THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
THERE WAS A POINT in time when Zac genuinely believed that he would never see a day like this again. And the belief had been startlingly recent.
But a cruel twist of fate had once again put him back at his favorite place on Earth, a place that he’d once turned to in times of hopelessness and despair, but now was a place full of beauty and magic and happiness.
The shade tree in the clearing hadn’t changed a bit.
Well, the clearing itself had changed just a little. The July sun had been especially brutal on the plant life and even the ever-vibrant wildflowers couldn’t escape its wrath. They were fewer now, much fewer in number, and Bessie had grown afraid to touch them out of respect and preservation. The mischievous side of him couldn’t help but wonder what she would think when they were unearthed to make way for the precious house she wanted to build there.
But they would grow back. Because even the most beautiful of flowers were powerless to Bessie’s aura. They would grow back just for her. Only for her.
Zac’s heart swelled at this thought as he examined the beauty that shared the quilt with him under the shade tree that day. A small stream of sunlight escaped through the leaves and glittered against Bessie’s new honey-colored French braid, a change Zac was still getting used to. The afternoon was especially sweltering and her newfound confidence had her shamelessly wearing one of her swimsuits—his favorite, the yellow one—to help fight off the heat. She looked every bit the angel that she was and with what little bit of religion Zac still possessed, he thanked the good lord every day for sending her to him.
Unfortunately, the heat was too bothersome for either one of them to be distracted by the other’s near-nakedness. Zac’s hair was tied into a ball on top of his head and his shirt lay on the quilt beside him. Admittedly, it would have been more ideal to sit in the Harlows’ kitchen, or even to sneak her into the back room of the feed store, in order to take advantage of a bit of cooler air, but neither could resist the pull of their special place where they knew that peace would be guaranteed.
She sat perpendicular to him, her bare feet resting on top of the quilt between his knees. He gazed at her as his back rested against the tree’s trunk, fascinated with the way she drank in every photograph in the book that he’d made for her.
Today they were exchanging gifts.
Bessie was enchanted with the book as it lay, spread across her bare thighs. Her back was hunched as she studied each page, each photograph that was glued to the black paper pages, and every caption that was scrawled below them, the white ink practically bouncing off the paper. She hadn’t uttered a word. He expected to be bombarded with questions and conversation about each individual photograph, but there was nothing. There was only the slow turning of the pages as she studiously observed each and every entry with furious intensity.
After a short time, however, she finally spoke. “I can’t believe you saw all of these beautiful places,” she mused in awe. “Half of these look like…like postcards! Are you sure a few of them aren’t?”
He smirked at her arrogantly. “I know they aren’t.” Then his voice softened. “Standing there with Taylor while he took those photographs was torture. I wished every single moment that you were right there with me, experiencing every single one of those photographs in the flesh. The ones from the shipyards in Boston were an especially difficult time.”
Looking up at him, a warm smile crept across her face as she reached her hand across and laid it over the one that rested on his thigh. “We have our entire lives ahead of us. Together, we’ll see the entire world. Right now I’m so happy that you put this gift together for me. It was so thoughtful of you. I’ll treasure it forever.”
“I saw so many pearls and jewels that I wanted to—“
She shook her head and she giggled. “Don’t you know better by now? I don’t even wear the jewelry my daddy gives me for my birthday!”
“Your daddy gives you jewelry, hm?”
“Yes,” she nodded matter-of-factly. “This year he gave me a sapphire necklace. It’s certainly beautiful, but it’s much too fancy for my taste.”
Zac studied Bessie as she went back to her photographs. Too fancy for her taste, huh? This, coming from the girl who’d just spent the evening with him in a golden gown at a lavish hotel. Then again, the date had been Zac’s idea and she’d never actually asked for more than a slice of free chocolate cake. He had to admit, when left to her own devices, Bessie was the simplest rich girl he’d ever met. Maybe, after it was all said and done, Zac was too fancy for her taste.
Was that even possible?
“Are you okay?” She asked suddenly. “You haven’t even cracked the book I gave you.”
He glanced down at the composition book with the dark blue leather cover that lay on the quilt beside him. “I thought I’d wait and read it in private.”
“You probably shouldn’t,” she advised. “There are things in that book you’re probably going to want to discuss.” She bore her eyes deliberately into his. “Calmly. Like adults.”
His natural instinct was to go on the defensive but, clearly, Bessie was already a step ahead of him. The way she was already able to read him was astounding.
He eyed her, giving her a suspicious once-over. “Yes,” he murmured. “I keep hearing about how so much has happened over the last month. How about we start with that hair of yours?”
Finally lifting her torso from the photo book, she reached up and touched her braid gently. “You don’t like it?”
She looked like he’d just kicked her puppy. Or Scout. Swell.
Speaking of Scout, where was that mongrel, anyway?
“It’s different,” Zac admitted. “Why did you change it?”
“I always wanted blonde hair. I wanted it to be as blonde as Judith’s, but Millie said it takes time.”
“So…what, you’re going to abandon Bessie Harlow and become Jean Harlow instead?”
His words stung her and he could see it on her face. But, selfishly, he didn’t want her to be blonde. He didn’t want her to change at all. This honey-colored business was barely tolerable as it was.
“Jean Harlow has beautiful hair,” she replied in a small voice.
“Jean Harlow’s a tramp,” Zac spat.
Bessie gasped in offense and dropped her jaw. “She is certainly not a tramp! She’s a beautiful, strong lady, and she certainly isn’t taking off her clothes after hours at the fair for pennies!”
Zac’s eyes widened with shock. Holy shit, she knew! She knew about Glorious Greta! But how? He hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told anyone! Had he? Did he tell one of his brothers? Had they blabbed to her?
Arching his eyebrow, he asked her accusingly, “How do you know about any of that?”
Bessie rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Zac, everybody knows what happens at the fair after ten o’clock. It’s disgraceful.”
“Disgraceful? Just over a month ago you were willing to do it yourself when you were trying to run away from home!”
“Well, maybe if you had let me run away with you like I wanted, I would have gone up north with you and you wouldn’t be telling on yourself right now by defending those abominable acts!”
His chest puffed out with the breath he sucked in through his nose. “Those acts are not abominable, Glorious Greta and the rest of those ladies work just as hard for their money as any of the rest of us, and they have to put up with twice as much bullshit as the rest of us do! Don’t sit there and look down your nose at something you have no idea about!”
Bessie’s eyebrow arched, followed by a deliberate blink. “Who’s Glorious Greta?”
Well. Shit. If the cat wasn’t out of the bag before, it certainly was now.
But since he had a feeling that Bessie had a confession or two of her own up her sleeves, Zac’s chin jutted up with confidence. “A colleague.”
She snorted, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “A colleague? Really? So you took your clothes off for pennies, too?”
“Nearly,” Zac muttered. “Tay only allowed us to wear half our costumes most of the time.”
“So, what the hell went on while you were on tour, Zac, one big carnival…orgy?”
“Bessie! Where the fuck did you learn such language?”
“You’re one to talk, listen to you!”
Finally, Zac took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and silently counted backward from ten. “Nobody did anything with anybody,” he said calmly. “Well, except maybe Dot Harper and the midget acrobat, but that’s another story for another day. I find it interesting that you’re sitting here, practically accusing me of being untrue to you when we haven’t even touched on the subject of Billy, yet. Were the telegrams all lies? Do we trust each other or not?”
Bessie’s arms dropped from her chest and she looked down at her lap as her hands fidgeted below her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about Glorious Greta?”
“What aren’t you telling me about Billy?”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Of course she is, she’s the star of the girlie show.”
And then, in a voice so quiet Zac had to strain to hear, she confessed with a light sniff, “Billy tried to kiss me.”
The heat he felt rise in his body had absolutely nothing to do with the August sun, that much was for sure. The steam practically flowed from his ears and nose and his knuckles ached for action. His heart raced and his breathing shortened and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of his lady love. “He what?”
“It never happened. We never kissed. But he tried. But I told him I loved you and he apologized and now he’s going out with Sue Wilkerson. It was all a big misunderstanding. I was scared to tell you because I knew how you were going to react, and look. I can already see it now, you’re going to go looking for a fight, I just know it!”
Her last sentence caused Zac to blink and loosen up his fists. He swallowed hard and he furrowed his brow, never taking his eyes off of her. By God, she was right. Why, she practically knew what move he was going to make before he even thought it up! And now that his brain was moving a mile a minute, he realized he had no leg to stand on at all. After all, his encounter with Glorious Greta was frighteningly similar. What could he say?
But Glorious Greta or not, it still didn’t change the perplexing sudden friendship between his girl and his sworn enemy.
