But she trembled in my arms, he reasoned, then just as quickly pushed the thoughts aside. “She was afraid because her parents were coming,” he announced aloud. “That’s all it was.”
He grabbed up his hat and walked to the door. Whispering a prayer for strength, he walked out the door just as Zack Matthews stalked by.
“Evenin’, Mac.”
“How are your prisoners doing?” Mac questioned as Zack paused, pushing up the brim of his hat.
“They’re keeping well enough. That Bear doesn’t say a word. He just stares at me like he wishes he could drop me dead in my tracks. If looks could do the job, you’d be burying me now.”
Mac nodded. “Mary says his rage runs deep. But who can blame him? He’s buried a sister and other members of his family—most of whom have perished at the hands of the white man, in one way or another. He’s not old enough to remember the Long Walk, but he knows those who are and he remembers the stories. They moved the entire Navajo nation from their homeland. Many of them died . . . even more wished they could.”
“Glad I wasn’t around for that. My own pa’s told me stories of Indian wars and the bad times that followed. I can’t imagine them moving an entire group of people off their land and marching them off to resettle elsewhere. I just don’t see how we have the right to be interferin’, so long as the Indians don’t expect to be runnin’ our lives.”
“I’m not sure what the answer is, to tell you the truth. Mary talks about their need to fit in with the scheme of the future, yet she respects the need to hold on to tradition and culture. A person’s family and ancestors should have a place of importance, but sometimes I don’t see it making it through to the twentieth century.”
Zack nodded. “There’s a lot of hate out there, Mac. A lot of hate.”
“On both sides.”
Again, Zack nodded. “That’s for sure. Well, guess I’d better go round up their meals. The Harvey House has been furnishing the grub, and for that, I’m grateful.”
“Are the Navajo eating it?” Mac questioned.
“For the most part. It’s that or go hungry. Frankly, I think they may be plannin’ an escape or hoping for some sort of intercession on the part of the government. Mary promised to telegraph the authorities and see what could be done.”
“No doubt she’s kept to her word, but I wouldn’t bet on the authorities caring much one way or the other.”
Zack shrugged and made his way to the back door of the Harvey House, while Mac followed behind and passed him by to head around front.
“Wish me luck,” he said to Zack.
“You meetin’ Jillian’s parents?”
Mac nodded. “I feel like a lamb led to the slaughter.”
Zack laughed. “I’ll have to sketch that out. A lamb with your face, and the executioner can be Mr. Danvers.”
“Don’t laugh. It’s not that far from the truth.”
Zack was still chuckling as Mac rounded the corner of the building and headed to the front door. He scrutinized the dust on his black shoes and wondered if he should pause long enough to wipe them off with his handkerchief. Surely the Danverses wouldn’t be that particular. Inside, the pacing was much slower than when the train passengers were being served. Ten to twelve people, including some railroad workers, sat at the formal-looking tables.
“Jillian’s in the front parlor with her folks,” Gwen said, coming alongside of Mac. “She thought perhaps you’d rather meet up with them there.”
Mac nodded and asked, “What did you think of them?”
Gwen met Mac’s gaze. “Her father is overbearing, bossy, and opinionated. Her mother is docile in comparison but gets her thoughts in nevertheless.”
Mac had hoped she’d say something to relieve his nervousness, but her words didn’t help. “I suppose there’s no putting this off.”
“I don’t suppose so,” Gwen said sympathetically. “After all, you wouldn’t want to be late.”
Mac shook his head. “No, that would no doubt be a poor omen of things to come.”
He quickly made his way out of the dining room and back down the hall to the front parlor. Immediately he spied Jillian. Radiant and lovely in a gown of lavender muslin, she met his entrance with warmth and enthusiasm.
“Here he is now!” she announced, getting to her feet. She rushed to Mac’s side and held her hand out to him. “This is Dr. Terrance MacCallister.” She paused and met Mac’s eyes. “My fiance .”
