Letters to Caroline (Brides of Serenity Book 1)

by A. J. Goode

  That must have been a dream, he decided.

  When he woke again, Caroline’s chair was empty and the sunlight streaming in through the window had a late-afternoon tinge of orange. He blinked several times until he could focus and take stock of his surroundings.

  He didn’t recognize the room. The bed was soft, and the quilt that covered him was thick and warm, but the plain walls and open doorway gave him no clues. His right hand was bandaged; his head ached when he tried to move, and his throat still felt raw, but he felt surprisingly good other than all that. The dizziness was gone, and his stomach no longer lurched. It was, in fact, aching for food.

  Someone was moving about in a kitchen nearby. He heard pans clanging and plates rattling, and he was suddenly aware of the tantalizing smell of something wonderful cooking. His mouth watered.

  Adam thought about getting up and going in search of food, but dismissed the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. He was naked under the heavy quilt, and a quick look around the room told him that his clothes were nowhere to be seen. “Hello?” he called out, pulling the quilt up to his chin.

  The raspy quality of his own voice surprised him. “Is anyone there?” he called again. He was rewarded with the sound of quick footsteps coming his way.

  “You’re awake!” Emily peeked around the doorway, beaming at him. “Uncle Adam, you’re awake!” She rushed toward him and stopped herself at the very edge of the bed, arms outstretched.

  “Hey, Em,” he said, smiling. He raised his arms and she flung herself into his embrace.

  “I was so scared,” she told him.

  There was a little catch in her voice that tore at his heart. He held her closer. She acted so grown-up most of the time that it was easy to forget that she was still a child. “Em, where are the others?” he asked.

  Her voice was muffled against his chest when she spoke. “Caroline is sleeping,” she reported. “She sat in here with you for two whole days until Mr. Baxter said he was going to lock her in a closet if she didn’t go get some rest. In fact, I’m supposed to wake her up now that you’re awake.”

  “Let her sleep a bit longer. Where’s Sophie?”

  “She’s helping some of the boys with the clean-up.” She sat up and gave a disapproving little sniff. “She’s wearing pants, Uncle Adam. Pants.”

  He hid a smile. “What about everyone else?”

  “I--Let me go get you something to eat,” Emily said hastily. “Stay put.”

  “Emily --”

  “I’ll be right back.” She vanished through the doorway.

  Uneasily, Adam leaned back against the pillows. Hushed voices murmured in a whispered conversation, and then footsteps hurried in his direction once more. Seconds later, Caroline stumbled into the room, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “I told her to let you sleep,” Adam said.

  “I’m fine,” she told him, but she was far from fine. Her hair was disheveled and loose, hanging down her back in a tangled curtain, and her dress was wrinkled from sleeping in her clothes. The dark circles under her eyes and pale tone of her skin made her look somewhat ill.

  “Em, will you leave us alone for a minute?” His niece obeyed, and Caroline dropped wearily into the chair at his bedside.

  “I’m sorry wasn’t here when you woke, but Will--”

  “Caroline, you’re not helping anyone if you make yourself sick. You need to rest.” Adam took her hand in his.

  “I will,” she promised.

  “Whose home is this?” he wondered.

  “We’re at the Baxter’s place above the store. Will told the men to carry you back here, and the girls and I have been staying in the other room. Do you feel strong enough to eat something?”

  “I’ll eat my own right arm if I don’t get some food soon.”

  Even in her current state of exhaustion, her laugh was delightful. “Emily made some venison stew and biscuits. Let me go get you some.”

  She left and returned moments later with a tray that held a steaming bowl of soup and a plate of fluffy biscuits. Adam sat up, self-consciously trying to cover his bare chest with the quilt. While he ate, Caroline filled him in on the details of the past few days.

  The fire had changed direction in the early hours of Monday morning, sparing most of the town. The tavern had burned to the ground and the church had been damaged, but the most of the town itself was still intact. Other towns to their north had not been so lucky. Word trickled in that Holland had been almost completely destroyed and even Grand Rapids had suffered some damage.

