The Secret Admirer Romance Collection

by Barratt, Amanda; Beatty, Lorraine; Bull, Molly Noble

  She then dictated a wire to Mr. Langley, in whom she’d entrusted the trade license, stating that the store had been robbed during its vacancy, that it was urgent he restock with all the merchandise on the duplicate inventory sheet in his possession, and to include an additional month’s supply of food for two, and a pair of boy’s trousers and white shirt suitable for church.

  “How long will it take for the message to be received?” Emilia asked.

  The man spoke with the speed of a dying clock. “That depends on the gauge of the copper wire, the distance between repeater stations, and if there is a thunder storm, in which case lightning can speed the signal. All things considered,” he finally summed up, “within the hour.”

  There was, at least, relief in that. And Mr. Langley being a timely man, the order would ship in a day. With the advent of the railroad connecting all the way to Kansas City, she could conceivably have food in two weeks. But what to do in the meantime?

  The women were polite yet always in too much a hurry to chat. Except for Mrs. Vandemark, who shunned Emilia altogether. When Emilia went to the schoolhouse, the teacher stammered about not being trained to teach a deaf child, and Josiah’s enrollment was rejected. This was the worst blow of all, and Emilia clenched her teeth every time she thought of it. She had been blasted with a cold front long before winter had set in, and she didn’t know why.

  Over the ensuing week, Emilia made several attempts to speak to Mrs. Vandemark, but the woman wouldn’t deign to even raise the ear horn. It came to a head when Emilia made a more forceful attempt to confront the woman after the next church service, but the matriarch turned away.

  “What have I done to breed your contempt?” Emilia erupted, in the sanctuary no less. But she was determined to leave this partially deaf woman no excuse for ignoring her. She failed to ascertain the acoustics, however, and her voice rang out clear as a bell inside the church. The mingling congregation fell silent and turned to look at them, including Cyrus Holden.

  Mrs. Vandemark spun around like a spring ready to snap. “Indeed,” she said, matching Emilia’s tone. “It is not I whom you’ve offended, but God!”

  “What did I do to incur your displeasure?” Emilia begged.

  “You know very well what you did!” The woman shook her ear horn. “Feigning innocence in the face of such a sin should breed contempt.”

  “What sin? What did I do? Say it,” Emilia challenged. “Say it for everyone to hear!”

  The spring did snap as Mrs. Vandemark stabbed the point of the horn at Emilia and declared, “I’ll do more than that!” Whirling, she marched out of the building.

  After this, the townswomen looked on Emilia with pity, but none did more than smile. Dispiriting as this was, at least she and the boy didn’t face hunger. The Lord did provide, and it came in the form of an anonymous person. Each night fresh meat was left hanging in a burlap bag outside the door. Did she have a secret admirer? But what kind of an amour leaves dead birds? Yet when she and Josiah blessed their dinner each night, she thanked the Lord for the bounteous gifts and asked that He bless the giver threefold.

  She believed it was Cyrus Holden’s doing until she learned that he doubled as a carpenter for the college and was spending most of his time finishing an extension before the upcoming semester. The blacksmith, perhaps?

  Throughout all of the struggles, Emilia had kept Asa’s last letter tucked up inside her sleeve as a reminder of why she had come out here. Though only paper, she had hoped it would feel warm, like a hand on her wrist. Instead, it felt cool, like a shackle.

  Fortunately, the shipment arrived in only ten days. It had taken two wagons to transport such a comprehensive inventory from Kansas City, and to her surprise, Cyrus Holden was one of the drivers. “I was already there picking up lumber for the college,” he explained.

  The unloaded crates created a towering maze throughout the store, and Josiah raced around and climbed up them for hours. But the wooden crates posed a problem for Emilia: the lids were nailed shut, and the crowbar she needed was packed inside one of them. Mr. Holden retrieved a tool from his wagon to assist. She gritted her teeth: once again she was beholden to Mr. Holden! While he pried off lids, Emilia unpacked, and to her astonishment there were additional supplies she had not ordered. “What are these?” she asked, taking out stacks of metal pans and screens, and an entire crate of small picks.

