Her lips welcomed his, and he wanted to lose himself in her warmth. As he teased her ear with the tip of his tongue, she whispered his name. His fingers slipped along her, rediscovering every delight that awaited him. He brightened her skin with kisses until the longing for her became a need.
It took every bit of his willpower to release her as a clock downstairs chimed three times.
She rose and straightened her dress. “I must tend to Kitty Cat. The doctor said it’s important not to miss a single time of clearing out her throat.”
He stood more slowly. With his feet on a lower riser, his eyes were even with hers. His arm around her waist brought her back to him as he asked, “Will you be all right?” He shook his head. “I don’t know how many times I’ve asked you, and your answer’s the same. You’ll be fine.”
“I will be.”
He tipped her chin toward him. “I know how you hate to be alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have Kitty Cat in there.” She pointed to the bedroom, then put her hand over her heart. “And I have you here.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to stay in Haven?”
“For now. I really can’t make any plans.” She glanced at the bedroom door.
He tilted her face toward him again. “If, after she’s better, you want to go somewhere else, The Ohio Star will take you any place along the river where you want to settle.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice suddenly as cold as it had been when she bade her brother goodbye. Was that what she was telling him now?
He had thought now—when she had no more connections to River’s Haven—she would reconsider his offer for the life that would make them both happy. They would have each other and the lives they wanted. Or so he had thought. He had been wrong again.
As she turned to go back into the room, he opened his mouth to call after her. He closed it Anything he said now would only hurt her more.
Wyatt walked down the stairs, halting when he heard a weak cry. K. C.! That concoction that Rachel was using must burn her already ravaged throat. His hand tightened on the banister; then he strode out to the street. As he reached the gate, he saw Sawyer on his porch.
He was about to call to Sawyer and ask about the children, but paused when Mrs. Sawyer opened the door and held out her hand to her husband. The look they exchanged was so intimate that Wyatt felt like a voyeur. It linked them together, and it was made up of a tenderness that could not be described and a love that did not need to be.
Walking along the street, he stared at The Ohio Star. The fingers of smoke coming from the twin smokestacks announced that Horace had the boiler going, just as Wyatt had asked. The cargo was no longer on the deck, so it must have been put in the storage room, just as Wyatt had asked. The planks had been pulled in, disconnecting the boat with the land, just as Wyatt had asked.
He looked back at the village as he went down the hill to the river. Then he turned toward the river. He was a riverman, and he had a chance that few others got. The Ohio Star would make him and Horace rich men.
“How is K. C.?” Horace asked as Wyatt strode down the pier.
“Just the same.” Loosening one of the thick ropes from the post holding the boat in place, he tossed it onto the deck. He walked to the other.
“We’re really leaving today?” Horace walked along the prow of the boat, matching Wyatt’s steps. “You’re leaving them when the young’un is so sick?”
“Rachel told me to go so we didn’t lose The Ohio Star.” He jumped aboard, sensing the eagerness of the boat to take to the current in the middle of the river. He waited for the answering anticipation to fill him.
“This shipment can wait,” Horace argued.
“We’re more than a week late.”
“Who cares? There isn’t anything perishable in the storerooms.”
“Perishable …” He grabbed the railing on the stairs and started up them. “C’mon, Horace. You need to get the boiler sending some pressure to the wheels before we drift out into the river.”
“I can’t believe you’re abandoning her after you seduced her.”
Wyatt climbed to the uppermost deck with Horace trailing after him. Throwing open the door to the pilothouse, he faced his partner and asked, “And why can’t you believe that, Horace? Haven’t you abandoned every woman you’ve bedded up and down the Ohio?”
“You ain’t me, and Miss Rachel loves you!” Horace stayed outside the pilothouse, his hands fisted. He hit one against the other in frustration. “And you love her! That’s the difference!”
“We can’t talk about this now.” He glanced out the window. “The boat’s drifting away from the pier. Will you get the wheels turning?”
He thought Horace would say something more, but his partner stamped away. Wyatt was sure he could hear every step between the upper deck and the boiler room.
Resting his arms on the wheel, Wyatt waited for the whistle that would tell him the boat was ready to get underway. He started to look downriver, but his eyes were drawn back to the little town huddled beside the Ohio. When he and Horace had first come here, seeking a haven to repair The Ohio Star, he had not guessed that he would leave with his mind on a woman who had given him every reason to stay. Every reason, but then she had asked him to go to seek his dreams upon the river.
The whistle squealed up the tube beside the wheel. He reached for the controls for the paddlewheels. This would be the first time he had piloted The Ohio Star with both her paddlewheels working. A dream come true was now his. He steered the boat out into the river, this time not looking at anything but the water.
“Easy, easy,” Rachel said as she put her arm around Kitty Cat. Rearranging the little girl’s hands on the neck of the guitar, she added, “I told you that you could play it only if you didn’t sing. You can’t strain your throat now.”
“But, Rachel—”
She put her finger to the child’s lips. “No unnecessary talking either, Kitty Cat. You must rest your throat so you don’t get sick again. That’s the C chord. Now show me that G chord.”