  “And my home?” he asked.

  Caroline bowed her head. “It’s all gone, Adam. The house, the barn, everything. I’m so sorry.”

  He took a deep breath. He’d suspected as much, but it shook him to hear it. Everything he and Sam had worked so hard to build was gone with nothing to show for all their years of work. Still, he reflected, it could have been so much worse.

  Adam suddenly became aware of Caroline’s hand held tightly in his own, and wondered just exactly which one of them had reached out for the other. “I can rebuild,” he told her. “It’s all right. We’re all alive, and that’s what really matters.”

  She squeezed his hand and said nothing.

  “What--what aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

  “Not everyone was as lucky.”

  “Who . . . ?”

  “The Groningers never made it out of their home. All six of them were lost. Alvin Stuart is missing. And four others . . . “ Caroline’s voice faltered. “Four of the men who were tearing up the road were trapped when the fire turned. I don’t know all their names, but one of them was Reverend Brown.”

  His heart lurched at the news that the good man was gone, and his thoughts went immediately to the widow. “Mildred? How did she take it?”

  “She joined him that same day,” Caroline said softly. “She worked alongside the rest of us women tending the injured, and when she finally took to bed for some rest, her heart just gave out.”

  The silence stretched between them as the evening shadows crept along the wall of the strange bedroom. After a long while, he looked up again to study her weary face, lined with grief and exhaustion. I love you, Caroline, he wanted to say. Stay with me here in Serenity and let’s build a new life together.

  The words stuck in his dry, tortured throat.

  “Caroline, you’re going to make yourself ill. Please, you need to rest.” He said instead. He moved over in the bed, away from the edge, wincing as he did so. Her eyes widened in surprise when he patted the empty space next to him.

  “I -- can’t, Adam. It’s hardly proper.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “You’re my wife, and we’re both so tired we’re closer to dead than alive. It doesn’t get much more proper than that.”

  She hesitated, but exhaustion won out over propriety. She climbed into the bed with him, perching as close to the edge as possible, and he heard her let out a deep sigh as her tired body relaxed into the pillow. “Only for a little while,” she yawned.

  “Only for a little while,” he repeated. He put an arm around her and gently drew her near, relishing the warmth of her body next to his. She was already asleep. He fought the urge to place a gentle kiss on her cheek because he knew she was right.

  It could only be for a little while.

  He knew now that he loved her, but it was too late. She was already in love with another man, the man she was supposed to have married instead of him.

  Chapter 20

  The cold, steady rain that had helped put an end to the fires on Tuesday continued to fall as the cool temperatures of autumn settled over the area, and Caroline awoke to a word that was gray and miserably damp. She turned over in the strange bed and studied her surroundings. She’d never been inside the little home above the general store before these past days, and she’d been so intent on staying by her husband’s side that she’d hardly had time to notice anything about the home before now.

  The walls of t
he little room were bare, and the quilt that covered her, though warm, was patched and worn from years of use. Someone had left a stack of neatly folded clothes on the chair beside her bed, and there was a basin of clean water on the stand near the door.

  She wrinkled her nose and looked down at the rumpled and stained dress she had slept in. How Adam had tolerated sleeping next to her was a mystery.

  Her face colored as she remembered the intimacy of lying in his arms as they slept.

  Hastily banishing the thought from her mind, she stretched and threw back the old quilt. She longed for a warm bath and a chance to wash her hair, but she would just have to make do with what she had. She washed and dressed quickly in the borrowed dress that was a bit too short but fit surprisingly well through the bodice. The pins had fallen out of her hair at some point, so she combed through the tangles as well as she could and fashioned her hair into a thick braid that she tied off with a bit of thread.

  Her shoes were missing as well. She had no memory of taking them off, but they were probably ruined from the hours in the water anyway. In her stockinged feet, she opened the bedroom door and peeked out.

