Aaron snipped right above the five-leaf node. He frowned at the cut flower for a second before tossing it in the wheelbarrow. “All right, where do I cut next?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes while shaking his head, and Aaron did his best not to let the boy’s arrogance bother him. If Jimmy could make an adult angry or frustrated, he’d do so relentlessly. Exactly why the McClain women were having such a hard time with him.
Jimmy repeated his directions, and Aaron cut the branches he pointed to. When he stood and saw how much of the plant was gone, he nearly had an apoplectic fit.
“Don’t worry. Cutting is supposed to give the plant energy for more flowers.”
Except murdered plants couldn’t produce any flowers. And yet he couldn’t argue against the premise. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am.”
He’d thought he was right about everything when he was thirteen too. Of course, if someone had told him he wasn’t back then, he’d have turned a deaf ear.
This row of roses was either going to be a mass of blooms or a complete failure.
Had he earned enough of the boy’s respect to give him any advice yet? “You know”—he moved to start pruning another bush—“I think I see the sense in cutting less-than-stellar branches, though it feels wrong. I mean, I was an awful person years ago and couldn’t become a better man until I cut out a lot of how I thought and acted.”
Jimmy blew out a dismissive breath. “Whatever. I’ve met awful people. You just thought you were bad.”
“And are you bad?”
The boy rolled his eyes again, but considering the slight grin, he did think he was bad—and reveled in it.
“I’ve been watching you. You don’t listen to authority, you shove Owen every time he walks by, and you know more curses than most men. Not many people like you, Jimmy.”
“So? Feeling’s mutual.” Jimmy shrugged.
“I was like you once.” Aaron clipped a dead stem. “I was lashing out all the time because a man meaner than the both of us hurt me real good.” Seeing others enjoy their life used to make Aaron feel even more wretched, especially people like Mercy, whose deformity should’ve made her unhappy.
Why he’d thought making others miserable would make him feel better, he didn’t know, but by the time he’d realized it was wrong, he’d done so many awful things it felt easier to continue than make up for it all.
“No one’s hurt me.”
Aaron glanced over at Jimmy. The boy’s body had gone stiff, and his jaw tightened.
He turned to prune more. “Maybe not, but you have anger problems, as do I. As a boy, I just let the rage out whenever I felt it. Made me feel better somewhat. But I didn’t realize until later I was mostly hurting myself.”
Jimmy’s gaze was fixated on the plants. “You can’t cut out pain like you can cut off a flower.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe your story.”
“You’re right. You can’t cut out pain like that. What I cut out were the habits I’d gotten into trying to ignore the pain. The only thing I’ve found that diminishes deep hurt is prayer.”
“Prayer? That’s what you’re selling me?” Jimmy’s scoff could likely be heard all the way up at the mansion.
Yes, indeed, Jimmy sounded just like him. What if their bullying ways stemmed from the same trauma? “Prayer might not work right away, but if you—”
“I think you’ve figured out how to prune well enough.” Jimmy stood and waved a dismissive hand before storming away.
Aaron laid down his shears and blew out a breath. Telling Jimmy to pray had definitely been right, but he understood why the boy wouldn’t want to—the fear that God would reject him, wasn’t powerful enough to fix him, or would expect too much.
A giggle up near the mansion caught his attention, and he couldn’t help but smile at Owen running away from Mercy, but not fast enough to avoid being caught and tickled again.
Was God expecting too much of him to adopt Owen?
If he was going to adopt the boy, he had to find a way to get past Owen’s fear of him. He didn’t want to push him, but staying away too long might convince Mercy he didn’t care.
But he did.
They’d both been born into a terrible situation, and he knew how poorly things could go if the wrong adult got ahold of an innocent child.
Of course, Lowe wouldn’t knowingly put a child in a bad situation, but Aaron knew how some people could hide who they really were from the world.
