The man’s face melted into a sad smile. “Well, what do you know? The world ain’t entirely shot to pieces, now is it?” He held out a hand, and Nora noticed he was missing half a finger on his right hand. It was a recent wound, still bandaged. “Thank you kindly, miss. Edwina will be right pleased. Like I said, I didn’t think it was such a good idea to write that note. When Edie asked her aunt to write it, I tried to stop her. And my daughter just cried and told her no one could care about one little girl’s doll in all this disaster.” He looked at Nora with such a tender heart that Nora felt as if she’d just received all the gratitude she’d ever need to make a dozen dolls. “I’ve never been so happy to see my daughter so wrong. I hope it helps the both of them.” He managed a wider grin and put his hand on his chest. “Lightens my heart, that’s for sure.”
Nora nodded toward the wounded hand. “Is your finger healing? Do you need a doctor?”
The grandfather looked down at his bandaged hand and wiggled his fingers. “Me? I need a good steak more than I need a doctor. Who needs all ten fingers anyways? Don’t hurt much anymore.” It was as if he had transformed in front of her. His face had changed from the harsh man who opened the shutter to a fatherly man who thought it wasn’t much to lose a finger. It made Nora wonder how many other people’s faces would change with an act of kindness. It had been worth whatever risk she’d taken to be here now, delivering the doll. She wished the man well and smiled broadly as she made her way up the row of shacks out of the park. Despite the long walk, her feet hardly felt the ground.
Until she turned the corner.
She hadn’t seen Ollie since the day he’d leered at her in front of Sam’s shack, but she recognized him instantly. His eyes had a lazy, sinister quality one didn’t easily forget.
“It’s the pretty mail lady doin’ her bit for charity again.” He grinned and looked around them. “Way in here. You sure do get around, missy.”
Nora felt her anger rise. She hated to have the satisfaction of her trip undercut by the nasty look in his eyes. “I’ve no business with you, so I’ll thank you to leave me alone.” She began walking faster toward the park’s edge.
He followed. “But you’re such a kindly type. There’s all kinds of need in here. All kinds.” His voice hinted at the kinds no one associated with charity. How foolish she’d been to think it would be all right to go this far into the park alone. She made her feet move as fast as they could. The way Ollie was following, she’d never make it as far as the street. Looking up, however, she spied the teeter-totter that told her Quinn’s family’s shelter was only a handful of rows away.
“C’mon, miss mail lady, there’s no need to rush.” He began closing the distance between them.
“Stop it!” Nora broke out into a run despite the tangle of her skirts. “Leave me alone.” Praying for protection, she headed straight for the teeter-totter and the knot of children gathered around it, hoping even someone as awful as Ollie wouldn’t lay a hand on her in front of children.
“Come on back here and…” Ollie managed to grab one elbow as Nora attempted to turn the corner at a run. She twisted out of his grasp and kept running. Angered, he came after her faster, not caring about the group of shocked young faces who now watched.
Just as they passed Quinn’s contraption, Ollie caught her shoulder and tried to spin her around. With dread, Nora felt the chain of her locket tangle up in his fingers and snap off from around her neck. She grasped at it as it sailed through the air to land in the dust a few feet away. Nora lunged for it, ducking out of Ollie’s outstretched arm.
“Leave her alone!” Sam’s voice came out of the crowd, and running at Ollie full tilt, he knocked the startled man backward a few paces. “You’re nothin’ but a mean old goat.”
Startled, Ollie backed off and let out a string of curses that made Nora wince and one of the younger girls start to cry. Nora was near tears herself, and she scrambled in the dust for the locket she couldn’t bear to lose a second time.
“Get out of here. Pa! Danny! Missus Freeman!” Sam began howling a list of adult names in an effort to get one—or all of them—on the scene.
The locket was broken. It had come unhinged in the fall, and the tiny ovals of glass that held the pictures had slipped out. Nora’s fingers tried to push the charred photos back in place, but they were too cracked and damaged to stay intact without the glass to hold them together. Annette’s image, barely visible as it was, seemed to disintegrate under her touch. “No,” Nora sighed, unable to hold back tears of fear and fury. “No, stay together, don’t…”
It was useless. The photo crumbled into tiny black flakes that scattered into the dust at her skirts. Her last image of Annette, her locket photograph, was gone.
