Twice Blessed

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “It looks like dirt.”

  “It isn’t dirt. It’s cake. Try it.”

  Sean hesitated, then dug his fork into the cake, taking mostly frosting and only a few crumbs of cake. That he was willing to trust Belinda and not either Emma or Gladys was yet another reminder of how he had lived in a world where no adult was trustworthy. He might trust Emma enough to work for her and let her offer him a room in her house, but he could not believe she would not sit and watch while he was served dirt on a fine china plate.

  Slowly he raised the fork to his mouth. He sucked the piece of cake off from it so quickly that she knew he barely trusted Belinda as well. He gasped and dug his fork into the cake, this time getting less of the icing and more of the cake. He bent over the plate, eating it so quickly that Emma feared he would choke.

  Noah laughed and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You don’t have to wolf it down. There’s plenty of cake, because Gladys always makes two. So enjoy it and have another piece if you want.”

  “What is it?” Sean asked, his eyes wide.

  “Chocolate cake.” Emma hesitated before asking, “Haven’t you had chocolate cake before?”

  “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t forget something that tasted like this. It may look like dirt, but it tastes like heaven.”

  Gladys choked back a gasp, but Emma knew this proud boy would not want anyone’s sympathy. Reaching for another piece of cake, she put it on a plate and set it in front of where Belinda had been sitting. The little girl rushed around the table to enjoy her own dessert.

  In the most off-hand voice she could manage, Emma said, “If you think this is good, Sean, wait until summer comes and we make ice cream.”

  “Ice cream?” He paused, leaving his fork halfway to his mouth. His eyes glistened with excitement. “You have ice cream here in Indiana?”

  “We will in the summer, when there’s nothing better than to sit on the porch and enjoy a big bowl.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “What do you mean, Sean?” Noah asked. “Why wouldn’t it be just fine to enjoy some ice cream?”

  Sean looked around the table, then put his fork back on his nearly empty plate. “I know you all have been trying to be nice to me, but I do know how to fire a gun.”

  “Do you now?” Noah glanced at Emma and was not surprised to see her face abruptly pale. No doubt, she was imagining this lad helping himself to someone’s Colt and firing it off on Haven’s street. She had let her generous heart persuade her to take in this child, but now she was having to deal with the reality of an urchin who had survived the tough streets of New York on his own.

  “Sure.” He grinned, his thin chest puffing with pride. “I learned from Dickie when I started doing errands for him in Satan’s Circus.”

  Gladys made a choking sound as if she had swallowed a chicken bone.

  “Satan’s Circus?” Noah asked carefully.

  “That’s the name some preacher gave to the area where I lived around Fifth Avenue and Thirtieth Street.” Sean took another bite of cake, oblivious to the sudden silence around the table. “Dickie kept a saloon and a bordello. He sometimes let me sweep up, which was good because then some kind gent would let me finish his dinner while he went off with Gini or Mabel or one of the other gals. Usually I just ran errands for him. Then I got a penny to buy my own supper.”

  “Sean,” Emma began, “this isn’t conversation for—”

  “Let me.” Noah pushed back his chair. “Sean, come with me.”

  “Where?” asked the boy, again the wary youngster who had tried to flee in Haven.

  “Guns aren’t a topic for ladies. Let’s go in the kitchen and talk man to man.”

  Sean stood, but brought his plate with him as he went out into the kitchen.

  At Emma’s soft call of his name, Noah turned to see her on her feet, too. Her eyes looked almost as apprehensive as Sean’s. That annoyed him more than he expected. By Jiggs! Did she expect him to take a hickory stick to the lad in his own kitchen? She should understand he wanted to keep Belinda and poor Gladys, who looked about ready to swoon, from hearing the lad’s sordid tales.

  He did not answer her as he went into the kitchen. As the door closed, he heard Emma asking Gladys if she needed a cool cloth for her forehead. Emma would be able to deal with his housekeeper. He needed to concentrate on finding out how much Sean knew about guns and firing them before the boy did something foolish like trying to show someone his skill.

