“Thank you, Lottie,” she said, trying not to pay attention to the luscious aroma of the toast. “Will you eat breakfast with me?”
With a giggle, the little girl plucked another piece of toast off the pile and handed it to her sister. She offered the next to her brother. When she held out a slice to Mr. Jennings, he took it with a smile and a quiet “Thank you.”
Again he sat on the foot of the bed, as if it were the most natural thing for him to do. Again Cailin said nothing as the children pelted him with questions between bites of toast and the jam he helped them serve themselves. The questions were about the upcoming fair, and he answered them with a patience she admired.
She did not eat, even though her stomach was painfully empty and she could not recollect when she had last had any food. She sat in silence, the toast quivering in her hand, and watched how her children treated Mr. Jennings with respect and good humor … and love. They clearly were at home here, and she wondered how they would feel about leaving this house and him.
When he looked over their heads, she met his gaze evenly. He turned back to the children. Not hastily, as if he were embarrassed to have her see him glancing toward her. Rather as if he had dismissed her as a problem he did not want to deal with when he preferred to chat with the children. His smile was warm as he spoke with them, keeping them from arguing about one matter or another with a skill Cailin had to admire.
“Do you have children of your own, sir?” she asked at a pause in the rapid conversation.
Mr. Jennings was clearly reluctant to look at her, and she wanted to tell him that he could not continue to hide behind the children and act as if nothing were out of the ordinary. When his gaze swept over her again, she knew she had misjudged him. He was not chatting with the children because he wished to pretend she was not here. He was doing so because he was trying to govern the powerful emotions visible in his eyes.
She clutched the covers and the long hem of the shirt beneath them. She hoped he could not hear the frantic thud of her heart.
“No children but these,” he replied. “In the past six months, they’ve come to consider this house their home.”
“You have a way with children.”
“I’ve learned.” His smile grew warm again as he clapped Brendan on the shoulder. “I’ve had good teachers.”
“It’s good to see that they’ve been happy, Mr. Jennings.”
Lottie dropped onto her stomach. She leaned both elbows on the bed and swung her feet behind her. With a grin, she said, “You should call him Samuel, Mama. All-body does.”
“Everybody,” Samuel corrected quietly.
When she did not answer, unsure what to say, for it was almost as if two men sat on the bed—the one who was so chilly to her and the one who had clearly won her children’s love—Samuel laughed. He ruffled the little girl’s hair and teased, “Quarter-pint, you know that’s what I usually say when I meet folks.”
She giggled. “I was faster than you.”
“You were.” Looking over Lottie’s head, he flashed another of those warm smiles, but this time at Cailin. “I guess I’ve said that too many times in her hearing, but she’s right. Samuel is more comfortable.”
For whom? She did not ask. The question sounded spiteful, even in her head. Samuel Jennings could not help the fact that his smile could have lit up a ship’s deck on a moonless night.
“And her name is Cailin,” announced Megan, reaching for another slice of toast.
“Whoa there.” He put up his arm between her eager fingers and the plate. “No one has another piece until your mother finishes her first slice. Then you can have another when she does.”
Megan sat back on her heels. “Hurry up, Mama. I’m hungry.”
With four pair of eyes watching her—the children’s eagerly and Samuel’s with amusement—she took a tentative bite. She chewed with care, almost as if she had forgotten how to eat. The first swallow was tough, and she was glad for the cup of tepid tea Samuel offered her. When she took another bite, hunger surged over her, blanking out every other feeling. She ate the toast at a pace for which she would have chided Brendan.
“Now?” asked her son as he poised his hand to grab the next slice.
“Brendan, you have better manners than this,” Cailin said, then smiled. Even scolding her children was something precious now.
“Which he hasn’t lost since you last saw him.” Samuel arched a single brow, a skill that had always impressed her, because she never had managed to perfect it. She guessed her tone had been too cool. “Brendan, offer your mother a piece, and then—”
A door opened beyond the bedroom. The sound of a screen door closing was followed by firm footsteps.
“That must be Rhea.” Samuel glanced at Cailin. “Rhea Bailey. She lives with her folks on a farm just up the road. She comes in to help with the cooking and cleaning a couple of times a week.”
“She does a fine job of ironing.” She touched Brendan’s sleeve. “This is nicely starched.”
“Samuel does the laundry,” her son replied.
“You do?” she blurted before she could halt herself.
“Every Monday.” Samuel smiled. “Or every rainy Monday, I should say. If Monday is sunny, then laundry gets pushed back a day. Now, when the harvest is ready, I don’t have as much time for laundry. Because all their other clothes need washing, the children are wearing their school clothes today, which is why they look so nicely pressed.”
“School …” she murmured. Her children were going to school! She fought not to weep with joy. At least one part of her dream for America was coming true. Her children were being given a chance to learn their letters and numbers. They might even be able to write their names.
“What did you say?” Samuel asked.
“Mama has always wanted us to go to school,” answered Brendan before she could.
Samuel wore a puzzled expression now. “Then why didn’t you send them before they arrived here?”
