“Good night,” she whispered.
“It could have been.” His quick kiss threatened to blister her lips with its delicious fire. “Sleep well, sweetheart.” Seizing her shoulders, he relit the flame on her mouth with his fervor. When he released her, he whispered, “Sleep well tonight, sweetheart.”
She watched him walk up the stairs, but turned to go into the kitchen. It was going to be a very long night, and she needed every minute of it to think about what she was going to do about this longing for Noah Sawyer.
“I’ll be with you in just a moment, Mr. Hammond,” Emma said as she added another item to the lengthy list in front of her on the counter. She was keeping a tab for each of her customers, who would pay her when their crops were sold in the fall. Also, she needed to know what to order by telegraph down at the railroad station later today. The trains were still running on the north-south rail, but she was not sure how long that would continue. The waters were inching closer and closer to the town.
The store was a chaotic mess, as she had guessed it would be. Although she had come to unlock the door before the clouds lightened with the rising sun, there were four customers waiting for her. All were looking for supplies to keep them going while they tried to stave off the rising waters. The rain had slowed from last night’s cloudburst, but was still falling.
“Let me help you with that,” came Noah’s voice from the other side of the store.
He lifted a box down to hand to Mrs. Asbury. A box of self-rising bread mix, she noted. When he handed her a can of lard as well, Emma guessed Mrs. Asbury was planning to make bread to send to the families who were refugees from the flood.
As Emma finished adding up one customer’s purchases, it seemed two more arrived. She smiled as she saw the children’s delight with the candy jars she had set down where they could reach them. Belinda sat on a wooden kitchen chair next to the jars and announced to each child that the candy was free today.
“She’d be a good barker at a circus,” Emma said as Noah came behind the counter to stack cans of beans for Reverend Faulkner, who had welcomed three families to live in the parsonage and four more who were sleeping in the meeting room at the side of the church.
“She’s enjoying being the center of attention with all the older children gathered around her.” He chuckled. “Since she met Sean, she’s been asking me to send her to school here in town so she can see the other children.”
“It would be a good idea.”
“Not until the flood waters go down.”
She could not miss the frustration in his voice and the regret in his eyes. Early this morning, he had tried to get back across the creek to check on his house. The bridge was still there, but the water was flowing over it now. He had been forced to turn back.
“How much, Emma?” asked Reverend Faulkner, drawing her attention back to him.
“Take them. No charge.”
“Emma!” The minister wagged a finger at her. “I’ve heard you say that over and over. You’ll put yourself out of business with such generosity.” He tapped the counter. “You tell me the fair price for these cans.”
“A dollar.” She kept her smile in place, guessing that he knew as well as she did that a dozen cans of beans and another dozen of deviled meat usually cost at least twice that amount.
He drew out his wallet and placed a dollar on the counter. “A down payment only, Emma. I’ll pay for the rest when I can.”
“Reverend, there’s no need. It’s the very least I can do for those who are flooded out.”
He looked past her to Noah and smiled. “I’d say you are doing considerably more than the very least, Emma.” He tipped his somber hat to her. “Pray that the rain will stop soon.”
“I have been!”
With a laugh, the minister edged out of the way so the next customer could reach the counter.
Emma was kept so busy the rest of the morning she did not realize it was past the time for lunch until her stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl. Before she could say anything to Mrs. Pelletier, who was staring at her in amazement, a sandwich was held out to her. She looked over her shoulder to see Gladys holding a very full plate of ham sandwiches.
“Just what I needed,” Emma said with a smile.
“What you need is to take a few minutes to sit and eat without working.” Noah gently elbowed her aside. “Go and eat. I’ll take over here.”
She pointed to the list. “Put each item sold on here, and then you should—”
“I think I can handle it.” He ran the back of his hand along her cheek. “Trust me, sweetheart.”
She heard the buzz of whispered comments from the other side of the counter, but she paid them no mind. Smiling at Noah, she said, “I do trust you.”
“Because you’ll be just over there watching everything I do?”
She laughed. “Exactly.”
Slipping from behind the counter that was almost as bare as the store shelves were becoming, she sat on an empty cracker barrel next to the stove that was valiantly trying to fight back the dampness. Rain splattered in each time the door opened, and the floor had pools left by the water tracked in on boots.
Belinda came over and sat next to her in a rocking chair. The little girl’s legs barely hung over the edge of the seat, but she got the chair rocking.
“Are you hungry?” Emma asked, holding out half of her sandwich.
“Nope. I already had two.” She giggled, then said, “I mean, no thank you.”
“You have very pretty manners, Belinda.”
“And I’m pretty.”
Emma grinned at the little girl’s lack of modesty. “Yes, you are pretty. You have big brown eyes just like Noah.”
“No, I look like my mother. Everyone says so.”
“Oh.” She did not want Belinda to know how amusing her assertion was. Cocking her head, she said, “Now that I look more closely, I think you are right.”
“Have you ever seen my mother?”
