Against Her Will

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Five Years Later

Sunlight.

A breeze.

Light unobstructed by bars and movement unhindered by shackle or chains.

Tanner was a free man.

Five years he'd been locked in that prison. Five yeas of watching his back, wondering if he'd be murdered in his sleep and fighting tooth and nail to hold on to some semblance of sanity as those walls had grown in a bit more each day.

Now that was over.

Patrick Starr had done his job well and had gotten twenty years taken off Tanner's sentence. He'd found a judge who had also been a Confederate Soldier and used that, plus the truth of who Trevor had been to win Tanner's freedom.

"So where are you going to go now, Tanner? Back to Georgia?" Patrick asked as Tanner climbed up into the man's cart and sat down upon the seat.

Tanner squinted and stared out over the horizon.

It was a looming question. Where was he going to go? Tanner hadn't spoken to anyone from the plantation since Felix had told him that Temperance didn't wish to have anymore contact with him.

Felix had come several times during that first year but Tanner would always refuse to see him and finally the old man had given up. It had simply been too painful for Tanner to know that Felix had been seeing Temperance everyday and yet he could not. It had been too painful to know that Felix had been hiding something from him because Tanner was certain the man had been. There was something Temperance didn't want him to know--some reason why the woman had pushed him away--and Tanner wanted to know what it was.

Not even Patrick Starr would say. But Patrick had also been true to his word and not told Temperance or anyone else at the plantation that Tanner was getting out early.

There was only one place that Tanner knew he had to go and that was to that plantation. Regardless of the pain that Temperance had put him through his heart still cried out for her.

He had to see her. He had to know why she had done what she had done. He needed to know for himself that she was okay; that she was healing and coping and moving past what had been done to her. Tanner cared more about her than he did himself and the pain that would undoubtedly come if she had moved on with someone else.

He looked over at the middle-aged man beside him and nodded, "Yeah, Patrick. Yeah, I believe I'm heading back to Georgia. Reckon I can hitch a ride with you?"

"Of course, Tanner. You going back to the plantation?"

Tanner nodded. "You know I am."

"Temperance has been running it pretty decent since you left. She downsized it a bit and doesn't grow quite as much, but still enough to turn a hefty profit each year."

Hearing her name out loud like that caused Tanner's heart to constrict in his chest. "What else has she been doing?" Tanner asked quietly.

Patrick flicked the reins and got the cart moving down the road. "I think it'd be best if you found that out when you got there, Tanner."

"Is she married?" Tanner whispered, barely able to choke out the words.

Patrick clicked his tongue. "I can't say anything about her personal life, Tanner. I've been sworn to confidentiality just the same as I haven't told them anything about you."

While Tanner wanted to yell and rant and demand answers, he also understood Patrick's position. It was an attorney's job to keep secrets for those who paid him... Tanner just wished Patrick didn't take his career quite so seriously.

The journey to their southern Georgia town took a week and Tanner was eager to stop in town, get a bath, a shave and a clean change of clothes before he went out to the plantation to face whatever awaited him there.

The stares began immediately as he walked down the streets. Then came the whispers. Some people crossed the road, other tipped their hats at him. Tanner felt like some gallery piece on display for the masses.

He hated it.

Yes, he had killed his brother. He had shot the man in the back in order to save the woman he loved from any more torment at the man's hands. Why was that the business of anyone in this town? Why did they act as if their stares and their whispers were justified and proper?

Tanner paid for a bath, a haircut and a shave with money he'd earned while in prison. He bought some new clothes and it felt good to finally be clean after so many dirty years in that prison.

Tanner stood in the sunlight outside the livery. He was putting off stepping inside and renting the horse that would take him to the plantation. He was terrified of what he'd find. Could his heart take it if he saw her in the arms of another man?

The answer was yes.

While it would kill a part of him; Tanner knew that if he saw that she was happy with that man--if her green eyes sparkled with life and a smile lit her face, then he could accept whatever life she now had. Tanner would let her keep the plantation and he would find a new life somewhere else--probably very very far away.

His mind made up and his heart determined, Tanner headed into the livery to see about getting that horse.

***

Tanner rode through those gates and took in the sight of home. He'd spent the last quarter hour riding through fields of cotton, wheat, corn and barely. He could smell the orchards and orange groves and the flowers that were still blooming all over the property.

His stomach was tied and twisted in knots as he rode closer and closer. There were less workers here just as Patrick had said there were. There was only a staff of ten that stayed permanently and seasonal workers were hired on during planting and harvest seasons. Tanner was pleased to see that the servants quarters had been kept up and appeared pleasantly livable. The burnt barn had been rebuilt and no evidence of that terrible night seemed to remain....

Tanner dismounted his horse and looked at those porch steps. He felt eyes on him as the workers realized who he was. They whispered but stayed away and Tanner wondered why they didn't greet him.

His gaze went back to those steps.... Back to that slab of stone his brother had been standing upon when Tanner had sent a bullet into his back and killed him.

Flashbacks of that night flashed through his mind. He was no longer in the present. Instead he was lost in the past--lost in the blood, the pain, the rage and the desperation.

"Who are you?"

A tiny voice broke through Tanner's memories and his eyes flew open to find a little boy standing in the exact place that Trevor had been standing when Tanner's bullet had slammed into him. The boy had his head cocked to the side as he studied him with curiosity.

The boy appeared to be around four or five years in age and he was oddly familiar in appearance... he looked a lot like Tanner had looked like as a child in his features, though he had darker hair--hair that was the same shade that Trevor's had been. Freckles dotted the suntanned skin of his cheeks and nose--and his eyes--his eyes were green and bright and all Temperance.

The truth settled on Tanner's shoulders like a ton of bricks and the truth of what Temperance had been going through--the realization of what had really caused her to distance herself from him--slammed into his gut. This boy was his nephew, Tanner had killed his father and Temperance was being forced to raise a child who had been born from rape....

Tanner shoved his hand through his dark blond hair and shook his head. "God have mercy..."