“I need you,” he said.
Sarah paused. She stilled her grasp on the hairbrush she’d doubtless meant to hurl next and regarded him with a look he murkily recognized. Dread gripped him. ’Twas the look she had worn before asking him, twice, if he loved her.
Something else crossed her face. She tightened her lips. Daniel felt her slipping away from him, slipping as surely as had his grasp of standing upright, or of speaking sensibly tonight.
Perhaps he had imbibed too much, he decided in afterthought. Especially while celebrating, upon Marcus’s advice and Jack’s grudging agreement, his impending reunion with his wife.
“I want an annulment,” Sarah said quietly. “I’ll be by to collect my things later this week.”
Then she closed her shutters and darkness fell, leaving Daniel to stand there alone in the street…bereft of hope in a way he never had been before. Because now he knew he needed Sarah—and he knew, equally surely, that she was well and truly lost to him.
Sarah sat in her family’s parlor the next evening, her lap full of knitting and her mind full of thoughts of Daniel. She hadn’t slept at all after closing the shutters on him last night. Now, after a day’s teaching, she felt scarcely like herself. Tiredness bore down on her, along with a sadness deeper than she’d felt before.
What had Daniel been about, coming to her past midnight the way he had? He’d hardly looked the same man, with his whiskered face all miserable and beseeching, his speech broken and his steps lumbering. That he’d been drinking had been plain. Whether doing so had loosened his resistance to her or kindled his desire to have a handy washerwoman in his home seemed less clear. Either way, Sarah could not risk trusting him.
Tightening her resolve, she knit a few rows. Soon she would go back to the small house she’d shared with Daniel and take away her things, once and for all. But today she hadn’t been able to face the prospect—not with Eli leaving on the eastbound train, and not with her many sleepless nights weighing on her. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
“Sarah, did you hear me? You look far away.”
At the sound of Grace’s voice, Sarah glanced up. “I’m sorry. I find myself woolgathering a lot these days.”
She cringed inwardly, regretting the words instantly. Her family was bound to leap on them and chide her for being too dreamy, too prone to fanciful imaginings. If only they’d known how such wishing had come crashing down around her.
After a thoughtful perusal, all Grace said was, “I was merely mentioning how solidly Lillian has won me over. I know you believe Daniel has all the charm in that family, but I think Lillian wound up with her share of it, as well.”
Mama nodded. “She’s a lovely woman. It was very kind of her to visit all of us yesterday. We are family now, you know.”
Sarah decided it would not be diplomatic to remind Mama of her impending annulment. She sighed, remembering it herself.
“Lillian shows a fine appreciation for a good newspaper.” Papa turned the pages of his periodical. “That’s an excellent quality in any woman.”
“Also, she has several very interesting ideas about housekeeping.” Mama leaned forward with enthusiasm. “Lillian is quite clever with a box of borax and a horsehair brush.”
“She may have a position for me with a charity organization in Philadelphia,” Grace confided nonchalantly. “Lillian may well change my life.”
Sarah gawked. She hadn’t been the only one who’d been affected by Daniel’s sister. Her whole family adored the woman.
“I’ll admit, it’s enough to make me wish Lillian and Eli and Lyman hadn’t had to leave today,” she found herself saying wistfully. “But it’s a long way to Philadelphia. If they’re to arrive there before Christmas—”
“Leave?” Her papa looked surprised. He lowered his periodical, peering at her over its pages. “You, my girl, have obviously not read your father’s newspaper today.”
He tsk-tsked, then went back to it, leaving Sarah baffled. She gazed to Grace, then her mother.
“It seems the eastbound train has been delayed,” Fiona explained. “Due to bad weather farther down the tracks. It will be past Christmas before it’s cleared.”
“Yes, I understand the Lorndorff Hotel is completely full, and so are all the boarding houses in town,” Grace added. “Jack Murphy has delayed travelers sleeping on his saloon floor for a nickel apiece.”
“Hmm. Very enterprising of him,” Papa approved.
