by Kaki Warner
“Oh, it was splendid,” Jack assured her. “Magical even. Especially the high notes.” He gave Daisy an angelic smile. “Remember those high notes, Daisy? How you rattled the rafters night after night when—”
“I have no music,” she blurted out, heat rushing into her cheeks.
Grinning, Brady turned to Hank. “One-Track-Jack. He never gives up.”
Hank grinned back. “Better than a peep show.”
“And what do you know about peep shows?” his wife challenged.
Hank’s grin froze. “Only what Brady told me.”
“I never told you—”
“Does a peep show have baby chickens?” Penny cried in delight.
“Do sing,” Jessica said loudly. “Anything from memory would be fine.”
Daisy put up a token resistance before graciously agreeing. In truth, she was relieved to escape Jack’s whispered taunts, that cad, and was thrilled to be able to sing before an audience again.
Since she couldn’t control her breathing as well sitting down, she rose and went to stand beside the fireplace, hands clasped at her waist. She was surprised at how excited and nervous she felt.
Ignoring the way the action drew Jack’s gaze to her breasts, she took several deep breaths to fill her lungs, then began with a lively Irish ballad about a scorned woman’s revenge. With sound being somewhat diffused by the high ceiling and overhead beams, she was able to release the full power of her voice, which she joyfully did. After transitioning into one of the milder saloon songs, she followed with an English lament about a rowan tree, and concluded with the same French lullaby she had sung for her audition at the Elysium. Despite the poor acoustics and being a bit out of practice, she thought she did well, and finished with a smile.
But when the last notes faded, it was to utter silence.
Confused, she scanned the faces staring up at her and saw varying expressions—sleepiness from the children, tearfulness from Jessica and Molly, grins from their husbands, and slack-jawed shock from Jack.
Then the room erupted in applause.
Daisy beamed, absurdly touched. She hadn’t realized how much she had craved their approval until they’d given it.
“Hell, Daisy,” Jack said in an awed voice. “I’d forgotten how beautiful your singing was. You put wings to sound.”
Brady looked at her with new respect in his ice blue eyes. “That’s amazing, Daisy. You have a gift.”
Hank nodded in agreement.
“Goodness.” Jessica sighed and dabbed at her eyes. “If I’d known, I would have insisted you sing every night. I’ve never heard a more beautiful voice.”
“You should be on a stage,” Molly added. “A real stage.”
Daisy flushed with pleasure. “I hope to be. Someday.”
“What a lovely way to end an evening. Certainly better than with one of Jack’s ghastly revelations about shrunken heads and whatnot.” Rising, Jessica motioned the children to their feet. “Come along, dear ones. Time for bed.”
As the women ushered the protesting children out, Brady went to his office, returning a few moments later with the whiskey decanter and three glasses. He poured, passed the glasses around, then settled into his chair with a sigh.
“That’s a helluva voice for such a little person,” Hank said once the first sip had settled warmly in his stomach.
Brady nodded. “It’s those fine lungs, I suspect.”
“They are nice.” Hank smiled at the rafters. “I’ve always admired nice lungs on a woman.”
“Shut up. Both of you. She’ll be your sister-in-law, for Crissakes.”
Brady gave Jack a surprised look. “You asked?”
“I did.”
“And she accepted?”
“Not yet.”
“Not ever,” Hank amended with a smirk.
“For sure not after the way he went at her tonight,” Brady agreed.
“What’d I do?”
“I thought she was going to hit you again.”
“Why? I was just teasing.”
Hank laughed. “Christamighty, Jack. And you call yourself a charmer?”
Brady raised his glass in mock salute. “I have to hand it to you, little brother. You really stepped on your John Thomas this time.”
“I’m flattered you think such a thing is possible. Apparently Daisy was thinking about it too. She was blushing.”
“Blushing mad,” Brady corrected. “I know the look.”
“I bet you do. But not to worry, girls. She’ll come around.”
