“She said they grow overnight and are getting to be even more squirmy.”
“That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
Annie’s vigorous nodding convinced Melanie that she would just have to gird her loins mentally and face the man. He wasn’t so terrible, she reminded herself as she bustled about, tidying the small house and herself before setting out on the long walk.
“Should we take a few cookies for the Millers?”
“For sure,” came Annie’s quick reply.
“What about something for us? Are we likely to get hungry on the way? Do you want me to bring an apple for you to munch on later?”
“Thank you, Melanie. And bring one for you, too.”
Melanie smiled over the little girl’s polite thoughtfulness. It was a shame she had faced such tragedy in her young life, but it had obviously forged her into a pleasant little person. Melanie chuckled as she arranged the cookies and a couple apples in a small sack to be comfortably carried on their trek.
She marveled over Annie’s energy as the little girl bounded around her as they made their way to the Miller’s ranch. Melanie thought she should admonish her not to expend so much energy before they even got there but thought better of it. The sweet child was so biddable, she would do as she was told, but Melanie hesitated to suppress her exuberance. Melanie just didn’t want to have to carry her home if she exhausted herself completely. So, she let the child continue her chatter and energetic play.
The fence posts marking the turn onto the Miller property were well behind them by the time they finally caught sight of the house and barn. Melanie was surprised once more by how large the property was. Mr. Miller had mentioned on their first visit that it spread out behind for at least a mile. She hadn’t thought to ask how far it went in the other directions. But it was large. And she was tired from the walk. She had thought she was getting accustomed to walking, but she probably ought to walk more on a regular basis. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem so very far if she were more used to it. Not that she needed to get used to walking to the Miller place, she admonished herself.
Someone on the property must have spotted them because Mary came bounding out of the house, excited to see them before they even reached the porch.
“I’m so happy to see you! Can you stay for supper?”
Melanie blinked. “Oh no, we wouldn’t want to impose. We were just wondering if we could see the puppies again.”
“Of course!” Mary exclaimed. “But you should stay for supper, too.”
Melanie laughed. “That’s kind of you to offer, Mary, thank you. We could maybe have a cup of tea with you, but we should get along home before supper. Annie’s mother doesn’t know we’ve come, and we wouldn’t want to make her worry.”
Melanie couldn’t interpret the look that crossed the child’s face, but Mary quickly agreed. “No, you definitely wouldn’t want her to worry. Let me just ring the bell so Papa knows you’ve come, and then we can go in the barn.”
“Oh, we needn’t disturb your father,” Melanie quickly interjected. “He’s surely busy with important things.”
“I think he’d be happy to have a visitor,” the child insisted as she banged on the loud bell and the sound rang out in an almost deafening manner.
“Well, no one could miss that,” Melanie commented, her tone dry.
Mary grinned.
“Is your aunt up for visitors?” Melanie thought to ask.
“She’s lying down,” Mary answered with a guilty face. “I prob’ly shouldn’t have rang the bell quite so good.”
Melanie laughed. “Well, she was happy to have a visitor the last time I was here, so she probably won’t mind if you woke her up.”
The child looked doubtful but wasn’t allowed to dwell on it overly. Annie’s impatience to see the pups couldn’t be quelled.
“Can we go to see them now, please? I promise I cannot wait another minute.” She was hopping from foot to foot in a manner that made all three of them break into giggles. Mary led the way to the barn.
They were so engrossed in the small animals that Melanie barely registered his presence until Mr. Miller spoke at her shoulder.
“Good afternoon. It’s a pleasant surprise to see you two.”
Stifling her gasp of surprise, Melanie turned to him with a smile. “Good afternoon. I hope we haven’t disturbed you too much. Mary insisted you would want to know we’re here. Annie wanted to see the puppies again.”
“And so you walked all the way here?” He was incredulous.
“It’s not so very far.” Melanie was embarrassed, but Annie hadn’t even noticed Mr. Miller’s arrival.
