Promise Me This by Cathy Gohlke

Author:Cathy Gohlke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781414369198
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-24T02:06:52.699000+00:00

Michael felt the urgency in the whispers and wrinkled brows that passed between Maggie and Daniel over the kitchen stove at noon. He’d not intended to eavesdrop, but their concerns were his concerns, their worries his worries. When he heard Annie’s name slip from Maggie’s lips, he lost all pretense of not listening.

“What’s the matter with Annie?” Michael demanded, standing in his stocking feet by the kitchen door.

“What have you heard?” Daniel tried to look gruff but failed miserably.

“Only her name. But there’s something not right. What’s happened to Annie?” Michael demanded more fiercely.

Maggie placed her hand on Daniel’s arm. “She’s in hospital, in London.”

Michael felt the color drain from his face.

“A letter’s come from Mr. Sprague, the family solicitor.” Aunt Maggie twisted her apron ties round her finger. “It’s that woman—Eleanor Hargrave—”

“Annie’s aunt?”

Maggie lifted her chin. “I’ll never call her that again. She does not deserve the title.” Anger and pain warred across her features. “She’s had all the Allen gardens torn from the ground—the ones Mackenzie dug by hand and those Owen added to all the years of his life, the gardens that have been Annie’s healing with her love and daily tending all these months. She burned the gardens, that—” But Maggie stopped short, her mouth spread grim, and great salt tears streamed her cheeks. Daniel drew her to him and held her as she shook and sobbed. “It’s all she had of Owen—of either of them! Dear God! I should have insisted she come, poor or not!”

Michael stood in the doorway, one muddied boot in his hand. He tried to picture the destruction of a garden the size Owen had described, a beautiful, breathtaking garden long developed and loved by each member of the family, one that held the variety Annie had sketched and so happily detailed in her long letters to Aunt Maggie.

And then he tried to picture Annie, what such theft and rapacious destruction would do to her heart. It was not hard to conjure the image. He felt her pain in the pit of his stomach—a pain not unlike what he’d felt at the stealing of Megan Marie when he was but a boy. He recognized the cruel, queer nature of this woman intent on crushing a tender heart; he’d seen its likeness in his uncle Tom’s face, in the perverse pleasure he’d gained in tormenting, blaming, and beating Michael until the blood flowed from his mouth.

The room swayed before Michael at the memory. Fury swelled inside him for Annie’s sake. He wanted—needed—to smash something; he wanted—needed—to rescue Annie. “How bad is she?”

It was a time before Maggie spoke. “Mrs. Sprague told her husband that Annie screamed for the longest time that day—the day they came upon the garden. It was Annie’s sixteenth birthday.” Maggie’s voice broke.

Daniel finished because Maggie could not. “He said she’s not spoken since. She refuses to eat. Simply lies there in hospital.”

Michael could not stand the heat, the closeness of the kitchen. He was gone before the door slammed behind him.

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