When she at last broke through the overgrown path into the clearing by the bank, she felt a rush of peace she hadn’t felt in oh, so long. She took off her shoes and waded in, gasping at the first shock of the cool flow. She stood in the middle of the stream and closed her eyes, and soaked in God’s presence just as sure as the hem of her skirt soaked in the water.
A gentle breeze tickled her face...a hug from heaven. How long she stood there, absorbing the serenity, she didn’t know. But after a while, she waded back to the shore and sat on a fallen log that seemed to be placed there just for her use.
Closing her eyes again, Emma heard Ma’s voice, with its soothing, low timbre, telling her they’d never have a friend as true as Jesus. And she opened her mouth and sang from the depth of her soul, making a duet of her own voice and Ma’s, loud and clear in her memory.
Something shifted in the brush, then she heard a familiar snort—Medina? “Hello? Who’s there?” she called. She didn’t feel afraid. Only curious about why Riley’s horse would be in her woods.
“It’s just me, Emma. Riley.”
More crunching and movement, until Medina nosed her way into view.
“I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Riley looked at her like he expected another verbal assault. “No worries. I’m leaving.”
She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. Looked at her feet. Oh, molasses, she was barefoot. What must he think? “What are you doing here?”
“I...uh...was just out for a little morning ride. I heard singing, and thought I’d come investigate. Again, I’m sorry. I should’ve minded my own business.” He pulled Medina’s reins to turn her back toward the road.
“Riley, wait. Can...can you stay a minute?”
He looked at her like one might look at a tiger in a petting zoo. After a long pause, he said, “Sure.” Then he climbed down and led Medina to the water for a drink. “Nice place.”
“This is where I like to come to think. And to pray. I haven’t been here for a while, though.” She breathed in a prayer for the right words. “Riley, I want to say again how deeply sorry I am…”
“No need to apologize. You spoke your mind. You needed to get those things out.”
“I disagree. The things I said to you were hateful and judgmental and harsh, and I had no right to say them. I feel horrible, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I hope you’ll forgive me anyway.”
She stood there, her emotions laid out on a silver platter. Would he handle them gently or toss them into the stream? In those long seconds, she didn’t breathe, and her heart seemed to stop beating as she waited for his response.
“All is forgiven.”
The words soaked into her spirit like warm honey on freshly baked bread.
They stood there for several minutes in the holy quiet of the morning. Nothing more was said. Nothing needed to be said. For the rest of her days, until she was old and withered and her hair was coarse and gray, she’d remember this perfect, peaceful moment when two hearts shared the most innocent kind of intimacy.
Riley was waiting on Dr. Hutchins’s clinic porch when the man flipped the sign to the “Open” side. He saw Riley through the window and smiled as he unlocked the door.
“Good morning What can I do for you today?”
“My father’s hurt his back again. He was hoping you might prescribe some morphine for the pain.”
“That’s too bad. Is he staying down? He’s a stubborn one. If he’d take it easy like I told him to, this wouldn’t keep happening.”
“I think he’s planning to stay in bed today, but with him, you never know.”
“Yes, I’m quite familiar with your father’s unreasonable work ethic. I’ll head that way as soon as Nurse Hathaway arrives.”
Riley thanked the man, then rode Medina hard all the way back to the Monroe’s. The crew wasn’t set to arrive for another half hour, but he wanted to be there before them. He had promised to take Charlie to the building site and let him look at the layout before they set up a single string line. He also wanted to talk to the crew foreman about a few things.
Sure enough, when he got there, Charlie waited on the porch. “I thought you’d forgotten.” The man possessed that spark of humor in his eye Riley had come to appreciate.
“Had a little business in town to take care of. You ready?”
“To make my fortune? I was born ready.”
“Okay. Be right back.” It didn’t take Riley long to hitch up the old work wagon to a couple of plow horses who looked more than anxious to go for a ride. Soon, the two men were on their way.
It took a little time to get the wagon to the top of the rise, but once there, the view was breathtaking. Far enough away from the main house to give the Monroes some privacy. Overlooking the warm, bubbling springs just below the hill. Yes, this would be the perfect place for a hotel and spa.
Charlie unrolled the blueprints again, then looked this way and that. “You say you’re going to build a walkway from here to the springs?”
“Yes, and a garden with native flowers and plants, with tables and benches tucked here and there.” Riley pointed in the opposite direction. “Eventually, the restaurant and a small theater could go there. But for now, the hotel will have its own kitchen and dining room.”
“So everything a guest could want or need will be right here.”
“That’s the plan. Of course, more shops will open in town, so they can go there if they want to get away for a few hours.”
Charlie looked at the land—his land—and sighed. His eyes glistened, but no tears fell. “I wish Sally were here to see this. I wish...I wish she hadn’t needed to work so hard.” His voice broke, and Riley placed a hand on the man’s back.
“I wish that too. But Mr. Monroe—Charlie—I don’t know what I would’ve done without your wife after my own mother died. I’m glad I got to have her as part of my life.”
