Chapter Two #3
“Oh, but you must!” Henry insisted. “And then perhaps you could show us some of your work.”
Again, she could not tell if he was mocking her.
“No!” she said sharply and then regretted it. Feeling everyone’s eyes on her again, she began to struggle a bit to breathe. She needed to get away from here, away from these people, away from all the eyes. It was horrible! She looked behind her toward the door.
In the next moment, she felt Edmund’s strong, familiar arm around her, and she gratefully leaned into him.
“You okay, Possum?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “I need some air. Help me, Edmund,” she mumbled so that only he could hear. She felt herself sag then, but Edmund held her up and began to lead her toward the other end of the hall.
“She’s been ill,” he explained over his shoulder to the little group. “She just needs some air.”
“Shall I come, too?” Mary called eagerly. “She might need a woman’s touch.”
“No,” Edmund called over his shoulder again. “She’ll be okay. I’ve got her.”
***
Edmund succeeded in getting Kate outside and shuffled down the sidewalk with her until there was a break in the bare shrubbery. He leaned her against the church’s brick exterior. She tilted her head back, gasping for air.
“Just breathe slow. Deep. That’s it.”
Kate tried to follow his instructions, but her mind was racing uncontrollably.
Too much information, too many people. Henry’s piercing green eyes on her, Mary looping her arm through Edmund’s, Sheriff Norris’s easy dismissal of her, Rosemary’s revelation.
She struggled to force her mind to be a blank and fought the urge to gasp for breath.
Instead, she tried to breathe slowly, in and out.
Over and over she did this until her breathing regained a semblance of normality.
She leaned her hands on her knees. The frigidity of the air seemed to help.
“I’m okay, Edmund,” she finally said, peering up at him. “You can go back in.”
“What happened?” His expression was one of extreme concern.
“I don’t know,” she tried to say calmly, thought her heart was still beating hard. “It just got to be too much. Too hot and too many people. I just needed some air.” She had no desire to tell him everything, particularly because she hadn’t figured it all out herself. She needed time to think.
“Are you feeling ill? Should I go find your mom? Or should I drive you home?”
“No, I’m fine.” She stood up straight. “Really. I just . . . I’m fine. I just need a minute alone. You go on in.”
“I’m not leaving you out here!”
“Honestly, Edmund. I just need a moment.”
“You sure?” Edmund’s brow wrinkled.
Kate nodded.
“Okay,” he said uneasily. “But here, take my jacket.” He slipped out of his tweed jacket and draped it gently around Kate’s shoulders. It smelled so much of him—like fresh hay mixed with clover and sweat—that her eyes momentarily closed in comfort.
“If you’re not back in five minutes, I’m coming back out.” He wagged a finger and turned back toward the church hall.
Kate watched him go and let out another deep breath.
Why had she panicked? Her eyes swept the lawn.
The moon was bright and illuminated the tombstones of the graveyard across the way.
Was it Henry Crawford—the way he had stared at her, as if he knew all of her deep, inner thoughts, as if she were naked in front of him?
Suddenly hot, she shrugged off Edmund’s coat.
She didn’t trust this Henry Crawford, nor his sister, either, the way she was flirting—yes, flirting, Kate was sure!
—with Edmund, who was too gullible to notice.
Who were these strangers, really, and why had Frank brought them here?
And why did Frank insist on calling her an artist?
She wasn’t an artist! She was no more an artist than the next person.
She had made her baskets to survive in her badger hole.
That was all. They had nothing to do with art.
Making her way to the edge of the churchyard, she gripped the metal of the iron fence that surrounded it.
Her eyes flitted over the graves, and she let out a deep sigh.
It wasn’t really Frank or the Crawfords that had upset her so, she knew.
It was the new information given to her by Rosemary Mueller.
She had a name now. Or maybe a name. Espo.
Espo. Espo. Espo.
Try as she might to force it, the name meant nothing to her.
Had these Espos really been her family, and might they really be living in Shullsburg, Wisconsin, just thirty miles away?
What would happen if she went to Shullsburg to look for them?
She let go of the fence and began to walk along it.
Would they recognize her if she knocked on their door?
Would they want to? After all, they had rejected her once, might they again?
She glanced back at the church hall. She should return before her mother noticed she was missing. She dreaded going in and being the center of attention, but she couldn’t just remain out here.
No, she would have to go back, and, she realized with a groan, she had not yet spoken to Melody.