Debra Ullrick

  “My butler overheard a conversation between my father’s lawyer and a colleague. He was apparently bragging about how much money he had made off my father to enforce the stipulations in his will—stipulations it appears that no court or judge would ever enforce.” That caught her attention. “When I found out, I fired my father’s lawyer and hired a new one. Mr. Wilkins informed me that the judge reviewed the stipulations in my father’s will and declared them unenforceable. Therefore, they will be releasing all my father’s assets and money, my full inheritance, next week. I’m telling you this because I want you to know that I could have walked away from this business arrangement of ours a few weeks ago, but I chose not to.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand. Why did you stay if you didn’t have to?”

  “For several reasons.” He held her gaze tenderly, praying she wouldn’t throw him off the porch and out of her life. “One, I wanted to finish what I started. Two. I wanted to make sure your dreams came true, and I wanted to help make that happen. And Three. Because I needed time to figure out a way to make this work between us. To make us work.”

  “What do you mean ‘make us work’? I don’t understand.” She frowned again.

  He raked his hand through his hair. He wasn’t going about this very well. “Let me try to explain it this way. I’ve had the pleasure of being your business partner these several weeks, but that isn’t enough for me anymore. I want to be your lifelong partner. I love you, Abby.”

  Her eyes widened in shock.

  He hurried forward before she could say anything. “I even figured out a way for us to be together and still get what we both want. You would be able to stay here and keep your theater, and I would be able to right the wrongs my father has done.

  “I’ve already worked out the details with Mr. Wilkins. When my father’s assets are released, I am having a full accounting done for all of my father’s affairs, and for those businesses where it appears he took unfair advantage, we plan to make restitution to the extent it’s possible.” His words swam across Abby’s face, but he continued, knowing he could re-explain it later if necessary. “The men that are currently running my other businesses now will continue to do so. They will each check in with me until which time I can sell them off. During that time, Mr. Wilkins will make sure the books are accurate along with keeping an eye on the businesses for me. That way, not only will I fulfill my lifelong dream, but I will also restore my family’s name.

  “Only I’ll do it from here. Truth is, Abby, I’ve grown to love this town and its people. I love the mountains and would love for my boys to grow up here instead of in Boston. So...” Harrison slipped from his chair and down onto one knee. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out the diamond ring he’d had his butler, Forsyth, send from Boston. His mother’s diamond ring. “Abby, I love you. And judging from what I’ve seen in your eyes when you look at me, I believe you love me, too.” Shock danced in her blue eyes at that one. “Will you marry me?”

  “Will I what?” She leaped to her feet. “What about Miss Wright?”

  “Miss Wright? My nanny?” He stood and stared at Abby, wondering what she was talking about.

  “Yes. I thought you were getting married. And since I hadn’t seen you with another woman, I assumed that you were talking about Miss Wright.”

  Now where had she gotten that ludicrous notion from? “Why would you think I’d be marrying Miss Wright? She’s old enough to be my grandmother.”

  “She is? But—but she’s from Boston.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Abby. What does her being from Boston have to do with anything?”

  “The other day you said if things went your way you’d soon have brothers and sisters. I figured you already had someone in mind to marry when you said that. Then shortly after that you talked about Miss Wright from Boston. I just assumed...” She let her sentence hang, and he picked it up.

  “That that was who I was talking about.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. I was thinking about you.” He reached for her hands but she yanked them behind her back the same way she had the day they met. Only there wasn’t any reason for her to yank them from out of his reach this time. Or was there?

  * * *

  Abby couldn’t believe her ears. Harrison loved her and asked her to marry him. Her heart sighed knowing he had figured out a way for them to be together, and knowing he could have gone home a long time ago but he hadn’t.

  That he had chosen to stay here for her.

  To help her see her dream come to pass.

  All of those things endeared her to him even more so, and yet she had to deny her heart of his love and her dreams. She couldn’t marry him. She had to refuse him, but how could she do that without telling him why? That was going to take a lot more courage than she had, so she sent up a silent prayer asking God for a huge dose of courage.

  It never came.

  She had to handle this one on her own, and handle it she would. Not because she wanted to but because she had to. For his and his sons’ sakes. “Harrison, I’m sorry for any misunderstandings between us. But before this goes on any further, I want you to know that it hurts me to pain you, but marriage was not part of our original agreement. I have no plans of ever marrying. I’m sorry.” With those words she fled past him and bolted into the house. Taking the stairs three at a time, she rushed up them and into her room.

  She closed her door and locked it, then darted to her bed and flopped herself on top of her blue comforter. Hands crisscrossed above her head, she buried her face and wept.

  How she had wanted to throw herself into Harrison’s arms and to smother his face with yeses and kisses, but reality had finally crashed down on her. She wasn’t a whole woman, wasn’t mother material. Therefore, she refused to saddle someone as wonderful as Harrison with someone like herself. She loved him and his two boys far too much to do that to them.

