She left her hat and gloves on the bed and headed to the kitchen to work with Mrs. Goodman. The older woman never shooed her out and seemed to enjoy Lillian’s company. For the first time since her grandmother had passed, she felt like she belonged.
Mrs. Goodman stood over the stove frying bacon.
“Good morning.” Lillian grabbed an apron.
“Good morning, dear.” Mrs. Goodman turned and smiled and looked up and down at her dress. “Well, isn’t that lovely?”
Lillian gave a quick turn, letting the layers of pale pink silk gauze over a darker pink taffeta swirl around her. “I wanted to look a little nicer for church today.”
Mrs. Goodman’s face fell. “Mr. Colton doesn’t go to church right now. Not since his wife . . . well, you know . . . all the rumors.”
“Well, do you go to church? I could ride with you.”
“No, I’m afraid not, dearie. I almost slapped Mrs. Francis last time I went.”
“What?” Lillian laughed. “You almost slapped someone? I can hardly believe it.”
But Mrs. Goodman was very serious. “Oh, you’d believe it if you heard what they were saying.”
Lillian furrowed her brow and placed her hands on her hips. “Let me guess. They were saying that Mr. Colton murdered his wife. That he was a despicable human being, and that he shouldn’t be allowed around women and children.”
Mrs. Goodman gasped. “You’ve heard?”
“From more than one squawking hen, if you’ll pardon my expression.” It angered her more each day she spent on the Colton farm. “How could anyone ever think that?”
The older woman removed the bacon from the pan and sat down at the table. “Sit down, Lillian. Please.”
“Of course.” Whatever was bothering the older woman was about to come out. And it was serious.
“Mr. Colton said that you knew about the rumors and about how his wife died, but he didn’t tell me that you’d heard it all firsthand from town.”
Lillian nodded. “He was late to pick me up because he had to repair the wagon. I had the lovely experience of waiting inside the general store. And while Mrs. Clark is a wonderful woman, I can’t say much about the rest of the town that I had the chance to meet.”
“I can well imagine.” Mrs. Goodman got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Would you like one? This might take a while.”
Lillian nodded again and accepted the cup.
“While there are a few people who refuse to believe the rumors about Woody, they don’t have much say. The loudest and gossipiest ones get all the attention. And I don’t mean to say that all the people are bad. They’re not. They’ve just bought into the lie. Relying on rumors and hearsay to color their judgment. Thankfully Judge Morgan was a fair and wise man. It’s been about a year and a half since it happened.
“The day Rebecca was murdered, I was out helping Woody with the olive trees. It was January, and he’d fallen a few weeks earlier and had injured his shoulder, right after he’d started pruning the trees. And Woody kept saying, ‘When it’s time to prune the trees, it’s time to prune the trees.’ He’d gotten sorely behind with his injury, his workers were gone for the time, and a storm was coming. You could feel it in the air. And it was a big one. With the wind blowing, and all that was left to do, I offered to help Woody, knowing that serious damage to the trees could ruin the crop for the year. Rebecca hadn’t been feeling well for a few days, and Woody told her to rest and watch over Jimmy.
“And as the good Lord allowed, we were as far from the house as we could possibly be when she was murdered. When we returned for lunch, Rebecca was dead at the bottom of the stairs. We found Jimmy in the closet, crying. It was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen.” She used her apron to wipe her eyes. “So you see, I was with Woody the whole time. He didn’t kill his wife. Someone else came into this house. A thief, most likely . . . tore the place up.” She sighed. “There was an investigation, and I testified to the judge. There were never any formal charges against Woody. But the people in town were suspicious. Oh, there’s always been problems with gangs attacking the stages, especially if they know they’re carrying gold—this is gold country, you know—but no one had done it on a farm before. At least not in our little community. Someone then said that maybe I couldn’t be trusted, that I made up my statement to save Woody from jail.”
