Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“What’s the expression your grandfather is always using?”

“Don’t borrow trouble.”

“Good words to remember. Let’s go upstairs.”

The house had a big attic fan. When we shut all the windows except the one in our bedroom and turned on the fan, the entire house creaked, and within minutes our bedroom was airy and cool. There was a magnolia tree in full bloom outside our window, and I could hear raindrops ticking on the leaves. Rosita undressed with her back to me, then got under the sheet.

“You’re still shy with me,” I said.

“That

’s what you think, buster.”

“You’ve been watching too many American movies,” I said.

She looked into my face. “Did you have a bad dream last night?”

“I dreamed about Hershel. He was buried alive and I couldn’t pull him loose from the ground.”

“Are you worried about him?”

“I’m worried about his wife.”

“She’s not a bad girl.”

“She’s easily used. Most Southerners are. We give power to the worst among us.”

Rosita turned off the light on the nightstand and pulled the sheet off her. “Come here,” she said.

“When did you start giving orders?”

“Just now.”

“Bad idea,” I said. I got up from the bed and took a pair of scissors out of the desk drawer. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll let you know.”

I went downstairs in my pajamas and into the backyard and cut a huge yellow rose from a bush and went back upstairs and sat on the side of the bed and laid the rose on her stomach.

“Why did you do that?”

“I felt like it,” I said. Then I kissed her on the mouth and forehead and on each of her eyes.

She rested her hand on the back of my neck and gazed into my face. “You’re an honorable and brave man, Weldon. For that reason you’ll always be feared and rejected by the world.”

“I don’t think the world is particularly interested in people like me.”

“Hershel isn’t educated, but he understands the goodness in you. It’s not the kind of goodness that people acquire. It’s of a kind that certain people are born with. Hershel will always remain loyal to you. His vulnerability lies in his belief that people with education and money are better than he is. He doesn’t understand that he’s the same good man you are.”

“You’re pretty smart.”

She lifted a lock of my hair from my eye and pushed it back over my forehead. “People will try to use your goodness against you,” she said. “I made you accept the invitation to the country club. I was foolish. Regardless of what Wiseheart told you, I saw the look in his wife’s eyes. It was iniquitous. We never should have had contact with either of them.”

“We won’t be seeing them again.”

“They want what you have. They may never use it, but they need to own it. They cannot allow others to think their power is limited.”