“See?” Louise motioned to the scattered needles on the porch. “It’s been less than three days.”
Jesse ran a finger lightly over one of the branches. The needles showered down. “I see what you mean.”
“This is a problem. I can’t imagine how we can cut and make twenty wreaths the day before the festival.”
“When exactly is the festival?”
“December 16th. Close to Christmas but with enough time to return home after visiting.”
Jesse nodded and stroked his chin. Long seconds passed. Then, all he said was “Hmm.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Yes, what’re we gonna do?” Dinah echoed.
“We aren’t going to make wreaths,” Jesse decided.
“No wreaths?” Louise and Dinah said at once.
“Impossible,” Louise added. “It’s the one task Fiona entrusted to me. We must make the town look festive. That means wreaths.”
“Well, not out of pine, you’re not. Maybe juniper.”
“Juniper!” Louise stared at the man. “Maybe your hands can take the jabbing from those needles but mine can’t. And that’s not even accounting for the smell.”
“Well, it can’t be pine. They’re just too dried out from the lack of rain.”
Louise fought the disappointment. Here she’d come up with a wonderful idea to bring business to the hotel and the store and the boardinghouse, and she couldn’t fulfill the smallest task.
“Maybe if it rains between now and December,” she suggested. “Maybe then the needles will stay.”
Jesse shrugged. “Maybe, but you’d better get rid of that wreath right away and sweep the needles off the porch.”
Louise lifted an eyebrow. “Aren’t you being a little too fastidious?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dinah slink away, as if afraid Louise was about to chastise Jesse. Hadn’t Louise made it clear that she was teasing?
Jesse’s lips twitched. “No one has ever called me fastidious before.”
“It simply means that one shows excessive care.”
“I know what fastidious means. I’m also aware it can be used to accuse someone of being overly demanding.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “Don’t be. You probably have a point. I can be fastidious—in all its meanings.”
Louise still felt the sting of his overly cautious approach. “Well, it’s not as if I wasn’t going to do exactly what you said, but there’s no need to rush.”
“It’s a fire hazard.” That simple statement came without a trace of mirth.
“A, uh, what?”
“Pine needles are highly flammable. With the dry air and steady wind off the lake, the slightest spark could set the wreath on fire.”
Louise crossed her arms. “I do not have any intention of lighting candles near the wreath.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He leaned closer, intriguingly, uncomfortably close.
Louise held her breath. How could this man raise such emotions in her? One moment teasing her into a temper and the next making her heart pound in an entirely different way.
Jesse stood close, no more than a foot separated them.
“It’s tinder dry around here,” he said in a low voice, as if a secret between the two of them. “Almost everything is made of wood. One spark could set the town ablaze.”
A shiver ran through her at the thought. “It wouldn’t happen.”
“One spark from a steamboat’s stack is all it would take.”
She started. Last November, a spark from a tugboat had burned down the woods and schoolhouse just east of town. The schoolhouse had been rebuilt, but the woods were gone.
She squared her shoulders. “We’ve fought fire before and saved all the buildings except the old schoolhouse. Everyone takes great care with fire.”
“Good, but accidents happen. So does lightning. Some things are beyond man’s control. That’s why we have to be careful with anything that could easily catch fire.”
“That’s why we depend on God. We do our best and give the rest to Him. Everyone knows it’s dry out. We will take care with fire. The rest is in God’s hands.”
Jesse shook his head, apparently discarding her statement of faith in man and God as impractical. She was about to respond when she saw the fear in his eyes. This strong, intelligent man was terrified of fire. Why, even a single burning leaf had made him react unreasonably.
Curiosity bubbled to the surface. What had happened to cause such fear? The question reached her lips, but the set of his jaw kept it locked inside. Whatever had happened, Jesse did not want to discuss it.
* * *
Jesse gritted his teeth. She wasn’t taking this seriously. True, she looked concerned but not, he suspected, for the reason she should. She’d taken offense, apparently thinking he didn’t trust God. It was the first part of her statement that was the issue. No matter how careful people were, mistakes happened. Even if everyone stayed attentive all the time, which was never the case, some things were beyond control.
“It might not even be something you realize is happening,” he urged. “The spark could come from lightning or the sunlight reflecting off a lens or pane of glass.”
Her lips pressed into a line of displeasure. “Or a magnifying glass. That is what you really mean, isn’t it?”
Uh-oh. He shouldn’t have brought up that sore spot.
“It was an accident.” He hastily retreated. “Accidents happen.”
“And people are there to take care of the consequences of those accidents—with God’s help.”
Jesse believed in God, but he also believed in personal responsibility. He’d seen his share of men say they were leaving matters in God’s hands when they should have acted. It had been true in the army. Men shirked duty with all manner of excuse. Or, like his former commander, they twisted circumstance to their own benefit. Jesse set his jaw. He would never forgive the man.
“I did stomp out the burning leaf,” Louise pointed out, still appearing affronted.
That failure on his part still stung. He should have leapt into action. Instead he’d stood rooted to the spot while a woman put out the tiny blaze.