“That’s terrible.” Lillian reached forward and grabbed the woman’s hand. “People can be so cruel with their words. Did no one stand up for Woody?”
“Pastor Seymour tried to. He and Woody were good friends once, and the pastor knew Woody wasn’t capable of hurting anyone—especially his beloved wife. Pastor came around to see Woody nearly every day, but Woody pushed him away and finally demanded he stay away.”
“And he was the only one?” Lillian shook her head, feeling close to tears.
“There were a couple of other men, but I think they were afraid. I heard there were some threats made toward them.”
“How could people act that way?”
“They were scared. Everyone was—especially since it was a woman who was killed. In her own home.” Mrs. Goodman stood back up. “All of the furniture had been sliced with knives, the curtains torn down, so Woody took it all out and burned it. But when Woody started taking everything down off the walls, Jimmy stopped him. With tears in his eyes, the little boy just shook his head. The house was quite empty for a while. With exception to the piano, everything downstairs is less than a year old. Woody told me later that he was glad Jimmy stopped him. For a long while it was hard to see remembrances of Rebecca, but later we all needed those remembrances. We clung to them. Loved them. I don’t know if we’ll ever get beyond the grief.”
She choked on her words. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I want to say any more. It’s just too hard right now. But I will say one last thing: I think you can understand now why we don’t go to church. The people who said they were our friends no longer trust us. They turned their backs on us in our time of great need. And so we don’t want anything to do with them.”
CHAPTER TEN
Woody saddled his two best horses, Alexander and Sunflower, in preparation for showing Miss Porter—Lillian—around the farm. More than two weeks had passed since his nanny arrived, and he’d admittedly been absent on purpose. A lot.
After the first day when she dived right in, Woody dealt with a whole new wave of grief. Grief and hope all at the same time. But somehow, it didn’t seem right to allow hope entrance. That meant he was really moving beyond Rebecca’s death. And he wasn’t sure he was ready. Or even wanted to.
Yes, he wanted his son to speak again. He longed for the boy to heal. But the stark realization hit him square in the face. To hope—to heal—meant to move forward. And moving forward meant letting go. As much as he wanted to hope, he didn’t want to let go. Thus the war began in his heart and mind. Miss Porter was very capable. She’d done an amazing job with Jimmy from the moment she came down to breakfast that first morning. His boy was eating and had color in his cheeks. His little legs were filling out, and Woody often heard laughter come from him. So why did he feel like he was betraying Rebecca?
She’d been everything to him. Their marriage had been almost perfect. Deep down inside, he knew she’d want him to be happy. To move on. When Rebecca gave birth to Jimmy, she’d fallen so ill that the doctor wasn’t even sure she’d make it through. She made Woody promise that if she died, he’d find another wife to love him and the baby. He’d promised, but even then he’d known he didn’t really mean it. He wasn’t sure then or now that he wanted to go on living—if it meant living without her.
There. He’d admitted it. And he was ashamed.
Lord, You’ve given me so much. It’s been devastating to lose Rebecca—You know that better than anyone—but I’m stuck. I’m not ready to move on, and yet my son needs me. Please, help me to get past this muddy bog I seem to be mired in.
As he led the horses out of the barn, Woody found himself
craving the Word again. It had been a long time, but he needed it. Longed for it. Maybe that was the key to getting past the ugliness and sorrow.
Miss Porter headed toward him from the house, wearing a very smart blue riding outfit complete with a split skirt. It still amazed him that God would send him a nanny with no experience who seemed to lack for nothing materially and yet was as down-to-earth as Mrs. Goodman. But here she was. And she was perfect for the job.
Her dark hair was arranged in a bun at the nape of her neck with a wide-brimmed straw hat resting just over it. Blue ribbons secured the hat in place. Sophisticated and carefree. The two words blended together to make up Lillian Porter. He’d also add stubborn, and strong-willed from what he’d seen, and he had to admit pretty. But he didn’t want to think too long on that.
“Good morning.” She waved to him.
