by Dorothy Love
“Beg your pardon?”
“I said stop this wagon, Mr. Caldwell, or so help me, I will jump.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He surveyed the empty road. “The closest outhouse is down the road a ways, at the Spencer place. But the woods are—”
“I am not in need of the out—the ladies’ facilities.”
“Then what—”
“I have no intention of spending the next several hours, or however long this dreadful journey takes, riding next to a man who laughs at me.”
“You’re right. I apologize.”
“Too late.” She stood and braced herself against the movement of the buckboard.
“Whoa!” He pulled on the reins. The horse stopped and tossed his head, rattling the harness. “Just how do you intend on getting out to Mrs. Willis’s place, if I may ask?”
“I’ll walk.”
“All that way?”
Without another word she dangled her legs over the side of the wagon and dropped to the ground, wincing as her feet made contact with the dirt road. Squaring her shoulders, she marched ahead of the wagon.
Wyatt slowed the buckboard and studied her as she set out along the road, her feathered traveling hat perilously askew, her arms swinging. A prettier woman he’d never seen, but she sure was prickly.
Miss Ada Wentworth had the fairest skin he’d ever laid eyes on. Dark-brown hair that lay in shiny waves beneath her hat. Wide gray eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes. A generous mouth that would be even lovelier if she’d smile more. But, as she was in mourning, he really couldn’t fault her for that. She was wrapped in a neat package, he couldn’t help noticing—small and compact, with hills and valleys in all the proper locations.
He guided the buckboard around a deep rut in the road, reining in the horse to avoid getting ahead of Ada. She was nearly perfect, from his point of view—if only she weren’t a Boston blue blood. He’d checked out her references and discovered that she was from an old New England family. A family with connections and power.
A family that represented everything he detested.
She slipped and then regained her footing. He fought the urge to scoop her up and set her back into the buckboard. She might be a Yankee born and bred, and she was acting tough as nails, but she couldn’t mask the hurt and vulnerability beneath her brave facade.
He flicked the reins and pulled up alongside her. “I didn’t mean to offend you, ma’am. Honestly. It was your question about the staff and the cook that hit my funny bone.”
She kept her eyes on the ribbon of road in front of them. She’d begun to limp and was trying hard not to show it. Wyatt glanced at the delicate spooled heels of her thin leather shoes. He didn’t know the first thing about ladies’ footwear, but any fool could see that those shoes were meant for city streets, not seven-mile hikes over a rutted country road.
“You sure don’t sound like a regular Bostonian.” He raised his voice to be heard over the creaking of the wagon wheels. “I kinda like the way you talk, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Ada walked on.
“Miss Wentworth?”
She stopped, arms akimbo, and stared up at him. “What is it, Mr. Caldwell?”
“My lumber mill is just over that next hill. It will be embarrassing if I have to drive past there with a pretty woman walking alongside the wagon. My men won’t ever let me live that down. I sure would be obliged if you’d reconsider and come on back up here. I promise to be on my best behavior.”
TWO
Ada shaded her eyes with one hand. Already a painful blister had formed on one toe. Undoubtedly, she’d need a salt soak and a camphor patch tonight. But she wasn’t about to let this infuriating Southerner get the best of her, no matter how charming his smile. “Why should I care what they think?”
“I guess you’re right. Never mind.” He flicked the reins and urged the horse onward.
Ada’s toe was on fire. She could feel blood oozing into her stocking. Her blouse was drenched in sweat, and a thick layer of dust coated the hem of her skirt. Maybe she would ride with him now, at least until he made her angry again.
She hurried alongside the wagon. “Very well. I’ll ride with you.”
He looked down at her. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
She ground her teeth. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
A wide grin split his tanned face. “Maybe.”
He jumped down, ran around the buckboard, and lifted her onto the seat. Settling himself beside her again, he snapped the reins, and the horse set off at a brisk trot. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
She rested her throbbing foot and retrieved the parasol he had brought. “What is it?”
