Gretchen nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” She made her way to the table, avoiding Dirk’s gaze.
Katiann was having an animated conversation with Mr. West. “Why can’t a girl be a hogger?” she asked.
Mr. West chuckled. “Why would you want to be an engineer on a train? It’s hot and sweaty in the summer and will freeze your bones in the winter.”
“Yeah, but I think it would be fun to stick my head out the window and feel the wind in my face as the world flies by.” She swished her curls back from her face to demonstrate. The men all laughed at this.
Gretchen smiled. Leave it to Katiann to put everyone at ease. “Welcome to the Harvey House, gentlemen. What can I have prepared for you today?”
The men gave Gretchen their orders one by one. They were used to the fare offered at the Harvey Houses. By the time she worked her way around the table to Dirk, she could hardly breathe. He’d been watching her the entire time.
“And what would you like, Mr. Martinez?” She tried to look over the top of his head rather than meet his eyes, but it was no use. Dirk had always had a power over her that made ignoring him impossible.
As their gazes met, Dirk gave her his lopsided grin. His brows rose in challenge. “There’s a lot of things I’d like, but I used to come here with the prettiest lady. It was about ten years ago. We always ordered the same thing.” He looked at the men seated around the table. “We were creatures of habit, I guess.”
The men laughed. Gretchen knew exactly what they’d ordered but gave him a completely blank look as he returned his gaze to her.
“I’ll have what I had then.”
“And that would be what?” she asked in a sweet tone. She wasn’t going to admit that she knew he wanted meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
He roared with laughter, which only further unnerved her. She thought about leaving, but with these important railroad men here, she didn’t dare. Unfortunately, Katiann chose that moment to leap out of her chair in order to look out the window at a wagon passing by. Gretchen startled and whirled around. She knew the minute she lost her balance exactly where she’d end up.
Dirk easily caught her as she hit his lap, but when he tightened his grip on her arms, Gretchen knew he wasn’t in any hurry to let her back up. “Are you all right?” he asked with mock concern.
She nodded, knowing that if she dared to turn her face, their lips would be only inches apart. “I’m fine. I’m very sorry, sir.” She tried to emphasize the formality.
“That was a good catch, Dirk,” Mr. West declared.
“I’m sorry, Gretchen.” Thankfully, Katiann took Gretchen’s hands and pulled. Dirk no doubt wished to avoid any more of a scene and let her go. “I didn’t mean to make you fall.”
“I’m fine.” Gretchen smiled at Katiann. “I tell you what. You get your daddy’s order while I go put in the rest. You’ll be my Harvey Girl in training. It won’t be as exciting as being a hogger, but you’ll work every bit as hard.”
The men loved this and laughed heartily while Gretchen made a hasty retreat. She could still feel Dirk’s arms around her. Smell the scent of the same cologne he’d worn on the last night they’d been together. It was as if ten years had never passed.
Later that day, after her work at the Harvey House was completed, Gretchen couldn’t get Dirk out of her head. She knew it would be best to confront him and hear what he had to say, but she wasn’t sure she could bear to have his reasons for rejecting her put into words.
After bathing and changing into a lightweight cotton blouse and skirt, Gretchen made her way from the Harvey House, not really knowing what to do. After wandering for a while, she decided to search out one of her childhood friends. She’d asked around and learned that Nellie Harper had married her long-time love interest, Mark Campbell. They had moved up and down the Santa Fe while Mark did various jobs, but two years ago they had settled in San Marcial once again.
Their house was on the other side of New Town, but not at all far. Nothing was that far in San Marcial. Gretchen found the adobe house quite pleasing from the outside. Nellie had always been artistically blessed, and she’d made a beautiful arrangement of colorful clay pots to line the walk to their door. Flowers had a hard time growing here, so she’d arranged ceramic figurines in each pot to add additional color and interest.
Gretchen knocked on the screen door. A dark-haired boy of about eight or nine answered. “Hello,” Gretchen said. “Is your mother at home?”
“Nope. She and Pa are out visitin’.”
Disappointed, Gretchen gave a nod. “Would you tell her that Gretchen Gottsacker stopped by and that I’m working at the Harvey House? If she has time to visit, I’d love to see her.”
“Gretchen who?”
“Just tell her Gretchen, her friend when she was little. She’ll know.”
The boy scratched his chest and nodded. “I’ll tell her.”
Gretchen thanked him and made her way back toward the center of town. There were a lot of people out. It was Friday night, and no doubt there were dances and parties to be had, just as there were in the big city. She tried not to think about how lonely the evenings were, but when she saw happy couples arm in arm, those feelings couldn’t be avoided.
Lord, I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know he’d be here. I didn’t know I’d still care.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Gretchen knew she still cared. She’d tried for nearly ten years to convince herself otherwise—to tell herself that her romance with Dirk had been nothing more than childish love—but it wasn’t true. From the first time they’d met, Gretchen had known he was someone special. She’d felt certain they belonged together.
“So why do I feel that way, God, if that isn’t how You arranged it?”