  This room was Gladys’s realm, so she must have been very distressed to let him bring the boy in here without following after to be sure they did not jostle any of her cooking dishes or touch the big black stove that was set between two windows that gave a view of the area she planned to turn into a vegetable garden. Lightning flashed through the window and sparked its reflection in the water bucket by the back door. At the square table in the middle of room, Sean sat, finishing up his cake as his feet swung back and forth inches above the rag rug.

  As the thunder sounded, closer than before, Noah glanced toward the window again. No rain yet. Maybe it was just a noise show that would pass the river valley by and head north, away from this watershed.

  Noah pulled out the bench across from Sean. Sitting, he asked, “What did you mean by it not being safe to eat ice cream on Emma’s front porch?”

  “Indians, of course.”

  “What?” He fought not to laugh. All of this was about something so silly?

  “This is Indiana, right?” Sean asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So there must be Indians here!”

  Noah feared he would choke on his laughter, but kept it from bursting forth as he said, “I’m sure there are, and I’m equally sure they’re living in farm houses like this now, not tipis.”

  “Miss Delancy doesn’t seem to be scared of them,” Sean said as if he had not heard Noah. “She drives around without a gun in her wagon. She opened the door in the middle of the night when you brought the dog to have her take care of it. There could have been wild Indiana Indians on the other side, ready to take her scalp.” He grimaced. “Women don’t have a lick of sense, sometimes.”

  “Now who told you that?” This time, he could not keep from chuckling. He doubted if he had ever met a more sensible woman than Emma Delancy, for she ran her business with such good business judgment.

  “Dickie.”

  Noah smiled. “You might be better off not mentioning your friend Dickie around here.”

  “Do you think some of his enemies will chase me out here and try to get me to tell them all of Dickie’s secrets?”

  “Maybe.” He hated lying to the boy, but Sean needed to live in this small town instead of the foul streets where he had eked out a way to keep from starving until someone must have sent him to the Children’s Aid Society. “Nice ladies don’t like to hear about those sort of things.”

  “Oh.” Sean’s eyes grew round as he nodded. “I should have remembered that.”

  “Good.” Standing, he smiled when he realized Sean’s wide eyes were focused on the chocolate cake. “Do you want some more?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Sawyer. I sure would.”

  “Help yourself to as much as you’d like.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sawyer.” He reached for the knife.

  “All the knives in this house are for cooking and eating. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Sawyer.”

  “And no guns here or in Miss Delancy’s house or the store.”

  “But what if some thief comes in and tries to steal from her?”

  Noah shook his head. “Not even then. Sheriff Parker is in Haven to take care of such things. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Sawyer.”

  Noah suspected the boy would have agreed to just about anything if Noah would stop talking so Sean could have another piece of cake. He saw the boy set the knife to cut a huge slab. Sean glanced at him and shifted the knife to a more reasonably sized piece.

  More than e
ver, Noah was certain Emma had absolutely no idea of what she had let herself in for with this kid. Had he when Belinda came into his life? But at least he had known her from the day she was born. He wondered how many more secrets Sean held in his past and how Emma would handle them.

  Secrets …

  He pushed through the door and back into the dining room before that thought could take form. This was not the time to let unspoken secrets intrude. He had worked too hard for too long to make a mistake now.

  Emma knelt on the floor to tuck the blanket under the pallet where Sean would sleep tonight. On the bed set beneath the window that sliced through the slanted ceiling, Belinda was already asleep. On the bottom of her bed, the puppy was sleeping with its head on its paws. The bandage on its back leg glowed like an angel’s wings in the light from the hallway.

  In a whisper, she said, “If you need anything, Sean, I’ll be in the room right across the hall.”

  “Miss Delancy?”