“You’re a dimwit.” Setting his empty glass on a table beside the couch, Hank picked up the plans he and Charlie had been working on, then rose. “But a lucky one. If I pulled those shenanigans on Molly, she’d come at me with a scalpel.” He frowned in the direction of the staircase. “Hell, she may anyway after that peep show remark.” Things had been difficult enough lately without him adding fuel to the situation with some ill-advised comment.
“I owe you for that.” Brady glared up at him. “Jessica is probably honing her tongue even now.”
Jack shook his head in mock dismay. “You two are pathetic. Cowed by a couple of skirts. I’m embarrassed for the both of you.”
“And yet, oddly enough,” Hank countered, “we won’t be sleeping alone tonight. How ’bout you?”
“Soon, girls. Soon.”
Fifteen
MOLLY WASN’T WAITING FOR HANK WITH A SCALPEL IN hand. In fact, she wasn’t waiting in the bedroom at all.
Not that he’d been that concerned, despite what he’d told his brothers. Molly was a sensible, even-tempered woman and far too intelligent to get emotional over some chance comment. Usually. But when she was nearing the onset of her monthly cycle, which his calculations indicated she was, it was always a difficult time for her. And him.
Over the last year, he’d learned to read the signs. First, nervous anticipation. Then, fretful worry. Then, bitter disappointment when she realized she wasn’t breeding. It near broke his heart every time.
Stripping by the unlit fireplace, he grabbed his sketchbook and a lead pencil from his bedside table then slipped under the covers.
Fifteen minutes passed as he worked on drawings for a modified railroad handcar that could be propelled by foot pedals or rigged with a sail. After a half hour, he was starting to worry when he heard the creak of the bedroom door opening. Peering over his sketchbook, he watched a tangled mop of blond curls inch around the edge of the door.
With a sigh, he set the book aside and made sure he was properly covered. “What do you want, Penny?” he called out.
The door swung open the rest of the way to reveal his stepdaughter standing hesitantly in the threshold. She held out the china-faced doll Jessica had given her and Molly had just repaired. “Miss Apple is thirsty.”
“There’s water in the cup in your room.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders sagged. Miss Apple dropped to her side. “I forgot.”
Hank studied her, wondering what was wrong. She wasn’t bursting through the door like she usually did. Nor was she racing across the floor to bound onto the bed like a wiggling puppy. She just stood there, looking worried and maybe a little sad.
The women in his life confounded him. He didn’t understand them, couldn’t fathom how their minds worked, and hadn’t a clue how to negotiate the emotional quagmire that surrounded them. But he would give up his life for them, and he would do everything in his power to see that their days were filled with smiles rather than tears.
He held out his hand. “Come here, Penny. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Once he had her settled between the counterpane and the quilt, her little body snuggled by his side and her head tucked against his neck, he asked her again what was wrong.
“Aunt Molly is crying again.”
Again?
“Why is she sad, Papa-Hank?”
Hank stared up at the ceiling, not sure how to answer. He knew why Molly was sad. Her inability to conceive was devastating to
her. They’d never spoken of it, as if by not acknowledging there was a problem, they could pretend it wasn’t there. But it was there and it wouldn’t go away. Not unless they faced it and dealt with it. Which meant he would have to tell her what Doc said.
“Is it my fault, Papa-Hank? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Penny.” Hank pressed his lips against the crown of her head then drew back, wondering at the odd smell. Then he recognized it as the perfumed talc Jessica used on Thomas Jefferson and Little Sam, despite Brady’s strenuous objections. They were boy twins, after all. Penny, being enthralled with babies, was constantly fooling with them. She would have made a grand big sister. “You did nothing wrong,” he told her. “Maybe she’s just tired.”
“Or cranky. TJ and Sam get that way when they miss a nap.”
“I bet that’s it.” He lifted the counterpane. “Go back to bed, Penny. Everything will be fine in the morning.”
Sitting up, she gave him a hopeful gap-toothed grin. “Read me a book?”
He looked at her.
She sighed. “Yes, Papa-Hank.”