She remembered so many times when she and Oma had prayed for her future husband. Oma had started when Gretchen was a little girl. Every night before bed, they would pray together, and her grandmother always asked God to save Gretchen’s heart for just the right man—a godly man who would love her for the rest of her life. When Gretchen met Dirk just after she turned seventeen, she thought God had answered all those prayers.
Like most people, Dirk had come to San Marcial with the railroad. Having grown up here, it seemed only natural that Gretchen should find work with the railroad too. Almost as soon as Oma died, Gretchen made her way to Albuquerque and then on to Kansas City, where she trained to work in the Harvey Houses. She’d always anticipated returning to New Mexico, even if she hadn’t wanted to return to San Marcial. She loved the arid land and scenic mountains. She had worked in various locations along the line but had enjoyed the city of Santa Fe the most. And now she was back in San Marcial. She’d come full circle in more ways than one, and still she had no idea what to do.
Without looking where she was going, Gretchen picked up her pace and stepped from the boardwalk in the fading light, only to plow headlong into a man coming from the opposite direction. The minute his arms went around her, however, Gretchen knew it was Dirk. As their eyes met, Gretchen realized she was in trouble. He gave her that grin—the one she could never resist—then kissed her soundly on the mouth. For a moment Gretchen thought she might be able to resist his touch, but a second later her arms went around his neck.
When he pulled away, the grin was gone and a serious expression had settled on his face. “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you.”
Gretchen opened her mouth to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. She swallowed. “I have to go.” She turned on her heel and all but ran the rest of the way to the Harvey House. It was only after she was safely behind the door of her room that she let herself think about what she’d just done.
Now he’d know she’d never stopped loving him. Now he could hurt her all over again.
Chapter Four
Gretchen cherished her days off under normal circumstances, but with Dirk Martinez in town, circumstances weren’t normal no matter how she looked at it. Before she realized he had
returned, Gretchen thought nothing of wandering the town. Now, however, she feared running into him and stayed mostly to her room at the Harvey House.
Today, however, she’d been asked by the manager to drop off some papers at the Santa Fe offices, and since he was tied up with other duties, Gretchen didn’t feel she could refuse. Even if it was her day off. She decided it was foolish to be afraid of Dirk. If he tried to rekindle their relationship, she would just refuse him. She was a strong woman. She’d learned over the years how to manage things on her own, and she wasn’t going to let Dirk take that away from her. Not when he was the reason she’d had to become this way in the first place.
After leaving the papers with a rather stout, matronly clerk, Gretchen decided to take a walk up to the cemetery and think. If things went well, she’d be leaving in less than a week, and then she’d never have to see Dirk again. But was that really what she wanted? It was clear he had some feelings for her. Unfortunately, he could be sure by the way she’d responded to his kiss that she had feelings for him.
Why couldn’t I have just punched him in the mouth? She smiled as she remembered Katiann’s story about a man telling another thank you before hitting him. “I could have said, ‘Thank you for the kiss,’ and then hit him.” The thought made her laugh.
“I like hearing you laugh.”
She froze and turned to find Dirk trailing after her some ten feet behind. “Where did you come from?”
“I saw you at the office and followed you. I need to talk to you.”
Gretchen looked around for any sign of Katiann or anyone else who might keep her from having to be alone with Dirk.
“If you’re looking for Katiann,” he said as if reading her mind, “she’s playing with friends.”
Gretchen sighed and tried not to notice how handsome he was in his double-breasted navy suit. “Aren’t you sweltering in that?”
He nodded. “So maybe we could sit on the porch at the Harvey House. Unless you’d like to go swimming.”
She felt her cheeks grow hot. “The porch is fine, although I don’t see any reason for us to talk.”
“You don’t? I left town on the eve of proposing we spend the rest of our lives together, and then you disappeared completely for ten years, and you don’t think we should talk about it?”
Gretchen started walking toward the Harvey House. “No. It’ll just hurt too much.” She hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“It doesn’t have to,” he said, catching up to her. “I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to leave without telling you what had happened. I sent a letter. I know I didn’t do it right away . . . I couldn’t. But I sent it after Katiann was born, and it came back to me not even opened.”
She glanced at him. “I never got a letter. I left San Marcial after Oma died. Six months after you left.”
“Katiann was born seven months after I left.”
They had reached the porch, and Gretchen claimed a rocker to avoid having to sit side by side. Unfortunately, Dirk grabbed a chair and pulled it up in front of her, and there was no escape even if she wanted it.
“That last night I was here, after I left you, I went home, and there was a message from my folks. My brother, David, had been in a car accident. I caught the first train out of here—a freighter—and made my way to Kansas City.”
Gretchen listened but tried not to care about anything he had to say. She refused to look him in the eye and instead turned her face downward and stared at her hands.
“My brother was so severely injured that his death was inevitable. By the time I got there, he was barely hanging on. My folks were devastated, and David’s fiancée, Catherine, was so upset that the doctor had sedated her and put her to bed in a room down the hall.”