  Sophie sat on a bench at one end of a rough-hewn wooden table, greedily gobbling her way through a plate of potatoes and some type of meat that smelled delicious. She was still dressed in boys’ clothing. Her eyes lit up when she saw Caroline. “Goo’ mornin’!” she said, her mouth full.

  “More like afternoon,” Caroline told her, glancing out the window.

  Sophie pointed at the stove. “There’s some venison and potatoes for you. Are you hungry?”

  She was ravenous, she suddenly realized. She located a plate and dished up an embarrassingly large amount of food from the covered pan on the back of the stove. While Sophie watched in open-mouthed admiration, Caroline cleared her plate in silence and then leaned back to savor the smell of the still-steaming coffee in her cup

  Sophie soon excused herself and left to return to work with the boys and men. Caroline stayed at the table, lost in her thoughts until a light tap at the door caught her attention.

  Her cousin stood in the door. For an instant, she considered slamming the door in his face, but then she shrugged and stepped back to let him in.

  “Why are you here, Stan?” she asked.

  He bowed his head.

  “I’m not going home with you,” she stated. “I’m sorry about your gambling debts, but I won’t marry Big Tom.”

  “I know that,” he said. “I need to apologize --”

  “Yes, you do. I am a married woman, if you and your father haven’t ruined everything,” she said. “He had no right to promise me to another man, and you were both wrong to tell your lies to my husband.”

  “You’re right.”

  Caroline’s eyes narrowed at her cousin’s quiet words. He was agreeing much too easily. “Go on,” she said. “You might as well come inside and have a seat.”

  He followed her to the table and seated himself across from her. She thought about drinking her coffee in front of him, but decided that would be just a little bit too petty. With a sigh, she poured him a cup and handed it to him before seating herself across from him.

  Stanley took the cup gratefully and cradled it between his hands. “Cousin, I do owe you an apology. My debt to Big Tom is my problem, not yours. I’m here to ask your forgiveness and to tell you that . . . Caroline, you should know that my father was killed in the fire.” His voice was emotionless. “He drank too much that night, and I couldn’t wake him. I tried to drag him out of our room at the tavern, but I couldn’t.”

  For the first time, Caroline noticed that his expensive clothes were wrinkled and dirty, and his face was unshaven. His hair was singed on one side, and the dark shadows on his gaunt face gave him a ghoulish, haunted look.

  “Uncle Roger is dead?”

  Stan nodded.

  “Oh, Stan.” Caroline rose from her seat and went to him. She didn’t feel any grief for her uncle yet, although she wondered vaguely if she ever would. But her heart went out to her newly-orphaned cousin. “Of course I forgive you,” she told him, opening her arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and she felt a shudder run through his body.

  “I tried to save him, Caro,” he murmured.

  “I know you did.”

  “He wasn’t always a good man, but he was my pa.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. She thought she’d never heard truer words spoken, though they were a fitting epitaph for the man who had taken her in so grudgingly. He wasn’t always a good man, but he was my uncle, she thought. Rest in peace, Uncle Roger.

  The door opened just then, and Adam strode into the room. Stan sat up quickly, wiping his eyes.

  “Are you feeling better?” Adam asked his wife.

  She nodded. “Are you?”

  “Of course. I had a good nurse.” He smiled at her.

  She blushed.

  “I’ve sent a telegram to Charles Harrington,” he said. “I told him that I plan on putting the girls on the first train to New York.”

  “Oh, Adam, no!”

  “It only makes sense to send them away. Our home is gone. We have nowhere to live and nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

  “But--”

  “It’s only for a few months. Just for the winter. I’ll send for them as soon as the house is rebuilt.” His eyes met Caroline’s. “I told him you’ll be going with them, Caroline.”

  She gasped.