  “It looks like mining supplies,” he offered.

  “What on earth would anyone here do with mining tools?”

  “There’s a gold rush in Colorado. I’ve heard that prospectors are going through Fort Riley for supplies, but the shortest route to Denver is here, through Manhattan. Once they learn that your store has reopened, I bet they will stream through here and buy up half your inventory.”

  Emilia was stunned. “How very insightful of Mr. Langley to include such items.” When she dropped the pick back into the box, Asa’s last letter slipped out of her sleeve and fell into the packing straw. Before she could reach for it, Mr. Holden had already retrieved it. When his eyes met the name on the envelope, a painful expression darkened his face. Had the sight of a war correspondence triggered unpleasant memories for him?

  Vividly, she recalled that day at the Canandaigua post. The embarrassment of fainting into this man’s arms, compounded by his male arrogance at the church when he tried to dissuade Mr. Goodnow from offering her the store, had prejudiced her heart against him.

  But he had changed out here, or at least her perception of him had. And never more so than in this fleeting moment, as she became inexplicably aware of every nuance of his person. Of his scent: he smelled of sawdust and lye soap. Of his height: even bent over his half-stance made her feel small but safe. Of his hair: it was thick and wavy, and the sunlight filtering through the storefront window glinted across the highlights.

  When she reached out for the proffered letter, her arm brushed his, and her skin tingled with the sensation of his muscled arm through his shirtsleeve. She became acutely aware that he hadn’t shaved this morning and actually found the ruggedness attractive. Still stunned by the unexpected sight of the letter, his lips had parted and revealed not only a scar on the upper lip but also an adjacent chipped tooth. She imagined the butt of a rifle striking him dead in the face, breaking that tooth, and found herself wondering what emotion lay behind his often brooding expression.

  What had awakened her senses to him? It wasn’t just his physique or attraction. It was pain. That expression that crossed his face was one of suffering, and empathy had opened her heart, and then her eyes, as she looked directly into his. All this had transpired in a matter of seconds, but routine and random thoughts had stilled, and time with it. It was as if she had suddenly stepped out of sync with the harried dance of everyday life and found herself exposed to the pull of a strange and new—what? Emotion? Perception? Recognition? Contrition? Perhaps there was another word for it, one her mind refused to form.

  In that moment, something beyond will had brought her eyes up. It was as if an external pull drew them to his eyes—and her heart closer to her chest as it began to pound harder. He not only met her gaze, he held it. But it wasn’t with curiosity or any form of earnestness. Those brown eyes revealed…an apology and the longing to speak.

  He drew himself upright and handed her the letter with an obvious, “You dropped this.”

  “Oh, yes, thank you.” She never knew the throat could flush until she felt heat shoot up her neck. “This is that letter.”

  “Yes, I recognize it.”

  “Asa wrote about his new vision to come out west. I have clung to it in the hope it would buoy my resolve.”

  “Has it?”

  Even her lashes felt heavy as she dropped her eyes from the weight of what had become her life. “No.”

  He put on his hat, the cue that he was about to leave, and her heart dropped back into place. If he didn’t bow out soon, she knew this awkwardness between them would become glaringly apparent, and she sensed
he did, as well. “I’ve been working at the college,” he explained. “I plan to finish the window casings tomorrow, leave around three o’clock. There are some extra boards I would like to bring over, to build shelves so you can stock more inventory.”

  “Thank you, but you must let me pay you.”

  “That’s not necessary, Miss Davis.”

  “Well, then, supper it is.” What else could she do? She refused to be indebted to him. “I’m not a very good cook, so dining at this establishment might prove a trial of your manhood.”

  “Better your trial by cooking than some of the other rites of passage I’ve heard about.” He grinned. “Tomorrow, then, and I’ll come with my best courage.” With a nod, he left.

