Jacob led old Tilly into the barn, which was redolent with the singular and not unpleasant smells of animals and hay, and secured her in a stall, where grain and fresh water awaited. As usual, he took his time answering. “’Bout as much as you do, I guess,” he observed dryly, and at some length. There was just the hint of a sparkle in his eyes.
Gage took off his hat and swept one hand through his hair. No point in bragging that he’d been raised in a press room; it didn’t have any bearing on the conversation anyhow. “Maybe that’s so,” he allowed, with a testy edge to his voice, “but there’s one thing you’re forgetting: she’s a woman.”
Jacob gave a low whistle of exclamation and ambled toward the barn door, rummaging for tobacco and a pipe as he went. June-bug did not permit the use of such inside the station, for she believed smoking to be an unhealthy and despicable habit.
“If I was you,” Jacob said, taking up where the whistle had left off, “I’d be careful about sayin’ things like that. We’ve got some spirited women in these parts—I can think of five or six that would skin you and nail up your hide just for talking that way.”
Gage let the remark pass unchallenged; after all, it was true. Springwater was indeed populated by a lot of strong-minded females, and as far as he could see, Jessica Barnes would fit in just fine. He wondered what lucky and accursed man would be the one to rope her in—probably some farmer, who’d have her milking cows like an expert in no time at all.
For some reason, he found the idea distasteful. Some women weren’t meant for such chores, and the prissy, stiff-necked Miss Barnes was surely one of them.
“You gonna tell her?” Jacob prodded, drawing on his pipe. A wreath of smoke rose like a halo over his head.
Gage was beginning to feel a mite short-tempered, despite the cheerful mood he’d enjoyed earlier. “Tell her what?” he shot back, though he damn well knew the answer. Michael Barnes had owed him money—a sizable amount, as it happened—and he’d put up the newspaper for collateral. Offering to buy the place was an outright act of charity, given that he could have claimed it, with the full blessing of the law, at any time. Somehow, looking in Jessica Barnes’s eyes, he just hadn’t been able to get the words out.
Jacob shrugged those bull-brawny shoulders of his, and snow settled like shimmering feathers on his dark hair. “It’s your money,” he said, and walked away toward the station house, still puffing on his pipe.
Disgruntled, Gage took himself back to his office. He shared the chilly, cramped space with C.W. Brody, the Western Union man, who lived upstairs. A widower in his late forties, C.W. was tapping industriously at the telegraph key when Gage stepped inside to hang up his hat for the second time that morning. He kept his coat on, however, and crossed the room to stuff a few chunks of wood into the potbellied stove. Rubbing his palms together in an attempt to get his bloodstream flowing again, he took to wondering if Jessica and Miss Alma and those two little babies were warm enough.
Landry and Jacob and Trey Hargreaves had laid in a cord or two of seasoned pine and birch logs back when Barnes had taken sick, but they’d left the task of splitting and stacking for later, having plenty of work of their own to do, and had never gotten back to it.
C.W. stopped his clicking and cleared his throat. “Here I thought you was nothin’ but a fancy city boy,” he said with amusement. “Turns out you’re a hand with a milk cow and not too proud to show it.”
Gage tightened his jaw for a moment and glanced at the large wooden clock affixed to the far wall. His first clients of the day, the Parrishes, were due in fifteen minutes. After he’d seen them and broken the news about the babies and all, he’d go over and chop some of that wood piled behind the newspaper office. It wasn’t that he wanted to see Miss Barnes again, he assured himself, though he had to admit just looking at her face made him feel like he was walking a tightwire a hundred feet above the ground. No, it was his civic duty to chop that wood, and that was all there was to it.
He poured a mug full of coffee from the enamel pot on the stove and took a thoughtful sip before deciding he’d let C.W.’s comment dangle long enough. “Even rich people keep cows,” he allowed, a little sharply, before heading into his office and closing the door firmly behind him. The truth was, he hadn’t learned how to perform that particular lowly task until he got to Springwater. While his house was being constructed—the house he seldom used, because he’d built it for a woman who was never going to show up—he’d boarded at the station, and he’d helped Jacob and Toby with the daily round of chores. It was during that time that he’d developed a lasting affection for June-bug McCaffrey and her cooking.
