Sweet Boundless

by Kristen Heitzmann

  Joe Turner leaned back as she set the plate in front of him. “Mrs. Shepard, just look at this place. Every seat filled. I told you, you were lucky. Everything you touch turns to gold.”

  “No.” She smiled. “This isn’t gold, just gnocchi con salsa di fegatini.”

  Joe Turner laughed. “My digestion will prefer it.”

  As Èmie brought another steaming plate to the table, Carina gathered up the antipasto plates. “Buon gusto. Enjoy your meal.” She hurried back to the kitchen, staring at the crowd that waited outside. Bene. Did they think she was magic? How could they fit? How could she feed them all? “Èmie, can you serve alone if I make more gnocchi?”

  “Yes. But it’s you they want to see. Every table’s asking, ‘Where’s Mrs. Shepard?’ ”

  Carina squeezed her hands. “I didn’t know it would be so . . . popular.”

  “You’ve never been in business before.”

  Carina crossed the kitchen and looked out the door window. Just a few short months ago, Crystal wanted to hang her with the roughs. Now men stood with their breath misting in the cold air for a chance to taste her wares. Among them she saw Alex Makepeace and Ben Masterson, the mayor. She caught her breath. “Èmie, the mayor’s out there!”

  Èmie laughed. “Why not? He eats.”

  “I can’t make him stand in the street!”

  “Well, there’s nowhere to put him.”

  “Oh, Signore, why didn’t you warn me?” Carina opened her hands to the ceiling, then yanked a large bowl from the shelf. “Quickly, Èmie, serve the rest of the tables. I’ll make a fresh batch of gnocchi.”

  “What about the sauce?”

  “This one will be served with butter and oregano.” Even as she spoke, she was putting potatoes on to boil. Her supplies would not last long if every night was like this. While the potatoes boiled, she sautéed the butter with minced garlic and oregano and two precious anchovies ground to paste. Already she saw she would have to be creative. But that was how she liked to cook. A little of this, a little of that.

  She lost herself in the process, rubbing the boiled potatoes through the sieve into the bowl, then working in the flour, butter, four equally precious eggs, and salt and pepper. When it was smooth, she dampened her hands and shaped the mixture into small balls, then dropped them in to boil until they floated to the top.

  Èmie hustled back in. “Joe Turner wants to say good-night.”

  Carina wiped her hands. “Good, there will be a table free.” He might be insulted by her sentiment if he had heard it, but she couldn’t think past the men outside expecting to be served. She hurried down the long hall, wondering how many others might be ready to leave.

  Joe Turner stood. “I congratulate you, Mrs. Shepard. That meal was delicious and satisfying. Expect me tomorrow.”

  “I’ll expect you every night until I’ve repaid my debt.”

  His eyes softened. “I told you it’s not necessary. I owe all I have to you.”

  She waved her hand, dismissing that. “You come tomorrow for ravioli.” She headed for the door and saw them out, then looked in dismay at the line. It stretched almost to Central Street. Without another word, she went into her room and brought out a sheet of stationery paper. Then she stepped outside. “Put your names on the paper. If you don’t get served tonight, you’ll be first tomorrow.”

  “Are you serving lunch?”

  Carina pressed a hand to her head. “Not until I can think straight.” She passed the paper among them, then looked at the next men in line. “I have four chairs if you want to share a table.” She thought ruefully of benches.

  The first four stood forward eagerly, and she led them in. Another table had cleared, and Èmie showed her the money. “What should I do with it?”

  Carina looked about the kitchen. “Here.” She dried out the small jar from the pickled pimentos. “Put it in here.” Carina hurried back to the dining room. Quickly she shook out the cloth from the empty table and mentally noted two others ready to clear. She took their money, then led another four men inside.

  One cheesecloth covering was soiled, and she carefully wiped it clean. She would need extras of those and twice as many dishes. When Quillan came, she’d . . . No, she couldn’t wait for him. She’d have to make her own arrangements. She hurriedly reset the table.

