The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel)

by Harrington, Alexis

  Already anticipating misery, he groaned, “Oh, God, I suppose I’ll have to sit at the same dinner table with her and pretend that everything is nicey-nice and—”

  “No, you won’t! Let’s not borrow trouble.”

  “We never have to borrow it. It volunteers,” Cole grumbled. He took Margaux from Jess, and motioned her and Granny toward the door. “I should have known it was too good to last. Well, come on, let’s all go home and enjoy the peace while we can.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  After Amy introduced herself to Deirdre and explained that she intended to keep the boardinghouse in operation, she dragged her bag up the back stairs and chose the bedroom that doubled as a sewing room. It was the same one she’d occupied when she’d lived in this house before. The walls were papered with a pattern of tiny pink rosebuds, and lace curtains made the room feminine and almost sweet. It had always reminded her of her girlhood bedroom, when life had been simpler and she hadn’t yet been scuffed and dented by mistakes and circumstances.

  She hoisted her suitcase to the bed and opened it. Although it held no more than it had when she’d packed it, it seemed twice as heavy. At least she had enough money to buy some proper underwear, and fabric to make a dress or two.

  Beneath it all, she saw the item she’d found beneath the loose floorboard in the closet in Portland, something that Adam might be desperate enough to kill for. As long as it was in her possession, it would both protect her and put her in danger. She needed to find a safe place to hide it, but for the time being, she put it in a dresser drawer, beneath some lengths of fabric that had belonged to Mrs. Donaldson.

  The enticing aroma of cooking floated up to the second floor and she remembered that she’d eaten nothing but a stale cheese sandwich since leaving Portland. Quickly, she chose the only long-sleeved blouse of the three she owned and took off the one she’d been wearing for two days. In the full-length mirror, she caught a glimpse of four finger-shaped purple bruises on her upper arm and wrist. No wonder it ached. Lightly, she ran her dishwasher’s chapped hand over the marks and was horrified to feel her eyes sting with tears. She’d forced herself to learn not to cry. Her tears had only fueled Adam’s twisted pleasure in knowing he could break her spirit and make her cower. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and did her best to fix her hair. After putting on clean stockings, she pulled her wet shoes back on. A longer look in the mirror, though, revealed a glaring bruise right next to the hollow of her throat, exactly the size and shape of Adam’s thumb. She hadn’t noticed it until now.

  At least for the time being she felt safe—the first time in four years.

  She closed the collar of her blouse and pinned it in place with a cheap glass brooch to hide the angry, plum-colored mark, then went downstairs to meet her boarders.

  Whit had gone home a bit early to surprise his wife, Em, with her birthday gift, so Bax closed the office and then went home himself. Powell Springs was a pretty quiet town, and if trouble should come up, everyone knew how to reach him or Whit. He went around to the back door of the house, a habit he’d learned in childhood, when his mother had had six boys, often muddy, always dirty. He scraped the dirt off his boots on a clever gadget someone had constructed out of scrub brushes and screwed to a thin square of iron to keep it upright. It worked better than plain metal boot scrapers.

  At least it had finally stopped raining. But the ground was sodden and he glanced back to see his boot prints grinding the spring grass into the mud.

  On the back porch he washed at the concrete laundry tub with a piece of white soap and tried to make himself presentable enough to sit down at a dinner table. He was still getting used to that, even though he’d lived here for three months. Compared to the last few years, even the simplest meal in this house seemed like Sunday dinner every night of the week. In the evenings, they sat in the dining room instead of at the kitchen table, ate from flowered dishes, and by deliberate example Deirdre Gifford prevented him and the other boarder, Tom Sommers, from leaning over their plates, elbows on the table, and gobbling the food like wild hogs in a logging camp.

  When Bax walked into the dining room, he noticed that Tom was in his spot at the table, but another place was set at a spot that was usually empty.

