Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [96]
“He was shot and killed.”
Jerking straight, her eyes flew open. “What?”
He stared into the distance, his face slackening. “It’s a long story.”
“How old was he?”
“Nineteen.”
Her chest tightened. “Oh, Luke. I’m so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
Something about his tone gave her pause. His remark didn’t express grief so much as it did self-reproach.
“Tell me.” The words were out before she could collect them. But he’d taken her so off guard.
Heaving a sigh, he slowly continued down Academy. This time, he didn’t take her hand. “I was fifteen, Alec just eleven months behind me in age. But he always seemed a lot younger. Maybe because he was so much smaller than me. I don’t know. But this particular year, I considered myself a full-grown man.”
She didn’t know if it was the moonlight, this day they’d spent together, or the experience they’d shared the night before, but on some primal level she knew this was not something he talked about often—if ever. Unclipping the fan from her chatelaine, she opened it and stirred up a gentle draft.
“I did a man’s part on our farm. I cut and hauled wood to town for money. I spent my nights hunting raccoons in the dark woods with my hounds. I called on the young ladies.” He took a deep breath. “And I developed a taste for whiskey.”
A light in the window of a home up ahead was snuffed out, plunging that side of the house into darkness. A few seconds later, the light in the room next to it went out as well.
He slid his hands in his pockets. “One night, I took Alec with me to the still-house and we tasted a bit more than we should’ve.”
She glanced down. Her brother had only been thirteen when he died. Not nearly old enough to have sown any wild oats. But she knew well the effect liquor could have on a man who imbibed too much. Her stepfather was living proof of that.
“On our way home,” Luke continued, “I talked him into racing down Main Street and shooting out the windows of businesses closed up for the night. I’d do one side, he’d do the other, then we’d compare to see who shot the most the fastest.” He shook his head. “Alec and I were both crack shots, even then. But he was no match for me. I’d already made it to the other end of Main, when the sheriff caught Alec only halfway finished.”
The sidewalk ended. He cupped her elbow, assisting her with the transition from board to dirt, then let his hand drop. “Before I could organize a rescue party, the sheriff whisked Alec away to the state prison, where he served for three years.”
She closed her fan, pressing it against her waist. Three years? For shooting out windows? “That seems an awfully severe punishment for a boyhood prank.”
“It was because of me. The sheriff and I had had many collisions. I was hotheaded, wiry, and fearless, and had yet to develop any moral principles. My Achilles’ heel, though, was my brother. And Sheriff Glaser knew it. He had connections with the boys over at State. All he had to do was throw out some trumped-up charges and Alec’s fate was sealed.”
She reattached her fan, then pulled off her gloves one finger at a time before slipping them into her hidden pocket. “So he was eighteen when he got out?”
“We both were. I went to meet him and bring him home, but when I arrived I found out he’d been released three days earlier.” He shook his head. “I tracked him for weeks on end, catching a trail, then losing it, then catching it again until it finally went cold.”
“Did he know you were looking for him?”
“He knew, but he didn’t have much use for a brother who turned tail and ran instead of coming back to rescue him from the sheriff.”
“Did he know you’d planned to go back for him, once you had some help?”
“I wrote to him. Told him. But he never responded or acknowledged any of my letters.”
At Cottonwood Street, they turned right. Her cottage was two lots down. “What happened to him?”
“He joined up with a gang of ne’er-do-wells. I tried off and on to find him and several times thought I’d come close. But I could only be away from