And yet, the red-light district was out there for all to see. He’d visited several saloons in California when he’d had money enough to try winning a round of cards, but he’d not once seen a child there. Was there anything that could be done to get children out before they were orphaned?
He watched Mercy start toward the garden hand in hand with Owen.
Aaron picked up his pruners and went back to clipping. Hopefully she’d pass quickly so Owen wouldn’t notice him. If the boy shied away, like he did every time he came near, it wouldn’t help her opinion of his parenting potential.
Mercy stopped beside him with Owen pressed against her legs.
Seemed she was about to see how much the boy feared him firsthand.
Aaron snipped the last branch, his hands growing slick inside his gloves, and then looked up. “What can I do for you, Miss McClain?” He stood, taking a step back so Owen wouldn’t feel crowded.
Mercy looked down at the boy tucked up against her. “Owen wanted to play marbles, but Max isn’t interested and Robert’s still working on whatever math problems you gave him. I’m not really good at marbles, so would you be willing?”
He blinked. She was inviting him to play with them?
She raised her eyebrows.
He took a glance down at Owen practically plastered against her legs, then back at her.
Both of them were as stiff as pipes, making him feel as if he were an honest-to-goodness fairy-tale ogre.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any marbles.” He’d once had everything from aggies to onionskins—for if bullies bothered to play a game, they did so to dominate—but he’d sold them the day his mother informed him his uncle would be returning to town. He’d needed all the money he could to get away from Teaville.
Mercy shook her head. “We don’t let the children play for keeps. You can imagine how that might go.” She held up a small bag. “We share Mr. Lowe’s marbles.”
“All right.” He dropped his gloves into the wheelbarrow.
She pointed to their right. “The ring’s under that tree.” She patted Owen’s back and started forward with him.
The five-year-old looked over his shoulder as she led him away, clearly not excited about Aaron joining them. But evidently he wanted to play badly enough that he followed Mercy without a fuss.
Aaron wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs. He’d begun to think Mercy would never give him a chance to earn her trust. He couldn’t mess this up.
Under the tree, he grabbed a stick and deepened the grooves of the ring where the children had played enough times the grass had given up its will to live.
Mercy kneeled and opened the bag while Owen stood chewing on his lip.
Aaron smiled, but the boy didn’t smile back. Instead, he crossed behind Mercy—to get as far away from Aaron as he could.
“We have four taws.” Mercy pulled out the largest of the marbles and showed them to Owen. “Which would you like?”
The boy chose a blue-and-green cat’s-eye and then looked at Aaron as if afraid he’d come close to pick his own.
Thankfully, Mercy tossed him a clay one. He crouched next to the taw line. “Let’s just go youngest to oldest. We’re playing Ringer, yes?”
Mercy nodded and set up the alleys in the middle of the ring. Owen did nothing but watch him intently. If Owen hadn’t spoken to him the day he’d hidden under the desk, he’d have believed the boy mute.
He tried another smile and nodded toward the boy. “Go ahead.”
Owen took one last glance at him before
he knuckled down and shot, missing the marbles completely. Then Mercy hit a candy-striped glassy with hardly any force. She hadn’t been kidding when she said she wasn’t a good player.
Seemed he’d have to hold himself back. He shot his taw and simply scattered the line. He sighed as if he’d thought he’d get one. “Thank you for inviting me to play.” He looked up at the rustling trees. “It’s nice to get out of the sun.”
Owen shrugged and took his turn, hitting a glassy out of the ring before he moved to go again.
Mercy picked at the straggly grass while she watched Owen hit another marble out.
After another round, Aaron settled himself in for perhaps the quietest game of marbles he’d ever played, but he’d not complain. He could use the time to prove he wasn’t a terrible man—not anymore. He took a shot, barely hitting anything.
Mercy glanced at him but quickly looked back to Owen, who was trying to line up a shot.
Could she tell he was throwing the game? Hopefully. If she could see he’d put Owen’s needs above his own ego, that would move him up in her estimation, right?
