Tor’s eyes, reddened from frustration and fear, looked anguished; Raina could see his thoughts fighting for prominence—the desire to protect his brother, the fear of disappointing his parents, the realization that what Raina was saying was true. All his responsibilities—and a homestead boy had so many, too many—claiming his heart, dividing it into little parcels. As she gazed into his face, about level with her own, she recognized how steady, how good a character he was. Clear blue eyes, unclouded by deception or prevarication. Strong eyebrows, darker than the reddish brown of his thick hair. No freckles, unlike his impish brother; Tor’s skin was fair, yet his cheeks were ruddy and the peach fuzz on his upper lip starting to coarsen.
This was a boy, a man—a good man, he would be, just like his father—who would never speak a seduction wrapped up in a compliment. Who would never say pretty things he shouldn’t to a na?ve young girl. Who would never dangle hope where none existed.
Nothing in his honest young face made her fearful. Or confused. She only knew an overwhelming sense of relief that he was here. Tor, she realized with an overdue slap of rational thinking, even at his young age, was everything that Gunner Pedersen was not. Gunner—suddenly she wanted to howl his name just as desperately as Tor had howled Fredrik’s.
She and Tor were both missing people. People who had claim to their hearts. Despite what she thought about Gunner—his flaws as a husband, as a moral person—Raina still longed for him to come driving up with his fine horses and save her. Save them all.
She longed for him to act like the man she wanted him to be.
As she gently pulled Tor away from the door and back into the schoolroom toward the stove where the other children sat huddling, the youngest ones starting to sniff back tears, Raina still listened for the sound of horses whinnying, reins jingling, his teasing, musical voice calling out for her in that seductive way. Her heart actually seemed to reach toward the schoolyard, her hope, her need, was that strong. And she thought back to the other night—that night, when he did croon her name. “You’re the most important thing to me in the world. Get dressed, my Raina,” he’d whispered, pressing her hand when she sat up, wondering if she was dreaming, then hearing Anette turning over in her bed behind the curtain so that she knew she was not. “Get dressed, come to the barn. We’re leaving this place, you and me. Together.”
What gave him the right to say this? What had she ever done to indicate this was what she wanted? She’d tried so hard to be good, to be modest; she prayed every night to be released from this hell of temptation and despair. He gave her flowers, he manufactured ways for them to be alone, he stole her thoughts, her dreams, even her privacy, accompanying her whenever she tried to escape, whenever she found a dark corner to hide in. He did it all so smoothly, even delicately; no one would know there had been any words spoken between them that weren’t harmless, any thoughts or hopes revealed that weren’t innocent, what would normally occur between two chaste people living under the same roof.
No one but Anna, his wife. Anna saw and heard everything; she was a force of nature who never kept still, never hid herself away, seemed to be everywhere at once: now in the kitchen, dicing meat for stew; now in the little parlor, polishing the prize china lamps; now in the stable—his domain—rubbing the bits and bridles until they shone. Checking on the chickens, sending Anette through her paces, diapering the baby, braiding her daughter’s hair so tight the girl cried, obsessively ironing her own pretty clothes, the only things she didn’t make Anette launder. Sewing new aprons and bonnets for herself while Anette’s clothes grew more and more threadbare, cooking dinner, each dish so pretty in a dainty bowl or platter, the table set like at a hotel, with many forks and spoons, even when the food was just plain farm food. She heard, she saw, she suspected, she scattered her withering words like hard, sharp pebbles throughout the house, you had to pick your way carefully through them, you never knew when you would face a new onslaught.
She never sat, never rested. Not even at night.
When Gunner crept back downstairs that awful night, Raina lay still for a long while. I’ll go back to sleep, she told herself. She may murder me in the night but I don’t care anymore. I need to leave this house one way or another.