Chapter Forty-Two
Tanner slowed down his pace as he entered Temperance's room and saw her standing on the balcony ledge and looking down at the ground below. Far enough below that if she jumped, or fell, he'd lose her forever.
He didn't want to surprise her and cause her to trip so he stayed in the bedroom and said her name to get her attention.
"Go away, Tanner," she whispered. Her voice was hoarse and thick and it was clear that she'd been crying.
He never should have left her this morning. Damn, why did he keep making mistakes?! "I'm not going away, Temp, so you're wasting time asking me to."
"Tanner, please..." Temperance's voice was broken and full of pain and guilt. "I'm broken! Stop trying to fix me! Just give up!"
"I'll never give up on you, Temp. You're wasting your breath telling me to." Tanner was working very hard to stay calm. He had seen suicidal people before. He had watched men take their lives and been helpless to stop them. He didn't want to watch Temperance die. He couldn't watch Temperance die. He had to talk her off that ledge and into his arms.
"Tanner, why are you making this hard?"
"I'm not making anything hard, sweetheart," Tanner assured her gently as he walked closer and stepped out into the morning sun.
"Don't come closer," she warned and he stopped in his tracks.
"Temperance, you can't jump off that ledge and you know that. You need to step down now before Jackson sees you."
"Jackson will be fine without me, Tanner... he'd be better off without me. You can laugh with him and play. I have never been able to give him those things."
Tanner's heart broke. "You can though, Temp. You did just yesterday."
"Yesterday I thought I could too..." Temperance glanced over her shoulder at him and he took in the sight of her blotchy cheeks and tear swollen eyes. "But this morning..."
"This morning was my fault, Temp. Come on down now. I'm here for you, sweetheart. You have to let this hurt out so come on down and we'll sit together and I'll just listen to whatever you have to say. I won't talk.. I won't try to fix you as you call it. I'll just listen and be there."
"Tanner..."
Tanner heard the smallest hint of uncertainty in her voice and he knew that she didn't really want to jump and that gave him all the hope he needed. If she didn't want to jump then he had to believe that she wouldn't.
"Temperance, don't do this to me. Don't make me watch the woman I love die. Don't do this to Jackson. Don't take his mother away from him. That boy loves you--he worships the ground you walk on. You are a strong woman. Too strong to do something like jump off a balcony and end your own life. Fight this, sweetheart. Come on down here to me."
"Don't try to make me feel guilty, Tanner. Everyone would be better off without me. You can give Jackson a better life and there is bound to be a woman who can give you more than I can...."
"Horse shit!" Tanner snapped.
He'd had enough. He lunged forward without giving her time to react and scooped her off of the ledge and into his arms. She stiffened and struggled desperately against him but he carried her over to the doorway, sat down cross legged and held her tight in his lap, refusing to let her go.
"Stop fighting me!" Tanner grunted when her fist connected with his temple. "You know I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not those men that hurt you, Temperance."
Her fighting stilled but Tanner could still feel the tension in her body and there was more that he wanted to say. "You don't get to do that, Temperance!" he scolded as gently as his temper would allow. "You don't get to make that decision for the people who love you! We damn sure don't believe that we'd be better off without you. I love you--scars and all. Hell, I'm a messed up piece of work myself."
Tanner snorted and shifted his hold on her though she kept her face buried in his chest. "I shot my damn brother in the back and I can't bring myself to walk across that porch where he died--I can't even look at that spot without having flashbacks and losing myself. I can't sleep under a roof because I have dreams that the walls are closing in. I can't go a full night and sleep peaceful because I see things I don't want to see. I see the starving men, the sickness, the disease. I hear the gunfire and cannons. I feel the whips, the chains, the hopelessness. I know what it feels like to want to die--to wish for it so damn bad that your heart aches. You're not the only one who's been through hell, Temp, and I can't make it back out without you. You are my dream, Temp. You are everything I ever wanted and all I need. And that boy downstairs, he loves you with all his heart. You can't just skip out on him like that. You remember what it was like to lose your mother--do you really want to do that to him?"
Silence reigned for several long moments and then Temperance's body seemed to deflate. The tension left it in a rush and she clung to Tanner as her hot tears soaked through his shirt. Tanner held her gently and buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent and reassuring himself that she was safe and alive. "You gotta quit living like this, Temp," Tanner's voice was softer now and much more soothing.
"I want to heal," Temperance whispered, her voice hoarse from her tears. "I want to feel that sense of peace I felt in your arms last night..."
"Then feel it," Tanner urged as he kissed her soft red curls. "Close your eyes and listen to my heartbeat, feel my arms around you and know that you are being held by the man who loves you--the man who would take on the world just to see you smile."
Silence once again fell between them. Tanner did as he had said he would and simply held her. He didn't care if they sat like this all day and into tomorrow, he was going to hold her as long as she needed.
"Robert, the man who told me about my father and brothers, the one who brought the sickness to our house, I fancied myself in love with him." Tanner was surprised when Temperance spoke and he almost replied but then remembered his promise to simply listen and closed his mouth. "I was young and naïve and somehow believed that God had sent Robert to me. I believed he would help me, my mother and my sisters and that we would one day marry and be happy. They were simply the daydreams of a child. I watched him die. I tried to nurse him to health but I couldn't. I fell asleep with my head on his heart and when I awoke there was silence beneath my ear. At that exact moment my youngest sister came into the house with a terrible cough and I knew--God took everyone of them away from me but left me alive. I read Robert's journal after that. He had kept it while in the war and the last entry spoke of me. Of how he wanted to properly court me and he said such nice things about me...We were both foolish."
