Of Needles and Haystacks by Ann Fryer (the beginning after the end novel read TXT) 📕

“No. Not at all.” He placed his hands on his knees and gazed at his honey golden floor.

Her voice quivered. “You offer me an admission of wrong, that has more of kindness about it than anything.”

“Couldn’t rest easy until I confessed.”

She didn’t seem altogether pleased, sitting there on the couch alone.  He moved to sit next to her. “I didn’t expect this would make you happy ...”

“It doesn’t altogether.” She knotted and unknotted her hands. She struggled to speak. “Too many secrets—missing parts. I feel like I never knew my parents at all. And you had to go and burn part of Father’s legacy.”

James leaned back, “If I told you what I know...” A rush of panic filled his gut. Should he? And guilt this innocent who merely needed more time to heal? The truth had been wounding her. And yet...

She sat on the edge of her seat. “I can handle it.” She nodded with certainty.

Now or never. “Your father and I...”

Footsteps trundled through the door.

“Hammond?” James stood quickly.

Hammond’s eyes leapt to the box. “What’s this?” His face turned pasty white then deep red.

“Mr. Trafton’s business papers. We were just discussing them.” He hovered at the cliff’s edge.

“I told you not to do that.” His voice clipped each word.

“Why, Uncle? They are mine, after all.” Dorothy’s voice trembled.

James reached for her hand and squeezed. She shouldn’t speak.

Hammond pointed a finger at him. “You’re after her, aren’t you? To get my land?” Hammond began shaking. “How could you do that, after what we’ve been through?”

“It’s Dorothy’s land. Before that, it belonged to her father. Has for some time. Why would it matter if...”

He didn’t finish. Hammond had gone pale. His fury revealed in clenched jaws and a hatred James had never seen came boiling over. How did rage so quickly find its way into a man where there had been none before? Dorothy was not at fault. Something else was at play...

Dorothy let go of his hand and clutched the back of the couch, afraid.

Hammond lumbered towards her and his great body collapsed and seized on the floor, knocking a small table over on his head.

James knelt by him, rolled him on his side. “Dorothy, get Ruth. Quick.”

A streak of blood dripped down Hammond’s brow and red clouded James’s vision. Bile rose up his throat. “Ruuuuth!”

JAMES LAY IN HIS OWN bed, blinking in the darkness. A wet cloth covered his forehead. Fresh mint lay in a cluster on his bedside table and ginger water sat nearby. How long had he been here?

A candle flickered in the corner of his room, highlighting pale blue plaid. Dorothy’s head dipped to the side and rested against the hard wood of the rocking chair. She’d stayed with him? Had she seen the worst?

Footsteps sounded from below. A murmur. A door being latched. A horse, and another galloping away. Hammond. The doctor. Must be.  He rose—the dizziness gone. He leaned forward and touched Dorothy’s hand.

She woke with a start and blinked awake in his gaze. “You’re better?”

“Yes.”

She stood and gathered her shawl, preparing to leave, he guessed.

“Dorothy—what he said...”

She held a hand up. Light was gone from her face. “I shouldn’t be here.” She yawned. “But you were so ill. And Ruth had her hands full getting help for Uncle.”

“How is he?”

She shrugged. “I feel as though he hates me. I don’t understand. How can you two be so...”

He knew what she was asking. How could he befriend a man who’d showed himself to love land more than family? How did they enjoy a brotherly friendship if he was thus?

“Hammond was a crack-shot in the war. Between the eyes every time. Spent his nights crying like a baby. Only thing that saved him from madness was thinking about his farm. The work he goes about each day is like a personal heaven after being quartered in hell.”

“What difference does it make if I own the farm and not my father?”

“Don’t know.”

“And why would he near kill himself with anger at the thought of you owning it?” Color rose in her cheeks, heightening her beauty.

James stepped back into his memories. He’d shown up in a suit and carried a sack of fine linen shirts. The other boys had heckled him. Clearly, he’d come from money.

He’d wet himself at the first battle. Hammond found him stuck in the hollow of a tree, drum wedged in front of him endlessly repeating his childhood prayers.

Hammond’s voice whispered through his memories. “One man’s the same as the other in battle, mind you. Brass buttons and those fine hankies of yours can’t save you.”

Hammond had tossed him scraps of respect until James had warmed up to the man. Found a father figure that he’d not had at home. They’d been a help to each other in those days. And when he’d purchased the farm next door five years ago, he’d gained more family than he’d ever had.

Hammond was always a bit uneasy. James thought it was the same malady he suffered from. When Hammond nearly lost his farm a few years ago, he’d done what a true friend would, though he had no need for his fine silver. Backed away from it like a serpent about to strike. That’s when he’d appealed to Mr. and Mrs. Trafton. Filled their coffers to purchase the farm. To keep it in the family as it had been for over one hundred years already. He never imagined they would die, and die together.

He stepped out of his memories back to Dorothy. “I don’t know.” The whole ordeal bewildered him.

She looked up to him, “What were you going to tell me? I’ve been waiting.”

He chuckled. “Have you now? Well then. Your father and I worked together to save your farm. That’s all you need to know. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to share everything.”

“Uncle owes you a great deal, I imagine.”

“Don’t imagine another thing, please. Hammond doesn’t know. And if he found out now, it may kill him.”

“How can such kindness kill a