“Oh, my,” she breathed, unable to stop staring. “This is San Francisco?”
“And this,” Tucker said with a sweep of his arm, “is the Bay, which is part of the Pacific Ocean, chérie. We’re standing on the very edge of America.”
Butterfly wings of excitement fluttered inside her. Not only could she see streets and buildings, but normal, everyday people were walking about, as though this enchanting world had been created especially for her enjoyment. Why had she been afraid of this city last night?
You thought your mother was dead. And not a soul offered to help.
“It—it’s so different from St. Louis. Or Kansas,” she murmured. She tugged her shawl tighter around her shoulders, marveling at the mist, which gave the city such mystique. “Why, back home it’s probably snowing, or—”
Had she really said that? Back home?
Tucker caught it, too. He pulled her closer, his heart thundering with a sense of grand destiny. Yes, they’d come here in search of Christine’s mother, but what he’d found was a city he loved at first sight—the same way he’d fallen for this slender girl in his arms. He knew what he wanted without thinking twice.
He kissed her warm hair as he gazed at the Bay, praying for the right words to woo her. Surely she knew his intentions were honorable? Surely she understood that when he’d stopped in Abilene, it wasn’t because Maman felt compelled to help with that other girl’s baby?
But Christine was young, and right now she was exhausted. She was thinking only of her mother and what was at stake—as she should be. She needed to hear exactly what he had in mind for their future . . . but perhaps this wasn’t a good time. Would she feel he was taking advantage of her agitated state? If she said yes—or no—would she change her mind when she’d had a chance to think about it?
“Thank you for coaxing me out here, Tucker,” she said, resting her head against his chest. “The morning air is exactly what I needed.”
He closed his eyes against a wave of wanting, of needing to express his innermost thoughts. For a moment more he simply held her, keenly aware of her fragility and her strength; her youth and her maturity. Few girls of sixteen would’ve had the gumption to come after such a mother—and then return to the search after the rejection she’d received in Denver. But Christine Bristol had always known what she wanted, and pursued it.
Did she want him?
“Christine,” he began, hoping the words would flow like magic. “Right now, maybe it’s not the best time to—to ask about your feelings—”
She raised her head. Those green eyes gazed up at him, and despite her worries, she smiled.
He could only stare back, mesmerized. He was losing the moment—losing the nerve to—
“I said that if you helped me find Mama, I would love you forever,” she said. “Well, you did your part. But what I said wasn’t entirely true.”
His heart clenched into a knot. “You—you’ve been known to fib about—”
Her fingertip silenced him. A good thing, since that was such a stupid path to go down right now. Then damned if she didn’t trace the edge of his lips with that finger, driving him absolutely mindless with her touch.
“What I meant was,” she continued, “by the time I was asking you that, I was too lost in love to find my way out. You’re stuck with me, Tucker.”
Was she going to—? Tucker cleared his throat, not daring to drop her gaze. “Does this mean you’d marry me if I asked?” he asked.
Her smile turned coy. “Why not find out?”
Tucker gasped as though she’d punched him. He was trying to be proper and eloquent—considerate of her worries—and she was toying with him. He stood taller, tightening his embrace. Around them, the gulls cried and the gentle lapping of the waves called up ancient rhythms: the ebb and flow of life’s own tides.
“If I wanted to settle here, to open a photography shop, and you—if you wanted to—could design fine dresses for San Francisco’s richest women,” he said, his words tumbling out in somersaults, “would you still marry me? It’s a long way from your brother Billy and—”
“Why not find out?”
Sacre bleu, but she was making this difficult! Why wasn’t she an excited little thing who just threw her arms around his neck and squealed yes? Christine knew what he was asking and she was leading him around by the—
“Christine! She’s shifting!”Maman’s voice rang inside the wagon.
He held her, with his arms and his gaze, and then realized she’d made no move to leave. Her face took on the glow of the dawn. With wisps of auburn hair blowing loose in the breeze and her eyes as deep green as an eternal forest, she was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.
Tucker kissed her. Thank God she rose on her toes to press her lips into his, for if she’d pulled away at this fragile moment, he might’ve—
“Her eyes are open!” his mother cried.
Christine’s heart raced, just as her legs wanted to. But it had occurred to her, after all these miles and days, that whatever happened with Mama, her life was her own to design—much like the gowns she’d fashioned these past three years. She’d developed that talent with Miss Vanderbilt’s help, and at Mercy’s encouragement, hadn’t she? She loved her mother and had desperately wanted to find her, but she was her own woman, after all was said and done. Mama or not.