  * * *

  Harrison stood there, staring at the door Abby had disappeared through, unbelieving of what he’d just heard. Her rejection stung him to the core, deeper than anyone else’s who had rejected him or had used him during his life. He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair and settling his hand on the back of his head.

  With all his being, he truly believed Abby was different, that she cared about him, loved him, even. But she didn’t. It was perfectly clear that she didn’t have any use for him anymore, and that he had once again stupidly trusted someone with his heart. Well, he wasn’t ever going to make that mistake again. He whirled and stomped down her porch. There was nothing keeping him here now, so the first train heading East out of this town, he would be on it.

  * * *

  That evening, Abby made it through another Royal Grand Theater production, but this time it didn’t feel royal or grand. Without Harrison at her side, her heart felt as if it had been yanked out of her chest, and the pain of loss was more than she could handle. He hadn’t even come, hadn’t even shown up for their second biggest night of all. All she wanted to do was to go to bed and forget the whole day. When the last person left and the staff had gone to bed, she made her way to her room and cried herself to sleep. What good was a dream if when you got there, it hurt this badly? When she awoke the next morning, she had a splitting headache from crying so long and so hard.

  She wanted to stay in bed and pull the covers over her head, but she had to get up and get busy. Her mind swam with all the preparations there were to handle. For two more weeks, her company would perform the play Emma by Jane Austen. After that, they would be perform Pride & Prejudice. There were costumes to make and playbills to script and tickets to fashion. So much to do, and she didn’t want to do even one whit of any of it.

  Before Harrison had come into her life, she would have been happy that things were going so well and that she had sold out performances clear on up until December. Without him, she no longer cared. And yet somehow she had to go on. She had to forget him. The best thin
g to do was to bury herself in her work so she could at least try to. She looked at the clock. Even though it was only five in the morning and no one else would be up and about, she forced herself to get out of bed and to get dressed so she could busy her mind with other thoughts than those of Harrison.

  In her quiet office, she started checking her list for things that needed to be done—get the playbill material to Miss Elsa, wash and iron the draperies, order the food, repair the costumes, build new set pieces. About an hour later, she caught a strange whiff of something and stopped. She drew in a longer breath through her nostrils. Was that smoke she smelled? She sniffed again. It was.

  Her eyes went wide as she darted through the house, checking for the source of what she now knew to be smoke. When she reached the back door, she spotted flames in the distance. The grass fire just down the hill was popping and smoking and heading directly toward her shed, the very shed that held most of her stage props!

  Grabbing her skirt with both hands, Abby raced through the servant section of the house, banging on doors and hollering, “Help! Help! Fire!” Without waiting to see if anyone heard her or would follow her, she ran outside, gathered buckets and gunny sacks. She filled the buckets with water from the pump and soaked the sacks as fast as she could.

  Loud clanging from the town’s fire bell rang in her ears.

  Voices rose above it as men gathered near the place where the flames were eating up the grasses around her shed. Without a thought for her own safety, she raced between the two and began to bat at the flames. They were small but persistent and growing.

  Others arrived and helped fill buckets from the well and the pump. They handed them to the men who had formed several lines where they handed off the buckets and sacks to each other. Abby worked side by side with the men. She could not let another assault shatter her dream. She was soaked and sweating and panicked as the flames continued to advance until the orange and yellow overtook their best efforts.

  “Miss Abby!” One of the men grabbed her and yanked her free of the firestorm just as the flames licked up the outside of her shed, engulfing the walls within seconds. But she would not give up. She grabbed two buckets of water, ran as close as she could get to the structure and poured the water on the ground, trying to make a perimeter so the grass fire wouldn’t reach her house. The shed was gone, a total loss. Now she only prayed that somehow they could save the house. “God, help me. Please don’t let it burn my theater down, too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harrison stood at the stagecoach stop, waiting for the vehicle that would take him, his sons, Staimes and Miss Wright to the nearest train station that would take them back to Boston. When he’d asked Abby to marry him and she had refused him, he’d felt like an idiot for thinking she was different from all the other women he’d known, that she was like his sweet Allison. Well, she turned out to be nothing like Allison, and she was just like every other woman he’d known. Women who only wanted him for what he could offer them. Money and opportunity.

  He and Abby may have had a business agreement from the very start, but when he had kissed her and she had responded, that had nothing to do with business. When they shared time talking and picnicking, that, too, had nothing to do with business. At least not to him, anyway. And what about all those dreamy looks he’d seen in her eyes? Looks he must have misinterpreted.

  He slammed his eyelids shut. What an idiot he’d been.

  To think that she cared about him. Loved him, even. He still couldn’t believe how much trouble he’d gone through, how many sleepless nights he’d endured to come up with a plan that would work for both of them. Plans that he now needed to get back to Boston to undo.

  Loud clanging pierced the air. Harrison jumped and his turbulent thoughts disintegrated into new chaotic ones. What was going on?

  Voices of men shouting rose above the thundering hooves of the stagecoach horses.

  A man carrying buckets filled with gunny sacks flew past him.

  Harrison called after him, “What’s going on?”

  Without stopping the man hollered over his shoulder, “There’s a fire at the Royal Grand Theater.”

