by Cat Cahill
He had to tell Celia about all of it, even if it was only for his own peace of mind. And then he needed to figure out what to do to put it all behind him for good.
Chapter Sixteen
Celia had just pressed the last of the week’s wash when Jack came through the door. She carefully hung the shirt in the small wardrobe in the bedroom before hurrying out to meet him.
He was hanging his coat by the door when she entered the parlor. Just seeing him brought a smile to her face. When he was gone, she looked forward to his return. She couldn’t remember feeling much of anything when Ned would return from trips into town. It was strange—it was as if she’d been asleep for over a year, and had only recently woken up.
“How was town?” she asked, standing just inside the door from the kitchen.
He turned a smile toward her, but it was different somehow. As if something else occupied his mind. “Just fine. Your sister says hello. Mrs. Zack was grateful for the pork, and said she’d send tea soon.”
“I’m so glad she accepted it. I worry about her with all those children and no husband.”
Jack crossed the room in two steps and took her into his arms, holding her to him. Celia’s breath caught in her throat. Would he try and kiss her again? She nestled into his embrace, wishing he might never let her go. It was so comforting and yet . . . there was something urgent about it. He hadn’t done more than take her hand or tuck a stray curl behind her ear since they’d visited the river a few days ago. What had happened that caused this sudden display of affection? Not that she minded, but . . .
“Jack?” she said from against his chest.
He loosened his grip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, I meant to but—”
“Jack.” She tilted her head back to see him better. Worry created lines she’d never seen before on his face. “What happened?”
He sighed and dropped his arms to take her hand. “Come, sit down.”
As he led her to the kitchen table, her heart thumped erratically. What was he going to tell her? What could possibly have happened? She chased terrible possibilities through her mind—one of the horses had gone lame, the cow was sickly, something had happened to Faith—
“Jack? Is Faith all right?” She felt as if she might be sick just saying the words.
He sat her down in one of the chairs. “She’s fine. In fact, she was almost kind to me today.”
Celia gave a wry smile. That was good to hear, and yet she still didn’t know what had happened.
Jack eased into a chair across from her and dropped his face into his hands. When he said nothing, she reached out and wrapped a hand around one of his wrists. He slowly let his arms fall to the table, and his dark eyes searched hers out.
“What is it?” she asked quietly, her fingers still loosely resting against his wrist.
He breathed deeply and exhaled. “You’d asked what made me leave New York.”
“And you told me.”
“I did . . . But I didn’t say everything. My businesses, all my unsuccessful attempts, they all required some kind of investment.”
“Money?” Celia asked. “Of course they did.”
He nodded. “Yes, but money I didn’t have myself. I had to find investors. And I was quite good at it. I never had trouble finding men willing to part with their money to put my ideas into action. Of course, none of them ever made that money back.”
Celia nodded. It made sense. An unsuccessful business couldn’t make money. “Were they angry about that? Your investors, I mean?”
“Some of them. Some understood it was a gamble. But there were also those who seemed to take it as a personal slight. And some of them thought I’d been out to con them the whole time.” He looked down and turned his palm to take her hand in his.
Celia relished the feel of it. She’d never grow tired of this. In fact, it was hard to draw her mind away from the comforting feeling of his hand clasped about hers and back to the conversation. “They were wrong to think that way. I’m sure you wanted more than anything for those ideas you had to succeed.”
“I did,” he said quietly as he looked at their clasped hands. “But some others thought I didn’t.”
Celia understood. “But you feel badly about it.”
He pressed his lips together, pausing a moment before nodding. “I know they agreed to the risk, and I put every effort into making the ventures succeed, but . . . I still feel badly. And if it’s at all possible, I’d like to pay them back.”
Pride unfolded inside Celia like a bloom in the spring. There was no reason under the sun Jack needed to do such a thing, and yet, he felt as if it were the good and right thing to do. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
He smiled at her, relaxing into his usual, easy demeanor. “I don’t know how yet, particularly since we’re already facing a difficult winter. But perhaps I can use the time to ponder some options. There might be some way I can earn some extra funds, maybe come spring.”
“I can help.” Celia sat up straighter. “I’m not the most adept at sewing, but perhaps I could do some needlework for ladies who are overwhelmed with farm or ranch work, or with running their husbands’ businesses. I could do their mending or take up hems. Or I could offer to do some canning for them, or their wash.” Now that she was thinking about it, the ideas flowed quickly. It would be hard, given the amount of work that needed to be done at home, but if Jack needed the help, Celia would do everything she could.
And then an even better idea hit her. “Jack! We could sell the calf. She’s weaned, and we don’t need a second milk cow. And if we do, we can always speak with one of the ranchers nearby and, well . . .” Her face colored, and Jack laughed.
“Thank you,” he said, taking her hand between both of his. “I never dreamed I would ever find someone like you.”
Celia ducked her head, pleased but embarrassed. “We ought to get back to work.”
“That we should.” He stood and helped her up before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and disappearing back through the parlor. After a moment, the front door opened and shut.
She rested a hand on her cheek, which felt as if it was on fire. She could hear him whistling as he crossed the front porch. Celia grinned in spite of herself.
