With so many people milling about and standing in line for the food tables, Cara gave up trying to locate Chase for the moment. Once people had their plates and began to find seats at the tables set up on the field, the crowd would thin enough for her to locate him. She waited in the line for her turn, filled her plate, and went off in search of her husband.
Cara saw him across the field seated at a table with the Three Spinsters and Mae Dexter. Having heard that Mae had come home from her first year at Oberlin, Cara was anxious to learn how the year had gone. There was a woman seated next to Mae. Cara almost dropped her plate in astonishment when she saw who it was. Laura Pope! The same Laura Pope who’d claimed to be Chase’s fiancée back in Topeka three years ago. What in the world was she doing in Henry Adams? Chase was saying something to her but looked up with a smile when Cara neared.
“Hi, darlin’.”
Mae also had a smile. “Oh, Oberlin was everything you said it would be. I can’t wait for classes to resume.”
Cara acknowledged the Three Spinsters with a kiss on each of their cheeks. Chase slid down the bench a bit to make room for her at his side, and she sat, looking into the cool, brown-eyed gaze of Laura Pope. Cara took in the little confection of a hat perched so pertly atop her glossy braided hair, and the expensive cut of her matching dark green jacket and skirt.
“Cara, you remember Laura Pope?” Chase said.
“Yes, I do. We met in Topeka, if I’m not mistaken. What brings you to Henry Adams, Miss Pope?”
“I’m here to look over some property for my father’s bank.”
“I met her on the train ride to Ellis last night,” Mae said.
Laura took up the rest of the story. “I’m staying over at the hotel. When Mayor Dexter told me about the new school, I asked if I might join the gathering.”
“Welcome,” Cara said, trying not to dislike the woman. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”
Cara began to eat.
“I was surprised to find Chase here, of all places,” Laura said.
Cara stopped eating, fork poised in midair, and looked into Laura’s beautiful face. It wasn’t the remark so much that rubbed Cara the wrong way, but the tone. Cara turned to her husband, who shrugged, then back to the woman. Rather than be the cause of yet another ruckus, and speak out of turn, Cara ignored the remark.
The Three Spinsters did not.
Lucretia was eyeing Miss Pope with a look that said she, too, had taken offense. She asked, “And just where would you expect our Sergeant Jefferson to be, Miss Pope? He and his wife do live here, after all.”
Daisy added, “One wouldn’t expect him to be in Paris.”
The spinsters laughed at their own cleverness. Cara smiled around a mouth filled with some of Dulcie’s fine potato salad.
“And you know,” Rachel said, leaning down so the young woman could be certain to see the censure in Rachel’s black eyes, “if there’s something wrong with our town maybe your father’s bank should look elsewhere.”
Laura had drawn up as stiff as a statue.
Mae spoke up for her guest. “I’m sure she didn’t mean there was anything wrong with our town.”
Laura finally found her voice. “Mae’s right, of course. Your town is charming. I’ve spent most of the past two years in Boston. This is my first trip back. I’d forgotten how rustic everything is. Have you ever been East, Cara?”
“Ohio is as far East as I’ve gone.”
“Ah, you’re from the South then?”
“Georgia.”
“Sometimes Southern people have a hard time adjusting to the East. A country girl like yourself probably wouldn’t like it.” Then she turned to Chase and asked him about a mutual friend in Topeka.
Cara knew that her personal dislike of the beautiful Miss Pope stemmed from the lie she’d told about being Chase’s fiancée, but that notwithstanding, Cara had the distinct feeling that Laura was being difficult for a purpose. Laura’s eyes were filled with contempt as she gazed at Cara. Cara hoped the woman wasn’t planning on trying to reclaim Chase’s affections, because she would not allow it. She and Chase had finally achieved the peace they’d both been seeking in their marriage. If Laura tried to mess that up, she swore there would be a ruckus this town would not soon forget.
Lucretia launched into a description of a trip she planned on taking to Denver later in the Summer to see her sister. “My sister and her husband remind me of the two of you,” she said, pointing at Cara and Chase.
“In what way?” Cara asked, feeling her husband taking bits of grass from her hair. Cara brushed her hand over her head and drew away a small sliver of cornstalk, a remnant of romping with the children all afternoon.
“You and Sergeant Jefferson share what used to be called a grand passion,” Lucretia said wistfully. “My sister Anna and her husband have been married for over fifty years. They have a grand passion for each other also.”
“How quaint,” Laura said drolly.
“A grand passion,” Chase said, as if trying the phrase on for size.
“Yes,” Lucretia said. “I’ve been watching the two of you the last few months and I must say, it’s wonderful to see.”
“See what?” Mae asked curiously.
“The way he watches her walk across a room, the way he glows when he sees her. Do you know that you have two different smiles, Sergeant?”
Chase grinned. “No, ma’am. I didn’t.”
“Well, you do. You have one that you give faded roses like us, and then you have another that’s reserved only for your beautiful wife. I’ve noticed it many times.”
Cara turned to her husband. The tenderness in his dark eyes sent her heart soaring.