  “Yes?” She wished he would call her Emma as Belinda already did, but she must wait until he was comfortable enough to believe he could live here in Haven for as long as he wanted.

  “If we stay here tonight, Cleo and Queenie and Butch won’t have anyone to look after them.”

  “Alice Underhill always comes over to check on them when she sees that the wagon hasn’t returned. Sometimes my deliveries take even longer than today’s.”

  His nose wrinkled. “The schoolteacher?”

  “One and the same. She’s a good friend.”

  “Why would anyone have a teacher for a friend?”

  Emma heard Noah’s muted laugh from the doorway. She hoped Sean did not, because he needed to learn to fit in at school and to do his lessons. Alice had told her that, for now, Sean was the only one off the orphan train who was attending the village school. Maybe the situation would be easier when some of the other children from the train came to school.

  “Miss Underhill will check on the animals,” she replied, “so you can get some rest. If you need to get up for any reason, don’t wake Belinda.”

  “I know how to be quiet. I could tiptoe in and out of any crib without anyone being the wiser.”

  “Crib?” she asked.

  Noah cleared his throat before saying, “He’s speaking of a bordello, Emma.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sean went on. “I’ll be quiet, and I’ll be here to let Belinda know that the thunder won’t harm her. Just as I did for Kitty Cat in New York.”

  “You had a kitten?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Kitty Cat is a little girl. Her real name is Katherine Mulligan, and she came here with me on the train. Me and Brendan Rafferty took care of all the little ones on the way here.” His smile wavered, and tears rose up into his eyes. “I hope Kitty Cat is all right.”

  She brushed a stubborn cowlick back from his forehead. “I can ask Reverend Faulkner which family she is with. Then maybe you can go and see her.”

  “I know where she is. I saw her today.”

  “At Mr. Hammond’s farm?”

  He shook his head. “At the last place we stopped.”

  Emma stiffened, but kept her smile from vanishing. The last place they had stopped was the River’s Haven Community. Although she did business with the residents there, she did not approve of their odd ways of having what she had heard described as ever-changing marriages.

  “Why don’t you go to sleep now?” She came to her feet and slipped out of the room.

  Noah left the door open a crack, then turned to her. The hall seemed abruptly too narrow, making her feel as if drawing in a single breath would be dangerous. He did not move, and she did not dare. Would her feet carry her toward the stairs or into his arms? She could not risk finding out.

  She was unsure if he sensed her disquiet, but he motioned toward the stairs. When he stepped back so she could pass, she rushed down the steps, her petticoats whispering behind her. She paused at the base of the stairs. This was not her home, so she could not wander about without an invitation.

  Again she wondered if he could read her very thoughts, because he said, “Let’s go into the parlor where we can sit and talk more comfortably.”

  “Thank you.” She entered the room and faltered. The furnishings were, like the ones in the dining room, an exact copy of a page out of a catalog. Every item was here, just as it should be, from the brass andirons on the hearth to the painting of a snowy winter hill on the opposite wall. The sofa and its matching chair were covered in burgundy fabric that was the perfect complement to the braided rug that reached nearly to each wall.

  Only one thing was different. A photograph of a young woman was the sole item set on the mantel. Wanting to ask if that was Noah’s late wife, she forced her gaze away from it as she sat on the sofa that was stiff with newness.

  “I think the storm has passed,” Emma said to keep the silence from becoming overwhelming.

  “The one outside? Yes, thank heavens.” He sat on the chair to her left, surprising her. She had thought he would sit beside her. Maybe he had his own reasons for being cautious so that what had happened by the creek did not occur again. He let his clasped hands dangle between his knees as he leaned toward her. “What about the one inside you?”

  “Inside me?”

  “You went as rigid as a tree trunk upstairs when Sean was talking about his friend.”

  “It wasn’t because of his friend. It was because he was speaking of the River’s Haven Community.”

  “Ah. When he told you that the little girl was at River’s Haven, you were bothered more than when you heard about Sean’s activities in New York.”

