by Delia Parr
Cassie knelt down on the chair seat and steepled her hands. “Please, Captain, they’re all I have left. I’d willingly share them with you if you’d spare my life. I am a godly, Christian woman. Have mercy on me.”
Fern scowled. “I show no mercy, and I share booty with no man or woman!”
Ivy pointed toward her sister. “You’ll share with me, or you’ll walk the plank with her!”
Fern puffed out her bottom lip and looked over at Cassie. “I thought you said I was the captain. Can’t I keep all the booty from this woman that we captured?”
“No, you can’t. I already told you, remember? The captain has to share all the booty with every member of the crew. And Miss Ivy, you can’t talk to the captain like that,” Cassie insisted. The girl looked like she was about to cry with frustration until she saw Martha standing at the door.
She yelped with joy, jumped down from the makeshift plank, and ran straight to her. “Miss Martha! You really did come to play pirates with us. Now we’ll have a proper captain. You don’t have to change costumes with Miss Fern unless you want to. If you don’t, she can be the pretend captain and you can be the real one she captured and put in irons. But now you escaped and want your ship back,” she said.
Martha knew just who to blame for the girl’s obvious fascination with pirates, but she had no idea how Cassie had convinced these three grown women to join in her play. Since she did not have the heart to disappoint Cassie, Martha did not even try. Instead, she decided to make that four grown women instead of three and joined in the play.
Two hilarious hours later, after each of them had switched character roles again, Martha was about to walk the plank, planning to pretend to jump to her death, when there was a loud knock at the back door. “I’ve been rescued,” Martha exclaimed and stepped down very carefully from the chair and held up her hand. “I’ll go. The caller is most likely looking for me.”
Grateful that she was wearing a gown now instead of a nightdress, she answered the door expecting to be summoned away. Instead, she found her entire family standing there—including her two precious granddaughters, who were standing on the top of the steps and looking up at her with expressions of great expectation on their little faces.
Her heart leaped and banged against the wall of her chest.
“Hi, Grandma,” Lucy said. “Papa said you could give us some more cookies, and if we’re really, really good, you’d let us see Bird again. We promise to be good, don’t we, Hannah?”
“Really, really good,” Hannah promised.
Torn between disbelief that they were here and sheer joy that they were, Martha was absolutely speechless, possibly for the first time in her entire life. While she struggled to find her voice, she glanced up at Oliver and Comfort, who were standing behind the girls, and saw that Victoria and Dr. McMillan were there, too. She could not decide which one had the widest grin.
When the girls started tugging on Martha’s skirts, obviously anxious to get their grandmother’s full attention, Oliver started to chuckle. “Before we explain why we’re all here, it might be a good idea to let the girls have a cookie or two like I promised since there won’t be any peace until you do.”
“Cookies,” Martha repeated, glanced down at the girls, and took each of them by a hand. “Of course we have cookies at the confectionery, and I’m going to let you pick out exactly which cookies you’d like to have today,” she promised and bent down to press a kiss to the top of their blond curls before she let them inside. “Along the way, maybe your father can explain what you’re all doing back in Trinity.”
Lucy skipped her way down the hallway. “We’re gonna get a new house and live here.”
Hannah walked along more sedately and tugged on Martha’s hand. “And we’re gonna get a puppy and a kitten and a . . . and a—”
“A pony. Papa said we could get a pony, but we have to share it,” Lucy added.
Martha stopped dead in her tracks, which forced her granddaughters to do the same. She turned and searched Oliver’s face for some sign that the girls were mistaken.
He returned her quizzical expression with a grin. “The girls have vivid imaginations, but in this case, they’re absolutely right.”
Martha’s heart trembled. “They are? You’re moving back to Trinity with your family? Truly?”
“That’s my intention. I thought about telling you our idea when we were here last, but we hadn’t decided then exactly what we were going to do, which is why I kept it a secret from you. Now I’m just trying to decide whether or not we should buy an existing house, build one of our own here in town, or settle farther out on some kind of homestead. In the meantime, we’ll be staying with Victoria instead of the cottage so we’re all a bit closer to town.”
“In other words, the girls will be closer to the confectionery—so they can visit with their grandmother more often. You might want to warn Miss Fern and Miss Ivy that they’ll need to bake more cookies than usual,” Comfort teased.
Martha chuckled and turned to Oliver. “I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am with your decision to come home to Trinity and raise your family here.”
Before they could continue their conversation, everyone in the household poured out of the sitting room and pandemonium erupted. Before conversation reached a level that would frighten the girls, Martha let Cassie take the girls into the shop to pick out their cookies. Once they were gone, Victoria came up behind Martha and whispered in her ear, “Thanks for not telling Oliver you knew he had a secret.”
Martha turned and gave her daughter a hug. “I trust my secret is still safe with you, as well?”
