Home by Morning

by Alexis Harrington

  Cole watched his frail, stubborn father climb onto his gelding’s back. He could easily imagine Pop having a few too many and toppling out of the saddle. “Take it easy with the whiskey, Pop. It’s a little early in the day to start on that. Maybe you should let me drive you home when you leave.”

  “The hell I will. I was on a horse before I could walk, and I ain’t giving it up now. Come on down later, though, and have a drink with me and the boys if you want. Those speechifiers will be having their meeting in the park across the street from there. Should be entertaining.”

  “I still have work to do.”

  “Suit yourself.” He wheeled Muley around and rode through the big open shop doors.

  Cole released a pent-up sigh and went back to shoeing Molly. Pounding the last nail into place, he dropped the mare’s hoof and patted her flank. “There you go, honey. Try not to throw that shoe again, okay?” Molly replied with a satisfied nicker. Untying her, Cole led her to the paddock outside and turned her loose.

  He was pitching straw into an empty stall when Jessica’s face rose in his mind. Usually, physical work pushed troubling thoughts out of his head. At least for a while. He must have moved fifty hay bales the day he got Jess’s telegram. Now it wasn’t helping. He put the pitchfork in a corner. Anyway, there was no putting it off. He had to meet the women for lunch.

  “Roscoe, you’re in charge,” he said to the sheepdog. “Keep an eye on things for a while.”

  Jess hugged her sister when they finally met again at the hotel. Amy still bore the faint vanilla scent that she remembered, and her small, fine bones made her feel like a bird in Jess’s arms. They were alike in many ways—each sister honey-haired and green-eyed—and yet as different as if they’d grown up in separate homes.

  They took a table near the window in the hotel dining room, and while they sipped tea, waiting for Cole, Amy said, “Jess, I just had a wonderful idea. It all came from your treating young Eddie. There’s no need for you pay for a hotel room when there’s that perfectly nice furnished apartment over the doctor’s office. It even has a brand-new hoosier kitchen.” Amy lifted her chin. “I decorated it myself. Of course, it’s probably nothing like what you had in New York, but it has electricity and indoor plumbing, and it’s ready to move into.”

  Then, with scarcely a break for greeting Cole, who arrived looking freshly scrubbed but still smelling faintly of his blacksmith shop, Amy went on. “I was just telling Jess she must stay in that apartment over the doctor’s office. Don’t you agree that’s a fine idea, Cole?”

  Cole stared first at Amy, then Jessica.

  “That’s all right with you, isn’t it, Cole?” Amy asked. “You said yourself it’s just standing empty.”

  “Really, that’s not necess—” Jess began.

  Cole settled into a chair. “Well, yeah, I suppose if it’s just for a few days—”

  Amy beamed. “Good, it’s settled then,” she said before Jess could mention she’d agreed to stay on for a month. “I can keep an eye on both of you that way. The two most important people in my life.” Her voice had a teasing edge but Jess puzzled over her sly expression. “Jess, we’ll have your things moved over. I guess—Cole, can you arrange for someone to get her trunks and such?”

  A waiter came to take their orders, and when he was gone, Amy went on as if there’d been no interruption. “You can have her things moved right after lunch, can’t you, Cole?”

  “I can manage,” Jess put in hastily.

  “With ‘trunks and such’?” Cole asked, his tone flat. “Are you going to haul them over on your back?”

  “Hardly. I’ll hire someone, just like I did to get them to my hotel room. It will take more than one person, anyway,” she replied, bristling. She did not want to owe Cole Braddock a single thing. “I’ve gotten by on my own for quite some time.”

  “Now, Jessica,” Amy said, “you don’t need to pay anyone. Cole’s practically family, after all.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” That grudging note was back in Cole’s voice.

  Amy gave them both a satisfied look.

  Jess bit back a sharp comment and managed a tight smile for her sister’s sake. She had never been an adept liar. Feeling railroaded, she capitulated. “Thank you, Cole. I’d appreciate your help. And it will be for more than just a few days. Mayor Cookson has asked me to stay on until Dr. Pearson arrives. I have a few weeks before I’m due to take up my position in Seattle, so I agreed to stay for a month unless Dr. Pearson gets here sooner.”