  When she opened the door, she met Alex Makepeace’s smile. It settled the bees in her stomach. “Hello, Mr. Makepeace. How many are with you?”

  “Just me.”

  She looked behind him. “How many with you, Mr. Masterson?”

  “My wife and I.”

  Carina eyed the perky blond woman beside him, then looked beyond to the miner in a slouch hat and flannel shirt. “I have a table for four if you don’t mind sitting together.”

  Mrs. Masterson glanced at the man behind them, and Carina held her breath. Would she be offended at the thought of sharing her table? With a man from the mines? How would Mamma respond if asked to share a meal with a strange contradini?

  Mrs. Masterson turned back. “That would be lovely.”

  Carina felt elated. “Come this way.” She led them in and saw that three more tables had cleared. Èmie was quickly resetting them, and Carina could only guess that she’d collected the money as well. With hardly more than a buon appetito, Carina hurried to the kitchen and finished the gnocchi.

  The pimento salad was gone, so she sliced a salami thinly and arranged it with olives and parsley. These she sent out with Èmie as quickly as they were ready. Then she made up the plates of gnocchi and carried them as swiftly herself. Back and forth she went until she was sure she’d worn an inch off the new floor. When there was nothing left to serve, and even the crusty white bread was exhausted, she told the rest who waited outside that their names would be first tomorrow. Then she closed the door, half staggered back to the kitchen, and collapsed at Mae’s table. “Oofa!”

  Mae pressed her hands between the rolls that marked her hips. “Bit off more than you could chew.”

  Carina’s stomach rumbled. “I haven’t had a bite yet.” She’d hardly had time to breathe.

  “It’s just an expression. Took on more than you could handle.”

  Èmie came in, beaming, and put a handful of bills into the jar. “That was the last of them.”

  Carina stared at the jar, wondering if it was half worth it.

  Mae set a plate of stewed beef before her and another for Èmie. Carina ate automatically while Mae shook out the jar and counted their earnings. Six tables seated three times at four dollars a plate minus Joe Turner’s threesome, who weren’t charged but left a five-dollar bill on the table anyway. Two hundred and seventy-seven dollars. And she had a page of names to be served tomorrow night.

  Carina looked from Mae to Èmie and threw up her hands. “I’m pazza! Completely and totally crazy.”

  Èmie bit her lower lip and grinned. “You’re rich. You’ve struck gold.”

  “That’s what Joe Turner said. But I can’t do this every night.” She sighed, dropping her head into her hands. “I have to think.”

  Èmie’s fork clinked on her dish as she ate the beef, but Carina’s stomach was too tense to finish hers. There must be a way to make it work without losing her mind. She looked up at Mae, who was stuffing the money back into the jar. “Wait. We divide it three ways.”

  Mae shook her head. “No, Carina. You and Èmie work out whatever you like, but I’ve got my own operation.”

  “It’s your stove and wood I’m using.”

  “Pay for the wood if you like. You’ll have to replace your supplies with this as well. You have to think in terms of business, Carina. Pay Èmie a wage, cover your cost, then pocket the rest.”

  Carina took the jar and shook the money out again. She counted out what Mae had lent her for the eggs and slid it across the table, then added five dollars for wood burned in the stove. “I’ll keep fifty to buy more dishes and tablecloths, also trays, and more ingredients. A hundred goes to Joe Turner toward
my loan on the building.” That left ninety-two dollars. She split it with Èmie.

  But Èmie took twenty and pushed back the rest. “We’ll need someone to clear and set and wash dishes.”

  Carina raised her brows. “Hire someone else?”

  Èmie nodded. “It’s too much for two of us.”

  And Carina wouldn’t do as Mae did, serving the second shift on plates unwashed from the first. “Do you have someone in mind?”

  Èmie nodded.

  “All right. Bring her here in the morning and we’ll see.” Carina folded the money into bundles according to their use and put them back into the jar. Then she put the jar on Mae’s shelf next to the canister where Mae kept her own earnings. “I will sleep tonight.”

