by Jill Barnett
But she looked at Hank as they said their vows, and she knew this was where she was meant to be.
The minister turned to Hank. “Do you have a ring to bless?”
She knew he didn’t, but she didn’t care about the trappings of marriage. If she had, she’d be wearing shoes.
Hank patted his coat pocket, then jammed a hand in his pants pocket. He grinned and held out his hand to the minister, whose eyes held shock.
Margaret looked at Hank’s hand.
Sitting in his palm was the rose pearl. “Bless this. Soon enough it’ll be her wedding ring.”
She looked up at him, surprised that he was even somewhat prepared. And she made a vow to herself that from that day forward she would stop underestimating her husband.
He winked at her while the poor minister blessed the huge pink pearl and then handed it back to him. He took her hand in his and dropped the pearl in her palm and closed their hands over it.
He leaned over and whispered, “Are you crying?”
She nodded and looked at him through a blur of emotion. She saw him give a small shake of his head. But that didn’t stop her. She cried when the minister pronounced them man and wife. She cried when Theodore jumped up and down and shouted, “Kiss her! Kiss her!”
She cried when her husband kissed her. She cried even harder when he swung her and the baby up into his arms and carried them out of the church with both children running and laughing at his side. It was a silly thing, this crying, because she had never been happier.
Hank stood on the veranda of their room in the Port Moresley Hotel. Cast in moonlight, the bay stretched out before him, and he could see where a few ships were anchored at the docks, their lanterns spilling light on the rippling black water. They were scheduled to leave in two days on an American liner that was coming into port the next day. In less than three weeks they would be in San Francisco. Three weeks.
He took a deep breath and leaned on the wooden railing, lost in thoughts of what-ifs. In the street below a few wagons and carriages moved past even though it was late, close to midnight.
“They’re finally asleep.”
He turned at the sound of Smitty’s voice, and leaned his hip against the rail. She stood in the doorway, limned in soft light from the lamp inside their room. She had bathed earlier and was dressed in some frilly woman’s robe she had bought at the dry goods store where they had gotten the kids’ clothing.
He supposed he should comment on it. Hell, he was a husband now. But he didn’t care what Smitty wore. In fact, he liked her best in nothing but that come-to-me smile of hers.
He straightened and closed the distance between them. “Let’s go inside.”
She turned, and he closed the French doors behind him. Then, just for good measure, he looked at the adjoining door. Theodore had come through that door at least five times.
“He’s asleep. I made certain.”
He shook his head. “That kid talked for about fifteen hours.”
She laughed. “He’s excited.”
They were both quiet for a moment, then Hank looked at her. “I wonder what exactly that kid used the last wish for.”
“I don’t know. He refuses to tell anyone, even Lydia.”
“He could have wished for the ship.”
“I’d say from that satisfied smile on his face when we were at the church that he probably wished for what he wanted all along.”
Hank looked at her. “What?”
“He wanted a dad.”
Hank gave a wry laugh. “Well, now the kid’s got one. What’s he gonna do with me?”
“Probably talk your ear off for the next thirty years.”
They laughed together for a moment, then Hank reached out and drew a finger slowly along her jaw. He slid his knuckle under her chin and tilted her face up so she was looking at him. “And how about you, sweetheart?” He grinned. “What are you gonna do with me?”
She slid her arms up around his neck and pressed her body against his. “Probably talk your ear off for the next thirty years.”
He laughed hard and pulled her into his arms. She looked up and gave him that smile. “And what are you going to do with me?”
He slid his hands down the buttons on her robe, flicking each one open. A touch here, a touch there, a heartbeat or two, and that smile was all she was wearing. He swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. “I’m going to love you, sweetheart.”
Chapter 34
Six weeks later, San Francisco, California
The mansion was tall and proud and stood high on the hillside above the bay like a reigning queen. Bright pink bougainvillea grew up the south side of the home. A paved carriageway ran beneath an arch of willow trees bent together by the strong Pacific winds. There were gardens in back, hedges of manzanita hemmed gravel walkways and dormant rose bushes, while a lion-head fountain stood nearby. There, a goat wearing pink hair ribbons drank from the water that spilled into the tiled base.
Inside the house, the walls and staircase were made of rich California redwood polished until it shone deeper, darker, and more intricately grained than mahogany ever could. And echoing off those walls were the sounds of children’s laughter.
A back door slammed, and there was the sound of gravel spitting up as a young boy’s shoes ran over the pathway to a bench where Hank and Margaret sat talking.
Theodore skidded to a stop in front of them, his voice excited and out of breath. “Grandpa Harlan says you have to come inside!”
Hank’s hand closed over hers.
She looked at him.
“Could this be about the extradition hearing?”
She laughed. “No. It’s only been a week since we met with the courts. There couldn’t possibly be any word this soon.” She stood and held out her hand. They walked inside and went down the back hallway. Margaret tugged Hank along with her, following the sound of voices to her father’s study.
They walked inside, and she stopped suddenly at the intensely serious look on her father’s face. “What is it?”
