Chapter One
June 1841
Pinewood Village, New York
Pinewood. Sadie crowded back into the corner and tugged her bonnet forward as her hired carriage rolled through the village. The news of her return would spread like a brush fire if she was recognized. Sadie Spencer is back. Sadie Spencer is home.
Her stomach quivered. In two weeks it would be four years since the incident. Memories surged. She closed her mind to the bad ones—or tried to. Perhaps returning to Pinewood would exorcise them—and the fear. How she wished she could live without that fear! Please, Almighty God, grant that it might be so. She took a breath to calm her stomach and pulled the small purse dangling from her wrist into her trembling hands.
The driver’s polite touch of his hat brim sent her pushing deeper into the corner where she would not be seen by two women standing at the edge of the road waiting to cross. A wagon passed by loaded with baled shingles and traveling in the other direction. She released her pent-up breath and lifted her head.
The horse’s hoofs clattered against planks and the carriage lurched as the wheels climbed onto the wood. Stony Creek Bridge. A smile trembled on her lips. How many hours had she, Callie, Willa and Ellen spent in the cool shadow beneath its span trying to best Daniel at skipping stones on the water?
The carriage rocked off the bridge, swaying left onto Brook Street. A snap of the reins urged the horse to greater speed and her smile died. It wouldn’t be long now.
Her chest tightened with longing to be back behind the brick walls of the young ladies’ seminary in Rochester. She’d not been outside those walls since she’d fled there four years before, and if not for her grandparents’ need, she would be in that safe haven still. She would never have willingly returned to Pinewood. Never.
The carriage tilted, slowed as the horse started up the incline outside of the village. She slipped back to the center of the seat and caught her breath at the sight of the forested hills on either side of the dirt road. Only one more turn to make when they reached the top of the hill.
She dug her fingernails into her palms, struggling against a surge of dread. When she’d received Callie’s letter, she’d told herself it would be all right, that she would care for Nanna and Poppa in the safety of the Sheffield House, but that was not to be. Her grandparents had left Sophia’s hotel and returned home to Butternut Hill.
She had to go back there.
Oh, Lord, give me strength.
* * *
“Your grandfolks are in the garden. I’ll take these up to your room.” The housekeeper picked up her bags and looked at her. “It’s good you’re home, Miss Sadie.”
The underlying sadness in Gertrude’s voice constricted her throat, making speech impossible. She nodded, removed her bonnet and walked down the entrance hall and into the dining room. The window framed her grandparents seated on the wooden garden bench, the stockade fence and the wooded path beyond. Love swelled her heart, blocking out the fear. She pushed open the door, ran across the porch and rushed down the steps. “Nanna! Poppa!” Their gray heads turned her direction. They stared. Her feet took wings.
“Sadie!”
She leaned down and hugged her grandmother, reveling in the feel of the soft arms holding her close, the small pudgy hands patting her, offering comfort as she sobbed out the long years of loneliness against the shoulder that had so often been washed by her tears as a child.
“Oh, Sadie...Sadie...Sadie...” Her grandmother patted her back, her shoulder, touched her cheek, smoothed her hair. “Hush, sweeting, hush. It’s all right. Everything is all right.”
Tears and laughter bubbled into her throat at the old-fashioned, familiar endearment. It was all right. Her grandmother knew her. After reading Callie’s and Willa’s letters, she’d been so afraid.... She straightened and wiped the tears from her face. “Oh, Nanna, I have missed you so.”
She kissed her grandmother’s soft, moist cheek and turned toward the silent man staring at her from the bench. “And you, Poppa.” She kissed his cheek at the edge of his gray beard, felt his arm slip around her in a hard hug. One arm.
“Wel...come...home, Sa...die.”
The words were hesitant, slightly slurred. Tears clogged her throat again. She sank to her knees in front of her grandfather and took hold of his hands. His left hand gripped back; the right moved slightly, stilled. Her chest tightened. “I made arrangements to come home as soon as I heard of your illness, Poppa.” Remorse flowed on a torrent of tears. She laid her cheek against their clasped hands. “I’m so sorry I was not with you when you needed me.”
“Daniel should have brought you home.”
Daniel? She jerked up her head.
Her grandmother huffed and patted her shoulder. “What’s more, he shouldn’t have taken you off prowling through the woods in the first place. I worry when you go off with your friends, Sadie.”
Her heart twisted at the absent look in her grandmother’s eyes. Her grandfather’s hand squeezed hers. She glanced at him, read the message of protective concern in his eyes and gave a slight nod. “I’m sorry, Nanna.” She rose and brushed the dust from her skirt to gain a moment to control the sorrow flooding her heart. Callie and Willa were right—her grandmother was ill in her mind. “I won’t go off again.”
Boots thudded on the hard-beaten path behind her—the path that trailed through the woods to her grandfather’s sawmill. Her heart stopped, her lungs seized at the remembered sound. She whirled, stared at the tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in logger garb who stepped from the shadows under the trees and strode toward her, just like before. The early evening light receded, the earth swayed.
The man rushed forward, reached for her.
* * *
“Put her there on the settee! I’ll fetch water.”
Cole frowned and watched Rachel Townsend hurrying toward the kitchen. Would she return, or forget what she was doing? He looked down at the slender young woman draped across his arms, and his breath shortened. He had no doubt things would change now that she’d returned. And not for the better. Not for him.
He leaned down, laid Sadie Spencer on the settee, lifted her limp arm and placed it across her body.
A small, breathy moan escaped her. Her eyelids fluttered then stilled, the long lashes forming dark smudges against her pale skin. He glanced at the small pearl buttons fastening the high collar of her brown dress and his fingers twitched to undo them to make it easier for her to breathe, but given the past, that action could be misconstrued. He stood frozen, staring at the fine-boned, patrician features of the woman his brother had attacked. She looked so...fragile. And the terror in her eyes when she’d turned and seen him...
The brutal savagery of Payne’s deed struck him anew. He sucked in air, clenched his hands at his sides. He’d spent the past four years working to live down the shame of Payne’s act, to prove that he himself was decent and honorable, and the people of Pinewood were finally beginning to trust and befriend him. And now Sadie Spencer had come home.
He gazed down at Manning Townsend’s granddaughter
