Honey's Grace Read online

  “I guess I feel bad, especially after your own folks have been so good to me. And Nell tells me that my father wasn’t too pleasant either when you called. She was hovering just out of sight and heard the whole thing. You know, you gave no sign that you were treated that way when we sat down to tea.”

  He looked so handsome in his black trousers and white shirt. He had a necktie casually knotted at his throat, just as he had at the barn dance, and it took the edge off what might have been a rather stuffy outfit. His thick dark hair was a little tousled, probably from the ride down in the wagon, and Honey wondered how it was she hadn’t seen that handsomeness coming when they were at school.

  “Well, you didn’t treat me that way, you welcomed me and that’s all that counts.” She smiled and felt bad for him having to apologize for the behavior of his parents.

  Had it always been that way for him, even as a boy? Honey searched her memory and her soul and wondered if she had been the greater part of their failure to get along as children. Perhaps she had assumed too much back then, but she’d only been a child.

  “You look real content here in the warehouse, Honey,” he said, looking all around at the huge and well-stocked building. “I never came in here before.”

  “I am content. We have folks coming in throughout the day and I like to find them what they need. I also like to spend a little time.” She laughed. “I reckon I get most of my town gossip right here in this place.”

  “I’m pleased for you, spending your days doing something you like.” His smile was a little sad and Honey wondered again about Marshall’s own future.

  “And what about you? When that knee of yours is mended, will you be heading out into a law practice? Or maybe starting up something of your own?” She knew she was prying but she wanted to get to know him better.

  “My father wants me to get a couple of years in with a local attorney and learn the ropes, I guess. And then he wants me to set up my own practice with a view to working my way into local government at some point in the future.” He looked suddenly desolate and Honey could almost feel his misery in her own heart.

  “And is that what you want?” she ventured cautiously.

  “I… well… I guess that’s just the way things are.” He shrugged. “I got to go to university and study the law, so I suppose it’s time for me to put that education to some use.”

  “That’s not the same as what you actually want though, is it?” Honey pushed a little harder, closing the distance between them until she, too, was leaning against the counter.

  How tall he seemed when she was so close to him.

  “No, it isn’t.” He shrugged again.

  “Forgive me, I’m not well known for keeping my nose out of other folk’s business.” She winced amusingly, making him laugh. “But in keeping with the way I normally do things; I reckon I’ll just keep on butting in.” She paused, wondering if she really ought to go on. “It strikes me that the law isn’t something that’s in your own plan. It doesn’t seem to have a place in your heart.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” His smile was easier this time, as if saying it out loud was a great relief to him. “I liked being away at university. Not so much for the law studies, although they really were interesting, but to be away from this place for a while. From my family, I suppose that’s what I’m trying to say.” Honey nodded without speaking and he continued. “But all the things my father wants for me sure aren’t what I want for myself. I couldn’t even begin to tell him what I always dreamed of for myself; he’d never understand it if he had the rest of his life to think about it.”

  “What do you want to do, Marshall?”

  “I guess it’ll seem kind of strange, but I always wanted to be a rancher. All my life, as long as I can remember, all I wanted was a ranch of my own. To be out there all day, you know? Not stuck inside staring at a bunch of papers and helping my father make his way into government by association alone.” He looked to Honey as if he felt foolish saying such a thing.

  “Marshall, we all get one life to live here in this world and I reckon we have to be the ones who choose how that life is lived,” Honey said seriously.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I know it’s easy for me to say, standing here doing just exactly what I want to do without any obstacles, but you have to do what’s right for you. You have to believe in your dream with all your heart and chase it with all your might.”

  “Thank you, Honey. You’re the first person who ever said that to me.” There was a sudden intensity between them, and he looked, for a moment, as if he might lean forward and kiss her. Honey’s heart almost skipped a beat before he went on. “Who’d have thought that I would ever be taking sound advice from Honey Goodman?” He chuckled and that moment of sudden intensity passed.

  Chapter 9

  “Right, I have news!” Kirby Thornhill bellowed as he strode, without warning, into the sitting room.

  His father’s appearance was so sudden that it took Marshall off-guard. He had been reading a book in some comfort as he lolled on one of the couches and was made instantly guilty by his father’s customary look of disapproval.

  “Oh, yes?” Marshall said in a forced friendly manner as he snapped the book shut and sat up straighter.

  Why did he always feel like a soldier about to be inspected by his commanding officer? Surely, this was not the normal way of things in other families.

  “As soon as you’re walking properly, you’ll start at Garrett Cleaver’s. He’s got a good range of clients and more than enough who are close to the Governor.” Kirby Thornhill looked very pleased with himself.

  Marshall groaned inwardly; he supposed it had been too much to hope for a place in Daniel Macey’s law practice. Of course, he was too close to the Goodman’s and the Hortons to be considered suitable to mix with, no doubt. Not to mention the fact that Daniel Macey’s wife, a woman no less, was the most sought-after doctor for miles around. Just one more thing Marshall’s father didn’t agree with.