  Quillan ached when he lay down to sleep with the dog sprawled at the foot of his bedroll. The tension that built up handling frozen giant powder was harder on the muscles than heavy work alone. October was drawing on, and it was time to consider his options. With temperatures over the pass what they were, he didn’t relish hauling the giant powder frozen over mile after mile of treacherous road.

  And it had been more than a month since he’d gone to Crystal, seen to Carina and his responsibilities there. He rolled to his side. What were his responsibilities there? Pay for her keep, surely. See that she was warm and fed. Beyond that? He’d given her ample opportunity to end the sham. If she refused, he couldn’t be held accountable.

  He tossed to his other side, yanking the heavy blankets over himself. It was getting cold to sleep in a tent. The Rocky Mountain winter was no place for inadequate shelter. By the end of October a tent would not suffice. But then, he had a house, didn’t he? A single room cabin in Crystal he could share with his wife.

  Quillan punched the sack of stuffing that passed for a pillow. When had he grown so discontent with his accommodations? When he’d left her lying in the overstuffed bed? He frowned, rubbed his face with one hand, and settled onto his back. He wouldn’t move again. He’d will his body to stay still and his thoughts away from Carina and the tangle of their lives.

  He stared at the dim canvas above him. Think. John Donne.

  Go and catch a falling star,

  Get with child a mandrake root,

  Tell me where all past years are,

  Or who cleft the devil’s foot,

  Teach me to hear the mermaids singing,

  Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

  And find

  What wind

  Serves to advance an honest mind.

  Quillan tucked his arms behind his head and spoke aloud, “ ‘If thou be’st born to strange sights, things invisible to see, ride ten thousand days and nights, till age snow white hairs on thee . . . ’ ” He scrunched his brow. Oh yes. “ ‘Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me, all strange wonders that befell thee, and swear no where lives a woman true and fair.’ ”

  He drew a long breath. “ ‘If thou find’st one let me know; such a pilgrimage were sweet. Yet do not; I would not go, though at next door we might meet. Though she were true when you met her, and last till you write your letter, yet she will be false, ere I come, to two or three.’ ”

  Not a flattering depiction. How much of it did he believe? He’d surely seen the worst of the women in his life from the harlot who bore him to the woman who raised him. And even the woman he’d married. Whatever game she was trying to play—the dutiful wife, the dew-eyed lover—it didn’t matter.

  She had paid him with interest for sending her wagon off, digging up his past and handing it to the people of Crystal. Then she’d come to him, all trembling and begging for his help. What man could have resisted the need he saw in her? And then their wedding night . . . He groaned. He wasn’t licking his wounds. He had no one to blame but himself.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

  The Eagle

  He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

  Close to the sun in lonely lands,

  Ring’ d with the azure world, he stands.

  The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

  He watches from his mountain walls,

  And like a thunderbolt he falls.

  Quillan closed his eyes. How many times had he done this to forget? How many nights lain awake in too much pain from a beating or too much hunger from going without meals in his stubborn refusal to bend to her will? Leona Shepard. The reverend’s wife.

  He hated her. If there was a God—and Quillan didn’t doubt it—He had surely run out of souls before He formed Leona Shepard. The reverend might have spared the rod but for the lies that poured from her. And Quillan had learned very early that his denials only brought more.

  He pictured the resigned face of the man who might have protected him but instead wielded the instrument of punishment. Quillan didn’t hate him. The reverend wasn’t the source of the pain inflicted on his body, only the tool. Quillan opened his eyes to the dull moon glow that penetrated his canvas roof.

  Proverbs chapter nineteen, verse two: “Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.” Yes, Reverend, you sinned. Believing her, you blundered. Not hearing, not listening, not wanting to know, you missed the truth. All I wanted was a home. A father. A mother.