“Yes, you did,” he said softly.
Maybe it was his tone, because Louise’s ire drained away, followed by the gentle smile he’d grown to cherish.
“I only did what I must. Anyone else would have done the same.”
Unfortunately, he hadn’t. His limbs had frozen. His heart had nearly stopped. The fear was unreasonable, and it paralyzed him. He wasn’t sure what he’d do in the face of a real fire.
A bead of perspiration rolled down his temple. She reached up to brush it off, and in that gesture was all the tenderness he’d craved but in the person of a woman who would never suit the future he’d chosen. He backed away and brushed it off himself.
“You’re hot,” she said. “Would you like some lemonade? I can fetch some from the hotel kitchen.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s just the angle of the sun.”
That excuse sounded pretty feeble, but she didn’t question it.
“We could go indoors. No one is using the parlor at this hour.”
The thought of spending time in Louise’s company was far too attractive.
He cleared his throat and glanced at the lighthouse. Blackthorn had pushed him away from lighting the lamps yet again. At this rate he would have nothing to lecture about next week, which was why he’d come to the school in the first place, not to check up on Louise’s wreath.
“I need to get back to the lighthouse.”
“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed. “Forgive me. I forgot that you have duties to perform.”
“I need
ed to speak to Mrs. Evans.”
“She’s with her family.”
Jesse fidgeted with the tiny wooden bird in his coat pocket. “Maybe you can tell her then that I won’t be able to do any more lectures.”
“You won’t?”
She looked both surprised and far too disappointed for a woman who had opposed him giving even one lecture. Then she was growing attached to him. Coupled with the feelings that he was developing for her, a volatile situation was taking root. Unfortunately, his future required certain elements, including a sturdy wife and large family. He would need both wherever he was posted, but especially if he was assigned to one of the remote lighthouses. He’d dreamed of such a post. There the past couldn’t catch up to him. There the day-to-day goings-on of a large family would tire him so much that the nightmares couldn’t get a toehold.
He looked to the lighthouse. “You can give the lectures.”
“I know nothing about the running of a lighthouse.”
He couldn’t mention that he knew little more than she did. Well, he’d memorized the manual, so he knew what should happen, but Blackthorn didn’t follow the manual, and the keeper wouldn’t explain why not.
“Teach them more about the weather or the plants or whatever you want. My place is at the lighthouse.”
She nodded slowly. “It was wrong of us to assume you would have time to talk to the girls.”
Us. That little word changed everything. Louise had used the plural, meaning she had been in on the offer from the start. Maybe she and her friend had plotted that whole lecture series as a way to snare a husband for her.
He stepped back. “My future is set. I plan to be head keeper one day.”
She nodded. “A worthy goal.”
“Not necessarily here. An island lighthouse would suit me well.”
“You wouldn’t miss the companionship that can be found in a town?”
“I would have the company of a wife and family. I’d like eight to ten children.”
Her jaw dropped. “Ten?”
He’d shocked her. That’s what he’d intended, but he hadn’t expected the raw pain of her disappointment.
“Yes.” It was a necessity. Then why did saying it sting?
She looked away, her voice barely a whisper. “I won’t keep you any longer from your duties.”
Jesse opened his mouth but then thought better of it. He’d intended to caution her against forming any emotional attachment to him. Now that he’d accomplished that goal, he couldn’t allow his feelings for her to change his mind.
So he clapped his hat on his head and walked down the porch steps and away from the woman whose silent pain stretched across the sands like fog.
Chapter Eleven
Louise hoped her disappointment didn’t show, but as the days passed without seeing Jesse again, she feared she had chased him away. He had revealed his dream to her, and she had thought only of herself. How wrong! After all, he had already told her that he thought of her only as a friend. Friends ought to encourage and prompt one another to share what troubled them. She had thought only of herself.
Ten children!
That was a lofty goal for any woman but an impossible one for her. Even without knowledge of her infertility, he must have realized that. The freshness of youth no longer graced her cheeks. Simple calculation made it clear a woman her age was incapable of having that large a family. No, she was a widow and likely to remain that way the rest of her life.
Shame on her. Just the other day she had cherished her independence. Now, a single man’s rejection had left her as despondent as a schoolgirl. She needed to return Jesse’s cleaned and pressed handkerchief, and each day she took it out of her dresser drawer and contemplated walking up to the lighthouse. At the thought of the cold rejection she would see in his eyes, she put the handkerchief back in the drawer. Perhaps he would come to the school to fetch it.
Her charges handled disappointment much better than she had. When she informed them that Mr. Hammond would not be giving the lectures on the lighthouse, their dismay didn’t last long. Her announcement that those lectures would be replaced by more botanical trips onto the dunes, however, elicited a lot of groans and Priscilla’s outright refusal to participate in such an unladylike venture.
Louise had learned not to react at once to Priscilla’s outbursts, but she also didn’t know what to do to make them better. It was one thing to ask the girl to help in the classroom. Louise could not force her to leave the building against her will. Though she suspected Priscilla’s refusal was tied to Jesse’s absence—if he had suggested they climb the dune, every girl would have followed—she had no idea how to combat the problem.