  “Oh—um, Jess, that’s so nice!” Amy said, turning to Cole. “Cole, isn’t it nice?”

  Cole pushed his food around with the edge of his butter knife. “Yeah, it’s dandy.”

  Amy looped her arm through his, giving it a quick hug. “I was sure you’d agree.” She shot Jessica another sly smile then continued, looking into Cole’s eyes. “Goodness, if Dr. Pearson doesn’t come, you know, if he’s decided not to, maybe Mr. Cookson will ask Jess to take his place. The mayor would probably think that’s a fine idea.”

  Col e didn’t think it was a fine idea at all. Frustrated and still smarting from months of wounded pride, he said, “I don’t think we should hold Jessica back from her new opportunity. It’s what she wants.”

  It was hard enough to sit here with the two women, one he’d been practically engaged to, the other he was now thinking of marrying—eventually. Amy sparkled like dew on spring grass, and Jessica…well, Jess was like a ruby: rich, darkly gleaming, and complex. Those qualities had drawn him to her years ago, and ultimately, she had used them to push him away. He glanced up and saw Jessica’s cool eyes on him. Those eyes—he’d always felt as if she could see into his heart, that she was the only one who could. The thought only increased the tension at the table, but Amy chatted on, apparently happy to have her sister with her again. He couldn’t begrudge her that when it was so little to ask for.

  “But Jess! Having you stay here, as you’d planned to long ago, would be perfect,” Amy said.

  ‘“Amy, you know that won’t happen,” Jessica said. “I wouldn’t have agreed to do this if Mayor Cookson hadn’t brought up Daddy’s name. The man practically invoked his spirit to get me to say yes.”

  “I’m not surprised. You two spent so much time with your heads together over those science books and specimens when we were children, he never even noticed me.”

  Jess tilted her head a bit and smiled, puzzled by the comment. “What—”

  “And you’ll just keep working in the space you used for Eddie.”

  “Well, yes, Mr. Cookson said the town council will pay for everything while I’m here.”

  Cole’s head came up. God, wait till Pop heard about this. If he hadn’t already—Tilly’s was a clearinghouse for news, more efficient than the newspapers. The old man would be on his back day and night about not getting mixed up with “Ben Layton’s doctor gal,” even though Amy was always around the ranch house and he didn’t object to that.

  But now Jess would be next door to his smithy every day until she left, and that wouldn’t be for another month.

  “Of course, that’s the ideal arrangement, even if it’s not as fancy as you’re used to,” Amy said, and added to Cole, “and you’ll get a paying tenant.”

  Jessica considered her sister, surprised by this tidbit of information that the mayor had neglected to give her. Cole owned the building? She’d thought he had the key just because he was a business neighbor.

  If only he weren’t still so attractive, she thought irritably. He’d slicked back his chin-length wheaten hair, but compared to the neatly barbered men she was accustomed to seeing, Cole looked downright untamed. She could not imagine him sitting in a stuffy drawing room. He was a man who had spent his life out of doors, trying to bend the elements and nature to his will. He’d frequently succeeded, even with her. She took a sip of water, hoping to swallow the aching knot of banked anger and regret that had formed in her throat.

  Trying to drag her thoughts
from her growing doubts, she said, “Amy, New York may have some beautiful homes and elegant neighborhoods, but you know I lived in a rooming house. I think I’ll have more privacy here than I did there. And having an office certainly will be better than trying to treat patients at the hotel. Anyway, Mayor Cookson doesn’t believe I’ll be very busy.”

  “I think you’ll be busier than you expect. A couple of people have already taken me aside and asked if I thought you’d see them while you’re home. And that was before the mayor talked to you.”

  Jessica shrank from the idea, and her thoughts turned to Eddie Cookson. “I suppose you might be right.”

  “I’ll come over and help you get organized—oh, no, wait, I’ve got that bandage-rolling session with the Red Cross in the school lunchroom. And the Liberty Bond Committee has the to-do in the park. Rats, it’s going to take the rest of my day.”

