Evan was the next to join them, standing politely next to Mrs. Myers to give a warm greeting to Miranda, whom he did call by her given name, explaining to Cynthia that the two of them had been working together for years, then asking her about Betsy.
“She’s doing fine. She loves the farm.”
“Especially the new baby chicks,” Mrs. Clark added. “Much as she loves animals that girl could grow up to be a vet.”
Cynthia was eager to ask about Eddie and was reassured that she was doing well, though Mrs. Myers assured her the girl was cross as a bear from missing her playmate.
“But she doesn’t even like Betsy!” Cynthia said right out loud before she realized the words might sound rude. “I’m sure it was hard on her, having strangers move in her house like that . . .”
“She misses both of you,” Evan insisted, finally seating himself. “As we all do.”
The audience grew silent as Forrest Stephens gaveled the meeting into life.
Chapter Sixteen
The meeting seemed to drag on forever as his father led them through on the details of running the town and the community. A new roof was needed for the elementary school, two new teachers were approved for hiring, country roads in the east part of the community needed to be graded . . .the list seemed to go on and on while all he wanted was for it to come to an end so he could talk to Cynthia.
Miss Maud had said he needed to court her, to show her how he felt, and he was ready to do that. The minute the meeting concluded and he had a chance he would ask if he could pay a call.
He frowned. Or maybe he would suggest they go for a drive.
Or he could invite her to see the play that the high school drama group had put together as a summer fund raiser. That would be Saturday night. She would like that.
Should he ask Betsy as well? The play was suitable enough. If he invited Betsy, he would want to include Eddie as well. But much as he enjoyed the company of both little girls, he truly longed for some time alone with Cynthia.
Maybe the play wasn’t such a good idea.
He was thinking so hard that he was caught by surprise and still hadn’t made a decision when his father announced that all necessary business had been conducted and the meeting was at an end.
Evan stood, stunned. There hadn’t been even one shouting match, or threats to take the question outside to be resolved in fisticuffs. What was wrong with the people of Lavender?
He hesitated only long enough to allow Mrs. Myers and Miranda to slip past him, but that was too long. Before he knew it two young men, both of them several years younger than himself, had pushed past him to get to Cynthia’s side.
Well, hell and damnation, to pardon his French. He watched in disgust as Randall Potter and John Mark Harrison asked Mrs. Clark to introduce them to the newcomer.
This was even worse than the empty seats around them that gave such a clear message that Cynthia Burden still wasn’t entirely welcome in the community. Now the young puppies were thinking about coming courting!
He felt like throwing them right out the door for their rudeness. Randall was a good enough guy but John Mark thought he was God’s gift to women and neither one of them was right for Cynthia. They couldn’t possibly understand the sensitive soul of her, or know what she’d been through in her life.
They hadn’t written and received letter after letter to bind them closely.
Or possibly, he thought, watching her smile and chat with the young men, only binding him. Maybe the feeling those letters had stirred had only happened to him and to Cynthia he’d only seemed to offer a friendship she needed, his town the safety her daughter required.
Without saying goodbye to any of them, he stalked away from the auditorium, barely acknowledging the greetings called to him as he hurried toward home.
He allowed the teen who had been hired to keep his daughter company to go home, played a game of checkers with Eddie who for the first time ever beat him without his giving her an assist in that direction. She nibbled at a slice of Mrs. Myers honey-spice bread and then asked, “Did you see Betsy and her mama at the meeting?’
“Betsy stayed at the farm with Maggie, but Mrs. Burden was there?”
“Were people nice to her?”
Leave it to Eddie to know exactly what was going on. “Most of them were a little aloof, but nobody was outright rude.”
“Nobody threw anything or kicked her?”
He smiled. “After the isolation period, I think we’ve moved past that stage, Eddie. Anyway, do you think I would have tolerated that kind of behavior?”
She shook her head. “Not as long as you were there, but I don’t know what happens when she doesn’t have us to look after her.”
“The Clarks seem very fond of them both, Eddie. I’m sure they will see that nobody molests them.”
Eddie picked up one of the black checkers, than put it down again. “She doesn’t understand. She thinks everything’s good here.”
He wanted to argue, but he knew she was right, this bright little daughter of his who carried too much of his grandfather’s heritage in her blood. “Most people have good in them, Eddie.”
She met his eyes. “But not all, Papa.”
He nodded, but before he could say anything else Mrs. Myers came in the front door. “Time to start supper,” she said, then stopped to stare reprovingly at him, “You just sat there and let Randall and John Mark move in on her. You know they aren’t right for her.”
He leaned back in his chair, uncomfortable that his feelings could be so transparent. “Guess that’s her choice to make.”
She turned and headed toward the kitchen. “Batter fried steak tonight,” she called over her shoulder, “with hot rolls and mashed potatoes.”
“I’m afraid I’ll miss out. Got word from neighbors at the meeting that Seth Rogers is poorly. Think I’ll drive out to see him.”
She nodded. “I’ll keep a plate warm for you.”