“You’re from Boston, but there’s more than a trace of the South in your speech. I’m wondering why.”
“I spent a lot of time with my mother’s family in New Orleans when I was growing up. Their accent rubbed off on me—much to my father’s chagrin.”
“What did he have against New Orleans? It’s a great city. And Louisiana gumbo makes one fine meal.”
Ada shook her head. There was no explaining Cornelius Wentworth. She’d never understood him.
“Guess it’s none of my business,” he said. “I was just making conversation, trying to make you feel at home.”
She brushed away sudden tears. “Boston is home.”
“I know exactly how you feel.” Wyatt guided the wagon around another rut in the road. Above the jingle of the harness, he said, “Myself, I was born and raised on a cattle ranch west of Fort Worth. As far as I’m concerned, Texas is the best patch of earth ever created. But after the war, I was needed here. I started a lumber business that’s doing real well.”
“Miss Fields said as much in her letter. She said the entire town has grown since the war ended.”
“Folks say we might be headed for some bad times in Tennessee, but for now, Hickory Ridge is doing all right. Still, I’m going to sell the mill one of these days and buy myself a piece of Texas. Build up the best herd of longhorns in the state.” He glanced at her. “Do you know anything about cattle, Miss Wentworth?”
She sighed. Creation, but this man was a talker! “I’m afraid not.”
“Longhorns are a cross between the stock the Spanish explorers left behind and the English stock folks brought down from the north and the east,” he began, obviously relishing the chance to enlighten her. “They’re one of the toughest breeds there is, which makes ’em ideal for the trail. They have an instinct for finding food and shelter in bad weather, and the cows produce offspring for a good long time.”
Even though she hadn’t completely forgiven him for making fun of her and for ignoring her question about the Willis household, Ada couldn’t help smiling at his boyish enthusiasm for all things bovine.
Wyatt went on. “Now that the war is over, the demand for cattle on the northern ranches oughta go sky high. A man with a healthy herd will do right well for himself.” He grinned. “But that’s all in the future, of course. My mama always said to bloom where you’re planted, and for the present, I’m planted right here in Hickory Ridge.”
Ada nodded. It felt strangely intimate to see this stranger’s enthusiasm and know his plans for his future. What would he think of her own plans?
The buckboard passed through a stand of hickory trees so thick that it momentarily blotted out the sun. Moisture dripped onto the thick moss below. Bees droned in the sedge beside the road. As they emerged again into the patchy sunlight, Ada felt parched inside and out. Already she regretted her decision to move south. She missed the sight of the ships in Boston Harbor and the cool morning mist rising off the river. Here, she felt caged, the forest hemming her in.
The feeling had crept upon her three days into her journey, when the rails turned westward and then south, revealing the remnants of the brutal war that back in Boston had seemed so remote it might as well have happened on another continent. From the sooty windows of the train, she’d gli
mpsed once-prosperous farms now ravaged and burned to the ground, denuded forests, broken breastworks rotting in the sun. Here and there lay rows of grass-covered mounds—obviously the graves of fallen soldiers. An aching sadness seemed to lie over the land, intensifying her own sense of loss.
Wyatt cleared his throat. “I’d best fill you in on Aunt Lillian before we get there.”
“Aunt Lillian?”
“By marriage. I took over her affairs a few years ago.”
Her anger flared again. “Then you’re my employer?”
“Technically. I put money into her account and she takes it out. It makes her feel that she still has some control over things.”
She stuck out her bottom lip and blew her sticky curls upward. “For the love of Pete! You might have said so, Mr. Caldwell.”
“Please call me Wyatt. And don’t go getting your feathers all ruffled. I was coming to it.”
“My feathers aren’t ruffled. I simply prefer to be apprised of all the facts.”
“Fair enough. Aunt Lillian married my daddy’s brother when she was just a slip of a girl. They came here from North Carolina and bought a farm. A few years after Uncle Pete died, she sold the farm and married Doc Willis. After he died, she took care of that big house and the gardens all by herself, even through the war, but then she broke her hip. Since then—well, she has good days and bad days. But I reckon Hannah told you all about that.”
