Yesterday's Rain (Rainy Weather Series Book 2)

by Barbara Goss

  Yesterday’s

  Rain

  Barbara Goss

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All scripture is quoted from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage system without express written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2016 Barbara Goss

  All Rights Reserved

  Kindle Edition

  Cover design by: Samantha Fury

  Dedicated to my editor Elise Abram. Thank you for making me look better than I am.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  THE END

  Chapter 1

  Cecilia Hillman stepped off the stagecoach, brushed the dust from her dress, and walked into the general store. She gazed around the dark, dusty, store until she spotted the man behind the counter.

  “May I help you, Miss?” he asked, peering at her over wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Could you possibly direct me to the Baker place?”

  “Sure, but they’re all dead.” His voice was void of emotion. “That Indian raid last fall killed them all.”

  “Not all. I believe the daughter, Susannah, survived. I’m looking for her,” Cecilia said.

  “I was fairly sure they were all gone,” he said. “We lost several families, blasted savages!” He bent and pulled out a piece of blank paper. “But I’ll draw you a map to their homestead.”

  He scribbled on the paper and then handed it to Susannah. “If you need a horse or a buggy, the livery’s around the corner to your right.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I don’t think you’ll find anyone at the homestead, but that’s where they lived before—”

  Cecilia had already departed the store. She didn’t wait around to hear the shopkeeper’s chatter. She went straight to the livery and rented a carriage. She then followed the map until she came to a long dirt path that led to a large mound of dirt with a door in the center. She noticed a horse in the corral, so she knew Susannah was home. At least if she were here, she wasn’t with Carter, and that was a relief.

  She tied her horse and approached the door. At first, she thought the home was made of bricks, but then she ran her hand along the outside wall—it was dried dirt! How gross! She decided not to knock, but to take that little mouse, Susannah, by storm. She opened the door and walked in.

  It took a minute before her eyes adjusted to the darker environment, but when they did, she was shocked to see such a messy home. Susannah didn’t look the type to live in such chaotic surroundings. She continued into the house and discovered a room at the rear that had been curtained off. She yanked the curtain aside and screamed.

  A grizzly-looking man sprang up from the bed and hollered at the same time as she screamed.

  “Who the blazes are you?” he asked.

  “Who are you?” she countered.

  “Since this is my house, I have a right to know who you are first,” the man said.

  “All right. I’m Cecilia Hillman of St. Louis, Missouri,” she said. “I was told I’d find Susannah Baker here.”

  “Naw, she ain’t here.” He looked her up and down. “Will I do?” He smiled longingly at her.

  “Hardly.”

  Harry sobered. “Susannah is in a mental hospital in St. Joseph, Missouri.”

  “Who are you?” Cecilia asked, stamping her foot.

  “I’m her cousin, Harry Boulanger.”

  Cecilia sighed. “I heard she was on her way here. I’ll wait.”

  “She is?”

  “Yes. Her doctor is escorting her, I believe.”

  “There’s another bed up them stairs.” He pointed to a rickety ladder that led to a loft.

  Cecilia stepped back and looked up into the loft, which was neat and tidy, and she nodded.

  “If you’d like to go up and rest from your traveling, I’ll shave, get cleaned up, and make us some supper,” Harry said.

  “Aren’t you married or anything?” she asked with a cringe. She was a bit disgusted at his assuming they’d be friends, let alone dining companions.

  “I’m separated—sort of,” he said.

  “Interesting.” Cecilia climbed the ladder carefully, so as not to allow him to look up her skirts. She lay on the nearest bed and fell fast asleep.

  Cecilia awoke to the clanging of pots and pans. She looked downstairs and saw Harry frying fish. It smelled wonderful, and her stomach lurched at the aroma. She stood, straightened her dress and hair, and then climbed down.

  “Smells good, Harry,” she said. She felt a bit more charitable since having a nap, and besides, she’d remembered her mother’s old saying, that you could attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.

  “Trout—caught it myself this morning, in the creek down the road.”

  He already had the table set for two, and he’d cleared up most of the mess Celia had seen when she first walked in. She sat down in front of one of the place settings. He looked different having shaved and cleaned up. He was actually not bad looking, though he was a bit older than the men she usually became attracted to. She guessed him to be about forty, though he still had a full head of dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a pleasant smile.

  She wondered as she watched him dish out the fish and carrots. He was young enough to fall for her flirtation, so she had a good chance of getting the information she needed.

  Cecilia smiled at him. “Thank you, Harry.”

  As they ate he told her story after story about his fishing successes. She listened patiently and then cut him off.

  “Can you tell me how Susannah came to be in that mental hospital?”

  “Yep. It all happened right here in this room. Indians attacked last fall. Killed the whole family. Two Cheyenne chiefs, Dull Knife, and Little Wolf, escaped the Oklahoma reservation. They picked up some other disgruntled braves and came to Oberlin to express their anger at having been put on a reservation.