After kissing both Penny and Miss Apple one last time, Hank sent them on their way and settled back to wait for his wife to finish crying and come to bed.
It didn’t take long. A few minutes later, she came through the water closet door. The tears were gone and in their place was a smile that looked as if it had been cut there with a chisel. “I thought I heard voices,” she said, pulling off her robe as she padded across the room.
He admired the way the golden light from his lamp played across the shiny fabric of her gown, highlighting every jiggling movement beneath it. Even after a year of nights, she was a wonder to him.
But tonight, he reminded himself, they had to talk.
“That was Penny. She heard you crying. She’s worried about you.”
His wife made a shooing motion. “It’s nothing.” Lifting the covers, she slid in beside him. But she didn’t roll toward him or reach for him as she usually did. Instead she lay flat on her back, blinking fast at the rafters overhead.
He watched her swallow hard and knew she was fighting tears again. “Molly,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
Reaching out, he gathered her in his arms then rolled onto his back, taking her with him so her fine body draped over his. “Talk to me, Molly.”
For a moment she resisted him. Then the stiffness eased from her shoulders and her head drooped in surrender. As she pressed her cheek against his chest, he felt the wetness of fresh tears. “I don’t think it’s going to happen this time either. I won’t know for sure for a few days yet, but—oh, Hank, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He stroked the long silky curve of her back, filled with self-disgust that he was failing this woman who deserved so much. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Molly.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she said in a quavering voice. “I’ve taken tonics, restoratives, I’ve done every—”
“Shh. It’s all right.”
“How can it be all right?” Lifting her head, she looked down at him, her face twisted in anguish. “I’m barren, Hank. Don’t you understand that? We can’t—I can’t—”
“It’s not you.” Reaching up, he brushed her hair aside, pinning the soft, glossy waves against her temples with his big hands. “It’s not you. It’s me.”
Confusion, then disbelief moved across her expressive face. Then finally, understanding. “No.”
“I talked to Doc.”
“Dr. O’Grady? He’s a quack and a drunk.”
“He thinks it’s me. Because of the derailment.”
“No.” Her eyes filled with more tears. She shook her head. “You’re just trying to take the blame to make me feel better. Train derailments don’t cause sterility.”
“High fever might.” He waited for her to refute his words.
She didn’t. And that told him she had thought about it. And had maybe even wondered if his raging fever after the derailment when she had worked so hard to save his arm could have killed his seed. But being Molly, she’d clung stubbornly to hope, either because she wanted a child so badly she wouldn’t accept that he couldn’t give her one, or because she was trying to shield him from his own inadequacy.
It tore him apart. Even with all his strength and wealth and love, he still couldn’t give her the one thing she wanted most. That was the failure that was hardest for him to accept. “I’m sorry, Molly.”
This time it was she who comforted him, feathering his face with salty kisses, telling him it was okay, it didn’t matter.
Which of course was a lie.
He withstood it as long as he could. A man could tolerate just so much pity. Besides, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t function—thank God. And they still had Charlie and Penny. And sterility was a whole lot better than the alternative.
After talking to Doc, and when Molly wasn’t around, he’d looked through some of her medical books. In addition to learning more about male sterility than any man should know, he’d found out some disturbing things about childbirth mortality. Thousands of women died every year—young women, bearing normal-sized babies. Molly was thirty-three and he was anything but normal in size. Odds were against them, and Hank would gladly accept sterility rather than take that bet.
“Maybe it’s a good thing, Molly.” Lifting her hand, he twined his fingers with hers, clasping them palm to palm. “Look at you and look at me.” His hand dwarfed hers. His wrist was almost double hers in size. “You breed a fine-boned Arabian mare to an eighteen-hand Clydesdale, you’re just asking for trouble.”
“You’re comparing me to a horse?”
He smiled. “A really beautiful horse.”
She tried to smile back, but the sadness was still there behind her beautiful almost-green eyes.