“What I don’t understand is how you and Billy are suddenly all chummy and shit.”
“Because he was the bigger person,” she spat. “At my birthday party, he intercepted the mail and he brought me both your telegram and your gift. He could have trashed them both, but he didn’t. I got upset at my party and he brought me those things and he talked to me until I felt better. He apologized for everything and he stopped trying to pick fights. And I told him I would help him go out with Sue Wilkerson because he liked her. And I did. And they are. And that’s it.”
“You said there were things in this book I was going to want to discuss.”
“Yes,” she stated. “Billy was the main one, I’m sure. But there are also things that happened, like being interrogated at the police station and the chocolate cake I shared with the boy at the college party in Oklahoma City—“
“What?”
“But I suppose you could start with Glorious Greta.”
“What the hell happened here last month?” He nearly squealed.
“I think the abundance of naked women you apparently found yourself around this past month ranks a little higher on the scale than chocolate cake and a kiss that didn’t happen, wouldn’t you agree?”
Ha gaped at her, unable to control his blinking as he gathered his thoughts. Who was this spitfire and what had she done with his Bessie? Where was his sweet girl? Granted, he kind of liked the fire in her eyes, but her recent affliction with audacity was quickly growing tiresome.
“All right, then,” he relented carefully, biting back hard on his words. “Since you insisted that we have a calm, adult discussion, we will do that. And we’ll start with the police interrogation.”
“No,” she retorted. “We’ll start with Glorious Greta.”
“Why are you so insistent that there’s anything to tell?”
“Well, isn’t there?”
“That’s not the point—“
“So there is!” She gasped, her spine straightening and her fists balling up angrily at her sides. “How many women were there, Zac?”
“There weren’t any!”
“Oh, hogwash, this is the second one I’m hearing about!”
“There weren’t any, Bessie, only you!”
“I wasn’t there, Zac!”
“But you were,” he replied, a crack in his voice. “You were there. Always there, right there.” He raised his hand over his chest. “With me.”
Bessie sniffed as her cheeks reddened and her doe eyes glistened.
“I missed you so much, sweet girl,” he whispered. “It was the worst trip I ever went on in my life and all I wanted to do was come home. I’m done with the carnival business, Bessie. Vaudeville, the stage, the fairs, all of it. The act is done for. I finally found my purpose and it’s right here with you. In Tulsa. And I promise, I will never leave you again.”
“Oh, Zac!”
Throwing her body at his, her arms flung around his neck and he pulled her into his lap. Their skin was already sticking together from the closeness but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to get this past month out of their systems so that they could move on with their lives—and the obstacles that still lay ahead.
Bessie now sat side saddle on Zac’s lap, her head rested against his shoulder. “When I was away, and the missing you got to be too much, I stole myself away quite a bit so that I could have my thoughts of you all to myself. One night I was walking through the fair, heard some music that I liked, and it led me to the girlie tent.”
“You went because of music?” She asked in a small voice.
“Yes. I did.”
“Did you go to those shows often?”
“No. That was the only one. See, Bess, you have to understand that artists are all one in the same. We all entertain people, we all understand each other. So when I saw Glorious Greta performing on the stage, I respected her professionalism. That was it. Because she was putting on a show for the crowd, just like I did. So I decided to give her a tip because she’d earned it, you know? Except that she wanted more than that. And I was firm from the get-go that I wasn’t interested. I told her about you, about how I had a good girl waiting for me at home. And she respected that.”
“The boy at the university respected the fact that I have a beau. He was very nice.”
Zac’s back stiffened against the bark of the shade tree’s trunk. He realized now that the problem wasn’t just Billy Connors. It was any man that came within a ten-mile radius of Bessie.
Suddenly she giggled and she straightened her spine. Furrowing his brow, she had drawn his attention.
“It was most definitely an interesting conversation after that.”
Zac’s nostrils flared. He needed to calm down. After all, he did seek out Glorious Greta in her private quarters just to hand her a couple of bucks. It was more money than he’d ever handed Bessie. And for that, he felt the worst.
“It turns out that Robert—that’s the boy’s name, Robert. It turns out that Robert knows Billy. They’re on the football team together. So when he tried to kiss me—“
“He tried to what? Jesus, Bessie, how many men tried to kiss you this summer?”
But she shook her head and waved him off. “Just hush up and listen for a moment.”
The ease of her dismissal of him caused him to gape and blink at her in shock. Her comfort with him was admittedly heartwarming, but at the same time, her newfound confidence was a bit disturbing in a way he couldn’t describe. Was this change in her for the worse or for the better? The not knowing nearly ate him alive.
“When Robert tried to kiss me,” she continued. “At least I’m sure that’s where it was going, I managed to avoid it and I ended up letting it all out. About you and Billy and why he wasn’t playing ball next year, all of it. I took a huge risk but I wasn’t about to let anyone come to the school and disrespect your good name.”
Zac was stunned. Absolutely, genuinely speechless. His good name? He wasn’t aware he had a good name. Granted, he couldn’t have cared less what a few college kids thought of him, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, apparently Bessie was running around and sticking up for him all over the state, to anyone who would listen and he--
“Then he said you were the luckiest man alive,” she continued quietly. “Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that I don’t say these things to people to try to gain approval at all. You don’t even know the half of what I’ve been through. And that’s just it, you don’t know. So when you start getting hotheaded and jumping to conclusions, it hurts my feelings. I didn’t mean to argue with you earlier. And I apologize for getting hotheaded and jealous, myself. I don’t want to be that way.”
“Oh, Bess,” he whispered, softly brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. “It’s my fault that you grew jealous earlier. I, um, I guess I sort of gave you reason to and I’m sorry. But you know, your new football friend is right. I am the luckiest man alive. I try to hard not to take that for granted, but maybe sometimes I do. Bessie, you…you’ve said things and done things for me over this past summer that I never thought a woman would ever do for me. You’ve been the kindest, most caring, generous person I’ve ever met and, frankly, I don’t deserve you. I’m a hotheaded brute, I know that. But I promise you I’m working on it. Because you make me want to be a better man. And I will be. And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you, I swear it.”
Her palm cupped his cheek, her soft, sweet skin caressing the rough patch of stubble along his jaw. “But I don’t want you to change. I love you just the way you are.”
He gazed deep into her eyes, overcome with the temptation to lay her back on the quilt and take her right there. He almost didn’t care about the abnormally hot day outside, he just needed to make slow, sweet love to her.
And then a thought stopped him in his tracks. “What about the police department?”
She let out a breath and her eyes fell, her shoulders slumping a little. And then, she pushed herself off of Zac’s lap and rested her backside against the quilt between his knees, letting her smooth legs drape over his trouser-covered one.
Her eyes darted into his and then she shook her head. “Joey knows what happened to the feed store. He’s known the whole time.”
Zac had to admit, snapping a scrawny redhead in half had not been high on his to-do list upon returning home, but now that she mentioned it…
“Please don’t be upset!”
He blinked at her, his nostrils flaring. Was he going to be able to survive the rest of his life with this little woman grabbing hold of his number before he could give it out? Every single time?
“You just told me that someone sat on the truth about Burt’s store and I’m not supposed to get upset? Why, was it Joey? Did Joey do it?”
“No, no!” She assured him. “It was just as I’m sure you expected. What we all expected. It was Billy and his cronies. Joey was out there hiding in the woods when he heard them planning it.”
His heart raced and a new heat, unrelated to the sun, rushed to his cheeks. “So…I’m supposed to stay calm and collected…when, first and foremost, this could have absolutely been prevented with a little warning and—and I don’t know what’s worse—you’re actually friendly with this criminal asshole. I come home after one entire month and all of a sudden you’ve changed your hair, you’re wearing trousers, you’re—you defending Billy Connors of all people, even after you know for a fact that he hurt the ones you love. I don’t even know what to do with that, Bessie.”
Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. For the first time that afternoon, she was rendered speechless. Then her chin trembled. And her eyes began to glisten.
Shit.
Sniffing back a tear, she swept her hand across her cheek as her nose turned red. “Besides Millie, Joey is my best friend in the whole world and I was mad at him for two whole weeks before he went to the police because of the information he sat on. And I was horrible for that because he sat on that information because he was scared of those boys. And I should have been a better friend for that. And as for Billy? Well, even after going to the police, nobody can prove anything, Joey even said it himself. And he’s been really nice to me this summer and after getting to know him a little, I believe he’s changed and I wonder if maybe he didn’t do it, after all. The truth is, I don’t know what to believe! I just want everyone to get along, I’m so tired of being in the middle of all this silly fighting!”