On his next turn, he took three marbles before he made sure to miss.
Robert came up behind them. “I’ve finished my work. Can I play?”
Aaron looked to Mercy. “You said you had four taws?”
She nodded and pulled out the steely.
While Robert took his first turn, not at all holding back his skills, Mercy seemed distracted by something in the garden.
Robert groaned when he left a dead duck.
Aaron nudged Mercy. “It’s your turn.”
“Skip me.” She got up and brushed off her dress. “I’m going to check on Jimmy.”
Jimmy? In the garden? Aaron threw his next shot so he could move to see whatever Mercy had been looking at.
Jimmy was a few feet away from the abandoned root cellar, his back to Mercy. The boy glanced around before darting inside.
Owen knocked Robert’s taw from the ring and hooted with triumph. Aaron tried to keep his attention on the boys but couldn’t keep himself from watching Mercy make her way down the hill. What was it about her that made it so hard to look away, especially when she wasn’t watching him?
“What’re you looking at?” Robert’s voice startled him.
“It’s your turn,” Owen said.
He really needed to get his head back where it belonged. His relationship with Owen was much more important than whatever Mercy was doing. “Oh, nothing. Sorry.” He moved to knuckle down from across the circle.
“You weren’t looking at nothing.” Robert stared at him as if he could see inside his head. “You were looking at Miss McClain.”
“Well, yes. I was watching Mercy.” Mesmerized by her was more like it.
“Mercy?” Robert’s eyebrows dropped even more. “Don’t tell me you’re going to get friendly with Miss McClain. There aren’t a lot of ladies who’d love kids like us. If she gets married, we’ll only have Mrs. McClain.” Robert’s lip curled. “And though she sometimes acts like she likes us, you can tell she thinks we’re dirty. Even when Jimmy’s mean to Miss McClain, she doesn’t—”
Aaron held up a hand to stop Robert before the boy got redder in the face. “No need to fret. I won’t be marrying Miss McClain.”
Robert pulled his head back. “Is it because of her missing hand? Why, she can make a bed faster and write prettier than me left-handed.”
“It’s not because of her arm.” Aaron worked hard not to smile. In a blink, Robert had gone from not wanting him to marry Mercy to being mad he wouldn’t. “I have nothing against her. She’s a very nice woman who I can tell cares for you as much as you say she does. But it is she who would have nothing to do with me.”
“Oh, well . . .” Robert scanned him as if trying to determine why Mercy would reject him. “Fine, then. Are you going to go?” He pointed at the three marbles left.
Though he told himself to focus on the game, he missed his shot and then couldn’t help but take a quick look past the garden.
Because he was worried about Jimmy, of course.
Mercy was standing just outside the cellar in front of Jimmy, pointing up to the mansion.
Jimmy shrugged a shoulder and turned to walk up the hill with Mercy following.
The boy hadn’t even protested?
What had he been doing in that cellar? “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” He pushed off the ground.
“Are you quitting?” Robert’s voice descended with disappointment.
“Can you get Miss McClain to come back?” Owen looked up at him, though he was still wide-eyed like a frightened rabbit.
As much as he wanted to promise Owen whatever he could to get himself into the five-year-old’s good graces, breaking a promise would be worse. “I’ll do my best. But if not, I’ll be right back.”
Owen didn’t seem excited about that answer, but he didn’t appear angry either.
As Mercy followed Jimmy up the hill, Aaron strode down toward the cellar. Had the boy started smoking there now after the women had taken away his pipe and tobacco?
When he entered the half-buried cellar, there was no smell of smoke. He let his eyes adjust to the interior and saw nothing but the pile of rubble he’d seen the day he surveyed the grounds. Cleaning this cellar was on his list of things to be done, but he likely wouldn’t get to it until fall with how things were going.
Coming back out into the afternoon light, he caught Jimmy glaring at him before he disappeared inside the mansion. Mercy ducked her head inside for a moment but didn’t go in, and she soon turned back for the marble game.
