by Delia Parr
At moments like this, when Lily was lying asleep next to her, so tiny and innocent and so very vulnerable, the desire to protect her and keep her safe was so strong and overwhelming, Ruth wondered how she was going to give this precious baby away for perfect strangers to raise.
With her own eyes beginning to droop and her head nodding forward, Ruth wanted nothing more than to crawl onto her own mattress, just above Lily’s, fall asleep, and stay there until she had gotten word from her father that it was safe to come home.
Instead, she shook off her weariness and tiptoed out of the room, hoping she would find the energy to finally start working on the apron she wanted to make for Phanaby.
Phanaby was waiting for her in the hallway but held silent until Ruth had eased the bedroom door shut again. “Here. Take off the one you’re wearing and put this one on,” she whispered, holding a large white apron like the one Elias always wore when he was working downstairs in his shop.
Ruth hesitated for a moment before she untied the apron she was wearing. “I’ll try not to stain this one as badly,” she said as she exchanged aprons with the woman.
Chuckling, Phanaby rolled the soiled apron into a ball. “I’ll set this one to soak, but I wouldn’t worry overmuch about getting any stains on that one. Elias’s customers rarely spill anything on him, they don’t usually throw anything at him, and they never scream at him, either,” she teased.
Ruth had the apron strings nearly tied together, but instantly dropped her hands back to her side. “H-his customers?” she sputtered. “Are you trying to tell me that I’m supposed to go downstairs and—”
“I was hoping you would, so I could get a bit of a nap myself so I don’t snap at you or anyone else today. If you’d rather not …”
“No. I’ll do it, but I-I’m just not certain that I’ll be able to—”
“Don’t work yourself into a stew,” Phanaby cautioned, walking around Ruth and tying the apron strings snugly at her waist. “It’s been three days since you came home all flustered and upset by what those old men at the general store were arguing about. You can’t stop people from gossiping about Reverend Livingstone’s trial or that poor daughter of his who’s gone missing, any more than you can convince men that they’re twice as guilty of spreading gossip as women are. You can’t keep yourself up here forever, either, and don’t try to tell me you’re not hiding out. You haven’t even gone back to your garden, which means the shawl you left behind is probably ruined. And you did promise Elias that you’d help out a bit when he needed you, as I recall.”
“I did promise to help, but I was thinking I could tidy up the storeroom. I never thought he’d want me to help him with customers.”
Phanaby took her by the elbow and guided her down the hallway to the staircase. “Elias just got in a large shipment of patent medicines. He needs to check each crate to make certain none of the bottles or jars cracked or broke open before he stacks the crates in the storeroom. He can’t do that very easily if he has to run back and forth between the storeroom and the shop. Don’t worry about Lily. I’ll keep an ear out for her while you’re downstairs.”
Ruth took a long breath and started down the staircase.
“Ruth?”
She held onto the railing and looked back over her shoulder.
“Remember, you aren’t the only one whose heart is aching because of the terrible things reporters write in those newspaper articles about Reverend Livingstone,” Phanaby offered, her gaze troubled.
“I’ll try,” Ruth whispered, but her heart was not just aching. Her heart was truly breaking because she could not speak out to defend him or tell anyone here that she was proud to be his daughter.
An hour after she had taken Mr. Garner’s place in the apothecary, Ruth had given two customers the remedies that had been prepared and set aside for them, dusted the display in the front window, and wiped down the entire length of the counter.
When she heard the front door open, she looked up into the mirror and stiffened when she recognized the man who entered the apothecary. She dropped her gaze for a moment, then turned around after she forced her lips into a smile.
The middle-aged man was wearing the same patched overalls and plaid shirt he had been wearing several days ago when she had seen him arguing with another man in the general store, and he shuffled over to the counter. “You must be that new widow lady moved to the village. I heard you were living here,” he said, making it rather obvious that he had been so busy arguing with his friend that he had not taken notice of her. “Where’s Elias?” he asked.