“Mornin’.” He tipped his hat.
As she climbed his makeshift stairs to mount her horse, she nodded in his direction. “Thank you, Mr. Colton. This worked perfectly.” She settled astride atop the animal.
“Well, I recall you asking for a step.” He chuckled. “And just call me Woody. You were right. Around the farm, we might as well call each other by our given names. Although if I started calling Mrs. Goodman ‘Harriet,’ she might toss me out with the dishwater.”
Lillian laughed. “I know. She told me she hated her name. That’s why she calls everyone ‘dear’ or ‘dearie.’ Apparently her husband called her ‘sweetheart.’” She sighed.
Great. She was probably a hopeless romantic. “Was Mrs. Goodman all right with you leaving?”
She laughed again, seeming quite amused with herself. “I think she was relieved. I burned a batch of cookies and dropped a mixing bowl. It shattered into a million pieces.” She shook her head. “I have a lot to learn.”
He smiled. “Well, I was asking more along the lines of you leaving Jimmy.”
“Oh, of course.” She blushed. “Mrs. Goodman told me she has no problem keeping an eye on Jimmy, but I’d rather not take too long. I know that she had quite the list to accomplish today. Which reminds me”—she pulled out a small leather-bound book and a tiny pencil—“I want to take copious notes, and I have quite a few questions.”
“All right, then. I’m assuming you’re an experienced rider?”
“Yes, sir.” She sat straighter and tucked the book away. “As I told you, I’ve ridden both sidesaddle and astride, but I prefer the latter, no matter how shocking it might seem. Honestly, I think women have put far too many restrictions upon themselves. After all, it is nearly the nineteen hundreds.”
He laughed and leaned down from his mount to open the gate. He let Lillian pass through first and then moved his gelding to follow. “I know you’ve been down to the pond, but have you seen the olive groves yet?”
“No, I haven’t. Well, I’ve seen them, but not up close.”
They kept a steady pace to the groves while Woody pointed out the flower gardens around the house, the large vegetable gardens, and, beyond the pond, the tender fruit orchard whose little saplings would hopefully bloom with fruit in the coming years. The barns by the house had been pretty self-explanatory, but then there were two larger barns out by the groves. “These buildings are for my equipment to tend the trees and where we brine the table olives and press the other olives for oil. And the smaller building in the rear is the housing for my workers. They have their own rooms and a kitchen to cook for themselves.”
“Oh, that’s lovely. I was wondering about the men.” She tilted her head. “Back to the olives—I’m curious—is that why there are two groves? One for table olives and the other for olive oil?”
“Yes.”
“Two different kinds of olives for the two different purposes?”
“Yes.” She caught on quick. “Producing table olives here in California is new. Rebecca and I had wanted to be the first really prosperous farm to supply all the grocers with table olives.”
“I thought the trees looked just a tad different. I’m fascinated with table olives. They are my absolute favorite, but I know they have been hard to come by.”
“Well, the process is relatively new to keep them preserved, but ancient in that olives have always been a delicacy.”
She nodded. “What other equipment do you need?”
Her observation skills were impressive. “Well, we need barrels for brining the olives. Granite wheels for the pressing. Barrels for the oil. Ladders. Trimming blades. There’s quite a list.”
While they stopped, she pulled out her little book and started writing, then looked up again. “How often do you trim the trees?”
“We prefer to call it pruning. We prune them every other year in the winter months. Olives tend to produce in high yields one year and then less the next. In the off year we prune, and that gives us an even better crop the next year. We try not to let them get over twenty feet. It’s pretty difficult to harvest if we let them get out of control.”
She nodded and wrote some more. “When is harvest?”
“September through November most of the time. Sometimes even into December. It takes us a while to get to all the trees. The olives we use for olive oil are shaken out of the trees with special wooden rakes onto large sheets of cotton. It takes a while since there can be over a thousand olives per tree. But we have twice as many olive oil trees as we do table olives. Those trees have to be picked by hand so there are no bruises on the fruit.”