At that she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands, tearing Zac’s heart out in the process. How could he have been so selfish? How could his vision been so clouded that he hadn’t stopped to consider all of this mess from Bessie’s perspective? And now that he was finally taking a moment to see it, he decided that it was a pretty shitty position to be in. And Zac hadn’t helped. In fact, he was the number one reason for it. He was the one provoking the bitterness and the fighting while those around her were busy trying to make it right in his absence. And what the hell was Zac doing while all this was going on?
Giving money to naked women.
His forehead fell into his own palm.
Underneath his hand, out of the corner of his eye, lay the book of letters. Hesitantly, he reached for it, but could no sooner touch it as Bessie snatched it out from underneath him.
Too exhausted to make any sudden movements, his eyes stared lazily at her tear-streaked face. “No,” her voice wavered. “I don’t want you to read them. I don’t want you to read any of them, it’s not worth it.”
“Bessie, I’m so sorry,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“I thought you knew me better. I can’t believe you think I’m such a horrible person.”
“Baby, I don’t. You’re the greatest person I’ve ever met. Please.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t. This past month while you were away, I…well maybe I grew a little. But you didn’t. You stayed exactly the same.”
“You just told me you love me just the way I am.”
Silence.
Silence.
Agony.
Silence.
A cold, calculating stare.
Silence.
Bessie, say something! Say anything!
And then she did. “I told the truth. But that doesn’t give you permission to treat me disrespectfully just because. I might not know much about life yet, but I know what I deserve and what I don’t deserve. And as much as I love you, I still don’t deserve to be treated like I’m beneath you. All these…all these other women out there are…are just happy to do whatever their husbands tell them to do because that’s just the way things have always been and they’re all right with that, but not me. You picked the wrong girl, mister. If you think that I’m going to sit here and let you falsely accuse me and push me around, you have another thing coming. Because I won’t—“
He silenced her. He silenced her when he leaned forward and crashed his lips into hers. It was a bold move, given the mood she was in, but the more she spoke, the more he loved her, and the less he was able to resist her. At this point this may be the last time he would ever taste her sweet lips. He had said a lot of stupid, hard-headed things in their short relationship, but this may very well have been the last nail in the coffin.
And he would let her go. Because she deserved to be happy. And if he couldn’t make her happy, he didn’t have a right to keep her.
Releasing his hold on her lips, he backed his head away just enough to look into her eyes. Into her wide, stunned eyes.
“I know sorry will never be enough,” he whispered. “But I love you. So much. And everything that you just said just then, that’s every reason why I love you. I love you because you’re you. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met and I don’t want to lose you. Please give me the chance to prove that to you. I just want you to be happy, I’ll do whatever it takes—“
“I just want you to understand me. Maybe sometimes think before you speak—“
“Yes. Yes, I absolutely will, I will do all of that. Okay? I promise. I promise you right here and right now that it’s you and me. Together, a team. Neither one of us no better than the other—even though we both know you’re better than me.”
“Zac—“
“No, I mean it. Till death do us part, we are equal, no matter what society says. We’re best friends, we’re lovers, and we’re partners. You and me. Okay? Zac and Bessie against the world.”
Finally, the corners of her mouth twitched. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
He smiled. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, too.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you more.”
She smirked and shook her head. “Let’s not compete.”
A laugh escaped between his teeth and his happiness escalated when she crawled back into his lap and offered the book to him. “Now. I’ll let you read this. I spent a lot of time on this, it’s very detailed. I’ll be surprised if you have to ask me many questions at all.”
“That detailed, huh?”
“Oh, I’m not a lollygagger when it comes to communication. My daddy’s favorite nickname for me when I was girl was ‘Chatterbox’ and I’m not sure that’s something I’m ever going to grow out of.”
He chuckled lightly as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “And I don’t want you to grow out of it. So, all right then. How about we read it together? And then we’ll look at the photographs together. That way there are no more arguments and no more questions—“
“Well I have a question,” a voice rang out suddenly, a voice that belonged to neither Zac or Bessie.
Looking up, eyes wide, the couple sprang off of the quilt and Bessie scrambled behind Zac as she wrestled with her earlier-discarded dress in a desperate attempt to cover her swimsuit.
Zac didn’t bother with his shirt, though. It was nothing old Burt Anderson hadn’t seen before.
The old man stood at the edge of the woods with a pair of suits that held briefcases and wore matching bifocals under their hats. One of the suits carefully pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his brow, the other one looking on as befuddled as Zac felt. In the three years he had been coming to this clearing, he had never seen a single, solitary soul. Well, none that were human, that was.
Burt leaned on his cane, barely looking fatigued for his old age, in plaid short sleeves and a pair of denim overhalls that had seen better days. For a moment, Zac wondered how he had managed the walk through the woods.
“How did you find this place?” Burt barked.
Without thinking, Zac spat back, “How did you find this place?”
“Because it’s mine,” the old man retorted. “Has been since I was a young man.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve been coming here for years and I’ve never seen you.”
“Was a wedding gift to me and my Edith from her grandpap.”
Zac’s eyes widened. “That’s why I’ve never seen you,” he whispered to himself.
Moving forward at an alarmingly slow pace, flanked by his new friends, Burt approached Zac and Zac prepared himself for a fight. He didn’t want to quarrel with the old man he held so dear—and what exactly they would quarrel about remained unclear—but he was ready, nonetheless.
Instead of sizing Zac up, however, old Burt stopped and rested his hands on top of his cane, shoved his bifocals up with his forefinger, and gazed past Zac out into the near distance. He stared in silence and Zac could nearly feel the weight of the old man’s heart.
Interrupting the silence, Bessie finally emerged from behind Zac’s back, in full dress, and stood at his side. “It’s a wonderful wedding gift,” she remarked. “Zac and I love it here.”
“That right?” Burt murmured.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “It’s our special place.” Then she giggled sheepishly. “Well. It was only Zac’s place before I came along. But now it’s ours, together.”
Finally, Burt acknowledged the girl. “You make it a habit of claiming land that don’t belong to you, girl?”
Zac’s heart pounded. He’d seen Burt upset. In fact, the two of them had had their own fair share of tiffs. But now, all of a sudden, Burt made Zac nervous. And he knew exactly why. And he didn’t like it.
This clearing was all Zac had to give Bessie. He’d never worried about an owner because an owner never worried about the clearing. And now here Burt was with a pair of suits. And Zac knew exactly what was going on.
“Burt,” Zac muttered through his teeth. “Is this really necessary?”
“Seventy-four years I’ve roamed this planet, Zachary. Roamed this town. Been a lot of change since 1859. But the only thing that hasn’t changed is that I ain’t getting any younger. None of us are. The few precious years I spent with Edith were the best years of my life. And she loved this place so. She played here when she was a girl and her folks only saw it fitting that it stayed with her as she grew up. She had big plans for this place. Little ones and flower gardens. She wanted a picnic table—“
“That sounds lovely,” Bessie breathed.
“Maybe a rocking chair or two to watch the youngsters play. Gonna raise a family right here, my Edith and I. Then she took sick. And there were no children. No tables or chairs. Nothing. Just an empty lot, just the same as my heart.”
“Mr. Anderson,” she whispered, approaching him carefully and laying a hand gently atop his. “I wish I could have known your Edith. I think that I would have loved her very much.”
“She was a lot like you, little miss. Strong-willed, free-spirited. Kind. Generous. She would have loved you, too.”
“It’s no wonder she loved it here so much,” she replied. “It’s very beautiful.”
Zac eyed the suits warily as they began to appear restless. “Burt, don’t do this,” he muttered.
“Like I said, boy, I ain’t gettin’ any younger. I’ve got to, you know, start thinking about these things and such. And these fine gentlemen here are gonna help me with that. Ain’t that right, gentlemen?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” one of them answered with an uncomfortable smile. “I think you can ask for more than a fair price for this patch, easy.”
Two delicate hands wrapped themselves around Zac’s forearm and he could practically feel the fear radiating off Bessie’s skin. “We fell in love here,” she whispered to him.
But not quietly enough, for Burt turned around and eyed the young couple. “You, uh, spend a lot of time here, do you?”
“Yes, sir,” Zac answered.
“Why?”
“Um…” Zac grasped for the words for an answer beyond ‘just because.’ “I found this place because I was walking through the woods not a week after we buried my parents. It was quiet. And still. Not close to anything. And that was when I finally broke down and grieved. This place gave me the freedom to do that. And, so, anytime I needed peace or freedom, I came here. After I met Bessie, I brought her here, I just had to share it with her. It’s…it’s the only place we have to ourselves.”
“That so?” Burt mused.
