Read Online Wild Indigo by Judith Stanton - Free Book Online Page B

that?” He paced a slightly larger circle and loomed before her again. “That doesn’t leave mewith much to say then,” he added darkly.
    She couldn’t guess what that meant.
    Yes, she could. He was going to turn her down. She had just squashed any chance of having a home of her own.
    Instead, he ran his hand over his blond hair and kneaded the back of his neck. “Um. Sister Retha.” With his words, his anger seemed to dissipate, and for the first time he looked awkward, boyish. Retha’s stomach took a wild and unaccustomed dip. “My proposal…’tis not as I intended.”
    He made a clumsy gesture toward her. “Walk with me. Away from this.”
    He led her to the far side of the Square and leaned against the split-rail fence, burly arms folded across his chest. “Let me put it to you this way. I know Gottlieb Vogler. For trading, he’s as reliable as an oak. But I was an Elder when we disassociated him. He flaunted the lot. He put what he called love for that Cherokee woman over its clear direction not to marry her. And never looked back.”
    Retha thought Jacob sounded somewhat sorry about his role in the dismissal, but knew he couldn’t understand the whole of it. She would give her life for devotion as strong and true as that which she had seen between Gottlieb and Alice.
    â€œHe does love her,” Retha said.
    â€œThat may be. Nevertheless, because he’s no longer one of us, ’tis not seemly for a Single Sister to associate with him. With them. Even if they have been your friends.”
    His tone grew milder, and he was almost relaxed leaning against the split-rail fence. She would givehim the truth he asked for: she wasn’t ashamed of knowing them and had nothing to hide. “Gottlieb Vogler rescued me one winter. Out past the waterfall. I was looking for dyes and found their cabin after it started to rain. He brought me home.”
    Glancing up, she saw Jacob scowling, and quickly corrected herself. “He and Alice brought me home. They said they needed supplies from Traugott Bagge’s store.”
    â€œYou were fortunate, then,” he said noncommittally. “Nevertheless, ’tis not safe for you to associate with Gottlieb Vogler. The country is at war. And his wife is Cherokee.”
    This was going too far. She cut him a look. “His wife is my friend too. My only Cherokee friend. Cherokees found me and adopted me into their tribe. I passed my childhood years with them. Or have you forgotten?”
    â€œNo one has forgotten, Sister Retha. Which is why you need take especial care.”
    â€œTake care! About Alice?” Puzzled, Retha had an urge to pace out a circle of her own. Then she recalled Gottlieb’s words about Alice’s danger. “You too believe her to be a spy.”
    Jacob nodded with slow, infuriating certainty. “More to the point, Scaife does.”
    â€œThat man? That redheaded Liberty Man? Perhaps she should spy against him. It was Liberty Men—locals—that wiped out her clan. If she hadn’t had a ravaging case of the smallpox, they would have killed her too.”
    â€œSmall wonder she would want to spy against—”
    â€œBrother Blum,” Retha interrupted, defendingherself as well as her friend, “do you think I would knowingly consort with a British spy?”
    â€œI think you might unknowingly consort with a British spy, someone you admired for some other reason.”
    She bridled at his calm, patronizing voice. “I do admire the Cherokee. They saved my life.”
    Jacob made a noise of frustration and muttered, mostly in English, “ Ach , stubborn woman, in the name of all that’s good and merciful!”
    Retha understood every word. “Perhaps we don’t always know who the good and merciful are,” she replied in her own halting but unaccented English.
    His eyebrows snapped together, then recognition dawned. “Of