He glanced down at a paper in his hand and took off his glasses, then set them down on his desk. His gaze moved past her to Hank, who suddenly released her hand.
Margaret whipped her head around, catching some look that had passed between her father and her husband. She walked over, and her father handed her the paper. She skimmed it, then looked up at the men in the room. “This is an order to take Hank to the state penitentiary.” She turned to her dad. “This is some kind of mistake. At the hearing they released Hank into your custody. I thought it was all taken care of. What is going on?”
“This is Mr. Cornelius, Margaret, from the state attorney general’s office.”
A man in a black suit that was too long for him stepped forward. “The French government has asked the Justice Department, and they in turn directed the state, to deny custody and keep Mr. Wyatt incarcerated until this issue can be fully investigated.”
“But he voluntarily turned himself in. We were told this wouldn’t happen.”
Mr. Cornelius spoke to her as if he wanted to pat her on the head so she could better understand. “Since the charges against him are for murder, and because he escaped—”
“He’s not going to run away.”
He smiled. “I’m certain you believe that, Mrs. Wyatt. You are his wife, but the governments involved believe otherwise.”
“I’m also an attorney, Mr. Cornelius, and you can tell the French government and the Justice Department to go to hell.”
“Margaret!”
“I promised Hank, Dad. This is just bureaucratic nonsense.”
The entire time Hank just stood there, not saying a word. Her father went over to Hank and put his hand on his shoulder and said something. Hank blinked, the only sign that he’d heard anything.
One of the men stepped forward and took a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket. “I need you to put your hands behind your back, Mr. Wyatt.”
Margaret wat
ched Hank take a deep breath and drop his hands behind him. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring somewhere over her head.
Margaret grabbed her father’s arm. “Dad! I promised him. Please! Can’t you do something?”
He took her arm and pulled her aside. “I’ll try to do what I can, but you’re making this harder on Hank. Stop it. For his sake. He has no choice and neither do we. He has to go with them.”
“Hank.” She said his name in a half plea and turned to him.
“Margaret.” Her father leaned closer and whispered, “If you love him, don’t do this. Leave the man some pride.”
She pulled her arm out of her dad’s and stood with her back pressed to the study doorjamb, her hands behind her, clutching the door handle. As they walked by, she looked at Hank and mouthed, “I love you.”
He stopped for a second, nodded, then turned and walked from the room.
“That’s my dad!” Theodore’s voice echoed down the paneled hallway.
Her head shot up, and she saw Lydia and Theodore standing down the hallway, staring at them.
She saw Hank stumble when he saw the kids.
Theodore came running up to Hank. “What are you doing with my dad? Why is he in handcuffs?”
Margaret walked down the hallway and put her arm around Theodore and Lydia, who was standing there quietly. Margaret could feel the little girl’s shoulders shaking and her gaze was on Hank’s handcuffs as they led him past.
“Are they taking him to jail, Smitty?” Theodore asked. “Are they?”
“Only for a little while,” she told him, hoping it was the truth.
Lydia pulled her hand out of Margaret’s and ran to Hank. She hugged his waist tightly, pressed her cheek to him, and squeezed her eyes closed.
Hank stopped. The men with him looked helplessly at the little girl. Hank’s gaze was on Lydia’s head, and Margaret saw him swallow hard.
Her dad stepped forward and gently tugged on Lydia’s arms. “Come with Grandpa now.” And he gently pulled her away.
“Leedee?” Hank’s voice sounded perfectly normal. A brave front, Margaret knew, that cost him a lot to put up.
“Take care of that damn goat, okay?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face as she stood with her grandfather.
And they took Hank out the door and down the front steps to the open doors of a black carriage with two mounted police escorts. They got inside.
Margaret stood, staring at Hank’s profile. She reached out a hand to Lydia, then pulled both her and Theodore close to her side. She said quietly, “Your dad will be home soon. I promise. He’ll be home soon.”
They took Hank down a dank hallway with gray linoleum and dirty chipped walls. The deeper into the bowels of the prison they walked, the more tight the air seemed, as if a door or window hadn’t been opened in a century or two.
The sounds were eerie and sharp. The clicking of typewriter keys from a nearby office. The strong scent of hair balm and onions as they passed by a man who sat in front of a wavy glass door. The rustle of papers, the click of the guard’s boot heels on the floor. The jangle of the chain on the handcuffs, a higher-pitched sound than that made by ankle cuffs, but the same kind of ringing noise that mocked him.
There was the jangle of keys, the click of a locked door. A solid metal door slid open with a loud grating of the sliders, and Hank just stood there, staring at a wide bay of iron cells as if he’d stepped back into his worst nightmare.
The guard nudged him forward with a billy club. He walked slowly because he felt as if the walls were moving toward him, closing in. It was harder to breathe. It was harder to walk, to lift each foot closer.
And it was even harder not to yell and fight and try to run. Because every instinct inside of him said, “Run, run, do it! Do it! Sucker! You’re a sucker. A chump!”