“Oh, yes,” Bessie interjected excitedly. “There’s so much to do here. We have picnic lunches, tell stories, draw pictures, pick flowers, read books—Zac taught me all about Shakespeare this summer! And we found Scout here, too.” Her head darted around. “Where is he?”
Zac had never been more proud of Bessie for stopping that list while she was ahead.
Burt glanced at the men beside him and rubbed his chin before he turned his attention to Zac. “Say, boy, what’re ya carryin’ around in your pockets these days?”
He blinked at the old man in confusion. “Um…I have an old pocket knife…”
“That it?”
Cautiously, Zac’s hands crept into his nearly empty trouser pockets and brought out his fists, opening them to reveal the pocket knife and forty-seven cents covered in lint.
“That’s all you got?” Burt asked.
“You asked what was in my pockets…”
“Hm. Kinda measly, but I suppose it don’t take much to make a man happy these days, does it?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t. It’s, um, quite a valuable lesson I’ve learned over the summer.”
“Indeed,” Burt murmured, looking the couple over. Then he glanced around at the clearing again and shifted his fragile weight on his cane. “Tell you what, boy. I’ll sell you this land—“
Zac’s mouth dropped open. “Burt, you know I can’t affo—“
“For that quarter in your hand, there, and a week’s free labor at the store. Full days. Dawn till dusk, thirty minute lunches, Monday through Friday.”
“Mr. Anderson!” Bessie gasped.
“Um, Mr. Anderson, sir,” one of the suits tried to reason. “We should really discuss this.”
Zac felt light-headed. He thought he was going to faint.
“Well, son? You gonna stand there, catching flies with your mouth, or do we got a deal?”
But Zac remained speechless. The thoughts that sped through his mind were impossible to control. The old man couldn’t possibly be serious. This was a test, some sort of lesson Zac was supposed to be learning. Perhaps about responsibility. Nobody sold their land for a quarter. It was too good to be true. There was a catch, somewhere, and Zac silently fought to conjure it up.
“Mr. Anderson,” the other suit said. “As my partner suggested, we really should discuss this. This piece of land, here, could sell for an exuberant amount of money for this day and age—“
“You can’t put a price on history,” Burt barked over his shoulder. “You can’t sell sentiment. My Edith intended for this land to be filled with love and care, not so some corporate mongrel can tear it up and turn it into some wretched shopping center or…or pool hall or whatever these guys are wasting good land on nowadays. It’s my land to do what I please with and if I want to help these two kids have a future together, then that’s what I’m gonna do. I never got to have kids of my own and this boy is the closest I ever had to a son. Now if you’ll be so kind as to go ahead and draw up the papers, it looks like I got some business to tend to.”
To Zac’s amazement, a sound escaped from his throat. “Yes.”
“What’s that, boy? Speak up, I’m old!”
“I said you have yourself a deal,” he spat out, clearing his throat. He thrust his coin-filled fist at the old man. “Here, take all of it. I have more stashed away at home, I can—“
“A deal’s a deal. Twenty-five cents and a week’s free labor. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Mr. Anderson,” Suit One said. “I really advise that we restructure this deal, maybe even reconsider—“
Burt turned around to face the men. “I know you got paper in them cases, there. What’s wrong, run out of ink? I got ink, I can lend you ink—“
“No, sir. I just don’t feel like, ethically—“
“Ethically or financially?” Burt tested.
Stammering, the suit replied carefully, “I don’t think I can ethically sign off on this deal. If we can simply have a seat and negotiate—“
“Now you see here,” Burt spat, waving his cane at the pair of them. “I brought you fellas here to settle this land and now it’s settled. Now either we’re gonna sign some paperwork today or I’m gonna take my business over to Lankford and Sons and then I’m gonna let my customers at the store know how you boys tried to swindle an old man out of his hard-earned money.”
In less than two seconds, the suits were on the ground, opening briefcases and furiously shuffling paperwork around.
Burt turned around and smiled at Zac triumphantly. “Now that’s more like it.”
Zac’s throat closed up and his tongue turned to sandpaper. Deal? They had a deal? Burt was…he was…this patch of land belonged to Zac? Zac owned land? Zac had something of value, something of his very own, something…he could give to Bessie?
Slowly, he turned to stare into Bessie’s eyes, desperate to be brought back to Earth. Just like that, he had a future. He had a future wife, a future home…he had an entire future within his very grasp. What had he done to deserve such luck?
After a moment or two, the suits had approached Burt and one of them presented his briefcase as a makeshift writing desk. With a pen in his hand, Burt murmured to himself as he read the paperwork over and then got to writing now and then.
Finally, he held up the paper, adjusted his bifocals, and proclaimed, “There we are. I added a stipulation to the sale. With this land, you’ll marry your girl, there, you’ll make a family and raise them here, and you’ll get a ladder and string up a swing to that branch up there.”
“Burt,” Zac murmured sheepishly. “I’m not even ready to propose, yet.”
“But you will be. What’s the land gonna do, get up and walk away?”
“I…I don’t even know what to say…”
“Pleasure doing business. I think that’ll suffice.”
Zac stared at Burt as he offered the paper to him. What did he say? How could he possibly thank him? Did the old man even realize the magnitude of his gesture?
Pleasure doing business? That was it?
“Zac,” he heard Bessie whisper.
He’d been in such a state of shock that he hadn’t realized how he’d left the old man to linger with the paperwork in his hand. His eyes darted around as he hesitantly, his shaking hand reminding him that was wasn’t as tough as he liked to think he was, took the papers from Burt’s hand and stammered, “I need, um, something to write on…”
“Fellas!” Burt barked. “Help the boy out, will ya?”
The next several minutes were a blur. He even had to have Bessie glance over it a little because he couldn’t concentrate on the words. Neither one of them knew a damn thing about what they were reading, but Zac’s father had taught him to never sign anything without reading and agreeing, and vaudeville contracts had become a breeze. But buying land? It might as well have been in a different language entirely.
He couldn’t help the fact that he was still waiting on the catch. He wanted so badly for there to be one to make it all feel real, but this was Burt Anderson he was dealing with and if Zac knew anything about old Burt, it was that he didn’t beat around the bush and he didn’t play tricks. He might be ornery at times, but he didn’t have a malicious bone in his frail body.
By the time it was all said and done, Burt and the two suits were walking away and Zac stood there, dumbfounded, with a deed in his hand. So, was that it? Had he even thanked Burt? Had he said a word at all?
Bessie’s hands wrapped around his forearm once more. “Oh, Zac,” she whispered. “It’s ours. It’s all ours! I mean, um, well it’s yours, of course—“
“No,” he cut her off over his shoulder, his voice quiet. “No, you were right the first time, what’s mine is yours. It’s…ours.”
“Can you just believe it?”
He smirked shyly. “I—I still can’t. I mean, it’s right here in black and white, but—Bessie, I never thought in a million years that this day would end up like this.”
Circling around him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his body close to hers. This was what he needed right now, to feel the warmth in her touch, to be held by her, to grasp onto something he knew was real. And so he hugged her tightly, his nose buried in her braided hair.
“We have a future, baby,” he murmured quietly into the melon and honey scent he had grown to love. “I never thought I could—that we would—“
“But I did,” she replied. “I trust you and I’ve always had faith in you. My future happiness with you has never been a doubt in my mind.”
At that, he crashed his lips into hers. Hard. He lifted her feet off the ground and he held her tighter than he’d ever held her before as if, in that moment, officially melding their bodies together as one for good.
“I love you so much, sweet girl. I’ve never been happier in my entire life than I am right this moment.”
She grinned widely at him, her eyes sparkling more beautifully than any star in the sky ever could. “We could live here now,” she suggested mischievously. “We could set up camp until we build our house. It would be just like your trailer, except for the water tank, but…well, the river’s just right over there and—“
“We still have much to discuss,” he muttered, searching for her lips once more. “Like your schooling.”
“I thought we already determined that I wasn’t going?”
He winced at the comment, still slightly uncomfortable with his own selfishness. Of course, he wanted her to have her education and live her dream as an art teacher. But having to be so far away from her to get it accomplished would tear out his heart. So, if she was truly all right with not going…
He set her back down on her feet and sheepishly smoothed his hand over his hair. “Well, then, we should maybe discuss the degree at which your father will kill me when we break the news.”
“Well, it wasn’t your decision. It was my decision all on my own.”
“Bessie,” he deadpanned. “Any decision you make that doesn’t fit his mold will be my fault. It’s inevitable. We both know that.”
Sauntering toward him with a smile, she snaked her arms around his neck once more and gazed up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “What’s he going to do about it? Refuse to pay my tuition?”
That was the last thing Zac remembered hearing before she sighed his name moments later as they sealed the deal on their brand new, very own property.