The Clark farm, close to town as it was which made it perfect for a dairy that delivered milk, butter and cheese into Lavender, lay along the way as he headed east toward Seth’s farm in the outlying regions.
He decided it would be only polite to stop by the Clarks for a few minutes and assure himself that everyone was well there.
When he pulled his buggy into the yard, Cynthia, dressed now in a work dress of coarse gray material and wearing a homemade bonnet to protect her face from the dwindling sun of late afternoon, was seated on the ground to dig weeds out of the front flower bed. She looked up, a pleased look crossing her face almost as though she was glad to see him.
He spoke impulsively. “Seth Rogers is sick. I was just going to see about him and thought you and Betsy might like to go along since he was your first friend in town. It’s nothing contagious, just old age and overwork.”
“And not eating right,” Mrs. Clark’s voice sounded from the doorway. “You go ahead, Cynthia. It’d be a mission of mercy.” She smiled at him. “And Doc will enjoy the company.”
Mrs. Clark was a noted matchmaker, but for once Evan welcomed her efforts.
“If you’ll give me a minute to wash up,” Cynthia agreed, “and locate Betsy. I think she and Maggie went down to gather eggs.”
Soon they were in the buggy, headed east together and Evan felt as though his heart was singing within him.
Pleased to have an unexpected few hours of holiday, Cynthia told herself she was doing it for Betsy. The eight-year-old loved Evan and would be happy to spend a few hours with him.
Not that she was unhappy at the farm. Her daughter was simply one of those fortunate people born with an inclination toward contentment. She enjoyed each day of her life.
She sat now between the two adults, chattering to Evan about the animals on the farm, including the new colt that was born yesterday and he, in turn, told her of the pony his grandfather had given him when he was a little boy.
As for herself, there had been a hundred things she’d planned to ask him when she saw
him again, but now she couldn’t seem to think of a single one.
She did no more than comment on how hot the summer was and how high the cotton growing in the fields they passed and couldn’t help being glad that she’d brought Betsy along to keep the conversation from lagging.
The steady clip-clop of the mare, the motion of the buggy as it bounced along the country road began to put her into a kind of trance. Texas in the summer reached hundred degree temperatures sometimes and though the Clarks told her this wasn’t a particularly hot year, it felt uncomfortably so to a woman accustomed to air conditioning at her brother’s ranch in Oklahoma. As for home in Santa Barbara, well, she missed the coastal climate if not the house itself.
Her home in California was larger and more luxurious than any house in Lavender, but in leaving it behind she felt almost as though she’d shed herself of a load she hadn’t wanted to carry anymore. That house had not been a happy one since she was nearly as young as Betsy and she couldn’t help feeling that both her parents would have approved her action in moving far, far away.
The buggy slowed and she looked up to see that they had reached the point where the narrow ribbon of dirt road turned back to move past the creek to go to Seth Roger’s farm. She knew because this was where they’d first met Seth and beseeched him for a ride into Lavender.
Almost as though only a hum in the background, she heard Betsy telling Evan about her aunt and uncle and the baby they were going to have, his deep voice sounding now and then in a comment.
She hardly heard them, though she clasped her daughter’s hand protectively. Looking up in that moment when the buggy hesitated almost into immobility in the turn, she saw a road flicker forward where there was no road and on the other side, a shiny white car and a man standing in front of it. Michael! She saw his eyes widen as if he caught a glimpse of her and then, just as suddenly, the vision vanished and she was left wondering if it had only appeared in her imagination.
They turned the corner and picked up speed and the image was left behind. She felt Evan’s gaze resting on her. “You all right?” he asked.
“Did you see him?” she blurted out the question. “Did you see Michael?”
Betsy, who had stopped talking in mid-sentence, suddenly spoke up, her voice high and squeaky. “It was Daddy. He saw us.”
Evan pulled the horse to a stop and reached over to pull them both into his arms.
Chapter Seventeen
By the time they’d seen to Seth, who as he suspected was simply not taking as good care of his own health as he did that of his farm animals, and were back to town, Evan had fairly well convinced himself of one thing. That spot in the road where they’d crossed the barrier spooked both Cynthia and Betsy.
No wonder after everything they’d been through that they thought they saw Michael Burden coming after them. It would probably be a long time before they felt really safe, even in locked-in Lavender.
The walls around the community, though not visible, were too thick to allow even a glimpse of that other world in 2013 to peer through.
They were both so certain, however, white-faced and haunted looking, that he didn’t try to argue the issue. Instead he tried to be as reassuring as possible, telling Cynthia that he and his father would welcome them back to the house in town if they’d feel safer there.
She seemed to consider the possibility, than shook her head. “We’re staying with the Clarks for now anyway. They need the help.”
So it was that when he stopped at the farm and she asked that he not mention the incident to others, he agreed, than spent the rest of the journey to his own home wondering if he’d been right to do so. If there was any possibility that the walls were thinning, the townspeople had a right to know.
After the years they’d spent alone, many of them had built up fears of the outer world and the time it had passed without them. He knew enough from Maud’s occasional comments to realize that the century that had gone by had not been an especially good one.