He paused a moment, and Gretchen couldn’t help but glance up. She saw the pain in his face. She remembered how close he and his brother had been. Dirk had always shared stories of their childhood. They were barely a year apart and had done almost everything together.
“David had told everyone that he wanted to see me alone, and when I went in to talk to him, he asked something of me that would forever change my life—and our future.”
He now had Gretchen’s full attention. She watched as emotions seemed to battle within him. It hurt to see him so pained.
“My brother told me that Catherine was with child. They were to have eloped—he was on his way to pick her up when the accident took place. You must understand that our family is extremely bound by our religious beliefs. What he and Catherine had done would have been condemned, which was why they were in a hurry to marry quietly and right the wrong. It was a matter of honor between brothers.”
“What was?”
“David asked me to marry her. To give his child his name.”
The truth suddenly dawned on Gretchen. “Katiann.”
“Yes.” Dirk leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You must understand, David and I . . . we were like one. I would have done anything for him, and he for me. He was so grieved over what had happened—not for himself, but for Catherine. She had no family—no one but him. He knew she would be shamed, ostracized, and perhaps even abandoned by the few friends she had if they found out about the baby. He knew nothing about my love for you, my plans to propose. He begged me to marry her, and I promised him I would before I could even consider the consequences. Then he died.”
Gretchen was still trying to process the truth about Katiann. She wasn’t Dirk’s child. She was his niece. “Does Katiann know?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Catherine and I ran off the day after the funeral. We married, and she gave birth seven months later and died from complications. We never pretended to love each other. But we let others believe we were a regular man and wife—that the baby was mine—that we had married out of grief over David. Thankfully, Katiann was tiny, and no one questioned her being born earlier than normal, but I think my folks always knew the truth.
“I wanted to write and tell you what had happened, but while Catherine lived, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew I had betrayed you. And I knew if I put pen to paper, I would betray my promise to David. I hated myself for being relieved when Catherine died. She was so unhappy after David’s death, and even expecting a baby didn’t help her with her grief. She would spend hour after hour crying and mourning his loss. I used to fear what it would do to Katiann, but as you can see, she’s a happy little thing.”
“She is. I would never have guessed her to have experienced anything but pure joy in her life.”
“I’ve tried to make her life a good one, but it hasn’t been easy. While my folks were still alive, we lived with them in Kansas City, but then I lost them as well, and Katiann and I were on our own. After that, I hired nannies to help me, and that worked fairly well until the last year or so.”
“Then what happened?”
“Katiann just seemed to outgrow them. She’s gone through a dozen in the last year, and I have my doubts that Mrs. Escalante will be with us much longer—although I have bribed her with more pay.”
Gretchen didn’t know what to say or even think. Dirk’s story was full of tragedy and hardship, as well as love and loyalty. How could she condemn or hate him for being so noble? Yet all those years and not one word . . .
“I still think you could have written me a short note to explain what happened.”
“I wanted to. And after Catherine passed away, I did. I wrote you a long letter, but as I mentioned, it came back to me. You had moved and left no forwarding address.”
“Yes. Before Oma died, I had already thought of becoming a Harvey Girl. I knew Oma wouldn’t be long for this world, and I didn’t want to settle for one of the railroad men begging me to marry them, so I knew I’d have to support myself. I left San Marcial shortly after the funeral, and I haven’t been back since.”
“Why now?”
“Why, indeed. I keep asking myself that very question.” She shook her head. “The official answer is that
the house mother for the Harvey House needed a vacation. I was asked to fill in for her. I do that a lot because of my vast experience with the company.”
“I’m surprised we haven’t run into each other before now,” Dirk said, offering her a smile.
She looked away. “It’s so hard to remember those days—those years.”
“I need you to forgive me.” The words were barely audible, but Gretchen heard them clearly.
“Forgive you?” She sighed. “I don’t even know what to think about all of this. For ten years I convinced myself that you were a master of deception and had played me for a fool. Now you tell me a story that, if true, makes you an admirable hero.”
“I’m not a hero or a deceiver. I left you on that night fully planning to marry you. Instead I found myself in a hopeless situation, torn between my loyalty to David and my love for you. I wanted so much to come back to you. I never stopped loving you, Gretchen. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. I never even touched Catherine. I couldn’t, because you’re the one I would have been thinking of.”
She realized what he was saying. He hadn’t been unfaithful to her in any way. To withhold forgiveness would not only go against everything her faith had taught her but would also be cruel. How could she hate him for what he’d done? Katiann might be dead now if not for him.
A light rain began to fall. Rain in the desert was always a mixed blessing, just like Dirk’s confession. On one hand, Gretchen was grateful for knowing the truth, but at the same time it had opened up painful wounds.
Dirk got to his feet. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m hoping you’ll at least think about it. Because I still love you, and God must have a reason for bringing us here together. It can’t just be coincidence, because I don’t believe in them.”
She met his pleading gaze and tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Dirk seemed to understand that she needed time and, without another word, he left the porch and walked away. Gretchen stepped into the rain as if to follow him but stopped.
A Flood of Love Page 3
