Collision of The Heart

  “We love Miss Rosie,” Ellie said.

  Roy gave Rosalie an adoring look. “She’s tho pretty.”

  Everyone laughed, except Roy, who turned pink.

  “I’m getting practice for when I have my own.” Rosalie grinned at him.

  He frowned at her. “Not for at least half a decade.”

  “When I’m too old?”

  “Ahem.” Mia grimaced. “That would make you twenty-four, which is two years younger than I am.”

  “And rather old to be marrying and setting up your nursery,” Charmaine said.

  Ayden twisted his head and stared at her. Even if she weren’t a mere year younger than Mia, she wasn’t usually inclined to such spiteful remarks. “Charmaine, shall I walk you home? I find I need to go out again.”

  “Please.” Charmaine rose in one fluid motion. “You’ll stay for dinner with us. Your house is so crowded.”

  “Always stealing my brother when I wanted him to—” Rosalie broke off on a sigh.

  Ayden narrowed his eyes as he rose. “Dinner sounds like an excellent idea, if it’s not interfering with something else.”

  “It’s not.” Rosalie’s lips turned down. “Children, let’s go see if my ma can spare some early supper for you two.”

  She gathered Ellie and Roy and left the parlor.

  “And we should be going. It’s nearly dark out.” Ayden strode to the door. He needed to get away from Mia and the sight of her holding that little boy against her. If she’d married him, they would have had their own child by now, or at least—

  He yanked his mind from such inappropriate thoughts and left the parlor to retrieve Charmaine’s fur wraps. He intended to walk her home, then go to the sheriff again and let him know about the initials in the boy’s clothes. That was something more the sheriff could telegraph to other lawmen, before Ayden partook of a hasty dinner with the Finneys, then moved on to tutor some of his students.

  “Will you ask Rosalie to come to my house tomorrow?” Charmaine was saying when Ayden returned to the parlor. “She and I can finalize details for the sledding party, perhaps bake some cookies.”

  “I’d be happy to help if I didn’t have appointments with a few of my classmates.” Mia spoke from where she half lay on the floor, marching soldiers up and down, much to Jamie’s delight.

  If the trains had been running, Ayden would have taken both Mia and Jamie aboard and spirited them to someplace safer than his home, where his open and warm family welcomed everyone. He needed to warn her—warn them—without giving anything away to his family.

  “Mia.” He crouched so only she would hear.

  “You’re getting my coat on the floor,” Charmaine protested.

  “Mia,” Ayden said, “be wary of strangers.”

  She sat up so fast her forehead nearly collided with his nose. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that, but—yes, no strangers.”

  “But what if his family comes to claim him?” Charmaine asked. “They’ll be strangers.”

  “No one,” Ayden reiterated.

  Mia nodded, her mouth grim.

  Charmaine’s mouth was grim, too. She said nothing, not even “Good evening” to Mia as Ayden held her coat for her, and she secured her hat atop her crown of curls. She said nothing until they reached the path shoveled through the snow for pedestrians. Then she gripped Ayden’s arm hard and turned her stern expression toward him. “What, may I ask, was that all about?”

  “What all about?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, Mr. Goswell. It’s unattractive, and you’re too intelligent to play games.”

  He still looked at her blankly.

  She sighed, forming a cloud of her breath before her face. “That little tête-à-tête on the floor with Miss Roper.”

  “It has to do with the child, but I can’t share with you.”

  “I see.” Charmaine bowed her head and tramped on in silence, save for the crunch of their footfalls on the crust of the snow. A block from her house, she glanced up again. “I haven’t objected to you running around with Miss Roper. I know you are old friends, and she was practically a member of your family for many years. But, well, it does look rather bad for me. People talk in this town.”

  Ayden’s stomach twisted. “Would you prefer I not see her any more than absolutely necessary?”

  “Of course I’d rather you not see her any more than necessary or at all. She’s everything you admire in a lady—beauty and intelligence and an education.”

  “But not loyalty. She chose a career over me.”

  “Ah.” Charmaine’s eyes widened. “So you would rather have a wife with no career ambitions of her own.”

  Ayden opened his mouth to say yes but shut it again. If he said Charmaine was right, then he would stop her from pursuing her own interests, which would surely make her life and thus her dull. If he said she was wrong, then he sounded as though he disapproved of her life as little more than a fine hostess for her father and organizer of one or more charitable events a year. If he didn’t want a lady who chose to follow her interests, even if those interests meant working at something beyond being a wife, mother, and hostess for him, then he appeared absurd for courting and proposing marriage to Mia in the first place.

  “I should warn you.” Charmaine filled in the silence. “I am ambitious. When my father said I had to leave Philadelphia and become his hostess instead of . . . continuing on in the city, I decided then that I would become the first lady of the college before more than a decade or so passes.”

  “I’m afraid your father may be getting too old for that position.”

  “Not Father.” She shot him a coy glance from beneath her lashes.

  “You expect me to be president of the college?” Ayden’s laugh sounded hollow. “Let me get hired as a permanent professor first.”

  “You know that is all but official already anyway.”

  After he proposed to her.

