A Desperate Hope

by Elizabeth Camden

  “Alex, we aren’t those people anymore. It’s time for us both to move on.”

  The hope in his eyes dimmed. “Is there someone else?”

  “Yes,” she said simply, hating the pain that flashed across his face before he masked it with a reluctant smile. No matter what, Alex could always put a good face on things.

  “Whoever he is, he’s a lucky man. I still hate his guts, though.” His deadpan tone was belied by the affectionate humor lurking in his eyes.

  She smiled and touched the back of his hand. “We’re going to be okay, Alex.”

  He rotated his palm and squeezed her hand. “Thanks for that,” he said, but his shoulders sagged as he ambled back to the town hall with a little less dynamism than before, and she couldn’t help but mourn losing him all over again.

  Chapter

  Ten

  Alex never worried about tedious matters like finance, but even he was dismayed at how rapidly the town’s pooled funds dwindled over the next two weeks. The state had compensated them for the loss of their school and library, but most of it went to purchasing the old Hollister farm. He used the rest to hire two engineers to make a list of recommendations for how to accomplish the move. He felt physically sick as he listened to their report. The good news was that moving the town could be done; the bad news was that it would take two years.

  The Hollister farm was uphill from Duval Springs, so they’d need to install an expensive rail line to transport the buildings. They would need to rent a steam engine to do the hauling. Under normal conditions, it took a week to move a single building. They had eight months to move two hundred.

  Alex sat in the meeting room of the town hall, resting his forehead in his hands as the engineers continued talking, but a blinding headache made it hard to think. Eloise’s accusation about leading the town over a cliff stung worse than ever. Had he been feeding the townspeople a pipe dream? The post office and town hall would bring more revenue, but most of it would be spent on building the railway. Their money was mostly gone before he’d laid a single street in the new town. Although he’d hoped to let people keep a portion of their state payouts, it now seemed increasingly unlikely. Anyone intending to move their house or business to the new town would need to donate their entire payment.

  And if he failed, they would be left with nothing.

  “What about building foundations in the new town?” he asked. “How much will that cost?”

  The engineer shrugged. “It depends on if people want a basement or not. Basements need to be dug, framed, and then lined with either concrete block or stone. Concrete is faster, but the mortar won’t cure well over the winter, so you’ll want to get that in place now. And take my advice, get an excavation contractor who knows what he’s doing. Otherwise you’ll face a slew of problems if you plop a house on a lousy foundation.”

  The man’s voice droned on, but it was hard to keep listening. Everyone wanted a basement, didn’t they? But it was a cost few of them anticipated. He needed to know exactly how much the state intended to pay for each house, business, and farm, and Eloise wasn’t exactly moving at top speed. He’d hunt her down and light a fire under her to get those appraisals completed and paid.

  Thanks to the meticulous schedule she had designed, he knew exactly where she would be. He headed to the west side of town and watched from a distance as she stood outside the home of Peter and Hazel Mason, showing them the papers on her clipboard.

  An accountant, he thought with a roll of his eyes. Where had their wild dreams of sailing the seven seas or living in a garret apartment in Paris gone? But fondness overwhelmed him as he gazed at her, so prim as she held the clipboard before the Masons. Eloise loved those blasted rule books as much as he loved teasing her over them. And maybe the garret apartment in Paris sounded better than the reality would be.

  Accounting suited her. It was painful to admit, because it meant they would never run away with the gypsies or swing from the halyards, but she seemed to like the work. He’d rather pull out his own teeth than stare at accounting ledgers all day, but Eloise was happy, and wasn’t that all he’d ever really wanted for her? Jealousy gnawed at him, knowing there was another man in her life, but he could accept that. He could. He wasn’t an envious man who wanted the woman he loved to languish in lonely solitude. And he’d probably get over her eventually.

  He waited until her business with the Masons was finished, shook off his gloom, and intercepted her before she could reach the next house on the street. When he slid onto the sidewalk in front of her, her friendly expression became guarded.

  “Hello, Eloise,” he said pleasantly. “How can I get you to speed up the appraisals?”

  “I intend to deliver on the schedule we all agreed upon. No faster, no slower.”

  He gestured to a bench in the yard outside the schoolhouse. “Let’s chat,” he suggested as he guided her toward the bench. He didn’t waste any time once they were both seated. “I’m planning a budget for the move and need to know what I’ve got to work with. I’m burning through cash pretty fast.”

  “How fast?” There was no judgment in her voice, and talking numbers with her reminded him of those long-ago summer days when she tutored him in math.

  “I’ve spent eighty percent of what’s come in. I need to know what else the town can expect.”

  She sighed, but instead of attacking him, she looked at him with all the sympathy in the world radiating from her face. “Alex, you can’t afford this move. The bills are going to be astronomical. I managed the books for a road-building project a few years ago. A small stretch of road will cost thousands, and you need to build two miles. Plus a railway! And that’s before you’ve moved a single building.”

  “I’ll make it happen,” he said grimly. Her roads hadn’t been built by volunteers, and he had hundreds ready to pitch in.

  “But have you really planned for everything?” she asked. “Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but how will each house get from its foundation onto your railroad?”