Temperance chewed her lip a moment before continuing. "Yancy came shortly after I buried my family and Robert. I shouldn't have trusted him but he pretended to have been a Union soldier after seeing Robert's coat that I had kept. I was so lonely and it was my birthday and he seemed so nice. We even ate cake together... then nighttime came and I agreed to let him sleep on the sofa. I just wanted a friend. I wanted someone living and breathing to be around me after having had so much death. I was foolish. He came into my room that night and he took me away from my home... We went to a house where he lived with two other men."
Temperance wiped at her face and rested her heart against his heart. "I didn't truly understand what they meant when they said they were going to teach me.... But I knew it was something bad. Then.. The first time... it was one of his men and he..." Temperance's voice broke and she took a deep shuddering breath.
Tanner wanted to scream, yell, curse the world, shoot something, stab something--he wanted to do anything to release the anger that her words were causing to roar to life inside of him. He wanted to somehow tip the scales of justice and do away with the bad that had been done to her. But instead he breathed deeply and simply listened.
"He hit me so I'd behave and he shoved himself in my mouth. I couldn't breathe but he didn't seem to care... when he finished I threw up and he laughed at me and then he just left as if nothing had happened. Yancy came the next day and I tried to fight him... I fought and then I bit him and he beat me so badly that I could barely take a breath for days. I stopped fighting. Fighting meant pain worse than I'd ever imagined possible. They never took my innocence--they just killed everything innocent inside of me."
Temperance paused and picked at the buttons of Tanner's chambray shirt. He brought up his hand and gently entwined his fingers with hers, grateful when she didn't pull away.
"Everyday they came--more than once most days. Then came the day Yancy said I was ready to find a husband. He said he was going to fatten me up a bit, stop with the beatings to heal the bruises and take me to market. I was so naïve. So hopeful that a husband would care about me--that he would love me the way I'd seen my father love my mother. I was sure that a husband never hurt his wife..."
Temperance shook her head. "What I got was Trevor. The first time he took me I cried so hard. The pain was terrible. I angered him once when I attacked him with a fork. I scratched his cheek and he chained me to a tree for days. Then he put me to work with the servants. He kept me there, raping me when he took the notion--even if there were people around--until you came back. When you came back he moved me into the house to try to make you believe he was a good husband. I assume he didn't think I would betray him."
Silence fell again. Tanner didn't fully trust himself to speak. He didn't know the right thing to say. He didn't want to offer her pity and he didn't want to offer her sympathy. He didn't believe that either would help her.
So he just held her and he kissed her hair and he whispered how much he loved her. Temperance held him right back and Tanner swiped a tear from his own cheek before she could notice it.
"Temperance, can you make me a promise?" he whispered softly.
"What?"
"That you won't do what you did on that balcony ever again. Please? I can't lose you, Temp. I don't care if you want to scream, yell, cry or simply sit and stare for hours--I will gladly do either of those things with you. Just don't ever take yourself away from me."
"Tanner..."
"I know. I don't have a right to ask that of you and I'm being selfish but, dammit, I think I have a right to be selfish now and then."
"I'm sorry I did that, Tanner. No matter what I went through I never tried to do that before..." Temperance's shame was plain to hear.
Tanner put his finger on her cheek and tipped her head so that she was looking in his eyes. He loved her eyes and they appeared an even deeper shade of green thanks to her recent tears. "We are all allowed to break, Temp. Just don't do something so permanent as killing yourself."
"It's just that yesterday was such a good day," Temperance ground out with frustration. "I thought I was getting better and then this morning I had a melt down. And I had it right in front of Jackson and scared him so badly.. I just want to be better, Tanner! I just want to be the person I could have been if Yancy and Trevor had never happened to me."
"No," Tanner shook his head. "You're going to be a stronger person because of them. You're going to be better because of your pain. You are a survivor and nothing in this world can stop you, Temperance. Now you have Wilma and Felix and everyone else who works here that loves you. You have Jackson. You have me. None of this would be yours if they hadn't happened. You have to make peace with your past so that you can really enjoy your future..."
"Wow...." Temperance bit her lip. "Did you come up with that last bit because it's quite nice."
Tanner smiled. "I wish I could say I did but it's actually something I heard in the war."
Temperance nodded and snuggled closer to him. Tanner couldn't believe she was letting him hold her this way and he didn't know when the opportunity would present itself again so he was determined to soak it up.
After a long while there was a knock on the door. "Mommy? Daddy? Are you okay? I want to go ride my pony now."
Tanner sighed and rose to his feet before setting Temperance on hers. "That promise I asked you to make...." he whispered.
Temperance nodded and put her hand on his cheek, "I promise. And Tanner?"
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Thank you. Thank you for just listening. I never have told all of that to anyone before."
Tanner smiled and kissed her brow gently. "Thank you for trusting me with it."
"My pony is lonely," Jackson's voice came again and Temperance's light laughter filled the room and all the empty cracks in Tanner's soul.
"We better get to the pony," she urged.
Tanner nodded in agreement. "Nothing worse than a lonely pony."