  As if with his own little show of manliness, Josiah labored to stack the crates and then climb his self-made summits. All the while, Emilia’s thoughts kept returning to that night she saw Cyrus Holden’s silhouette against the Milky Way. He could not have struck a more impressionable scene if he had staged it. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t shake that image of him standing among the stars.

  Shopkeeper duties kept her busy the whole of the day, emptying crates and stocking shelves. Colorful boxes, tins, and shiny bottles, polished metal utensils and a large candy jar, transformed a barren room into a mercantile in a matter of hours. A surge of enthusiasm lifted her spirits and was soon accompanied by curiosity when she discovered another unusual item. Coiled neatly inside the pair of boy trousers was a silver whistle on a cord. She cocked her jaw as she wondered why Preston would include a whistle, of all things. Could it be he had someone here in Manhattan reporting to him? Telling him that she had taken in a deaf boy? A whistle! How perfect! If Josiah ever became lost, he could “call” to her! It was the gift of peace of mind. How intuitive of him. She put it around Josiah’s neck at once, showed him how to blow it, and indicated that he was to wear it at all times. One would have thought it was pure silver the way he admired it.

  Had Preston also been responsible for the nightly gifts of food? Well, she concluded, prairie hens and whistles showed the workings of a practical mind, not overtures from a secret lover. But when she looked into the last crate, she had to revisit her assessment of the family advisor. Carefully, if not lovingly, placed on top in a nest of straw, was a velvet box the size of a folded letter. Opening it, inside she found—a bottle of perfume! It was made of orange frosted glass with an embossed label that read “Orange Blossom” and “New York Perfume Company.”

  Emilia cradled the bottle in her hands, gasping, “I don’t believe it!” Pulling off the stopper, she smelled the fragrance. “Orange blossoms!” she exclaimed in a weeping laugh. Dabbing several drops into her palms, she rubbed them together, cupped them to her face and inhaled the scent.

  “Josiah!” she called out, and she looked up to see that he was standing on a crate at the top of his highest summit yet. “Josiah, do you know what this is?” She rushed over to him, careful not to spill a drop, and let him smell it. He scrunched his nose as if to say, “Girly.”

  “Oh, Josiah, my papa had a potted orange blossom tree. Its scent brought a part of him back to me. Of all the things of home, I miss that tree the most. And here it is! I can’t believe it! Who would send this to me? Who could have possibly known?” And the only plausible answer was Preston Langley.

  Suddenly, she was aware of someone watching her. Looking over, she saw Cyrus Holden standing just outside the opened front door, not wanting to intrude. Was he early, or was it that late? Emilia straightened her skirt. “Please, come in.” Quickly, she inhaled another waft of the aroma before replacing the bottle in its box and safe-housing it in a drawer.

  Mr. Holden rolled up his sleeves and went to work, hanging shelves on the bare wall. As he finished, she quickly filled them with more of her wares. “Yes,” she exclaimed with hands on her hips, surveying her mercantile, “it looks like a store, indeed!”

  Emilia served canned ham, a jar of applesauce, crackers, and cheese, and it proved a better meal than she had expected as they dined on a blanket behind the store. It was odd that he brought his saddlebag with him to the meal. Daily bumping and rubbing had created a crease in the leather around the square contents.

  “Well,” she said at the conclusion of the meal, “it appears you have bravely survived this trial of manhood.”

  “I would find it a most pleasing ritual any day of the week,” he replied. He cleared his throat, put his hand on the saddlebag. “There is something I need to give you, Miss Davis.”

  The tone in his voice, the serious expression on his face, sent her heart racing, and she became scared—of what? No, she didn’t like the way he made her feel. Routine, order, the control of a needle creating designs of her making, these made her feel secure. The flushing, surging emotions he triggered were unacceptable. A tide may be powerful, but one doesn’t have to stand in its pull.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” she waved off. “I wish I could do more to thank you, Mr. Holden.” She led Josiah back into the store, leaving Cyrus Holden to follow. Her intention was to finalize the evening with idle conversation. This was cut short, as if with a knife, when she laid eyes on a peculiar object tacked to the wide-opened front door.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Davis?” His eyes followed her gaze until he saw it, too.