Ada looked at him with grudging respect. There weren’t many men who would defer their own dreams and take on the responsibility for an aged woman who wasn’t even his blood kin. “I’m sure she appreciates your looking after her.”
He nodded. “She took care of me off and on, when my mama was sick and my daddy was away tending his cattle. I spent quite a bit of time with her. The year I lived with her, right after my mother passed on, she sent me to school, taught me some manners.” He sent her a rueful smile. “I was pretty hard to handle, but she never gave up on me. I can’t turn my back on her now.”
“Of course not.”
“Hannah . . . Miss Fields . . . was the latest in a series of companions,” he continued. “It’s only fair to warn you that Aunt Lillian can be a handful sometimes. She resents needing help and takes her frustration out on whoever is around. It’s more than some people can take.”
She felt him studying her, gauging her reaction. What did it matter? It was too late to change her mind.
“We knew that Hannah planned to leave sometime soon,” he went on. “We weren’t expecting it quite this soon.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what gets into folks that makes ’em turn tail and run at the most inopportune time. But that’s beside the point now.”
“Miss Fields wrote that your aunt is seventy-nine.”
“Thereabouts. She’s been known to fudge the numbers in both directions, according to her purposes. A couple of years back, the newspaper offered a prize in exchange for a story about the oldest citizen in the county. Aunt Lillian admitted to her true age then and won a year’s subscription to the Gazette. Otherwise, she usually shaves off a couple of years. She’s a corker, all right.”
The last of the clouds had dissipated. The sun beat down with merciless intensity. Ada unfurled the parasol and rested the thin wooden shaft against her shoulder.
“Aunt Lillian enjoys having someone read to her in the mornings and again before bed. She says it helps her sleep, but she’s not above taking a bit of brandy to speed things along.” He glanced at Ada. “She’s at the age where she has so few pleasures left I can’t deny her the comfort of an occasional sip. I hope you don’t object.”
“It isn’t my place to object.”
“When the weather’s nice she likes to sit outside in the garden. She takes tea at four in the afternoon. Supper at six, bed by eight. You’ll have the evenings for your own pursuits.”
Ada stared out at the passing landscape. What pursuits awaited her in a small town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains? Back home, before everything collapsed, her life had been filled with dinners and concerts, skating parties, and lectures at the public library. Now all that seemed like a dream, like something that had happened to someone else.
She shook her head, a gentle warning to herself to stop dwelling on the past. Think about your plans. You’ ll have time in the evenings to get things started.
They approached a white clapboard church, its steeple piercing the sky. A few wild rosebushes struggled to bloom in the patchy graveyard connected to the church property by a winding brick walkway; a handful of pale pink blossoms littered the ground. A few mottled tombstones dotted the plot, but most graves were marked with simple wooden crosses, several of which listed to the side as if blown about by a strong wind.
“The church is Aunt Lillian’s second home,” Wyatt told Ada. “Preaching at eleven every Sunday morning, and the ladies’ quilting circle on Wednesdays.” He grinned. “Although from what I hear, the quilting circle is as much about gossip as sewing.”
The wagon continued along the road. Wyatt pointed out the homes of his neighbors dotting the valley and showed her the stands of timber that belonged to his company. At a sharp bend in the road, he pulled into the yard of a sawmill bustling with activity.
Wagonloads of timber lined up before long wooden sheds, waiting their turn at the circular saws. A small army of workers moved about the vast lumberyard, unloading the logs and placing them on a conveyor belt powered by a small steam engine. Two men in sweat-stained shirts shoveled coal into the engine’s firebox, sending a plume of steam into the air.
“We just received a big order from Chicago.” Wyatt raised his voice above the whine of the saws and the crack of newly sawn boards being loaded onto waiting wagons. “Ten thousand board feet for a new mercantile they’re putting up.” He pointed to a house situated on a rise behind the sheds. “That’s mine. I built it a couple of years ago.”
