Accidental Family

by Lisa Bingham

  She bit her lip, and he hurried to reassure her. “They took up a collection among themselves. I...didn’t know how to refuse.”

  She opened the door wide. “Come in out of the cold, Charles.”

  Willow couldn’t have known how, in that moment, Charles felt an alternate meaning to the words. In that instant, with the lamplight behind her, the aromas of a meal spilling into the darkness, and that shy smile flitting about her lips...

  He felt her warmth like a palpable thing.

  Until now, his life had been ever so cold. He’d been living alone—existing alone. But he hadn’t been happy. He hadn’t even been content. Instead, he’d stumbled hollowly through his usual routines, drawing upon his faith and his work to see him through each day. Then the next. And the next.

  But until now, he hadn’t really known how much he’d been missing. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time that anyone had cared about his well-being. Oh, sure, he had friends who wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.

  But he’d never had anyone who seemed so determined to envelope him in true caring and affection. And he’d certainly never felt this way before—like a parched man being led to a spring to quench his thirst. Every moment in Willow’s presence seemed to make him feel more alive.

  “Come on, Charles. We’ll tuck the money away for now, start a little nest egg for the children. But we can talk about that later. You’ll catch your death out there.”

  The last of his unsettling thoughts skittered away and he grasped the pails and called out, “You will, too, lassie. Look at you, standing in the doorway waiting for your fool husband to come in.”

  * * *

  In the next few days, Willow noticed a change in Charles. He seemed quieter than usual, more apt to linger around the house. She oftentimes found him reading his Scriptures, or holding one of the children and studying the chart that they’d tacked to the wall. More than anything, he appeared...careful. His words were measured, his actions deliberate—as if he feared that a hasty reaction could cause the world to crash down around him.

  At first, Willow thought she was the one to blame. She knew it couldn’t be easy for him. He’d been a confirmed bachelor before she’d stumbled into his home and claimed to be the twins’ mother. He must have been used to a particular schedule, certain foods, an abundance of quiet time. Now, his life had been turned topsy-turvy by crying babies, a wife who was a stranger, a cantankerous goat, and an endless number of chores. And yet...

  He didn’t seem unhappy.

  Merely...cautious.

  She supposed that she should comfort herself with the fact that Charles seemed as intent as she was on solving the mystery of who had killed Jenny. But even that thought brought its own host of fears.

  Was he so eager to get rid of her?

  But, no. She wouldn’t think that way. She couldn’t.

  “Willow, come look at this.”

  He stood in front of the chart again, frowning, Adam cradled in the crook of his arm. He’d tucked the stubby pencil behind his ear so that Adam could grasp his forefinger. Charles looked so deep in thought that she doubted he realized the way his body swayed from side to side in deference to the child.

  “What is it?”

  She’d been sewing tiny layette gowns and flannel undervests on Louise’s sewing machine. If she finished the batch, she’d have nearly a dozen on hand—about half of what she figured she would need to keep the children clothed between changes and allow enough time for laundering and drying. For the most part, the clothing was basic and serviceable—hardly anything to crow about. But the women of the Dovecote had promised to help her embroider some of the garments for those times when the children might be seen in town.

  Would that day ever come? Would they ever catch Jenny’s killer so that the children could go with her to the Dovecote or evening Devotional? Or perhaps to the cook shack, so that she could lend her hand with the baking again?

  Willow arched her back, then rubbed the back of her neck. How long had she been hunched over the sewing machine? Three hours? Four?

  Charles frowned. “You’re working too hard. Do the twins really need so many clothes?”

  She grimaced. “They wet through their gowns at least once or twice a day—and then there’s the mess from the goat’s milk if they spit up. With the weather the way it is, I sometimes need a day to soak them, and another day to wash and dry them.”

  He grimaced in turn. “I could help with wash duty.”

  She grinned. “I’ve seen the way you wash—by carrying your laundry into town to have it done there. Somehow, I don’t think Mr. Grimaldi would know what to do with a basketful of diapers and undervests.”

  Charles laughed, and oh, how she loved that sound. A low, deep rumble that lightened his features and chased the shadows from his eyes.

  “You are correct once again, Mrs. Wanlass.”

  She stopped beside him, peering at the chart. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  He gently pulled free from Adam’s grip and pointed to the timeline.

  “I’ve been able to add a few more details here. We thought that Jenny was last seen on the fifth of January, at nine in the morning. But one of Gideon’s men saw her walking along the tree line around the Dovecote a little after ten. According to Gideon, the man’s sure about the time because he’d been on duty all night and most of the morning, and he was hurrying to the cook shack before the girls stopped serving hot breakfast and put out the cold meats for lunch.”

  He paused, pointing to yet another comment he’d written in his looping cursive.

  Willow bit her lip, wondering if she should confess to him that she had no way of fathoming what the words said. In her years at Good Shepherd, she’d never learned to write in script, let alone read it.

  But that wasn’t something she wanted to admit. Not yet. At the Good Shepherd, they’d made it quite clear to her that her inability to learn to read and write at the speed of the other children revealed a flaw in her moral character.

