Love's First Bloom

by Delia Parr

  When his brother’s voice echoed in his mind, challenging him not to be a fool again, he slipped back into the persona that would justify his methods and focused on his one and only goal: his professional redemption.

  He glanced at the rather silly bonnet she was wearing, took another slow step, and chuckled. “Did you really think that I slaughtered that turkey so Spinster Wyndam could have a few feathers for your bonnet and roast it for our supper?”

  She pulled the ends of her shawl together with one hand and slightly increased the pressure on his arm with the other, which unleashed feelings that triggered alarm bells in his mind. “I’m afraid I did.”

  He shook his head. “You never noticed the feathers were white, rather than brown?”

  “Not really.” She looked up at him and grinned shyly. “It really is a silly looking bonnet, isn’t it?”

  He chuckled again. “Yes, it is, but if you didn’t like it, why did you wear it?”

  She dropped her gaze and shrugged. “I knew how much pleasure she had in giving it to me. Since I was going to her home, I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I wore it anyway.”

  Pausing for a moment, he drew in a long breath and moved his cane to hit closer to his feet before he started them up again. “Are you going to be as thoughtful with the other gifts you received, or did they suit you more?” he asked, hoping he might tempt her to explain what they were and get her to admit the reason for the gift giving today was her birthday.

  “No one will likely ever see the other gifts, or at least I hope they won’t,” she said. She caught his eye and smiled. “The very best gift I received was getting my shawl back. I’m not certain how you managed to repair and clean it, but I know it took a great deal of time and effort. Thank you.” She dropped her gaze. “I should think it would be too much to hope that you managed to walk down Main Street this afternoon without hearing what they’re calling me now.”

  He cringed, although he found it amusing that a woman who valued her privacy was now so well known. “I believe the prevailing favorite is ‘Broom Lady’.”

  She tightened the pressure of her fingers on his arm, and he stopped abruptly and leaned hard on his cane to allow his brain time to refocus on the task at hand.

  After letting go of his arm, she turned toward him. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he said, wondering why Ruth Livingstone had not been a spoiled, bad-tempered, plain woman instead of a considerate, alluring woman with such gorgeous eyes. “It’s just a twinge. It’ll pass in a moment or two.”

  She sighed. “I wish I could say the same for all the gossip about what happened last night.”

  He clenched his jaw and tightened his hold on his cane until his knuckles whitened. Images of what could have happened to her fueled the urge to track down that scoundrel himself. Before he could regain his composure, however, Ruth suddenly charged down the alley, yanking feathers out of her bonnet as she ran toward a man who was sitting on the ground by the back door to the apothecary.

  “Aggravating woman. She’s got less sense than that turkey!” Jake hissed, but forced himself to follow her very slowly. He did not know if the man was the scoundrel who had attacked her last night or if he was one of the reporters from the Sun or the Transcript who might have traced her here. Regardless, he was ready to break into a sprint and intervene if that man made a single threatening move toward her, and worry about explaining his miraculous recovery later when she was safe.

  He was, however, more inclined to strangle this woman for putting herself in harm’s way by running straight toward danger and leaving him well behind her.

  Twenty-Six

  Maxwell Flynn had come back, and he was waiting for her!

  Spurred by frightening images of the damage Jake Spencer would do to his back if he protected her now as instinctively as he had done when he saved Lily from drowning in the river, Ruth broke into a run. She managed to put a sizeable distance between them and had a feather gripped in each hand by the time her unwelcome caller had gotten to his feet.

  The moment Flynn raised his hands in surrender, she slowed her steps and caught her breath. With her heart pounding, she stopped completely when she was just beyond arm’s reach of the man who had attacked her last night.

  “I mean you no harm, Widow Malloy. I only stopped by to apologize,” he offered and took a step back.

  She narrowed her gaze and looked at him intently. Unlike last night, he was steady on his feet, and his words were not slurred from consuming too many spirits. He looked as if he had been in a tavern brawl and had lost to the other hooligan. His nose was swollen and mottled by a large purple bruise like the one that surrounded the bite mark on his cheek. His bottom lip was caked with blood, and she felt more pity than remorse.

  Since he did not look or sound as if he posed any threat to her, she lowered her aching arms and nodded for him to do the same. “I accept your apology. Now please leave,” she said, anxious to have him gone before Jake, slowly making his way toward them, arrived and felt the need to prove himself the better man.

  “You don’t have to worry none about me comin’ back and botherin’ you again,” Mr. Flynn promised and cleared his throat. “I’ve turned over the deed to my land to Mr. Miller down to the bank so he can sell it for me. I’m leavin’ at first light for good, but I wanted to give this to you before I do. That’s why I was sitting here waitin’ for you,” he explained. He put his hand in his pocket and handed her a tiny package. “I made this for my Abigail and gave it to her for the last birthday she ever had. She was twenty-three,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Folks tell me you’re a godly woman. I’m hoping you’ll accept this and that you might be obliged to say a prayer for me now and again when you see it.”

