Although Cleatus hadn’t come around for meals since the night she convinced him that she was serious about not marrying him, he still sat with her at church. He didn’t offer his lap to Little Sam, of course. Indeed, all the children sat on the opposite side of her from Cleatus.
So, when she entered the bank, she took him by surprise. “Molly!” A broad grin spread across his face. “Come in.” He led her into his office, motioned to a chair, then closed the outer door, before he perched on the edge of his desk, perusing her, drinking in her presence as one would a long-lost love. Which, in a manner of speaking, was what she was to him, she supposed.
“How’ve you been, Molly?”
“Fine.”
He stared at her, silent for a moment. “I guess you’ve come on business,” he said finally, his voice revealing his disappointment.
Molly got right to the point. “What have you heard from the Harvey House representatives?”
“They’re interested in firming up that offer.”
“When?”
“As soon as you decide.”
“You mean before we learn where the rails will go?”
“I mean now. Provisions in the contract will address the problem of the rails. Which we can be grateful for, since the route hasn’t even been scouted, yet. Another of Jarrett’s long list of lies.”
Molly steeled herself against a reaction, studying the incongruous picture—of a genteel couple walking down a rain-slickened cobbled street in some faraway city—which hung on Cleatus’s far wall. Regardless of how Rubal had treated—or mistreated—her, he had done the community a favor and deserved their gratitude. Not that she intended to tell Cleatus that.
“What are the provisions?”
Cleatus rested his entwined fingers on his thigh. “They’ll buy the house, begin refurbishing it in January, then if the railroad fails to come through, they agree to return the house to you.”
“What about the money?”
“They’ll pay you a portion of the sales price up front, as security against the deal falling through.”
“How much…uh, security?”
“Enough for you to live on during the contingency period—the time between now and when the route is determined. Any improvements they make during that time will be yours to keep, free of charge. That’s the chance they’re willing to take in order to get a jump on the competition.”
“You mean the children can…”
“Not the children, Molly. The Harvey House folks calculated what it would take for you to live, renting a small house here in town for three months. They figure by that time L&M will have made a decision on the location of the railroad.”
Molly straightened in her chair, striving valiantly to concentrate on the business at hand, determined to separate it from her emotional distress. “The only way I’ll agree, Cleatus, is if they pay enough extra for Travis’s next semester—without penalty of having to repay it—and three months’ living expenses for myself and Lindy. We’ll work, too, so that shouldn’t amount to much.”
Cleatus scowled. “You really intend to do it, don’t you?”
“Isn’t this what you’ve been trying to get me to do ever since Mama died?”
He slid his leg off the corner of the desk, leaned forward, and took her hands. “Not exactly, Molly. You’re leaving out the most important part.”
She twisted her hands free. He sat back, staring at her with that familiar hangdog expression of his.
“I won’t pressure you,” he said at last. “That’s what got me in trouble before. I won’t pressure you, Molly. But I don’t intend to give up, either.”
Later she thought about those words, important words, spoken by the wrong man. Why had Rubal given up? Why hadn’t he loved her as much as Cleatus did? And why couldn’t she return Cleatus’s love?
At the time, however, she had other business with Cleatus. “I also want you to see about selling my property.”
His eyes widened. “Where we’re going to build…”
Molly jumped to her feet. “If you don’t want to help me, I’ll find someone else.”
“Sit down,” he encouraged.
She settled back, knowing Cleatus was the only person she had to turn to in this matter.
“Now, tell me why you want to sell it.”
“I don’t intend to leave the little boys with relatives any longer than I have to. I know it may take a while to sell the land, since the timber has been cut.” She watched to see if he blanched at the role he had unwittingly played in that fiasco, and was satisfied to see his jaws clench. “Those little boys are not only brothers, they’re best friends. If I thought they would have to be separated more than a year, I wouldn’t send them off.”
“What would you do?” His eyes beseeched her to make the correct response—the response he considered correct.
