Only the Heart Knows

by Lena Goldfinch

  She held back a sigh.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Mandy admitted. She might never sleep again, now that she knew Adam wanted a mail-order bride. Any sort of thinking about it was going to make her sick to her stomach, and she’d be up all night staring at the ceiling. Though she’d decided to put the letter aside until morning, she likely still wouldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about the dance—how wonderful it had felt to have Adam’s hand wrapped around hers, his arm about her back, squiring her around. How wonderful it had felt to win the three-legged race at his side. But then there had been the Blind Man’s Bluff... When she’d made a fool of herself roping him. Everyone knew it. And yet he’d seemed so unaffected, confused even.

  Then Russell had to say those awful things to her. Called her Too Tall Mandy MacKenna, loud enough for everyone to hear. But then he’d said he was sorry later, hadn’t he? They’d cleared the air. So she should let that pass. Only she couldn’t stop thinking about Adam now.

  Adam.

  Why?

  And Mama was staring at her with a puzzled expression. Oh dear.

  “What has you so preoccupied?” she asked.

  “Me? Nothing,” Mandy said quickly. “It’s just—well, I don’t want to leave you and Papa. I don’t want to go live with Aunt Libby in Denver. Please let me stay, Mama.”

  That was nowhere near a lie.

  Mama was already shaking her head. “That’s just what I’ve come to say, Amanda dear. I’ve had a letter back from your aunt Libby, and I’ve just finished talking it over with your papa, and we all think the end of summer would be best.”

  “The end of summer?” Mandy stared at her. She couldn’t have heard properly. “So soon?”

  “That will give you some good weather before the snow starts falling,” Mama responded, so practical, so unmoving. “Aunt Libby is already making plans to introduce you to society there.”

  Mandy let out a groan before she could stop herself. “Society?”

  “Yes, society.” Mama’s face softened into a look of compassion. “How else will you meet suitable young men?”

  “But, Mama,” Mandy protested, even though her mother’s sympathy was nearly unbearable to witness. How could she argue when her mother so obviously loved her and thought she was doing what was best for her?

  Only she wasn’t.

  It wasn’t the best.

  How could leaving Cross Creek and the family she loved be the best?

  “We’ve all discussed it, and that’s the plan.”

  “Mama.”

  “I’m afraid that’s the end of the matter, Mandy. Goodnight.” Mama hesitated a moment then leaned forward and rested her cheek against Mandy’s brow, a soft but fleeting touch. That too was nearly unbearable. Especially when it seemed very much like her mother didn’t want her anymore. Mandy felt her chin begin to wobble uncontrollably.

  “It will all turn out for the best,” Mama said with an air of finality. “I promise.”

  In seconds, she was out the door and down the hall. The sound of her door closing fell softly on Mandy’s ear.

  That was the end of the matter.

  Mandy stood right in the middle of Main Street. Cross Creek was a halo of itself. Real, not real. Strange. And yet not strange.

  In that way of dreams.

  Where is everyone?

  A young woman got off the train. She stood waiting with her trunks. A smallish woman—pretty, trim, and proper—with a swinging bell of a skirt. She was dressed head to toe in pale blue. The impossibly wide brim of her bonnet hid most of her face, but her mouth was visible. She was smiling. She’d be good for Adam. And there he was. Adam. Tall and strong, striding toward the woman. Eager. Happy. He was happy with her, this woman, as if his life was about to begin.

  Without Mandy.

  They went to the church and exchanged their vows, a quiet short ceremony. Solemn, full of hope. And God said, “Yes. It is good.”

  They returned to his house.

  And the door shut behind them.

  Mandy was left outside, no more than a vapor. She began to fade, disappearing up into the clouds to return home. She was asleep now, tossing and turning in her childhood bed.

  Mama’s voice whispered to her: You’ll have to leave Cross Creek. You can’t stay here.

  Another voice, oddly close: You’re dreaming.

  Her own voice.

