скачать книгу бесплатно
She sniffed the air, smiled at the remembered blend of candle wax, wood smoke and leather, with a hint of bayberry cologne. Her gaze went to the window where she and Willa and Callie and Daniel had crouched beside the lilac bush and watched her grandfather take the flat box from the desk drawer, count money he pulled from his pocket, write something on a small piece of paper, put it all in the box and then return the box to the drawer. She had made the others promise, then and there, that they would never tell anyone about Poppa’s money box, especially Ellen, who could never keep a secret.
The light flickered over the settle where she’d curled up on the cushion and looked at books while Poppa worked, then settled to a steady burn as she placed the lamp on the game table where she’d learned to play checkers.
She thrust her childhood memories away and crossed to the tall bookshelf desk that sat between the two windows on the front wall and opened the drawer that held the flat wooden box. She brushed her fingers over the smooth, waxed top, then flipped it open. Empty.
Her breath caught. Her grandfather always kept his money in the box. Did he know it was gone? Or had Cole found the box and taken the money on the sly?
She put the box back in the drawer and looked up at the bookshelves behind the glass-fronted doors, stared at a gaping space. Her grandfather’s green leather bookkeeping ledgers were gone as well. They were always— Nanna. Had her grandmother misplaced them while cleaning? Nanna would never take the ledgers from Poppa’s desk if she were thinking straight, but in her confused moments...
That horrible feeling of loss struck her anew. Heartsick, she looked behind the desk’s drop-down slant front and in the drawer again. No ledgers. A quick scan of the books on the shelves in the alcoves on either side of the stone fireplace showed no green leather bindings among them.
Where else could the books be? She lifted the hinged seat on the settle and searched through the box it covered. Two old pillows, a quilt, a dented flask, a pair of worn boots and her torn rag doll. She lowered the lid, straightened, wrapped her arms about herself and slowly rubbed her upper left arm as she gazed about. There was no place left to search. Suspicion wormed its way into her thoughts and took root. Her hand stilled. He had them. Cole must have slipped into the room and taken the ledgers along with the money. There was no one to prevent him from doing what he would.
Until now.
She whirled and strode to the table, picked up the lamp and carried it across the entrance hall into the sitting room. She would tell her grandfather what she had discovered and her suspicions, but first she must be certain that what she suspected was true. Her grandmother could have misplaced the books and even the money.
Her grandfather’s occasional snore was the only sound that disturbed the silence as she searched every cupboard and drawer for the books then moved on to the dining room and butler’s pantry. The lamp chased away the darkness, lit every nook and cranny she hunted through. The ledgers were nowhere to be found. Her suspicion solidified into certainty. Cole had the books—but why? She could not go to her grandfather until she knew the answer to that question. Cole had so ingratiated himself into her grandparents’ affections, she wasn’t sure her grandfather would believe her without proof.
Fatigue dragged at her. She climbed the stairs, her steps firmed by determination. She might have been helpless to stop his brother’s attack on her—and she did not come close to matching Cole’s physical strength—but God had given her a good mind, and she had taken her turn at tending the books at the ladies’ seminary. She would be her grandfather’s eyes, and she would find out what scheme Cole was about. But first she had to find those business ledgers.
She entered her bedroom, set the oil lamp in its place and untied the fastening on her dressing gown. She would watch Cole’s every move, and when she had discovered what he was about and why, she would tell her grandfather, and he would order Cole from his home. They would be safe then. She would be safe then.
Memories pressed upon her. She glanced at her bed and gave up the idea of retiring. Her agitated state would surely bring the nightmare.
The dimmed lamplight reflected off the raindrops falling against the window. She opened the sash and stood listening to the now-gentle rain pattering on the porch roof and on the plants in her grandmother’s garden below. Where would Cole have taken the ledgers? The most likely place was his shingle mill at Payne’s cabin.
A chill coursed through her that had nothing to do with the cool breeze riffling the curtains and fluttering the edges of her dressing gown. She looked through the darkness toward the trees that sheltered the path leading to the sawmill and wrapped her arms about herself. Payne’s cabin was a short distance beyond the sawmill. How would she ever find the courage to walk that path?
