Tenderness
Authors: Dorothy Garlock
WADE CLOSED HIS EYES AND WHISPERED, “JESSE.”
His lips touched hers as he whispered again. “Sweet Jesse.”
Whatever it was that had happened when he first saw her over a year ago had been growing steadily. Now it almost consumed
him. She was so open, so giving; as unrestrained as a summer breeze as she responded to his kiss. Her mouth parted beneath
his, yielding and vulnerable to the invasion of his lips and gentle touch.
Wade had saved his love, stored it away. Now all the love he had to give was hers. His heart was drumming so hard that he
could hardly breathe. He burrowed his face deep into the fragrance of her hair and felt his whole self harden and tremble.
A low moan escaped from Jesse’s lips, and she clung to him as if she could merge with his body. “Wade… I didn’t know… kisses
were like this.”
For the first time in years Wade asked God for something.
“Please, God,
make me worthy of this woman.”
“Garlock, as always, writes a sterling story with characters you want to hear more about.”
—
Southern Pines Pilot
(NC) on
After the Parade
After the Parade
Almost Eden
Annie Lash
Dream River
Forever,
Victoria
A Gentle Giving
Glorious Dawn
Homeplace
Larkspur
Lonesome River
Love and Cherish
Midnight Blue
More Than Memory
Nightrose
Restless Wind
Ribbon in the Sky
River of Tomorrow
The Searching Hearts
Sins of Summer
Sweetwater
The Listening Sky
This Loving Land
Wayward Wind
Wild Sweet Wilderness
Wind of Promise
Yesteryear
With Heart
With Hope
With Song
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1993 by Dorothy Garlock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may
quote brief passages in a review.
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2281-7
Contents
WADE CLOSED HIS EYES AND WHISPERED, “JESSE.”
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
GLENN HOSTETTER
and all my friends at
the BOOK NOOK
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
WAY TO GO, Glenn!
* 1 *
H
e was… he was b-by the bed when I woke u-up… ohh… I was so scared.”
“I can imagine!” Jesse hugged the young girl sitting on her father’s examination table and wiped her tear-wet face with a
damp cloth.
“Try not to cry, Bertha, and tell me exactly what happened.”
“I… just saw his outline before he… before he covered m-my eyes with one hand and my m-mouth with the other.”
“The… beast!”
“Then… he said he… was going to tie something over my eyes and if I made any noise he’d cut me with his… pocket knife.”
“Did you recognize his voice?”
“He… he whispered.”
“He made you take off your nightgown?”
“Yes, and… and made me put my arms up and my hands under my head.”
“Lord have mercy! Then what did he do?”
“He lit the l-lamp. I heard him strike the match. He sat down on the bed and put his hands all over me. I cried and he said
not to cry, he just wanted to look at me and t-touch… me. He… rubbed my titties a long time and… and made me spread my legs.”
With conscious effort, Jesse suppressed her indignation and encouraged the shy girl to say more. “Did he go inside you, Bertha?”
she asked gently.
“No. Oh, it was so… awful. He felt of me with his hand and ah… spread me so… he could see—I guess. I just… wanted to die!”
Wracking sobs shook her slight frame.
“You poor child.” Jesse put her arms around Bertha and held her until she quieted. “How long did this go on?”
“A long t-time.”
“Could you tell if he was young or old? Did he have whiskers or a beard?”
“His face was rough like he hadn’t shaved, but he didn’t have whiskers. He put his face on… on my belly.”
“Try to remember everything you can so that we can tell Marshal Wright.”
“No!” Bertha grabbed Jesse’s arm. “If I tell, he’ll come back and hurt me. He said he would. Please, Miss Jesse, don’t tell
anybody. You promised! Oh, I shouldn’t have come—”
“Shh… you did the right thing to tell me. A girl can’t keep something like this to herself. I’ll keep my promise. I won’t
tell, Bertha, if you don’t want me to. But I think your father should know.”
“Not him! He’d… say it was my fault.”
“How long will he be at the work camp?”
“Another month. The bridge isn’t half finished yet.”
Jesse thought for a long moment. The man who did this knew the children were alone! It made her blood boil.
“Bertha, didn’t your little brother or little sister wake up?”
“No. They play hard and sleep like rocks.”
“Is there anyone you can get to come stay with you?”
“I’d have to tell them… and I can’t.”
“From now on all of you sleep in the same room. And bring that old dog of yours into the house. Where was he last night?”
“I reckon he was off chasin’ a coon. I got to be goin’, Miss Jesse. The kids will be comin’ home from school. I told ’em the reason I wasn’t goin’ to school
was cause I was sick.”