He must have realized he was making her uncomfortable, as he quickly tried to change the subject.
“Mary was quite correct. I would be very disappointed to find out we had visitors and I hadn’t been called to say hello. Do say you’ll stay for tea.”
Despite her discomfort, Melanie agreed. “Mary actually invited us to stay for supper, but we had to explain that Mrs. Carter didn’t know we were here so we couldn’t do that. But tea would be lovely, thank you.”
He too got a strange look on his face when she said Katie didn’t know where they were. “Did Mary say anything when you said that?”
“No, but her face looked sort of like yours does now. What have I said that’s so wrong?”
He quickly shook his head. “It isn’t you. It’s what you said.” Her face must have given away that he wasn’t making it better because he quickly recovered with, “That is to say, what you said reminded us of something that happened with Leandra a week ago.”
“Oh dear, something not good, from the looks of your faces.”
“When we got home from driving you and Annie home, she was a little put out that we hadn’t told her we were going.”
“Oh no, I thought she was sleeping when we left.”
“She was. But she woke up.”
“Is she afraid of being by herself?”
“It would seem so. It had never been a problem before, that I knew of, but then it might not have ever happened before.”
“Poor thing. I’m sorry that we were inadvertently the cause of trouble.”
“Don’t be. It is absolutely not your fault. And how were any of us to know she would wake up and be nervous?”
~~~
The humming sound she made low in her throat let him know Melanie didn’t exactly accept his absolution. She looked worried, as though she were wishing she hadn’t come to visit. Even though she was always so strange and awkward, he liked having her there. He needed to set her back at ease.
“By the way, thanks for your help in naming the horse. A new foal just arrived yesterday, so Gem got her name just in time.”
“You went with Gem!” A wide smile split her face. “That’s great. She must be happy to have a real name now.”
Cole tried not to look so skeptical as he said, “I’m not sure if she really noticed. She certainly didn’t take it personally.”
Miss Jones’ warm chuckle tickled his ears. “You never know. I think animals might be more intuitive than you think. But in either case, it would have been far too confusing to have two Baby Foals on the property.”
“That is certainly true.”
He watched as she bent down and picked up one of the puppies, who was making a beeline to the end of the stall. “You’re a little adventurer, aren’t you, my furry friend.” When she turned to face him, her eyes were full of warmth. “This one is going to be trouble, I’m afraid. He doesn’t seem inclined to remain with his siblings.”
“A sense of adventure might serve him well when he’s big enough to train. It means he won’t be timid or easily intimidated by the animals he’s supposed to be shepherding.”
Her warm gaze was full of curiosity. “Do you train them yourself? Have you done it often?”
He wanted to tug his collar. “Well, I trained his mother. I’ve trained a couple others and traded them for services.”
Her cocked head ind
icated she wanted to learn more. “It didn’t seem right to charge someone for a dog, even if he was well trained. So, I gave a couple of the trained pups away in exchange for help building my fence, for one, and I got a new ram for another.”
“That seems to be a smart way of doing things,” she observed. Her admiring tone made his chest feel like it was puffing up with pride. “Do you have similar plans for these puppies?”
His glance found his daughter and her friend with puppies in each of their laps. He had to laugh softly. “I have a feeling it will be a little bit harder this time. We haven’t had puppies with her old enough to remember.”
Melanie again made that rumbling sound in her throat, but this time it seemed to him to be sympathetic. “Maybe keeping one might help with various transitions you all will be facing soon.”
Cole’s throat tightened. Having an empathetic, intelligent adult to share life’s burdens with was something he had been sorely missing. Maybe he should take his sister-in-law up on her offer of sending him a wife. But he just couldn’t take the risk. He had already been down this road twice to pain and suffering all around. He surely wished some of his family would come for a visit, but they had wired to say that an official from a hospital would be coming to collect Leandra. He suspected it was going to be trouble. He cleared his throat.