THERE WAS A POINT in time when Zac genuinely believed that he would never see a day like this again. And the belief had been startlingly recent.
But a cruel twist of fate had once again put him back at his favorite place on Earth, a place that he’d once turned to in times of hopelessness and despair, but now was a place full of beauty and magic and happiness.
The shade tree in the clearing hadn’t changed a bit.
Well, the clearing itself had changed just a little. The July sun had been especially brutal on the plant life and even the ever-vibrant wildflowers couldn’t escape its wrath. They were fewer now, much fewer in number, and Bessie had grown afraid to touch them out of respect and preservation. The mischievous side of him couldn’t help but wonder what she would think when they were unearthed to make way for the precious house she wanted to build there.
But they would grow back. Because even the most beautiful of flowers were powerless to Bessie’s aura. They would grow back just for her. Only for her.
Zac’s heart swelled at this thought as he examined the beauty that shared the quilt with him under the shade tree that day. A small stream of sunlight escaped through the leaves and glittered against Bessie’s new honey-colored French braid, a change Zac was still getting used to. The afternoon was especially sweltering and her newfound confidence had her shamelessly wearing one of her swimsuits—his favorite, the yellow one—to help fight off the heat. She looked every bit the angel that she was and with what little bit of religion Zac still possessed, he thanked the good lord every day for sending her to him.
Unfortunately, the heat was too bothersome for either one of them to be distracted by the other’s near-nakedness. Zac’s hair was tied into a ball on top of his head and his shirt lay on the quilt beside him. Admittedly, it would have been more ideal to sit in the Harlows’ kitchen, or even to sneak her into the back room of the feed store, in order to take advantage of a bit of cooler air, but neither could resist the pull of their special place where they knew that peace would be guaranteed.
She sat perpendicular to him, her bare feet resting on top of the quilt between his knees. He gazed at her as his back rested against the tree’s trunk, fascinated with the way she drank in every photograph in the book that he’d made for her.
Today they were exchanging gifts.
Bessie was enchanted with the book as it lay, spread across her bare thighs. Her back was hunched as she studied each page, each photograph that was glued to the black paper pages, and every caption that was scrawled below them, the white ink practically bouncing off the paper. She hadn’t uttered a word. He expected to be bombarded with questions and conversation about each individual photograph, but there was nothing. There was only the slow turning of the pages as she studiously observed each and every entry with furious intensity.
After a short time, however, she finally spoke. “I can’t believe you saw all of these beautiful places,” she mused in awe. “Half of these look like…like postcards! Are you sure a few of them aren’t?”
He smirked at her arrogantly. “I know they aren’t.” Then his voice softened. “Standing there with Taylor while he took those photographs was torture. I wished every single moment that you were right there with me, experiencing every single one of those photographs in the flesh. The ones from the shipyards in Boston were an especially difficult time.”
Looking up at him, a warm smile crept across her face as she reached her hand across and laid it over the one that rested on his thigh. “We have our entire lives ahead of us. Together, we’ll see the entire world. Right now I’m so happy that you put this gift together for me. It was so thoughtful of you. I’ll treasure it forever.”
“I saw so many pearls and jewels that I wanted to—“
She shook her head and she giggled. “Don’t you know better by now? I don’t even wear the jewelry my daddy gives me for my birthday!”
“Your daddy gives you jewelry, hm?”
“Yes,” she nodded matter-of-factly. “This year he gave me a sapphire necklace. It’s certainly beautiful, but it’s much too fancy for my taste.”
Zac studied Bessie as she went back to her photographs. Too fancy for her taste, huh? This, coming from the girl who’d just spent the evening with him in a golden gown at a lavish hotel. Then again, the date had been Zac’s idea and she’d never actually asked for more than a slice of free chocolate cake. He had to admit, when left to her own devices, Bessie was the simplest rich girl he’d ever met. Maybe, after it was all said and done, Zac was too fancy for her taste.
Was that even possible?
“Are you okay?” She asked suddenly. “You haven’t even cracked the book I gave you.”
He glanced down at the composition book with the dark blue leather cover that lay on the quilt beside him. “I thought I’d wait and read it in private.”
“You probably shouldn’t,” she advised. “There are things in that book you’re probably going to want to discuss.” She bore her eyes deliberately into his. “Calmly. Like adults.”
His natural instinct was to go on the defensive but, clearly, Bessie was already a step ahead of him. The way she was already able to read him was astounding.
He eyed her, giving her a suspicious once-over. “Yes,” he murmured. “I keep hearing about how so much has happened over the last month. How about we start with that hair of yours?”
Finally lifting her torso from the photo book, she reached up and touched her braid gently. “You don’t like it?”
She looked like he’d just kicked her puppy. Or Scout. Swell.
Speaking of Scout, where was that mongrel, anyway?
“It’s different,” Zac admitted. “Why did you change it?”
“I always wanted blonde hair. I wanted it to be as blonde as Judith’s, but Millie said it takes time.”
“So…what, you’re going to abandon Bessie Harlow and become Jean Harlow instead?”
His words stung her and he could see it on her face. But, selfishly, he didn’t want her to be blonde. He didn’t want her to change at all. This honey-colored business was barely tolerable as it was.
“Jean Harlow has beautiful hair,” she replied in a small voice.
“Jean Harlow’s a tramp,” Zac spat.
Bessie gasped in offense and dropped her jaw. “She is certainly not a tramp! She’s a beautiful, strong lady, and she certainly isn’t taking off her clothes after hours at the fair for pennies!”
Zac’s eyes widened with shock. Holy shit, she knew! She knew about Glorious Greta! But how? He hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told anyone! Had he? Did he tell one of his brothers? Had they blabbed to her?
Arching his eyebrow, he asked her accusingly, “How do you know about any of that?”
Bessie rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Zac, everybody knows what happens at the fair after ten o’clock. It’s disgraceful.”
“Disgraceful? Just over a month ago you were willing to do it yourself when you were trying to run away from home!”
“Well, maybe if you had let me run away with you like I wanted, I would have gone up north with you and you wouldn’t be telling on yourself right now by defending those abominable acts!”
His chest puffed out with the breath he sucked in through his nose. “Those acts are not abominable, Glorious Greta and the rest of those ladies work just as hard for their money as any of the rest of us, and they have to put up with twice as much bullshit as the rest of us do! Don’t sit there and look down your nose at something you have no idea about!”
Bessie’s eyebrow arched, followed by a deliberate blink. “Who’s Glorious Greta?”
Well. Shit. If the cat wasn’t out of the bag before, it certainly was now.
But since he had a feeling that Bessie had a confession or two of her own up her sleeves, Zac’s chin jutted up with confidence. “A colleague.”
She snorted, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “A colleague? Really? So you took your clothes off for pennies, too?”
“Nearly,” Zac muttered. “Tay only allowed us to wear half our costumes most of the time.”
“So, what the hell went on while you were on tour, Zac, one big carnival…orgy?”
“Bessie! Where the fuck did you learn such language?”
“You’re one to talk, listen to you!”
Finally, Zac took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and silently counted backward from ten. “Nobody did anything with anybody,” he said calmly. “Well, except maybe Dot Harper and the midget acrobat, but that’s another story for another day. I find it interesting that you’re sitting here, practically accusing me of being untrue to you when we haven’t even touched on the subject of Billy, yet. Were the telegrams all lies? Do we trust each other or not?”
Bessie’s arms dropped from her chest and she looked down at her lap as her hands fidgeted below her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about Glorious Greta?”
“What aren’t you telling me about Billy?”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Of course she is, she’s the star of the girlie show.”
And then, in a voice so quiet Zac had to strain to hear, she confessed with a light sniff, “Billy tried to kiss me.”
The heat he felt rise in his body had absolutely nothing to do with the August sun, that much was for sure. The steam practically flowed from his ears and nose and his knuckles ached for action. His heart raced and his breathing shortened and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of his lady love. “He what?”
“It never happened. We never kissed. But he tried. But I told him I loved you and he apologized and now he’s going out with Sue Wilkerson. It was all a big misunderstanding. I was scared to tell you because I knew how you were going to react, and look. I can already see it now, you’re going to go looking for a fight, I just know it!”
Her last sentence caused Zac to blink and loosen up his fists. He swallowed hard and he furrowed his brow, never taking his eyes off of her. By God, she was right. Why, she practically knew what move he was going to make before he even thought it up! And now that his brain was moving a mile a minute, he realized he had no leg to stand on at all. After all, his encounter with Glorious Greta was frighteningly similar. What could he say?
But Glorious Greta or not, it still didn’t change the perplexing sudden friendship between his girl and his sworn enemy.
