Memory's Embrace by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

her mouth to protest, but Roderick stayed her by striding toward the porch. “I’d be honored to accompany you,” he said adoringly, and Derora forgot all about Tess and her duties as an aunt. She and Roderick disappeared into the house, gazing into each other’s eyes as they went.
    “I’d be honored to accompany you!” mimicked Joel Shiloh furiously.
    Tess stiffened. Incredibly enough, she’d forgotten his presence for a moment. Bad planning, for now she was alone with him. “Are you jealous, Mr. Shiloh?” she asked acidly. “If so, I would suggest that you go to church with Mr. Waltam and my aunt.”
    He made no response, except for a rude noise that came from low in his throat.
    Tess went to her bicycle and grasped the handlebars, ready to go for a Sunday morning ride along the river road. With any luck, she wouldn’t encounter another deluded peddler in her travels.
    Joel stopped her with startling ease. “Will you take my picture?”
    “What?” She stared at him, wide-eyed. Confused. And wanting more than anything to take Joel Shiloh’s photograph. When he moved on, as peddlers invariably did, she would have the likeness to remember him by.
    But why should she want to remember, for heaven’s sake?
    “Please?” he prompted, in a disturbingly gruff and humble tone.
    “All right,” Tess answered shyly, and then she hurried into the house and up the stairs to her room. Her camera was on the bureau, where she had left it, and the counter indicated that there were still three plates inside.
    In the hallway, she was waylaid by a frowning Juniper. “Ain’t you goin’ to hear the preachin’, girl?”
    It was almost ten minutes before less managed to escape Juniper and rush down the stairs with her camera. On the porch, she stopped cold, for Joel’s wagon was in the road, hitched and ready to roll. The peddler was bent over, checking the harness.
    Somehow, Tess got to the gate; she didn’t remember walking there. Clutching her camera close, she asked, “You’re leaving?” How was it that she could feel such despair when his going away was what she wanted most?
    He straightened, fixed his hat in place with one hand, lifted his eyes so that he was looking past Tess, to the roof or the skies or maybe the mountains. “Yes and no,” he answered.
    “What do you mean, ‘yes and no’?” Tess demanded. “You’re either leaving or you’re not!”
    “I’m going back to my campsite, by the stream,” he replied patiently. “That will be better for all concerned, I think.”
    Tess managed to shrug. “Whatever you say.”
    “Are you still going to take my picture?”
    “If you want me to,” she said. Let him think she didn’t care, one way or the other.
    “I want you to,” came the gentle answer, and thenJoel Shiloh took up a pose beside his peddler’s wagon, his gilt-scripted name clearly in view, his hat at a jaunty angle, his lips curved in an almost imperceptible smile.
    Tess took careful aim, glad that she could look down through the little window in the top of her camera instead of directly into Joel Shiloh’s knowing blue eyes. She took a picture, removed the photographic plate, and took another, just to be on the safe side.
    “Now let me take your picture,” Joel said, striding toward her and helping himself to the camera.
    Tess’s throat was constricted, and her eyes were burning a little. She tucked the two plates she’d used into the pocket of her skirt. “Why?” she asked lamely, full of despair because he was going away.
    He laughed and plopped his silly bowler hat onto her head, spoiling her carefully upswept and very adult hairdo. “Why not?” he countered.
    Tess went to stand beside the wagon, as he had, posing as he had. He laughed again and took the picture, then surrendered the camera to its owner and reclaimed his hat.
    They stood still on the sidewalk for some moments, Sunday coming alive, in all its blue-gold April glory, all around them. In the distance, church