She raised her eyebrows and her mouth formed an o as she wrote. “How many workers do you have?”
“Only five. I normally give them the months of January and February off. Since not all of them are from around here, they like to go visit their families.” He frowned. “I can’t always get workers from around here.”
“Well, I think it’s quite kind of you to let them leave to see their loved ones.”
He shrugged. “They deserve the break. Harvest season can be grueling. We have the pickers and then we also have to get all the olives cleaned. Then prepped for whichever direction they go, whether it be oil or to the table.”
She scribbled in the book faster than he thought possible. “When will Jimmy start to help?”
Woody looked the other direction. Why did such a simple question squeeze his heart like a vise? “Well . . . he’d been helping in the groves since he was little. Rebecca often strapped him in a contraption on her back. Then, when he was a little bigger, he helped me pick the leaves out of the olive bins as they were being washed. But then Rebecca died . . .”
“And he hasn’t spoken since.”
Woody nodded. “I don’t know what he remembers about the olive groves. And I don’t know what he saw or heard the day his mother died. Then he started withering away.” He turned toward her again. “We’re all just a little hesitant to move on with life.”
“That’s understandable.” She tucked her book back into her skirt. “He loves you, you know.”
His heart clenched as he nodded.
“Would you be okay with us helping every now and then? So he can learn what his papa does and how he provides for his family?”
“That’s a good idea.” No, it wasn’t, his heart wanted to shout. Rebecca was supposed to be here. Teaching Jimmy alongside Woody. He shook his head of the negative thoughts. How long was he going to allow this dark cloud to reign over him? He drew in a deep breath and let it go. One step at a time. One day at a time.
“So what else can I learn? How many acres do you have, and how many trees?”
Woody pushed his horse forward and stopped for a moment as another wave of regret washed over him. Let go, Colton. Let go.
“Woody?”
“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Fifty acres for the olive groves. Fifty for the orchard that you saw but will take many years to establish, and two hundred in surrounding land. Right now we have five hundred trees producing for the table olives and a thousand trees for olive oil. But I’ve planted a lot more—almost twice as
many on each side. You’ve probably seen the little saplings. The problem will be at harvesttime. I’ll have to hire additional workers once those trees start to produce.”
“My goodness. Well, they are beautiful, Woody.” She pulled her horse even with his, seeming content to just look at the beauty of the groves.
“You should see it in spring—around April and May when the trees begin to bloom and are covered in white flowers.”
“I bet it’s breathtaking.”
He nodded. Then turned his horse back toward the house. “We better get back for lunch so Mrs. Goodman doesn’t worry. Is there anything else you’d like to see? Any other questions?”
“This has been very helpful, thank you. I know if I’m to do my best by Jimmy, then I need to be well acquainted with the farm and what we do here.”
“You’re doing just fine, Lillian.”
“I noticed the flower beds needed attention.” She bit her lip. “That’s something Jimmy and I can tend to and incorporate learning at the same time. I’ve not cared for a garden myself, but I’ve watched it done enough that I feel confident I can manage.”
Another of Rebecca’s loves. Her flowers. Would the ache ever go away? He cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose that would be fine.” As heartbreaking as it felt to have someone else—another woman, no less—tending to Rebecca’s flowers, maybe it would help his son in some small way.
She nodded and exhaled a large breath. “I have a lot to learn, but I do believe that everything we do should be done to the very best of our ability for the glory of the Lord. This is a wonderful place, Woody. Thank you for being patient and explaining. I’ll work hard and learn everything I can.”
“No doubt, Lillian. Don’t fret over it.” If he could just take his own advice.
God had provided in miraculous ways. He understood grief was a process, but he hadn’t expected so much to get churned up as he healed.
Turning back to glance at Lillian, he watched her face go from a smile to a concerned expression. “Are you sure you don’t have any other questions?”
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