  "The Baker family were sitting right here, at this table at the time, according to George Franklin—he’s the neighbor who found them all.”

  Cecilia gazed around the kitchen area and shivered.

  “Susannah was picking corn in the field and saw the whole massacre from a distance. It sent her into such a shock that my shrew of a wife thought it was insanity, and she had her committed to the Asylum in St. Joseph, Missouri,” he explained.

  “I see,” Cecilia said, thoughtfully. “Indians, huh?”

  “Yeah. With war paint and all. It must have been horrifying for her to watch her family killed like that,” Harry said. “George told me she hid in the cornfield for two days, and when she finally came out, he said she was frantic. He and his wife took her in for a while, but her nightmares upset the children, so George brought her to me.”

  “Interesting,” Cecilia said. “Anything else?”

  “I did get a strange letter about a week or so ago,”
Harry said. “Wait, I’ll get it.”

  Harry got up from the table and went across to an area furnished with a sofa and chair and opened a drawer in a desk. He returned with a letter. He tossed it to Cecilia.

  “Any idea who this man is?” Harry asked.

  Cecilia scanned the envelope, “Benjamin Turner, State Lunatic Asylum, #2…hmm, I don’t know him. May I open it?”

  “Sure. He’s also looking for Susannah.”

  Cecilia read the letter.

  Dear Susannah,

  I miss you. They put me on the south wing. I’m sorry for what happened, and I promise to make it up to you. As soon as I get out I’ll come and find you. I finally reached my brother Jake, and he said he’d sign for me to get out of here. I have to prove to Dr. Daniels, who is replacing the other doctor, that I am well enough. I had to tell him you were at fault for the incident. Sorry, but I had no choice. It’s the only way I can get out and marry you.

  Yours,

  Ben

  “Interesting,” Cecilia said thoughtfully. “So this Ben must have met her at the hospital. Sounds like he’s a fellow patient. Do you know what the incident was that he mentioned?”

  “No,” Harry said. “I know nothing at all about this man.”

  “I think I’d like very much to meet this Ben. I’ll help him find Susannah,” she said.

  “That’s so charitable of you,” Harry said.

  “Oh, yes,

  Susannah and I are good friends,” Cecilia said.

  Cecilia’s mind raced as she thought of the ways she could separate Carter from Susannah. She’d risked too much to let him off the hook now. Her mother sat in jail at this very moment because she’d helped make Carter a possibility for Cecilia. She’d always wanted Carter, but not romantically, no, not anymore—she wanted to get him to fall in love with her, and then she’d jilt him as he’d done to her, so he’d know how it felt. He needed to experience what it felt like to be kicked to the side of the road.

  According to Carter’s sister-in-law, Meg, Carter was escorting Susannah to Oberlin, and planned to leave her before entering town in order to preserve her reputation. That meant they’d be separated for a while. In the meantime, she’d travel back to St. Joseph and try to find this Ben Turner.

  Susannah curled up beside her husband of one week. So far she loved being married. She felt so happy, and she could tell Carter was too. They’d just finished making love, and this was when she just loved to be held by him. After one week, she still couldn’t get enough of lovemaking and being with Carter. Being with her husband allowed her to forget about the family she'd lost, whom she missed terribly, and the horrendous attack, at least, for the time being.

  A knock on the bedroom door made them both stir.

  “Probably just Effie bringing our lunch,” Carter said.

  “I’m not hungry for anything except your kisses,” she whispered as she snuggled closer to him.

  “Our recent activity has left me starving,” Carter said, pushing himself up. He stood, opened the door, thanked Effie, and closed it again. He set the tray down on the dresser.

  “How much longer can we honeymoon?” Susannah was lying on her side on the bed, with her head propped up on her elbow.

  “I have to report to the hospital day after tomorrow if I want the job back. Otherwise, I can work with my brother, Nathan, in his lumberyard until I get my veterinary certification.

  Carter lifted the cover of the lunch tray. “Look, Susannah, your favorite!”

  “Chicken salad?” she asked, sitting upright.

  “Yep.”

  “Maybe I can eat a little,” she said.

  As they ate, Carter explained more of his plans. “I’m torn between continuing as a doctor for mental patients or for veterinary medicine. My night course is nearly completed. What do you think, darling?”

  “I rather like being married to a doctor, but I love animals, too, so either one. I don’t like the idea of you working in the lumberyard. You’d come home too tired to spend time like this with me.” She pouted and then smiled. “I’ve loved this week.”

  “I’ve loved it too.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll go back to the hospital—I hope I can stay on the north wing—and when I get certified as a vet, I’ll start treating animals,” he said. I missed the last few weeks of the course, but I think they’ll let me take the exam, and if I pass, I’ll open up a small clinic, as well as visit homes and farms.”

  “What shall I do all day while you’re working?”

  “I don’t know…relax? Run the household? You could always visit Meg,” he suggested.

  “God spared me from the Indian massacre for a reason, so I want to make my life purposeful. There must be something I can do,” she said.