“What I don’t understand is how you and Billy are suddenly all chummy and shit.”
“Because he was the bigger person,” she spat. “At my birthday party, he intercepted the mail and he brought me both your telegram and your gift. He could have trashed them both, but he didn’t. I got upset at my party and he brought me those things and he talked to me until I felt better. He apologized for everything and he stopped trying to pick fights. And I told him I would help him go out with Sue Wilkerson because he liked her. And I did. And they are. And that’s it.”
“You said there were things in this book I was going to want to discuss.”
“Yes,” she stated. “Billy was the main one, I’m sure. But there are also things that happened, like being interrogated at the police station and the chocolate cake I shared with the boy at the college party in Oklahoma City—“
“What?”
“But I suppose you could start with Glorious Greta.”
“What the hell happened here last month?” He nearly squealed.
“I think the abundance of naked women you apparently found yourself around this past month ranks a little higher on the scale than chocolate cake and a kiss that didn’t happen, wouldn’t you agree?”
Ha gaped at her, unable to control his blinking as he gathered his thoughts. Who was this spitfire and what had she done with his Bessie? Where was his sweet girl? Granted, he kind of liked the fire in her eyes, but her recent affliction with audacity was quickly growing tiresome.
“All right, then,” he relented carefully, biting back hard on his words. “Since you insisted that we have a calm, adult discussion, we will do that. And we’ll start with the police interrogation.”
“No,” she retorted. “We’ll start with Glorious Greta.”
“Why are you so insistent that there’s anything to tell?”
“Well, isn’t there?”
“That’s not the point—“
“So there is!” She gasped, her spine straightening and her fists balling up angrily at her sides. “How many women were there, Zac?”
“There weren’t any!”
“Oh, hogwash, this is the second one I’m hearing about!”
“There weren’t any, Bessie, only you!”
“I wasn’t there, Zac!”
“But you were,” he replied, a crack in his voice. “You were there. Always there, right there.” He raised his hand over his chest. “With me.”
Bessie sniffed as her cheeks reddened and her doe eyes glistened.
“I missed you so much, sweet girl,” he whispered. “It was the worst trip I ever went on in my life and all I wanted to do was come home. I’m done with the carnival business, Bessie. Vaudeville, the stage, the fairs, all of it. The act is done for. I finally found my purpose and it’s right here with you. In Tulsa. And I promise, I will never leave you again.”
“Oh, Zac!”
Throwing her body at his, her arms flung around his neck and he pulled her into his lap. Their skin was already sticking together from the closeness but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to get this past month out of their systems so that they could move on with their lives—and the obstacles that still lay ahead.
Bessie now sat side saddle on Zac’s lap, her head rested against his shoulder. “When I was away, and the missing you got to be too much, I stole myself away quite a bit so that I could have my thoughts of you all to myself. One night I was walking through the fair, heard some music that I liked, and it led me to the girlie tent.”
“You went because of music?” She asked in a small voice.
“Yes. I did.”
“Did you go to those shows often?”
“No. That was the only one. See, Bess, you have to understand that artists are all one in the same. We all entertain people, we all understand each other. So when I saw Glorious Greta performing on the stage, I respected her professionalism. That was it. Because she was putting on a show for the crowd, just like I did. So I decided to give her a tip because she’d earned it, you know? Except that she wanted more than that. And I was firm from the get-go that I wasn’t interested. I told her about you, about how I had a good girl waiting for me at home. And she respected that.”
“The boy at the university respected the fact that I have a beau. He was very nice.”
Zac’s back stiffened against the bark of the shade tree’s trunk. He realized now that the problem wasn’t just Billy Connors. It was any man that came within a ten-mile radius of Bessie.
Suddenly she giggled and she straightened her spine. Furrowing his brow, she had drawn his attention.
“It was most definitely an interesting conversation after that.”
Zac’s nostrils flared. He needed to calm down. After all, he did seek out Glorious Greta in her private quarters just to hand her a couple of bucks. It was more money than he’d ever handed Bessie. And for that, he felt the worst.
“It turns out that Robert—that’s the boy’s name, Robert. It turns out that Robert knows Billy. They’re on the football team together. So when he tried to kiss me—“
“He tried to what? Jesus, Bessie, how many men tried to kiss you this summer?”
But she shook her head and waved him off. “Just hush up and listen for a moment.”
The ease of her dismissal of him caused him to gape and blink at her in shock. Her comfort with him was admittedly heartwarming, but at the same time, her newfound confidence was a bit disturbing in a way he couldn’t describe. Was this change in her for the worse or for the better? The not knowing nearly ate him alive.
“When Robert tried to kiss me,” she continued. “At least I’m sure that’s where it was going, I managed to avoid it and I ended up letting it all out. About you and Billy and why he wasn’t playing ball next year, all of it. I took a huge risk but I wasn’t about to let anyone come to the school and disrespect your good name.”
Zac was stunned. Absolutely, genuinely speechless. His good name? He wasn’t aware he had a good name. Granted, he couldn’t have cared less what a few college kids thought of him, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, apparently Bessie was running around and sticking up for him all over the state, to anyone who would listen and he--
“Then he said you were the luckiest man alive,” she continued quietly. “Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that I don’t say these things to people to try to gain approval at all. You don’t even know the half of what I’ve been through. And that’s just it, you don’t know. So when you start getting hotheaded and jumping to conclusions, it hurts my feelings. I didn’t mean to argue with you earlier. And I apologize for getting hotheaded and jealous, myself. I don’t want to be that way.”
“Oh, Bess,” he whispered, softly brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. “It’s my fault that you grew jealous earlier. I, um, I guess I sort of gave you reason to and I’m sorry. But you know, your new football friend is right. I am the luckiest man alive. I try to hard not to take that for granted, but maybe sometimes I do. Bessie, you…you’ve said things and done things for me over this past summer that I never thought a woman would ever do for me. You’ve been the kindest, most caring, generous person I’ve ever met and, frankly, I don’t deserve you. I’m a hotheaded brute, I know that. But I promise you I’m working on it. Because you make me want to be a better man. And I will be. And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you, I swear it.”
Her palm cupped his cheek, her soft, sweet skin caressing the rough patch of stubble along his jaw. “But I don’t want you to change. I love you just the way you are.”
He gazed deep into her eyes, overcome with the temptation to lay her back on the quilt and take her right there. He almost didn’t care about the abnormally hot day outside, he just needed to make slow, sweet love to her.
And then a thought stopped him in his tracks. “What about the police department?”
She let out a breath and her eyes fell, her shoulders slumping a little. And then, she pushed herself off of Zac’s lap and rested her backside against the quilt between his knees, letting her smooth legs drape over his trouser-covered one.
Her eyes darted into his and then she shook her head. “Joey knows what happened to the feed store. He’s known the whole time.”
Zac had to admit, snapping a scrawny redhead in half had not been high on his to-do list upon returning home, but now that she mentioned it…
“Please don’t be upset!”
He blinked at her, his nostrils flaring. Was he going to be able to survive the rest of his life with this little woman grabbing hold of his number before he could give it out? Every single time?
“You just told me that someone sat on the truth about Burt’s store and I’m not supposed to get upset? Why, was it Joey? Did Joey do it?”
“No, no!” She assured him. “It was just as I’m sure you expected. What we all expected. It was Billy and his cronies. Joey was out there hiding in the woods when he heard them planning it.”
His heart raced and a new heat, unrelated to the sun, rushed to his cheeks. “So…I’m supposed to stay calm and collected…when, first and foremost, this could have absolutely been prevented with a little warning and—and I don’t know what’s worse—you’re actually friendly with this criminal asshole. I come home after one entire month and all of a sudden you’ve changed your hair, you’re wearing trousers, you’re—you defending Billy Connors of all people, even after you know for a fact that he hurt the ones you love. I don’t even know what to do with that, Bessie.”
Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. For the first time that afternoon, she was rendered speechless. Then her chin trembled. And her eyes began to glisten.
Shit.
Sniffing back a tear, she swept her hand across her cheek as her nose turned red. “Besides Millie, Joey is my best friend in the whole world and I was mad at him for two whole weeks before he went to the police because of the information he sat on. And I was horrible for that because he sat on that information because he was scared of those boys. And I should have been a better friend for that. And as for Billy? Well, even after going to the police, nobody can prove anything, Joey even said it himself. And he’s been really nice to me this summer and after getting to know him a little, I believe he’s changed and I wonder if maybe he didn’t do it, after all. The truth is, I don’t know what to believe! I just want everyone to get along, I’m so tired of being in the middle of all this silly fighting!”