“Oliver McDonough, ye nasty excuse for a man, so help me if you don’t get out of here this very minute…” Mrs. Freeman’s sharp brogue cut through the gaggle of children’s voices.
Nora felt the woman’s strong hand on her shoulder as she bent down. “Miss Longstreet? Is that you? Did Ollie touch you? Hurt you in any way?”
Nora could barely even think about what Ollie had done in the heartache of losing Annette’s image. The broken locket hurt much worse than any bruise Ollie had left by grabbing her. “I’m not hurt,” she said as the tears overcame her. “He grabbed me and it…broke the locket.” A small breeze stirred up the dust, setting the flakes flying and setting a panic in Nora’s heart. It was somehow like losing Annette all over again. Desperately, she grasped at the tiny charred pieces before the wind took them forever, but it was impossible to do. “No,” she cried, feeling helpless and foolish and startlingly wounded.
“Come now, hon, let’s get you up.” Mrs. Freeman crouched down beside Nora and took her by both shoulders. “There’s nothing to be done about your bauble now.” Nora let herself be pulled up, even though she felt as if she couldn’t stand on her own. All the previous joy was gone—and then some, for she felt worse than ever to have lost the locket a second time. “You’ve gotten your fine dress all dirty now, but you don’t look hurt. Ollie’s a brute. Let’s get you inside, Nora, dear. I just happen to have the makings of a cup of tea, and I think we both could use one.”
The generosity—especially knowing Mrs. Freeman’s fondness for tea and the scarcity of it—made everything worse. “Oh, no,” Nora cried, the tears still coming down despite her efforts to stop them, “you couldn’t use your birthday tea for this.”
Mrs. Freeman stopped for a moment and looked at Nora before she pulled open the flap of leather that served as a door and steered Nora to the one chair inside. “And how is it that you know about my birthday tea, missy?” Her tone wasn’t a suspicious inquisition, it was more of an amused curiosity. She began gathering things for tea, only taking her eyes off Nora for a few seconds here and there.
“Your son told me.” Nora had to choose her words carefully for she didn’t want Mrs. Freeman to know the tea had come from her. “He was delighted to find some tea to give you.” The tears ebbed, giving way to a huge, shuddering sigh as Nora felt the panic subside. She brushed the worst of the dirt off her skirts—she would have some explaining to do when she got home. “He told me how much you loved tea and missed it.”
Having sent Sam off to fetch hot water from a common fire pit down the way, Mrs. Freeman hunched down to assess Nora’s condition with a mother’s experienced eye. “You’ll have a bruise where that knee hit, but I think that’s the worst of it. On the outside, that is. Ollie get fresh with you, did he? He’s all bark and no bite that one, but he can surely bark. He was no good before the earthquake, and now he seems to have plenty of chances to show us what a louse he can be.” She pulled a cloth from her pocket. “Here, love, wipe your face. You’ve had a good scare, but thank the Lord it’s no more than that.”
It was much more than that, but Nora thought if she tried to explain she’d only end up flooding the shack with tears. And these people had endured losses so much worse than hers. It felt selfish to go
to pieces over, as Mrs. Freeman put it, “a bauble.”
Sam returned, and as Mrs. Freeman tended to her teapot, Nora wiped her face and then used the cloth to wipe the dust from the remains of the locket. It lay open and empty on her lap, as forlorn a sight as she’d ever seen. Both photos gone, glass gone, chain broken; it made her want to start crying all over again. Mrs. Freeman came back in, “I’ll just tell Sam to run and get…” She stopped and looked around the shelter, one hand flying to her chest. “Mercy! Where’s Sam? He was just here a second ago…Sam!” She pushed her head out of the shack and called “Where’d ya go, lad? Oh!” Nora couldn’t see whatever it was that Mrs. Freeman saw, only watch her spine stiffen with the sight—whatever it was. “Glory! What happened to you?”