  “Why don’t you ask Reverend Smith on Sunday, if there is any church work you can do?”

  “That’s a good idea. I think I will.” Susannah moved over to sit on Carter’s lap. She hugged him.

  “Do you think Cecilia has reached Oberlin yet and discovered I’m not there?”

  Carter shrugged. “I feel good knowing she’s far away. Promise me you’ll steer clear of her if she ever comes back. I think she belongs on the south wing.”

  “Of the mental hospital? Surely not!” Susannah said.

  “Surely yes! You don’t know her like I do.”

  “Tell me about her, then,” she said moving back to her own seat.

  “I met her at a horse show in St. Louis. She outbid me on a palomino. She was more attractive then because for some reason she wasn’t as hardened as she is now. Or so it seemed. I started seeing her occasionally, and one day, when I went to the house to pick her up for a ride, I met her sister, Hope, and that did it for me. I suppose, I did rather jilt Cecilia, but Hope was such a sweet, young lady, and I hated the way Cecilia and her mother treated her.”

  Susannah pouted. “I don’t want to talk about your ex-fiancée on our honeymoon, so just tell me about her wicked stepsister, Cecilia.”

  “There's not much more to tell. I proposed to Hope, I went back to college and she got pneumonia and died. Now I’m learning that her stepmother, or her stepsister, Cecilia may have had something to do with her death.

  “And know this, my love,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “I never, ever, felt about Hope as I feel about you. I was fond of her, yes, and thought I was in love, but now that I’m really in love, I know that I was just fond of Hope—she was a lovely person.” He kissed Susannah’s nose.

  Carter pushed the food aside and pulled Susannah to the bed. “Do you have room for dessert?” he whispered.

  Chapter 2

  As Cecilia’s train sped across Kansas she focused on her plan. Carter would pay. She didn’t love him—at least not anymore—but she wanted to pay him back. Being dumped for her stepsister was the epitome of disgrace.

  She’d hoped he would’ve agreed to court her once Hope was dead, but he’d refused. So her plan to entice him until he fell for her, and then leave him was out the window. She wanted him to suffer the loss of someone he loved the same as she had.

  In her own mind, she had nothing to do with Hope’s death‒it was all her mother’s doing. Her mother had always hated Hope. As soon as Hope’s father died, Agatha Hillman treated her stepdaughter like a servant. Agatha knew Cecilia wanted Carter, so she tried to make it happen. Hope was sick, anyway, and perhaps Agatha had thought that leaving her bedroom window open in the winter would give her fresh air. And perhaps not feeding her was in an effort to break her fever. It was too bad for Agatha that the doctor had turned her in to the constable. So now, Agatha was sitting in jail, waiting for the case to go to court, though she was sure the lawyer they’d hired would get her mother off.

  Now, her plan was to get Carter to fall for her again and then she’d make his life miserable before leaving him for someone else. She wanted him to feel what it was like being made a fool of.

  Meg opened the door, but her smiled turned to a
worried frown when she saw who stood on the doorstep.

  Cecilia thought that Meg’s greeting was extremely uninviting. Was it because she’d thrown a few barbs at Susannah when she’d stayed with Meg and Seth last?

  “Can I help you?” Meg asked, as if she were speaking to a salesman at the door.

  “Can I come in? I’ve come for a visit,” Cecilia said in her sweetest voice.

  “This isn’t a good time. Audra has the measles,” Meg said.

  “I’ve already had them.” Cecilia bypassed Meg, and walked into the hallway, and took a seat in the sitting room.

  “Has Carter returned from Oberlin?” she asked.

  “Yes, he has,” Meg said.

  “I’ll have to stop by and see him,” she said as she removed her gloves. “Will you serve tea? Goodness, Meg, where are your manners?”

  “Of course,” Meg said. “I’m so sorry, my mind is on Audra’s illness. I’ll be right back.”

  Cecilia thought Meg was acting strangely. Yes, she’d insulted Susannah when they were both Meg’s houseguests, but Susannah had come back at her with some clever barbs, too. So why was Meg so upset? Had Carter told her not to make her welcome anymore? Well, she’d soon find out.

  When Meg returned with the tea, she poured, and sat down across from Cecilia.

  “What’s wrong, Meg? Did Carter instruct you to turn me away? Is that it?”

  “No, no, of course, not. He would never tell me who I should welcome. It's just that…” Meg hesitated.

  “Just that what?” Cecilia was growing impatient. She sipped her tea and waited for Meg’s explanation.

  “Carter and Susannah are married.”

  Cecilia nearly choked on her tea. “What?”

  “They married in a small town on the way to Oberlin and then decided to come back here instead of proceeding to her homestead. I just didn’t know how to tell you, or what your reaction would be.”

  Cecilia gently set her cup down onto the saucer, turned her head away from Meg, and pursed her lips. Carter had married that little mouse! How dare he? Once again he’d made a fool out of her.