“Mr. Garner is working in the storeroom,” she replied. “Would you like me to fetch him for you?”
He did not bother to answer her; instead, he leaned over the counter and pointed to one of the two brown parcels lying there. “Name’s Toby. Jedediah Toby, just like it says right there. No need to fetch him,” he said as he reached over and grabbed the parcel. “I’ll settle up with Elias at the end of the month.” He tucked the parcel inside his pocket.
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” she offered, anxious to get back to her work.
Mr. Toby, however, seemed rather content to stay and chat. “Heard you come here all the way from New York City with your baby.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Suppose you read all about that minister long before his trial, then.” He leaned closer, his gaze sparkling with curiosity. “Is it true he actually went into them brothels and visited with those harlots in their bedrooms, just like he did the night he killed that woman? The newspapers said—”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know anything about that. I was too distressed and I didn’t have any free time to read any newspapers. I was struggling to provide for my daughter after my dear, sweet husband died so suddenly.” She brought her apron to her face to dab at her eyes before he noted the flash of annoyance that made her cheeks burn.
“Why, look who’s here, Lorelei! It’s that sweet young woman we bumped into on the sidewalk the other day.”
“ ‘We’ didn’t bump into her, Gertie. You did, but it certainly is convenient for us that I spied you in here through the window, Mr. Toby,” her cousin replied as they approached the counter. “Since you didn’t show up at the cottage to fix that broken window like you promised, Mrs. Jensen helped us to find someone else. He did a fine job of repairing her kitchen steps, so you needn’t bother. We’ve hired him instead.”
Ruth stared at the two women who had slipped into the shop so quietly, she had not even heard them. Apparently, neither had Mr. Toby, who spun around so fast he nearly lost his balance. She flushed with relief that someone had interrupted the difficult conversation she had been having with the man, even if that someone turned out to be the Jones cousins. Since the focus of their interest had shifted to Mr. Toby, she almost did not care that she had no escape from their banter, although she sent up a silent prayer that Elias would hear them and intervene.
The man sidestepped the counter and started for the door, walking in a wide arc to get around the two women. “I’ve been feelin’ poorly… .”
“From all we’ve heard, you’ve been plopping yourself down at the general store instead of working,” Gertie argued, her spectacles hanging precariously from the tip of her nose. “And the next time we need something fixed, we won’t be bothering you. We’ll be asking Jake Spencer to help us again.”
Lorelei huffed so hard the brim on her sorry bonnet flopped up and down. “He won’t take a single coin from us, either. He knows how hard it is for widows like us to get by, unlike some other folks who take advantage.”
Mr. Toby didn’t respond. He just shuffled past them and hurried out the door.
As the women approached the counter, bantering back and forth with each other about their handsome new handyman and his easygoing nature, Ruth had a hard time believing the man they were talking about was the gruff, cranky, ill man she had met several days ago. “Good afternoon, ladies. Did … did I hear you say the man who helped you was Jake Spencer?” s
he asked.
Gertie sighed and a faint blush stained her sunken cheeks. “Lovely man. Lovelier smile. Makes me wish I were just a few years younger. I’d invite Mr. Spencer to supper tomorrow night if you hadn’t put up such a fuss. I still might do just that.”
Lorelei waved at her cousin’s arm, giving her a playful reprimand. “You’ll do no such thing. Even a child could see that Mr. Spencer is sufferin’ quite a bit with that back of his that’s still healin’. Since he already promised to repaint Mrs. Walker’s shutters tomorrow morning, I doubt he’ll be up to walking into the village twice in one day,” she quipped, without answering Ruth’s question any more directly than her cousin had done.
Simultaneously, they paused and looked at Ruth. “Do you know him, too?” they asked in unison, as if they finally realized she was still standing there.
“Yes, I believe we’ve met,” she replied, curious to know why the man she had encountered, who had been so preoccupied with his privacy that he had accused her of trespassing, had apparently been leaving his cabin to go into the village to work. How could he possibly have done any work as a handyman at all when he was hardly able to walk and needed to lean on a cane just to keep his balance?
