Ripples Along the Shore Read Online Free PDF Page A

orchard, the land belonged to a man who kept slaves.
    Pulling the cord tight on the linen sack, Garrett glanced at the scarred stairs in the corner. The bulk of fifty slaves had slept in the loft. Those housed on his father’s plantation in Richmond lived a similar life—impoverished and contained. Shaking his head, he added the sack to the pile headed for the flour mill tomorrow. He’d seen the tally of each year’s crop carved into the back of every step, and didn’t have to imagine the blood, sweat, and agony poured into those backbreaking years.
    In contrast to those lean years for so many slaves, Garrett had enjoyed generous portions of victuals at Mrs. Brantenberg’s breakfast table less than an hour earlier. He walked past two short barrels and lifted a heavy boot onto the first of the narrow pine steps. His footfalls thunderous in his ears, he climbed each plank as if he’d packed the weight of the world on his back. He had.
    Familiar but distant voices called out to him. He paused, his head just inside the opening to the loft. He’d grown up around slaves, whom he’d counted among his friends. As Garrett looked from the A-frame rafters to the floor worn smooth by bare feet and imagined row after row of woolen blankets laid out as sleeping pallets, a recurring question draped him like a suffocating cloak. What would life be like if he hadn’t been so compliant? Given the circumstances, he thought he’d done the right thing. Not according to the two men he’d tried most to please—his father and his older brother. And he would forever be a deserter or a coward, no matter his reasoning.
    Garrett descended the steps. He’d tied shut another full sack when Rutherford returned to the granary wearing a smile as wide as the Missouri and probably just as deep.
    “From the doe-eyed looks of you, Rutherford, I’d guess Maren rode out here for the quilting circle.”
    “She did.” His voice sounded far away … as far away as Mrs. Brantenberg’s sitting room.
    “You two talked about the wedding, didn’t you?”
    Rutherford nodded, then removed his kepi. “Only three weeks now.”
    The man may as well be marking the days off on a doorpost. Seemed all Rutherford talked about was his beloved Maren, his sweet daughter Gabi, and the day they’d officially become a family.
    “You and me”—Rutherford walked toward the two short barrels—“we need to talk.”
    “Sounds serious.” Garrett followed him.
    Cocking an eyebrow, Rutherford sat down. “It is serious. I don’t know how you feel about weddings.”
    Garrett gulped and sank onto the other barrel. “How I feel about weddings?”
    “My wedding.” Rutherford hung his hat over his knee. “Why so nervous? Should we be talking about your wedding?”
    Garrett’s laugh echoed off the upstairs rafters. “A guaranteed waste of time.” He met his friend’s concerned gaze. “At the very least, I’d need to have prospects in the picture. Which I don’t.”
    Rutherford glanced toward the open door. “You like redheads, don’t you?”
    “She’s here?”
    “So, you have noticed her?”
    “You’d have to be an ostrich with your head buried in the sand not to know Mrs. Milburn likes me about as much as she would a rabid skunk.”
    Rutherford chuckled. “Too fiery for ya?”
    “The intensity, I can handle. But she’s a recent widow.”
    “You’re forgetting.” Rutherford’s eyes narrowed. “I buried my wife. I’m a widower myself, being given another chance at love.”
    His stomach knotted. “Yes, and I’m thankful you are.”
    “I doubt Caroline Milburn is any more content with being alone than I was.”
    A good point, but not one Garrett wished to entertain. He couldn’t. Even if she did like him, no woman could care for a man like him. Not if she knew the truth.
    Especially that woman.
    “It’s not the same. I was her dead husband’s enemy. Thus, her enemy too.”
    “Was.” Rutherford slapped his hat onto his head. “We’re