“Could I please ask your advice on something, Miss Jones?”
She chuckled softly. “You can certainly ask, but I cannot guarantee that I’ll have anything useful to offer.”
He grinned in response. “That’s fair enough. My family has wired to say that rather than come themselves to collect Leandra, they are sending someone from a hospital they want her to go to.”
“Oh dear, that’s unfortunate, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I don’t actually think she’s so far gone that she needs to go into a place like that. But sending a stranger for her might make her worse, and then she’ll need it. I feel so guilty.”
“I can understand why you might feel that way, but in my opinion, you ought not to do so. You made the decision to contact your family, both for your daughter’s and your sister’s welfare. It is a little less than ideal that they decided to handle it in this way, but they’re her family, too. Maybe there are factors you don’t know anything about. And maybe it’ll be for the best this way.”
“I hope you’re right.” He hated sounding so fearful to his own ears and couldn’t quite meet her gaze due to his embarrassment.
When she reached out and put her hand on his arm, he almost jumped with surprise, but the warm pressure of her small hand felt so good he wondered how he could prolong the sensation. It seemed to be exactly what he needed in that moment. But then it appeared as though she thought better of the impulse and pulled her hand back, quickly gripping it with her other hand. Her face took on that scrunched up, nervous appearance that he hated to see, as though she were afraid of whatever was coming next.
She cleared her throat, a delicate but nervous sound. “We really ought to be going. We just wanted to venture over for a few minutes of playing with the puppies. Annie and I don’t want to intrude on you and your family.”
It looked as though she were going to run out on them. “Have you changed your mind about staying for a cup of tea?”
Her face flamed with color, and she started to stammer. “Well, no, I, uh, just don’t want to intrude on your family situation.”
“It’s no intrusion. I promise you. If Leandra is awake, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you. If she’s not, Mary and I will enjoy your company.”
Her high color didn’t recede noticeably, but she didn’t decline either, busying herself with collecting the puppy who was again trying to escape the confines of the stall. When she briefly cuddled the little animal tenderly to her chest, Cole felt his own chest constrict. It was such an unconscious action, as though she couldn’t help herself. He was shocked to realize that he was jealous of the pup.
He too cleared his throat of discomfort. “I’ll just go put the kettle on the stove to boil. Come in when you’re ready.”
Miss Jones cast him a half smile as she kept her face partially averted. He thought the little girls hadn’t even noticed his words, but then his daughter called out.
“Thank you, Papa, we’ll be right there.” There was a muffled protest from what must have been Annie before Cole heard his daughter explaining, “But Annie, I can barely wait to eat some of those cookies you brought.” This was followed by at least two females giggling, so Cole was left to surmise that Annie wasn’t begrudging his daughter her tea. He hurried away to do as he had said.
Chapter Eight
M elanie was nervous. She rubbed her hands briskly against her skirt as she walked with the girls back to the house. She wished she had worn gloves, but she realized that would have been ridiculous in this heat and location. The Millers would have thought her pretentious, she was sure, putting on airs like some debutante from the Upper Side of New York. Her friend, Cassandra, who was a debutante, could have certainly pulled it off with aplomb, but Melanie was certain she would have just looked ridiculous. Of course, most all women wore gloves on formal occasions, even out here in Bucklin. She had noticed some of the women in the mercantile had worn gloves. But she would have looked absurd walking out to visit puppies with her gloves on. And her only owning one good pair anymore. The adorable little animals would have greatly enjoyed ripping them to shreds.
Sighing, Melanie tried to bring her thoughts into order. Mr. Miller is merely being neighborly by offering us tea. Anyone would do the same thing, she reminded herself. I would make the same offer if the roles were reversed, she insisted. Besides, he wants help calming his sister, to be sure, the poor dear.