  So, he was to be thrown into Garrett Cleaver’s law practice. He should have seen it coming, what with Cleaver’s client list being somewhat more prestigious than Daniel Macey’s. Marshall wondered if he might have been able to stomach the whole thing much better if he’d had the opportunity to work with someone like Daniel Macey. Someone who worked on a good range of issues for a good range of people, not just scams and schemes for the already rich.

  “I see,” Marshall said without any hint of enthusiasm.

  “It’s about time you picked yourself up and got on with things. It’s time you applied yourself and did something with the education that cost me so darn much, boy.”

  “I am not a boy,” Marshall said, feeling the old humiliation and resentment wash over him.

  “We’ll see about that. Still, by the time you get to government, I’m sure we’ll have made a man out of you.”

  “We?” Marshall sat up straighter still and glared at his father. “I am already a man, Father, I don’t need anybody else’s help in that, I can assure you.”

  “You will get to government. I can promise you that. This family has been overlooked in that regard for far too long. I’ve waited too long for this to have you and your sullen ways mess things up for me.”

  “For you?” Marshall felt a tidal wave of anger. “If Government is what you want, perhaps it’s what you should do, not me.”

  “Hold your tongue. You know exactly what I mean, and I will not put up with your flighty ideas for much longer, I can assure you.” His father was beginning to look angry, himself.

  But something was different, not by much, but enough for Marshall to study it. His father wasn’t different. His age-old aggression and anger weren’t different, so what was it? As he stared unflinchingly into his father’s eyes, Marshall realized that it was he, himself, who was different. Or, at least, his reaction to his father’s bullying was different. It still had an effect, but Marshall was certain he wasn’t quite as affected by it
as he ordinarily was.

  He thought of Honey; was it her own courage in coming up to the house and braving it out with his father that was affecting him? Perhaps he had subconsciously wondered if he, too, could stand up to the man who most of the town feared, at least a little.

  “For a man to want to follow his own path is not a flighty idea. It is taking the reins of his own life and I don’t see why I shouldn’t do just that.”

  “The reins of your own life?” his father scoffed—a thing he did as regular as breathing. “I’ve never heard such nonsense.” He began to laugh, but there was no joy in it.

  For Marshall, it was just the same old thing repeated. It was a putdown, he was being mocked, and he could feel it insidiously making its way into his soul as it always did. It was beginning to work; it was beginning to make him feel foolish and stupid. But he knew that, hot on the heels of foolish and stupid, would come a sense of hopelessness. Why should a man of strong ethics and good education ever lose hope? Perhaps it was just losing hope in the idea of autonomy of any kind.

  Although Marshall knew that his father was very wrong, that there was much that he could say to overturn Kirby Thornhill’s selfish and strident ideas, he remained silent. Even if there was much he could say, he could not draw any of it mind in that moment. He felt like a child, a little boy who was never to speak out in his father’s presence. If only there had been one person in his family who had ever believed in him as a human being. But his father, mother, and grandfather when he had still been alive, had never seen him as anything more than an extension of their own wants and needs. He was not a person with his own dreams of a life; he was just there to do their bidding, whether it be to follow the path his father had laid out for him or to stay away from his mother, keeping his troubles to himself and never once upending her day. No wonder all he wanted was his own place, a ranch, the great outdoors where he could throw himself into something different, something to be truly proud of— something to love.

  “There will be no free rides for you! You will do as you are told,” his father went on in a self-satisfied way when Marshall had been quiet for some time. “You just see to it that you are up on your feet as soon as possible. There will be no more lounging about and there will certainly be no more foolish rescuing of young women of low morals, do you hear me?”

  “Young women of low morals?” Marshall said, finding his voice again at last. “What are you talking about? I can assure you, Father, that Honey Goodman is most certainly not a young woman of low morals. Or perhaps you think that the cowboys who come rolling into town can do what they like? Are they not the ones with the low morals?” He felt furious.

  “As I said before, I am not at all interested in hearing any of your flighty ideas.” His father snorted. “I could see what she was the moment she appeared on the doorstep. I should have known that any daughter of Trinity Pruitt would be tipped from the same mold. Low morals, the pair of them.”

  “Her name is Trinity Goodman, Father. She married Dillon Goodman after all, didn’t she?” Marshall said, narrowing his eyes and enjoying the look of hurt pride on his father’s face. “And as for her being a woman of low morals, I hardly think turning the Lord of the Manor’s son down in favor of a good, hard-working man like Dillon Goodman, is particularly indicative.”

  “Just you make sure that you’re fit and ready to begin working for Garrett Cleaver in the next few weeks.” His father was furious, he could tell, but it was also clear that he had no sensible retaliation to make. “As I said, there will be no free ride for you in this house.” And with that, he strode out of the sitting room.

  Well, not for the first time, his father had made himself abundantly clear; Marshall was to toe the line, or Marshall was to be cast out. He wondered, in the end, if that would be such a bad thing after all.

  Chapter 10

  “Everything is happening at once in your life, isn’t it?” Suki said with an uncharacteristic giggle. “It’s really quite exciting.”

  “Well, the whole business with the two rotten cowboys wasn’t as exciting as you might think.” Honey chuckled. “In actual fact, I was terrified. I sure did learn my lesson there, and that’s the truth.”

