“George won’t care about your paltry pennies, Lil. He’s a rich man.” She sashayed across the room toward a table where a group of men were playing cards. “Get rid of this woman for me, would you, George? She’s pestering me.”
The big man stood up from the table, dropping his cards facedown beside his glass of whisky. “You again?” he said, facing Lily. “What are you doing on my premises? Get out.”
“That’s my melodeon in the corner,” Lily said. “I bought it when I joined the traveling show. I paid for it myself.”
“With money she stole from her daddy’s vault,” Beatrice shouted.
“I’ve offered to pay for the melodeon,” Lily countered, laying the cloth pouch on the table. “There are thirty-two dollars here. Count them if you like, Mr. Gibbons. It’s a fair price.”
“Get outta here, lady. We don’t need your money, do we, Bea?”
“We don’t need anything from her.”
“Get out, before I send one of my boys to throw you out. You ain’t caused me nothing but trouble since the first time I laid eyes on you. You and that infernal preacher. First he drives off my saloon business, and now you try to take my music.”
“It’s my melodeon,” Lily repeated firmly. “I have nothing else to leave these people. Nothing to give Elijah. I want the town of Hope to have the melodeon. Please, sir, listen to reason. Take this money and give me my instrument.”
“Out!” he roared, grabbing her arm. “Out, out, out!”
As he pushed Lily across the saloon, the customers broke into jeers. The women in their bold silk dresses called out to her. Samuel began to cry. Lily covered his head with her arm and hurried out into the foyer, barely able to stay on her feet as George Gibbons shoved her toward the front door.
As she reached for the brass knob, the door flew open. Elijah, the deputy, and Dr. Richardson—followed by half the town of Hope—poured into the building. George Gibbons and his men drew their pistols.
“Turn the woman loose,” Elijah demanded, taking a step toward Gibbons. A half-dozen six-shooters pointed at Elijah’s chest clicked to full cock. He held up his hands. “I’m unarmed. I’m the preacher in Hope, and I’m asking you to let Mrs. Nolan go.”
“She’s trespassing,” Gibbons spat. “And so are you, Preacher.”
“Well, I’m not,” the deputy said, moving into the open circle. “Put your guns away, men. Won’t be no bloodshed. We’ll settle this peaceable, or I’ll haul every one of you off to Topeka.”
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Beatrice said. “We have a deed to this property, and we’re just minding our business. It’s Mrs. Nolan you ought to haul off. She came over here to stir up trouble, Deputy—and she brought that poor little baby right into the saloon. If that doesn’t show what kind of person she is, I don’t know what would. Arrest her, sir, and we’ll all be better off.”
Lily let out a cry of disbelief. “Beatrice, how can you say such things? I came for the—”
“She came here looking for work,” Bea said. “She tells me you’re planning to take her back to Philadelphia tomorrow, Dr. Richardson. She was hoping to hide out here at the opera house until you left without her, and then she thought she could get a job singing in our shows. I reminded her of all the trouble she’s caused you and everybody else, but she said she didn’t care a bit. Look at her standing there with that baby, all sweet and innocent. She knows good and well what she’s up to, don’t you, Lily?”
“Why would I come here for work, Bea?” Lily said. “You’ve already got a singer. Don’t you, Mr. Gibbons?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Did you want to join our other girls, Lily?” Beatrice asked. “Maybe that was your real reason for coming.”
Cornered, Lily spotted one ray of light.
“Maybe so, Bea,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to hire me on with the other girls. Why don’t you tell the deputy what my duties would be? And while you’re at it, you can show him your license to operate a brothel.”
Amid the cries and shouts that followed her remark, the deputy hollered for order. “Now what’s going on here?” he demanded. “What’s this about girls, Mr. Gibbons? I’ve been hearing rumors ever since I stepped into this town. You operating a brothel here?”
“Absolutely not, sir.” Gibbons’s face flamed bright red. “We run a legitimate opera show and a saloon.”
“What’s all this about hired girls?”
“Maids. Cooks.”