“Love is a glorious thing,” Lucretia went on softly. “Treasure each other, because what you have is truly rare.”
Laura stood up. “Thank you for the company, everyone.”
Cara couldn’t decide whether Laura could no longer mask her hostility or if she just didn’t care to hide her true feelings anymore. Either way her anger was plain for everyone to see. “Chase, I wish you luck with your—your grand passion. It’s been nice meeting you ladies. Mae.”
With nothing more than a contemptuous look at Cara, Laura left the table and walked off across the field.
“Well,” huffed Rachel. “She didn’t even say goodbye to you, Cara.”
Daisy giggled. “I wonder why.”
Oh, she should be glad we let her leave the table alive after the way she kept sneering at Cara,” Rachel added. Then she looked down the table to her friend. “Lucretia, when you began talking about that grand passion, I thought she was going to choke.”
The spinsters all laughed.
Cara smiled and waggled a teacherly finger as she said, “You girls have been very bad. Double homework for you tonight.”
Mae looked around the table with wide eyes.
“What’s the matter, Mae?” Chase asked, chuckling softly at the wonder on her face.
“Sergeant Jefferson, this is the first year I’ve been able to sit with adults at a gathering, and—is this what the adults do—act catty—while we young ones are sitting at the children’s table? I had no idea there was intrigue like this in Henry Adams.”
Laughter erupted from everyone.
“This has been much more exciting than watching the boys make lemonade come out of their noses!”
Cara thought about that remark as she lay in bed in her nightgown, waiting for Chase to return from washing up at the pump out back. Mae had certainly grown into a fine young woman in the past year. For a while Cara had despaired of Mae becoming anything more in life than a consumer of gowns from St. Louis. But Cara had talked with her about her studies and her goal of being a newspaperwoman when she finished Oberlin. She didn’t think Mae would have any trouble handling whatever career she chose.
Chase returned then, his upper body wet, his lower body covered by the towel fashioned around his hips. Cara looked at the strong long legs below the towel and
marveled once again at the beauty of the man she’d married.
The next morning after breakfast, Chase and Cara took their traditional ride to begin the day. They’d been out for nearly an hour and were sprawled atop a blanket spread out on the open plains, a checkerboard between them. “You know,” Chase said, moving one of the few remaining pieces on the board, “that was something running into Laura yesterday.”
Cara watched where he placed his piece. She frowned. He was trouncing her—again. She had never beat him. “Yes, it most certainly was something.”
“I don’t think she likes you.”
“Could she really be that angry because you’re married? It’s been three years. Surely she’s not still pining.”
“I suppose she could be. I am quite a catch, you know.”
“And so modest,” Cara pointed out. “I know how talented you are, but she acts as if she has something else stuck in her craw. Call it a woman’s intuition.”
“I don’t know, Cara. But I do know not even your woman’s intuition can get you out of the mess you’re in on this board here.”
Cara shot him a look.
She directed her attention back to her dilemma. She made what she hoped would be the least damaging move to her dwindling forces, only to have him jump another of her men, and come to rest in royalty row. She sat up and folded her arms in disgust.
He grinned. “Well, don’t pout. King me.”
She did. “Don’t gloat.” She pushed her last man out to its death. She faced total defeat as he slid the new king down to sit judgment with his other four, pausing only to take her man as it did.
The game was over.
“Well, let’s see,” Chase said, and closed his eyes as if he were deep in thought. “Since we’ve been married, that’s about five thousand games for me, and how many for you?”
She grinned and punched him in the arm. “None. And you know it.”
“Just checking my figures,” he told her. “Well, don’t worry about it. Your cooking makes up for your not being able to play checkers any better than Carolina.”
Cara yelled her outrage. “Carolina!” Laughing, she launched herself atop him, intending to battle to the death. They rolled around on the tarp, laughing and enjoying each other while the sun shone down above them.
That afternoon, Cara went into town with Chase so he could help with the work still needed to be done on the school. The outer walls were up, and today the men would hoist the roof into place. Cara ran her eyes lovingly over the structure. She couldn’t wait for it to be filled with books and desks and, especially, her students. She had quite a year planned when the new school opened.
Chase kissed her on the cheek and hopped down from the buggy to the ground. Cara slid over to take the vacated seat behind the reins. He walked off to the field with a parting wave and she headed the horses up the street.
Cara did some visiting with the Three Spinsters, then stopped at the mercantile to check for mail and peruse the recently received newspapers. With those things accomplished she left the mercantile and crossed the street. She nodded to her neighbors as she passed, stopped to talk to a few she hadn’t seen in a while, and started out toward Sophie’s. As she walked by the bank, she was almost bowled over by a woman coming out of the door.
“I can’t shake you, can I?” Laura said.
Cara watched the woman make minute adjustments to her beautiful navy jacket and black skirt and pat her black hat. “My apologies,” Cara said coolly, determined to take the high road. “I obviously wasn’t paying attention.”
“Obviously,” Laura replied.
“What is your problem with me, Miss Pope? Are you angry because I married Chase?”
Cara waited for her to deny there was a problem, but Laura surprised her.
