Free In the Land of Tea and Ravens by R.K. Ryals Page B

a man mad when he’s already insane.

 
     
    ~12~
     
    For weeks, the tea girl visited the king, talking to him, laughing with him, and eventually falling in love with him. For weeks, the king watched her while drinking the tea she brought. Mercy, he’d named her. The tea girl wasn’t a great beauty, but her compassion and her understanding transformed her. The cool feel of her hands against his forehead went from being a simple touch to a lingering connection. In that moment, the king realized something. Love is many things, but without respect it is nothing. He respected Mercy. He loved her.
    ~The Tea Girl~
     
    For three days Grayson avoided the old Miller property, his work on the land taking up all of his free time and occupying his thoughts. It was good, the work. The sunny days, the sound of the tractor, the friendly shouts from hired hands, the repairs … all of it. He’d hoped the work would sever whatever fascination Lyric held over him, but late at night when he couldn’t sleep, he found himself standing at his window, his palm pressed against the frame and his gaze on the light beyond the field. Lyric seemed driven by the night. She wasn’t afraid of darkness. What then, Grayson couldn’t help but wonder, was she afraid of?
    Sunday was his downfall.
    For the past fifty years, Grayson’s grandparents had refused to work on Sundays. Other than the occasional emergency, it was a day spent at the church in town before congregating at home. Townsfolk crowded the Kramers ’ kitchen, the sound of casseroles being unwrapped quiet among raucous laughter and murmured remembrances. Grayson hated Sundays. It wasn’t a day for sinners. It wasn’t a day for the unforgiven .
    “You aren’t hungry?” a voice asked.
    Grayson leaned against one of the white columns on the front porch, his arms crossed and his gaze on the fields. It was sunny out, but the wind was strong enough to keep the heat from being overwhelming. Blue skies full of white fluffy clouds hung over an earth turned green by the rain earlier in the week.
    The voice called out again, breaking Grayson’s gaze on the land. His eyes fell to the porch. He knew that voice, and he dreaded it. Bridget Smith was a mistake he should have never made. His mistake. Not hers. Bridget wasn’t a bad girl. His grandmother was certainly more than pleased with the woman. She was beautiful, smart, family-oriented, and ambitious—all wonderful traits—but ambition, while not bad, often drives compassion from people. It gives them the tools they need to succeed, but blinds them to what’s truly important. Success should never come first in life. Grayson had put success first, and it had destroyed his family.
    “What’s gotten into you lately, Grayson Kramer?” Bridget asked. “You work like a demon, and refuse to enjoy time for yourself.”
    Grayson glanced at her, at her perfectly glossed lips and loose summer dress. The skirt reminded him too much of someone else. “You shouldn’t say demon on a Sunday.”
    Bridget started to snort, but instantly stopped herself. Women like her didn’t snort, they simmered. “What are you looking at?”
    Her voice held an undercurrent that stiffened Grayson’s spine. That was something else about Bridget … she had a jealous streak. Jealousy is healthy, but Bridget had the kind of jealousy that harmed not just herself , but others. She was like a cat, sultry and quiet, until the moment she struck, her claws sprung. She had a craving for danger. Grayson had been her forbidden fruit, the bite full of rich flavor but with a sour edge that made one keep tasting to see if the aftertaste would ever go away.
    “I’ll wager he’s hankering after the old Miller place,” Freddie Graham muttered as he sauntered onto the porch, a bottle-necked beer in one hand, a Styrofoam plate full of food in the other. “That place has got a strange pull to her.”
    Grayson ignored him.
    “That place?” Bridget asked. “Or a particular