“And those rooms upstairs? What do you use them for?”
“We rent them out to travelers passing through. Kind of like a hotel.”
“I guess you wouldn’t mind if I took a look.” Without waiting for an answer, the deputy headed for the stairs.
In the ensuing confusion, Lily spotted her opportunity to escape. Hugging Samuel tightly to her chest, she darted through the front door and slipped out onto the porch. Oh, this had been a disaster! How could she have misread the warning signs? How could she have been so naive as to think Bea would agree to her request? She could hardly wait to get back to the quiet security of Eva’s house.
“Lily!” Elijah’s voice stopped her short. “Lily, can I talk with you a minute?”
She stopped at the edge of the porch and squeezed her eyes shut. She could only pray for strength. At this very moment, she must hand Samuel over to Elijah. She must let them both go, and she had not even the melodeon to give the man she loved. Her father would be coming to get her, and she must leave with him. That was her decision—to do God’s will and put her own desires behind her. God, give me strength!
“Lily?” Elijah’s warm hand covered hers. “I was worried about you. I went looking for you at the Hankses’ house. And then Caitrin Cornwall said she saw you walking this direction. Your father and the deputy heard the news, and after that, it seemed like the whole town joined in the parade down to the opera house. Are you all right?”
She drank down a breath, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry to have caused trouble again.”
“Lily?” He placed the crook of his finger under her chin and tilted her head. “Lily, I know you’re supposed to go to Philadelphia tomorrow morning. I also have a feeling that in some ways you’re still scared of your father. Did you come here to get work from Beatrice?”
She couldn’t keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. “No, I came to get my melodeon,” she wept. “I wanted you to have it for the church. I wanted to leave the town something. Bea wouldn’t give it to me, not even when I offered all the money I’ve earned working for you. She’s keeping the melodeon, and I left the pouch on the table in the saloon, and now the money’s all gone, and I don’t have anything to give you….”
His arms slipped around her, encompassing both the woman and the baby. “Lily, you already gave me the greatest gift you could give. You gave my son his life. You gave me your music, the sound of your voice, your smile, your words of wisdom, your laughter. You gave yourself to me and to this whole town, Lily. We don’t need … I don’t need anything but you.”
“No. I’ve interfered with your work for the Lord. Samuel and I keep you from doing—”
“Keep me from it? You give my ministry meaning, Lily. When I think of you and Sam, I realize why I’ve got to help folks. I understand how I’d feel if anything ever happened to either of you. I think about what I’d need in a pastor, and that gives me the strength to keep on working for God. It’s the thought of seeing you and Sam on the porch every evening that fills my heart with joy and keeps my feet on the servant path. It’s you who comes into my mind when I’m praying and planning sermons. What do I want to say to Lily to help her grow? How can I encourage Lily? What words can I offer to make Lily stronger in her walk with God? It’s you … you and Sam … who make this pastor work worth all the hours I spend at it.”
He stopped, his breath shallow. “I know you want to go home with your father,” he went on. “I know you need to see your mother. And I would never want to put a barr
ier in the path God has laid out for you. But I meant what I said under the cottonwood tree the other day, Lily Nolan. I love you. I love you the way a man loves a woman. I love you so much, I’m willing to ask you to leave your mother and your father and cleave to me. Which, if I understand S Scripture right, means I want you to marry me, Lily. I want you to marry me and live with me every day of my life from here on out. No matter what.”
Lily covered her mouth with her hand, unable to believe the words that had tumbled from this man’s overflowing heart. “Oh, Elijah, I love you so much!” she cried out. “But I don’t want to be a stumbling block—”
“You’re my wings, darlin’.”
“Wings!” Lily lifted her gaze from the prairie and focused on the falcon still tracing lazy circles in the twilight. “I want you to soar, Elijah. I want God to use you. I’ll do all I can to lift you up.”
“Then you’re saying yes?” He set her away from him, his hands on her shoulders. “Because your father told me—”
“My father can go home to his wife,” she said firmly, “and I’ll stay here with … with my husband. I’ll visit my parents soon enough. But then I’ll come back here, where I belong.”