“I’ve charged four cents apiece for a place upstairs and booked twice as many travelers.” Grace’s mouth quirked with suppressed amusement, even as she placidly examined the political pamphlet she’d been reading. “Jack was fit to be tied at being undersold.”
Papa hooted with laughter. “That’s my girl.”
Mama only shook her head. “Grace, have pity on the man.”
But Sarah couldn’t listen any longer. Somehow, being among her close-knit family only made her feel more alone. She stood, trailing yarn from her cupped hands.
“Good night, everyone.”
Her mama blinked with surprise. “Going to sleep already?” Her gaze meandered to Sarah’s handfuls of wool, then lifted. “Why, if you stop knitting now, you’ll never finish that innovative pair of woolen britches you’ve been making.”
“It’s a sock, Mama. A sock.” Sarah didn’t want to say so, but knitting the green monstrosity somehow made her feel closer to Daniel. By now, he could have fit one whole leg in the thing—up to his hip. “Good night.”
She headed upstairs, her mama’s voice following her in puzzlement. “My goodness. Daniel must have very large feet, mustn’t he?”
“I think you should stay here.” Daniel studied Lillian and Lyman seriously, feeling as though the snowstorm in Nebraska had granted him a rare reprieve. “Eli took to the territory right away. There are business opportunities aplenty here for Lyman. And Lillian, you—”
His sister eyed him interestedly from across her hotel room. She’d always been eager to leave Morrow Creek.
“Eli hasn’t even been fishing yet,” Daniel finished heartily. It was better, he reckoned, to bypass any problems. “He has to go fishing with his uncle.”
“I’ll send him for another visit. Maybe next summer?”
The boy perked up. “We can fish in the summertime!”
Damn it. That would be fine, but it wasn’t the point. “It’s wholesome here. The city is filled with soot and grime and criminals. It’s no place for a child.”
Lillian rose, looking amused. “It’s filled with museums and parks and wonderful shops, too. Besides, a little dirt didn’t hurt you as a boy. I recall your coming home grubby-faced on a daily basis, with snakes in your pockets.”
Daniel and Eli shared a befuddled glance.
“What’s wrong with snakes?” they asked.
His sister smiled. She gave Daniel’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as she passed by on her way to retrieve something.
“Perhaps if you would take care of your own life,” she suggested with care, “you wouldn’t be so interested in mine.”
Daniel frowned. He should have taken exception at that, but there was something about the way Lillian said things that made staying annoyed with her difficult. Besides, he had tried to take care of his life with Sarah, had tried to make her come back and love him again. It hadn’t worked.
He watched absently as Lillian selected a cut-glass jar from the bureau. She dipped out some of its contents, spreading cream on her hands.
“Isn’t Sarah coming to see you today?” she asked.
Jolted from his reverie, Daniel nodded. “Tonight. She’s coming tonight to collect her things.”
Lillian knew all of the story. He’d confided as much to her. She offered him a sympathetic look. “Be nice to her.”
Nice to her? Sarah was coming to force an annulment from him. An annulment he did not want! On the verge of reminding his sister of that appalling fact, Daniel stopped.
There was something familiar about
that jar of hand cream, he mused. Something that, with tonight’s unwelcome encounter looming, gave him a desperate, last-ditch idea….
Feeling shaky, yet blessedly dry-eyed, Sarah stood on her former front porch. The holiday wreath Daniel and Eli had made stared her in the face. It felt eons since she’d first seen it. Now it hung there, innocently festive and woefully crooked, reminding her of everything she’d lost.
With a gloved hand, she straightened it. There. That was better. Now the wreath looked a merry harbinger of the coming holidays. Sarah drew in a deep breath and prepared to knock.
Doing so felt beyond peculiar. She’d grown accustomed to coming inside at will, to thinking of the household as hers as well as Daniel’s. She wondered if he’d ever felt the same.
I need you, she recalled, and felt her resolve to be firm—to behave with decorum and dignity—waver, just the merest bit. If he truly needed her…
The door opened. It was a shock to find herself face-to-face with her husband. It was a larger shock to find him sporting a face full of polka-dotted splotches.