Unless Jake Spencer was not the man he had appeared to be.
The very thought sent chills coursing up and down the length of her backbone as possibilities clashed against one another in her mind. Perhaps he had just been having a particularly difficult time of it the morning they met. On the other hand, he may have exaggerated the state of his health and demanded privacy because he had something in that cabin he did not want anyone else to see.
Or he could be a reporter who had somehow tracked her here, which made little sense since he had practically tossed her off the property he had rented and had only reluctantly agreed to allow her to return.
Ruth realized now that she had made a mistake by hiding upstairs for the past three days. But she had no time to waste on fear or self-indulgent pity or paranoia. She could panic and assume the worse—that the man had come here looking for her—in which case she would have to pack, take Lily, and disappear this very night. Or she could remain calm and rational, dismiss Jake Spencer as a minor annoyance, and return to the everyday rhythm of her life here for just another day or two until her father sent word that his plans for their future were finally in place.
She chose the latter course of action, and almost immediately a plan took shape in her mind.
Twelve
“Finally!”
Jake quickly turned off the sandy trail and disappeared into the thick of the forest the moment he spied the young Widow Ruth Malloy crossing the bridge at the head of the river. From his hidden vantage point, he waited until she turned down the path that led to the garden she had ignored for the past three days before tucking the crook of the cane over his arm. He then hurried back to his cabin, surprised that she was returning in late afternoon rather than at the break of day as had been her custom.
And that she was not alone.
Keeping the shore of the river in view, he worked his way through scrub pines, stands of fragrant cedar trees that towered over him, and wild mountain laurel that had burst into bloom just yesterday. He was nearly out of breath by the time he reached the cabin and rushed inside.
Caught off guard and unprepared, he gathered up a few of the newspapers lying on top of the stack on the floor near the hearth. He grabbed the single straight chair sitting by the front window and carried everything outside. He set the chair into place facing the river, exactly where he had planned to put it tomorrow morning, hung his cane on the back of the chair, and plopped down into the seat.
With his heart pounding with anticipation, he had a newspaper in his hands and had started reading just in time to hear her voice as she approached the bend in the path behind him.
“It’s not much farther. There. Now take my hand and hold tight. Once we get there, you’ll be able to play, just like I promised.”
Several moments later, he heard a flurry of small footsteps followed by heavier ones. “Come back here. Lily, no! You mustn’t run off. Lily!”
He nearly choked on the chuckle he was trying to swallow when a tiny pair of hands smashed the newspaper he was holding into his chest, and a pair of big blue eyes twinkling with a bushel of mischief stared up at him. Ribbons taut at the base of her throat kept the bonnet the little girl was wearing from falling to the ground, and late afternoon sun shined brightly on the mass of blond hair that curled around her face.
“Play,” she squealed and tore off a corner of the newspaper when he tried to keep her from grabbing the newspaper away from him. His cane slipped off the chair and fell to the ground without distracting her.
Engaged in a tug of war with the impulsive little girl, he decided she was definitely not as delicate or fragile as her name implied. He stiffened, waiting for her mother to intervene, but Lily proceeded to tug at his hands with impunity. “Play! Lily play!”
He snorted. “Have you no control over your child? Or did you bring her here to subject me to her tantrum?”
His question brought Ruth to the child’s side, but she made no effort to stop Lily or pull her away. “She’s not having a tantrum. She’s simply excited. I assure you, if you knew Lily as well as I do, you’d know the difference,” she explained. Her smile was as sweet as her voice, and she simply stood there as if she were completely oblivious to his distress or her child’s ill-behavior.
“I have no desire to know her at all, but I was hoping for a bit of peace this afternoon to enjoy my newspaper.”
“In the middle of my garden?” She turned a bit and waved her hand in frustration, which simmered in the depths of her eyes. “You haven’t got enough room outside? Or inside your cabin? You had to sit here?”