Later, when approaching the dining room for the midday meal she overheard Priscilla’s thoughts on the subject.
“She chased him away with her forwardness,” the girl said none too quietly to her entourage. “The whole town can see that she’s sweet on him. Can you imagine someone like Mr. Hammond being interested in a withered old widow like her? He’s tall and strong and incredibly handsome.”
The three girls giggled and their comments hushed to whispers, but the blade had been thrust deep into Louise’s heart.
She had been a fool. Even worse, she’d made a fool of herself in front of the students. Perhaps the Benningtons had been right, and she should have been terminated.
Then she felt movement at her elbow.
It was Dinah.
“Don’t listen to ’em,” Dinah whispered. “They’re jess plain mean.”
Louise offered the girl a smile of appreciation, though she could not deny the truth beneath their cruel words. She had overstepped her role and her position. From now on, she would stick to teaching and leave romance to the pages of novels.
“Thank you, Dinah, but I’m all right.”
The girl didn’t look like she believed Louise, but, like all young ladies, got distracted the moment her friend appeared. She dashed off to join Linore, and they entered the dining room arm in arm.
Louise ate alone, as usual, so she could oversee the students and maintain order. As she sipped the chicken soup, the truth became clear. This must be her family. She could never have one of her own. That meant finding a solution to the division Priscilla was causing. She would visit Pearl Decker over the weekend. No doubt the fellow schoolteacher could give her pointers on handling students who subtly opposed her at every turn.
* * *
Jesse awoke with a start, his nightshirt and the bedclothes soaked with perspiration. The room wasn’t overly hot. No, yet another nightmare had visited.
That made the third night in a row, every night since crushing Louise’s hopes.
He lay on his back, exhausted and panting. The ceiling of the small room offered no answers. The white plaster reflected the light of the waning moon that filtered in through the window.
Yes, the nightmares had begun in earnest the night after he informed Louise that he wanted a large family. She had been crushed. Any fool could see it, for she didn’t hide her emotions well. She was developing hopes, and he thought he was smart, perhaps even kind, to break off those hopes before they grew too strong.
He must have caught it early enough. After all, she didn’t weep and carry on like other ladies. No, she had kept her composure, and he could admire that.
Then why the nightmares? The images crowded into his mind night after night. The cold water, the dark, the sudden explosion, being thrown into the water, the screams and then finally the silence. He had been among the hundreds who survived, but upwards of 1700 had perished. And he’d done nothing to prevent the disaster.
In his dream, he walked aboard, just as he had in real life, handing his ticket to the crewman assigned to that task. Then he wandered through strange corridors and up a staircase, always pressed on every
side by the tide of soldiers. The men laughed and joked. None of them seemed to notice him.
He pushed through the crowd, looking for someplace to stand alone and catch his breath. The hurricane deck sagged perilously, but no one seemed to care. As the miles chugged by, some sought sleep. He crouched on the promenade, unable to doze as towns passed by. The stop in Memphis passed in the blink of an eye. The chugging of the steam engines resumed, and the paddleboat headed upstream. His eyelids drifted downward. Then the explosion.
It rocked him from slumber and sent him flying.
A woman’s horrified face then appeared before him, her mouth forming the words, “Don’t leave me a widow.”
Jesse sat bolt upright.
That had never been part of the dream before. He rubbed his face. Was it memory or a fancy of his sleeping imagination?
All he recalled after the explosion was hitting the cold water, listening to the cries and wondering if he was truly alive.
After six and a half years, he wasn’t certain what was memory and what was dream.
The woman hadn’t been there. The huge number of soldiers dwarfed the regular passengers. No, the woman must be in his dreams because of Louise. Even though the dream was fading, he recalled a resemblance to her in the woman’s face.
What did it mean?
Was guilt over crushing her hopes driving this dream, or was it fear that he would be drawn into a relationship with her? She had come to Singapore to marry. Moreover, she did seem to find reasons to involve him in projects that included her. She also had a lot of help in that respect. Maybe the dream was a warning to stay clear of her. But they had intensified since he began doing just that.
He groaned and then dressed, unable to sleep any longer. He could escape to the tower and polish brass, or he could consult the Bible for answers.
He opted for lighting a candle and reading his Bible. It opened to the fifth chapter of Ephesians and the passage about how a husband is to love his wife.
“That’s not helping,” he muttered, for it made him think of Louise and how unsuitable that match would be. Just like his parents.
Had Pa loved Ma? Somehow Wilson Hammond had caught the fancy of Etta Webber. She had softened the rough man. Before her death, Jesse’s father had laughed and loved to go to the park for a picnic or to toss a ball. Afterward, drink and despair hardened him. Whenever Jesse failed, Pa threatened to leave him at the nearest orphanage. That fear clouded every day. Jesse would never inflict such pain on his children. Ever.
Would-Be Mistletoe Wife Page 12