  Posted on the mercantile door, for all to see, was a piece of cloth twelve inches square. On it was embroidered a symbol, done with a fine and artistic hand. Wrenchingly gorgeous scarlet thread formed a bold and elegant letter A. Had it been left on the counter, she might have thought it another secreted gift from someone who assumed her name began with an A for the familiar spelling of Amelia.

  But the accompanying book propped up in the storefront window, for all to see, left no doubt its meaning—The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Who? Why? But the meaning was abundantly clear. This book was about a character named Hester Prynne, a young woman found with child in 1642 Puritan Boston, who was forced to wear this defaming emblem.

  This was the scarlet letter A for adulteress.

  Her face burned until it surely matched the color of the threads. Her mouth fell slack, her hands dropped. So that was why the women had shunned her. When Emilia had taken off her work gloves, they had seen her barren ring finger and judged her for being an unwed mother.

  Furious, Cyrus ripped the fabric off the door. “Emilia,” he said, his voice charged with emotion, “I’m sorry. I’ll burn it. No one’s seen it yet, I’m sure.”

  A wave of shock threw her back against the counter. Opposite that sensation of stepping outside the whirling circle of life, she felt as if it was crushing in, sucking the breath out of her.

  “He’s not even my son!” she choked.

  “I know, I know.” He approached her, the fabric wadded inside his fist. “He doesn’t look a thing like you or Asa.” He took her by the shoulders and lowered her onto one of crates. “It wouldn’t matter if he were.” Cyrus’s voice was distant, even though he was kneeling right beside her. “You would still be the same to me,” he said, his words garbled in her head.

  “No, no,” she stammered, then shouted toward the door, “He is my boy. Josiah is my boy!” Her face was wet, and only then did she realize she was crying. When Cyrus tried to dab at her cheek with a handkerchief, all she could see was that swatch of fabric with the scarlet letter before her eyes. “Go!” she cried. “Go away. Please, go away. And tell them, tell them all, that Josiah is my boy!”

  Her vision cleared enough to see Cyrus walking through the doorway with the condemning piece of cloth in his hand. “No, leave it, Cyrus. Leave it. It’s mine.” Deliberately now, he crossed to the cash register, opened the drawer, and placed the scarlet letter inside. Was this his way of saying someone would pay for this?

  The sun seemed to set the next instant. How long had it been since Cyrus had left? Emilia was in the same spot, only now Josiah was in her arms. He didn’t understand this dark change that had come over
his proxy mother and had climbed into her lap, seeking reassurance. As darkness filled the store, she began singing to him, as a mother would sing to her child,

  “Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night.

  Guardian angels God will send thee,

  all through the night….

  I my loved ones’ watch am keeping,

  all through the night….”

  Chapter 10

  Word is you be open and sell’n min’n supplies.” The man lisped through the gaps in his teeth. He was the first of the prospectors to come into the store. How the word of her mercantile had spread, she didn’t know, but a steady stream of settlers and miners began passing through Manhattan.

  Now that the war was over, the Homestead Act had become the siren call to more than just Asa. Former soldiers and settlers from throughout the Union and Confederacy turned a trickle into a flood of travelers over the ensuing weeks. It was as if someone had raised a sluice, and a river of people, oxen, horses, and donkeys streamed through eastern Kansas and converged down this street. The soldiers from the fort were now assigned postwar to protect not only the railroad workers but these visionaries as well, and added gallantry to the town as they rode abreast the wagon companies in their blue uniforms.

  With this flood came sales. Emilia sold out her inventory three times over. It was exhausting to run the store, keep the books, and supervise Josiah. The restocking went smoothly thanks to Cyrus, whom she was on first-name basis with, though that was the extent of their familiarity. Her temper was at a constant simmer over the scarlet letter, and his brooding demeanor had returned, except with Josiah, whom he taught how to plant a garden behind the telegraph office, whittle sticks into fishing poles, dig for arrowheads, and shoot a slingshot.