Savannah arrived on time, though without the doc, who was probably busy stitching some cowpuncher back together, either out on the range or over at his office. He was a respected man, Prescott Parrish; he’d earned the esteem of the whole town over and over again, most recently by operating on young Christabel Johnson’s twisted foot. He’d put it straight, and now she could walk as well as anyone else, thanks to him. She’d blossomed into a lovely, if somewhat shy, young woman who hoped to teach at the Springwater School one day, after attending normal school back in Pennsylvania.
“I’m sorry,” Gage said, after he’d explained to Savannah that Miss Barnes meant to raise her nieces herself, despite the obvious disadvantages—such as not being married. He hoped she had money of her own, because Michael sure as hell hadn’t left her any.
Savannah took the announcement well, though a certain sadness shone in her eyes. She and the doc had prospered, due to Trey Hargreaves giving them shares in his silver mine early on, in partial payment for Savannah’s half of the Brimstone Saloon. They lived across the street from Gage’s empty place and had a child of their own, but they’d wanted a big family, and it was beginning to look as if that wouldn’t happen.
It was an ironic situation; Pres had helped so many other people since coming to Springwater, but this was evidently beyond even him. They’d built that big white house of theirs two years back, expecting to need the room, but now there were just the three of them rattling around the place like beans in a barrel. Sometimes the Johnson girl stayed with them, to help with the little one and the washing and cooking and such, but of course that wasn’t the same thing as having a houseful of kids. “I’m not surprised,” Savannah said, after pondering Jessica’s decision in silence for a few moments. “I’d do the same thing in her place. I guess I was hoping she’d turn out to be another sort of woman.”
Gage settled back in his creaky office chair, tenting his fingers beneath his chin. “Oh?” he prompted.
Savannah offered a shaky smile. “Victoria told me she was a spinster—a companion or a governess or something like that, that she’d traveled. That she was used to city life and to living in big houses, whether they were her own or not. It didn’t sound like she was the sort to take in babies, even if they did belong to her brother.”
Savannah looked so despairing just then that Gage wanted to reach across the desk and touch her hand. He didn’t, though, because he knew she was fragile, and trying hard to hold up. Sympathy could only weaken her.
He spoke gruffly. “There are plenty of orphans in this world, Savannah. I could wire a friend of mine, down in San Francisco—”
She shook her head and rose hastily to her feet, her chair scraping against the plain wooden floor. “No,” she said, and tried to smile again, though she couldn’t seem to manage it a second time. “No,” she repeated, more calmly. “Pres is right. We’ve got each other, and our little Beatrice. Maybe it’s just plain greedy to want anything more.”
With that, she took up her cloak and rushed out of the office, leaving Gage to gaze thoughtfully after her.
*
He was a kind man, the doctor, dark-haired and handsome, with few words to spare and a very serious countenance. Dropping his stethoscope into a battered kit bag, he studied Jessica thoughtfully, there in the tiny parlor that stood directly over the still and silent press on
which Michael had so proudly printed issue after issue of the weekly Springwater Gazette. “Alma’s homesick for her house and her husband,” he said quietly. “She’ll be fine.”
“And the twins?” Jessica asked. Because the doctor was there making an impromptu call on Alma, who suffered occasional palpitations, Jessica had enjoined him to examine the babies, as well, just to be on the safe side. After all, both their parents had died recently, and it was her deepest fear that they too would contract whatever malady had caused Michael’s death. They were a vital part of her now, like arms and legs, and she did not know what she’d do without them.
