Pamela Morsi Read Online Free Page A

certain. But she didn’t do that at all. She raised her head and pursed her lips, closing her eyes in expectation.
    Moss had looked at that upturned mouth for a very long moment. He’d been careful to avoid the young gals of the Sweetwood. They were looking for mates. He’d made certain that he was always looking in the other direction. Best not to catch the eye of a maiden who was marriage-minded. As he gazed down at the slim young woman with the pretty blonde hair and the puckered little mouth, his resolve faltered. One kiss wouldn’t hurt anything, he assured himself.
    One kiss had ruined his life. He should have just walked away. While she had her eyes closed he should have turned his back on her and run as if his life depended upon it. Because in a way it did.
    Moss gave a whispered curse under his breath.
    She’d trapped him. She’d lied about him and trapped him like some fool rabbit in a snare. If he had any sense at all he’d take off running now. It still wasn’t too late. He could just walk out on the whole lot of them. Leave them high and dry and head out west on his own. That’s what they deserved. That’s what
she
deserved.
    In his fury, Moss eyed the big sandstone boulder that he’d been plowing around all his life. It graced the center of his cornfield, ever unmovable, ever in the way. Today that rock looked even larger than it had before.
    Frustrated, he kicked it, then howled in pain at the ungiving reception it had offered his foot. He’d acted the fool and now he was suffering for it.
    Limping, he unhitched the mule back from the turning plow, which he left standing in the field. He gathered up the leading strings on Red Tex and led the animals down the mountain toward his place. He still felt shame at his public humiliation and anger at the conniving Jezebel. Those emotions, however, were overridden by an incredible gnawing sense of disappointment that was so sharp he could nearly vomit. He was tied now. Tied with the bonds of matrimony. Tied to that woman and her kin. Tied to this place, once again.
    As a boy it had looked so easy. All he had to do to get away was grow up. And growing up happened without even trying. He’d grow up and he’d move away. He’d leave behind the hardscrabble life that made men tired and old. Break free of the restraints and constriction of mountain ways. Declare his freedom from the land that held him prisoner.
    But he’d learned that growing up could be differentthan a man thought. He’d learned that as he leaned tearful over his fevered mother’s deathbed.
    “Promise me you’ll take care of Jeptha,” she’d whispered. “He ain’t going to have nobody but you. You got to promise to care for him all his life.”
    “I promise, Ma,” he’d whispered. “I promise to take care of Uncle Jeptha. Now you promise to get better. You promise to get well, Ma.”
    She hadn’t made the vow she couldn’t keep. They’d lowered her into cold Tennessee ground less than a week later.
    He hadn’t worried much about Uncle Jeptha. Jeptha was old and sick, ruined from the war and not long for this world. That’s what young Moss had thought. Ten years later, his uncle was exactly the same as he had always been. He seemed not older, nor sicker, nor any more eager to meet his maker.
    Not that Moss wanted him dead. That was not it at all. The old man was family, his only family. And he would always keep his mother’s dying wish. Still, Uncle Jeptha stood in the way of his leaving. And Moss couldn’t quite help but resent that.
    But now it wasn’t just him. Now it was all of them. Stringy-haired Eulie and her five youngers would forever be a rock he couldn’t move, one he’d spend the rest of his life plowing around. Moss cursed once more, while only Red Tex and the old jenny could hear him.
    He made his way down, around, and up once more to the homestead. The earth smelled of spring, fertile with forest duff and green moss. In the distance, a lark sang in the