  You need to wake up.

  She had to sit up and shake the dreams away, but she only seemed able to drift deeper and deeper into sleep. It was becoming real. If she didn’t do something, and now, the time to do anything would be over. All would be done. Finished. Over.

  Get up, Mandy. Get up.

  Mandy arose from sleep, dragging herself upwards. She threw back her tangled sheet and sat upright, tucking her knees to her chest for a moment. She was in her room, in her bed.

  It was all a dream.

  That woman. It had been a dream. Nothing more.

  Only, she could still see the troubling scene playing out in her mind.

  She unfolded herself and stood. She paced the dark room. Padding back and forth across her soft rug. Without seeing, she knew how many steps to her desk, how many steps back. She knew without thinking.

  What was she going to do?

  What could she do?

  She couldn’t very well ride over there now and tap on Adam Booker’s front door. She couldn’t ask him why. He could never know she knew. If he knew that, then he’d know everything. He’d know about Ask Mack. He’d know Mandy had deceived him and the whole town.

  Mandy stopped at the window and leaned her forehead against the smooth glass pane. The night was black outside. Her window was cracked open a hand’s width, but there was no breeze, no cooling air. Another deathly still hot summer night. Heavy.

  The horses were asleep. The world was silent.

  Only she was awake.

  There was no moon to see. If there was one tonight, the clouds had hidden it.

  The darkness was too pressing, like a blanket over her face, so she lit her lamp. From there it was but a simple matter to take out a sheet of paper, to gather her fountain pen and inkwell.

  From there it was no simple matter—no simple matter at all—to write. But she did, standing over her desk, afraid to sit. Afraid to fall back asleep, though now her mind was racing.

  Chapter 18

  As soon as Mandy finished her reply, she crept down the stairs in the dark, feeling her way from memory. Carrying a lantern would surely have woken up her mother, who slept lightly and woke at the slightest noise, the tiniest shred of light. Mandy continued on as silently as she could manage in her house slippers, without the help of a light. The darkness closed in around her face, smothering her like a blanket thrown over her head.

  Her knee cracked against the newel post as she turned onto the half landing, and she bit back a cry. She stopped and rubbed away the pain for a moment, then tiptoed down the remaining steps more carefully, gripping the railing for balance. Once she reached the foyer, she inched along, groping the air before her with her hands.

  Darby had a bedroom off the kitchen in the back, a large room, with a sitting area and a study space that Papa had said was befitting a young man his age.

  Mandy hadn’t been offered a room with a study. She would have liked that. She could have kept all her papers and pens in a private little nook and not had to worry about Mama or her sisters walking in when she was working on her Ask Mack replies. Not that she was bitter. As it was, she had one small writing desk pinched between her tall five-drawer dresser and the washstand. She had to hide her papers under her bed.

  She tapped one knuckle against Darby’s door, hoping it was loud enough to wake him, but not loud enough to wake Mama. Her parents’ suite of rooms was directly above Darby’s.

  Mandy was about to rap again when the door was flung open from the other side. Darby stood in the doorway, lit from the light of a lamp behind him. He had his white cotton nightshirt jamm
ed into a pair of hastily flung on trousers, and his hair stuck out at odd angles all around his head. He wove slightly on his feet and thrust a hand through his hair, making even more of a mess of it.

  “What? What is it?” He scrubbed his face and yawned, stretching his jaw way down. He blinked long and hard, as if clearing his vision. He’d always been a deep sleeper. “Mack? Is that you? What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry, Darby,” Mandy whispered, hoping he’d take the hint and lower his voice. “Maybe it could have kept till morning...”

  “No, go on. May as well—I’m up now. What is it?”

  “Did you mean what you said?”

  “What?”

  “About me having a too-low opinion of myself?”

  He paused to blink again and shook his head, as if trying to capture his thoughts. “Oh, that? You woke me up for that?”

  “It’s important, Darby. I’m serious. Did you mean it?”

