“Yes, of course,” Jack said, guiding her up the steps and through the door.
“Thank you for your kindness, Jack,” Vera whispered, sliding into a pew. “I’m not usually so emotional.”
“It is understandable.” Jack sat gently beside her, barely six inches separating them. “You’ve just discovered that the man you loved has a family. And being with child only intensifies your emotions. Or so I’ve been told.”
“I am sorry for my nastiness.” Vera glanced over at Jack, confused by the sincere concern etched on his face. How could a perfect stranger be so worried about the likes of her, a lonely widow with child who was working as a laundress? “I am fine, Jack, if not a bit embarrassed for my behavior.”
“Was your husband kind to you?” Jack asked, his hands folded on the back of the pew in front of them, but his gaze fixed straight ahead on the altar.
Vera shifted slightly in her seat. How could she tell this kind stranger that her husband had his cruel moments as well as his loving ones? Regardless, she loved Thomas and blamed the long hours in the coal mine for the change that had come over him the last months of his life. He’d been nothing but attentive and loving before they’d arrived in Blessings Valley.
“Yes, he was,” Vera whispered, wiping away the tear staining her cheek. “What can you tell me about his family?”
The touch of Jack’s hand upon hers startled Vera slightly. Looking into his face, she was taken aback by the depth of sadness in his eyes.
“What troubles you, Jack?” Vera asked, her heart pounding with fear. “Do you bring me bad news about Thomas’s family? Will they not want their grandchild or me now that he lays deep in the ground?”
“No, they will welcome you with open arms and shower you with love. That I can guarantee you,” Jack answered, his words soft and reassuring. “They have no idea about you or the baby. They didn’t know what happened to their son once he rode away from them almost three years ago.”
“Thomas rode away from his family?” Vera asked, surprised the man she knew and loved would do such a thing. Thomas loved her family as if they were his own; she couldn’t imagine him turning his back on his own family. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true, Vera.” Jack turned, tears streaming down his face. “He left as our mother cried for him to turn back. He never once looked back. He just kept on riding.”
“Our mother?” Vera gasped, shaking her head in disbelief. “Who are you?”
“My name, my true name, is Wallace Baldwin. Thomas was my brother.”
“Liar!” Vera cried, running out of the church and not stopping until she was locked safely behind the door of her home.
9
Wally hadn’t meant to tell Vera who he was. The words just came bursting out, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop them.
Wiping the wetness from his face, he sat back in the pew. Why hadn’t he tried to stop Vera? To explain to her? Instead, he let her curse at him and run out of the church.
“Dear merciful Lord, in all Your wisdom,” Wally prayed, hands folded and eyes fixed on the cross in front of him. “Guide my heart and my mind as I help Vera understand my plight and that there is a family waiting to love her and the baby. With Your healing hands, mend her breaking heart with love. In Your name, amen.”
Wally drew in a shaky breath then stood and walked out the church door. Pausing for a moment, he looked north and then south. Walking down the steps with slumped shoulders, he went around to the back of the church where the Blessings Valley cemetery was.
His need to talk to his brother overwhelmed him. His need to ask why Thomas never wrote that he had married and had a wife burned his heart.
Kneeling next to the headstone marking his brother’s grave, Wally swiped his hat off his head.
“I’m sorry, Thomas.” He sucked in a breath and fiddled with the brim of his hat. “I didn’t intend to startle your young wife—widow. But you should have told your family you had a wife. Or at the very least, Mother should have been told.
“Why didn’t Vera know of us? Did you hate us so much that you denied your wife a family to look after her and your baby? Or didn’t you know you were to be a father?
“No, probably not. I suspect Vera didn’t find out until a few months after the accident she was carrying a child. But she is, and I promise you, brother, whether you like it or not, that she will be well taken care of by our family.
“I just have to fix what I’ve done and get her to trust me. If you have any influence on her from the grave, I hope you would guide her in making the right decision. For the baby, if not for herself.”
Placing the hat back on his head, Wally stood gazing at his brother’s grave for several long moments.
“Farewell, Thomas, until we meet again,” he said then turned north along the path back to Blessings Valley.
Wally barely noticed dusk had fallen when he reached the boardinghouse, his heart heavy as a brick in his chest. If he’d failed his mother, he couldn’t bear to see it on her weathered face.
“Thank you for seeing Vera home.”
Wally looked up, burying his thoughts. Willa sat on the porch with a pitcher and two glasses.
“I saw you coming around the bend,” she said, pouring tea into the glasses. “Come and join me.”
Wally nodded, then took a seat opposite Willa. “Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t think your name is Jack Daniels.” Willa chuckled, sipping from her glass.
“What makes you say that?” Wally drank the tea, then held the glass in his hand. He’d thought he’d been so careful about who he was. Maybe she was testing him. Being protective of Vera.
“Vera may not have acknowledged in her heart how much you resemble her late husband, but I have,” Willa remarked, her words and their meaning straightforward.
“When?” Wally asked, wondering when he’d been so careless.
“The day you rode up,” Willa answered. “So, you’d better tell me why you’ve come, pretending to be someone you aren’t.”