  “Around one, Stumpy was sure that he saw Jenny in the woods.”

  “The woods!”

  He nodded. “Ever since the women took over the meals at the cook shack, Stumpy and his men have been using their time to hunt.”

  Willow was well aware of the fact. That’s why the women had volunteered to help in the first place. The brides had feared, with so many new mouths to feed after the train had become stranded, that the company’s food supplies wouldn’t last the winter and the men would resent their presence all the more. But with a hunting party able to work full-time, the concerns had been eased.

  “Is he sure?”

  Charles nodded. “He said she was circling through the trees to the riverbank. But when she saw Stumpy and his men, she dodged back into the pines again.”

  “Where was this?”

  He pointed to a rough map of the area that he’d drawn on the upper right-hand portion of the chart. “She must have come from the Dovecote...” His finger touched a large square. “But rather than following the track west to the main road, then north into town, she went east through the pines and aspens here near the river, then headed north.”

  “But why? There’s no shelter nearby, is there?”

  Charles shook his head. “Nothing but trees and scrub and the river—which is pretty much frozen this time of year.”

  “What’s on the other side of the river?”

  “She’d have to scramble up some steep bluffs, but even then, there’s nothing but snow and open fields until she’d hit the opposite side of the valley. During the summer, that area is used to grow feed for the mules and livestock.”

  Jenny, what were you doing?

  Charles pointed to the long column of suspects they’d made only the day before. Already, the list had been substantially cut down.

  “Gideon
was able to clear a few more men, and Jonah another three. That brings our suspects down to eighteen.”

  Charles seemed to sense her disappointment, because his hand wound around her waist to pull her close.

  “Don’t be discouraged. We’ve crossed off a lot of suspects since we started.”

  She nodded. Charles was right. They’d been living together as man and wife for little more than a week, and the children were still safe. By chipping away at Jenny’s movements, they were adding more and more information to her whereabouts just before she’d disappeared.

  “If she was last seen the afternoon of the fifth...” Willow’s eyes widened. “Wasn’t that about the same time the fire broke out at the machine shop?”

  “I think you’re right. We came barreling out of the tunnels to help with the blaze, and we couldn’t have been on shift that long.” He frowned. “You know, Ephraim Zanata was sure there was something wrong with that fire. He said it was burning too hot and too fast to have been caused by a spark from his blast furnace—and the fire seemed to start on the outside wall of the building, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense at the time.”

  Willow bristled at the thought that her friend might have been responsible. “No. Jenny wouldn’t have done such a thing.” She gestured to the map. “And if she was seen in the woods—”

  Charles stilled her protests with a squeeze of her waist. “I’m not saying Jenny did it. But what if it was a diversion?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and I both know the minute that alarm bell rings, the entire town comes running. Just look at the way you women at the Dovecote came rushing to help when the tunnel collapsed and Jonah was injured.”

  Charles’s eyes grew troubled, like storm clouds piling up against the jagged mountaintops above the mine.

  “What if the fire was the killer’s attempt to isolate Jenny at the Dovecote? Alone.”

  “She wouldn’t have come running,” Willow whispered.

  “Not in her condition.”

  “But if Stumpy was right, and she’d already left the Dovecote...”

  “Then Jenny knew she was in trouble.”

  Chapter Ten

  Willow and Charles were sitting down to bowls of stew and cornbread when a rapping at the door signaled yet another visitor.

  “I don’t think I’ve had so many people wanting to talk with me in my whole life,” Willow said. “But now that you and I have married, we seem to have become the social hub of Bachelor Bottoms.”

  Charles couldn’t help but smile. She had a point. Even he couldn’t remember having so many callers drop by his house—which worried him, since they still had no clue who might have harmed Jenny.

  “Just be careful about answering the door if I’m not around,” he warned.

  Surreptitiously, he settled a revolver on his lap, covered it with his napkin, then nodded to Willow.

  “Who’s there?” she called next to the door.

  “Mrs. Wanlass, ma’am. It’s Mr. Creakle and Mr. Smalls come to talk to Mr. Wanlass, if you’ll beg our pardon... Mrs. Wanlass...ma’am.”

  Willow grinned and quickly unbolted the door, swinging it wide. “Come in, gentlemen.”

  The two men were silhouetted against falling snow, short and tall, wizened and bullish.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Creakle carefully pounded his feet on the stoop to clean his boots as much as possible, then stepped inside, dragging a rabbit skin hat from his head. Immediately, his white hair stood up in a ring around his balding head, giving him the tufted appearance of an owl.

  He made room for Willoughby Smalls, who did the same.

  “Let me take your coats.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. We can do it.”

  Smalls, who was wearing an enormous greatcoat made of what looked like a bear skin barely minus the bear, was the first to shed his outer coverings. Willow staggered beneath the weight of the garment as she hung it on the pegs beside the door.

  Creakle seemed to be having more trouble with his coat—so much so that Smalls finally grasped the garment by the cuffs and lifted them straight up. Willow could have sworn that Creakle’s boots left the floor before he was unceremoniously dumped free.

  Hiding a smile, Willow hung his coat next to Smalls’s.

