by Regina Scott
How did her sister know? Had Michael confided in her? She hated to disagree just when she and Ciara were getting along, but she couldn’t sit like a family with Michael over a public dinner when she couldn’t bring herself to join her life to his. “Sure-n but we shouldn’t be wasting his money when he has debts to pay and a new life to be starting.”
Ciara’s mouth was set, her eyes narrowed. “You just don’t want us to have any fun.”
“It has nothing to do with fun,” Maddie informed her, temper rising with her dough. “I’m merely being practical.”
Ciara humphed. “But we have to go. You’ll ruin the surprise.”
Maddie frowned at her. “What surprise?”
Aiden was eyeing his sister as well, as if he wasn’t sure of the matter either.
Ciara took a step back. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” she scolded. “Now, come along. We have to go to dinner. I promised.”
Maddie wasn’t sure what her sister and Michael had dreamed up. This surprise must have been why he’d been so intent on Maddie coming to dinner when they’d talked this morning. She simply could not trust her feelings.
“Promise or no,” she told Ciara, “we are eating dinner here and that’s that. I’ll give Mr. Haggerty our regrets later.”
“Give him your own,” Ciara retorted, backing for the door. “I’m going to dinner. If you want to stop me, you’ll have to catch me.” She turned and ran out the door.
Aiden glanced at Maddie, eyes wide. “Should I go after her?”
That was clearly what her sister wanted. Maddie wasn’t about to gratify Ciara’s bad behavior.
“No,” she said, raising her head. “Ciara will come to no harm between here and the hotel, and Michael will send her back once he realizes we aren’t coming. I’ll have words with her then.”
And she’d talk with Michael when he returned as well, tell him her concerns, confide her feelings. The very thought set her hands to shaking. But it had to be done, even if she ended up breaking his heart, and her own.
Chapter Twenty-One
Michael sat at the table in the dining room of the Occidental Hotel, shifting on the curved-back wooden chair. Beeswax candles in brass candlesticks, fine crystal glasses and silverware graced the table, but it was the white cloth draping it that gave him pause. Thanks to Maddie, he now knew just how hard someone was working to keep it white. He was afraid to so much as touch the thing lest he leave a mark.
Around him, Seattle’s finest sat together, murmuring pleasantries. The scent of good food vied with flowery perfume to color the air. The stage was set to propose. The very thought had him reaching for the glass of lemonade the waiter had brought him.
Ciara flounced into the room and looked around. Michael rose, and she hurried to his side. Her blue gown looked a bit rumpled from her day sitting in class, but the fire in her eyes reminded him of her sister in a taking.
“Good afternoon, Ciara,” he said as she sat opposite him. That chair probably should have gone to Maddie, but Michael couldn’t mind. If Ciara was across from him, Maddie had to be next to him at his right or left at the four-person table. And that meant it would be easier to take her hand.
He glanced to the door, spirits lifting as he waited for Maddie to make an appearance, Aiden at her side. Maybe she’d wear her russet dress. He could imagine the room’s light reflecting in her hair.
The doorway remained empty.
“They aren’t coming,” Ciara announced, scooting her chair forward with a squeak on the hardwood floor. “Maddie says it’s a waste of money.”
If Maddie thought dining out was so costly, she probably wouldn’t like the gold band that was burning a hole in his pocket. Mr. Kellogg had assured Michael he had kept engagement rings in stock ever since Mercer’s Belles had arrived. This one might be too big for her capable fingers, but he knew Smitty could size it to fit her.
“A shame,” Michael said, disappointment warring with relief that he wouldn’t have to test the degree of affection Maddie held for him. “Then perhaps we should go home as well.”
In the act of placing the linen napkin on her lap, Ciara frowned at him. “Why can’t we eat here?”
He wasn’t about to confess that he’d been hoping to eat with her sister instead. Ciara would likely tell Maddie, and he wasn’t sure how her older sister would take it.
“A young lady like yourself must be careful of her reputation,” Michael reminded her, rising. “What would folks think if they saw us out alone together and me not a member of your family?”
Ciara shook her head. “Oh, Michael, you’re already part of the family. Everyone knows you’re going to marry Maddie. Everyone but Maddie, that is.”
He sat down, hard. “So your sister has something against me.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Maddie doesn’t like boys.”
That wrung a chuckle out of him. “Well, the boys certainly like her by the way they buy her bread.”
“That’s not the same,” Ciara said. “They aren’t suitors that I can see. She wouldn’t allow it. Oh, she has no understanding of romance.”
More than her eleven-year-old sister, Michael thought. “And why is that, do you suppose?”
Ciara shrugged. “I don’t know. All her friends back home got married and they had lovely weddings.”
“There’s a bit more to marriage than a wedding,” Michael told her as she began glancing around as if admiring the clothing of the other diners. “And we aren’t staying for dinner, Ciara. We’re going home to Aiden and Maddie.”
Gaze returning to his, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Why? She’s trying to be nice, but she doesn’t want me any more than she wants you. We’re just a burden to her.”
“She never said that,” Michael protested, but Ciara sat taller, arms coming down.