He grinned, taking Jessica by surprise, as he’d seemed so dour before. She’d supposed his reticence was partly due to the fact that he and his wife had wished to adopt the twins as their own, but now she decided it was simply his nature to be solemn. No doubt, as a doctor, he’d seen a great deal of suffering in his time, and that would cast a shadow over anyone’s spirit. “They’re fine,” he said. “If all my patients were as lively as that pair, I’d have to go into another line of work.”
Jessica found herself liking this man, and expected to like his wife, too, for all that she’d feared them a little up until now. They were an integral part of Springwater, after all, and could surely count on the support of the community, while she was new in town, a stranger to all of them. “Won’t you stay for tea?” she asked. Alma was lying down, the babies were sleeping, filled once again with milk from the McCaffreys’ cow, and there was nothing at hand to distract Jessica from the facts of her life—she was alone, essentially, with two infants depending on her for everything, for Alma’s husband was sure to come for her soon. The future seemed bleak in that low moment, and full of struggle.
“Can’t stay,” the doctor said regretfully, snapping the bag shut. “I’ve got half a dozen more calls to make before dark.”
Jessica wrung her hands. “I wanted to ask about my brother and—and, of course, Victoria. How it was for them… .”
He looked at her with a directness that she appreciated. “Victoria hemorrhaged after having the babies, and try though we might, Savannah and I couldn’t stop the bleeding. She lapsed into unconsciousness and was gone within four hours.” He paused, then sighed. “Michael fell over in the newspaper office one afternoon, ran a high fever that night, and died the next morning. And yes, Miss Barnes—I did everything I could to save them. Everything.”
She blushed. She hadn’t been going to ask, but apparently the discerning Dr. Parrish had seen the question in her eyes. “It’ll be a disappointment to your wife, not to be able to adopt the babies,” she said, and then wondered why she’d spoken of the matter at all. The decision had been made, and would be abided by. The news didn’t seem to surprise the doctor.
“Yes,” he answered readily. “Savannah longs for more children, and we haven’t been able to have them.”
“I’m sorry.”
He simply nodded. Then, with a brief word of farewell, he was gone.
Jessica stood in the center of the parlor, fighting back another swell of terrible loneliness, and it was a while before she heard the steady thwack-thwack coming from somewhere out back.
Moving slowly to the window, she looked down to see Gage Calloway, coatless in the thickening snow, his sleeves rolled up to reveal solid forearms, splitting firewood with powerful swings of an ax. Something about him made Jessica’s heart surge up into her throat and swell there, cutting off her breath.
As if he sensed that she was there watching him, he looked up, and their eyes met. He grinned and paused long enough to wave one hand. Jessica actually felt light-headed when he did that, but she attributed the response to fatigue and grief.
With some effort, she managed to raise the sill, and leaned out through the opening. The cold bit into every pore of her body with teeth like tiny needles. “What are you doing?” she demanded. It was all bluster and bravado; she could not let herself forget that this man, though posing as her friend, had been a foe to her brother. Establishing any sort of association with him would be an outright betrayal.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he retorted, but good-naturedly. His breath was a white cloud around his head and, dear Lord, he had finely made shoulders, narrow hips, long, muscular legs. He might have strode right down off Mt. Olympus, if it weren’t for his modern clothes.
Jessica was exasperated, not only with him, but with herself. She huffed out an impatient sigh. “If you expect to ingratiate yourself to me and thus persuade me to sell the Gazette,” she said, “you are wasting your time.”
His grin faded, and he shook his head. “You are one prickly female,” he said. “Ingratiate myself to you? Why, I’d sooner cozy up to a porcupine!”
“Why don’t you?” she retorted. It was so much easier, so much safer, not to like him.
He sighed. “I’m not trying to do anything but make sure you have enough firewood to keep warm. Around Springwater, we call that being neighborly.”
Stuck for an answer, Jessica drew back from the window and slammed it down hard enough to set the heavy glass to rattling. Below, Mr. Calloway went back to his wood-chopping, and it did seem to Jessica that he was wielding that ax of his with a mite more force than before.