Chapter Ten
Quinn ducked into the shack a moment later, Sam ahead of him. Quinn’s right hand was bruised and bloodied. He ignored his mother, heading straight to squat down in front of Nora. “Are you hurt, Miss Longstreet?”
Sam tugged on Mrs. Freeman’s skirts. “Ollie sure is.”
Mrs. Freeman rolled her eyes. “Oh, son, you didn’t.”
Nora felt Quinn’s eyes lock on to hers. “Did he hurt you in any way?” he said angrily. “Any way at all?”
“He knocked me down, that’s all.” She tried to sound as calm as possible.
Quinn’s intensity eased—until he saw the locket that lay broken in her hands. He returned his gaze to her eyes, and his simmering anger deepened into a look that held more sorrow and understanding than Nora thought her heart could hold. He, of all people, knew the significance of that “bauble.” He seemed to know it was an almost unspeakable pain for her, for while he saw her own heartbreak reflected in the golden brown of his eyes, he said nothing. Were they alone, Nora felt she would have flung herself into his arms and cried for hours.
“Sam fetched more than water just now, did he? So you went and found Ollie,” Mrs. Freeman said with an exasperated air. “And you let your fist say a thing or two on the matter?” She shook her head as she rummaged through that enormous trunk of hers for yet more bandages.
Quinn stood up. “Surely you didn’t expect me to stand there and wag a finger at him. He had it coming, Ma. He’s had it coming for a while.”
“Oh, and that’s just what we need in these parts,” Mrs. Freeman scolded, “Grown men beating each other up in front of young lads.”
“He had it comin’,” Sam piped up, sticking his brave little chin out. “No one gets to hurt Miss Nora.”
Mrs. Freeman leveled a “now look what you’ve gone and done” glare at her son and showed him precious little mercy with the stinging iodine. Quinn only sucked in a great deal of air between his teeth, winced and glared right back. “Ouch, Ma.”
“I hope it stings ’til Sunday, ye great oaf.” Anger thickened her brogue. Nora had to give Mrs. Freeman credit; Quinn had almost a foot on her, yet she held her ground fiercely. Of course, she had a bottle of nasty iodine to back her up, but Nora doubted that tipped the scales much.
“Are you badly hurt, Mr. Freeman?” Nora asked, mostly to change the subject. He’d defended her. Brutally, yes, but with such a ferocious loyalty that she felt it lodge deep in her chest and stay there. What a powerful thing it was to know he’d roared out as her champion like that.
“I’ll be fine,” Quinn said, flexing his fingers. From the look of things, his bleeding knuckles stung fiercely. “I only hit him twice.” He looked up at Nora, the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “He deserved more.”
“Enough in front of the lad,” Mrs. Freeman said over her son’s shoulder in a low monotone threat. “Now,” she planted her hands on her hips, “this was hardly the tea party I had in mind, but since you’re all here, have a cup and then we’ll get Miss Longstreet back to her father before yet another man loses his temper in this place.”
“I don’t know who’ll be more angry—your papa or my ma,” Quinn said as he accompanied Nora on the long walk to her Lafayette Park home after tea. It had been the most ridiculous “tea party” in history—Ma seething and him all stinging and bandaged up so he could hardly hold the cup and Sam chattering and Nora so quiet. Quinn couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Not to mention his insistent desire to steal a few moments alone with poor Nora so they could talk about the locket. Every time he thought about what Ollie had done, the urge to go find that snake and pummel him again surged up within him. Major Simon was right—his impulsive nature would lead him to trouble again and again. And trouble—even the righteous kind—was still trouble. He’d be no good to anyone locked up for brawling.
Nora nodded toward Quinn’s hand. With his knuckles wrapped up just below the bandage still on his forearm from Major Simon’s “lesson,” his right hand was looking mighty worse for wear. “Perhaps Ollie is the most mad. It would certainly feel better to think he is.”
“Whatever made you think it’d be wise to find Edwina on your own? I’d have come if you asked—you know that. I should’ve come—and you know that, too.”