  His stomach twisted again. “I’m not counting any chicks before I see the eggs.” They reached the Finney house, and he paused on the stoop. “I have an errand to run, but I’ll return for dinner.”

  “All right.” Still somber, Charmaine entered the house and closed the door without looking at him again.

  Feeling as though the piles of snow along walkways and drives had packed themselves into his boots, Ayden tramped to the sheriff’s office. The same deputy at the counter didn’t even ask his business; he immediately escorted Ayden into the back office.

  “I just sent Lambert to fetch you,” the sheriff greeted Ayden. “Did you meet him along the way?”

  “No, but I expect he’ll be happy to go to my house anyway. What’s wrong?”

  “This.” The sheriff held up a sheet of flimsy telegraph paper. “It seems that a child has been abducted.”

  “What?” Ayden snatched the telegram from the sheriff.

  The message had apparently arrived only minutes before the train wreck. Its message was concise and clear. A child named James Matthew Yardley of Pittsburgh had been taken from his home on Wednesday. Authorities were spreading the word far and wide the longer the child went missing.

  “We didn’t get the word until a quarter hour ago,” the sheriff explained. “Seems when the wreck happened, the telegrapher completely forgot about this.” He grimaced. “As though anyone could forget about something like this. Then he had so many messages dealing with the wreck and passengers this one got lost.”

  Ayden opened the door to ensure no one was within listening range, then closed it and turned back to the sheriff. “He answers to the name Jamie.”

  He explained about the initials in the child’s clothing and how he had responded to Mia calling him Jamie.

  “Then you need to bring him to us,” the sheriff declared.

  “Here? The sheriff’s office is going to take in a little boy. Where will you keep him? A jail cell?” Ayden couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his tone.

  The sheriff scowled. “I was thinking my ho
use. He could be in danger.”

  “With your wife home alone when she’s there?” Ayden shook his head. “Sir, he’s much safer in our house. It’s full of people right now.”

  “Mostly females.”

  “Would you want to tangle with my mother?”

  The sheriff laughed. “She should know the danger. And don’t you have other children there?”

  “We do.” Ayden sighed. “As well as your youngest deputy, more than I like.”

  “And he’ll be there even more than you like if I agree to you keeping this boy.” The sheriff tapped his fingers on his desk, then nodded. “Why don’t you talk to your family and Miss Roper. If they agree, then you can move that other lady and her two children into our house so as not to cause any risk for them. When Lambert returns, I’ll send him back with you.”

  “If it means Lambert will be around more often, I know what Rosalie will say.” The corners of Ayden’s mouth twitched.

  He was getting the message loud and clear—stop trying to manage Rosalie’s heart for her. If their parents approved, opposing her choice for a mate would only damage his relationship with his sister. His smile faded quickly, though. Needing to take these steps meant he would have to cancel dinner with the Finneys.

  “Will you send Lambert to the Finney house? I have to go tell Charmaine I won’t be staying for dinner after all.” And he couldn’t tell her why.

  Unfortunately, her father had come home to hear the announcement. While Charmaine’s face showed no expression, Dr. Finney’s turned the color of a plum.

  “I don’t appreciate you disappointing my daughter, Ayden, especially if it has anything to do with the train riffraff.”

  “It has nothing to do with riffraff from the train or elsewhere.” For good measure, in the event Finney did not receive the message strongly enough, Ayden added, “Nor does it have anything to do with Miss Roper.”

  “Hmm. Well”—Finney still scowled—“I suppose if this is a family matter, you are not able to share, but you must later. I do not like secrets between courting couples or Charmaine being left here alone for an evening. She is young. She should have a host of people around her.”

  “Then you should have left me in Philadelphia,” Charmaine muttered.

  Ayden gave her a sharp glance, one eyebrow raised.

  “What was that?” Finney demanded.

  “Nothing, Papa.” Face flushed, Charmaine laid her hand on her father’s arm. “I’m just urging you to drop the matter. If Ayden said he has something important to do this evening, he has something important to do this evening. I’ll punish him by making him help bake cookies tomorrow for the sledding party on Wednesday.”

  “Sledding party?” Dr. Finney’s brow puckered. “What sledding party?”

  Ayden shot Charmaine a look of gratitude for changing the subject. “Something I thought we and some of the students could do for the children from the train. They’re restless from being shut in for days.”

  “Hmph. I have no authority to stop the students or you from doing something so foolish,” Finney said, “but you will not attend, Charmaine. It’s too undignified for a lady about to be married.”

  “But, Papa, I dearly love sledding.” Her face turned so pink and her lower lip quivered so much Ayden sought for something to make her smile.

  He took her smooth white hand between both of his, which were still clad in gloves. “You and I will go on a private sledding party on Saturday. Would that suit?”

  “I’d love that, Ayden.” She smiled, all right. Her perfect teeth flashed, and her eyes lit to a startling blue.

  Her father smiled, too. “Most suitable, especially by Saturday.”

  When they would be engaged.

  The notion should please him, fill him with the excitement and anticipation he had felt before—and after—he proposed to Mia. Instead, a hard ball of anxiety wound through his gut. This felt more like when he told Mia he would not be going east with her.