She kissed Tucker more insistently. She’d come so far, across the country and in personal wisdom, because Tucker Trudeau had believed in her—had overlooked her fibs to see the fear behind them, and found her worthy anyway. So he deserved her unswerving attention in this moment she’d been dreaming of forever. Mama had promised her that a wonderful man would sweep her off her feet someday. And here he was!
He was going to drown in this kiss if he didn’t speak up now. “Christine, ma princesse, ma chérie—”
“Christine—she’s asking for you! She’s frightened and disoriented, waking up in a strange place.”
Tucker sighed. She couldn’t possibly be interested in what he had to say, even if her kiss suggested otherwise. “Perhaps you should go inside—”
“Ask me.”
What man wouldn’t melt in the warmth of her smile and delight in that dreamy-eyed look? Bless her, she wasn’t rushing off, or giving any hint she might refuse him. To have a beautiful young woman so focused on him—as though she saw only the best in him, the very things he tried to bring out in his photographs—well, when would life ever smile at him this way again?
“Will you marry me, Christine?” he whispered. His heart was pounding so hard, that was the loudest he could speak. “I—I love you so—”
“Yes, I will, Tucker,” she breathed back. Her cheeks blossomed as she stretched up to kiss him again. “I’ve waited all my life for you to ask.”
The kiss ended in a mutual sigh—and Maman’s more insistent summons. “All this way we’ve come, for your mother. She’s fading fast! If you don’t—”
With a sad smile, Christine slipped from his embrace. She stepped over the wagon’s threshold, glanced back at Tucker—where had his Cajun exuberance gone, now that she’d said yes?—and then let her eyes adjust to the dimness inside. Mama was lying on the bunk at the back of the wagon, deathly pale in the altar’s flickering candlelight.
“She came around?” Christine clasped Veronique’s trembling hand. “And she asked for me? And now she’s fading away again?”
“I—I’m so sorry,” the seer murmured. “I saw sure signs of her recovery, and then—”
“Do you have camphor and a hanky?” she whispered.
Veronique blinked. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
While Tucker’s mother fetched these things, Christine walked over to stand beside her mother. It could have been her own face she gazed at, except for the network of tiny lines around the eyes—and lips curved downward into a scowl she hoped Tucker never saw as she slept.
She grasped Mama’s hand. “Mama? Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
; The hand remained limp in hers, so she laid it on the bed. Dousing Veronique’s handkerchief with the pungent camphor made her eyes water and sting—or was it because, after all this time and trouble, her mother simply refused to recover?
Leaning closer, she stood with her face mere inches from Mama’s. She recalled staring this blatantly at Billy in his bed when they were kids . . . looking for that undetectable quiver beneath his eyelids . . .
Heart pounding wildly, Christine held the saturated rag over Mama’s nose. “Mama? Come on now—snap out of it!”
Seconds ticked by.
Still holding the reeking camphor rag in place, Christine smiled slyly. “Mama? Mama, wake up! I—I’m getting married—”
This realization finally washed over her, as though Tucker had tossed her into the icy waters of the Bay. Christine laughed out loud.
“Mama, I’m getting married!” she crowed. “I’m getting married—just like we’ve always planned. Now dammit, stop playing ’possum or you’ll miss the wedding!”
Her mother’s eyes flew open. She gasped for air, sputtering from sucking in such a snootful of the camphor. Arms and legs flailing, Mama swatted the hanky away.
“Right now?” she rasped. “But—I—have nothing to wear!”
Veronique Trudeau’s mouth fell open. “Christine, you’re shameless!”
Christine shrugged, chuckling. “I was raised that way.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“You’re sure Richard’s not here? And he won’t find us?”
“It’s all right, Mama. That’s why Tucker got us this hotel room and parked the wagon several blocks away.”
Christine grasped her mother’s hand. Now that the pranks were over, this woman had a morbid fear of the man who’d abandoned her. The greenish-purple bruise on the side of her head would take several days to go away, but otherwise Mama was recovering pretty well—for a woman who had only the filthy clothes on her back.
“Why did he try to poison you? And then knock you down in that alley, for God’s sake?” Christine asked vehemently. “From what I saw in Denver, you were the goose laying his golden eggs.”
Mama closed her eyes, scowling. “Goose? Really, Christine! Didn’t I raise you to show more respect for your—”
Christine crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows in a silent challenge.
“Oh, all right,” her mother said with an injured sniff. “Yes, I was conducting those séances for well-to-do—”
“Fake séances, Mama.”
“—people who were generous with their . . .” Her mother slumped against the bed head. “What else do you know?”