He glanced down at the ground, shrugged, and tried not to look smug. “This bit of ragged soil hardly constitutes a garden. You haven’t returned to work on it, which implied you’d given up on the idea of planting anything here at all, even though I carried away those rocks you dug out, exactly as I promised I’d do,” he argued, glancing down for a moment at the toddler, who was still tugging on his hands. He wondered how a child so small could be that strong.
He looked back up at the woman who claimed to be her mother, just in time to see the subtle curl of her lips. Clearly, she would have tossed one of the rocks at him if she’d had the chance. He lowered his hands, prepared to handle the child himself at this point, when a sharp pain in his thumb shot straight up his arm.
Instinctively, he dropped the newspaper, lowered his gaze, saw that Lily had her little mouth locked on his thumb, and pulled his throbbing hand away, all in the space of a single heartbeat. “Madam! Please! Now will you control this … this little—”
“Lily! No biting!” Ruth yanked Lily away and up into her arms while struggling to keep the screaming child from scrambling down again.
He did not think he had ever seen a woman’s face change from pure sweetness to absolute horror in a blink of an eye, but he was absolutely certain he had never heard a child’s scream as shrill as the one that exploded from that little girl’s mouth. “I’m fine. Just … just get her to be quiet. See? There’s no harm done,” he added.
When he lifted his hand up to get the child’s attention, he noted with surprise that her eyes were crystal clear. There was not a single tear on her face, not anywhere, but her cheeks were flaming red.
Lily, however, ignored him, and Ruth did the same, choosing instead to walk the child over to a small patch of grass several yards away where she sat her down. Kneeling beside her, she bent her face so low and so close to Lily’s, he was half afraid she was going to bite the child herself. She hesitated for a moment, then sat back on her haunches and waited until the child stopped screaming before saying a word. “You’re a good little girl, Lily, but you cannot ever, ever bite anyone. Ever.”
“Lily play!” the little girl cried and tried to scamper back to her feet, but her m
other gently forced her to sit back down again. “No. When you bite someone, you cannot play. You must sit here until I tell you to get up, and if you misbehave again, I’m going to take you straight home.”
Surprisingly, the little girl stayed put as her mother walked back to him, pulling out several blades of grass and playing with them. “I’m so sorry. She hasn’t bitten anyone for weeks, and I thought perhaps she’d gotten past that bad habit.”
“Obviously not.” He shook his hand, hoping he could shake away the throbbing pain in his thumb. He would have stood up to walk it off, but remaining seated gave him the advantage of being eye to eye with the petite woman.
Ruth cringed, but took his hand in hers to study the bite. “I know how much this hurts, but at least she didn’t break the skin.”
Unnerved by how soft her fingers felt against his own, he pulled his hand away. “I assume that’s an observation based on personal experience.”
She groaned. “I’m afraid it is,” she admitted as a blush stole across her face and accented the wisp of freckles resting on the crest of her cheeks. Bending down, she picked up the tattered newspaper, smoothed the pages, and handed them back to him. “I’m sorry your newspaper is so rumpled, although I doubt there’s much worth reading in the Galaxy. Or any of those other New York newspapers you’ve got lying there on the ground next to your chair.”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t read them yet,” he argued, excited at the prospect of discussing the latest news with her. Though he was anxious to see what her reaction would be when the topic of her father came up, for now he feigned indifference.
She glanced from the newspaper he was holding to the ones on the ground and shrugged. “They’re dated several days ago. I’ve read them. There isn’t more than an article in the whole lot of them that would constitute decent news.”
He cocked a brow. “You’re not fond of newspapers?”
Her gray eyes darkened. “I’m not fond of reading articles written by reporters who offer to unsuspecting readers whatever version of the truth will sell newspapers. Or whatever version will fill the coffers of editors who try to outdo one another by promoting scandals that show no regard for decency, let alone the truth.”