At that she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands, tearing Zac’s heart out in the process. How could he have been so selfish? How could his vision been so clouded that he hadn’t stopped to consider all of this mess from Bessie’s perspective? And now that he was finally taking a moment to see it, he decided that it was a pretty shitty position to be in. And Zac hadn’t helped. In fact, he was the number one reason for it. He was the one provoking the bitterness and the fighting while those around her were busy trying to make it right in his absence. And what the hell was Zac doing while all this was going on?
Giving money to naked women.
His forehead fell into his own palm.
Underneath his hand, out of the corner of his eye, lay the book of letters. Hesitantly, he reached for it, but could no sooner touch it as Bessie snatched it out from underneath him.
Too exhausted to make any sudden movements, his eyes stared lazily at her tear-streaked face. “No,” her voice wavered. “I don’t want you to read them. I don’t want you to read any of them, it’s not worth it.”
“Bessie, I’m so sorry,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“I thought you knew me better. I can’t believe you think I’m such a horrible person.”
“Baby, I don’t. You’re the greatest person I’ve ever met. Please.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t. This past month while you were away, I…well maybe I grew a little. But you didn’t. You stayed exactly the same.”
“You just told me you love me just the way I am.”
Silence.
Silence.
Agony.
Silence.
A cold, calculating stare.
Silence.
Bessie, say something! Say anything!
And then she did. “I told the truth. But that doesn’t give you permission to treat me disrespectfully just because. I might not know much about life yet, but I know what I deserve and what I don’t deserve. And as much as I love you, I still don’t deserve to be treated like I’m beneath you. All these…all these other women out there are…are just happy to do whatever their husbands tell them to do because that’s just the way things have always been and they’re all right with that, but not me. You picked the wrong girl, mister. If you think that I’m going to sit here and let you falsely accuse me and push me around, you have another thing coming. Because I won’t—“
He silenced her. He silenced her when he leaned forward and crashed his lips into hers. It was a bold move, given the mood she was in, but the more she spoke, the more he loved her, and the less he was able to resist her. At this point this may be the last time he would ever taste her sweet lips. He had said a lot of stupid, hard-headed things in their short relationship, but this may very well have been the last nail in the coffin.
And he would let her go. Because she deserved to be happy. And if he couldn’t make her happy, he didn’t have a right to keep her.
Releasing his hold on her lips, he backed his head away just enough to look into her eyes. Into her wide, stunned eyes.
“I know sorry will never be enough,” he whispered. “But I love you. So much. And everything that you just said just then, that’s every reason why I love you. I love you because you’re you. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met and I don’t want to lose you. Please give me the chance to prove that to you. I just want you to be happy, I’ll do whatever it takes—“
“I just want you to understand me. Maybe sometimes think before you speak—“
“Yes. Yes, I absolutely will, I will do all of that. Okay? I promise. I promise you right here and right now that it’s you and me. Together, a team. Neither one of us no better than the other—even though we both know you’re better than me.”
“Zac—“
“No, I mean it. Till death do us part, we are equal, no matter what society says. We’re best friends, we’re lovers, and we’re partners. You and me. Okay? Zac and Bessie against the world.”
Finally, the corners of her mouth twitched. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
He smiled. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, too.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you more.”
She smirked and shook her head. “Let’s not compete.”
A laugh escaped between his teeth and his happiness escalated when she crawled back into his lap and offered the book to him. “Now. I’ll let you read this. I spent a lot of time on this, it’s very detailed. I’ll be surprised if you have to ask me many questions at all.”
“That detailed, huh?”
“Oh, I’m not a lollygagger when it comes to communication. My daddy’s favorite nickname for me when I was girl was ‘Chatterbox’ and I’m not sure that’s something I’m ever going to grow out of.”
He chuckled lightly as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “And I don’t want you to grow out of it. So, all right then. How about we read it together? And then we’ll look at the photographs together. That way there are no more arguments and no more questions—“
“Well I have a question,” a voice rang out suddenly, a voice that belonged to neither Zac or Bessie.
Looking up, eyes wide, the couple sprang off of the quilt and Bessie scrambled behind Zac as she wrestled with her earlier-discarded dress in a desperate attempt to cover her swimsuit.
Zac didn’t bother with his shirt, though. It was nothing old Burt Anderson hadn’t seen before.
The old man stood at the edge of the woods with a pair of suits that held briefcases and wore matching bifocals under their hats. One of the suits carefully pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his brow, the other one looking on as befuddled as Zac felt. In the three years he had been coming to this clearing, he had never seen a single, solitary soul. Well, none that were human, that was.
Burt leaned on his cane, barely looking fatigued for his old age, in plaid short sleeves and a pair of denim overhalls that had seen better days. For a moment, Zac wondered how he had managed the walk through the woods.
“How did you find this place?” Burt barked.
Without thinking, Zac spat back, “How did you find this place?”
“Because it’s mine,” the old man retorted. “Has been since I was a young man.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve been coming here for years and I’ve never seen you.”
“Was a wedding gift to me and my Edith from her grandpap.”
Zac’s eyes widened. “That’s why I’ve never seen you,” he whispered to himself.
Moving forward at an alarmingly slow pace, flanked by his new friends, Burt approached Zac and Zac prepared himself for a fight. He didn’t want to quarrel with the old man he held so dear—and what exactly they would quarrel about remained unclear—but he was ready, nonetheless.
Instead of sizing Zac up, however, old Burt stopped and rested his hands on top of his cane, shoved his bifocals up with his forefinger, and gazed past Zac out into the near distance. He stared in silence and Zac could nearly feel the weight of the old man’s heart.
Interrupting the silence, Bessie finally emerged from behind Zac’s back, in full dress, and stood at his side. “It’s a wonderful wedding gift,” she remarked. “Zac and I love it here.”
“That right?” Burt murmured.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “It’s our special place.” Then she giggled sheepishly. “Well. It was only Zac’s place before I came along. But now it’s ours, together.”
Finally, Burt acknowledged the girl. “You make it a habit of claiming land that don’t belong to you, girl?”
Zac’s heart pounded. He’d seen Burt upset. In fact, the two of them had had their own fair share of tiffs. But now, all of a sudden, Burt made Zac nervous. And he knew exactly why. And he didn’t like it.
This clearing was all Zac had to give Bessie. He’d never worried about an owner because an owner never worried about the clearing. And now here Burt was with a pair of suits. And Zac knew exactly what was going on.
“Burt,” Zac muttered through his teeth. “Is this really necessary?”
“Seventy-four years I’ve roamed this planet, Zachary. Roamed this town. Been a lot of change since 1859. But the only thing that hasn’t changed is that I ain’t getting any younger. None of us are. The few precious years I spent with Edith were the best years of my life. And she loved this place so. She played here when she was a girl and her folks only saw it fitting that it stayed with her as she grew up. She had big plans for this place. Little ones and flower gardens. She wanted a picnic table—“
“That sounds lovely,” Bessie breathed.
“Maybe a rocking chair or two to watch the youngsters play. Gonna raise a family right here, my Edith and I. Then she took sick. And there were no children. No tables or chairs. Nothing. Just an empty lot, just the same as my heart.”
“Mr. Anderson,” she whispered, approaching him carefully and laying a hand gently atop his. “I wish I could have known your Edith. I think that I would have loved her very much.”
“She was a lot like you, little miss. Strong-willed, free-spirited. Kind. Generous. She would have loved you, too.”
“It’s no wonder she loved it here so much,” she replied. “It’s very beautiful.”
Zac eyed the suits warily as they began to appear restless. “Burt, don’t do this,” he muttered.
“Like I said, boy, I ain’t gettin’ any younger. I’ve got to, you know, start thinking about these things and such. And these fine gentlemen here are gonna help me with that. Ain’t that right, gentlemen?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” one of them answered with an uncomfortable smile. “I think you can ask for more than a fair price for this patch, easy.”
Two delicate hands wrapped themselves around Zac’s forearm and he could practically feel the fear radiating off Bessie’s skin. “We fell in love here,” she whispered to him.
But not quietly enough, for Burt turned around and eyed the young couple. “You, uh, spend a lot of time here, do you?”
“Yes, sir,” Zac answered.
“Why?”
“Um…” Zac grasped for the words for an answer beyond ‘just because.’ “I found this place because I was walking through the woods not a week after we buried my parents. It was quiet. And still. Not close to anything. And that was when I finally broke down and grieved. This place gave me the freedom to do that. And, so, anytime I needed peace or freedom, I came here. After I met Bessie, I brought her here, I just had to share it with her. It’s…it’s the only place we have to ourselves.”
“That so?” Burt mused.