“Starve,” she retorted. Rising, she adjusted her bonnet. “I’d starve before I separated those little boys, if I didn’t think things would work out better this way. You convinced me—”
“And I’m right, Molly. Wait and see. Have I ever lied to you?”
No, she thought on the walk back to the Blake House, Cleatus Farrington had never lied to her. But lately lying had fallen way down on her list of sins.
Although she had taken the “Closed” sign down after Thanksgiving, they rarely had diners anymore. She supposed it was the upcoming holidays. Folks were likely staying home and fixing their own meals. She had heard it said, that when one thing went wrong, everything else followed in close order.
Well, the theory had been tested and found accurate at the Blake House. It had all begun the night she ran off to the barn with Rubal Jarrett. If she could redo anything in her life, that would be the thing.
Yet, she knew that making love to Rubal Jarrett hadn’t gotten her into the mess she was in. Cleatus was right. She had a terrible head for business.
“Where’s your letter?” Willie Joe demanded when the family was seated at the big dining room. Even though no guests were present, Molly insisted they eat dinner and supper in the dining room. Memories. Memories for the years to come. She withdrew the letter and handed it to Lindy.
Lindy scanned it, her lips spreading in a grin. “That’s better, Molly. Much better. It could have been better still, but—”
“Read it, Lindy,” Willie Joe urged.
“Dear Rubal,” Lindy read, “The children and Sugar and I invite you to the Blake House for Christmas dinner. We hope you can come. All of us. Your friend, Molly Durant.”
“Your friend?” Lindy questioned.
Molly stared her down.
“Ask him to come early and help us get a tree,” Willie Joe suggested.
For a week or more the little boys had worried over how they would go into the forest and cut a tree. Not a little tree, but a big one. At Willie Joe’s suggestion, Molly’s heartstrings tugged. She could just see the little boys and Rubal carrying a tree out of the forest. She could picture all of them—the family, Travis had called them—in the parlor, decorating it and singing carols and laughing.
Laughing. Well, they’d do it without Rubal Jarrett.
“I’ll go with you to cut a tree,” she told them.
“But we want a big tree,” Willie Joe objected.
“A bi-ggg tree,” Little Sam repeated, lifting his short arms toward the ceiling.
“We’ll get a big one,” she promised. “Travis will be home by the end of the week. We’ll all go. Lindy can come, too. We’ll take a horse, so we can drag it home.”
Little Sam bowed his tow head and rubbed a fist in his eye. “I want mister to go with us.”
Molly blinked back tears. Little Sam was the one who brought emotion choking in her throat these days. Little Sam, who still used the name he had called Rubal since the beginning.
The beginning, before any of them knew Rubal Jarrett for the liar he was. “If we get the tree ourselves,” she argued, “we can surprise everyone who comes for Chri
stmas.”
She wasn’t sure how she would explain Rubal’s absence. It was certain to disappoint them. But the day after Christmas, when she revealed her plans, they would be disappointed anyway. Like she told Lindy. Life was full of disappointments.
When Molly held out her hand for the letter, Lindy refused to give it back, saying, “I’ll mail it, Molly.”
“No, you won’t.” Molly rose and took the letter from Lindy’s hand. “It’s my letter. I have to address the envelope. How would it look for him to receive my letter in an envelope you addressed.”
“After you address it, I’ll mail it,” Lindy said.
“If you don’t trust me any more than that, you shouldn’t have asked me to write it.”
Nothing would do but the children watched her address the letter and put it in her reticule for when she went to the butcher shop this afternoon.
Before then, however, she found a moment to hide the letter deep in her dresser drawer beneath a stack of lingerie. It was two weeks until Christmas, and she checked the drawer several times a day, to be certain the children hadn’t discovered the letter and mailed it. The only thing that could truly ruin this Christmas would be if Rubal came for dinner.