  “Oxen. We jack the house up off its foundation, slide metal beams and a platform under it, and then oxen haul it to the rail yard. The engineers say they’ve seen three- and four-story buildings moved this way.”

  Eloise still looked pained. “But you can’t afford it. The only way I see to finance a project like this is to float a municipal bond, and I don’t think . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and he was caught by the surprised expression on her face, as though she were staring at a revelation unfolding before her eyes.

  “What does that mean?” he asked. “What’s a municipal bond?”

  “It’s a way of getting outside investors to fund a project. The townspeople must vote to approve the bond, because it will be their duty to pay it back, but they usually get twenty or thirty years to do so. It’s a quick way to get a lot of money. That’s how the big cities pay for major projects. Not by passing a hat and asking people to turn over their life savings.”

  A seed of hope took root. “How do I get one of these things up and running?”

  “You create a budget, have it audited for accuracy, and then the town votes on it. If it passes, it will go up for sale to investors. There are companies in New York that handle the sale of municipal bonds.”

  “Have you ever done that sort of work?”

  “Two years ago, the nuns at the convent asked me to design one for a new church. They’re building it as we speak.”

  His heart sped up as he leaned closer. “Okay, can I hire you to do that? Be an agent or auditor or whatever? I can draw up a budget. I can persuade people to vote for it. Whatever it takes.”

  She stood. “Slow down. These things take time and—”

  “I don’t have any time. How do I get this thing done immediately?”

  She sat back down, and he hung on every word as she outlined the process. Maybe he didn’t understand fully, because it didn’t sound all that difficult to him. He and Hercules could stay up all night making
a list of everything they needed to buy or build. He’d get Reverend Carmichael to write the fancy language to make it sound good. They could vote on it tomorrow or the next day. That meant all he had to do was find an auditor and get the bond listed on the securities exchange.

  “You can be our auditor, can’t you?”

  She looked taken aback. “I can’t work miracles. I’ve already said I don’t think you have a prayer of getting this done.”

  “I’m not asking for miracles, I’m asking you to volunteer some auditing services. I’m going to need a lot of favors to pull this off, and I’m not afraid to ask. Beg. Bargain. What do you want?”

  Eloise sighed, leaning back to gaze wistfully at the town. “I want to believe that dreams really can come true,” she said simply. “I would like to believe that hope and heart is all it takes to make anything happen, but it isn’t.”

  “Try me.” If she wanted pearls from the bottom of the ocean, he’d find a way to get them for her.

  She still looked skeptical as she closed her eyes in resignation. “I know you’re not going to give up unless you can see it for yourself. And you’ve always been so terrible at math, Alex.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “If I hadn’t tutored you all those—”

  “But you did!” He grinned. “And it took. If you tell me to write up a budget, I’ll do it.”

  She arched a brow at him, probably just like one of those scary nuns she’d told him about. When she spoke, all softness had vanished, and her voice was rock hard.

  “Before I even consider helping you, I need to see a realistic budget. I want a list of supplies and their cost. For every task you intend to assign to volunteers, I need to see their names and their signatures guaranteeing they will deliver on their promise. And those oxen you intend to buy? I want to see costs for harnesses, tackle, nine months of feed, where they will be stabled, and who is going to care for them. An allowance for veterinary services too. I want to see fuel costs for the locomotive. I want a budget for food to serve the volunteers. On top of everything else, I need you to factor in a ten-percent reserve.”

  He swallowed hard. Her demand was hard, but not unreasonable. She had just flung a challenge in his lap, and he loved it.

  “I’ll do it.” Because deep in his soul, there was nothing he loved more than tackling impossible dreams.

  Eloise had agreed to attend the meeting Alex called for that evening at the tavern. Her stomach was a mass of knots. Maybe she shouldn’t have uttered the word bond, for Alex had seized on it and set the wheels in motion with breathtaking speed. Dozens of townspeople were already gathered to hear her explain how a municipal bond would work. This was her fault. She would be responsible if their hopes came crashing down because Alex underestimated the difficulty of getting a bond measure passed and funded.

  At least Enzo had agreed to come along so he could escort her back to Bruce’s house after the meeting. She didn’t want to admit it, but traveling alone after dark was frightening. Years of living in the city had made her forget how dark the forest could be at night.

  The tavern was crowded as they stepped inside, and to her surprise, she knew most of the people here. How different than in Manhattan, where she rarely bumped into the same people from day to day.

  “What can I get you?” Hercules hollered from behind the bar. “It’s on the house. Anything for the woman who’s going to get this bond thing off the ground.”

  “It’s not a done deal,” Eloise cautioned, hoping that Alex hadn’t told everyone a municipal bond was an easy solution to their problems, but as she drew a breath to say so, Enzo cut her off.

  “Whatever smells so good would be wonderful. We are famished,” he said.

  A moment later two bowls of fragrant beef stew were set before them, and Eloise had to admit that the food in this tavern was every bit as good as that in Manhattan.

  A young boy about five years old approached, a mug of apple cider held carefully in both hands. “This is for you,” he said with a shy smile. He looked so eager to please as he brought her the drink.