So many questions with no answers. She left the window, too exhausted by her confrontation with Cole in the stable and her worries over her grandparents to resist the lure of her bed any longer. The soft sound of the rain dancing on the porch roof calmed her nerves and lulled her to a place of peace. Her eyelids slid closed. She struggled to open them, then sighed and yielded to her weariness. It would be all right. It wasn’t Payne Aylward’s face she saw against the darkness. It was Cole’s raincoat on top of the grain chest in the stable.
It had been a...thoughtful...gesture.... All that...rain...
Chapter Five
A horse’s hoofs thumped on the carriage way, and buggy wheels crunched over the gravel. Her stomach flopped. Sadie frowned and covered the teapot with a towel to keep it hot. She wasn’t ready to face callers. Perhaps Nanna would go to the door.
She stepped to the window, open in the hope of catching a breeze, pushed aside the curtain and looked toward the stable. A tall, handsomely dressed man was lifting a woman down from a black phaeton. She skimmed her gaze over the woman’s attractive green gown and caught her breath at the sight of a thick roll of chestnut hair gleaming red in the sunlight beneath a green hat. Willa.
Joy swelled. She whirled away from the window, rushed out the kitchen door. “Willa!” Tears clogged her throat, spilled from her eyes as she raced down the length of the porch.
“Sadie?” Willa stopped dead in her tracks, then lifted her hems and clattered up the steps like they had as children.
She stretched out her arms and was enveloped in a mutual hug, danced around in circles with Willa, laughing and crying, their voices blending as they choked out words. “It’s so good to see you!”
“I’ve missed you so!”
“It’s been so long!”
“So terribly long!”
A throat cleared. “Excuse me, ladies. But if you will let me pass, I will attend to my business inside while you continue your reunion.” There was amused patience in the deep, resonant male voice.
She blinked away her tears and looked over Willa’s shoulder straight into a pair of smiling brown eyes.
“Welcome home, Miss Spencer. I’m the forgotten man—Matthew Calvert, Willa’s husband, at your service.” A lopsided grin slanted across his lips. “At least I will be if I can come up on the porch.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I—”
“He’s only teasing, Sadie.” Willa’s hand gripped her arm and tugged her aside. “I keep telling him it’s very unprofessional behavior for a pastor.”
“And I keep explaining that we all have our little foibles.”
She listened to Matthew Calvert’s laughter, watched the warm, loving look Willa and her husband exchanged and something stirred deep inside. Envy? Ridiculous. She wanted no part of any man, let alone marriage. The very thought of it made her ill. She stepped toward the dining-room door. “Forgive my lapse of manners, Reverend Calvert. Please come in.”
He moved to her side and smiled down at her. “There’s no need for the formal address, Miss Spencer. I am Matthew to Willa’s friends.”
She caught the hopeful look in Willa’s eyes and smiled but couldn’t bring herself to offer him her hand. She grabbed the doorknob as an excuse to withhold it. “I’m Sadie—to Willa’s husband.”
She tried to make it amusing, but acknowledgment of her limited acceptance flickered in his brown eyes, followed by a look of compassion that made her throat constrict. He knew. Willa had told him. A flush of shame prickled her skin.
“Sadie it is. Now, if you will excuse me, I shall go pay my call on your grandparents while you ladies visit.”
“They’re in the sitting room. I’ll show you—”
“No need, Sadie. I know the way. And Willa will never forgive me if I steal one minute of your time.” He grinned and walked into the house.
She closed the door on his retreating figure. If only it were as easy to shut out the past.
“I’m sorry, Sadie. I know I promised to never speak of what happened, but I had to tell Matthew.” Willa placed a hand on her arm, held her gaze. “He wondered why you didn’t come home to visit with your grandmother being ill. And when your grandfather had his seizure...well...I didn’t know if you would come. And I couldn’t let Matthew think it was because you were uncaring.”
But now he would always look at her with the knowledge of Payne Aylward’s attack in his mind—the same as everyone else in Pinewood. She pushed aside the shame, smiled and squeezed Willa’s hand. “You always were protective of me.”
Relief flashed in her friend’s blue-green eyes. “Well, I am older than you.” A smile curved her lips at their old childhood contention.
“By three months.” She gave Willa another quick hug. “It isn’t age, my friend, it’s a matter of courage. I was woefully lacking in that attribute as a child, and I still am. Now—” She linked their arms and started for the kitchen door. “I’ve just made tea, in spite of the heat. Let’s bring it out here on the porch and visit. You can tell me all about becoming a wife and the mother of two young children at the same time. I can see now how Matthew won your heart. What you wrote me about his grin is true—it really is disarming.”