“Only in the photograph on the mantel at your house.”
Her nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t look like me. That is an all-grown-up lady.”
“Someday you’ll be an all-grown-up lady, too.”
“Maybe.” She jumped down from the rocking chair and squeezed through the patrons to pass out more candy to the children coming into the store.
Emma ate her sandwich quickly. Many of her patrons were shocked to see Noah behind the counter, and she had listened to him repeat over and over that Emma had opened her house to his household. He was repaying her by helping at the store. Knowing looks were flashed in her direction, and she simply smiled back. Let the busybodies and the gossips have fun with this. Nothing anyone did or said could tarnish her delight with the memory of Noah’s kiss.
Coming to her feet, she laughed softly. This was the first time since she had come to Haven that she delighted in her memories instead of cowering away from them.
Emma went behind the counter and tapped Noah on the shoulder. He whirled, a strained expression tensing his face. His eyes were wide and brought to mind a treed critter. He released his breath, and his smile returned.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“You startled me.”
“I’d say I did. Are you always so jumpy?”
He picked up the list and shoved it into her hand. “You have customers, and Gladys has a sandwich or two waiting for me. We’ll talk later.”
She nodded as she set the list back onto the counter. A single glance told her he had kept track of the items sold far more neatly and precisely than she. She greeted her next customer, but looked past the man to watch Noah walk out of the store. Her tap on his shoulder had unsettled him more than she ever could have anticipated.
By the time Emma had tended to her final customer, it was dark. The low clouds and the rain had brought an early night. She had to be grateful. Sleep had been sparse last night between Sean’s aching tummy and her own ache for Noah’s arms around her.
She checked the stove, banking the fire so the store would not be even damper in the morning. While she blew out the lanterns, an odd light caught her eye. She realized it was from her own house. This was the first time she had been in the store at the same time the lamps were lit in her house. The idea of going home to a well-lit house where there were others waiting for her was delicious.
However, she turned away from the soft glow. Going back to the counter, she picked up her list. The shelves, crates, and jars around the store were almost empty. No one wanted to be caught without provisions if the worst happened and the river rose to flow down Haven’s main street.
An umbrella waited by the door, and she smiled. It was hers, all dry and ready for her to use. She had lent it to Belinda to go back to the house. Someone must have returned it.
Drawing in the back of her skirt where black ruffles fell below the narrow bustle, she stepped out into the darkness. The rain was easing, no longer frantic. At any other time, she would have welcomed this rain, for it would nourish the flowers that were beginning to sprout in her yard.
She lifted her skirt and petticoats high enough to reveal the tops of her button-up shoes as she picked her way down the street. A light breeze tugged at the list she held in the same hand as the umbrella. She tightened her grip on it, and the umbrella wobbled. She righted it, but not before she got wet.
With relief, Emma threw open the door of the telegraph office, which was in the same building as the railroad offices. Kenny Martin was sitting by the telegraph, just as he seemed to do every day and every night. Even water coming up through the gaps in the wide floorboards would probably not budge him. He was young, not too many years older than Sean. With his dark hair slicked back with some sort of pomade and his shirt immaculately pressed, he never seemed to be tired. She wondered when he left the telegraph office to change shirts. Maybe he had a supply in the cupboard beyond the desk that held all his equipment.
She almost giggled. Turning to put the umbrella by the door so it would not drip water in the small office, she chided herself. Too little sleep and too much tension was making her giddy. She needed to concentrate on her task.
“Howdy, Emma,” Kenny called.
“I need an order telegraphed.”
Kenny held out his hand and whistled. “That’s quite a list.”
“I’d like you to send it to Montgomery Ward & Company up in Chicago.”
“Telegraph an order to them?” He looked as shocked as if she had told him that she was about to go ice skating on the Ohio. “They take their orders by mail, Emma.”
“Tell them this is an emergency. We’re low on supplies here, and we aren’t sure how much longer the trains will be able to run if the river keeps rising. Sign it with my name and with John Taber’s.”
“Along with his title of being Master of the Grange Hall here?”
Emma smiled. “If you would, because Montgomery Ward & Company wrote him a nice note last year when the Grange’s autumn order went in. Maybe his name will catch their attention and get the order here even more quickly. You know how they want to stay on the good side of all the Grangers and the local Granges.”
Kenny bent his head over his telegraph equipment and began to tap out the message that could be heard already in Chicago. She found it difficult to believe, as well as fascinating.
Thanking Kenny, she slipped out of the door of the telegraph office. She raised her umbrella, took a single step, and bounced off someone.
“Oh, forgive me!” she gasped. Tilting back her umbrella, she looked up at a stranger. That surprised her into silence. Very few outsiders, other than the children placed out from the orphan train, came to Haven. What was a stranger doing here in the midst of this crisis?
“My fault, miss.” He tipped his hat, then grimaced when water ran off it. “I was hurrying to get in out of the storm, and now I’m causing you to linger in it. Good evening, miss.”