  “Thank you,” she said as she took it from him. He blushed furiously and darted behind the bar to get another mug for Enzo.

  “That’s my nephew, James,” Alex said as he joined her at the table. “He’s the reason I had to move out of the tavern. There wasn’t room here anymore.”

  Eloise couldn’t take her eyes off the boy as he returned with another mug for Enzo, carrying it as though it contained liquid gold. Such concentration! Would she ever have a child so adorable? It would be wonderful to come home to a sweet child every evening instead of the occasional chance to admire other women’s children.

  She took a bite of the stew. The paprika and cloves seasoning the meat made for amazing flavor, but it felt awkward to eat with everyone staring at her. They all looked as eager as children on Christmas morning. Farmers with leathery faces, shopkeepers still wearing their work suits, stonecutters with a pale film of limestone dust still in their hair—all of them watched and waited.

  After a few bites, she pushed the bowl away and looked at Alex. “What do you need from me?” she asked politely.

  “I need you to explain to everyone what a municipal bond is and how we can get one.” His sentence was followed by a few hoots of excitement and the stamping of feet. It was exactly what she had feared. Alex had already raised these people’s hopes, and they had no idea of the regulatory hurdles and difficulties ahead. Alex painted such magnificent visions, but it was her responsibility to reel them back down to earth.

  She explained how they needed to design a budget that would pass a strict external audit. Even more important, the town would have to demonstrate its ability to pay the investors back with interest. It was not a quick and easy solution to their problem.

  To her surprise, Alex smoothly took over the meeting and began assigning tasks. He asked the owner of the hardware store to estimate the cost of moving supplies and a team of laborers to set a price for the materials to lay building foundations. He and Reverend Carmichael agreed to write the narrative portion of the bond proposal.

  “None of your flowery language,” she cautioned. “The bond will be marketed to bankers and stockbrokers. You’ll need to convince them this is a rock-solid investment.”

  Alex grinned. “It’s more than solid, it’s a crusade. We’re leading the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land. We are Columbus setting sail for the west, armed with hope and a compass. We’ve got drive and determination, we’ve got—”

  “We’ve got too much extravagant language,” she interrupted. “I don’t want speeches to light a fire under the troops, I need numbers that will make bankers open their checkbooks.”

  Willard Gilmore’s normally jovial face looked grim. “This scheme is too risky,” he warned. “Our timetable could be ruined by a harsh winter, or the engineers could say the move will be too tough.”

  “Willard, you’ve been taking risks all your life,” Hercules said. “After the court ruled that Garrett’s company store was illegal, you took it over even though you didn’t know a thing about retail. You spiffed it up and invested a fortune in fancy imported spices and tobacco. Now you’re making money hand over fist.”

  “Wrong,” Willard said. “I never gambled. I bought an ordinary general store that the whole town depends on, and I expanded it slowly, monitoring it at each step along the way. I never put all my chips on a single hand of cards, and Alex, that’s what you’re doing.”

  Alex didn’t lose an ounce of momentum as he stood to respond to the innkeeper. “Willard, I hope you come to the new town, but if you think it’s too big a risk, take the state payout. Those who want to follow me can sign on for the bond. I’m going to make this new town happen if I have to crawl across broken glass to get there.”

  By the end of the meeting, dozens lined up behind Alex, eager to peruse the list of jobs needing volunteers. It was dark by the time Dick Brookmeyer, the owner of the local stables,
brought two horses to the tavern so Eloise and Enzo could ride back to Bruce’s house. She looked with apprehension at the end of the street where the path disappeared into the darkened forest.

  “I’ll ride up with you,” Alex offered.

  A piece of her wanted to accept the offer, which was ridiculous since Enzo was riding with her. She still couldn’t say with certainty how Bruce would respond if Alex dared set foot on his land.

  “We’ll be okay,” she said, glad to see Enzo nod with confidence, but she regretted her decision the moment they left town and the road snaked into the woods.

  It was dark. And the forest made noise—the rasp of rustling leaves and the sound of crickets. The horses must have had better eyesight than she did, for they trotted along at an alarming clip, not hesitating at all. She startled and nearly fell from her horse when an owl swooped across the path.

  “Are you all right back there?” Enzo asked, and the smile in his voice helped unknot a bit of her tension.

  “I’m fine. I’ll be glad to get home.”

  She was glad when they arrived home. One of Bruce’s men saw them coming and opened the gate. Thank goodness for the lanterns burning inside, illuminating the courtyard with a warm glow.

  Bruce stood on the landing before his front door, hands braced on the railing and a hard look of disapproval on his face as she mounted the steps. She’d asked Claude and Roy to explain to Bruce why she’d be late, and he wasn’t pleased.

  “A bond?” he said, mocking disbelief dripping in his voice.

  “It’s just an idea,” she said. “I doubt Alex will be able to pull it off.”

  Only storybook heroes could deliver the impossible in the space of a few days, and despite all the radiant optimism in the tavern tonight, Alex didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of either launching a municipal bond or moving the town.

  Bruce followed her inside the house and all the way up the stairs, never letting up on his torrent of disapproval.