  “Mr. Duncan, take your seat,” Deirdre said, balancing serving dishes on a tray. “We have someone new joining us.” She put down a large platter of roast chicken and sweet potatoes, with a bowl of vegetables and a gravy boat. Bax was in his chair and in the middle of tucking his napkin into his shirt collar when Deirdre looked up and inclined her head, making him follow her gaze. In the doorway he saw the same woman he’d talked to on the road that afternoon, the one Whit had identified when she’d walked past his office window. The napkin, without enough hold to stay put, fell out of his collar into a heap on his plate. She came closer, and when their eyes met the spark of mutual recognition almost jumped across the table like a lightning bolt. Color rose in her pale cheeks and he felt a flush work its way up his neck.

  “Mrs. Amy Jacobsen, this is Baxter Duncan, one of your boarders. He’s been Sheriff Gannon’s deputy for what, three or four months now?” She glanced at him for confirmation.

  “Yeah, something like that.” He lurched out of his chair to shake her hand, but he’d barely touched it before she snatched it from his grip, as if he were a leper. She didn’t have much to be so uppity about. Hers were not the hands of an idle front parlor lady, or a society wife who visited the poor and sick with baskets of soup and bread. She had done some hard work.

  “Mr. Duncan,” she acknowledged, her jaw tight. At least she looked almost as uncomfortable as he felt. That high horse of hers must have pulled up lame.

  “It’s just Bax, ma’am.”

  Deirdre Gifford said, “And this is Tom Sommers. He works at the sawmill on the east end of town.” To them both she added, “Mrs. Jacobsen owns this house now. Mrs. Donaldson was the owner, but she passed away just before you got here.”

  Tom also stood and mumbled a bashful greeting. Though he had the husky build of a woodsman, he was still young enough to blush, and color suffused his face. Then he turned a brief, calf-eyed look on Deirdre, but she seemed not to notice.

  Damn it, wasn’t this just a dandy turn of events? Bax simmered. The porcupine on the road was now his landlady.

  “Bax and I met briefly this afternoon,” Amy said. She pulled out her chair and sat. “Nothing much will change here except that I’ll be living and working in the house too, and I’ll be collecting the rents now instead of Mr. Parmenter. The rent will stay the same. But I understand that Deirdre has been doing the washing here with the new washing machine. Since there’s a laundry in Powell Springs, that service won’t be included in the price of your room and board. There will be an extra charge, or of course, you can take your wash to Wegner’s Laundry.”

  “So in a way, the rent is going up,” Bax said, trying to snag a sweet potato with his fork.

  Deirdre passed the platter of chicken to Her Highness while she explained this, and he wondered what other things might change that were supposed to stay the same.

  “No, not really. I don’t think it’s asking much.” She took a piece of chicken from the platter, then paused with her hands folded in her lap while she stared at her dish. “I hope you’ll all stay on here. I—I’m grateful to have this home and I appreciate your being here.”

  Bax’s brows rose in mild surprise. Maybe there was a different woman beneath that haughty exterior. When she looked up again, he saw the same careworn expression he’d noticed this afternoon, as if someone had kicked her down the road in an old bushel basket to this point in her life. There was probably a pretty face under there somewhere, too. Dr. Jessica, what he’d seen of her anyway, glowed like a buttercup. This one was too pale and thin, but he heard she hadn’t always looked like this. Then she tightened her jaw again, and the softness was gone.

 
She stretched out an arm to pass the serving dish, and in doing so the collar of her blouse gapped away from her throat. He saw a purple, thumb-shaped bruise that she’d obviously tried to hide. Her left wrist looked like someone had clamped it in a cruel grip as well. He’d seen a few women in his life with black-and-blue marks who’d claimed to have walked into doors or fallen down steps. It made him wonder what, or whom, Amy Jacobsen was really running from.

  When he realized he was staring, he made a point of paying attention to his dinner and to stop speculating about her. His own circumstances were tenuous enough.

  Amy felt Bax Duncan’s curious gaze resting on her, and she struggled to keep from fidgeting in her chair. Self-consciousness about her own dishwasher’s hands had made her pull away from his handshake. His dark hair and smoke-gray eyes were the features she’d noticed first and remembered most. He was nice-looking—handsome, if she were to be honest with herself, and at least as tall as Cole Braddock. But that didn’t matter to her. She knew all about men now, and she realized they couldn’t be trusted.