He pushed on. “And look at Brady and Jessica. He’s smaller than me and she’s bigger than you. Look at how difficult it’s been for her. She almost didn’t make it.”
“That doesn’t signify.”
“It does to me. It’s a real risk, Molly. You could die struggling to bring my child into the world and I couldn’t live with that. So maybe it’s a good thing.”
Releasing his hand, she brushed tears away. “But I wanted to have babies, Hank. Your babies. I wanted—” Her voice broke.
“I know.” Pulling her back down against his chest, he wrapped his arms tight around her, as if that might shield her from the pain he knew she was feeling. “But we need you, Molly ... Charlie and Penny and I. And the world needs you for all the good you can do and the people you can help. You’re too important to risk.”
She cried a long time. He said nothing more, just held her and waited for the indomitable spirit that was Molly to reassert itself. It might take a while, weeks even, but when it did, maybe she’d be ready to hear what he’d found out about a thing called the Orphan Train.
“TELL ME ABOUT YOUR TRAVELS,” DAISY SAID.
Jack laughed. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
He had reversed the schedule for the day, moving Kate’s riding lesson to late morning so they could have a picnic lunch. Now they sat on the blanket amid the remains of their feast, Daisy with her arms around her upraised knees, Jack, stretched on his back, his heels propped on the lid of the picnic basket, Kate by his shoulder, digging happily in the dirt.
Daisy had tried to stay mad at him after his horrid teasing the previous evening when he’d coerced her into singing for the family. But by morning her pique had faded to reluctant amusement. He did that so easily—changed frowns into smiles. Just another part of his charm. And anyway, today was too lovely to waste in anger ... fleecy clouds overhead, the breeze pleasantly cool, the sunshine like a warm hand against her back. Besides, thinking back on his comments, she couldn’t help but be a little flattered. He’d called her voice beautiful, after all.
“Start with the favorite place you’ve been,” she suggested.
“I guess th
at would be Katoomba in the Blue Mountains,” he said after giving it some thought. “That’s in Australia.”
“Why is it special?”
“It’s a place of mystery. Misty and wild, filled with plants, and reptiles, and birds you’ll never see anywhere else. It looks a lot like that.” He pointed to the flat-topped mountain at the west end of the valley. “But much bigger, and littered with caves, and strange rock formations, and gorges that drop down over two thousand feet.” His smoky eyes took on a distant look. “It’s something to see.”
Daisy suspected that for Jack to stay in one place for long would be as torturous as a slow death.
“But I liked Tasmania too,” he went on. “And New Zealand and the islands of the South Pacific. It’s a big world and I’ve only seen a small corner of it.”
Resting her chin on her knees, Daisy watched the play of sunlight across his handsome features. Had he always had that small lump on the bridge of his nose? And that mole on his cheek? She studied him, noting a new scar cutting through one eyebrow and more squint lines than she remembered fanning out from his remarkable eyes. Were the grooves bracketing his mobile—and talented—mouth deeper? It struck her that despite the intimacy they had shared, in many ways they were strangers. Who was Jack Wilkins really? What drove him?
“Where do you intend to go next?” she asked, seeking clues to this familiar stranger beside her.
“North,” he said without hesitation. “To see a polar bear and the aurora borealis and listen to the crack of ice breaking on the Yukon River. Then maybe east and across the Atlantic. I’ve always wanted to sail the Irish coast where Grandpa Brady lived and stand on the battlements of an ancient fortress.”
As he spoke, his features livened and his hand gestures became more enthusiastic. “From there I’d go south. Maybe ride across the Pyrenees on an elephant like Hannibal did. Or walk where the gladiators fought, and rest my hand on the cold face of Michelangelo’s Pietà. I want to go to Egypt too. And race an Arabian stallion through the shadows of the pyramids, and visit the tombs of the great pharaohs. Or maybe float down the Zambezi into the rainbow mist of Victoria Falls.” He seemed to catch himself, then turned his head toward her and flashed an embarrassed lopsided smile. “You asked.”