“Mercy!” Elijah laughed. “Mercy, mercy, mercy.”
“Amen,” she murmured, slipping into his arms again.
“Brother Elijah!” Seth Hunter dashed out onto the porch. “Brother Elijah, you’ve got to—oh, I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s all right,” Elijah said. “At least it’s you cutting in on us again.”
The tall man gave a chuckle. “You two need to make this thing official.”
“We are. Just give us a week or two.”
“A week!” Lily said, giving Sam a squeeze. “You hear that, Sammy? Your daddy and I—”
Elijah was staring at her. “Lily, do you think Sam would be better off in an orphanage?” he asked in a low voice. “I don’t have a house yet. I don’t get paid much. And there’s no school here in Hope.”
“I think you’re his God-given father,” she said. “He couldn’t be better off than that.”
“I don’t know about that baby of yours,” Seth Hunter cut in, “but there’s a ruckus going on inside the opera house, Brother Elijah. We could do with a man of God to help sort things out.”
“A ruckus?”
“Those ladies came out of their rooms wearing next to nothing, and the deputy was rounding them all up when Jack Cornwall’s mother fainted. Then Beatrice Waldowski went to screaming, and all of a sudden she bit the deputy on the arm, and Jack knocked out two of the saloon customers, and George Gibbons fired a bullet into the ceiling, and … and, well, I’m just rambling on to beat the band,” he said. “I’ve been living with Rosie too long. You’d better come in and help us, Preacher. It’s a mess.”
Elijah reluctantly stepped away from Lily. “Go on back to the Hankses’ house,” he told her, “and start planning our wedding. I want to marry you before anybody gets it in mind to come between us again. You hear?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, giving him a mock salute. “And you get in there and round up your sheep, Reverend Book. Don’t you know a pastor’s work is never done?”
With a laugh, he caught her and gave her a warm kiss right on the lips. As he turned to go back into the opera house, Lily fairly skipped down the porch steps. “They shall run, and not be weary,” she thought as she scampered onto the road, her spirits soaring on eagles’ wings.
Chapter 18
THAT ought to do it for you, Mrs. Nolan,” Jack Cornwall said, stepping back from the small stone cross he had set into the ground. “Is it all right?”
Lily held Samuel close as she knelt beside the marker lit with golden sunlight on this bright Sunday morning. “Abigail Nolan,” it read. “1866. Rest in peace.” She reached out and ran her fingertips over the coarse stone that Elijah had asked the town blacksmith to carve as a memorial to her lost baby.
“Thank you, Mr. Cornwall,” Lily said softly. “Elijah was right about the cemetery. It does help.”
“Sure, the man himself will be back soon enough,” Caitrin Cornwall said. She laid her hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Perhaps he’ll arrive this afternoon before the all-day singing is finished. I know he planned to be here to dedicate the church, but Topeka is a long way.”
Lily nodded. “I know.”
“If you’re sure you’ll be all right, then, we’ll just pop round the front to help set up tables.”
“That would be fine, Caitrin.” Lily smiled at the Irishwoman, whose concern was plainly written in her green eyes. “I’ll join you soon.”
As the young couple left her alone, Lily sank farther into the lush green grass at the foot of the stone cross. Elijah Book had left town along with the deputy and Dr. Richardson a full ten days before, and no one had heard a word from them since. The three men had planned to escort the entire troupe of opera-house employees to Topeka, where they would have to speak to the authorities about their activities. At the same time, Elijah was hoping to begin the paperwork that would give him the right to call Samuel his son. The deputy had predicted success, but Lily couldn’t make herself relax.
What if Beatrice had pulled some kind of trick? What if George Gibbons had gone off half-cocked? What if Elijah had run into legal problems over the adoption? What if … what if … what if …?