  The Royal Grand? Had Harrison heard him correctly?

  A fire? At Abby’s?

  His whole spirit cried out. Abby! Lord, no!

  Harrison spun to his valet. “Staimes, don’t board that stagecoach.” He yanked his coat off and tossed it to him. “Stay here. Miss Wright, watch the boys. I’ll be back.” He whirled and ran as fast as he could toward Abby’s place, rolling up his sleeves as he went.

  When his racing feet carried him close enough, he saw the flames devouring her shed and now heading toward the theater. The fire was still a fair distance away from the mansion, but it was closing in fast. “God, don’t let it reach Abby’s house!”

  Just as he arrived, he spotted Abby amid the chaos, running with a bucket in each hand. He rushed over to her, and she stumbled right as he got there. He shot out his hand and caught her, water sloshed all over the legs of his suit pants, soaking them.

  Abby turned her soot-covered face up to his. “Harrison?” She coughed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to help. Give me those.” He reached for her buckets, but she yanked them to her.

  “No! I need to put the fire out before it takes out my home.” She took off running toward the opposite end of the line where the buckets were being passed off. She poured what little water that was left in them onto the ground. What a smart woman she was, trying to place a water barrier between her house and the flames.

  Harrison rushed toward the water pump and got to work forming the barrier and dousing the flames.

  Sweat soaked his body, the heat from the fire became unbearable, but he pressed onward.

  All up and down the line surrounding the house, men passed buckets back and forth. Each bucket dumped doused more and more of the destructive flames. Finally, with the effort of what seemed like every townsperson in the surrounding area, Abby’s employees, along with himself and Abby, the flames were finally put out. Thankfully, the gardens and the back side of the theater had sustained no damage at all. The rest was mostly smoke damage, except for the grass and the shed.

  Harrison breathed a prayer of thanksgiving as he thanked each and every person who had come to help. He gave Veronique, Colette and Zoé extra hugs as they looked the most shaken. He made sure to search out and shake the hand of every one of Fletcher’s men as well as Fletcher himself.

  When he had finished thanking everyone, the one he most wanted to speak with was nowhere to be found.

  “I think she went down by the river, sir,” Veronique said when she found him standing among the diminishing crowd looking around.

  His gaze found hers and he nodded. “Thank you, Veronique.”

  “No. Thank you, sir.”

  He gave a quick nod. Leaving the others, Harrison hurried to the river. He found Abby there, on her knees splashing water on her arms and her face.

  He knelt down beside her and splashed his own face with the cool mountain water, not knowing how he’d be received after not showing up the night before. Harrison waited, hoping she would say something. Anything. All she did, however, was to continue to splash water on her already soot-free face.

  * * *

  Abby glanced over at Harrison, hoping the water would disguise the tears she wanted so desperately to hide from him, but couldn’t. Because of his efforts, the town’s, and the efforts of her employees and friends, her theater had been spared. She owed him a thank-you at least. Without looking at him, she stared out across the river, seeing nothing but her own pain reflecting there. “Thank you, Harrison,” she finally said. “For helping me.” She swallowed back the overflow of tears, but was powerless to stop them from completely flowing through her voice. She only hoped Harrison didn’t hear them. “I was so afraid. I thought I was going to...” Unable to hold back the sobs rising in her throat, they pushed out, drowning out the rest of her words in
the process. She covered her head with her hands and broke down completely.

  Within seconds, she felt herself being lifted up and pulled into Harrison’s arms. She knew she should push away, but just this one last time, she’d allow herself to be held by him. Right now, she needed the comfort and strength his arms provided.

  As she wept, the rhythmic sound of his heartbeat against her ear comforted her. “I don’t know what I would have done if that fire had burned my theater,” she whispered against his chest a moment later.

  “You would have rebuilt it. That’s what you would have done.” His words vibrated in his chest and her ear, and his breath brushed against her hair.

  Abby stepped out of his embrace and shook her head. “No, I don’t think I could handle it if I had to rebuild it. Not alone.”

  “You wouldn’t have had to do it alone. I would have helped you.” He pulled back enough to be able to see her. His intense stare held her captive. “Abby.” He swallowed hard. “I know you said you wouldn’t marry me. Is there anything I could do or say to change your mind? I love you so much. I can’t bear the thought of living without you.”

  Abby couldn’t bear to see the pain in his eyes. “Oh, Harrison. I love you, too. As much as it pains me to say this, I have to. I—I can’t marry you.”

  “Why, Abby? Why?” An even more intense pain filled his voice.

  “Two reasons. One of them I’m too ashamed to tell you about, and the other is, we don’t share the same faith.”

  “Oh, but we do.”

  Abby’s gaze shot up to his. “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since I arrived, every time a problem arose, you would say that God would take care of it. At first, I pitied you, knowing you would wake up one day to find that God had let you down, like He had me and so many others I know. But, your faith in Him never wavered. You stayed true to your convictions, and in doing so, you allowed me to see a different God. A loving God. A God that could be trusted.