  Ruth put the feather she was holding in her right hand into her left one and took the small package he was holding out to her. “Of course I’ll pray for you,” she promised, then heard the sound of Jake’s cane hitting the ground close behind her. She turned, looked over her shoulder, and smiled when she noted the fearsome look on his face. “Everything is fine. I’m not in any danger,” she assured him.

  When she turned back to face Maxwell Flynn, however, he was not there, and she caught just a glimpse of him before he disappeared around the other side of the building.

  Panting hard, Jake stopped just behind her. “Madam, have you entirely lost your mind?”

  She whirled about and saw he was still wearing that fearsome look. “I beg your pardon?”

  He pointed his cane to the place where Flynn had been standing. “Instead of charging the man who could have killed you last night, did it ever occur to you that you might not want to give him another opportunity by running ahead of me like that?” he snapped.

  She tilted up her chin. “I’m not certain whom you’re talking to, but I’m absolutely positive you cannot possibly be speaking to me. Not in that tone of voice.”

  He let out a long, deep breath and twirled the cane in his hand with his fingers. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “And well you should be,” she argued. “But if you must know, I didn’t run off because I was anxious to prove I could defend myself, although I believe I could have,” she added and pointed the sharpened tips of the feathers at him.

  When his eyes widened and he drew back, she said, “Precisely the reaction I was expecting from Mr. Flynn.”

  He snatched the feathers out of her hand and shook his head. “He could have disarmed you just as easily.”

  “Which would have given you the opportunity to prove you’re still a man capable of defending a woman,” she countered. “You might have won against him, but I daresay you’d have injured your back even more, which is exactly why I ran ahead of you. Not to save you from him. To save you from yourself.”

  The cleft in his chin deepened when he pressed his lips together and appeared to clench his jaw as if struggling to accept her words.

  Her heart trembled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to speak to you so bluntly or to offend you,” she whispered, mindful of the way she had spoken to him yesterday at his cabin. “I think you’re quite manly enough, just as you are,” she blurted. Horrified that she had voiced her opinion of him so brazenly, she felt her heart begin to pound with the same embarrassment that warmed her cheeks, and she rushed to cover her blunder.

  “Apparently, Spinster Wyndam agrees with me, or she wouldn’t have tried to keep the two of us together at the church picnic, or invited us both to supper tonight,” she offered. “She’s rather well known for her matchmaking. If you don’t believe me, just ask Reverend Haines when he gets back. She’s been trying to match him up with any number of women for years now,” she gushed, nervously twisting the package she held.

  He cocked his head and studied the feathers he had taken from her. “Is that why she fashioned these and put them onto that bonnet she gave you? To give you something to defend yourself if I acted … improperly?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not you exactly. Anyone at all. And she wasn’t the only one concerned about what happened to me last night. I received a whole basket of weapons today from other women, which I have stored upstairs if you’d like to see them.”

  “I think I’d rather see the damage done to the storeroom last night. If it’s as bad as I have heard, I may need to revise my estimate for Mr. Garner.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and wished she could have taken her offer back. Caught between having this man downstairs in the storeroom or upstairs in the family living quarters, she opted for the lesser of the two evils. “You can wait in the storeroom if you like, but it’s getting darker by the minute. I’ll go upstairs and get an oil lamp so you can see the damage better. Just leave the door open,” she said, rushing up the steep staircase as fast as she could without tripping over her skirts.

  She stopped in her bedroom long enough to drop her gift onto the bed and take off her bonnet before she went to the sitting room to retrieve the oil lamp. Her hands were shaking a bit when she tried to light it, but when it failed to light, she realized she needed to pour more oil into the lamp’s base. Frustrated when she heard him rattling around the storeroom, she quickly filled the lamp and lit it. The lamp was heavy, and she had to walk slowly while she carried it down the hallway. She was half afraid her aching arms would give out and she would drop the lamp, setting fire to the entire building.

  She reached the top of the staircase, but found the door closed. She did not remember closing it when she came upstairs, but sighed and set the lamp down on the floor. She let her arms rest for a moment and prayed the bruises would heal soon. After she opened the door and saw that the storeroom was quite a bit darker, she sighed again. She hitched up her skirts and bunched them in the same hand she needed to use to hold onto the railing, took up the lamp with her other hand, and started very cautiously down the steps.

  She could hear Jake still moving about the storeroom, but by the time she was three-quarters of the way downstairs, she had enough light to see him poking at the fallen shelf and pushing boxes away with his cane. “Is this better?” she asked as the lamplight filtered throughout the storeroom.

  He kept his back to her but pointed to the shelves above his head. “Could you stay right there and lift the lamp a bit higher?”

  She hesitated. Her arms were really sore now, and she barely had the strength to hold the lamp at waist level, let alone raise it any higher. “I don’t think I should. Not until I get to the bottom of the steps.”

  He turned and closed the distance between them in a matter of heartbeats. Standing directly below her on the floor, he reached up and took the lamp from her after he leaned his cane against the outside of the staircase. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were still on the staircase.” He looked at her with concern. “You’re awfully pale. Are you feeling unwell?”

  “I’m fine. It must be the light,” she insisted, not wanting to tell him that her encounter last night had not left her as free from injury as she may have appeared.