  Amy was a just a font of good deeds.

  She chatted on, bringing Jess up to date on who’d gotten married, who had died, who’d been lost in the war.

  As they talked, a man of medium height and dark hair passing by stopped to look at them over the short lace curtains.

  Amy waved, but his gaze shifted to Jess and lingered. He smiled and hurried on.

  “Who was that?” Jessica asked. He looked familiar but she couldn’t place him.

  “You remember Adam Jacobsen,” Cole put in, flicking his gaze briefly into her eyes. “He’s the minister now that his father is gone.”

  “Yes, remember, Jess?” Amy asked. “I wrote to you that old Reverend Jacobsen died last spring.”

  “Oh, yes, I guess you did.” So that was what Adam looked like now.

  “I’ve been working with him on the Liberty Bond Committee,” Amy rushed on. “It’s a very important responsibility, let me tell you. The money is so desperately needed. Adam has been an absolute wonder with that—I swear he could squeeze cash out of a rock. He manages to get practically everyone to buy bonds.”

  Jess did not want to talk about Adam Jacobsen. “I saw a couple of Liberty Bond parades in the East. They drew huge crowds, tens of thousands,” she added. “I even saw Mary Pickford riding in one of them.”

  Cole’s brows lifted. “Really? We might not have Mary Pickford, but we do have Private Eddie Cookson.”

  “Who is sick,” Jessica said with a frown. “I hope his father collected him from the doctor’s office and took him home. I understand he’s training at Camp Lewis.”

  “That’s right,” Amy said. “He came home yesterday morning on a few days’ furlough. His father pulled a lot strings to get him here. Eddie went door to door personally, raising funds. Adam went with him—I don’t think they missed a single house or business. Poor Eddie. Maybe the excitement was too much for him. I wouldn’t have expected him to faint like that, but I hope his father didn’t take him home. He’s supposed to make an appearance at the bond rally picnic in the park this afternoon. Everyone will be there. He’s the cornerstone of our program.”

  “I think he should be home in bed.”

  “But—but—he can’t! We have very important plans, plans that require his participation.” Amy looked at the clear sky beyond the window. “Even the weather has cooperated. It’s a sunny day, and we don’t get many of those at this time of year. I fretted about that all week. You know how rainy October can be here. We need Eddie.”

  Cole finished up the last bit of the trout he’d ordered. It felt like a rock sitting in his stomach. “Adam Jacobsen should be able to manage without Ed.”

  Amy sat back and folded her hands. “I just think of Riley and know we have to do all we can. We’ve all been so worried about him, fighting in France, haven’t we, Cole?”

  Jessica said, “I’m surprised your brother was drafted. I thought the Braddocks’ contract to supply horses to the war would keep him home.”

  “It would have,” Cole said, his expression hard, “but he enlisted.”

  “And left his wife to run the farm? I suppose that was your father’s idea,” Jessica said. She’d never been fond of Cole’s father, whom she considered a bully.

  “No, Riley really wanted to go.”

  “As I know you did.” Amy patted Cole’s hand. To Jessica she said, “But of course, they couldn’t both leave. Anyway, Susannah dotes on Mr. Braddock and tries to keep him from gallivanting around the countryside. He’s a little crusty and gruff, but down deep, he’s an old dear. Besides, she has Tanner Grenfell helping out. And Cole has taken on extra work.” Amy’s eyes glowed with pride and a new complacency Jess had not seen in her before as she beamed at Cole.

  Cole, declining coffee and dessert, bade both women a stiff good afternoon and went back to work, pleading an overload.

  Amy took her sister’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m so glad you came home, Jess. I was afraid you might not. I suppose this might be awkward for you, Cole courting me.”

  Awkward didn’t begin to describe how Jessica felt.

  One afternoon more than a year earlier, she had made a vow. On that grim day, with the telegram trembling in her shaking hands and tears streaming down her face, she had sworn that to even visit Powell Springs would break her heart all over again. Yet here she was.

  But except for dear but dotty old Great Aunt Rhea in Nebraska, who sent unintentionally hilarious letters about strange lights hovering over her farmhouse and little gray men stealing her chickens, Jess and Amy had only each other left in this world for kin. And she’d learned that family ties ran deeper than she’d have believed.