  Quillan slammed the side of his fist into the ground. Sam raised his head, concerned, and Quillan met the dog’s eyes, recalling the dog he’d had for so short a time before Leona Shepard had it shot for a chicken killer. He forced the memory away. He was twenty-eight years old. It was all passed. He would never see her or the reverend again. What mattered is what he did now.

  Fine. He’d see October out in Leadville, then go back to Crystal, make certain Carina had what she needed, offer once again to release her, then move on. He rolled to his side and pulled the covers over his head.

  NINE

  Sometimes need wears a face, and once recognized it cannot be ignored.

  —Carina

  THE GIRL WHO STOOD beside Èmie was bone thin and filthy. Carina recognized the dark Southern Italian coloring and felt automatically disparaging. But that was wrong. How would Gesù see her? The girl had low brows that almost met in the middle and deep-set eyes. She was short, shorter than Carina, and broad across the ribs, even in her malnourished state.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lucia.” She pronounced it with the Italian “ch” sound and confirmed Carina’s guess.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  The girl’s feet were bare in spite of the mountain chill. Her clothes were rags, unwashed and rotting. Again Carina sought Èmie’s eyes. What was the girl’s story, and why did Èmie choose her for their help? “In the back, next to the icehouse, there’s a washroom. Fill the tub and clean yourself. I’ll find you something to wear.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. They were hazel brown with thin lashes and reddened rims. Her skin was blotched but might improve with washing. “Grazie.” She hurried around the side of the house, and Carina turned to Èmie. Before she could voice her surprise, Èmie spoke.

  “Her father was killed in a fall at the mines. I don’t know which one. He left her and two sisters and their mother. Lucia told Uncle Antoine in confession that she would have to work the cribs.”

  Carina gasped, as startled that Father Antoine would divulge a confession as by the content itself. “How do you know?”

  “Uncle Antoine was grim after hearing her confession. He asked if I could think of any way to save the girl from doing something she mustn’t. I guessed what that something was. What else is there for her?”

  Carina looked around the house where Lucia had disappeared. “There is Piedmont House.”

  Èmie smiled. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “Better than you know.” She turned. “Come inside.” She walked to the crate beside her bed and lifted the red leather diary.

  “What’s that?”

  Carina held it so Èmie could read the name inscribed there.

&nb
sp; “Rose Annelise DeMornay?”

  “Quillan’s mother.”

  Èmie took the book and examined it. “He gave it to you?”

  Carina shook her head. “He’s never seen it. Your uncle gave it to me. Rose put it into his keeping when she gave Quillan away to the Shepards. When Quillan and I married, Father Antoine passed it on to me.”

  Èmie opened it and read an entry at random. Her brow furrowed.

  Carina responded with a sigh. “It’s not happy, most of it. She, too, had very few choices. That’s why I accepted Lucia.”

  “It’s not the only reason.”

  Carina quirked a brow.

  Èmie smiled. “You have a good heart.”

  Carina released a quick breath. “I’ve learned a lot since coming here, and God is merciful.”

  “And patient.”

  “Grazie, Signore.” Carina took the book back and held it fondly a moment.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. I thought to give it to Quillan, thought maybe if he read it he would love her as I do. But something holds me back. He’s not ready.” She laid the book beside her bed again. That was more than she’d meant to say. “I need to find something for Lucia to wear.”

  She pulled out her only spare skirt and held it up, then shook her head. “She’s too wide for this.”

  “If I had one to spare I’d give it.”

  “No.” Carina shook her head. “We’ll buy her a dress.” Quillan had asked her not to shop at Fisher’s, but he wasn’t there to offer an alternative, and besides the money was hers. She took Èmie by the hand and they fought through the traffic to Fisher’s General Mercantile.

  There was a dressmaker off Pine, but Carina didn’t have time to have a dress made up. Lucia needed something now. She walked to the rack of ready-made dresses and chose a blue print with a high collar of stiff, strong material. There must be no question what Lucia’s part was, and she’d ward off any unwanted advances from the start. Piedmont House would maintain the highest propriety.