“No, you said it. I heard you in New York, talking with Sylvie. You said Maddie would sail away and never give us another thought. Sylvie said Maddie would do her duty. That’s what we are, a duty. She doesn’t love us.”
He’d put Ciara’s airs down to the loss of her parents and being left behind for a time in New York. Now he saw that her attitude was at least in part his fault. He’d blamed Maddie for being like Katie before he’d ever seen the size of her heart. Guilt wrapped around him.
“She loves you, Ciara,” he promised the girl. “It wasn’t duty that had her working so hard to pay your way out here. It wasn’t duty that put her in debt for the bakery and all the fine things in it. She wanted a better future for you and Aiden.”
Ciara’s face was tight, as if she struggled to believe him. “If she has so much love in her, why doesn’t she marry you and give us a father?”
His heart hurt for the girl. “Just because she loves you doesn’t mean she loves me,” Michael explained.
Ciara gazed at him. “Do you love her?”
The answer came easily. “Yes. Yes, I do. In fact, I was hoping to ask her to marry me tonight.” He pulled out the ring, which gleamed in the candlelight, just like his hopes.
Ciara’s eyes widened. “Oh, Michael. It’s beautiful!”
He smiled as he tucked it away again. “Not nearly as beautiful as your sister.”
The waiter came up just then, smile both apologetic for the interruption and eager to serve. “We have fried chicken, salmon and beefsteak on the menu tonight. What can I get for you?”
Michael looked to Ciara, who raised her chin.
“Nothing,” she said. “We have to go home for dinner. Our family is waiting.”
Michael rose, handed the waiter a coin for his trouble, then escorted Ciara to the door. Outside, the sun was setting behind the Olympics, turning the Sound to rippling sheets of gold.
“She’ll say yes,” Ciara said as they headed back toward the bak
ery.
Michael chuckled at her confidence. He could only hope she was right. Maybe the distance he’d felt between him and Maddie this morning was only his nerves. Maybe she truly had been too busy today for dinner. Maybe all he had to do to ensure a future with Maddie was to ask.
He glanced up the block toward the bakery, where the windows glowed red. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t a reflection of the setting sun.
And then he ran.
* * *
After all Maddie’s efforts to forget about Michael, she knew she hadn’t succeeded because she burned the stew. One minute it was simmering nicely on the stove, and she’d paused in her stirring to think about what she could say to him. Unless she missed her guess, he had feelings for her and deeper ones than the calf-love sent her way by some of her customers. Them she could turn aside with a smile or a promise of a cookie later. Michael deserved more.
Yet what could she say? “I don’t believe in love” sounded jaded and not entirely the truth. She believed in love. She just didn’t trust it to stay.
“That doesn’t smell very good,” Aiden said from where he was setting the table for her.
Maddie yanked the pot off the stove, shoving her thoughts away as well. The rancid odor filled the flat as she managed to scrape up enough bits for her and Aiden to eat on bread. She wasn’t sure what she’d do when Michael and Ciara returned, but perhaps she’d been wrong and the two would eat dinner at the Occidental after all.
She could hope for a little more time to gather her thoughts.
Aiden poked at his soggy bread. “Couldn’t we go find Ciara and Michael?”
Maddie forced herself to fork up the charred mass. “And miss my most original dish? I thought you were an adventuresome lad.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Aiden over the top of the food, and he giggled.
Amelia Batterby stalked out of Ciara’s room and went to stand by the stairs. Fur rising on her back, she looked at Aiden and Maddie, tail tense.
“And what has offended you, Miss Amelia?” Maddie couldn’t help asking.
“Maybe she wants some stew too,” Aiden said, grabbing his plate as if fully prepared to sacrifice his dinner.
“What do you think, Miss Amelia?” Maddie asked. “Would you like to try my masterpiece?”
Amelia Batterby glanced between the two of them, opened her mouth and screeched. The sound reverberated in the little room. Aiden fell back in his chair even as Maddie stared at the cat.
“She talked!” Aiden cried.
In answer, the cat screeched again, a long, drawn-out cry that raised gooseflesh all along Maddie’s arms.
She rose. “Something’s wrong.”
Aiden dropped out of his chair and darted toward the cat. Amelia Batterby wasn’t about to be caught this time. She veered around Aiden, scooted under the table and popped out on the other side. But no matter how Aiden chased her, she refused to take the obvious exit down the stairs.
Was there a thief even now stealing Maddie’s supplies again? She snatched up the broom from behind the door and started down. Oh, but the fellow had made a mistake this time. She was in no mood to be trifled with. She’d just reached the shop when she saw the glow.
Her kitchen was on fire. She could see the clothes on the line, flapping in the rising heat, like live things trying to escape. Even as fear washed over her, the flames licked through the doorway into the shop. From the kitchen came the pop and whine of her other extracts breaking. Tongues leaped along the icing that had dropped from her afternoon rolls, lapped up the mud her customers had tracked in. The floor lit, blocking her way to the door, and the blaze reached greedy fingers for her skirts. She ran upstairs and shut the door.
