"Wait! I need sand! Don't throw water!" Fergus wasn't sure if the people outside could hear him since he'd covered his nose and mouth with his coat collar, but he sure hoped so. He could still go up in flames, along with the block of wooden structures, if someone inflamed the fire before he could kick it outside.
Light from lanterns lit his way to the front door. Mack's panicked face was the first Fergus saw as he made it to the entrance.
"I got a kerosene fire under this pan! Douse it with sand!" Fergus croaked as loud as he could considering smoke filled his lungs.
"Jump out! I’ll take care of it!" Mack reached out his hand to Fergus even though they were feet apart from each other. Mack’s eyes reflected the terror in his own eyes. Could he get over the threshold before the fire erupted around him?
“Jump!” Mack’s urgent demand seemed to come from a distant place as the smoke overcame him.
Catching sight of Iris and his mother in the background pushed Fergus’ feet to action. He couldn’t let the two women he loved see him perish in a fire.
*
“Marshal, I want you to arrest Fergus for arson!” Mr. Tolbert yelled as he pushed his way through the crowd. Fergus sat on a bench two doors down from the barbershop with his family surrounding him. Between fits of coughing, he’d been telling Marshal Wilerson everything he could think of about the fire.
Mack, squatting down beside the bench, rose up to his full height and took a giant step to stand over Tolbert. “If Fergus hadn’t heard the brick going through the window, you wouldn’t have a shop and livelihood, so you better thank him for risking his life for you instead!”
“Mack, back down.” Their pa pulled Mack’s arm to make him step back from the enraged man.
“Fergus is mad at us because my wife pointed out his employee is a mulatto! He threw that firebomb!” Tolbert yelled back.
Fergus felt Iris’ fingers tighten around his forearm. She hadn’t let go of him since he escaped out of the building.
“Tolbert, you know Fergus would never do that. Why don’t you go check out your building? I think the smoke has cleared out enough it’s safe to enter,” the marshal tried to defuse the situation. Tolbert’s narrowed eyes flashed his disagreement but he pushed through the crowd back to his shop door.
Fergus closed his eyes and rested his head back against the bench. Even though they were outside in the winter night air, his throat and eyes still felt burned raw.
“Go home with your parents and let your ma tend to your face, Fergus. Your face is bright red and your eyebrows and hair are singed,” Marshal directed them.
“What about the fire damage?” Fergus croaked, realizing the few words took effort to say.
“We’ll take care of it and look around for any evidence that might still be seen. I’m afraid everybody’s been walking around on the boardwalk in front of the store and has covered any tracks that could have given us a clue.”
A clue? A vision of something by the door caught his eye when he first walked to the barbershop, but now he couldn’t think what it was.
“Men will keep watch over the buildings tonight to be sure nothing else happens downtown. Thanks for saving the block, Fergus. It could have been a disaster of lost buildings and even some lost lives if you hadn’t investigated and acted quickly.”
Fergus nodded as he stood to go. The adrenaline rush of the fire had worn off and all he wanted to do was get out of his smoky clothes and get some sleep.
“I’m all right. I’ll go back to my apartment,” Fergus waved off his parents’ concern.
“Please, come back to the parsonage, Fergus,” Iris pleaded. He stopped to look down at her and realized there was fear for him in her dark eyes.
And maybe love?
Chapter 11
"How’s it going?" Fergus asked Iris as he leaned over her shoulder to look at the photographs he'd laid out on the worktable ten minutes ago. Iris sat at the table, comparing notes in the ledger to the portraits to match up the names and the addresses needed to mail the photographs.
Just a few inches separated her face from his. Did she dare turn her head to stare into his eyes, at his lips? The mutual attraction had been building between them since the fire in the barbershop more than a week ago.
Iris panicked when she arrived downtown with the Reagans and realized Fergus was inside the smoke-filled business. Now she knew what Fergus must have felt seeing her jump off the train, even though they didn't know each other at the time. Seeing a person's life in jeopardy put things in perspective.
"Iris?" Fergus asked softly again and this time she slowly turned her head. He was smiling with a mischievous glint in his eye. "What are you thinking about?"
"Um, the photographs of course," but her blushing face told Fergus another story. He knew she was thinking about the closeness they'd felt over the past days.
"Next week is the Christmas party at the Paulson Hotel, and I'd love to escort you."
"That would be kind of you...to escort your employee."
"I was thinking more along the line of the first step in courting you," Fergus whispered close to Iris' ear and she leaned in, loving the feel of his breath on her neck.
"I'd be honored to attend the party beside you." She coyly turned her head. Fergus had kissed her forehead as they hugged after the fire, but not on the lips yet.
"Am I allowed to kiss you to confirm our courting?" Fergus' lips were a hair's breadth from hers.
"Yes, I—"
Slap! They both jumped when Cullen smacked his hand on the table in front of them.
"Cullen! Don't sneak up on us like that!" Fergus yelled at his brother.
"Gee, didn't you hear the front doorbell?" Cullen's right eyebrow cocked up in sarcasm.
"No, we didn't," Fergus growled, apparently embarrassed that his brother had almost caught him kissing her.