Cailin was spared once more from answering when a woman who was not much taller than Brendan peeked into the room. The young woman’s pale blue eyes widened, and her brows rose nearly to her blond hair.
When Samuel came to his feet, clearing his throat as if he had swallowed a large piece of toast, Cailin wondered if her face was bright red. Nothing indecent had happened, but his sitting on her bed gave that suggestion.
“I brought over a dress, Samuel,” said the woman who must be Rhea Bailey. She held out a light blue gown with a simple skirt. “It ain’t going to be long enough by a long shot.”
He grinned wryly. “I didn’t consider that.”
Rhea laughed, startling Cailin. Then the blonde looked at her and said, “Men!” and Cailin laughed, too.
Cailin put her fingers to her lips as Samuel’s gaze aimed at her again. Offending her host with such a reaction was beyond rude. When his lips quirked with a smile, she relaxed.
“I’ll have to think of something else,” he said, and thanked Rhea before the young woman left.
Rhea stuck her head past the door again and said, “Megan, you promised you’d help me knead the bread this morning, didn’t you?”
“But I want to talk to Mama.”
“Mama?” gasped the young woman, staring at Cailin. “I thought … that is, I assumed …”
“It’s all right,” Samuel said. Without a pause, he went on, “Megan, a promise is a promise. You can come back and talk with your mother after you’ve helped Rhea.”
Cailin took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll be right here, a stór.”
Megan smiled.
As she turned toward the door, Samuel said, “Don’t forget your apron this time, Megan.”
Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t want to wear it.”
“You don’t have to wear it. Just go and get it and have it ready in case Rhea has some other chores for you.”
She nodded before she followed Rhea out of the room.
Samuel walked back tow
ard the bed. “I know. I spoil them.”
“Some spoiling is good for a child.” She drew up her legs and stretched her toes. Locking her arms around her knees, she did not care about her unladylike position. She needed to stretch her muscles after the long train ride and the days of being sick. “It makes a child know he or she is loved.”
Again that single eyebrow rose. “Your opinion is different from the women in Haven, who have told me it is bad for a child.”
“It can be, if it’s done too much.”
“And how much is too much?”
“I don’t know. I never have gotten to the point where I believed I loved my children too much.” She smiled at Brendan and his younger sister.
Samuel motioned toward the door. “Brendan, you’ve got your chores in the barn, and, Lottie, you should check that your rabbit is doing well.”
“Mama,” Brendan asked excitedly, “did you know I have a cow of my own?”
“I heard you say something about taking a cow to a fair, but that’s all.”
“I’ve got my own cow.” His chest seemed to swell two sizes as he said with pride, “Samuel lets me take care of her all by myself, and I’m going to take her to the fair to be judged.” He grinned so broadly that she laughed.
Cailin wondered how many different ways she would see signs of Samuel’s affection for her children. When Brendan left, his sister following to feed the rabbit, she said, “I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to them, Samuel.”
“They make it easy.”
“They do.” She was so glad to be able to agree with him. “And I can’t thank you enough for your kindness to me as well.”
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Folks in Haven look out for each other. That’s why I settled here last year.”
She glanced around the room. The furniture appeared as if it had been standing here for years, because it fit the room so perfectly.
“You look surprised,” he said.
“I assumed you’d been here for a long time if you were able to have children placed out with you by the Children’s Aid Society.”
Everyone was astonished when Samuel offered to have the three children placed out with him. Three children for a bachelor! She silenced the voice in her head. Until she knew where she had heard those words, it was worthless thinking about them.
“No one stays a stranger long in Haven, so there would have been several to speak on my behalf.” He laughed, astounding her again. “People mind their own business and yours as well, but only out of caring for one another. I’m told that it isn’t unusual in a small town.”
“So you didn’t live on a farm before?”
His face closed up again, and she knew she had asked the wrong question, although she could not guess why. His answer was terse. “No, I lived in Cincinnati.”
She was curious what sort of place Cincinnati was, but did not ask. Clearly this was not a topic he wished to discuss with her, and she had something else she wanted to talk to him about.
“Lottie is wearing spectacles,” she said.
He nodded. Picking up the plate, he held it out to her.
She took the last piece of toast. Once she had started eating, she found she did not want to stop until her stomach was full, a sensation she had nearly forgotten. She started to take a bite, but he lifted it out of her hand. When he slathered it with more of the strawberry jam, he handed it back to her.
“If you’re going to eat cold toast,” he said, his smile returning, “at least have it be good-tasting cold toast.”
“Thank you.” She took a bite and savored the flavor of the jam and fresh butter.
“It must be quite a shock for you to see Lottie wearing glasses,” he said, as if there had been no pause in the discussion.
“A big shock.”
“Within a few days of her arrival,” he said, leaning one hand on the footboard, “I noticed she was squinting at everything. I thought at first it might be the bright sunshine, but it quickly became clear she was having trouble seeing.”
“I was afraid that was so, for I had noticed her squinting when we were crossing the sea to America. I wanted to take her to see a doctor in New York, but I wasn’t sure where there was one.”