As Kitty Cat stretched her short fingers to place them in the proper place among the frets, Rachel smiled. She had almost given up on miracles, but Kitty Cat was alive. As the doctor had told her, once the little girl passed the most crucial moment of the disease’s progress, the first signs of recovery would come swiftly.
Across the street, both Sean and Belinda were slowly recovering. Others had not been so lucky. Many houses still had new cases, and more than a dozen people had died. Four of those were children from River’s Haven, but they had been beyond help when they arrived in the village.
Somewhere amid all the work and the prayers, she had been cured, too. She had committed her life to River’s Haven because she had been afraid of death, which had taken all her family except Merrill. As she had fought to save Kitty Cat, she realized that she had to accept death as she had learned with Wyatt’s help to accept life. She had to let go of what had been and not regret its loss, but relish the memories she would never lose.
She looked in the direction of River’s Haven. In the past two days, all sorts of rumors had come along the river, and she had no idea which ones might be true. There were whispers that everyone in the Community was gone or dead. Other stories suggested that the River’s Haven folks had found a surefire cure for diphtheria but would not share it. That rumor she did not believe, because the River’s Haven children would not still be here if that was true. She hoped the other tale was as inaccurate.
A whistle blew, and Kitty Cat tried to move to look out the window toward the railroad tracks.
With a laugh, Rachel kept her in place. “Young lady, you need to rest. Doc Bamburger told me the last time he was here that you must stay away from drafts.”
Rachel’s smile evaporated as she picked up the guitar and put it in a corner of the small bedroom. Doc Bamburger was now sick with the disease he had tried to halt. The village
rs were left on their own without the doctor’s gentle care or any medicine. Telegrams sent seeking help had not been answered. No one, not even doctors, wanted to risk death by coming to Haven.
Had that whistle announced the train arriving from Chicago with the medicine the village so desperately needed? She hoped so.
What her heart yearned for could not be relieved that easily. She lowered her eyes before Kitty Cat could see her sorrow. How odd that she now had what she had always hoped for—a family—but the dream was hollow without Wyatt.
“Are we done with my lesson?” whispered Kitty Cat. “Will you read me a story?”
“The one from Miss Underhill’s fairy tale book?” She smiled weakly.
“Yes! The one about the princess on a glass mountain and the prince who rescued her.”
Picking up the book, Rachel sat on the bed. She started to page through it. When Kitty Cat took it and balanced it on her lap, the little girl quickly found the story she wanted.
“‘Once upon a time,’” Rachel began, “‘there was a king with a daughter so beautiful that he placed her on a glass mountain. Only the bravest, most worthy knight would be able to scale it and win her heart. So she sat there, day after day, year after—’”
“Rachel!” Alice came running up the stairs.
Putting down the book, Rachel called, “We’re in here.”
“Rachel, Emma just stopped by to say that medicine and doctors have arrived in Haven!” She smiled at Kitty Cat. “Maybe everyone else can be saved.”
“Doctors?” asked Rachel. “How did anyone convince them to come here?”
“I can be very persuasive,” said a deeper voice from the hallway. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“Wyatt!” She jumped up from the bed.
He scooped her up into his arms and twirled her about. As he lowered her back to her feet, his mouth slanted across hers, eager and demanding and offering her everything she had feared was lost forever. She locked her fingers behind his nape and clung to him, fearing if she let him go she would open her eyes to find he was only the fantasy created by a broken heart.
When he raised his mouth from hers, his heart beat against her and his breath warmed her face. He was real!
“What are you doing back here?” she asked, combing her fingers up through his hair. She wanted to touch every inch of him to convince herself that he was really here holding her. “Your shipment was going to take you at least a week down the river.”
“I couldn’t worry about delivering some dry goods down the river. My most important delivery was right back here to Haven.”
“You? You brought doctors and medicine?”
His thumb coursed along her cheekbones as he smiled. “They really didn’t need much persuading. The doctors want to stop this outbreak of diphtheria before it goes beyond Haven and River’s Haven.”
“River’s Haven? You took doctors there, too?”
“Our first stop once we had a full cargo of help to bring here.” He smiled. “Your brother’s alive and well and just as ornery as ever, but even he had to see the sense of getting assistance from outsiders.”
She closed her eyes, but could not halt her tears. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed as she had not dared to since before her father died. She had been determined to be strong, first for Merrill and then for both Wyatt and Kitty Cat.
He put his arms around her and let her weep against his chest.
“Wyatt!” called Kitty Cat.
Rachel stepped away and chided, “Kitty Cat, you must not shout.”
Taking Rachel’s hand, he led her into the bedroom. Alice smiled and stepped out, closing the door. He sat on the bed and smiled.
“How are you doing, K. C.?” When she opened her mouth to answer, he added, “Quietly.”
“Better,” the little girl whispered. “Rachel’s teaching me to play the guitar, and she reads me stories, and she tells me about how Sean and his sister are doing.”
“Pretty boring, huh?”
Kitty Cat dimpled and nodded.
Ruffling her hair, he said, “You’ll be better soon. You’d better be. I’m going to need you to help me.”