Yet as she began the work of preparing dinner, doubts filtered into her mind between the memory of his arms holding her to him and the smile he gave only to her. He’d looked truly troubled when he came back from town. Something must have happened. Something that bothered him enough to suddenly want to pay all these men back.
Celia shook her head. It had been the guilt he’d carried with him, that was all. And with that, she let her mind wander back to the warmth of his hand and the comfort she felt simply knowing he was here.
Chapter Seventeen
Placing that much money in an envelope addressed to Jeremiah Rogers in Manhattan was not an easy thing to do. All Jack could think about was how much they could have bought with it. Food. Clothing. Seeds in the spring. He could have even treated Celia to a wedding band to wear.
Instead, the calf was now sold to a fellow McFarland had introduced him to, and all that money was on its way back to New York. It was just enough to pay Rogers back for his failed investment. Jack would have preferred to send it to Sullivan, since he was the more imminent threat, but he knew the man wouldn’t accept partial payment. And he wasn’t about to give Sullivan any clue to where he was, ever. When it came time to repay him, Jack would send those funds with the stagecoach to Kearney or perhaps southwest to Denver.
Mrs. Thornton raised an eyebrow when he handed her the envelope and coins for postage. He could tell she wanted an explanation of what he could possibly be sending to New York that filled an envelope so. But he said nothing. The woman already thought he wasn’t good enough for her sister. He wasn’t about to give her another reason. Besides, he already carried enough guilt at selling something that hadn’t even belonged to him a few weeks ago, despite Celia’s insistence. In
stead, he bid Mrs. Thornton good afternoon and left her staring at him as he left.
His work in town complete, Jack began the walk back through the light blanket of snow that had fallen earlier in the day to the livery. He stepped aside and nodded to a gentleman escorting a lady down the sidewalk and greeted another man he’d met briefly at the livery when he arrived earlier. That man had recently arrived from Philadelphia after exchanging letters with one of the ladies in town. They had plans to marry later in the day. Jack had wished him luck and wondered how many weddings Pastor Collins had conducted over the past few weeks. It was a wonder the man still had time to compose his lengthy sermons.
Just outside the diner, a petite woman wearing a long brown coat slipped on a patch of ice. Jack ran the last few steps and grabbed hold of her arm, preventing her from falling. Her packages tumbled into the snow.
“Thank you,” she said, breathlessly, and Jack could see she wasn’t a woman at all. Only a girl of somewhere about fifteen.
He nodded and set about picking up her packages, placing them back into her arms one-by-one. The top package had torn, and a bit of blue fabric stuck out from inside the wrapping.
“You’re very kind, thank you,” she said again.
“You’re welcome. Be careful getting home.” He tipped his hat and continued on to the livery. But the image of that blue fabric stayed with him. The girl was likely bringing it home to make some sort of clothing. When he’d left home this morning, Celia had set up in the parlor in front of the fireplace, a neat little stack of mending she’d picked up from a few ladies in town at her feet. She planned to spend most of her day stitching to earn money—for him.
First her calf, and now her time. The conflicted feelings Jack had pressed down as he’d ridden into town returned. Celia was the epitome of selflessness, more than happy to work to help him erase the debts that sat uneasily on his conscience. No matter how many times he told himself they weren’t truly “debts,” the fact remained that he’d convinced a lot of people to part with a lot of money based on words he’d said.
Perhaps he should have spent more time looking into the feasibility of the business ideas he’d had. Or maybe he ought to have partnered with people who knew more than he did. But he hadn’t, and he’d had to leave New York like a thief in the night. And no matter that everything he’d done was perfectly legitimate, that strange, heavy sort of guilt sat in the corner of his mind. He’d been successful all that time in New York at ignoring it, plunging ahead with the next big idea. But out here . . . with so much time and space to think as he mended fences and cleaned the plow and patched leaks in the barn roof, it was impossible to ignore.
He’d come here for a clean start, and he couldn’t get that without fixing the mistakes he’d made in the past. He only wished it didn’t have to involve Celia.
Jack crossed the road and stepped around a stack of crates on the sidewalk in front of the livery as the chill air bit at his face. If he were a better man, he’d find a way to do it alone. Celia deserved a man who could do that. Sometimes, he thought she’d be better off with someone who hadn’t arrived saddled with so much baggage. A man who knew farming and had nothing from his past to worry at his mind.
No, it would get him nowhere thinking like that. Celia had chosen him. He certainly hadn’t coerced her into marrying him. Although, if he were honest, he knew he’d painted a rather rosy picture of himself in his letter. She didn’t know he’d left behind a string of unhappy investors back home.
Jack stood outside the livery trying to pull his thoughts together. Feeling badly about himself like this would get him nowhere. If Celia wanted to help, he’d need to let her. But meanwhile, he’d work to earn it. If she was going to work hard to help him, the least he could do was work even harder.
Chapter Eighteen
Christmas passed in a hurry. Jack had cut down a tree, which Celia decorated with pretty folded paper ornaments. She made a fine Christmas dinner to which they’d invited Faith, they drove through the snow to attend services on Christmas Day, and she’d presented Jack with a shirt she’d made him. So long as he never looked too closely at her uneven stitches, it was a good gift. In turn, he led her to the barn for her gift—two hens and a rooster. Celia had squealed with delight before throwing her arms around Jack. He promised more chickens as soon as funds would allow, but Celia didn’t mind. She’d missed her little flock and was thrilled to have the start of another one.