  What were the chances that she’d have to cross such close paths with him again after their first meeting? And dear God, he worked for Whit Gannon. If Adam came looking for her here, would the sheriff protect her or consider her to be Adam’s property to be returned to him?

  Just the possibility caused a mist of perspiration to bloom on her temples. Maybe he wouldn’t come here, Amy thought. How could he? Around her, the sound of silver on china clinked and the buzz of intermittent small talk hummed between Bax and Deirdre. She was safe here, surely.

  When Adam got mad, she was the reason he lost his temper. Everything else that had happened was her fault. Hadn’t he told her that often enough? She made him say cruel things and pound her confidence into dust as fine as face powder. Wasn’t that what he always said? He worked so hard (although she wasn’t sure at what), day and night, to achieve something, but that wasn’t enough for her, ungrateful, nagging—

  Amy tried to block out the memory. She didn’t suppose that life here would be easy—it would depend upon how long people held grudges and memories. Still, this was her chance to start over, here in this house that had once been a haven to her. Here she could make up for everything she’d done wrong. As long as people would let her.

  At three in the morning, Adam arrived home and looked around the dull cracker box of a house that he and Amy rented in the working-class Portland neighborhood of Slabtown. Feeble light from the one street lamp outside penetrated the clean, wavy window glass. He hadn’t seen her for a day and a half. Because they both came and went at different hours, it wasn’t all that unusual that they might have missed each other. But she was always home at night. He, on the other hand, was often out trying to drum up some donations for his ministry. At least that was what he told Amy, and she finally knew better than to question him.

  She was a decent housekeeper, he had to give her that. Everything was neat and in order, but she was nowhere to be found. He detected no scent of cooking or hint of meals eaten. Even the dishrag at the sink was dry. Carrying the oil lamp from the tiny front room to the bedroom, it didn’t look as if a struggle had taken place, so he didn’t think someone had dragged her off.

  Now he opened drawers and the closet door to find her clothes missing, along with a single, battered brown suitcase, which she toted from place to place every time they had to move.

  All her belongings were gone.

  Amy was gone.

  He gripped the doorknob on the closet until he heard his finger joints pop. She had left him? How did she dare? He thought he’d deflated her overblown opinion of herself over these four years—she’d barely read a newspaper without his permission, and he’d cured her spendthrift ways by keeping her on a strict budget. He’d even made her turn over the pay she earned washing dishes at a neighborhood café. Now, without even so much as a note, she’d had the nerve to pack up and escape to who knew where—

  He froze. Deep in that closet behind the suitcase was a loose floorboard, a perfect hiding place where he kept something important that she knew nothing about. The board wasn’t easily noticeable, with a lamp or in broad daylight. With the tip of his penknife, he pried up the board and held the lamp over it. He saw a dark, empty hole.

  Panic filled him, and then a fury so great that for a moment his vision was dimmed to a dull, red haze. He dropped flat to his stomach and plunged his hand into the hiding place and groped around, feeling for something, anything that might be what he sought.

  He found nothing.

  He raged through the tiny house, pulling out more drawers, spilling their contents, and overturning furniture. Then, with a kitchen knife, he cut open the cushions on the settee and tore apart the bed. Stuffing made of coconut shell fibers, feathers, and fabric scraps filled the air. He kicked and plowed through everything that landed on the floor, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for.

  Winded and sweating, he dropped into a hard hickory chair, the only piece of furniture still upright. Would Amy—cowed, obedient, timid Amy—really have the guts and the gall to leave and take his property with her? How had she even found it? Was there another man? The questions and possibilities flitted around his brain. She couldn’t go back to Powell Springs. No one there, not even her sister, would forgive or forget what had happened in those last days of the war. But if she didn’t come home by tonight, he’d go about finding her. Then he’d teach her a lesson she would remember for the rest of her life.