Charlie smiled a wobbly smile. “She thought the world of you, Riley. She really did.”
Riley started to respond, but the sound of several wagons rumbled toward them. Soon, six buckboards pulled onto the rise, each one loaded with lumber and other supplies.
Ricky Green, the foreman, pulled beside them and climbed down, then offered his hand. “Riley, Charlie. Good to see you. Y’all ready to get started?”
Riley’s heart pounded out a hammer tune that would have rivaled Paul Bunyan’s. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Chapter 17
Emma wasn’t sure what to do with herself, with Mr. Stratton hanging around all day. First, Dr. Hutchins came and administered morphine. After the doctor left, Mr. Stratton decided he’d be more comfortable in the parlor, where he could see out the large picture windows. Except the morphine was already taking effect, which left him in a groggy, half-sober state.
After getting Skye started on a copying assignment in her makeshift classroom, she and Allison got the man, one of them on either side, and helped him to the chaise lounge near the parlor window. He wasn’t there five minutes before he was sound asleep.
That would have been fine, except he snored so loudly, it felt like the walls would cave in. Now she knew where Donnigan inherited his snoring patterns.
In fact, Mr. Stratton sawed logs at such an earsplitting level, he kept waking himself up, and every time he awoke, he wanted something.
“Bring me some water!”
“My blanket fell off!”
“My pillow slipped.”
Emma went running every time the man called, but at least half the time, he was already asleep again by the time she arrived. The whole thing might have been comical if she hadn’t needed to get ready for Allison’s tea party on Tuesday.
She finally decided to address Allison about it directly. “Do you think he’ll still be down and out tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. This is terrible.” Allison paced back and forth in the hall.
“How would you like me to proceed?”
“I suppose we’ll have to c
ancel it.”
“Why don’t we postpone it? We can notify everyone that the meeting has been delayed until...Thursday? Do you think that’s long enough?”
Allison nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. “Make it Friday. But how will we notify everyone?”
“Tell Virginia at the General Store. She can get the word out as customers stop in,” Emma suggested.
“But what if they don’t all stop in?”
“I suppose Skye and I could go to each house, individually, and let them know.”
“That would be ideal.”
The bear awakened, startling them with a growl. “What are you two hens yammering about?”
Allison went to her father-in-law. “Sorry to disturb you. I was planning a tea party here for tomorrow, but we’re postponing it so you’ll have plenty of time to recover.”
“Tea party? Why in the Sam Hill would you have a tea party?”
“It’s for the Temperance Society,” Allison told him.
He snorted. “Seems a little hypocritical to have a Temperance Society meeting here, don’t you think?”
Allison started to respond, but Mr. Stratton interrupted her. “Don’t go getting your feathers in a ruffle. I’ll be out of your way tomorrow. Is that Bridges girl coming?”
“Clara? Of course. She’s one of our most active members,” Allison told him.
“Good. Make sure Riley’s around. We need to do what we can, and hurry things along. That boy’s getting restless. He needs a wife to settle him down.”
Emma took that as her cue to leave, and went back to the kitchen to check on Skye. The girl was almost finished with her lesson. She had neat, careful penmanship, and Emma commended her with a wide smile.
But the smile felt wooden and false. Riley and Clara. She tucked a loose hair behind Skye’s ear even as she tucked her own hot emotions out of the way. Later, she’d likely rail at God for the unfairness of her life. Right now, she had work to do.
The crew worked and sweated and drove themselves to accomplish as much as possible that first day. First, they surveyed and cleared the land at the building site. They spent the remainder of the day framing and leveling the subfloor of what would end up being the largest hotel in Lampasas.
Riley worked right alongside them, enjoying the change in pace. Charlie Monroe did a fine job of supervising. About mid-morning, Riley wasn’t ready to take a break, but he could see Charlie was. After a quick word with the foreman, he drove the older man in the work wagon back to his house and saw him settled in his chair.
“Come get me again at your lunch break. I just need a little nap,” Charlie said.
“I’ll do as you ask, sir, but if you don’t mind my saying so, you’d best not overdo. Emma will never forgive me if you have a relapse of any kind. And trust me, I’ve seen her angry. I don’t really care to face her wrath again any time soon.”
Charlie laughed, but weariness framed his eyes and hung like a robe off his shoulders. “Just check back in. I’ll stay put if I’m not feeling up to snuff, I promise.”
“Yes, sir. Get some rest, and I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
Back at the construction site, Riley caught the foreman as he took a water break. “You’re sure we can rely on these fellows to keep quiet about this? Seems like a lot of folks to trust with a secret.”
“I’ve known most of these men for several years now. The ones I haven’t, some of the others vouched for. I made it clear that anyone who lets the bee out of the hive before the proper time might as well not show up to work the next day.”
Riley looked around at the men working, observing each face for hints of the fellow’s character. It was too late to do anything about any possible big mouths.