* * *
The cravat at his throat was a misery in the heat, and his Sunday suit wasn’t much better. Cole shifted in the saddle and shot a quick glance up at the sun. He’d rip the cravat off right now if—
Was that a scream?
He frowned and urged Cloud into a trot around the bend. Dust swirled in the air, gritty against his perspiring face. He squinted his eyes and spotted a buggy jouncing and jolting side to side on the road ahead, dirt spewing from beneath its wobbling wheels. The Conklins?
Women’s shouts and screams mingled with the thunder of the horse’s hoofs.
A runaway.
He started forward, then stopped. He’d never overtake them on the straight road. He eyed the distance to the incline where the road made a sharp bend at the top, judged the angle required to get in front of the careening buggy, and reined Cloud into the field. “Let’s go, boy!” He kicked him into a run, watching the buggy. If they entered that curve before he reached them...
The gelding raced through the tall grasses, gathered itself and jumped a small creek, pounded along the beaten path that led from the water to a copse of trees that bordered the low hill and the Gardner farm. A quick glance at the dangerously swaying buggy showed they’d gained ground and would beat the buggy to the hill.
Trees broke across his vision. He jerked his gaze to the narrow path ahead, leaned low to avoid overhanging branches and urged Cloud on, picturing the area in his head. The stock path trailed left away from the road, but there was a break in the trees... There! He reined Cloud right, heard pounding hoofs and glanced over his shoulder. Frothy sweat covered the heaving chest of the panicked horse running toward them, flew from its driving haunches. Close.
“Come on boy!” He kicked his heels, and Cloud leaped forward, thundering onto the road a short distance in front of the wild-eyed runaway, his muscles bunching and stretching to maintain his small lead. “Steady, boy, steady.”
He risked another glance over his shoulder and glimpsed the two Conklin women in a tumbled heap in the driver’s corner of the seat, no reins in sight. “Put on the brake!” One of the women lunged for the brake lever. He turned back, leaned forward as they started up the grade. Please, Lord, let this work!
Cloud raced on beneath his urging. He tilted his head toward his shoulder, listened to the thundering hoofs behind him and risked turning for another look when their pounding rhythm slowed. Their lead had increased. It was working! The applied brake and the slope of the hill were proving too much for the tiring horse.
“Ease up, boy.” He slowed Cloud and reined him to the left. The runaway caught up and ran with them neck and neck. He leaned down, grabbed for the cheek strap of the horse’s bridle, missed and tried again. The leather strap tugged against his fingers. He tightened his grip, the muscles of his arm and shoulder fighting the force of the horse’s thrusting head. “Easy, girl. Easy...”
He settled deeper in the saddle, tugged harder—the mare’s head turned, its gait faltered. He held the straining head facing him and reined in Cloud, forcing the mare to slow her wild run. They entered the sharp bend at a trot, the buggy swaying wildly but remaining upright. “Whoa, girl. It’s all right. Everything is all right.” He kept his voice low, talked the horse calm as he slowed Cloud to a walk, then stopped.
“Good girl.” Cole tightened his grip on the cheek strap and slipped from the saddle, willing his hands and voice to stay steady as he reached to where the reins passed through the terrets on the harness saddle and grabbed hold. That had been close! Too close. He loosed his grip on the cheek strap and stroked the mare’s quivering, sweat-covered neck. The bay dropped its head and barreled air into its heaving chest.
He turned, playing the dangling reins through his firm grip as he stepped to the buggy. Enid and Chloe Conklin were untangling themselves from the corner of the seat. “Are you ladies all right?”
“Seems so.” Enid’s voice shook. She tugged her hat to rights and looked down at him, her face pale, her eyes wide with shock. “Thank you, Mr. Aylward. You saved us from a sure accident.” She grabbed the dashboard and scooted over on the seat, giving Chloe room. “Fool mare! I don’t know what spooked her like that.”
“It was a fox, Mother. I saw it run across the road.” Chloe pushed herself to a sitting position, twisted her bodice into place and gave him a shaky smile. “I’m so thankful you happened along, Mr. Aylward. I lost the reins when I grabbed hold of the dashboard to keep from being thrown out of the buggy.”
