Jane Bonander

by Warrior Heart

  Sean’s arrival in her life had been like a prayer answered. A distant relative from Ireland, he’d sought them out after learning the family was picking peaches in the valley. To Libby, Sean had been a savior from the beginning. He was quiet and polite, a welcome change from her bawdy brothers and brutish father. He’d given her polish and taught her independence. Although she’d known how to read a little, he’d taught her more. He’d been a tutor and a mentor. He’d opened up a whole new world to her, a world in which she was important. And although he’d been kind, Libby had been forced to share what was his. Now she had things in her bedroom that she had chosen, and she chose nothing that had been Sean’s.

  The new boarder shifted beside her. “Looks fine. Real nice.”

  Pleased, she merely nodded. “Breakfast is served between five and seven.” She crossed to the washstand and tidied up the towels that hung on the wooden bar, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, and her cheeks were flushed. Her stomach dropped. She looked positively unkempt.

  “The evening meal begins promptly at six. Mahalia, my cook, doesn’t do lunches, so you’re on your own.”

  Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. There was usually a pot of stew or soup simmering on the back of the stove, fresh bread, and cookies in abundance, but Libby wasn’t feeling generous. If Mr. Wolfe was the least bit clever, he wouldn’t go hungry.

  “You’ll share the bath with the other tenants on the floor below. There’s a gas-heated tub. The … necessary is outside, beyond the woodshed.” She opened the wardrobe, revealing a clean chamber pot, and felt heat rise on her neck. She berated herself again, for never before had such things embarrassed her.

  “I’ll… ah, let you settle in, then. Dawn, my daughter, will leave a teakettle of hot water for washing outside your door each morning. It’s one of her responsibilities before she goes to school.” She marched to the door.

  “Ma’am?”

  Libby stopped but didn’t turn around.

  “She’s a pretty girl, your daughter.”

  Hearing no derision, Libby was momentarily shoved off balance. “For a breed, you mean?”

  “That’s not what I said.” His voice was hard, as if he was angry with her.

  Libby turned, noting the coldness in his eyes. Again her balance was threatened, but she owed him no explanation, nor would he get one. Dawn’s skirmishes with her white classmates need not be blabbered to strangers.

  “I apologize. Thank you,” she said as graciously as she could. “Yes, she’s a pretty girl, although around here, Mr. Wolfe, a breed is a breed is a breed. Her looks, pretty or not, mean nothing at all. She may have the face of an angel, but she must fight off the demons, just the same.”

  With a slight nod, she left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Jackson stared at the door long after she’d gone, her words ricocheting in his brain. He’d been so single-minded in his purpose, he hadn’t given much thought to anything else.

  Who was this child he had sired twelve years before? When he last saw her, she’d been an infant, void of personality. She’d been the dependent child of a widower on whom she could not depend. She’d been a helpless little angel.

  And he’d been a coward. A spineless whiner whose tears had been as much for himself as for the woman he’d loved and lost. And he’d been running from his grief and guilt ever since.

  He flung his travel bag onto the bed and crossed to the window, raising it to let in some air. The curtains caught the breeze, billowing slightly.

  Scanning the lawn, he felt his heart clutch when he saw his daughter. And he had no doubt that she was his. None. His gut told him. She had Flicker Feather’s smile. The same dimple in her left cheek. The same tinkling laughter, which had always reminded him of chimes in the wind.

  He laughed softly, knowing that to look at him no one would believe he had the soul of a poet. Truth to tell, he hadn’t felt poetic for a very long time.

  He had questions aplenty. Among them, how did Dawn Twilight come to be at this place, with this woman whom she called Mama? Maybe his questions would be answered in the morning, when he paid a visit to the bank. And John Frost. It had been five years since he’d received the last verification of funds he’d mailed. Sometimes it had taken two or three years for his mail to catch up with him, but five …

  Time had softened the pain of his wife’s death. It no longer dug at him with serrated edges, bloodying his conscience. He still hurt, probably always would, but finding Dawn Twilight was like pressing a cool, healing compress over a wound that refused to heal.

