Undaunted Love by Wright Jennings

Author:Wright, Jennings [Wright, Jennings]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: Ross James Publishing
Published: 2012-09-11T21:00:00+00:00

Livvie spent time that morning with Mariah, reading to her, bathing her and washing her hair. She was as small as a child now, and showed no reaction to her at all. Livvie kissed her and said goodbye with tears on her cheeks. Her own mama was ill, too, but at least she still smiled and her eyes were still alive, even if the rest of her was dying.

Rafe did what he could to repair Mrs. Hauser’s house, although she, too, had been unable to pay her property taxes and would likely lose her farm. Her fields had grown up with saplings and scrub, her horse was near lame, and she’d had to sell off all her slaves after her husband had died in 1861. Desperate but not broken, she was still quick to smile, and she offered what hospitality she could with joy.

Nackie spent a good deal of time napping on the front porch. Rafe didn’t know how old the negro was, but he had to be at least sixty, and the last few years had been incredibly hard. Deprivation, caretaking, and worry, had taken their toll. Perhaps the Kinneys would allow Nackie to come live on their farm until harvest, too, and he could go to Charleston with them. Rafe decided that he would talk to his wife that afternoon.

The day was hazy and hot, the humidity making the air feel like a rain shower. Everyone was sweating, and even Mariah had kicked off the quilts. In the heat of the day, Rafe and Livvie took a blanket and lay under an old, half dead, oak on a small rise, hoping to catch a small breeze. Their upper room, lovely in the cool of the night, was a furnace in the heat of the day. They were dozing, holding hands, when they heard hoof beats galloping up the drive. Rafe stood and pulled his wife to her feet, trying to see who was coming. It could be awkward if Livvie was found here with him, so he pushed her towards the back of the house.

“Go inside until we see who it is. We don’t need word getting to your daddy before we have a chance to tell him ourselves.” He walked towards the front steps.

When her got there, he saw three men he didn’t recognize. One had a badge on his jacket. They swung down off their horses, eyes fixed on him.

“Rafe Colton?” the man with the badge asked, his accent not from the islands.

“Yes, sir, and you are?” Rafe countered.

“I’m the sheriff, Louis Gingras. We’re here to talk to you about Mr. James Monighan.”

Rafe looked blank. “I don’t know any Monighan.”

“He bought your house a month or two back…” The sheriff let that hang there, waiting.

Rafe shrugged. “I never met him. I been in Virginia, just got home yesterday.”

“You can’t be happy about losing your house,” Gingras said.

“Course I ain’t happy about losing my house. I weren’t happy about losing my land neither, but that didn’t stop it happenin’.

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