“If you remember anything else, come tell me. I’ll not tell anyone but my father, and you can trust him not to say anything
unless you want him to. But he should know this in case it happens to someone else.”
“Bye, Miss Jesse.”
“Bye, Bertha. Come by tomorrow. I’ll be anxious to know how you’re getting along.”
Jesse watched the girl hurry out the side door, run past the lilac bushes and dart between the gap in the hedge of bridal
wreath that divided their yard from that of their neighbor. She followed the girl’s path across the yard to the sidewalk that
paralleled the brick paved street.
In the town of Harpersville, Tennessee (population two thousand and forty, or two thousand and forty-one if Doctor Forbes
had delivered the Burlesons’ sixth child), what had happened to Bertha, and to one other woman of whom Jesse knew, was not
supposed to happen, even in the wild and promiscuous year of 1902.
Jesse clenched her fists in outrage. Something should be done to find this sick, miserable excuse for a man. But what?
“It’s a disgrace that something like this can happen here in Harpersville.”
Jesse had just finished repeating Bertha’s story to her father. She spoke over her shoulder while she put away gauze, swabs
and iodine. The last patient, a boy who had gashed his bare foot on a piece of glass, had limped from the office and Jesse
finally had the chance to speak to her father alone. Doctor Hollis Forbes had watched with pride while his daughter cleaned
and stitched the cut on the boy’s foot. She had spent two years at nursing school, but the two years she had been his nurse
had increased her knowledge tenfold. She was as calm and efficient in an emergency as anyone he had ever known. He mused,
as he often did, whether it was fair to his bright, elder daughter that she spend eight to ten hours a day here in the surgery
and then manage the rest of the house and see to the upbringing of her sister and brother. So much responsibility piled on
her shoulders didn’t give her much time for herself.
“Papa, who could be doing this terrible thing?”
“A pervert,” Doctor Forbes said tiredly. “The women are lucky that all he wants to do is look. I only hope that’s all he does
until he’s caught.”
“It could be someone passing through town,” Jesse suggested.
“My guess is that it’s someone from nearby who comes to Harpersville occasionally. Bertha makes two women that we know of
who have been subjected to this. There may be more who aren’t telling.”
“Someone knew when Mrs. Johnson’s husband was gone and when Bertha’s papa was working on the bridge and staying in the work
camp.”
“That information could have been picked up at any store in town. You know how people like to talk.”
“Surely no one who lives here would dare do such things to a woman. Mr. Harper would have him tarred and feathered for dirtying
his lily-white town.”
“Now, now. You sound bitter.”
“Not bitter, Papa, just tired of the Harpers telling people what to do—and think. Did you know Mrs. Harper is still trying
to match me up with Edsel? I saw her yesterday at the post office. ‘Oh, there you are, dear,’ she said. ‘Just this morning
Edsel was speaking of you. He thinks you’re the prettiest girl in Harpersville.’“ Jesse’s mocking of Mrs. Harper’s voice brought
a smile to her father’s tired face.
“What did
you
say?”
The doctor’s eyes twinkled as he watched Jesse poke at the knot of chestnut hair at the nape of her neck with her index finger.
She tilted her head, held up her hand as if to put on nose-pinching spectacles and looked down her straight nose in a perfect
imitation of the town’s leading socialite, Roberta Harper.
“I told her I was too busy to think of affairs of the heart; we were expecting an epidemic of the black plague and had to
get a place ready to lay out the dead.”
“Shame on you.” Doctor Forbes wore an expression of amused affection on his face.
Jesse’s grin was mischievous. Large blue-gray eyes sparkled and her even white teeth flashed. Jesse had a beautiful smile,
her father thought, and worried again that he was stealing her youth. She was graceful and… womanly, and it was too easy for
him to take for granted that she was perfectly happy spending her days in the surgery, tending the house, or calling on their
patients. She must sometimes want to go to parties, dances, picnics or ball games.
“There’s a ball game Sunday afternoon. Why don’t you and Susan go and take Todd? You know how Todd loves ball games.”
“What brought that on?” Jesse asked, the smile fading from her face.
“It’ll do you good to get away from the house. Bush-man’s Dairy is playing Burleson Lumber. They’re calling it the battle
of the B’s.” The doctor’s twinkling blue eyes watched her over the top of his spectacles.
“The battle of the B’s? Oh, that’s clever, very clever. They’ll have to fight it out without me. On Sunday afternoon I catch
up on things I can’t get done through the week. You know that, Papa.”
“Reverend Pennyfield says it’s a sin to work on Sunday.”
“Reverend Pennyfield doesn’t have a ten-year-old brother with holes in the knees of his britches, or berries to pick, or a
kitchen floor to scrub.”