack.
“I’ve not thought of you that way,” I said, finally and clumsily.
“Why?” She looked straight into my eyes. “Because I’m too young?”
“Not that, no. I mean, yes, before now. You’re Fiona’s baby sister. She would not want this.”
“How do you know that?”
HowdidI know that? I’d assumed it, I suppose. “I guess I don’t know that. She might not like it. She might and most likely would think I was too old for you and too poor. Your sister knows me better than anyone, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
She lay on her back and covered her face with the handkerchief as if it were a tablecloth. Her breath made the thin fabric rise and fall. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be that either.”
With the handkerchief still covering her, she asked another question. “Is there any part of you that could see me as anything other than Fiona’s baby sister?”
“Addie, you’re a beautiful young lady. Special, in fact.” I reached out to pat her hand but instead found myself leaning closer. I snatched the handkerchief from her face. Her eyes flew open. “I’d have to be dead not to notice you.”
She drew in a breath and let it out slowly, staring up at me. “If it weren’t for Lena, would you consider me?”
How honest should I be? I’d not thought of her in this way. Not before this summer, anyway. Since I’d been here this time, however, I’d been unable to stop looking at her. And not in an entirely gentlemanly way. “I can’t allow myself to venture into that dreamland. I can’t have you.”
She nodded and remained lying on her back, the leaves of aspen above us making dappled shadows on her fair skin. Tears escaped from her eyes, but she seemed not to notice them. I picked up the handkerchief from my lap and pressed it to one cheek and then the other. “Please don’t cry over me. I’m not worth it.”
Addie shot up from her supine position and glared at me. “Do you really believe that? Do you really think your worth is only what you can do for your family? You’re more than that. You shouldn’t have to take on the burden of your father’s mistakes.”
“Yes, but the fact is—I must or face the rest of my life guilty and regretful.” What could I say that I hadn’t already? I was afraid if I said much of anything else, the precarious ground upon which we currently trod would grow treacherous. I must tell her the truth. She deserved that much after opening her soul to me. What was the truth? If I were free, would I welcome her affection?
Yes, you fool. She would be the best thing that ever happened in your whole life.
No, I mustn’t think that way, or my selfish nature would take hold and never let go. I would become my father, concerned only with himself without regard even for those he held most dear. That man would not be the man for Addie. She needed someone noble of mind, not of birth.
And so, in the end, I told her again that she was beautiful and so good and pure and that a man much luckier than I would soon arrive in her life. “You’ll forget all about me, too, when he comes.”
“Yes, I will indeed.” She smiled, but it did nothing to convince me that she meant those words. “And you’re right, dear James. A man living with guilt and regret would not be a good husband to the woman who made him make such a choice. For this, I should be grateful, I suppose. Being spared from that fate.”
We sat quietly for a few moments. A dragonfly sailed in on the breeze, cheeky and so very free, as if to remind me of what I could have had.
8
ADDIE
That eveningafter my clumsy declaration of love, I’d said I had a headache and stayed in my room instead of going down for dinner. Mama came up afterward to check on me and, finding me weeping on the window seat, rushed to sit with me.