Wally sat farther back in the chair. He had no intention of telling the landlady, no matter how insistent she was, his entire story. Not until he’d had the opportunity to tell Vera first.
“Yes, I am related to Thomas Baldwin,” Wally confirmed, choosing his words to this version of the story carefully. “It is true that I work as an agent for families or other people who seek information. Jack Daniels is the name I use to protect my true identity. It is my alias.”
“Get on with it,” Willa demanded. “I know very well what an alias is.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do.” Wally grinned. He found that despite her gruffness, he rather liked Willa Alexander. She was a woman used to taking care of things, and, he suspected, people as well.
“When word of the mining accident reached us,” Wally began, remembering the day as if it were yesterday, “my parents asked me to investigate as to whether Thomas was one of those killed. All the papers gave were the last names of the deceased miners.
“However, I soon discovered that trying to find out and confirm what I had come to learn is extremely difficult,” Wally said, drinking the rest of his tea. “There is a tight web of protection in Blessings Valley that is hard to break through.”
“And you have now discovered that Vera is also related to your family,” Willa said, turning to look him in the eye. “Now that you know Vera is—was—Thomas’s wife, what do you plan to do about it?”
“That is a question I still have no answer to,” Wally said, leaving Willa to her own thoughts about the situation.
“One more thing before you retire, Mr. Baldwin.” Willa stood in front of her chair. “Does Vera know?”
“Yes, she does,” Wally answered, walking into the boardinghouse.
Vera sat in the rocking chair next to the fireplace as the disappearing rays of the sun cast shadows on the scuffed floorboards. Her eyes puffy from the tears she didn’t think would ever stop. Her heart continued to ache even after h
er eyes had gone dry. Ached for the unknown. Ached for Thomas and the life they’ll never have.
When Jack—no, Wally Baldwin—told her he was Thomas’s brother, it felt like losing her husband all over again. If it was true, why hadn’t Thomas told her about his family?
Why keep it a secret?
“Thomas, what happened that you hid your family from me?” Vera whispered, her fingers caressing the framed photograph of the two of them.
The picture had been taken last Christmas a few weeks after arriving in Blessings Valley. They were happy. Not a care in the world.
But all that began to change the longer Thomas worked in the mine. He’d come home either withdrawn or skittish. She never knew who would walk through the door each night.
Some nights he’d come home covered in coal dust, take his clothes off, and get cleaned up before going straight up to bed. Then there were the nights when he’d come home, wash up, and hold her through the night after making love to her like he did before they came to Blessings Valley.
“What am I to do? There is a man here who says he is your brother, Wally,” Vera said, gazing at the photograph a minute longer before setting it on the small side table.
“I don’t know what to do. What to believe,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes again.
Pushing herself out of the rocker, Vera locked the door before making her way up to her bedroom. Shedding her dress, leaving it in a pool of cotton on the floor, she pulled on her nightgown and crawled into bed.
She felt safe with the blanket pulled up over her like a cocoon. Nothing bad could get her here. Her baby was protected as long as she stayed here in bed, hidden away from the outside world.
At least that’s what she told herself as she closed her heavy eyelids. The moon rising high in the black night sky, she drifted off on a cloud.
“Vera, can you hear me?” Thomas’s voice floated on a distant cloud.
“Yes, where are you?” Vera asked, frantically looking everywhere for him.
“Reach out, and I’ll take your hand.”
Raising her arm, Vera stretched her fingers until she felt them encased in Thomas’s hand. He came through the mist looking well rested and so much younger than the last time she’d seen him.
“I can only stay for a moment,” he said, his eyes bright with peace.
“But I need you. Our baby needs both of us,” she protested to the point of sounding like a whiny young girl trying to get her way.
“I have it on good authority that you and the baby will be fine. She will be healthy and full of life surrounded by love,” Thomas smiled, a glisten in his crystal-clear eyes.
“How do you know what will happen?” she asked, confusion clouding her common sense.
“I know Wally is there. He has visited my grave nearly every day.” He looked away but kept ahold of her hand. “I was a lost and angry man when I left my family. Then you came into my life. You made me feel important and that what I said mattered to you. You made me feel like a man and not a failure.
“I thank the Lord for the few years we had together as man and wife. They were the happiest times for me, and I hope for you as well.”
She stared at him, wanting to fall into his arms. To kiss him. To tell him without words how happy she had been. How loved she felt being by his side.
“I wanted you to know these things before I have to leave your side,” Thomas said as his hand loosened around hers.
“No! You can’t go,” she cried out, reaching for him as their connection was merely the tips of their fingers.
“Trust him, Vera. He will help you. And come to love you as I do.”
Thomas’s last words flitted into her dream as he disappeared back into the mist. Vera whispered his name in her sleep as tears stained the pillowcase.
Unable to sleep, Wally sat looking out the window of his room. The night sky bright with stars and a full moon did nothing to lift his darkened mood.
“You are such an idiot!” he admonished himself. “Damn it!”