“Yes, that is part of it. After you left us that morning at Floral Hall, he gave me holy hell for lying and saying he was my fiancé.”
“I see.”
“I knew my parents would never have let me marry a man like him, though,” Laura said, pulling on her gloves.
“Why not?”
“Because he was a slave,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”
“Yes, I knew.”
She seemed mildly surprised. “Then it must have not mattered where you were raised.”
“No, it didn’t matter where I was raised,” Cara agreed.
“Well, it certainly did in my parents’ circles. A slave. In your family. You’d never be asked to dinner again. It was wonderful to be seen on his arm at the parties around Topeka that year, though. Chase is a handsome man.”
Cara hadn’t encountered such blatant intra-race prejudice since her days at Oberlin, where there’d been a small number of students who’d chosen not to associate with those members of the race they deemed unsuitable.
“You said Chase’s marrying me was only part of your problem. What else is bothering you about me?”
I’d rather not discuss it out here, if you don’t mind.”
Cara was intrigued, to say the least. “Then let’s go someplace where we can discuss it”
Cara took her over to Sophie’s. Cara’s old room had not been let, and with Sophie’s permission, Cara escorted Laura up there to talk. Void of her many books and crates, the room appeared empty. She motioned Laura to a chair, and Cara took a seat on the bed.
“Now,” Cara said, “let’s hear what you have to say.”
“You’re quite the man-catcher, aren’t you?” she began icily. Her eyes were blazing.
Cara had no idea what she was talking about. “Man-catcher?”
“First Chase. Now Miles Sutton.”
Cara froze and stared. For a few moments Cara tried to convince herself she’d simply misunderstood, but she knew she hadn’t. A million questions went off in her head all at once. “How do you know Miles Sutton?”
“We were to be married last fall.”
“I see,” Cara said, though she didn’t see at all. “Do you know he’s wanted by the law?”
“Yes, I do. I also know it’s your fault.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yes.”
“Laura, I had nothing to do with his cheating people out of their life savings and their land.”
“That isn’t what I’m talking about. That is a simple case of mistaken identity. He’ll straighten it out.”
Cara was a bit taken aback but said, “Possibly you’re right, but until Miles comes in and talks to Sheriff Polk, it won’t be straightened out. Do you know where he is?”
“Of course.” And she said no more.
Cara hadn’t really expected an answer. Laura had the demeanor of a competent woman, even if she had swallowed the pot of fool’s gold Miles had fed her. “What is it you think I did to Miles?”
“The baby.”
Cara went still. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she asked, “Are you talking about my baby?”
“Yes, the one you claimed Miles fathered.”
Cara felt herself turn as cold as stone. “I never told anyone that Miles was the father of my baby.”
“Miles said you had his mother convinced, along with half the town. And then that tale about you falling from the horse. If you hadn’t been hanging on to the saddle, begging him to marry you and give your bastard a name, you wouldn’t’ve been hurt.”
Cara stood slowly. She knew if she stayed in this room one more second, grief and rage would make her do something she would regret. She looked at Laura’s smug expression and walked from the room.
Cara didn’t stop walking. She came down the stairs, ignored Sophie calling with concern, and went outside and down the walk. She didn’t see any of the people she passed. The utter falseness of the story hurt her immensely. That he would dare to twist the facts of her tragedy to fit his schemes made her want to grab a rifle and hunt him down like a rabid animal. Her anger climbed to fury. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. By the time she reached the end of the wooden walk, she was running
.
Chase and Asa were up on the newly raised frame of the school’s roof, checking the fit of the support beams. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Asa said sounding amazed. “Isn’t that Miss Cara, Chase?”
It was his wife, all right. Alarmed, he looked at the area behind her, but saw no one in pursuit; still he knew something was wrong. “Be back.”
The other men stopped work and turned to watch as Chase took off at a run, yelling Cara’s name.
When he caught up with her, she was sitting in open prairie, plucking grass. “Hello, darlin’,” he said gently. He hadn’t seen her this sad since they lost the baby.
“Hello, Chase.”
“Why’re you crying?”
“I’m angry.”
She plucked more grass and he waited.
“Chase, Laura Pope just told me that I lost the baby because I was holding on to Miles’s saddle begging him to marry me.” She looked up and saw her anger reflected in his stare.
“What?”
“Yes. And she also knows where he is. He told her I had told everyone the baby was his.”
“To what purpose?”
“I don’t know,” she replied softly. “I left the room. I didn’t want to hear any more.” Cara tossed a few blades of the long grass into the air. “Why would he say that?”
“When I find him, I’ll be sure to ask him,” Chase promised angrily.
Chapter 16
It was pouring rain the next morning when Chase rode into town on Carolina. The army-issue slicker he had on protected him from the elements, but did not stave off the chill that seeped beneath it. He’d come to town to talk with Sheriff Polk about Cara’s encounter with Laura.
Over a cup of coffee, Chase told him the story. The sheriff suggested they pay Laura a visit. They walked down to the Sutton Hotel where they were informed by the desk clerk that she’d checked out the previous night. Chase slammed his hand down on the desk.
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