Travis’s first question upon arriving home was whether he’d be able to return to school. Molly was relieved to be able to tell him yes. But when he asked where the money was coming from, she hedged. “From the same place as before.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
She shrugged, hugged him, and told him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “But don’t expect a lot of gifts, either.”
“When have we ever had gifts, Molly?”
She pursed her lips, saddened by the truth of things.
He hugged her. “And when has it ever mattered?”
Cleatus came for Sunday night supper, bringing with him the contract from the Harvey House people. He gave it to her in the kitchen when Sugar went outside to ring the supper bell. She stuck it in her apron pocket without so much as a glance.
“They agreed to everything?” she asked, surprised that it had been so easy.
“Mr. Braun said to tell you, you drive a hard bargain.”
She smiled, not at the fact that she had the despicable contract in her hand, but that at least one of her goals, sending Travis to school, would be met for another semester.
“What about the land?” she questioned Cleatus.
“That’ll take time, Molly. Be patient.”
“I can’t be patient long.” She watched Travis gather the little boys and shepherd them to the wash basin on the back porch. “I can’t be patient long.”
“If you’ll sign that contract tonight,” Cleatus suggested, motioning to her apron pocket where she had hidden the contract from view of the children, “I’ll send it back tomorrow. You’ll have your money before Christmas.”
“I want to wait until after Christmas to sign it.”
“You could buy gifts with the money.”
“I’m not selling our home to buy gifts, Cleatus. I’ll sign the contract after Christmas.”
“If you’re wishing for some miracle,” he advised, “don’t. The Christmas star could fall on your head, and it wouldn’t get you out of this mess. All you can do is sign—”
“If I wait until the twenty-sixth, will we still get the money by the middle of January when Travis needs it for school?”
“Should.”
“Then I’ll wait.” For some reason, she felt that signing the contract before Christmas would make things worse.
That night she hid the contract in her lingerie drawer beneath the letter she had written but not mailed. She wondered which she would hate for the children to discover worse, that she hadn’t mailed the letter to Rubal or that she had sold their home. In the long run, of course, selling their home would hurt them more.
Unless things worked out as she planned. If she could sell the land for enough to bring the boys back within a year and to keep Travis in school until he finished, then Travis could help see the others educated and on their own.
Not Lindy, of course. And since Lindy wanted to find Jeff, maybe that would work out after all.
Four days before Christmas, it did. They had just sat down to the noon meal when a horse turned off the road, galloped up the lane, and drew rein in a cloud of red dust beside the back hitching rail.
Molly’s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes flew to Lindy, whose expectant expression, she knew, must echo her own. Molly’s first thought was that the children must have mailed her letter. But she knew they hadn’t. She’d checked only this morning. The contract and the letter were right where she put them. It couldn’t be Rubal.
Lindy reached the kitchen before the back door slammed. She stood in the middle of the floor, momentarily frozen in place. Then she let out a squeal that rang though the house.
“JEFF!”
By the time the others jumped from their chairs and reached the kitchen, Lindy was in Jeff’s arms and he was swinging her around the kitchen.
Molly stood stunned. Tears rolled her cheeks. Tears of happiness, tears of loneliness. But mostly happiness, she rebuked. Jeff had returned to Lindy.
The little boys rushed to grab Jeff’s legs. Setting Lindy down, he stooped to tousle their tow heads. “Howdy, Will. How’re things goin’, Little Sam?”
When they finished squealing, Travis stepped forward, extending his hand. “Glad to see you, Jeff.”
“You, too. How’s school?”
“Out for the holidays.”
All the while Lindy clasped Jeff around the waist like she would never turn him loose. Molly watched from the doorway, thinking of Rubal and the night he had stormed into Jeff’s room and sent him to the barn. Idly she wondered what she would do tonight.
Jeff saw her then. “Miss Molly.”
“Jeff.” She greeted him with a hug, and a wink for Lindy. “We’re glad to see you. Will you stay for the holidays?”