Aaron sped up to catch her. “Thank you for inviting me to play marbles with Owen. He’s been leery of me, because I’m a stranger, I’m guessing. Your approval of my presence seems to have helped him warm up to me.”
“Well . . .” She kept her focus on the boys. “Owen deserves a good home. Though you said you’d wait six months, I think it best we find out quickly whether or not he should live with you. I don’t want him to miss an opportunity for a good home in the meantime.”
It was all he could do to keep walking beside her and not just stop and hang his head.
She was only helping him get to know Owen because of practicality and doubt. He shook his head as he continued on. It shouldn’t matter why she’d done it; he should just be thankful she had. “I hope you’ll see what you need to see to make a good decision.”
She turned to look up at him. “I certainly want to make the right one.”
“As do I.” Now that they were closer to the boys, he’d keep from arguing his case. The best thing he could do was show her he’d changed. Not only so she’d trust him with Owen, but so they could be on friendlier terms.
Any more than that—as he’d told Robert—was out of his reach.
10
Taking her time, Mercy started up the mansion’s hill. The breeze was laden with the smell of freshly cut grass—a reminder of Aaron’s presence, even if she couldn’t see him.
It was almost as if he were inescapable, just like when they were children. Thankfully her fear of him being outright mean to the orphans seemed to be just that, a fear with nothing but memories behind it. But were several weeks of good behavior enough for her to believe he could be trusted?
The young lady they’d interviewed for the math position earlier today was highly unqualified, even a bit skittish. She obviously would not get the men’s votes.
If Mercy voted for Miss Edison over Aaron, the men’s opinion of her would go down drastically.
Thankfully there were two others to be interviewed before next month’s meeting. Though if Aaron had really changed, maybe their past truly was hindering her from being impartial. The other applicants—for all she knew—could have been terrible children too, and could be terrible women now. She didn’t know them. She had no idea how they behaved in public, much less behind closed doors.
When she crested the rise, the Lowes’ wagon, piled with crates
and trunks, was parked under the portico. Max and Robert pulled what looked like pieces of a small bed off the back and took them inside. Why would Nicholas have furniture delivered to the mansion? Nearly every week, the staff reported something of value being broken and discarded. Nicholas said he’d put all the mansion’s fragile and valuable stuff in storage, yet the children still found things to destroy.
Aaron came out the front door, and his eyes went directly to her, as they always seemed to do. It was as if he looked for her at all times.
She tried to give him a smile.
He cocked his head, as if he wasn’t certain she knew what she was doing.
And she wasn’t certain either. But if the next applicants were as incompetent as the woman this morning, the teaching position would be his. So it would be best to work on having as little tension between them as possible. She stopped by the side of the wagon just as he reached the back. “What’s all this?”
“The Lowes’ things.” He yanked two small trunks toward him but stopped before picking either up. “There’s been a fire—”
She grabbed his upper arm. “Are they all right?”
He gave her a slight smile, which sort of looked . . . charming. “They are. The fire was at the lumber mill.”
“Oh.” She let go of him and looked toward the trunks. Stupid of her to think they’d have this much stuff if their house had burned down. “But if their house didn’t burn, why are they moving their furniture here?” She looked toward town. A single tendril of lazy smoke wandered up to join the clouds above where the lumber mill was located—or had been anyway. She’d smelled smoke on her way in to town but had assumed a farmer was burning his pasture. The fire must’ve been put out early this morning.
“Mr. Lowe says the lumber mill is gone, as are four of the neighboring houses. Two men were hurt, and four families are without homes, three of which have no extended family in town, so the Lowes are letting them live at their place until they figure out what to do.”
“Are the men hurt badly?”
“I believe so, but not to the point their lives are at risk. Nicholas is seeing to them. Lydia is getting the families settled in at the house.”
A Chance at Forever Page 8