She peered closer. “Is that…Miss Olga’s Original All-Natural Wart Cure-All and Preventative?”
Looking mortified, Daniel touched his cheeks.
“We can’t do this today,” he blurted, then shut the door.
Sarah found herself staring at the wreath again. Perplexed, she knocked once more.
“Go away,” came his muffled voice from within. “You’ll have to get your things another day.”
Was he fooling with her? Frowning, she marched to the window. She could just make out Daniel standing in the front room, his shaggy-haired head cocked toward the closed door. He had on a pair of britches and a misbuttoned shirt, and aside from his wart cream application, looked very manly.
Although he also did seem as if he could use some caring for. His shoulders still were broad, but there was a…hungry sort of look about him, too. Sarah bit her lip, worrying.
She rapped on the window.
He jerked, startled.
“Please cooperate, Daniel.” Her breath made a frosty pattern on the window glass. She gestured to the door, turning her hand to indicate maneuvering the knob. “Let me in.”
She would just as soon have this finished. It was painful enough without dragging it out unnecessarily.
“Come back tomorrow,” he yelled.
Then he bolted for the kitchen and disappeared from sight.
The next day, Sarah felt more prepared. Outfitted in an old dress topped with the dark blue cape Daniel had always liked, she marched to his house with deliberate steps. Today she would reclaim all her belongings and demand his cooperation with their annulment. She would have this finished.
Just see if she didn’t.
Her mind filled with bolstering images of herself regally carrying away a box of her belongings, she ascended the front steps. She would hold her head high, and not let Daniel know how he’d hurt her. She would smile, and not let him know how he still occupied her thoughts. She would calm her frantically beating heart, and not give away the fact that she still felt madly, stupidly in love with the husband she was about to sever relations with.
Preoccupied with trying to achieve such miracles, Sarah stumbled into something. She nearly slipped. Crying out, she braced herself with one arm against the house’s siding, then glanced down at the snowy porch floorboards.
A pile of lumber had tripped her. Its pungent pine smell should have been a warning, since it looked freshly planed.
Daniel came round the corner, another board tucked beneath his burly arm. Around his coat-covered waist he’d buckled a tool belt of some kind. A pencil showed, work-manlike, behind his ear. He moved with purpose, frowning slightly as he approached the front door.
He saw her, and his whole face brightened.
She saw that happiness in him and wanted desperately to respond in kind. But she was here for a purpose, Sarah reminded herself staunchly. She could not be swayed. Not even by Daniel’s beloved, warmhearted…oh, sweet heaven…knee-weakening smile.
Not even if that smile seemed meant for her alone.
“Sarah.” His voice rumbled with pleasure.
“Daniel.” Hers trembled with uncertainty. She cleared it, endeavoring to muster some discipline. She had missed him so! “I trust you’ll let me in today? I don’t have a great many things to take with me, but in light of our impending annul—”
“Can’t do it today.” Cheerfully, Daniel slung his board around and planted it on the porch. He stood behind it with his legs spread and his arms gripping the wood, looking like a brawny, jolly lumberman. “I’ve taken up woodworking. I have a great deal to do. All this lumber to whittle.”
He nodded to the pile.
“Whittle?” Dumbly, she stared at the wood.
“Yep.” He nodded. He breathed hard, as though he’d been busy at “whittling” all morning. “I’m making toothpicks.”
“Toothpicks!” The notion was outlandish. Disbelieving, she examined the boards. “Are you mad? That will take weeks!”
“If I’m lucky,” he agreed amiably.
His gaze traveled from her boot tips to her wrapped cape, then seemed to get stuck, lingeringly, on her face. His perusal made Sarah feel hot all over. It was a most unwelcome feeling. She’d come here for an annulment. For a gathering of her things. Not for a scandalous flirtation with her almost-former husband.
“You’re looking well,” he said.