Aiden’s face was white. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a fire,” Maddie said, hurrying for her room. Now that she realized what was happening below, she felt as if the heat was pulsing through the floor at her. All she knew was that she had to get her brother to safety. She would not let him die the way his father and mother had died.
She yanked the covers off her bed and threw them to Aiden, who had followed her into her room.
“Tie those together in a rope,” she ordered. “Use the good strong knots the sailors taught you.”
Trembling, Aiden bent his head to do as she asked.
Maddie heaved the tick off the bed. It wasn’t much, but it might break their fall if the rope didn’t hold. Dragging the bag across the room, she shoved open the window overlooking the street.
People were gathering below, pointing, exclaiming.
“Bring buckets!” Maddie shouted to them, and men went running. Others shouted up, urging her to flee. If only it were that easy.
“Watch out below!” Maddie cried, then she stuffed the tick through the open window until it slid from her grip and tumbled to the ground.
“Here,” Aiden said, puffing as he brought her his makeshift rope. She saw he had taken the time to tuck his feadóg in his waistband.
Maddie tugged on his knots. “Well done, me lad. Now, I need you to be brave enough to climb down this.”
“What about Amelia Batterby?” Aiden asked, eyes fearful.
“I’ll be right behind, with her in my apron,” Maddie promised. She took the rope and wound it around the base of the stove, tying it off tight. The rest she slung out the window. It ended five feet from the ground.
“Go on, now,” Maddie told Aiden. “Someone will help you.”
“Maddie!”
Michael’s voice pierced the fear that was enfolding her in fiery arms. Looking out, she saw him and Ciara below, faces turned up in anguish.
“We’re all right!” she called. “Aiden is coming down. Help him!”
She didn’t wait for an answer, pausing only to kiss her brother’s silky hair.
“I’m scared,” Aiden whispered. “I’m not brave like you, Maddie.”
“I’m not so brave, me love,” she told him. “Da always said true courage meant being afraid and doing the right thing anyway. You can do that now, can’t you?”
He nodded and inched out the window onto the rope. Maddie clung to the material, holding it taut. Please, Lord, help him!
It seemed forever before a cheer from below told her that Aiden had reached the ground. She peered out and could barely catch sight of his dark head among the well-wishers. From down the street, church bells began tolling a warning.
“Come on, Maddie!” Michael called from below, hand up as if to help her.
“Coming!” she promised.
She tugged on the rope again to make sure of it and heard the unmistakable sound of tearing cloth. Strings jutted up around the base of the stove where the metal of the legs had cut into the material. The rope would never hold her weight now.
She sat down hard on the floor, and Amelia Batterby ran and cowered in her lap. Maddie held her, crooning comfort, as she tried to think of any other way to escape. Facing the bedchambers as she was, she could see smoke streaming from between the floorboards, filling the space. Just the sight of it made her cough.
“Sure-n but we’re in a pickle now, me girl,” she murmured, hands on the soft fur of the cat’s back. Tears stung her eyes. She’d told Aiden that courage meant acting through fear, and her little brother had believed her. He thought she was brave. After all, she’d sailed around the world, started her own business, made them a family again.
Maddie knew the truth. She was a coward. She’d left New York because she’d been afraid she couldn’t handle raising her sister and brother under those circumstances. Worse, she’d let fear stop her from loving Michael. She’d seen so many marriages ruined by privation that she hadn’t been willing to try. That was wrong. And now there was no way to make it right.
Forgive me, Lord. I see how You’ve been working. I needed help, and Y
ou sent me Michael. You gave me love, and I refused to accept it. Help Michael and Ciara and Aiden, for I’m thinking I won’t be here to help them meself.
A crash from below sent a shudder through the floor. How long before the boards gave and sent her tumbling into the flames?
Footsteps thudded on the stair, and the door burst open. Michael threw off the smoldering sheet that had covered him. Maddie clambered to her feet and met him halfway across the room.
“You’re a fine man, Michael Haggerty,” she said, giving him a hug. “But you’re a fool for coming after me, for now you’ve doomed us both!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael’s heart was beating so hard he couldn’t make out Maddie’s words. All he knew was that she was alive.
And he intended to keep it that way.
“Is there water in the bucket?” he asked, balling up the sheet.
“Aye,” Maddie answered, disengaging from him. “But not enough to make a difference on those flames.”
“I don’t need it to douse the fire,” he said, crossing and dunking the material into the water. “I just need it to douse us.”
He’d seen firefighters in New York use the trick to enter burning buildings, but he’d never thought to have to use it to save someone he loved. Now he knew if he focused on Maddie, his fears would swallow them both. So as she came to join him, cat still clutched in her arms, he watched as the material soaked up most of the water, then yanked out the sodden mass. Lifting the bucket with the remaining water, he upended it over Maddie’s head.
“What are you doing?” she sputtered.
“Saving your life,” he said.
He grabbed the wiggling Amelia Batterby and tucked her under one arm, then threw the soaked sheet over the three of them.
“They’re working a bucket line,” Michael told Maddie, leading her toward the door. “From what I can tell, the fire is mostly contained in the kitchen now, but it hit the larder hard and the stairs could give any moment. Stay close to me.”