“I’m glad to have been able to help.” He glanced at her trembling hands, turned and fastened the reins to a sturdy branch. “I’ll look the buggy over, make sure nothing’s broken.” He tugged his handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the sweat and grit from his face, then stepped to the driver’s side and checked the wheels and hubs. The undercarriage looked fine. A rustle of fabric drew his attention. He glanced over his shoulder and watched Chloe climb from the buggy and turn toward the horses.
“You’d best move slow and speak quiet, Miss Conklin. That mare could be spooked easy right now.”
She turned and smiled. “It’s your horse I’m going to pet, Mr. Aylward. He has a brave, staunch heart—like his owner. He deserves our thanks. As do you.” Pink flowed into her cheeks. Her smile warmed. “I’ll be careful.”
He nodded and turned back to finish his inspection, man enough to dwell on the meaning of that blush and feel a little set up by it. His ego had taken quite a beating since Sadie Spencer had returned.
“Of all the days for Henry to have to stay home from church! I hope that foal he was waiting to help birth proves out steadier than this new mare.” Enid Conklin peered out of the buggy toward him. “Everything all right?”
“So far.” He walked to the back of the buggy, peered beneath, then moved on to check the other wheels and finally the traces. “I don’t see any sign of damage, Mrs. Conklin, but you’d best have Henry give things a closer look when you get home.”
“I’ll do that. And he can get rid of this fidgety mare, too.” A scowl pulled Enid Conklin’s brows together. “I don’t aim to have another ride like this one again.”
“Can’t say I blame you.” He loosed the reins from the branch and handed them up to the older woman, who had taken the driver’s seat.
“I thank you for reminding us to pull on the brake, young man. I forgot all about it in the struggle to keep from being thrown out, but I should have remembered. Henry won’t be pleased about that. I’m not.”
“I’m sure Henry will be so pleased you and Miss Conklin are safe, he won’t give it a thought.”
“Perhaps.” She smiled down at him. “I’d like to thank you proper, Mr. Aylward, and I’m sure Henry will, too. Would you come for dinner?”
“What a lovely idea, Mother.”
Chloe stepped up beside him, leading Cloud. The warmth, the interest in her eyes was balm for the fear in Sadie Spencer’s eyes whenever he came near her, but Sadie might be the wiser of the two. She was certainly the one that drew him. He held back a frown.
“I hope you are able to join us, Mr. Aylward. It would give you and your horse a chance to cool off before you ride on home. Our house stays fairly cool, even during a day as hot as this one.” Chloe smiled and held out her hand toward him.
He took Cloud’s reins, careful not to let his hand touch hers. He’d been very cautious about even a casual, accidental touch of a young woman these past four years. “I’m afraid not. I have to get to the Townsends’ place. Manning is waiting for me.” He shifted his gaze to Enid. “I thank you for the kind invitation, Mrs. Conklin.” He mounted, feeling boorish for not helping Chloe into the buggy, but she was too friendly to encourage. “I’ll ride along with you until the turnoff to make sure everything is all right. Let’s go, boy.”
Cloud moved out in front of the buggy, and he held him at a walk, giving the Conklins’ new mare no chance to break into a run. He was already late and wanted no more trouble. Manning would be wondering where he was. Manning. He huffed out a breath. It wasn’t the image of the elderly man’s gray-bearded face that had been filling his head all during church.
He looked down and brushed at the dust on his suit, scowled at the small, jagged tear in the right sleeve. He’d hoped when Sadie saw him in his Sunday clothes it would help set him apart from Payne in her eyes. That she’d at least entertain consideration of him as an upstanding, churchgoing man and look at him with respect instead of disgust and fear. There was little hope of that now.
He lifted a hand in farewell as he passed the turnoff to the Conklin farm and urged Cloud into an easy lope.
* * *
“Joshua and Sally sound absolutely delightful, Willa. How fortunate they are to have you for their mother.” Sadie rose and reached for the teapot to hide the sorrow and regret that surely showed on her face. She would never be a mother. Payne Aylward had destroyed that dream.
“And Matthew for their father.” Willa smiled and held out her empty cup. “It took a while before they stopped calling him Uncle and me Miss Wright, but we are Mama and Papa to them now. God has made us into a true family. I never knew such love was possible.”