Mac held her gaze for a moment. He knew he didn’t have to pretend to give her a loving look, for the great love he felt for her was no doubt evident in his expression. He looped her arm around his own before proceeding to meet her parents.
“This is my father, Mr. Colin Danvers of Kansas City,” Jillian announced very formally.
“Mr. Danvers,” Mac said in greeting.
“Dr. MacCallister,” Danvers replied. “I had begun to think you were a figment of my daughter’s imagination.”
“No, indeed,” Mac said with a smile. “And you must be Mrs. Danvers.” He turned to Jillian’s mother, who extended her hand. Mac took hold of her gloved fingers and expertly lifted them to his lips. Not quite touching his mouth to her hand, he bowed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The expression on Gretchen Danvers’ face registered pure surprise and delight. He had presented himself as a gentleman of refinement, something she had evidently not expected. Good, Mac thought. Let me keep them guessing.
“Our daughter has written much about you,” Gretchen said as Mac released her hand. “I am happy to see that she did not exaggerate. You appear to be everything she said you were.”
“Oh?” Mac turned to Jillian and grinned as she blushed a brilliant red. “We shall have to find a moment to discuss what she put to paper.”
“I don’t think that would be necessary, dear,” Jillian said, emphasizing her endearment. “You wouldn’t want my parents to think you a prideful man.”
Colin Danvers continued to watch him wearily, so Mac did nothing more than nod. “But of course, you’re right.”
“What kind of name is Terrance?” Jillian’s father asked suddenly. All heads turned to the older man as if he’d lost his senses.
“Father, does it need an explanation? Apparently it’s the name his parents gave him,” Jillian replied.
Mac patted her arm soothingly. “It’s actually a name I cannot abide, so most folks call me Mac. We’re rather informal around these parts, and titles and other formalities soon go by the wayside.”
“I would have figured as much,” Danvers replied.
Jillian tensed on his arm. “Shall we go ahead to dinner? The food is quite good and the dining room is not so crowded that it shall exclude serious conversation.” Her voice came in a tight, controlled manner.
When no one replied, Jillian simply turned for the door. “Come, then. Mac and I shall lead the way.”
They moved quietly into the dining room, allowing Gwen to show them to the special table she’d prepared for them. Kate and Louisa both were on hand to wait on them, and after ordering more food than any four people could consume, Mac decided to jump right in and lead the conversation.
“Did you have a pleasant trip?”
Danvers grunted. “As pleasant as you can have riding into the middle of nowhere. What brought you to these parts anyway?”
Mac showed no surprise at the man’s boldness in skipping the formalities. “I heard there was a great shortage of doctors in the West. I grew up and took my training in Philadelphia. My married sisters live there still.”
“Oh, so you know about society,” Gretchen interjected. “Good breeding is so important. Do your parents live there also?”
“My parents have passed on to their reward,” Mac replied.
“I see,” Gretchen said, looking quite disappointed.
“What did your father do for a living?” Colin Danvers asked as Kate served them their first course.
Bluepoints on the half shell, stuffed mangoe
s, and currant soup decorated the table in an inviting manner, and Mac allowed Kate time to serve each of the Danverses before he replied.
“My father started out as a minister, and then my parents took up a job of missions work. They spent a good deal of my childhood in South America. This made it necessary for my grandfather, a man of some varied industrial interests, to raise me.”
Danvers eyed him quite seriously for a moment, his thick face seeming to turn to iron. “Your people were religious?”
Mac thought he denoted disapproval in Danvers’ voice. “They were,” he replied, deciding that a simple answer was better than a lengthy explanation.
Jillian remain focused on her dinner, while Mac felt his level of nervousness mount. It hadn’t dawned on him until just that moment that Danvers might ask some very personal questions about the past. About . . . her. Mac looked to Jillian, wondering what she would think about the truth—about his life and his past.