"Was I interrupting something important?" Cullen kept a straight face looking at Fergus, and then her.
"Yes, so go away," Fergus leaned forward and hissed.
"Nope, not yet." Cullen pulled a letter from his inside coat pocket. "Got a letter for Iris."
He held it out to her, but she hesitated reaching for it, so Cullen moved to hold it in front of Fergus instead.
Fergus took the letter and read the return address. "Law Office of Bramble, Dewey and Howe?"
Now Iris reached for the letter, anxious to read Mr. Bramble's response.
"Finally! Remember I wrote to my father's lawyer when we were on our way to Clear Creek?
When Morris was drunk one evening on the train, he said something about her inheriting money when she married. Iris hadn't known if there had been something about her in her father's will because she wasn't invited to attend the reading. She wrote to Mr. Bramble, hoping he could confirm her suspicion.
Iris opened the envelope and withdrew the single page letter.
"What's it say?" Fergus leaned over her shoulder again.
She skimmed the words, trying to get past the formalities and find something of importance.
"He writes 'Your father left you the sum of one thousand dollars, available to you on your twenty-fifth birthday. If you marry before your birth date, the money will transfer to your husband for your care'."
Iris reread the words. One thousand dollars! Her father was acknowledging she was his child—but with a stipulation.
"No wonder Morris wanted to marry me. He knew about the money!"
"At least your father thought of you as his child," Fergus said as he laid a hand on her shoulder. He didn't seem as affected by the sum of inherited money as she was.
"And Morris knew about this stipulation because he’s an employee in Mr. Bramble's office."
Oh, she was furious and sick to her stomach at the same time. Why did some men mistreat women? And in this case, it was for greed.
"So when's your twenty-fifth birthday?" Cullen asked, getting her mind back on track.
"This year, on December twenty-third."
"So we assume Morris is still looking for you," Cullen said to her while staring at Fergus.
"If he's not already in the area." Fergus rubbed his face in frustration. "Remember I said there was something in the snow by the barbershop's door I couldn't figure out what it was?"
Cullen rolled his finger for Fergus to continue. That was a bad habit of his brothers that he wished they’d quit, but they all learned it from their father.
"It looked like the point of a cane was mixed in with the footsteps."
"And Morris always has a cane with him. But why would he throw a firebomb in the barbershop?" It didn't make sense to Iris but made the hair on the back of her neck crawl thinking he'd been in the shadows around town last week.
"Maybe he thought it was my studio?"
"Both businesses are marked clearly what they are," Cullen pointed out.
"What if he knew about my confrontation with the Tolberts, and made it look like I was the culprit...to get me out of the way?"
"That sounds farfetched, but also makes the most sense. Then Morris could come in and claim his bride, so to speak."
The two brothers were speculating above her as if she wasn't sitting in the room.
"Well, now I know why Morris wanted to marry me," Iris muttered.
"I'll walk you over to the marshal's office. I need to tell him about the prints in the snow and you need to let him know about your letter."
Cullen buttoned his coat, ready to leave. "I'll stop by the depot to tell Angus, so he can be on the lookout for Morris."
Iris sighed, upset that this saga marred her otherwise productive day. She enjoyed studying the photographs; deciphering Fergus' scribbles and preparing the packages to send to the customers.
She placed her ruler on the next line of description to keep her place since she knew she'd be gone for a while.
Iris glanced at the words above the ruler to note where she should start again.
“Jasp Kerns, migrant worker.”
Fergus was good at shortening names. Chas for Charles. Is for Isaac. Could Jasp be Jasper?
Instead of walking away from the table, Iris reached for the photograph next in line and the magnifying glass.
"Ready to go? We'll eat lunch at the café after we've been to the marshal's office," Fergus asked but she studied the photo again. Could it be?
"Fergus, on your notes you have a Jasp Kerns. Do you remember him?"
"Let me see the photo. What's my notes say?"
"Reynold Bumgardner, wife, two boys, three girls. Horse and wagon on left side. Well and Jasp Kerns, migrant worker on right. Phillips County, Kansas."
Iris held her breath while Fergus's eyebrows furrowed together as he studied the photo.
"He was passing through, helping the family pick the dried corn ears from their field."
Fergus' head turned quickly to Iris when he realized the coincidence of names. "Your older half-brother's name was Jasper, wasn't it?"
"Yes, and there is definitely a family resemblance to my mother."
Iris couldn't contain the excitement beating in her heart that her brother might be in the same area as she was. After all these years!
"We can send a telegram to the Baumgartner’s, but we'd have no idea when they might go to town to find they had one. A letter with their finished photograph would be there just as quick."
"What's the chance he could still be there?" Iris was ready to jump on a horse and head north, although that wasn't practical.
"Looking at the entry date, I was there weeks ago. He could have moved on, wherever he was heading. They might know where he was going next though."
Iris hated to agree that Fergus was right. If that was her brother, he could be a long ways from there now.
"I'll write a letter today and add it to the package. It's probably not him, but—"
"But you never know until you ask. Let's get our errands done so you can get back to work on your letter to him," Fergus held out her cloak to put on her shoulders, so she quickly turned so he could rest it on her shoulders and she could tie the cloak’s ribbon.