  Now he had to find a way to announce who he was. He would need time. Couldn’t simply blurt it out, for that would drive the girl away. And, he thought with a scornful smile, he would no doubt find a stake driven through his heart by Liberty O’Malley if he moved too quickly. But he would make his move. Slowly. Steadily. The woman would be first. He had to break down her defenses, and he had no doubt that she had many. He’d already felt her reticence, and she had no idea what he was up to. He couldn’t tip his hand. He had too much riding on the outcome.

  The woman was a beauty, though. Standing with her in the quiet room, staring at the big bed, he’d felt a surprising surge of desire. With her hair mussed and her face high with color, she’d been damned tempting. Like she’d just had a satisfying tumble between the sheets.

  He swore and shook himself, continuing to study his daughter through the open window. With Mumser snuggled in her arms, she was curled up under a weeping willow, the branches drooping around her as if already protecting her from outside forces. Perhaps from him. He sighed.

  “Dawn?” Liberty O’Malley’s voice called from the porch below.

  His daughter’s gaze went toward the house. “Yes, Mama?”

  “It’s time to get at your sums, dear.”

  Dawn’s distress was visible, even from the third-floor window, “But, Mama—”

  “No buts. You’ve wasted enough time. And Miss Parker is willing to help you if—”

  “I can’t let the teacher help me, Mama!”

  There was a moment of silence. “Dawn, I don’t want to argue with you anymore. The sooner you learn to do sums, the better life will be for both of us. Schoolwork is more than writing stories and poems, and it’s time you realized that.”

  “But what about the berries? I promised Mahalia—”

  “Bert and Burl have gone into the woods to pick the berries, dear, now take that … that dog up to Mr. Wolfe. He’s in the room on the third floor.”

  A smile tugged at Jackson’s mouth as he stepped away from the window. He went to the desk and rolled up the top. He was sitting there, pretending to struggle with something when Dawn Twilight knocked on the door.

  Libby stepped into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. Mahalia stirred what smelled like pudding on the stove, the wooden spoon making smooth figure eights over the bottom of the cooking pot to prevent burning.

  Libby peered into the vessel. “Tapioca? Isn’t that a bit bland for your taste, Mahalia?”

  Mahalia snorted. “You’ll never catch me eatin’ the likes of this.” She grimaced. “How you white folk can swallow such tasteless bird shit is beyond me.”

  Libby gave her a sweet smile. “But it’s nice of you to think of the boarders once in a while. Since,” she added, arching an eyebrow, “that’s who you’re supposed to be cooking for in the first place.”

  Mahalia lifted her chin, appearing offended. “I just try to expand their culinary experience.” Suddenly her face changed, and she gave Libby a wicked grin.

  “What’s that look for?” Libby slumped into a chair by the table and watched the steam rise from her coffee.

  Mahalia shrugged expansively. “It’s nothin’. We just ain’t rented that room out in months, is all.”

  “We need the money, Mahalia, and the weather is cooling off. Also, the back stoop slopes so far down on one side, I’m afraid someone will take a tumble.
The extra four dollars a week will help toward fixing it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said in her most subservient voice. “If you say so.”

  Libby threw her a jaundiced look. “Say what’s on your mind, Mahalia. You will sooner or later, anyway.”

  Her assistant gave her a wide-eyed look of innocence. “What could be on my mind, Miss Liberty?”

  Libby squirmed. Mahalia used formality only when she was making fun of her.

  “Why, it don’t matter a whit that he’s the nicest piece of male flesh that’s passed through Thief River in months, now, does it?”

  Feigning indifference, Libby took a sip of her coffee. “I really hadn’t noticed.”

  Mahalia’s snort was anything but delicate. “Shore, and you didn’t notice them clear blue eyes, either, or them wide, hard shoulders. Did you notice his thumbs?”

  Libby gave her a puzzled glance. “His thumbs?”