Nora looked up at him with a tender smile. “Oh, and you’ve nothing to attend to all day but my whims? I’ve no right to ask you to be at my beck and call.”
She had every right, but Quinn wasn’t sure that was a safe thing to say.
Nora fussed with the dark smudge of dirt on her skirt. “It was a foolish thing to do, I know. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I just kept thinking of poor Edwina. It was like I was choking on her wish until I could get that doll to her.” She looked up at Quinn again. “And I met her grandfather. If you could have seen the way he changed—the way he literally changed in front of me when I told him why I was there. I felt like I was doing just what God wanted me to be doing. At just the moment He wanted me doing it. I don’t know that I can explain it any other way. When I was walking back home, it was like I was walking on air.”
He knew that feeling. He’d felt it walking back from his “delivery,” wide-awake and deliriously satisfied even though it was two o’clock in the morning. He’d felt it as he drove that message post into the ground, full of energy even though it was blazing hot and he ought to have been exhausted. Reverend Bauers quoted that scripture about “soaring on eagle’s wings,” when he talked about feelings like that, and although Quinn found the description rather fussy, it did fit.
“’Til Ollie knocked you right off that air. I’m sorry that happened. Seems a double sin to take away someone’s joy like that.”
Nora’s hand went to her throat, as it had done so many times since he’d given her the locket, and found only her neckline. “It feels awful to have lost her again like that. I know it’s silly but it…hurts so much.”
Her voice trembled again, cutting through Quinn. Without thinking, or perhaps it was more precise to say without caring, Quinn reached out and took her hand. He had intended it to be a light, momentary touch, but when she settled her hand into his he felt it ignite his heart.
“I’m going to fix that locket, just like I said. And mind you, don’t go off like that without me again,” he said. He hoped his voice didn’t betray the storm going off inside him, but from the look on her face he knew it had. “We have to be careful,” he felt compelled to add, meaning more than just her traveling safety. He was going to have to be very careful about her. She could drive him to impulses that were miles beyond unwise.
She pulled her hand from his, but gave it a squeeze before she did. “I know.” He watched her run one hand across the other, and he knew her hand tingled the way his currently did. She did feel something. He knew he couldn’t be the only one. There was too much between them to miss it. There was so much between them. When they crossed Market Street, Quinn had the uncomfortable feeling that they’d shifted from his world to hers. Funny how life had made him feel like a trespasser in parts of his own city.
She felt it, too, for her steps became more determined. “Papa gave me a speech yesterday.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He went
on about how the world wasn’t the same anymore and how I ought to be sensible.”
Quinn tucked his hand in his pocket. “I’ve never been one much for sensible myself. But he’s your pa, that’s his job.” As they started up the hill toward the nicer part of town, Quinn tried to make a mental list of all the reasons he shouldn’t be sweet on Nora Longstreet. He failed.
They walked on in a companionable silence for several blocks, looking up once or twice to catch each other’s eye and offer a smile. More than once he had to stop himself from reaching out and taking her hand again. Impulsive as he was, he knew that would invite a host of trouble out here in her world.
A block before her house, Nora stopped and drew herself up straight. “Despite what happened today, I don’t want to stop at Edwina. I don’t think I’m supposed to stop at Edwina. I think there are more of these requests I can fill, but I don’t know how it’s all going to work just yet. I just know it’s got to, and I suppose the ‘how’ will have to be God’s problem.”
Quinn thought he could not find her more endearing. Before today he would not have said something like tender bravery could exist, but it stood before him, her unsteady smile stealing his affections. “Well, then, you leave me no choice. I’ve got to help. I’m good with impossible problems. So consider me your partner.”
“How?”
“Well, like you said, the ‘how’ may just have to be God’s problem.”
Her gaze held his eyes. “That would mean I am your partner as well, Mr. Freeman.”
It was a step too far. It was not at all the proper thing to say, but none of that mattered. “My partners call me Quinn.” Suddenly, it was the most important thing in the world to hear her say his name.
Mission of Hope Page 8