  He scratched at the stubble on his chin, obviously still half asleep and yearning to go back to bed.

  “Darby!” she whispered.

  “I meant every word,” he said, still drowsy, but making an effort. “It makes me angry—makes me sad—that you don’t think you’re worthy of love. You are worthy, just like everybody. Don’t ever think you’re not.” He yawned. “Now—what’s this all about?”

  Mandy clasped her letter to the front of her dressing gown, wondering: could she do it? Could she chase her dream? Send her reply to Adam Booker’s ad?

  There were so many questions and unknowns.

  What would she do if he did answer? What then?

  She’d have to face him. She’d have to tell the truth sooner or later. He’d have to know, eventually, that it was her who’d answered.

  She felt a small flutter of panic in her stomach.

  Worthy of love.

  It didn’t quite sound right on the one hand. It went against all the doubts that whispered in her ear—so close she could almost feel some imaginary breath on her neck. Some real presence hovering beside her. The tiniest shiver shot through her, lifting the small hairs on her nape.

  On the other hand, she told herself firmly, she believed God loved her.

  Plus—not as important as God loving her, of course—but Darby said so and he was standing right before her. Her cousin Darby. As close as a brother. Could God be using his words to get through to her? Could be.

  And...she wanted to believe it.

  She needed to believe it.

  “All right, I’ll do it.” Mandy stood up straighter.

  “Do what?” Darby mumbled.

  “I need a favor, and you’re just going to have to do it without me telling all the whys and what-fors.”

  He perked up then, his eyes brightening with interest. “What?”

  “I said I couldn’t tell you what. Will you do it anyway?”

  He pulled a face, as if he was twelve again, and she was thirteen, hiding some big juicy secret from him. “Mack,” he complained.

  “Please?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “Could you post this letter for me?”

  “Who’s it for?”

  “That’s one of the what fors I can’t tell you about.”

  He slipped it from her fingers. “The envelope’s blank,” he complained again, sounding disappointed.

  “That’s the top one, there’s another letter inside and a message for the postmistress. Give it directly to Miss Judith and no one else. Will you do it?”

  “I’d like to know who’s it for first.”

  She sighed. “Adam Booker.”

  His brows shot up. “The banker? What are you, sweet on him or something?”

  Mandy looked down at the toes of her slippers peeking out from underneath the hem of her dressing gown. Though she knew for a fact that her slippers were a dusty peachy pink, they could have been any pale color in the nighttime shadows.

  “Yes, the banker,” she admitted reluctantly, looking back up at Darby. She was filled with the most unsettling urge to yank the letter out of his grasp and burn it in the embers of the cook stove. “And that’s all I’m saying. Will you do it? And stop asking questions?”

  “But he’s a banker.”

  “Darby, I need your help. Without your help something very important to me may never happen.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “As serious as I’ll ever be,” Mandy said.

  He paused, his expression suddenly far off. Perhaps memories of her roping Adam had begun to filter through his sleep-fogged brain. He looked at her, comprehension dawning. Slowly.

  “Darby,” Mandy prompted, striving to maintain her patience.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll do it.” He made to close the door, her letter in his hand.

  “And don’t open it!” she hissed.

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  She wasn’t so sure she believed him. He’d opened her packet of Ask Mack letters once before, hadn’t he?

  Before he shut the door, she saw him examining the seam of the outside envelope. Then there was the disquieting sound of muffled chuckling coming through the door panels.

  “I can hear you,” she whispered through the keyhole. “Don’t you dare open that.”

  “Go to bed.”

  Mandy straightened and rested her palm against the polished wood. It would be so easy to knock again and insist Darby hand her letter back. But if she didn’t do this now, she knew deep within that she’d never do anything. If, by some miracle, Mama relented and allowed Mandy to stay and work the ranch with Papa—like she’d always wanted—she’d likely never marry. And if she left for Denver, then she’d certainly never marry Adam Booker. Of course, on her current course, there was still no assurance, none whatsoever, that she’d marry him in the near future, but if she didn’t try—didn’t take this chance—she had a very bad feeling her one chance would be gone, and she’d never get it back.

