In All Places (Stripling Warrior) Read Online Free Page B

beautiful day . The air smelled clean. Fluffy, white clouds drifted in a blue sky. Birds sang in the trees.
    Birds sang in the trees.
    My hand went to my sling, and I fit a stone into it. Without a word, Zeke placed his hand over mine.
    He was right , of course. I was not on a hunting detail.
    “Remember when we used to hunt together at home?” I asked , tucking the sling back into my belt.
    He winced at the pain in his leg as he swung it over a branch in the path. “Of course I do.”
    How I hated to see him suffer!
    “And you and Kenai would wait to the sides of a path,” I hurried on, “while I lured something into your trap.”
    “You made beautiful bait.”
    It was a compliment I was accustomed to, but I blushed when he offered it so genuinely.
    “We caught a lot of things that way,” I remembered with a reminiscent smile.
    “Between two men,” Zeke said quietly.
    For a long time I didn’t respond, and his words hung in the air between us. I wanted to ignore them, to just let it go, but I kept thinking about them as we walked on. They wouldn’t go away.
    We hadn’t yet talked of Gideon or of what Zeke had seen just before he had slipped into unconsciousness on the battlefield. It wasn’t just that my captain had embraced me. It was the clear show of passion that had accompanied it, and not just on Gideon’s part. It was the way he had grasped me tight to him, the way he had kissed my brow as if it was his to kiss and the way he had looked into my eyes.
    We hadn’t yet talked of my feelings for Gideon or of Zeke’s. How could we? It was impossible.
    “Don’t start that, Zeke,” I said at last , trying to keep my voice even. “I don’t want to fight.”
    “Don’t start what?”
    I bristled at the challenge in his voice. “Don’t you think you’re taking this jealousy thing a little far?”
    He threw me a glare, a look he seldom let me see, and we both stopped walking.
    “No. I think I’ve been tolerant of the time you spend with Gid.”
    I repeated the word slowly. “Tolerant? It’s not as if there is much of a choice. He’s my captain. He’s in my unit. He—”
    “ As a captain, he could have chosen any unit,” he interrupted.
    “But I couldn’t. Why do you blame me?”
    “You spend a disproportionate amount of time— ”
    “I do not! I spend equal amounts of time with all the men in my unit. You,” I jabbed at his chest much the same as I had with Lamech. “You choose not to see that. You see what you want.”
    “You think I want to see you with him?”
    I stared into his cocoa -colored eyes. So familiar. Warm, even in his pain. Beloved. I willed my anger to fall away. He was not the one I was mad at.
    “No. ” I gave him the courtesy of an answer.
    “Micah said you sought forgiveness , but he was wrong. You only seek justification.”
    That stung. “Can’t you see I’m trying to love you? You’re poisoning it with this bitterness and this jealousy.”
    “I don’t want a girl who has to try to love me.”
    The words, flung like a stone, hit their mark.
    “ You don’t love me,” he pressed on with insistence. “And you,” he poked me in the chest. “You are the one who has poisoned it.”
    I stared down at my chest where h is finger had struck. It hurt, and I covered it with my hand. The sting of betrayal welled in my eyes when I looked back up at him. This was not the Zeke I knew.
    “ Gideon doesn’t want—”
    “I don’t care what Gid wants!” His voice was higher than normal and raw with honesty. He took a breath. “Gid’s feelings are not the ones that make me jealous, Keturah.”
    I glanced around. We had made our way to the edge of the terrace where the army was camped, but we weren’t yet in the main part of the city where the buildings would provide us more privacy. A lot of people could see us.
    I closed my eyes and remembered Zeke’s blood seeping into the soil at my feet. I thought of what my mother had said. I am not the one who needs to hear