*
Early the next morning the McCaffrey boy, Toby, knocked at the door with a beguiling grin and a bucket of fresh milk, strained and separated and ready to be heated for the babies’ bottles. “Miss June-bug says you ought to come to the station for a visit first chance you get,” he announced happily. His nose and the tops of his ears were red with cold, and his blue eyes fairly gleamed with that special exuberance that is reserved for the very young. “You’re to bring the babies, too.”
Jessica accepted the milk gratefully, promised to pay a call on Mrs. McCaffrey before the end of the week, and watched as Toby descended the stairs, taking two at a time. She was closing the door when Alma came out of her room; the apartment was deliciously warm, thanks to the plenitude of firewood, and the twins were still sleeping cozily in their shared cradle at the foot of Jessica’s bed. There was time to warm the milk, and the soft, quiet light of the new snow trimming the windowpanes lent the place an almost festive air.
Alma went to stand before the fire, diminutive in her sturdy woolen wrapper and slippers. “My Pete will be here to fetch me soon. I reckon he’s gotten word of your arrival by now.”
Jessica merely nodded. She was not looking forward to caring for the babies by herself, but she would manage somehow. She was intelligent and capable, and she could learn.
“You don’t seem to get on with Gage Calloway very well,” Alma observed. “He’s a fine man, you know.”
Jessica stiffened slightly. No doubt Alma knew, as the rest of the town surely did, of the animosity between Mr. Calloway and her brother. It would not serve to point out the obvious. “He must have some fatal flaw,” she remarked instead.
The other woman faced her squarely, and her expression was entirely serious. “He doesn’t,” she said flatly. “Comes from a fine family down in San Francisco. Folks with money and breeding. Lives in that big house across the street from Doc and Savannah’s place, all by himself. People say he built it for a woman who broke his heart.”
Broken heart aside—that could happen to anyone, after all—it figured that Gage came from a rich family. He was used to privilege, used to squashing people—like Michael—who got in his way. Hadn’t she seen Mr. Covington and his friends do such things, over and over? Her rage was renewed, and it sustained her; in those moments it was all that kept her from sinking into a state of complete melancholy.
“And?” she prompted, knowing that Alma would go on whether she was invited to or not.
“You could do worse for yourself,” Alma said bluntly. Once she finally got around to making her point, she closed right in for the kill. “Than Gage Calloway, I mean.”
Jessica laid one hand to her bosom, fingers splayed. “Good heavens, Alma,” she exclaimed
, careful, for the babies’ sakes, to keep her voice moderate. “I barely know the man.” But I know enough. She saw by her friend’s expression that she was unconvinced. “And in any case, he has not shown the first sign of wanting to court me, let alone proposed. You have taken notice of that, haven’t you?”
“Bullfeathers. It’s plain to see that he’s taken with you. Didn’t he milk the cow yesterday? Didn’t he chop all that wood?”
Jessica was losing her patience. “For heaven’s sake, Alma, he was merely being kind.” Gage Calloway could milk cows and chop wood for a thousand years and it would never make up for what he’d done to Michael.
“Every man in this town is kind,” Alma exclaimed, as the babies began, first one and then both, to lament their empty stomachs and wet diapers. “But you didn’t see any of them over here looking for ways to be helpful, did you?”
He wants the newspaper, Jessica reminded herself, for she found that she was weakening a little under the onslaught of Alma’s conviction. “Please prepare the bottles,” she said as the twins raised their howling to a new pitch. “I will see to the rest.”
The next hour was occupied with caring for the infants, but once they’d been burped and bathed and bundled up for another round of sleep, Jessica could no longer escape the inevitable. She put on a shawl, went downstairs, and opened the door of the newspaper office.
It was dusty inside, and bitterly cold, but the place still gave the impression that Michael had just stepped out on some brief errand. His ink-stained printer’s apron hung on a peg beside the door, precisely where he’d left it. His visor lay on the desktop, along with a box of type, carefully laid out.
Springwater Seasons Page 37