As if realizing he contemplated her reaction, Jillian glanced up and smiled reassuringly. Mac felt torn between grabbing her up, running from the room, and blurting out his feelings of love. Colin Danvers, however, took the matter from his hands.
“So you grew up in Philadelphia and attended school there. You became a doctor and moved to Arizona. Is that the sum total of your life?”
“For the most part,” Mac replied, hoping the man would be content to move on to the present.
“And now you wish to marry my daughter.”
The statement was delivered in such a way that there seemed to be no need for reply. Mac looked Danvers in the eye. The sternness of his adversary’s expression might have withered a less worthy opponent, but not Mac. To Mac, it was almost as if his grandfather had come back to life.
“Can you support a wife?” Danvers questioned.
“I can,” Mac answered in calm assurance.
“You say that very confidently,” Jillian’s father replied. “Have you reason to believe this to be the case? Have you been married before?”
The question had come so unexpectedly that Mac nearly dropped his fork. He had no time to prepare a lie, so he simply told the truth. “Yes.”
Jillian did drop her fork. It clattered loudly onto the highly polished wooden floor. “Oh my,” she said apologetically. “Please forgive me.”
Kate quickly came and replaced the utensil, taking the dirty fork away before anyone could so much as comment on Mac’s declaration.
Mac could see the stunned look on Jillian’s face, even though she tried so hard to hide it. If he recognized it, no doubt her parents would as well.
“Perhaps you should explain,” Danvers stated as Kate and Louisa took away their plates in order to serve the next course.
Mac nodded. “I married quite young. A local girl from a wellregarded family was chosen by my grandfather for me to marry, and I found that it was not an unappealing idea to propose matrimony. We were married for less than a year.”
“What happened?” Gretchen Danvers asked. She all at once realized that she’d spoken aloud and bowed her head as if she’d committed some unforgivable breach of etiquette.
No doubt, Mac thought, Danvers liked his women silent. He smiled reassuringly at Gretchen as she glanced up. “She was a frail person. She caught pneumonia and died.”
“You were a doctor and you couldn’t save her?” Danvers questioned. “I wasn’t with her at the time. We had moved to the Arizona Territory. She had gone home to spend time with her parents. The life here made her homesick, and we both agreed it would do her well to make the trip.”
“Apparently you were in error.”
“Father!” Jillian declared. “That’s hardly fair to say.”
Mac appreciated her defense, especially after springing such a surprise on her. “I was in error, sir,” he admitted. “I was in error about a great many things. Including the idea of taking one so young so far from home. And also in allowing my marriage to be arranged for me based on business rather than love.”
“Marriage is as much a business arrangement as anything you will ever know in life,” Danvers replied sternly. “Emotions and female notions will not hold a family together in hard times.”
“Neither will money,” Mac replied confidently.
The rest of the dinner passed in an awkward series of questions and answers. Mac felt drained of all energy by the time Danvers announced that he would like to retire for the evening.
Jillian and Mac escorted them to the hotel, and while Mac waited patiently, Jillian kissed her mother’s cheek and bid her father goodnight. When they had gone and Jillian and Mac were left to themselves, Mac felt the need to apologize.
“Would you walk a bit with me?” he asked.
Jillian nodded. “If you’d like.” She sounded shy and hesitant.
“I feel I need to explain about Abigail.”
“Mac, you don’t owe me any explanation,” Jillian countered. “After all, you’re only going along with this to keep me out of hot water with my father.”
Mac took hold of her arm. “Please just hear me out. It’s important that you know. I care about you, and I want to be completely honest.” Jillian looked up at him oddly but said nothing more. Mac drew a deep breath and began. “I didn’t exactly tell the whole truth.”
“Oh?”
“Abigail and I did marry too young, and I did move us here, leaving her feeling completely distraught. The reason, however, had little to do with her parents and everything to do with another man in Philadelphia.”
“Oh, Mac, I’m sorry.”