“It’s hard to put your whole faith in the Lord, Samuel,” she told the baby in her arms. Spreading a small quilt, she laid the child in the grass beside her. “I’ve always tried to manage things on my own, even though I never did a very good job of it. Sometimes, I’m afraid to trust.”
She studied the small stone cross and thought of the wrenching grief she had suffered. “This marker is in memory of Abigail,” she told Samuel as the baby took one of his own bare toes in his tiny fist. “Abigail was my daughter. Your sister, in a way. I loved her very much.”
Watching the baby through misted eyes, Lily pondered her loss. What if Elijah couldn’t get permission to adopt Samuel? What if the baby were taken from them? What if something terrible had happened to Elijah while he was in Topeka? What if … what if … what if … ?
“Here I am worrying again,” Lily whispered, giving Sam’s nose a gentle pat. “You’ll have to learn from your papa rather than me on this matter of letting God take control. I do miss Abby, Samuel. She was my precious daughter. But I’m so grateful to God for putting you into my arms. I want to be your mama, sweet boy. Is that all right?”
“It’s all right with me.”
Elijah’s voice took Lily’s breath away.
She swung around to find the man himself standing beside the church’s back door. “Elijah!” she cried, getting to her feet. “You came home! You’re safe!”
With a laugh, he caught her in his arms. “Where’s your faith, darlin’? We tried to make it back last night, but we were just too tired. Spent the night down the river a way, and then got up at dawn to make it here in time for the singing.”
“Oh, Elijah, what happened in Topeka? You have to tell me everything.”
“The judge shut down the opera house and threw George Gibbons in jail for operating an illegal business. Beatrice hightailed it off someplace before she could even get to court, and nobody could find her. She’s long gone. Seems the deed she and Gibbons were so proud of was nothing but a fake. So the judge gave the building to the town of Hope to start up a county school. How about that?”
“But what about Samuel? Can you adopt him? Is it going to be legal?”
“We can adopt him,” he said. “I found out that Reverend and Mrs. Elijah Book will have an easy time of it—easier than Brother Elijah all by himself, anyhow. So what would you say to taking care of first things first?”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked. She watched in confusion as Elijah took two strides across the grass, scooped up the baby, and headed back to the church. “Where are you going?”
“To get married. Care to join me?”
With
a laugh of disbelief, Lily followed the preacher into the church. As they stepped into the crowded room, the round rich notes of Lily’s melodeon suddenly filled the air. Everyone rose from the newly built benches and began to clap. Lily covered her mouth with her hand and stared in shock.
“Welcome home, Brother Elijah!” Rolf Rustemeyer called from his accustomed position beside Violet on the Hudson family’s pew. “We are waiting for you long time!”
“I had to round up another preacher,” Elijah said as everyone laughed and clapped again. “And I needed to find just the right person to play the music for our wedding.”
Lily glanced in the direction he pointed. There sat her melodeon. And playing the wedding march was … her mother! But how?
“Your father wanted her to come,” Elijah explained, “so he sent a wire to Philadelphia. She came on the first train.”
With a cry of joy, Lily dashed across the room and threw her arms around her mother. Tears streaming, the older woman lifted her hands from the organ and gathered her daughter close.
“Oh, Lily,” she whispered. “Your father told me everything.… I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”
“Mama, you came. You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
The older woman’s moist blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Well, you’d better not interrupt the music any longer, my dear. You know how your father feels about that sort of thing.”
Lily lifted her head to see the grand gentleman himself step into the small building along with Dr. Hardcastle, the pastor from the huge stone church in Philadelphia. As the music swelled, the two men marched to the front and took their places near the podium. Lily sat dumbfounded as her father began to sing “Ode to Joy.” His magnificent baritone filled the church, rattled the windows, and silenced the birds in the trees.
With a smile as broad as all outdoors, Elijah walked across the room and took Lily’s hand. “Will you marry me,” he asked, “this morning?”
Unable to speak, Lily nodded. Cradling Samuel in one arm, Elijah encircled Lily with the other as they walked to the altar. Dr. Hardcastle smiled and held out both his hands to her.
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