She hinted at terrible wars, a time when the type of influenza they’d tried to protect others from had run rampant. And worst of all, their ideas, their way of living, would be long gone. Just look at how they’d reacted to the way Cynthia had been dressed when she first arrived!
No, they’d given up so much to protect their neighbors; they deserved to live out their lives in this familiar world.
He shook these thoughts from him as he settled Hero down for the night and put the buggy away. He’d seen more of the world than most of the people around here and still he wasn’t sure he could live with such explosive change.
That was what reminded him that Cynthia and Betsy had done just that. No wonder they’d imagined this afternoon that they’d seen through to the other side.
And that was what it had to be, only imagination. He felt safe in keeping their secret to himself.
Cynthia woke in the night to the sound of a whimper from Betsy’s room and when she tiptoed in found the little girl trying to hide her sobs in her pillow.
“Oh, my darling.” She took the girl into her arms.
“I’m sor . . .sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to wake you. I know you have to get up so early.”
Betsy hadn’t called her ‘mommy’ in years now. “Nothing’s more important than you, baby. Anyway I was wide awake.”
She lit a candle and picked up one of the books they’d gotten from the little library in town. But she’d read only a few lines when it was evident that her attempts at soothing the child were in vain. She put the book aside. “Want to talk about it, honey?”
Betsy nodded, still choking with an occasional sob. “Is Daddy going to come and take me away and I’ll never see you and Eddie and Dr. Stephens again?”
Cynthia couldn’t help being a little surprised that Eddie came first after her, and that Evan was mentioned when Maggie and the other Clarks weren’t.
“He can’t get in here, Betsy.”
“You’re sure. He saw us, Mommy.”
She couldn’t deny it. She had seen the recognition in Michael’s eyes. “But he can’t get in. We’re safe here.”
The child’s eyes searched her face. The shadows crept closer from the corners untouched by the candle light. Then she seemed to sag slightly in relief. “You won’t let him take me, Mom, will you? Promise! Promise!”
She hugged the child tight. “I promise, Betsy.” She didn’t leave until the child was deep in sleep and when she went back to her own room, it was only to lie awake and wonder if she could keep that promise. She felt particularly alone in the middle of the dark summer night, knowing from what she’d seen on his face that Evan hadn’t believed them. He’d thought they were imagining the sight of Michael’s face looking through the barrier at them. Once again she was facing fears all by herself.
His morning routine of seeing patients at his office had been interrupted by an emergency call from out in the country. The people of Lavender who didn’t keep their own cows woke up to find their front steps and porches lacking the usual bottle of milk or container of butter and before Evan was more than dressed to go to his office, Cynthia came rushing in, her face wild and her appearance unkempt.
“Evan,” she said in a loud whisper. “Hurry! They’re hurt! They’re badly hurt!”
He’d been through this too many times to take time asking questions. He grabbed his bag and ran with her out to the wagon the Clarks’ hired hand normally used to deliver milk. She climbed into the driver’s seat before he could even offer to assist her so he jumped up beside her. With a flick of her hand, she sent the horses running.
“I didn’t even know you could drive,” he said the first thing that came to his mind.
She nodded. “Ben’s been teaching me so I could make the deliveries if he was sick. Thank goodness.”
She was hardly expert. They went careening around a corner, barely missing an oncoming horseman. He grabbed the reins, still held in her hands, steadying the team until she had firm control again.
/> “What is it?” he finally dared asked. “Who’s hurt? Not Betsy?”
She shook her head. “She’s still in bed asleep. She’s was upset last night so I didn’t want to awaken her . . .”
“Cynthia, what’s happened?”
She gave a little laugh, sounding near hysteria. He hung on to the edge of the seat as she stepped up the pace once more, but didn’t protest since they were moving out of town and it wasn’t far to the Clark farm.
“Both of them. Mr. Clark and Ben. They always told me Jersey bulls could be mean . . .” She paused to draw in a deep breath. “The neighbor bull got out and broke into our pasture and the two bulls got to fighting. Mr. Clark and Ben went to try to stop them . . .”
“Fighting bulls are deadly dangerous,” he commented grimly.
She nodded. “They both turned on Ben, ‘cause he’s younger and faster and got to the pasture first. Mr. Clark picked up the old fork they use to load hay and went right in, cause they had Ben down on the ground and were trampling him. I was still milking in the barn, but I heard the yelling and went running.”
“Good, Lord, woman! What a fool thing to do.” Just the thought of her going out to that arena of madness made him turn cold.
“They were both down by the time I got there so I climbed up on the fence and yelled at the bulls, trying to draw their attention. While they ran at me, Maggie and Mrs. Clark got in the gate and dragged the men out.” She swallowed visibly. “You know, Evan, bulls are really strong. They knocked me right off that board fence to the other side and for a few minutes I thought they would come right through. But it held.”
He found himself more shaken then he’d ever been in his life before. If something had happened to her, to his Cynthia. He couldn’t help coming right out and saying,” I love you.”
Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 2) Page 12