They stopped in front of an empty cell, and he heard the familiar rattling keys and the lock opening. He walked inside, staring at the cement brick walls, at the enameled tin pitcher and bowl that sat in a dark corner, at the bunk with one thin wool blanket folded neatly on the edge of a striped tick mattress and one flat feather pillow.
The cell door closed hard, clanging clear through him. He didn’t flinch. He listened to the guard’s heels clicking down the cell block, listened to the door squeak open, then close with a bang. Then he listened to the silence.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. The only light was from a weak lamp outside the cell. He heard another prisoner cough, a hacking static sound.
Hank walked over to the wall, looked at the gray bricks, the solid bricks. He slammed his fist against them three . . . four . . . five times until his hand was bleeding. His breath came harsh and abrupt as if the air wasn’t there.
He looked at his knuckles, stared at the blood. He drew back to hit the wall again but then stopped and stared at the swipes of blood on the concrete bricks—bloody brown against gray. Blank, void gray.
He leaned into the wall, his palm flat against it, his forehead resting on his arm.
His hand began to shake.
But no one saw it.
His shoulders shook, too.
But no one saw him standing there.
No one saw his face.
It was buried in his arm.
And no one knew he cried.
The door of the visitation room closed, blocking out the sounds of Theodore’s chattering as the children left with their grandfather.
“Smitty.”
Margaret looked at Hank sitting on the other side of a divider with a guard behind him.
“Don’t bring them here again.”
“Hank, please.”
“I mean it, dammit! Don’t bring them here. Children don’t belong here.”
“Neither do you.” She gave him a direct look. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you to have to go through this again. I—” She stopped, because words seemed useless.
He touched her hand, and she threaded her fingers through his, needing to touch him. Something told her he needed this even more than she. He lifted her hand to his mouth for just a second and pressed it against his lips, his head bowed, his eyes closed.
She didn’t say anything. She just waited.
He took a deep breath and set their hands back on the table. Then he looked at her without any emotion in his eyes. “Promise me, Smitty, that you won’t bring the children here. Promise me.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ve sent telegrams. So has Dad. So has everyone we know. We’re just waiting. It can’t be much longer.”
He shook his head. “Don’t.”
She couldn’t say anything to help him, to help her.
She knew it and he knew it. So they sat, just holding hands because that’s all they could do.
She heard the monotonous whir of the ceiling fan above them. In the distance she could hear paper rustling and voices down the back hallways. Someone laughed somewhere far away, yet she could hear that laughter. It almost seemed mocking. She could smell the acrid scent of the resin they used to polish the wood that was in the room. Then she heard the sound of heels on the floor tiles.
“Time’s up, Wyatt.” The guard looked at her. “Mrs. Wyatt.”
She started to rise, but she realized with something worse than despair that she needed help. So she didn’t move.
Hank stood stiffly and without a word he walked to the door. The guard opened it. Hank turned back, just once, and looked at her.
There was a long and difficult pause, each one desperately trying to reach across the emptiness. But neither Hank nor Margaret knew how.
Hank was truly scared. For the first time in his life something mattered. Four special people. Instinct made him want to kick and fight and beat his way out of there, to grab his family and run like hell back to that island where they could be safe.
But he couldn’t. And he wouldn’t. Because Smitty believed that this god-awful world was fair and equal and that good would triumph over ev
il and all that other horseshit he’d never believed in. But he’d been willing to try for her and for those kids. For a future with them.
He knew that he would live his whole life over, every shitty day. He’d beg. He’d crawl. He’d relive each second if he could make it through this.
He was not a man who lived his life believing much in God, but now he prayed. He made more promises and more deals with God than he’d ever made with anyone in forty years of living.
Because he had nothing left to bargain with except his black soul. For one last chance at a future worth living, he’d do anything, give anything. He had no pride left. He had nothing, if he didn’t have his family.
It was early when the telegram came. Almost too early even for Margaret. She heard a bicycle bell ringing, and she jumped out of bed and looked out her bedroom window. The messenger’s bicycle was lying on its side by the front steps.
She threw on her robe, tying it as she ran out the bedroom door and down the stairs. She jerked open the front door just as the messenger had raised his hand to press the door chime.
“Telegram for . . .” The kid squinted at the envelope. “Harlan Smith and Margaret Huntington Smith
She snatched the envelope from his hand, grabbed a gold coin from her purse on a nearby table, and shoved it at him. “Thanks.”
She stood there staring at the telegram, her heart in her throat. She ripped it open, read it, then read it again.
She reached out and grabbed the edge of the open door, gripping it hard. She took a deep breath. One, then another. A second later she fell to her knees, bent over, and hugged her waist. She sobbed so hard she couldn’t get her breath.
It went on for a long time, those tears, weeks and weeks’ worth of tears. Then she pushed herself up and stood there, taking deep breaths as she tried to stop crying, tried to catch just one full, deep breath. She walked slowly to the staircase, looked up, and called for the children.
Hank heard the guard’s footsteps. The key in the lock, the creaking of the cell door. He blinked in the darkness of the cell, disoriented, jarred from sleep that hadn’t come easily.