Who’s going to look after me so kindly when I go stark, raving mad? Melanie asked herself, her stomach clenching as she tried to shove the unwelcome thought away. Who says you haven’t already? she mocked herself. This last thought caused her lips to tip up in genuine amusement. It was at that moment that her gaze was ensnared by that of Mr. Miller, and the pit of her stomach dropped down for a moment.
I wonder if this is what Katie is always talking about when she speaks of the doctor. She says she gets butterflies in her tummy. That sounds pleasant enough. Not like this queasy feeling I have when my heart is racing and I think I might be ill. Gulping for air, Melanie tried to still her racing thoughts. It’s just tea! Everyone drinks tea. The little girls are present. And oh look, there’s Leandra. Oh dear, she doesn’t look well.
“Miss Jones,” Leandra said, her voice hoarse.
“Please, you must call me Melanie as we agreed last time.”
“Oh yes, pray excuse me. I had quite forgotten.” Melanie didn’t think she had, as her tone wasn’t in the least genuine, but she allowed the statement to pass without argument.
“Your voice sounds a bit strained, Leandra. Have you been unwell?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Leandra replied while her gaze darted around as though she couldn’t settle on anything.
Melanie was confused until it dawned on her that perhaps the poor woman had been yelling herself hoarse. Her eyes sought out Mr. Miller’s gaze. He looked resigned, and Melanie felt stricken. What tragedy.
Melanie thought a change of topic was in order. “Annie and I made some extra cookies this afternoon and thought we would bring them by and get a peek at the puppies.” Leandra didn’t make any comment in return so Melanie kept on. “It’s hard not to lose your heart to the dear little animals, isn’t it?”
When Leandra still didn’t say anything, Melanie gave up and turned to Mary to ask, “Are dogs your favorite animal, Mary?”
The little girl scrunched up her face while she thought about her answer. “I love the puppies and really all dogs, but I think my favorite animal is a bobcat.”
“A bobcat? Well, that’s not at all the answer I was expecting. Is there a reason why a bobcat is your favorite?”
“They eat rats,” the little girl a
nswered simply. “I really don’t like rats. I don’t mind mice, but rats are too big for my liking.”
“I can’t say that I blame you for that.” Melanie tried not to shudder as she thought of her next question. “Are there many rats around?”
“They like to eat the horse feed.”
“Oh dear. Do the horses mind?” Melanie lamented her limited knowledge of animals and wildlife.
Mary shrugged. “I don’t know if they mind sharing their food, but they don’t like rats either. Some of the horses are afraid of them.”
“I can understand that,” Melanie answered with a nervous giggle. “I think I agree with you that bobcats are pretty great if they keep the rats under control. But aren’t bobcats a little scary?”
“No, they’re more scaredy than scary,” Mary answered with a wide smile. “I wish they weren’t so scaredy. They look pretty soft. I would like to pet one someday.”
Melanie bit her lip and glanced at the child’s father. He met her gaze and rolled his eyes. Seeing the humor lurking in their depths made Melanie need to fight not to burst into more giggles. Melanie turned back to the children.
“What about you Annie? Do you have a favorite animal?”
“I love the puppies. I wish we could have one. Or maybe a kitten. But I think I love most the birds that sing outside my window every morning. It’s the happiest sound I ever heard. It’s so much better than what we heard before.”
Melanie glanced at her small companion and was forced back to her last morning in New York. Once again, she had been awakened by the shrewish yelling of the woman who lived across the hall as her husband left for work.
“You better not be late coming home for supper again tonight, Murray. I won’t be cooking your meals any longer if you leave them to congeal on the stove.”
Who would want to come home to that welcoming screech? she thought as she rolled over and punched her pillow, trying to find a soft spot for her head.
But sleep would not be returning to her. Murray’s departure had set the building in motion, and everyone was stirring. She had left the window open the night before in an effort to air out their rooms. The air was fresher, but through the opening could be heard the sound of horse shoes on cobblestones as the deliveries were being made up and down the street.
Orphan Train Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4 Page 35