Jeff looked down at Lindy, their gazes locked. “If it wouldn’t put you out none.”
“Not one bit,” Molly agreed. Grabbing each little boy around the waist, she pulled them from their hold on Jeff. “Let’s see if Sugar has something left to feed this logger.”
Jeff greeted Sugar then, and Molly ended up receiving one of Sugar’s withering I-told-you-so glares.
Then they were all seated around the table, Jeff at his usual place, with Lindy close beside him. While he ate, she kept a hand on his arm, as though to ensure he would never leave her again.
The little boys invited him to go on the Christmas-tree outing tomorrow and he agreed. They fell silent.
“You came back,” Lindy whispered as though she had trouble believing it.
“I told you I would.” He stuffed a piece of cornbread in his mouth.
Lindy glanced down the table, but Molly looked away. “I know you said you would, but I wasn’t sure…I mean, I didn’t know when. And things…”
“Jeff,” Molly interrupted, “tell us about catching Haslett.”
“Not much to tell. Rubal, he’d suspected the man all along.”
“That’s right,” Travis cut in. “You remember that Sunday Rubal took us with him, Molly? He was after Haslett then. We almost caught him, too.”
Jeff laughed. “Almost. Maybe we would have, if we’d known whose trees he was cutting.” He dipped a piece of cornbread in clabber and stuffed it in his mouth. “He cut legitimate, too, though, Haslett did.”
“What about Waldo and Calder?” Molly inquired.
“They were in on it with him. Way I hear it the Rangers rounded ’em up from the camp Haslett moved them to. Took both of ’em down to Jasper, since that’s the county they caught ’em in.”
Lindy’s eyes were wide. “Thank goodness you left in time. You could have gotten caught up in it, too.”
“That’s why Rubal took me with him. He didn’t want the Rangers to suspect me of having anything to do with it.”
“Did you?”
Travis asked.
“Tra-vis!” Lindy rebuked.
“I mean, do you think you cut any illegal timber without knowing it?”
“Not that I can figure. Rubal went over all the receipts with me when we got back to Orange. Looks like I missed out.”
“We’re certainly grateful for that,” Molly put in. “Now, I know it’s impolite to ask about money, but the Rangers told us about your reward.”
Jeff’s face went blank.
“They said you received a big reward for helping bring Haslett to justice.”
“Oh, uh…uh, yes, ma’am. That’s what they told me, too.”
“They didn’t give it to you?” Travis inquired.
“Not yet.” Jeff ate a moment, then added, “The trial wasn’t over, last I heard.”
Later that night, Molly finally succeeded in tearing the little boys away from Jeff and getting them to bed. Travis, Lindy, and Jeff sat on the front porch talking. Molly didn’t miss the change in seating arrangements from the night they had all sat out here together—she and Rubal in the swing.
Lindy and Jeff took the swing and Travis sat on the top step. Times change, Molly thought, and we must change with them. Certainly with the other problems facing them this holiday, she would have trouble finding time to worry about Jeff and Lindy sleeping under the same roof.
Jeff, after all, had come back. That in itself separated their relationship from hers and Rubal’s. Jeff had come back. She prayed he would be honorable.
“I’ll say good-night.” She hugged each in turn, feeling more like their mother than a sister. “We’re awfully glad you’ve come, Jeff. Having you here will make Christmas even more special.” She thought of the little boys who expected Rubal. Now they wouldn’t be quite so disappointed.
“Rubal’s coming, too,” Lindy piped up. Molly stood frozen, listening, fearing the worst. “Molly sent him a letter inviting him for Christmas.”
“Great,” Jeff responded.
“Didn’t he mention receiving Molly’s letter?”
Molly held her breath.
“I haven’t seen Rubal in a week to ten days,” Jeff admitted. “I’m glad he’s coming, though. I sure took a likin’ to that feller.”
Secret Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Four Page 32