  Did she really want to let her one chance at love slip away?

  Mandy slowly let her fingers trail off Darby’s door and dropped her hand to her side. The action felt so final, like she could very well be sentencing her heart to death. Or at least a very cold dose of heartache, anyway. She rubbed her arms, trying to chase away a sudden inner chill. She rushed back to her room as quickly as she could in the dark, endeavoring to make no noise.

  The next week passed. The longest week ever. Mandy slogged up the back steps of the ranch house and across the porch. It was still early in the morning, but long after her father and Darby had left for the stables and after her own morning chores had been completed.

  As she entered the kitchen, the heady smell of toasted coconut greeted her. She paused just inside the doorway, inhaling that sweet familiar smell that took her back to younger years.

  Mama was cooking with Emma and Juliana. They were laughing and talking as they busied about the kitchen gathering ingredients—flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, soda, cream of tartar, the coconut flakes, already lightly toasted, a pitcher of milk. And bowls, baking pans, and mixing tools too. They laid them all out on the long worktable, happy as can be.

  It was a strange thing—always—watching them bake together.

  What drew them to it?

  Whenever Mandy had to bake, she wasn’t truly in the kitchen, not inside her heart. She was outside with the horses, riding, roping, helping her father... That’s where she felt the most alive. Not here, surrounded by white-washed walls, cabinets, spoons, and pans.

  No.

  When she went to live with Aunt Libby—if she went to live with Aunt Libby—what would her life be like then?

  Mama noticed her standing there and smiled, her eyes alight with secrets. It was Papa’s birthday, and even though she always made him a towering seven-layer iced coconut cake—and the days of it being a secret were long past—she seemed to thrive on her small attempts at subterfuge.

  “Mandy,” she said, in that way of welcoming another pair of helping hands, “wipe down that
table and fetch the eggs out of the icebox.”

  Mandy inclined her head, caught in their web now.

  Why had she felt the need to come inside for a glass of milk? She could have pumped cold water into her hands and had a drink outside just as easily. But no, she’d wanted milk. And now it looked as if the milk was about to be gone. She sneaked a small glass before Mama could protest. Really, it was the tiniest of servings, barely enough to wet her whistle.

  After wiping down the work table, Mandy retrieved a large ceramic bowl from the icebox. She set it among the other ingredients. Soon, the four brown and white hens eggs inside were glistening with moisture.

  Mama glanced at the eggs with a frown. “I thought we had more.”

  “Darby made eggs for breakfast,” Mandy said.

  “Half a dozen?”

  She shrugged helplessly, thinking at least her cousin knew how to fry up his own eggs in the morning. Breakfast was a catch-as-catch-can affair since Mama wasn’t always up at dawn. She often had trouble sleeping, and on the mornings afterwards Papa would sneak about, giving them all a stern warning glance. Like this morning.

  “Could you find me some more?” Mama asked, waving a whisk in Mandy’s direction. Sleeping in had given her a healthy glow.

  “I already gathered this morning,” Mandy warned, hoping her mother wouldn’t get her hopes up too high.

  “Well, perhaps you missed a few? We need more for the cake.”

  Seven-layer coconut cake, Papa’s favorite. Mandy’s favorite. Evidently, it required a hefty portion of eggs? She’d never paid much attention.

  “I’ll look,” Mandy said, already backing toward the door, eager to escape into the sunshine. She slipped out onto the back porch and breathed in deep. It was the kind of cool crisp summer day that came around now and again, where the sky was bluer than blue and the mountains seemed content with their majestic presence, restful. After the hot spell they’d had the past few days, crisp air was a refreshing change.

  And Mandy needed to be refreshed. She wanted to feel content and restful too. At peace.