“Doc Bamburger examined her. Now if we can just convince her to stop using words she doesn’t mean …” He smiled. “She wants to be as big as her sister and brother.”
“Who is Doc Bamburger?” she asked, although she wanted to hear more about her youngest, who had been speaking like a baby when Cailin last saw her. “Will he be willing to tell me if her eyes might get worse?”
“He’s the doctor in Haven, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to assure you—as he did me—that there’s no reason to think she may become blind.”
Again she flinched. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Doc Bamburger is a good doctor. He got the village through diphtheria with only a few deaths.”
“Diphtheria?” She sat straighter. “You have that here?”
“It was in Haven earlier this summer, but no one in this house got sick.”
“Thank heavens.”
“My thoughts exactly.” This time when he smiled, she did as well.
“As I’ve already said, but I doubt I can ever say enough, I appreciate you taking such good care of Lottie and making sure she can see. I feared what I might find when I got here. Anyone can see how well you’ve taken care of the children. Far better than I was able to.”
“Our situations are quite different.”
Her shoulders stiffened, and she closed her eyes before sudden tears could flow from them. That remark sounded too much like Abban’s mother when she had looked down her nose at Cailin and denounced her as a liar. No Rafferty would marry riffraff like an ignorant Irish farm girl. Those words had plagued her for the long weeks of her grief at the dashing of her dreams.
“Cailin?”
At the concern in Samuel’s voice, she shoved aside the tentacles of those memories. She opened her eyes to discover him so close to her, as he searched her face while he waited for her answer, she hardly dared to breathe. His breath, flavored with strawberry jam, brushed her face, and his lips were only a finger’s breadth from her mouth.
They were alone in this room with, she noticed with abrupt uneasiness, the door closed. Caught up in her conversation with Samuel, she had not seen Lottie or Brendan close it. Or had they? Had Samuel closed it after they left?
Her daughter and his hired girl probably were just beyond the door, but they might as well have been on the far side of the ocean. She could think only of how this strong, quiet man, who was not afraid to show his attachment to her children, possessed an undeniable male charm. As his hand rose toward her, she was torn between cringing away and lifting her own hand to touch it.
He put his palm against her forehead, shattering her delusion that he was as mesmerized as she. She should be grateful he only wanted to see if the fever had returned, but she could not be. For a moment, she had imagined his hands holding her as gently as he did one of the children. But she had not wanted him to hold her with a parent’s care. She had imagined him holding her far more intimately.
“No fever,” he said. “Is something else wrong?”
“No fever at all?”
“None at all. You’re as cool as a spring morn.” Samuel regarded her with confusion, and she could not blame him. How could she explain that it would be simpler if her thoughts had been a hallucination brought on by fever?
“Good.” She sounded foolish, but it would be even more unwise to speak of how she had been ready to let him take her into his arms. It must be the weakness left by her illness and the loneliness of her broken heart. She would not make the same mistake with another man as she had with Abban. She had been shown how silly trust in a man could be. If Abban had been alive when she reached New York with the children …
“Then what’s wrong?” Samuel asked. “Are you in pain?”
“My head is aching.” She wo
uld cling to the truth as long as she was able.
“Maybe you should rest some more.”
She hoped her voice did not sound as breathless to him as it did to her own ears when his firm fingers curled around hers, enclosing them in a warm cocoon of flesh. “No, I want to spend more time with the children.”
“They’ve worn you out.” His smile was as paternal as the one he wore when he teased Brendan.
“I’ve waited a long time for this. Now that I’m in Haven …”
“You’re staying here?”
“I can’t leave. I don’t have enough money to pay for even one train fare back to New York.”
His expressive brows lowered. “You mean you bought a one-way ticket?”
“It was all I could afford, and I didn’t want to wait a moment longer than necessary to find my children.”
Samuel’s shoulders grew rigid as Cailin’s had been a few minutes ago. Did she always have to put that slight emphasis on my when she mentioned the children? He did not ask, because it might be his ears that were hearing that stress on the word he had come to enjoy using when he spoke of the Rafferty children.
“I’m sure you understand,” she continued, her fingers quivering in his.
Her hand in his? When had that happened? He released her slender fingers, realizing he must have taken her hand when he wanted to be certain she was not sickening again.
She hastily drew her hand away, holding it close to her chest. His eyes followed the motion and took note of how her breasts pressed against the borrowed shirt—his shirt—with each breath she took. His own breathing was as unsteady as hers. Were they both out of their minds?
Lifting his gaze to a face that seemed to have no more color than the pillows beneath her, he tried to imagine her at Megan’s age so he could finish this conversation with what dignity he had left. It was impossible. Even though her high cheekbones and softly rounded chin surrounded by rich auburn hair were the same as the child’s, he could not ignore the pink invitation of her lips or the very adult emotions in her dark eyes.
He mumbled something and went out of the bedroom. As he walked toward the front door, he was not surprised to hear the kitchen door open and shut and running feet behind him. He paused in the doorway to see both Brendan and Lottie vanishing back into the bedroom. A moment later, her hands covered with flour, Megan followed them.
Moonlight on Water Page 33