Aggravatingly, his words only made that heated feeling increase. Sarah unwound her woolen scarf, its knitted texture soft against her neck. Uncommonly soft, in fact. Almost as soft as the way her skin had felt beneath Daniel’s rugged hands when he’d—
“You’re looking well yourself,” she forced out. “I trust your wart problem is solved?”
Her arched brows did not seem to fool him. Daniel chuckled, not nearly cowed enough by her practiced schoolmarmish demeanor.
“As solved as it ever will be.” With outrageous calm, he selected a knife from his belt. Examined his wood. Scraped away a sliver of it. “I’d better get back to work. As you so ably pointed out, this will take some time.”
He pursed his lips and blew away sawdust.
Irresistibly, her gaze centered on his still-puckered mouth. She could not believe he would remind her—so blatantly!—of all its talents. Of all the ways she’d enjoyed feeling that mouth of his against hers.
It would serve him right if she just turned heel and marched away, Sarah told herself. But somehow, she simply went on watching him instead. He blew once more, very gently, and she knew she wanted to kiss him. Wanted…
Daniel’s mouth quirked in a grin, startling her from her reverie. He leaned nearer and tipped her mouth closed, the motion so quick she might have imagined it. Sarah frowned in the wake of it, not pleased to have been caught out.
Although Daniel did not seem, she noticed, entirely unaffected by her presence, either. His gaze strayed to her face often as he whittled. His expression looked contemplative…almost hopeful. He gave a gusty sigh.
“You’d better be on your way,” he announced.
“What? No. I came to collect my things.” That was the heart of the matter. She had to remember that. “Also, we still must discuss our annulment. I know you made some…arrangements when we married.”
His frown told her she’d recalled their conversation about that correctly. As part of their unconventional union, Daniel had arranged to have their marriage license remain unofficial for a time. If they both requested it, she knew an annulment would be granted.
“You must be eager for your freedom,” she said.
His piercing gaze struck her. “As eager as you are for yours.”
Well. Since she was not eager at all…
Sarah cleared her throat. “There’s no reason to delay this. Just let me in and we’ll have this done. I don’t have much to take with me.”
“I’ll help you.” He went on carving, not looking at her. “Just as s
oon as my whittling is done. Until then…”
Daniel spread his arms in helpless fashion, one hand holding his hunk of lumber and the other grasping his knife. He indicated the tremendous woodpile with a nod, then shrugged.
With a narrowing of her eyes, Sarah examined his guileless face. She knew him well enough to know that an overriding interest in wood carving was not one of Daniel’s passions. There was only one reason he’d begun this now, and that was to delay her. What she could not reason out was why.
Sarah drew her cape closer around her, staring him down. The man she loved looked back at her, utterly unperturbed.
“Have you been eating your rutabagas?” she demanded.
Drat it. Where had that come from?
His expression grew even cockier. Daniel thought he had her licked, she could tell. But why? a part of her wondered. Why would he bother to delay their inevitable parting?
“I mean, fine. Have it your way.” The battle lines, as they said, were drawn. “I’ll be back later to get my things. Next time, be ready.”
His grin flashed again. “Ahh, Sarah.” The way he said her name seemed a seductive promise. “I’m always ready for you.”
Oh, my. How did Daniel look so wonderful? So tempting? He was a man dead set on whittling millions of toothpicks. That alone should have made him utterly ignorable.
“Hmmph,” she managed, despite her wildly pattering heart. “See that you do a better job of it next time, then.”
Then she tilted her chin and swept down the porch steps, determined to fashion a better strategy for her return.
Chapter Eighteen
For the third time in as many days, Sarah walked to Daniel’s house to reclaim her belongings. She wore a lace-bedecked gown borrowed from Molly, her warm cape and a pair of especially fashionable lace-up shoes. She thought they might have been the pair she’d hurled at Daniel during his drunken serenading. If so, she hoped he would not recognize them, for they were simply too attractive to pass up.
Because of their heels, they lent her much-needed height. Wearing them, she felt a sense of gravitas she would need to deal with her wily almost-former husband. Also, she and Molly—and even, reluctantly, Grace—had agreed they were nearly the most fetching shoes they’d ever seen.
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