  “I’ll keep the light on the steps so you won’t fall.” He kept his eyes locked on her until she reached the storeroom floor.

  She dropped her skirts and gently rubbed her arms to get them to stop aching, but immediately recognized her mistake when his gaze hardened. “He did hurt you.”

  Not a question she could deflect with an excuse of some sort, his statement left no room for denial. With her cheeks burning, she shrugged. “It’s just a few bruises. Nothing serious. But please don’t tell anyone.”

  He lifted the lamp until the light fell full on her face. “Since you wouldn’t favor the notion that I follow that brute and make him very sorry that he hurt you, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have him arrested.”

  “He came to give me something and apologize tonight because he’s leaving at first light. For good.”

  He sighed and lowered the lamp. “I suppose that’ll do, but the next time we’re together and anyone—”

  “I’ll let you be gallant and rescue me,” she promised, “as long as you let me say ‘I told you so’ when you end up crippling yourself for life. Agreed?” she asked, extending her hand.

  He hesitated before he took her hand in his, then held it for just a moment longer than she thought necessary.

  A warm sensation coursed up her arm and spread from limb to limb. But she dismissed her reaction as nothing more than the fact that she had never really held a man’s hand before, other than her father’s. His hands had been as smooth as her own, whereas Jakes’s hand was rough with calluses.

  “I’ve seen what I needed to see in the storeroom. I should go.” His voice was husky, and his gaze simmered with something she had never seen before, though she assumed it was nothing more than a glint of hurt pride. “Stay here a moment,” he said and started up the staircase, using the railing for support.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To put the lamp at the top of the staircase for you.”

  Once he had the lamp sitting on the floor in the hall at the top of the stairs, he started back down, blocking the light behind him so all she could see was his silhouette. She stepped aside when he reached the bottom step and he retrieved his cane.

  “Tell Mr. Garner when he gets back that the price will be the same, and I’d really appreciate it if you could get him to commit to letting me do the work for him as soon as possible. I haven’t had much work lately and I sorely need the wages.”

  “I will,” she promised. Uncomfortable with the embarrassment she detected in his voice, she knew how difficult it must be for this proud man to ask her for help in finding work.

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t have to remind you to latch the outer door, as well as the door at the bottom of the staircase after I leave, do I?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  “That’s a relief. I’d hate to have to save you, especially from yourself, and injure my back even more,” he said, turning her words back against her.

  “Aggravating man,” she grumbled after he had left, then latched the door and went upstairs. She picked up the oil lamp and started carrying it back to the sitting room. When she passed by her bedroom, she caught a glimpse of the package from Mr. Flynn sitting on her bed and quickly detoured. She set the oil lamp on a chest of drawers and sat down on the bed, anxious to see what he had given her.

  When she unwrapped the package, which was no bigger than the palm of her hand, tears sprang to her eyes. Lying in the middle of the crumpled brown paper was a perfectly shaped white heart hanging from a worn strip of leather. She picked up the heart and held it to the light and realized it had not been carved from stone. The ridges on the heart suggested he had carved it from a seashell, similar to the ones she had seen along the shores of the river.

  Ruth folded her hand around the simple token of affection Maxwell had made for his Abigail. She bowed her head and whispered a prayer for him, along with a prayer that she would someday find a man who woul
d love her as much as he still loved his late wife.

  She might even hope that Jake Spencer would be that man, until she realized that he could never love a woman who had wrongly accused him of lying, yet had lied to him over and over again from the very first day they had met.

  Twenty-Seven

  The next morning, great rumbles of thunder shook the building and woke Ruth out of a sound sleep. She rose from her bed and looked out the window, but then leaped back a step when a bolt of lightning cracked the sky and startled her. She crossed her sore arms and gently rubbed them from shoulder to elbow while she watched the thunderclouds rolling in.

  Within moments thick raindrops were pelting the window, and she sighed. The storm canceled her plans to spend the day in her garden and set the starter plants she had been given into the ground. “At least the rain will keep the roots moist,” she grumbled and then slipped back under the covers. She considered how to spend her day but did not think very long before she decided that since every plan she had made for the past two days had led to one detour after another or some sort of disaster, she would simply let the day unfold.

  Satisfied with her decision, she included Maxwell Flynn in her morning prayers and dressed quickly. She brushed her hair, parted it down the middle, pulled it back behind her neck, and held it in place with her comb. Humming softly, she made the bed and went directly to the kitchen to make something for breakfast.

  By midday she had dusted and swept out the family’s living quarters, save for the Garners’ bedroom, as usual. She also finished the apron she was making for Phanaby. Eventually, the storm blew its way through the village and, tempted by bright blue skies and warm sunshine, she changed into a work gown and her oversized boots, grabbed a stack of old newspapers along with her silly bonnet, and headed to her garden.

  Thankfully, she did not encounter the turkey hen either on the sandy path or the grounds surrounding the cabin. She was both relieved and a bit disappointed not to see any smoke curling up from the cabin chimney, which meant Jake was probably not around. Ruth found she was still sifting through her emotions after their time together the previous evening.