“It is, but I’m ever so curious to know what you’ve decided to do. Are you going to marry Mr. Dillon or not?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“We’ll make that decision together when he gets back, which may not happen until sometime in September,” Martha whispered as she studied her daughter’s features. “You look wonderful and so very happy. Maybe tomorrow we can find some time to be together and you can tell me all about your honeymoon travels.”
“We will, assuming you’re not called away and Lucy and Hannah agree to share you with me,” Victoria teased before Oliver reached his mother’s side and claimed her attention. They all spent the rest of the evening together, and for the first time, Martha created memories with them that were all the sweeter because the days they would have together now stretched ahead with endless promises of many more.
The only possible way those memories could be any better would be if Thomas could be part of those memories, too.
She prayed together with Jane briefly because they were both uncommonly tired. Martha had promised to take her granddaughters swimming tomorrow afternoon and needed all the energy she could muster. She was headed back to her room to change into her nightgown when she heard a pounding at the back door. Grumbling under her breath, she passed Ivy in the upstairs hallway, insisted on answering the door herself, and hurried downstairs.
When she finally got to the back door and opened it, she found Eleanor’s husband, Micah, standing there, and her heart started to race with worry.
Before she could ask him if it was Eleanor or little Jacob who had taken ill, he handed her a note. “Mr. Dillon just got back from his trip. He asked me to give you this and wait for you to write back your response. I’ll wait out here, if that’s all right.”
She felt her blood drain from her face and nodded before she closed the door. Her hands were shaking as she unfolded the note and walked rather unsteadily down the hall to the kitchen. She waited until she had the better light there to read his words:
Darling Martha,
I have finally made my way back to you. Because of the lateness of the hour, it would not be proper for me to call on you now, especially since I pray we’ll be asking Reverend Welsh to marry us within hours of our reunion.
I’ll pick you up with my buggy tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, unless you’re as anxious as I am to begin our future together a
nd prefer that I come earlier. Out of respect for your desire to keep our plans secret, please write your response and have Micah bring it back to me.
Thomas
Martha’s eyes welled with tears. Jane had yet to attempt a birthing on her own as midwife and still needed much more time, which meant there would be no miracle to save Martha’s future with Thomas. Now that he was home, she had to keep her promise to give him her answer. He deserved her answer. And as her stubborn streak rose from the ashes of her despair, she realized she was not going to give up hope there was still a chance for them to be together as husband and wife.
She wrote her answer below his name:
Meet me at ten o’clock above the falls, where we had our picnic together.
M
Sniffling, she folded up the note and carried it back with her down the long hall. Her emotions were in such turmoil, she felt as if she were doomed to walk the length of a plank instead of just pretending, like she had been when playing with Cassie.
She returned to her room with a heavy heart. Her love for Thomas, however, was too precious to let go without making one last effort to convince him to change his mind, again, and agree to wait for her just a little while longer.
And that was exactly what she intended to do tomorrow morning.
32
Martha started up the incline to reach the edge of the clearing above the falls just before nine o’clock. The extra hour she expected to have by arriving early in order to rehearse what she was going to say died the instant she reached the top.
Thomas was already here.
He was standing with his back to her, just beyond the fallen tree in the middle of the clearing. Even though she could not see his face, she would have recognized him from twice the distance.
She gave an involuntary gasp of surprise, and when he did not turn around to greet her, she assumed he had not heard her coming and had no idea she was there. She swallowed the lump in her throat easily enough, but she grew impatient waiting for her heart to stop pounding and her pulse to drop back to normal.
Her gaze never ventured from his image. Sunlight glistened on his ebony hair, which she noted had been neatly trimmed. Long and lean and straight in stature, he was wearing the same dark blue frock coat that he wore to Sunday services and every other important occasion, at least in her recent memory.
She was tempted to step back down again, ever so slowly, to reclaim the hour she had wanted to organize her thoughts and practice what she wanted to say to him, but she never had the chance to take a single step.
He turned around, caught sight of her, and nodded, as if making certain that she knew he had seen her there.
When he did not start toward her and remained in place, she made her way to him, step by cautious step, until she was standing within arm’s reach and separated from him only by the trunk of the tree . . . and the stubborn will that each of them possessed.
“You’re early.”
His voice was deep and strong, just as she remembered it, except that now it was tinged with disappointment.
She moistened her lips. “Apparently you arrived even earlier.”
Her answer nudged the first hint of a smile from him. “I thought I might be able to find a spot up here to watch you leave the confectionery on your way here. Obviously, I didn’t.”
“That’s why I favor this particular place. It’s very private,” she remarked, curious as to why he still held his place and kept the trunk of the tree between them. Or why he allowed a thick silence to grow until she found it unbearable. “I hope it wasn’t as hot back East as it’s been here. And I hope your journey was as successful as you’d hoped it would be.”
“I didn’t come here this morning to talk about the weather or my journey, Martha.”
“Neither did I.”
“I came to hear the answer you promised to give me today, assuming you’ve made up your mind, one way or the other.”