  The schoolmistress entered the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of tea. Cyclops was pressed close to her ankles, purring loudly.

  She took a chair across from Libby, making room for the cat on her lap. Since her arrival in July, she’d bonded both with the battered one-eyed cat Libby had rescued from the dump, and with Dawn. Libby attempted to squelch the nip of jealousy she experienced each time Dawn and Chloe Ann went off together, searching the woods for injured birds or unusual berries. When she wasn’t in the schoolroom, Chloe Ann Parker was merely a young, curious, energetic girl. She and Dawn had much in common, despite the difference in their ages.

  “Did you notice the new boarder, Miz Chloe Ann?”

  Chloe Ann poured a dollop of cream into her cup and stirred with dainty strokes; then she dropped some cream onto her spoon and watched Cyclops lick it off.

  “I’ve just come from school, Mahalia.” She stroked Cyclops, who showed her gratitude by nuzzling Chloe Ann’s hand.

  Libby had always been intrigued by Chloe Ann. Although she appeared both prissy and vulnerable, she had a strength beneath the surface that Libby felt was waiting to erupt. She was an eighteen-year-old girl, teetering on the brink of full-fledged womanhood. She enjoyed doing girlish things with Dawn, yet when she taught school, .she commanded each child’s attention.

  Libby envied her ability to change roles. Libby never had such a chance. Ever since her childhood, she’d worked to put food on the table. She’d never learned to play. That was why she didn’t begrudge Dawn her wistfulness. Perhaps she should have expected her own daughter to be more helpful around the rooming house, but Libby didn’t want Dawn to miss out on her childhood, as she had.

  Chloe Ann’s youthful vigor included a romantic heart. She and Libby had shared a secret or two, and although Chloe Ann had suitors galore, Libby knew she was waiting for the man of her dreams. Libby had had to bite her tongue to keep from telling her that dream men simply didn’t exist, and the sooner poets stopped filling women’s heads with such nonsense, the better off everyone would be.

  Chloe Ann turned to Libby. “We have a new boarder?”

  Libby opened her mouth to speak, but Mahalia rushed right in.

  “Yes, ma’am. A big, tall, handsome son of a—”

  “Mahalia,” Libby warned, giving her a hard glare.

  Mahalia chuckled, her large frame jiggling beneath her loose dress. “I was just askin’ Libby if she’d noticed the man’s thumbs.”

  Libby and Chloe Ann exchanged looks.

  “His thumbs?”

  “Exactly my response, Chloe Ann.” Eyeing Mahalia, Libby asked, “What in the world can you tell about a man by studying his thumbs?”

  Mahalia continued to chuckle. “Same thing you can learn by studyin’ his ears or his nose, or maybe even his big toes or the size of his feet.”

  Libby hadn’t seen a man’s bare feet since before Sean died. An automatic memory triggered in, and she remembered that all of his toes had been rather small. “And that is…?”

  “Their size, of course.”

  Although Chloe Ann’s face was pinched into a look of puzzlement, Libby had an idea where Mahalia’s discourse was leading.

  “Mahalia—”

  “The size of what?” Chloe Ann interrupted.

  Mahalia clucked and dropped the spoon onto a plate, then moved the pot off the heat, covering the hot handles with the sides of her apron. “Oh, come now, gal. You’re dense as a tree trunk. Ain’t you ever wondered how big a man is ‘tween his legs?”

  Chloe Ann gasped, her fair skin turning a bright shade of pink while Libby nearly choked on her coffee.

  Mahalia turned as her smile lingered, showing her large white teeth. “My, my. You gals ain’t as coy as all that, are you?”

  Libby’s eyes watered, and she continued to swallow and cough. “Mahalia Jones, you are a wicked, wicked woman. Look what you’ve done to poor Chloe Ann. You’ve embarrassed her to tears, and you almost caused me to choke to death.”

  Mahalia harrumphed and tossed Chloe Ann a jaded glance. “Don’t tell me a woman grown don’t wonder about them things.”