  She forced herself to give Amy’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Just as she’d forced herself to come back. “What’s done is done. If he and I were meant to be—he—we wouldn’t have broken off our—our understanding.” What else could she call it? There had been no formal agreement between them, no engagement. That would have happened when she returned home, if not for that telegram.

  She managed a smile. “I’m just glad I was able to visit you, and that Powell Springs is close enough to Portland to let me stop on the way to Seattle.”

  Her sister uttered a nervous little laugh. “Yes, that is lucky, isn’t it? And having you to keep me company gives us a chance to catch up. Cole has been so busy with the horses and the smithy. But then, I’ve had my work with the Bond Committee.” She lowered her voice. “I’m certain he’s going to propose any day now, and I want a short engagement. We’ll have the wedding in Reverend Jacobsen’s church with all of our friends, and I’ll have Mama’s wedding gown altered to fit me. Of course, we won’t have time for a real honeymoon. But later, when everything is more settled, we’ll take a trip. After the ceremony, we’ll just have a room at the hotel for our wedding night.” A faint pink stain colored her cheeks and she dropped her gaze to her plate. Obviously, Amy had worked out every detail in her imagination.

  Jessica couldn’t reply. Memories flashed through her mind, of Cole’s lips on hers, his hands searching the sensitive places on her body while they lay in the wildflowers beside Powell Creek so long ago…She would make certain she would not be here when Cole married Amy. She swallowed hard and busied herself with stirring more sugar than she wanted into her coffee.

  Amy took a sip of hers and set the cup back on its saucer. “You’re really happy about going to Washington?”

  Relieved to change the subject, Jess said, “Yes. I’ll be working in Seattle General Hospital’s research laboratory. It’s a wonderful opportunity, especially now with so many male doctors in Europe for the war.”

  “Do you mean you won’t see patients?”

  Jess lifted her chin a bit. “No. Not anymore.”

  “But I thought—”

  “There is so much progress being made in the area of disease treatment and prevention, I decided that research would be the most important work I can do.” Jess tightened her grip on her water glass. “Just think of how much Edward Jenner did for humanity with his smallpox vaccine, or, or…Lister, with his use of carbolic acid to prevent infection. And ether
for pain-free surgery. Someone had to discover those advances.”

  “Well…I suppose. I just thought you were interested in the practice of medicine.”

  An involuntary shudder ran up Jessica’s spine. “I was. I used to be.”

  “But you treated Eddie.”

  Jess shrugged. It had been an automatic response. She would get over that in time. “It was an emergency. I had to step in.”

  “When you didn’t come back here after you finished your schooling, I expected you to stay in New York, but I guess even Seattle will be nothing like boring old Powell Springs. You know, we just got electricity in town in the last few months, and not very many of us have indoor plumbing yet. I think Daddy’s house was the first to have either.”

  Jess looked up at Amy. “You’ve been getting along all right at Mrs. Donaldson’s?”

  “Cole thinks she’s a busybody, but really, she has such a good heart. She’s made me feel welcome. Of course, I miss our own home.”

  “Amy, I wanted to keep the house. But I had no idea how much debt Daddy had run up for the practice until he died. You know he always gave away free care to half the county. And darn few patients of the other half stopped to think that he should be paid.” She sighed, remembering the mess. “Dr. Vandermeer wasn’t any better. When I found out that he hadn’t covered the property taxes, I couldn’t afford to do anything but let the county take it to pay—”

  “That’s all right, Jess. Cole will build me a fine new house on property that adjoins the horse farm.” Amy laughed again. “Mrs. Donaldson gets weepy every time we talk about my leaving.” She leaned forward. “Of course, you’ve been gone for such a long time, and from what I read in your letters, well, I told Cole you were probably enjoying the theaters and libraries and such.”

  Jessica searched her memory for things she might have said about her mostly nonexistent social life. Once or twice she might have written about going to the theater, but the rest of the time—“That’s not why I stayed there. It was—” She faltered a moment, then cleared her throat and smiled.