There was a warm contentment in Willa’s voice. A yearning to know such happiness swept through Sadie. She frowned at the foolish hope, poured Willa more tea, then refilled her own cup. She would gladly settle for freedom from fear, and peace of mind. “I’m truly happy for you, Willa.” Honey dribbled from the spoon she held over the top of her tea. “And for Callie as well. Is she as happy as she writes in her letters?”
“Oh my, yes.” Willa lifted one of Gertrude’s ginger cookies onto her plate. “Ezra adores her. But then, with her beauty and sweetness, what man wouldn’t? Except for my Matthew.”
There was that sound of contentment again. Sadie lowered her spoon and made figure eights, swirling the honey through the dark liquid in her cup, acutely aware of how much her cowardice had cost her. There were so many things she could never get back. “Has she truly grown that beautiful?”
“Gracious, yes! Wait until you see her. She and Ezra are in New York City at present. There was some sort of business deal that required his presence.” Willa laughed and gave a small shake of her head. “God’s ways never cease to amaze me, Sadie. Callie fled here from Buffalo to escape the rich men vying for her hand and wound up married to a man wealthier than all of them.”
“Yes, she wrote me of that. And Ellen wrote that she is enjoying her position as the beauty of the social set in Buffalo, now that Callie has married.” She held back a frown and took a sip of her hot, sweetened tea. Such pleasure was beyond her imagining. She’d spent the past four years hiding from men behind the seminary’s brick walls.
“I’ve tried to explain to Ellen that mutual love and trust are important in a marriage, but she brushes such things aside. She cares only that the man she marries can provide the fancy lifestyle she craves.”
Time to change the subject. She had no desire to talk about the various aspects of marriage. “How is Daniel?”
Willa set down her cup and looked at her. “Daniel is fine...as I wrote you in my last letter. My mother and her husband are fine. Ellen’s parents are fine. Sophia is fine. Her new restaurant in the hotel is doing very well and she is prospering. The new bank Ezra built and the freight-hauling business he started have brought new prosperity to Pinewood. There have been no major accidents or illnesses and no deaths since my last letter. I believe that covers the town and its residents. There’s no one else for you to hide behind, Sadie.”
She stiffened and brushed back a lock of hair sticking to her moist forehead. “I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. But it won’t work. We’re going to talk about you.” Willa’s voice was soft but firm. “If Matthew hadn’t come to call on your grandparents today, I wouldn’t even have known you were here. Why didn’t you write me you were coming home? Or send word that you’d arrived?”
“There wasn’t time to write.” She put down her cup and met Willa’s questioning gaze. “When I read Callie’s letter telling me about Poppa’s seizure, I went straight to the headmistress and resigned my position, then I packed my bags and hired a cabriolet to take me to the station so I could catch the next stage to Buffalo.”
“You’re not returning to the seminary?” There was a hesitant joy in Willa’s voice.
“No. My place is here, caring for Nanna and Poppa.” She rose, stepped to the railing and looked out at her grandmother’s garden. “I confess I’d hoped I could stay and care for them in the safety of Sophia’s hotel. When I learned they’d come home, I—It was...difficult...to come back here.” She leaned over the railing and plucked a rose from the climbing bush, sniffed its sweet fragrance. “Nonetheless, I should have done so when you first wrote me of your concerns over Nanna’s confusion. Instead, I told myself her lapses of memory were nothing serious because I was too much of a coward to come home and face...everything.”
The legs of Willa’s chair scraped the floor and her footsteps neared. “You are not a coward, Sadie. Any woman would flee after—”
“Not you, Willa. You stayed and faced the humiliation when Thomas left town. And Callie stood against her parents and those men who thought they could buy her for a wife.”
“Oh, Sadie, you ascribe me virtue and courage I do not possess. I thought of leaving Pinewood when Thomas deserted me, but I couldn’t leave Mama, so I hid behind a lie. And Callie fled from her unpleasant situation at home. We’re no different than you.” Willa grasped her arm and tugged her around to face her. “God delivered us from our troubles and fears and blessed us with love and happiness. And though our problems did not compare to yours—to what happened to you—He is able to do the same for you, Sadie. And I know He will. Trust Him.”
She drew her arm away so Willa would not feel the shudder passing through her at the thought of married life. “I’m happy for you and Callie, Willa, but I do not want a husband. I do not want any man but Poppa to even touch me, now or ever! All I ask of God is the wisdom and strength to stay and care for Nanna and Poppa in spite of my fear.”