  “What lesson?”

  “To mind my tongue now and again.”

  “You didn’t want anything to do with the cowboys and you told them. There’s no crime there, even if half the men in town wouldn’t agree. Telling some angry drunken cowboy that you don’t want him doesn’t give him the right to follow you through the darkness and make you pay for that rejection. And having to have his little friend there with him too? Pair of cowards!” Honey could see Suki growing furious with every word and she felt, as she often did, that wonderful bond of strong friendship that made the two of them as close as sisters.

  It was midday on Saturday, and Honey was glad that she had ridden over to see Suki and Sonny. But Sonny Reynolds was out helping Felton Lowry, owner of one of the largest ranches in the area, quieten down an untamable horse. Of course, no horse was untamable to Sonny Reynolds, and Honey could well imagine his delight at being asked by his former employer to go out there and lend a hand. Still, Sonny’s absence gave the two young women the opportunity to talk with the sort of openness that was usually only possible in private. And Honey was glad, for she knew in her heart that she really wanted to talk about Marshall Thornhill.

  “Well, that’s true enough, Suki. I suppose I just feel guilty that Marshall got hurt.”

  “That’s what he chose, Honey. He must have been watching you and watching them to know that there was something not right. Look, if he didn’t want to see to it that you were safe, he would have stayed at the barn dance or gone home, not gone sneaking through the night to see if you needed any help.”

  “And that’s just the thing—he knew who I was that night. I reckon I sure was lucky that Marshall decided to forget everything that had gone on in the past just so that he could look out for me. I wonder if I would have done the same in his shoes.”

  “I know you would,” Suki said and sighed with some exasperation. “Come on, it’s a beautiful day out there, let’s not waste it. You get two glasses and I’ll get that jug of peach tea and we’ll go sit on the porch in the sunshine.”

  It really was a beautiful day, warm and fragrant, the scent of so many little summer flowers which Suki had planted close to the house wafting over them. Honey sat by Suki’s side on the porch seat and watched as her friend poured the peach tea and set the jug down. She felt peaceful and content, and very much looking forward to continuing to chatter about her handsome old enemy.

  “As I was saying, Honey, you would have done just the same in his shoes. We are none of us kids any more, are we? The old rules, the old resentments, they don’t apply anymore. For every bit that Marshall Thornhill has changed, so have you. He’s a grown man now but you seem to forget that you’re a grown woman. Of course, you’d have helped him, Honey Goodman, I know you better than that.”

  “Well, thank you for your faith in me, kind lady,” Honey said with a chuckle. “And I did fly up onto the ugly one’s back and try to strangle him, so I suppose I did my bit.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Suki said and began to laugh. “That’s the one thing I keep picturing in my mind. You, so small with that blonde hair flying all over the place, clinging to the back of a big, angry cowboy, trying to choke the life out of him. Oh, how I wish I’d seen that.”

  “I bet it sure was a sight for sore eyes.” Honey laughed too, leaning back against the porch seat and closing her eyes, enjoying the feel of the bright, warm sun on her face.

  “I know the two of you didn’t get along in school, but that’s such a long time ago. And before you go getting any ideas that you were the problem, let me tell you that I remember things differently. Marshall gave as good as he got, and he sure did start enough of it. Don’t go thinking that he was immune to his father’s hatred of your family, because he wasn’t. That’s not to say that he should be blame
d for it now, of course, I’m just trying to say that the past is the past and that’s where it should live. Now is now, Honey, just go with that.”

  “Wise words indeed.” Honey opened her eyes and turned to look at her friend, smiling before she leaned forward to pick up the cool glass.

  “Of course, all of this means that you really like him,” Suki said mischievously. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be talking about old times and old regrets, would we?”

  “I suppose not. And yes, I do like him. I wish I had got to know him all those years ago because I reckon that he didn’t have a friend in the world back then.”

  “No, I don’t think he was particularly popular. But then again, I don’t suppose that was his fault. His father has run roughshod over folk in this town for years, and yours won’t have been the only parents to have suffered by it. And he’s still at it, old Kirby, you know. I mean, look at all that business with Marlon Horton and how he tried to get him to give up some of his land. He went to great lengths to do it. He’s a devious old man and that’s the truth.”

  “Yes, and even that was to get the better of my own daddy, wasn’t it? He only wanted the Horton land so that he could build up a merchant warehouse bigger than ours. The man is obsessed with my daddy. Or maybe my mama.” She shrugged. “They say there’s nothing worse than a woman scorned, but I’m starting to think that there is nothing worse than a man scorned. For some of them, their pride can’t seem to bear rejection.”

  “Yes, and imagine still bearing that grudge more than twenty years later. It’s such a waste, isn’t it?”

  “That’s true enough, Suki. And it’s not just a waste of Kirby Thornhill’s time and effort either, is it? It was a waste of Marshall’s childhood, in a way. He didn’t say much about it, but he mentioned that he struggled hard to keep friends because nobody’s parents wanted their children getting too close to the son of Kirby Thornhill.”