  Her short life.

  Under a rare blue sky, Whit pulled the Ford out into traffic in front of the Multnomah County courthouse. “I don’t remember the last time I had to make two trips into Portland in the same week,” he said, dodging an Alpenrose Dairy wagon that rumbled past. “I’m not too partial to the crowds and hubbub of city life.”

  Bax rode shotgun, happy to let someone else drive the shuddering vehicle for a change. “You know, I would have filed those documents when I was here the other day if you’d told me about them. I’m not that eager to come to Portland, either.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We had to sign them in front of the county clerk. I guess they must think we don’t have anything better to do than lose two hours to come down here and drive back.”

  Bax glanced at the neatly trimmed park that covered several blocks along Fourth Avenue and gestured at it. An ornate octagonal horse trough and fountain, topped with a huge elk, stood in the middle of the intersection. It looked a lot better than the one that stood in Powell Springs with a Statue of Liberty replica in its center. “Even this can’t make up for all the cars and delivery wagons and people jammed on the sidewalks.”

  “I guess we’re just country boys at heart,” the sheriff said. “If I had to live among all these sky-high buildings—five-six stories—I’d skedaddle back to open, rolling fields where I belong.”

  They were making progress down Fourth, working their way over to the Morrison Bridge, when traffic came to a dead stop. Up ahead, some traffic mishap between a horse-drawn delivery truck and a taxicab blocked both lanes of the street. Vehicles surrounded them, making escape impossible.

  “Damn it, I guess we’re just going to have to wait this out. I hope I’m not ready for the poor farm in Fairdale by the time we get loose,” Whit said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  While they sat there with nothing to do but watch for signs of improvement ahead and take in the sights around them, Whit’s sharp gaze riveted on a well-dressed couple coming out of a luggage store.

  Bax noticed Whit’s keen attention to the pair. The woman was wearing a fur-trimmed coat with a fancy hat, and the man guiding her by the elbow wore an expensive-looking suit and a diamond stickpin that even from where Bax sat seemed as big as an aggie marble. “Must be nice, huh?” he commented, assuming Whit was fascinated by the high-toned pair.

  As they passed, Whit twisted in the seat, craning his neck to w
atch them. “I swear I know that man. Not the woman, but he reminds me of—naw, it’s not him. It can’t be.”

  Bax turned, too. “Who, Mr. High Society over there?”

  Just then, traffic began moving again and the objects of their scrutiny fell behind their view and disappeared into the flow of pedestrians on the sidewalk.

  “Yeah.” Whit waved off his own comment, and as they picked up speed he shifted the car into second gear. “Lately I’ve come to realize that if a man lives long enough, everyone starts to look familiar, whether he knows them or not.”

  “You’re not ready for the rocking chair yet.”

  “Yet. Maybe I could get a job like Wyatt Earp, offering my expert opinion on the West for the moving-picture business.”

  They both laughed at that idea, then Bax said, “But you’d have to move to California.”

  “Yeah. That’s not happening. Hell, I don’t even like coming to Portland.” After a pause he added, “I sure wish I’d gotten a better look at that fancy dude, though. There was something about him . . .”

  The next morning Amy closed the front door behind her and set off for Dilworth’s Women’s Furnishings & Dry Goods. The weather had cleared and the mellow sun made a valiant attempt to dry out the sodden ground, but it would take several days of blue skies to accomplish that. The hydrangea bushes along the sidewalk had begun to leaf out. Birds that had hidden in the shelter of trees yesterday during the downpour flitted across the sky, carrying tiny twigs and pieces of fluff to build their nests, and she could hear them calling to each other. Spring was here at last.

  Last night, she’d lain in bed and felt comfortable and safe for the first time in years. For those few hours, no one would bother her; she didn’t have to listen to high-pitched arguments or screaming children in some rundown rooming house or shifty neighborhood. Adam wouldn’t bother her, although she didn’t feel free of him—and she certainly was not free. For the time being, though, she had a reprieve. That would give her time to decide what to do next.