After all these years, what was the chance they could meet again? At least it was a welcome change to the worry about Morris.
***
Too many thoughts, worries, and feelings bounced around Fergus' head as they walked back to the studio. He gripped Iris' hand, wrapped around his elbow, firmly against his side. The boardwalks were slick again from this morning's light snow and he scanned their path for signs of someone walking with a cane. But it was ridiculous to think the marks may only belong to Morris. Several older people in town used canes when walking downtown. The cane mark he noticed that night at the barbershop was probably from someone getting a haircut earlier in the day.
And then there was the monetary gift Iris needed to collect from her father's lawyer after December twenty-third. Would she need to travel back to Louisville to collect it? Should he offer to travel with her?
At least Fergus asked about courting her before she read the letter, not after. Then Iris would think he was after her money. Could he consider asking for her hand in marriage when he knew she came with a large sum of money? That amount would tempt anyone.
Iris squeezed her hand tighter about his arm.
"The money bothers you, doesn't it?" Iris stated, and he had to nod.
"Morris won't stop until he finds you, not realizing you contacted Bramble."
"Well, if he shows up now, at least I can confront him with my knowledge and state why I won't be marrying him. I've decided my brother's debt to Morris is not my problem so I don't have to marry him."
Fergus smiled, so happy Iris was now stronger in body and in mind.
"Good. I like the spunk I see shining in your eyes." Fergus wished it could be because Iris was walking with him, but she had to be thinking about how she could spend her money.
Fergus opened the studio door for Iris, automatically taking her cloak to hang up on the coat rack. It wasn't until he'd taken off his own coat, hat, and gloves that Iris was standing in front of him instead of moving on to the workroom.
Iris took his hands in hers before looking up. "I want to stay in Clear Creek even if I find Jasper. I like my work, the community—"
"Maybe your brother could live and work here if he shows up," Fergus interrupted Iris, hoping she would agree.
"I'd also like to stay because I like you—and your family—when they aren't interrupting us.”
And what was Fergus about to do when Cullen arrived? Kiss Iris, and looking at her upturned face, she wanted to collect his offer.
“You said you wanted to start our courtship with a kiss?” Anticipation radiated from Iris’ face.
“Indeed I did, but does this afternoon’s news change things for us?” Fergus wanted to be sure that they wanted the same thing.
“Not as far as I’m concerned, but…I won’t marry anyone until after I receive my money,” Iris said coyly, maybe as a test.
“Well then, when I ask a certain woman to marry me, it will be after that date.”
Fergus lowered his mouth to touch Iris’ soft lips. It felt right to kiss her, and he hoped the future would work out for both of them together.
Chapter 12
"Hey, Ma? Iris home?"
Iris heard Angus ask from the back door as she descended the steps from the upstairs of the house. Why was he at the parsonage looking for her early this morning?
It pleased her when he asked if she was home though. The parsonage had indeed become a wonderful place to live.
"Take off your boots before you take that up to her." A dull thump sounded like he dropped something heavy on the floor. What on earth?
Iris walked into the kitchen curious to see what Angus had.
"Good morning, Kaitlyn. Did I hear Angus coming in the back door?"
"Good morning, Iris," Angus peeked around the corner from the mudroom as he took off his coat and grinned at her. "Got a surprise for you." Iris liked Angus’ outgoing per
sonality. He and Daisy were such a fun match. Iris enjoyed their bantering and loving relationship when she was with them.
A second later stocking-footed Angus walked around the corner carrying a large steamer trunk. Actually, her trunk!
"How in the world did you find it?" Iris wasn't thinking about her possessions when she jumped off the train, but had often thought of her missing belongings in the weeks since then.
Besides her clothing, the trunk held photographs, books, toiletries...and so many memories of her childhood. Morris said they might stay in San Francisco instead of going back to Kentucky, so she had all her possessions packed in the trunk.
"I was pulling baggage off the train that just came in and saw this trunk with your name on it.”
Iris' happiness turned to unease. If her trunk was here, it could mean Morris was here, because it had been with his trunk.
She looked at Kaitlyn who had worry plainly featured on her face.
"So this Mr. Morris might know you're here. Best we be prepared then," Kaitlyn pushed her shoulders back. "The man won't be bothering you, Iris, with the Reagans around you."
Bless the mother of these men. Her strength and conviction lifted Iris' spirits and hope. Iris wasn't the same broken woman Morris last saw on the train. She almost hoped he would show up in Clear Creek so she could speak her mind...with Fergus and his family beside her of course.
"I'm guessing he got off the train. A man was fitting your description who came into the depot. I told him I'd help him in a minute, but it's already been ten minutes." Angus grinned. "Thought I'd deliver your trunk and warn you first, before he asks me your whereabouts."
"Thank you, Angus."
"The man can wait even longer. Please take the trunk upstairs to Iris' room, and then walk around the back way to tell Pa and the Marshal to meet us at the studio," Kaitlyn instructed him. "It's time we get this settled and Iris is free of the man."
Grooms with Honor Series, Books 1-3 Page 23