“Yes, I have.” She worried her lips together for a moment. “I was hoping we might talk about this together, but it feels a little awkward with this tree trunk lying between us. If for some reason you don’t want to step over it, I’ll walk around it so we can sit together and talk—”
“Please don’t.”
She pulled her head back and furrowed her brow. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t take a step from where you are. Please,” he said, and his gaze grew troubled. “If you’re any closer to me than you are right now, if there isn’t something between us as sturdy as this tree trunk, I’ll lose control the moment I get a whiff of the scent of your hair and kiss you. And I’m trying very, very hard not to kiss you. In fact, I’ve promised myself that I’m not going to kiss you.”
“May I ask why?” she asked, disappointed that she would not be able to use at least part of her plan to get him to listen to her, just long enough to convince him to give her more time.
When his gaze softened, her heart trembled. “Because I know you, Martha, better than I know anyone else in this world. I knew the exact moment you reached the clearing. I waited for you to come to me, excited to tell me that you would marry me today. But you didn’t do that, did you?”
“No, I didn’t, but I—”
“You held back. But in all truth, I knew your answer the instant I turned around and saw you were dressed for a day of work, not for a day you expected to be married. Even then, I still held out hope, but the moment I was close enough to see the expression in your eyes, I knew you weren’t going to marry me today. Instead of setting me free, you’ve got an argument all planned out that included more than a few of your sweet kisses—used to convince me to wait until you have a midwife to replace you before we marry. Then to ask me to believe you won’t change your mind by then.”
“But I only—”
“Am I wrong?” he whispered, and his eyes were filled with a longing that left her trembling. “Please. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Half of her heart wanted her to leap over that tree trunk, hurl herself into his arms, and stay there until his kisses convinced her to marry him this very day. The other half begged her to stay right where she was, because if she didn’t, her heart would end up broken in the end, never to be whole again.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. It’s written all over your face. You’ve set me free without saying a single word. Maybe . . . maybe it’s best you do,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with regret, and started to walk away.
“That’s it? You’re leaving? You’re not going to give me a chance to tell you why I’m willing to beg you, if I must, to wait for me? I have a woman who has agreed to replace me, but she won’t be ready to deliver a babe on her own for at least another few months and quite possibly more than that. But she will. I’m confident she will. Why can’t you wait just a little while longer for us to marry, like you promised before you changed your mind? Why is it that you get to change or conveniently forget a promise you’ve made to me whenever you feel the need, or to push me into accepting your last proposal, which was really an ultimatum, even though it’s unfair? But I only get one chance to keep a promise I’ve made to you? And I can’t take it back or . . . or replace it with another or give you an ultimatum you don’t like, either?”
He paused in mid-stride and walked back to her, but he remained on the other side of the tree trunk. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” she argued gently. It took all of her willpower not to step right over the tree and to march right up to him. “I love you, Thomas. I always will. But I know you very well, too. I need more time before she’s able to take over for me completely, and she’ll probably need my help until then. I believe you have every intention of keeping your promise to be patient with me when I’m summoned away, even if it takes a good while before I can give up my calling completely. But I also know that the longer it takes for me to stop, the thinner your patience will get.”
“Even if—”
&nbs
p; “Even if I’m gone for a month at a time, like I was for almost the entire month of August? Or now? Dr. McMillan is back, which means I won’t have to care for his patients any longer, but there may still be days when I’m not home for more than a few hours at a time. Can you honestly say you won’t grow to resent the fact that you’re almost always alone and eventually break the promise you made to be patient about that? No man could, Thomas. That doesn’t make you any less than a man of his word. It just makes you what you are—a man who wants his wife by his side, day in and day out.”
She paused just long enough to grab hold of the thought that had just flashed in front of her mind’s eye. “Did it ever occur to you that I might grow impatient and resentful, too? That as your wife, I’d want you to be by my side each and every day? I never really thought about it before right now, but I have to admit that I would. And I’m not willing to take the risk that if we marry now, we’ll end up hurting one another when all we should do is love one another. Am I wrong, Thomas? Please, tell me something . . . anything . . . to convince me that I’m wrong,” she pleaded and reached her hand out to him, along with her heart.
His eyes churned and deepened in color. His jaw twitched, as if he were fighting against the words she needed for him to say, and his shoulders slumped so slightly no one else would have noticed. “No. You’re not wrong, Martha, but the longer I have to wait for you, the more I’ll fear that this woman you claim to have found will change her mind or that you’ll eventually do what you did once before. You’ll turn me away. I can’t let that happen. Not ever again. We have had our second chance to be together. Forgive me, but I can’t ever let there be another.” Then he broke his earlier promise to himself and kissed the back of her hand before he turned and walked away.
And when he did, he did not only take her heart with him. He took her hopes. He took her dreams. And he left her with only one place to live—all alone, destined forever to live in the shadows of a life shaded by what might have been.