  “Would you gentlemen like to join us for dinner? We were just about to have some venison stew and cornbread.”

  Smalls’s lips slid into a wide grin and his eyes jumped to the table a few feet away. But Creakle, his constant companion—and most days his voice—offered a tentative, “No, my mama always told me not t’ interrupt folks’ dinners. We can come back...”

  His words might decline her offer, but there was no heart to them, so Willow made a dismissing gesture with her hands.

  “Nonsense. Have a seat. You may as well eat here—and my mam, before she left us, God rest her soul, was adamant that no one should ever leave her home hungry. Sit, sit!”

  The two men nearly knocked each other down scrambling for a seat, and Willow made a mental note to invite them to dinner more often. Creakle, as Ramsey’s assistant, had probably had more contact with the mail-order brides than any other miner in the camp. And since he and Willoughby were friends, Smalls probably came in a close second.

  Willow gathered up two more place settings of her precious Blue Willow china and the mismatched silver, which had been hidden along with the china. She set them in front of the men, then gestured to the pot she’d placed on a folded dishcloth in the middle of the table.

  “Help yourselves, gentleman.”

  As she settled into her own place, she could have sworn that Creakle muttered to his friend, “One foot on the floor at all times, and if somebody touches somethin’, they’ve laid their claim. Them’s the rules.”

  The men quickly filled their bowls, then began to eat—and despite Creakle’s explanation of “Boarding House manners”, the sight of them fighting like little boys over who would be first to get a piece of cornbread nearly caused her to laugh outright.

  For several long minutes, they all ate in silence. Through it all, Willow would have been the first to admit that the warm room, the glowing lamps and the appreciative company made the food taste even better than before.

  “So, what brings you both here?” Charles asked after they’d all had a chance to take the edge off their hunger.

  Creakle looked up, his spoon poised halfway to his lips. His eyes, pale with age but wise beyond their years, blinked for a moment. Then he seemed to remember.

  “Oh, Mr. Ramsey said they’re having a hard time with blasting that new tunnel. Number nine? He wondered if you’d stop by the office some time tomorrow morning.”

  “The main office?”

  “No, the one in the mine.”

  Willow saw a muscle working in Charles’s jaw.

  “Do Batchwell and Bottoms know he’s asked me to come in?”

  Again, Creakle blinked, his expression becoming blank. But Willow sensed that, like the barn owls that nested in the tree near the Dovecote, he could swoop into action at the slightest hint of a threat.

  “No?”

  Charles chuckled at that. “So, Jonah didn’t bother to confer with them?”

  Creakle’s head swung from side to side.

  Charles thought for several minutes. “Fine. Tell him I’ll meet him right after the early bird shift reports for duty.”

  Creakle grinned at that, sitting a little taller in his chair. “See, Smalls, I told you he’d help the boss.”

  Smalls frowned and nudged Creakle with an elbow.

  “Oh! I almost forgot. They’ve been askin’ fer you up at the Meetin’ House. Everybody’s wonderin’ when you’ll be comin’ back t’ give yer sermons.”

  Willow felt rather than saw the way Charles became still. “I don’t know
that I’ll be coming back, Creakle. Not as the company’s lay pastor, anyway.”

  Both Creakle and Smalls regarded him with their mouths agape. In unison, they lowered their spoons to their bowls.

  “But why not?” Creakle asked.

  Again, that muscle flexed in Charles’s jaw. Willow felt a tinge of guilt, realizing that she was part of the reason he didn’t feel he could resume his duties. If she hadn’t claimed that the children were hers, if they hadn’t allowed Batchwell to force them into marriage...

  Her thoughts slammed to a halt at that point.

  What other choice did they have?

  Rather than explain himself, Charles said, “Currently, my duty is to my family.”

  Creakle and Smalls exchanged glances. But Charles’s response must have satisfied them because they resumed eating.

  Willow decided that it was her turn to probe for information. “Mr. Creakle, you and Mr. Smalls were at the Dovecote quite often. Did you ever speak with Jenny?”

  Creakle’s brow creased. “No. I can’t say that I did. She kept to herself most the times I was there. But...”

  Willow felt a flutter of hope. “Yes?”

  “She had a fondness for gingerbread men.”

  Just as quickly, the hope wilted.

  “I know this, cuz the boss has a fondness fer them, too.”

  He glanced at Smalls, who urged him on with a nod of his head.

  “There was a couple o’ times me an’ Willoughby saw her. Late at night it was, after most folks had gone to bed. Me an’ Smalls even walked her back t’ the Dovecote a time or two—just t’ make sure she got home all right. See, she was havin’ a hankerin’ fer the gingerbread...” he dropped his voice to a barely audible whisper “...what with her bein’ in the family way an’ all.”

  Smalls nodded to corroborate Creakle’s pronouncement.

  “You’re sure she was going to the cook shack?” Charles asked.

  “Seemed like it t’ us. Each time, she had a little bag of food with her.”

  Willow’s gaze met Charles’s. Had Jenny truly been searching for a means to ease her cravings? Or had she been gathering food, knowing that she meant to go into hiding?”