She nodded and started back up the street toward the store. When she realized the man was walking behind her, she resisted the yearning to turn around and ask if he was following her. That was silly. She had thought seven years in Haven would have eased her fear of any stranger. Certainly by now the law in Kansas had given up the search for her.
Emma walked into her store without realizing where she was headed. This had become her haven, a place where she could help her neighbors and live the life she should have had in Kansas.
Something moved in the shadows, and she shrieked.
Noah stepped out of the shadows. He steered her to the rocking chair and sat her in it. Drawing up the chair Belinda had been using, he said as he sat, “You look as if you came face to face with your own ghost.”
“Do I?” She shivered and looked out the front window of the store. Let Noah think she was pale because he had startled her. And he had, but that had not upset her as much as the stranger who had followed her up the street. The man had every right to be in Haven and to go to the Andersons’ Livery Stable. She was letting her own memories haunt her. “I was down at the railroad station, and I could hear the river is higher than it has ever been.”
“And that frightens you?”
“I wish it would stop raining.”
“It will by dawn, I suspect.”
Emma took a steadying breath and nodded. “Yes, probably by dawn, but the river won’t reach its crest for several days.”
“By then everything I own may be sailing down the Mississippi.”
Sympathy ached within her. Putting her arms around his shoulders, she leaned her head against his shoulder. She wished there was something she could say, but she could not think of anything.
His fingers swept along her face and tilted her mouth beneath his. Kissing her with the strength of the emotions burning within him, he drew her closer until even the shadows inching across the floor could not come between them. She forgot the Ohio and the rain and everything but his strong arms around her and his firm body caressing her.
With a sigh, Emma drew away. “Noah, I need to—”
“I know. Let me help you.” He brushed her hair back from her face and stood. Offering his hand, he said, “One more time, I need to say thank you.”
“You? I couldn’t have dealt with the rush today if you hadn’t been here.” She put her hand on his. “I should be thanking you.”
“But keeping me busy helped me not to think of how the river might be running through my parlor now.”
“I don’t think the water is that high yet.”
“I hope you’re right.” He drew her to her feet and toward him. He did not release her hand when footsteps raced into the store.
“Supper is ready,” Belinda announced with every bit of five-year-old self-importance she could muster. “Gladys says you both need a good, hot meal and you shouldn’t dawdle.”
Noah chuckled and gave a playful tug on her braid. “We wouldn’t think of it.”
When he offered his other hand to Belinda, his daughter grabbed it and grinned. Emma walked with them to the doorway and knew that, for the first time in seven years, she felt as if she were going home. She treasured that thought, because she knew how fleeting that feeling could be.
CHAPTER TEN
Emma paused in sweeping the store’s porch and looked between the livery and Doc Bamburger’s office. The afternoon sunshine was so bright off the Ohio that she had to lower her eyes. Smiling, she continued pushing the dried mud off the boards. The rain had stopped almost a week ago, and the river and creeks were sliding back between their banks.
Her smile widened when she saw Noah coming around the corner. He had been gone long enough to reach his farm and come back with news. Waving, she lowered her hand when she saw the set of his jaw. The news, she knew, would not be good.
Without speaking, he took her hand and drew her into the store. The only person inside was Sean, who was putting some cans of meat onto the shelf at the back of the store where they would not get ruined by the heat from the stove. Noah shut
the door and turned the “closed” sign face out.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked, shocked.
“We need to talk without other ears listening.” He glanced toward Sean.
Raising her voice, she asked, “Sean, will you check the boxes of laundry soap in the storage room? I need a count of how many we received.”
“Right away, Miss Delancy.” He grinned at them before going into the storage room.
Noah closed that door, too, then walked back to her, dried mud falling from his boots with each step.
Before he could speak, she asked, “How’s the farm?”
“It’s even worse than I’d guessed from what I heard of others farms along the Ohio.” He shook his head. “The barn is gone completely. Not even a stick of wood to suggest it ever stood.”
“Noah, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged, the motion as stiff as the river mud on his sleeves. “Between the creek and the river, half of the trees in the woodlot are ripped out of the ground. The ones I’d cut before the rain came are still there, but they’ve been smashed to pieces by the force of the water.”
“And the house?”
“The house got some water on the first floor, but nothing that won’t dry.”
“That’s good news, then. You know you’re welcome to stay at my house until your house is dried out.”
“I know.” He stared at the door to the storage room, his jaw working as if he needed to fight his own words.
She put her hand on his arm, ignoring how the still damp mud there stuck to her fingers. “Noah, something else is wrong.”
“Can you read my thoughts so easily?”
“It doesn’t take much skill when every word you speak is clipped and you closed my store to talk to me privately. The loss of your barn isn’t something that needs to be discussed without others around. What does?”
His gaze caught hers, and she gasped. Fury filled his eyes, a volatile, dangerous fury that seared her, making her wonder if this could be the kind man who had held her with such tenderness. Only when he dropped something into her hand could she escape that glimpse of rage.
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