“Oh, yes,” Bessie interjected excitedly. “There’s so much to do here. We have picnic lunches, tell stories, draw pictures, pick flowers, read books—Zac taught me all about Shakespeare this summer! And we found Scout here, too.” Her head darted around. “Where is he?”
Zac had never been more proud of Bessie for stopping that list while she was ahead.
Burt glanced at the men beside him and rubbed his chin before he turned his attention to Zac. “Say, boy, what’re ya carryin’ around in your pockets these days?”
He blinked at the old man in confusion. “Um…I have an old pocket knife…”
“That it?”
Cautiously, Zac’s hands crept into his nearly empty trouser pockets and brought out his fists, opening them to reveal the pocket knife and forty-seven cents covered in lint.
“That’s all you got?” Burt asked.
“You asked what was in my pockets…”
“Hm. Kinda measly, but I suppose it don’t take much to make a man happy these days, does it?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t. It’s, um, quite a valuable lesson I’ve learned over the summer.”
“Indeed,” Burt murmured, looking the couple over. Then he glanced around at the clearing again and shifted his fragile weight on his cane. “Tell you what, boy. I’ll sell you this land—“
Zac’s mouth dropped open. “Burt, you know I can’t affo—“
“For that quarter in your hand, there, and a week’s free labor at the store. Full days. Dawn till dusk, thirty minute lunches, Monday through Friday.”
“Mr. Anderson!” Bessie gasped.
“Um, Mr. Anderson, sir,” one of the suits tried to reason. “We should really discuss this.”
Zac felt light-headed. He thought he was going to faint.
“Well, son? You gonna stand there, catching flies with your mouth, or do we got a deal?”
But Zac remained speechless. The thoughts that sped through his mind were impossible to control. The old man couldn’t possibly be serious. This was a test, some sort of lesson Zac was supposed to be learning. Perhaps about responsibility. Nobody sold their land for a quarter. It was too good to be true. There was a catch, somewhere, and Zac silently fought to conjure it up.
“Mr. Anderson,” the other suit said. “As my partner suggested, we really should discuss this. This piece of land, here, could sell for an exuberant amount of money for this day and age—“
“You can’t put a price on history,” Burt barked over his shoulder. “You can’t sell sentiment. My Edith intended for this land to be filled with love and care, not so some corporate mongrel can tear it up and turn it into some wretched shopping center or…or pool hall or whatever these guys are wasting good land on nowadays. It’s my land to do what I please with and if I want to help these two kids have a future together, then that’s what I’m gonna do. I never got to have kids of my own and this boy is the closest I ever had to a son. Now if you’ll be so kind as to go ahead and draw up the papers, it looks like I got some business to tend to.”
To Zac’s amazement, a sound escaped from his throat. “Yes.”
“What’s that, boy? Speak up, I’m old!”
“I said you have yourself a deal,” he spat out, clearing his throat. He thrust his coin-filled fist at the old man. “Here, take all of it. I have more stashed away at home, I can—“
“A deal’s a deal. Twenty-five cents and a week’s free labor. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Mr. Anderson,” Suit One said. “I really advise that we restructure this deal, maybe even reconsider—“
Burt turned around to face the men. “I know you got paper in them cases, there. What’s wrong, run out of ink? I got ink, I can lend you ink—“
“No, sir. I just don’t feel like, ethically—“
“Ethically or financially?” Burt tested.
Stammering, the suit replied carefully, “I don’t think I can ethically sign off on this deal. If we can simply have a seat and negotiate—“
“Now you see here,” Burt spat, waving his cane at the pair of them. “I brought you fellas here to settle this land and now it’s settled. Now either we’re gonna sign some paperwork today or I’m gonna take my business over to Lankford and Sons and then I’m gonna let my customers at the store know how you boys tried to swindle an old man out of his hard-earned money.”
In less than two seconds, the suits were on the ground, opening briefcases and furiously shuffling paperwork around.
Burt turned around and smiled at Zac triumphantly. “Now that’s more like it.”
Zac’s throat closed up and his tongue turned to sandpaper. Deal? They had a deal? Burt was…he was…this patch of land belonged to Zac? Zac owned land? Zac had something of value, something of his very own, something…he could give to Bessie?
Slowly, he turned to stare into Bessie’s eyes, desperate to be brought back to Earth. Just like that, he had a future. He had a future wife, a future home…he had an entire future within his very grasp. What had he done to deserve such luck?
After a moment or two, the suits had approached Burt and one of them presented his briefcase as a makeshift writing desk. With a pen in his hand, Burt murmured to himself as he read the paperwork over and then got to writing now and then.
Finally, he held up the paper, adjusted his bifocals, and proclaimed, “There we are. I added a stipulation to the sale. With this land, you’ll marry your girl, there, you’ll make a family and raise them here, and you’ll get a ladder and string up a swing to that branch up there.”
“Burt,” Zac murmured sheepishly. “I’m not even ready to propose, yet.”
“But you will be. What’s the land gonna do, get up and walk away?”
“I…I don’t even know what to say…”
“Pleasure doing business. I think that’ll suffice.”
Zac stared at Burt as he offered the paper to him. What did he say? How could he possibly thank him? Did the old man even realize the magnitude of his gesture?
Pleasure doing business? That was it?
“Zac,” he heard Bessie whisper.
He’d been in such a state of shock that he hadn’t realized how he’d left the old man to linger with the paperwork in his hand. His eyes darted around as he hesitantly, his shaking hand reminding him that was wasn’t as tough as he liked to think he was, took the papers from Burt’s hand and stammered, “I need, um, something to write on…”
“Fellas!” Burt barked. “Help the boy out, will ya?”
The next several minutes were a blur. He even had to have Bessie glance over it a little because he couldn’t concentrate on the words. Neither one of them knew a damn thing about what they were reading, but Zac’s father had taught him to never sign anything without reading and agreeing, and vaudeville contracts had become a breeze. But buying land? It might as well have been in a different language entirely.
He couldn’t help the fact that he was still waiting on the catch. He wanted so badly for there to be one to make it all feel real, but this was Burt Anderson he was dealing with and if Zac knew anything about old Burt, it was that he didn’t beat around the bush and he didn’t play tricks. He might be ornery at times, but he didn’t have a malicious bone in his frail body.
By the time it was all said and done, Burt and the two suits were walking away and Zac stood there, dumbfounded, with a deed in his hand. So, was that it? Had he even thanked Burt? Had he said a word at all?
Bessie’s hands wrapped around his forearm once more. “Oh, Zac,” she whispered. “It’s ours. It’s all ours! I mean, um, well it’s yours, of course—“
“No,” he cut her off over his shoulder, his voice quiet. “No, you were right the first time, what’s mine is yours. It’s…ours.”
“Can you just believe it?”
He smirked shyly. “I—I still can’t. I mean, it’s right here in black and white, but—Bessie, I never thought in a million years that this day would end up like this.”
Circling around him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his body close to hers. This was what he needed right now, to feel the warmth in her touch, to be held by her, to grasp onto something he knew was real. And so he hugged her tightly, his nose buried in her braided hair.
“We have a future, baby,” he murmured quietly into the melon and honey scent he had grown to love. “I never thought I could—that we would—“
“But I did,” she replied. “I trust you and I’ve always had faith in you. My future happiness with you has never been a doubt in my mind.”
At that, he crashed his lips into hers. Hard. He lifted her feet off the ground and he held her tighter than he’d ever held her before as if, in that moment, officially melding their bodies together as one for good.
“I love you so much, sweet girl. I’ve never been happier in my entire life than I am right this moment.”
She grinned widely at him, her eyes sparkling more beautifully than any star in the sky ever could. “We could live here now,” she suggested mischievously. “We could set up camp until we build our house. It would be just like your trailer, except for the water tank, but…well, the river’s just right over there and—“
“We still have much to discuss,” he muttered, searching for her lips once more. “Like your schooling.”
“I thought we already determined that I wasn’t going?”
He winced at the comment, still slightly uncomfortable with his own selfishness. Of course, he wanted her to have her education and live her dream as an art teacher. But having to be so far away from her to get it accomplished would tear out his heart. So, if she was truly all right with not going…
He set her back down on her feet and sheepishly smoothed his hand over his hair. “Well, then, we should maybe discuss the degree at which your father will kill me when we break the news.”
“Well, it wasn’t your decision. It was my decision all on my own.”
“Bessie,” he deadpanned. “Any decision you make that doesn’t fit his mold will be my fault. It’s inevitable. We both know that.”
Sauntering toward him with a smile, she snaked her arms around his neck once more and gazed up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “What’s he going to do about it? Refuse to pay my tuition?”
That was the last thing Zac remembered hearing before she sighed his name moments later as they sealed the deal on their brand new, very own property.