He picked up a hammer and some nails, ready to get back to work. This evening, he’d have to face Emma. But that wasn’t his greatest concern.
He didn’t want to have to explain himself to Dad one day earlier than he had to. He stood on train tracks, watching the train come at him, knowing of the coming collision. As much as Riley loved his father, he couldn’t keep to the path Dad wanted him to follow. It would end their relationship, Riley was certain. But one of the verses Mom underlined in the Bible stood out to him, burned itself on his mind:
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve;...but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD,” Joshua 24:15.
Though he dreaded the consequences, Riley had already made his choice.
The rest of the day was spent in a whirlwind of frosted teacakes and dainty, folded napkins and tobacco-scented complaints. By the time dinner was served—buffet-style in the kitchen, since the dining room was covered in party preparations and John Stratton was still laid up—Emma was more than ready to go home and put her feet up for a while.
She dropped Skye off, as had become their routine, and let Sugar take her home without much direction or urging from Emma. For the first time since early this morning, she let her thoughts wander back to that moment at the stream...that holy, reverent moment when everything seemed, for just an instant, peaceful.
That moment when she stood with Riley, and though they didn’t touch at all, their hearts seemed to join in the awe of something special, something bigger than themselves.
The hazy essence of it covered her like a dream. Did it really happen? But yes, she knew it was real...a perfect, sweet moment when hope became fact. She would cherish it always.
But a strange sound greeted her, getting louder, the closer she got to home. Was that...hammering?
She clicked her tongue at Sugar, and the horse picked up pace. When she neared the house, she nudged Sugar off the path, toward the sound. Up, up, up the hill they went until a group of sweaty men came into view. And seated on his work wagon, watching, pointing orders to someone, was Pa.
And, was that Riley? It was. And there was Lyndel, right beside him, pounding a nail into a board.
What in the world?
Pulling Sugar to a halt beside Pa, she sat there, her mouth hanging open.
“Careful. You’ll catch flies,” Pa teased.
She closed her mouth, but looked at him sideways. Where to begin? “What is all this?”
“Come sit by me, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
She did as she was told, nearly tripping over her skirts as she climbed beside her father. At least this wasn’t one of her new dresses. The first one hung in her room, ready for tomorrow’s tea party.
“Several weeks ago, Riley came to me with an idea to build a fancy hotel and spa resort on our property,” Pa said.
“A...what?”
“The mayor’s done some research, and he feels the natural springs here in Lampasas can draw tourists. Since we’ve got the railroad coming, now is a perfect time to capitalize on the opportunity.” He explained about the Saratoga Springs and the healing properties of the warm, sulfurous water.
“So...this is going to be a...a hotel?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Who will run it?”
“Riley, at first, along with whoever he hires.”
“Who’s paying for all this?”
“We’re going in with Riley. We provide the land, he provides the funds and everything else needed to get started. We’ll split the profit, fifty-fifty.”
Emma shook her head, watching the men work, not a clue what to say.
Riley stopped what he was doing and looked at her. After a moment, he gave her a half-cocked grin and shrugged his shoulders, then went back to work.
“Why didn’t you talk to me about this, Pa?”
“Because I knew you’d fret. I knew you’d think of every reason under the sun why this is a bad idea. And darlin’, it’s not your decision to make.”
Only one word filled Emma’s mind. One word with so many possible answers. “Why?”
Pa coughed, then leaned into the pillow he’d brought for his back. “Because I don’t want you to have to work as a maid for the rest of your life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a maid. Ma was a maid.”
“True. There’s never any shame in good, honest work. But your ma had to work harder than I ever wanted her to, and I wish she hadn’t had to. You know I can’t farm this land anymore. But if I can do this, and set you and Lyndel up with a good, solid future, that will make me happier than you’ll ever know.”
Emma leaned toward her father and laid her head on his shoulder.
He lifted his crepe paper arm—once rippled with muscles, but now sagging with age—around her. Despite his weakened state, he sat taller than he had in months. “Your ma would have wanted this.”
Emma smiled a watery smile. “Ma would have loved it.”
“Then I can count on you for support?”
She reached her arm around his neck. “You can count on me for anything, Pa. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
There they sat, watching the men work until it was too dark to work. At long last, they loaded into the buggies and headed back toward town. All except Lyndel and Riley, who stood at the watering bucket laughing about something. All of a sudden, Riley dumped a cup of the water on Lyndel’s head, sending the boy squealing and running. His laughter rang like a symphony through the fields.
Riley Stratton. He’d brought a lift to Pa’s chin and joy to Lyndel’s spirit. If he didn’t stop being so...wonderful, so...present...she didn’t know what she was going to do.
Riley wiped his sweat on his shirtsleeve and took a long swig of the cool water before responding to Emma’s invitation to join them for dinner. “Not sure you want me at your table. I’m pretty disgusting right now.”
“My father is a farmer. I’ve sat at the table with a sweaty man before.”
“I suppose you have. I’d be honored to join you for dinner.”
Legacy of Honor Page 17