“On The Ohio Star?”
Although his answer was for the child, he looked up at Rachel as he said, “No, not on The Ohio Star. I sold my share of it to Horace just before I came ashore.”
“You did what?” Rachel gasped.
He stood and folded her hands between his. “Honey, I couldn’t endure having you be let down again by someone you love … by someone who loves you.”
She repeated his last words silently, then asked, no louder than Kitty Cat’s whisper, “But, Wyatt, owning that boat with Horace was what you’ve always wanted.”
“It was, but it’s not what I want from this point forward. What Horace was able to give me now will be enough to buy a few acres of land. I hear those left at River’s Haven are going to be selling off everything there. I’ve been thinking of buying a small cottage like one I saw from the river. A small cottage with a red door that will be perfect for you and me and Kitty Cat.” He chuckled. “And anyone else who comes along.”
“You want to live at River’s Haven?” She could not believe she was hearing him correctly.
“No!” He laughed again. “But we can build a replica of your cottage on some land near the river. There, we’ll also build our own pier, and I can repair boats. I’m very good at it, you know.”
“So Horace told me.” If this was a dream, it was the sweetest one she had ever had.
“My agreement with Horace is that he’ll pay me a small percentage of the profits from the boat, which will help me buy the machinery I need from River’s Haven’s metal shop. Horace intends to gather up some of his kids along the river to help him on The Ohio Star. So what do you say, honey? I’ve admitted that I can change my mind. Will you tell me that you’ve changed your mind, too, and give up the notion that you never want to get married? Will you marry me?”
“Yes, she will,” piped up Kitty Cat from the bed.
Rachel hugged the little girl, then looked back at Wyatt. Softly she said, “Yes, I will.”
Epilogue
The guests were gone. The cake was now crumbs among the other emptied dishes on the table. The music and laughter had faded away, leaving only the songs of the insects and the river to swirl through the night. A soft breeze barely moved the leaves in the tall trees that stretched their branches over the small cottage in a verdant blanket. In the cottage, a single lamp burned in the larger bedroom, for the one in the smaller room had been extinguished nearly an hour ago. Above the trees, the stars could not challenge the brilliant glow of the half-moon. Its light danced atop the ripples in the river.
Rachel drew her gaze from the water as she heard footfalls behind her. Standing from where she had been sitting on one of the pair of rocking chairs on the porch, she held out her hand to Wyatt—to her husband.
He wove his fingers through hers. “That was the best housewarming party I’ve ever attended, honey.”
“Was it the only housewarming party you’ve attended?”
He laughed and spun her into his arms. “You’re never going to stop being so honest, are you?”
“No, because I want you to know how happy I am to be with you and Kitty Cat here. Our own house and our own family. It seems incredible.”
“You’re incredible, honey.” Even in the moonlight, she could see that roguish sparkle come into his eyes. “Now that everyone is gone, but us, I think it’s time to warm up our house in the very best way.”
“I like how you think.” She kissed him quickly, then stepped back, holding out her fingers to him.
Again, he clasped her hand, and they walked hand in hand through the door that in the daylight would be a brilliant red.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Haven Trilogy
One
Nanny Goat Hill Road
Haven, Indiana, 1876
“Do I have to finish
these carrots?”
Samuel Jennings looked up from the stove where he was dishing out food for himself. At the table, three red-haired children were waiting for his answer. He saw a smile twitching on the boy’s face, but the two younger girls wore hopeful expressions.
Six months ago, he could not have imagined having three kids on the farm he had bought after he left Cincinnati. He had been quite content to live alone here. Yet, when he had heard about an orphan train coming to the village of Haven along the Ohio River, he had gone to look for a lad to help him with some of the farmwork.
Instead of one, he had returned to Nanny Goat Hill Road with three children. Ten-year-old Brendan Rafferty and his younger sisters, Megan and Lottie, had been willing to help, but the girls were so young there was little they could do other than weed the kitchen garden.
“I thought you liked carrots, Brendan,” Samuel said, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses, then reaching across the table to do the same for Lottie’s smaller ones. He had not been certain if Delancy’s General Store could order spectacles small enough for a child who would not celebrate her fourth birthday for another month.
“I thought I did, too.” Brendan toyed with the orange slices on his plate.
Megan piped up, “I like them.”
“No, you don’t.” The boy flashed his sister a frown.
“No, I don’t,” she said, looking down at his plate.
Samuel chuckled under his breath. Even after half a year here, the Rafferty children sometimes banded together to help each other as if they were still without a home. Other times they fought like puppies with a single bone.
“Do you like them or not, Megan?” he asked and watched as she grinned, revealing the spot where a pair of teeth had not yet grown back in.
“I do, but I don’t want Brendan’s.”
Lottie bounced in her chair and said, “I don’t want mine neither. Dahi doesn’t want’m neither.”
“I thought Dahi liked carrots,” he replied as he put the lid back on the pot. At first, he had been unsettled by Lottie’s comments about a friend no one else could see, but now he was as accustomed to having this invisible Dahi around as he was to everything else about the children.
Moonlight on Water Page 28