  “His activities in New York are a part of his past now. What goes on out there is right here.”

  He sat straighter. “That statement doesn’t sound like you, Emma. You’ve always seemed to me to be the champion of the misunderstood.”

  In spite of herself, she laughed. “Is that how you really see me?”

  “That was my first impression.”

  “Noah, I don’t care what those who live out at River’s Haven do. What I care about is Sean making friends and a home in Haven. If he pays calls out there, even to call on that little girl, he may be ostracized in town.”

  “You care a lot about this boy, don’t you?”

  “Someone must. I don’t think anyone else ever has. Maybe the folks at the Children’s Aid Society, but they ripped him out of the city that has been all he’s ever known.”

  Something struck the window like a dozen small pebbles, and Emma flinched. Turning, she saw water washing down the glass. Pebbles would have been better than rain when the creek was so high.

  Noah muttered something under his breath and stood. Going to the window, he put his face close to the glass to peer out into the night.

  “Unless you have the eyes of a cat,” she said to his back, “you aren’t going to see much.”

  “You’re right.” Walking back to the middle of the room, he added, “Gladys said she would leave the coffeepot on. Do you want a cup?”

  “At this hour? I shan’t sleep a wink all night if I drink coffee now.”

  “Then sit with me while I have a cup.” He scowled at the window, where rain pelted the glass. “It may be a long night.”

  She looked at the window. The lamp’s glow made the night a solid black wall beyond the window. Rising, she went to the front door and opened it. She stepped out onto the porch and listened.

  Beneath the patter of the rain that was quickly growing heavy, she heard the unceasing roar of running water. She gripped the back of a rocking chair set to one side of the door next to the porch swing.

  Knowing Noah had followed her outside, for she had heard his quiet footsteps, she said, “The creek is probably halfway up the road to here.”

  “I hope you’re wrong. If the water has come that far, then all the wood I cut this week may be floating down into the Ohio. My only hope is that the logs will be caught by the standing trees downstream.” He walked t
oward the steps to the yard.

  “I’m right.” She put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Don’t go. The water is already too high and too fast for you to get back to your woodlot. I’m sorry, Noah, but I can tell by the sound of the water rushing past that it’s about a quarter mile past the bridge.”

  “You can tell that just by the noise?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been in Haven for over seven years now. I’ve seen the Ohio and the small creeks rise more quickly than you could believe possible. Here, along the river, anyone who doesn’t pay attention to nature’s signs is going to be in trouble. It would have been better and safer if the snow had melted more slowly.”

  “The snow was gone here before we moved in.”

  “But it takes longer to melt up in the hills and mountains east of here. All that water rushes down into the Ohio faster than the river can hold it.” She jumped back as wind blew rain onto the porch. “That’s why Haven is built up on the hill, not along the shore. It got flooded out when it was first built, and folks were smart enough not to let it happen again.”

  He stared through the darkness. “Something makes me suspect Collis sold this farm to me because he was tired of the water flowing out of the creek.”

  “No,” she said with a soft sigh. “He left because his wife and baby sickened with measles and died last fall. I don’t think he could bear to look at this place, because it was so full of memories. He told me he was moving out west, but I think he was running away.”

  “Do you blame him?”

  “Of course not. Lots of people run away for lots of reasons.” She wanted to bite back the words, but it was too late.

  Noah turned to face her. In the light that filtered through the dining room curtains, she could see his expression—a mixture of amazement and wariness. Why would he be upset by her stupid remark? Unless … through the window she could see the obviously new furniture. She searched his face, looking for sorrow. When she found it in the lines threading his forehead, lines she had not taken note of before, her own eyes swam with tears. Were Noah and his sweet little daughter fleeing tragedy, too? Not even a whisper of gossip in Haven hinted at what had happened to his wife. Maybe she had died as devastatingly as Mr. Collis’s wife and child.