  “I won’t hold you to our arrangement,” he went on, his voice never faltering. “We married under false pretenses, and it’s no longer necessary. You can find work in New York as a seamstress, and in time you’ll find a man who can give you a real marriage and a good life.”

  “I--”

  “You deserve a man who loves you.”

  She flinched at his words. A man who loves you. Despite his kindness to her in recent days, despite the way he had held her in his arms while she slept the previous night, he didn’t love her. He was sending her away because he didn’t love her.

  “I see,” was all she said, but she wanted to scream at him. She ached to throw herself at him and shout horrible words in his face, but pride made her keep her silence.

  You may not love me, Adam Phillips, but I love you, she said silently, and swallowed her tears. And I always will.

  Chapter 21

  Pieter VanDam’s sawmill had been spared by the fire, and he lost no time putting his men back to work cutting lengths of wood for the rebuilding efforts. Despite his lingering cough, Adam quickly returned to work at the mill as his employer scheduled extra shifts. With each passing day, the residents of Serenity learned of more towns that had been damaged by fires on that same night. Even the great city of Chicago had been almost totally destroyed, and the demand for cut wood to rebuild the towns was enormous.

  To the general amazement of nearly everyone in town, VanDam promised to donate materials for repairing the schoolhouse and went on to offer steep discounts to his neighbors who had lost their homes. He then stunned them all by offering to give credit to those who couldn’t afford to pay in full.

  “You could lose a lot of money, Piet,” Adam told him as they wrote up the orders.

  VanDam shrugged. “It will take much wood to rebuild Chicago and Holland. This fire makes me a rich man if I keep enough men working for me. And workers need homes and place to worship. It makes good business sense.”

  “Of course it does.” Adam smiled inwardly. He had begun to think his employer was a changed man, but it only made sense that his apparent charity was nothing more than a business decision. For Pieter VanDam, all decisions came down to the bottom line.

  “Wait a minute. This is not right.” Van Dam adjusted his spectacles and peered at the figures in front of him. “Adam, this is for your home?”

  Adam felt his face grow warm as he stiffened his spine. Even with the discount, he knew he couldn’t afford to build much more than a simple lean-to for himself without credit.
The plain truth was that he had almost no money for building supplies -- or for anything, for that matter.

  “Piet, I’m good for it,” he said.

  “Tjonge!” The mill owner crumpled the statement in his hand and tossed it angrily across the room. “You disappoint me.”

  His heart sank. In silence, he returned to work.

  “My English is not always good,” VanDam said hesitantly after a few minutes. “I will not give you credit, Adam, because you cannot pay me. Your home will cost you no money.”

  Adam’s confusion must have shown on his face, because his employer stood and crossed to him, placing a trembling hand on his shoulder. “Without you, my Gerrit would be with God today. I will never forget that.” He shook his head. “I am disappointed that you think I won’t show you gratitude, my friend. You write down what supplies you need, and the cost will be nothing.”

  He struggled to find his voice. “Piet, you are too kind, but --”

  “Tjonge!” the man said again, throwing his hands up in the air. “There is no ‘too kind’ for the man who saved my son.”

  VanDam wasn’t the only one who seemed changed by the fire. Those who hadn’t lost their homes opened their doors to those who had. Meals were prepared and passed around to others, and clothes were handed down from one family to the next.

  In the absence of a pastor, Will Baxter was asked to say a few words at an impromptu funeral service for the victims. Nearly all of Serenity’s residents came out that day to stand in the cold drizzle with bowed heads as he spoke heartfelt words from the Bible in his hands.

  “‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted’,” he began in his deep voice. “We are all mourning here for the loss of our homes and of our loved ones. We can find comfort in His words, but also in each other.”

  Adam snuck a quick glance at Caroline, standing beside him. She had refused to speak to him for days. Sophie and Emily were just as angry at him, and he longed to pull all three females into his arms in a comforting hug so he could explain to them why he was sending them away. He was doing what was best for them; why couldn’t they see that?