Constructed of overlapping rows of whitewashed planks, the house boasted a wide porch that wrapped around three sides, and a steeply-pitched tin roof. Tall, lace-curtained windows on either side of the door afforded views of the mill and the forest. Beside the door, flowers bloomed in a riot of colors. A pair of rocking chairs occupied one end of the porch.
It was a fine house, beautifully constructed and well tended—a house meant for a family. Ada imagined smiling faces around a candlelit supper table, winter evenings before a merry fire, the murmurs of sleepy children at evening prayers. That had been her dream once, and it had almost come true. Now that dream had been supplanted by one less emotionally satisfying but infinitely more practical.
She sighed. Mrs. Wyatt Caldwell, if there was one, was a lucky woman indeed.
A man in a beat-up felt hat and brown pants wiped the sawdust from his face and trotted over to the buckboard. Ada took his measure: rough hewn and compact, with a sun-browned face and kind hazel eyes that regarded her calmly from beneath his hat brim.
Wyatt said, “Miss Wentworth, this is my foreman, Sage Whiting. Sage and I served together in the war.”
The foreman tipped his hat. “Ma’am.”
He turned to his boss. “The oak and hickory are looking real good, but that pine . . . well, there’s too many knots in it. Might not be good for nothin’ ’cept kindling.”
“Mill it out anyway, Sage. Scooter Johnson said something about wanting to build his missus some new furniture. Maybe he’ll buy it.”
“All right.” The foreman nodded. “You oughta talk to Nate Chastain at the bookshop too. He may need more shelves for that trainload of books he got in last week. We could let him have the pine pretty cheap, since we wouldn’t have to ship it.”
“Good idea,” Wyatt said. “I’ll mention it to him.”
Ada shifted on the hard wagon seat and tried to stem her rising impatience. Her backside had gone numb. Her blistered toe pulsed painfully in her tight shoe. The shade from the parasol couldn’t mitigate the infernal heat that sat on her head like an anvil. Perspiration trickled
down the back of her neck and into the limp collar of her dress. And all this man could think about was timber.
At last, he picked up the reins. “I need to get Miss Wentworth settled at Aunt Lillian’s, but I’ll be back to pay the men by the end of the day.”
Mr. Whiting waved his arm toward the wagonloads of timber. “We’ve got plenty to do. Nobody’s going anywhere till quitting time.”
Catching Ada’s eye, he again touched his index finger to the brim of his hat. “Pleasure meeting you, ma’am. I hope you’ll like Hickory Ridge.”
THREE
Wyatt glanced at his passenger. Despite the heat, she sat up straight, one hand grasping the handle of the parasol, the other resting in her lap. He could tell that the long journey, coupled with the heat and her ill-advised hike along the road, had worn her out. He felt a stab of sympathy for her and regret that his words had caused her to take offense.
“It won’t be too much longer, Miss Wentworth. We’ll get you settled and cooled off. Aunt Lillian usually has lemonade waiting on days like this.”
He hoped the prospect of lemonade would coax a smile out of her, but she merely nodded and blotted her face with a frilly handkerchief that in his opinion had seen better days. He spoke to the horse, and the buckboard rolled down the road. A bit farther on, he indicated the turnoff to a twisting dirt road that was nearly obscured beneath a tangle of vines and undergrowth. “That’s the road to Two Creeks. You’d best avoid it.”
“It does look rather rugged.”
“That isn’t the problem. Two Creeks is a colored settlement. Things have gotten a little wild down there since emancipation.”
“How so?” She tucked her handkerchief back into her cuff.
“Some of them are a mite too fond of their whisky. Gambling and cockfights and spirits are a volatile mix.” Mercy, it was hot! He pulled a red bandanna from his pocket and mopped his face. “Still, there are some fine families down there. The Dawsons work for me. Josiah’s my wheelwright. His daughter Libby does Aunt Lillian’s laundry. You’ll meet her when she comes to pick it up.”