Her heartfelt words warmed him and gave him the courage he needed to continue. “I was too. I thought I really loved her. I thought she really loved me. My grandfather saw it as a good match. He and Abigail’s father were business partners, and they saw this as a joining of the power they had created. Abigail and I had been intended for each other for some time, and I had thought we both were keen for the idea.”
“Only she wasn’t?” Jillian questioned softly. She looked up at him with such an expression of concern that Mac wanted to hold her close.
“She pretended to love me. It made a good cover for her escapades with the man she really loved. After we married and moved, however, I learned the truth of the matter.”
“How?”
“She had remained distant, weepy, and cold to me from the night of our wedding. She didn’t want my love or affection. My attempts to romance her were rejected. She’d have nothing to do with me—nothing.” Jillian nodded knowingly, and Mac appreciated that she had taken his meaning without offense at the delicacy of the subject matter. “Two months after living this farce of a marriage, she could no longer hide the fact that she was pregnant. Unfortunately, the baby was not mine. She had been expecting even when we had married.”
“Oh, Mac, how betrayed you must have felt.”
He looked at her for a moment, pausing in their walk. “I vowed to never love again. Only now . . . now I see that was wrong.”
Jillian said nothing, but looked away quickly. “What did you do when you found out about her . . . her indiscretion?”
Mac began walking again, pulling her close alongside him. A full moon illuminated their path, and Jillian seemed in no hurry to be rid of his company. Mac relished the feel of her being so near. He longed to share his heart with her and explain everything in detail, but a part of him held back, fearful of the rejection that might come. Remembering the pain of the rejection that had come.
“I was willing to forgive her and accept the child as my own. It hurt me to realize that she had only married me out of obligation to her family, but I told her we could make a new start. She laughed at me and said she didn’t want to start anything with me. She wanted to go home to the father of her child and make her life there. I told her I wouldn’t give her a divorce, that I didn’t believe in such things. She told me she’d find a way to make it happen. But she never had the chance.”
“What happened?” Jillian asked.
> By now they had walked past the Harvey House and the train depot. The night air had grown cool, and seeing Jillian shiver, Mac decided it was time to take her home. He slipped his coat off and put it around her shoulders. Smiling her gratitude, Jillian pulled the coat close.
Turning back for the Harvey House, he continued. “She went home about three weeks before Christmas. Somewhere along the way she came down sick, and when she arrived in Philadelphia she was already quite ill. Her parents telegraphed to say that she was failing fast and that I should come right away. She never told them about the other man, and I never learned who he was. She died before I ever got to Philadelphia. There was an elaborate funeral, and hundreds of sympathetic people told me how sorry they were for my loss. They didn’t know the half of it.
“Three weeks later, my grandfather had a heart attack and died. He left everything to me, surprisingly enough. I sold off most of the businesses and invested the money elsewhere. Then I kept what I wanted from the house and sold it as well. My elder sister wanted the place, so her husband bought it at a very reduced price. Then I split the money with my sisters and returned West.”
Mac began to walk toward the front of the Harvey House, but Jillian nodded in the direction of the back. “I’ll go in back here,” she whispered. “That way I won’t have to face everyone and answer all their questions.”
Mac nodded. “I hope I did the right thing in telling your father the truth.”
They came to stand outside the back door to the restaurant. Jillian turned and smiled up at Mac. “You did wonderfully. I couldn’t have asked for more. I hope you know how sorry I am for the pain you suffered.” Her words were sincere and pierced to the heart. “No one should have to feel such rejection and hurt. I can’t imagine that this wife of yours had any good sense at all—not if she put another in your place when she could have had you all along.”
Without realizing what he was doing, Mac reached out and pulled Jillian into his arms. He ached to hold her close. In fact, ever since she had thrown herself into his arms in fear that afternoon, Mac had longed to draw her back. She didn’t protest his embrace, and when she turned her face up to look into his eyes, Mac felt certain that he saw a longing there to match his own. Perhaps it was just the moonlight, but he was willing to take the chance.
A Veiled Reflection Page 19