He pounded the windowsill with a closed fist, hoping to inflict some pain on himself. It wouldn’t replace the pain he’d seen in Vera’s face hours ago. Only one way to get rid of the vision that wouldn’t leave his mind.
Grabbing his hat, Wally bounded down the stairs with all intentions of going to the Heartbreak Saloon. Maybe a few glasses of whiskey would make him forget how much he’d hurt Vera. How he’d failed in doing a seemingly easy assignment.
“Going out for the night, Mr. Baldwin?”
Wally stopped dead in his tracks as he reached for the doorknob. Feeling the desire for whiskey subside slightly, he turned and walked into the parlor. Sitting in the dark was Willa, his savior from the Devil that beckoned him to be foolish.
“You’re up late, Willa,” he stated, taking a seat across from her.
“I couldn’t sleep. And from the likes of it, neither could you,” she stated the obvious. “The only place open this time of the night is the Heartbreak. Is that where you were headed?”
Wally thought about lying but doing so never helped any situation. Including this one.
“I had given it some consideration.” He smiled, placing his hat on his lap. “Seems there are other plans for me tonight.”
“Good. I thought you might be a bit restless,” Willa observed, not moving from her chair. “There is a pot of coffee and some sandwiches on the table if you’re hungry.”
Wally nodded then went over to the table, filling a large mug with black coffee and grabbing a couple of sandwiches.
“Are you always this intuitive, Willa?” Wally asked, returning to his chair. “Or do you make it a habit to have coffee and sandwiches ready for unexpected boarders?”
“I was thinking about poor Vera, and what a shock it must have been for her to learn you are her brother-in-law,” Willa said, getting straight to the point.
No pussyfooting around with this one, Wally thought, smiling to himself.
“Yes, I believe it was.” Wally hung his head, ashamed he hadn’t gone after Vera to explain further. But he didn’t think she would have listened.
“So what happened, Mr. Baldwin?”
The question was one Wally barely had an answer for, and one he dreaded trying to explain. Even to himself.
“Vera was talking about how she and Thomas had met. When they arrived in Blessings Valley.” Wally swallowed the knot of grief lodged in his throat. “She started crying, and before I knew it, she was in my arms, sobbing. I couldn’t let go of her until she’d finally stopped. Without thinking, I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to her or the baby.
“I wanted to give her time to compose herself before walking the rest of the way home and suggested we rest in the church. She told me what a loving husband Thomas was to her. I couldn’t help but think this was the opposite of the man who rode away from his family.”
Wally stood and paced back and forth. Stopping at the fireplace, he peered at Willa. He could see her face in the bright moonlight. It was full of compassion. That alone gave him the strength, the courage, to continue.
“I don’t know what I was feeling except for the loss of my brother. Vera sensed something was wrong. I worried she would think my family wouldn’t want her. That is the opposite, of course. Mother will welcome her with open arms. And she’ll spoil her grandbaby beyond repair, I’m afraid.” He chuckled before returning to the safety of a chair.
“Go on, I’m sure there is more,” Willa urged softly in the moon’s shadows.
Wally drew in a deep breath as well as courage to continue.
“I told her she had no reason to fear being rejected. Even though they don’t know about her, they’d love and accept her as family. It was then I told her how Thomas had ridden away from his family. How he left our mother crying for him to turn about and come back.”
“Ah, I imagine Vera questioned the term ‘our’ in your story.”
“Yes, she did. It was then I told her my name and that I am Thomas’s
brother. She called me a liar and ran out of the church.”
“And you didn’t go after her,” Willa stated.
“No, I didn’t.” Wally’s guilt echoed in his ears.
“Wise decision.” Willa got up from her chair. “She needs time to think and come to terms with how Thomas had hidden the truth from her. My suggestion is to give her a wide berth for a few days.”
“No, I have to make things right,” Wally protested, not seeing what good it would do not to go to Vera. To comfort her. To show her how much she’d be loved by the Baldwin family.
“Believe me, it is for the best,” Willa said, strolling through the parlor. “I’m sure you have other things you can do while you wait for her. She’ll come around, I promise you that.”
Wally watched her walk through to the back of the boardinghouse until she disappeared in the dark shadows.
Willa was right, of course. He would have to give Vera time to believe him. And he did have something that needed to be done.
He needed to send a telegram to his parents in the morning.
10
For the next several days, Vera avoided going anywhere that would put her remotely in the path of Wally Baldwin. And although she missed seeing Willa, she wouldn’t take a chance that Wally would be at the boardinghouse waiting to talk to her.
She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to talk to him. Not now. If ever.
She bordered on being rude with Mollie, and there was no good reason for it. Guilty or not, Vera answered Mollie’s questions with short, clipped answers. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to keep being the distant person she’d become. It didn’t feel right in her heart or soul. She no longer felt like herself, and that saddened her. As well as worried that she would become a mean, spiteful woman and how it would affect her baby.
The bell above the door jolted her from behind her protective inner wall. Since Mollie was off to the bank, Vera reluctantly walked into the front of the laundry to greet the customer.
“Good morning, Vera.”
Vera (Widows of Blessings Valley Book 2) Page 7