Jack had also mailed money to two more men in New York. He’d made a list of all the men and the amounts they’d invested, and Celia kept it pinned under the sugar jar in the kitchen. At first, she’d been horrified at the amounts. How could men part so easily with so much money? How did they have so much to begin with? It seemed an insurmountable task, repaying all of them. But Jack had organized the list from the smallest amount to the largest, and had decided to pay the first few in bits and pieces.
And so Celia had kept up with mending and had even started taking in laundry here and there, helping some of the town’s wealthier, busy women who were grateful to hand her the responsibility. For his part, Jack had been busy in the barn. He’d said he had an idea to earn some more money but wanted to see if it was possible before he shared it with her. Celia wanted so badly to sneak out and peek, but she tried to be patient.
He’d been working nonstop in the barn since dawn, so she headed into town later in the morning, clean laundry and finished mending piled into the wagon box. The winter sun peered weakly through the clouds to the east, barely warming much of anything. The plains were quiet and cold, the snowy bluffs rising far to the west and the ice-covered North Platte keeping her company as she drove.
When she reached the outskirts of town, Celia made her first stop at Mrs. Purcell’s home, where she delivered a stack of freshly laundered and pressed linens and promised to return in a week to pick up another load. She spent a couple of hours making all her deliveries, picking up a few new items to fix and launder, and enjoying conversation.
She carefully sorted just enough coins to stop at the mercantile for more flour. She’d heard the shopkeeper had recently gotten a delivery of flour from farther east, where the weather hadn’t been so extreme. And it was just in time, too, considering she didn’t have enough left to even bake a loaf of bread.
As Mr. Talley poured some of the precious flour into a sack for her, Celia glanced about the shop. She loved coming in here, seeing what new items had arrived and dreaming of purchasing something extravagant, such as a hairbrush with a handle made from glass or a pretty porcelain teapot with pink flowers and gold edges.
“A couple of men were in here yesterday, asking after your husband,” Mr. Talley said, his eyes on the flour he was carefully pouring.
Celia drew her gaze away from the little jars of penny candy sitting nearby on display. “Oh? Was it Mr. Cecil? I know Jack was wanting to speak with him regarding some repairs needed for our plow.”
The shopkeeper shook his head as he drew a length of string around the top of her flour sack. “I didn’t recognize these gentlemen.” He paused and peered at her over his mustache. “They were rather well-dressed. Each of them purchased a few items, which I greatly appreciated. I asked them where they’d come from, but neither one answered.”
Celia furrowed her brow, trying to figure out who the men might be and what they might want with Jack. Maybe it had something to do with what he was working on in the barn? “Did they say where they were staying?”
“The hotel.” Mr. Talley handed her the sack.
“Thank you,” Celia said. “Both for the flour and for the information.”
Outside, sack in her arms, Celia made her way across the road to the hotel. As she stepped around patches of ice and deeper drifts of snow, she hoped she could bring some good news back to Jack.
She’d never had much cause to visit the hotel since she’d lived in Last Chance, and now, blinking in the dimmer light inside, she wasn’t entirely certain what to do. She didn’t
even know the men’s names.
“Excuse me,” she said to young Drew Foster, who was working behind the desk. “I’m looking for a couple of men who might be staying here.” She gave the young man the description Mr. Talley had given her—which wasn’t much—but the clerk seemed to know right away who she was talking about.
“Yes, Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith,” Mr. Foster said, clearly pleased with himself for remembering. “They’ve been quite generous with the staff here. I believe they’ve just returned, too. I’ll run up and fetch them for you, if you don’t mind waiting?” He gestured at a chair and Celia gratefully took a seat, resting the flour in her lap. She’d been so curious about the men that she’d forgotten to put the flour into the wagon she’d left out front of the mercantile.
As nice as the hotel was, the cold air leaked in about the door and the windows, and so she drew her coat tighter around her as she waited. As soon as the clerk appeared on the stairs, one of the men trailing behind him, Celia stood, eager to discover what Jack might be up to—and how she might help.
“Good afternoon, dear lady,” the man said as soon as he cleared the bottom step. He had a funny lilt to his voice, one Celia hadn’t heard before. It was almost musical sounding, and between that and his fine clothing, it appeared this gentleman had come from somewhere quite far away from Last Chance. He stretched out a hand in greeting.
Uncertain what exactly he meant to do, Celia shifted the flour to her left arm and let him take her right hand. The man bowed and dropped a light kiss on the back of her glove. The sleeve of his jacket was slightly frayed. “Good afternoon, Mister . . . ?”
“Jones,” the man supplied. “And who do I have the great pleasure of meeting?” He grinned at her, gold filling the space between two teeth while the others looked as if they weren’t long for remaining attached to his mouth. He was freshly shaven, but a nest of scars peeked up over his collar along his neck. And the silk vest he wore under the jacket was rife with water stains.