  A knock sounded on the door, and, for the first time since the deputy began to court Rosalie, Ayden was happy to see him.

  Chapter Eleven

  By Tuesday afternoon, when Mia had heard nothing from the sheriff regarding Jamie or even from Ayden, who had managed to leave earlier than breakfast preparation, Mia decided to take action on her own. It wouldn’t be the first time she had investigated a probable crime after lawmen seemed too slow or altogether disinclined to do so.

  Bundled in her hooded coat, boots, and gloves, she told Mrs. Goswell she was going out, then tramped through the frozen slush and biting wind to the telegraph office. Inside, the depot steamed from a kettle whistling atop the stove, and the telegraph machine chattered like a collection of squirrels. At his desk, the telegrapher raised one finger to signal he would be with her in a minute without stopping his continual motion with the key. Instinctively, Mia listened to the dots and dashes coming down the wires. She had learned Morse code when writing about women telegraphers. The messages she managed to decipher sounded like frantic communications to and from passengers stranded there in Hillsdale. One or two sounded angry, a father’s demand for his daughter to come home, as though she could obey without a train to carry her. Another was from a frantic wife, and a third to a husband who seemed not to understand why his wife hadn’t simply gotten on the next train.

  She supposed she was as good as eavesdropping, but this was work, grist for her journalistic mill to grind down into a story. Nothing was wrong with seeking information. She didn’t know names to reveal. Yet she turned away from the telegrapher to pretend she was not listening to the messages, as though she were ashamed.

  And as her eyes scanned the room, she noticed a man in a railroad uniform tucked in a corner behind the stove, his hands wrapped around a cup. Apparently he had come into the depot to warm himself. Yet something about his appearance, the tilt of his head, the way he raised the cup, struck a note of familiarity.

  She took a step back, considering leaving to return at another time, but the telegrapher called to her, and running would have looked more suspicious than staying.

  “I have one telegram to send to a number of people.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her portfolio and laid it on the desk. “How soon can you get these out?”

  “We get them out immediately, miss.” The telegrapher smiled at her. “But this will cost you.”

  “Of course.”

  And worth every penny if she got good answers—or any answers. She would make the money back and then some once she sold the article.

  She paid the fee. With a surreptitious glance back, she left the depot to return to the Goswell house and her writing. The slush seemed more difficult to navigate on the walk home, the air colder. She tucked her chin into her collar and trudged on. In Boston, she would have been able to stay that way no matter how long her walk. In Hillsdale, half a dozen people called to her. Most simply greeted her. Two wanted to chat. An acquaintance from college expressed delight in seeing her return to Hillsdale, then rushed off to her job inside the stone courthouse collecting documents from attorneys and making certain they reached the right persons for cases to be filed or settled.

  As Mia continued toward the church, someone else called to her. She paused and saw the stationer approaching her, a knitted cap low enough on his forehead it nearly covered his gray eyebrows. Mia’s stomach performed a few pirouettes.

  “I haven’t been near your shop, Mr. Phelps. Promise.” She grinned at him.

  He laughed loudly enough for the bark to echo off the buildings. “You know you’re welcome any time now. But I saw you and thought I’d bring you these to help write those stories I’ve been hearing about.” He fished in the capacious pocket of his overcoat and withdrew a handful of pencils.

  Mia’s laugh was the one to ring around the street this time. Passersby stopped to smile or stare, including a man a hundred feet away, whom she swore looked like the railroad worker from the telegraph office, but when she turned her head to get a better l
ook, the man had vanished between two buildings.

  She returned her attention to the stationer. “You are so gracious.”

  “Well, my dear child, if we don’t forgive people who do wrong, we will lose our humanity.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek, tucked the pencils inside her portfolio, and bade him good-bye.

  Forgiveness. That was the problem—she could not forgive Ayden for betraying her heart. If only he would ask for forgiveness instead of acting as though he didn’t need it.

  But all those years ago, Mr. Phelps hadn’t said anything about the person asking for mercy. He had urged the lawman to let her go while she was still defiant about her minor theft. That was something to ponder . . . but not now. For now, she wanted to look out for that railroad worker who appeared so familiar.

  All the way home, Mia kept glancing over her shoulder. Although she saw no one, she decided to tell Ayden or Fletcher.

  Neither Ayden nor Fletcher arrived at the Goswell house before Mia climbed to her room. Neither did she see them the next morning. She thought about paying a call on the sheriff, but considering how he’d dismissed her notions earlier, she suspected he would simply lay her suspicions down to too much imagination.

  She holed up in the sitting room instead of worrying about vanishing railroad workers and began to write her articles. By midafternoon, her article on the train wreck and the aftermath of how the town came together to help the stranded passengers was finished. As for her articles on women students, she would finish that the next day, after her meeting with the two students who requested her to interview them. While she awaited information on the abducted child, she began to write the article. By Friday, when she got onto an eastbound train, she could send a telegram to her editor and inform the lady she was returning with three articles in hand.

  By Friday, the sheriff could return the child to his family. By Friday, Ayden and Charmaine would be engaged. By Friday, Rosalie and Fletcher would be engaged. By Friday, all would be well.