  Chloe Ann’s face continued to color.

  “Whether women do or don’t isn’t the issue, Mahalia,” Libby scolded. “We don’t go around talking about it, that’s all.”

  Mahalia poured the tapioca into a bowl, covered it, and set it near the window to cool. “Don’t know why we can’t talk about it. Them is facts of life.” She turned on them, her fists on her ample hips. “Men talk about us, you know.”

  Libby gave her a look of warning, but Mahalia ignored it.

  “Ain’t you ever noticed the blacksmith’s hands?” She rolled her eyes. “Big. And that hawklike nose of his is another dead giveaway. Why,” she added, a sly smile sliding across her lips, “don’t tell me you ain’t ever noticed the peddler man. He might be scrawny, but his hands and his feet is big, and I can’t help wonderin’ what it’d be like to—”

  “Enough, Mahalia.” Libby felt heat rise to her cheeks.

  Feigning offense, Mahalia lifted her nose in the air. “All’s I’m sayin’ is that the new boarder, he got nice big thumbs.” One side of her mouth lifted in a sassy grin. “The rest of him ain’t bad, neither.”

  Dawn rushed into the room, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Mama, Chloe Ann, guess what?”

  Libby sensed something had sidetracked Dawn from her homework again. “Have you finished your sums, dear?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more excuses. I’m tired of them, Dawn. Sick and tired of your excuses.” Libby was close to losing her temper and had to force herself to hold back.

  “But I’m trying to tell you, Mama. Mr. Wolfe showed me a way to do them that I understand. You know how I always have trouble carrying a number?” She plopped her arithmetic paper on the table and swiftly worked one of the problems. “See?” She held the paper toward her teacher.

  Chloe Ann squinted a little as she studied the work, then smiled at Libby. “She’s done it right.”

  Frowning, Libby looked at the paper. “Mr. Wolfe showed you how to do this?” It rankled that a stranger could wheedle his way into their lives with such ease.

  Dawn gave her an eager nod. “And it didn’t take any time at all, Mama. He told me to break down the numbers into pennies. Not only that,” she continued, “he was writing a letter, and I helped him with some of the words.”

  Libby raised her eyebrows. “You helped him compose a letter?” She was tempted to ask who it was to, but knew it was none of her business.

  Dawn’s smile was blinding. “See? He helped me, and I helped him. He said it was recip—” She pinched her dark brows together. “Reciprocal.”

  “My, my,” Mahalia crooned. “Ain’t he just the finest man to help a young girl like that?”

  Libby could feel Mahalia’s wicked gaze on her and forced herself not to look her way. Naturally she was grateful he’d helped Dawn get a grip on her sums, but she was also very, very leery. Maybe she was being overly protective and acting fo
olish, but few people did something for nothing.

  She studied her daughter, who had flung herself into a chair and was concentrating on finishing her sums. Perhaps Mr. Wolfe saw that Dawn was a special child. Perhaps that was all it was … but it sure didn’t feel like that. Libby felt a knot of apprehension in her stomach, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get rid of it.

  3

  The following morning as she prepared breakfast, Libby heard a commotion outside. She took the skillet off the heat and hurried to the front door. Her breath caught in her throat when she stepped onto the porch.

  Squatting beside her mums, Jackson Wolfe pounded a picket-shaped stake into the ground, one of many that made up a tiny fence that surrounded her precious flowers.

  There was a fluttering in her chest, and she pressed her hand over her heart. No man had ever done anything for her without being asked. And this man was so beautiful to watch. Dragging in a quiet breath, she gazed at his wide shoulders. She could detect the muscles beneath his shirt as he moved. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and his sinewy forearms bunched and relaxed as he worked.

  The dog wiggled and leaped at him, barking and nipping at his elbow. He ignored it, continuing to work. Seeming to sense he was no longer alone, he glanced up, giving her a blinding smile. Libby swallowed the lump in her throat and returned one, surely not as beautiful as his.

  “I hope you don’t mind. It’s the least I can do.”