Christine considered how much to reveal. While she hated being her mother’s inquisitor, she also knew the value of knowledge kept to herself. Not just to use later, at a more advantageous moment, but because if she upset this wily woman, Mama might run off again. Calling her a liar wasn’t a good strategy either, considering how successfully she’d created her own versions of the truth these past few years.
“I know a fourteen-year-old boy who was devastated when you left us but has carried on and made something of himself,” she replied quietly. “And I know a family who sent you all the money they could scrape together only to discover that a certain homestead in Kansas was not theirs to claim. And I know some widows who’d like to bury you beneath those cheap Bibles you sold them.”
She paused, looking Mama in the eye. “And we haven’t even approached the way my heart was broken when you left us—and then again last week, when you wouldn’t even speak to me.”
Bitterness rose in her throat and she had to stand up to keep from shaking the woman on the bed. Christine gulped a deep, uneven breath. How she wished for Tucker’s quiet strength and sense of perspective now—or for Veronique to enter with their lunch tray.
But wasn’t this what she’d always wanted? A chance to hold Mama accountable?
Perhaps her need for vengeance wasn’t serving her purpose. Finding Mama alive should’ve compensated for her heartache these past three years. But dammit, this woman was still up to her old tricks! Still sidestepping questions and the consequences of what she’d done to people.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Mama murmured. “I never meant to hurt you—”
Christine whirled around. “How can you say that?” she demanded. “How could you just ride away from your own children, dammit?”
There it was, without frills or trimming. She’d shouted it out in her frustration, so now the silence between them rang just as loudly.
Mama looked away. “I had no idea he was—Richard told me he’d found us a nice house in Atchison, knowing we’d lost our home—”
“Knowing you were ripe and ready for the picking.”
She’d blurted out Judd Monroe’s line without a second thought, startling Mama—and herself as well. But she was no longer a young girl unaware of Wyndham’s devious ways. There was no sense in pretending.
Her mother’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. She blinked rapidly, fishing for the handkerchief in her skirt pocket.
“All right then, let’s go back to the other matter at hand,” Christine said in a lower voice. “Why did Richard bring you here to San Francisco, then try to kill you?”
Mama sighed, the dark bruise in sharp contrast to the pallor of her face. “When . . . when he knew you’d found me again, he assumed you’d brought the law with you.”
“Why? There’s nothing illegal about conducting séances in your home. And the unknowing guests couldn’t associate Mr. Wyndham with your sittings, since he remained . . . under the table. Or in the dark.”
Mama’s crushed look sent a shimmer of victory up her spine. Miss Vanderbilt was right: Knowledge was power. She had Mama exactly where she wanted her. Not that it was as satisfying as she’d imagined.
“When did you become so cynical? So wise to the ways of the world?” her mother asked. “You were only a sheltered, spoiled little girl when—”
“I did some fast growing up,” Christine said. “And, thanks to the wise, generous woman who took us in, I’ve attended an academy in St. Louis. The headmistress teaches us to think for ourselves and look beyond the surface of any situation.”
She turned to face her mother straight-on then. “But before that, I read the diary you left in your trunk, with all the other belongings you’d packed to take us west—supposedly to that new opportunity you kept talking about. That alone was quite an education, Mama.”
Her mother’s face went pale, and she began to cough like an old woman with consumption. But when Christine refused to fall for this ploy, Virgilia Bristol let out a long, resigned sigh. Gingerly she fingered her huge bruise.
“When Richard and I left Denver to beat the storm, we were all but clawing at each other,” she began. She looked toward the window, as though these scenes were playing themselves out in the glass.
“He insisted we leave town—assuming the long arm of the law was ready to snatch him up—before we could pack properly. And then, when he discovered I hadn’t brought along the jewelry case . . . but I outfoxed him on that one.”
Christine relaxed. She was by no means satisfied with this explanation, but at least they were getting somewhere. Mama only smiled that way when she was keeping a tasty little secret.
“What was in the case? Not jewelry, I’m guessing.”
“Oh, there was that,” she said with a coy roll of her eyes. “Richard could be quite generous when repaying my favors—”
Mama stopped, blushing. “That’s where we kept the keys to . . . the post offices boxes. I suppose you know about those, too.”
Recalling all those newspaper ads Tucker had sent her, she nodded.
“Well, when he thought I’d left those keys behind—which meant we couldn’t collect on the—”
“Why didn’t he have them?”
Mama shot her an incredulous look. “Because he’s a man, dear. And packing is woman’s work.”
Christine was ready to stran
gle her—until her mother began to giggle. It started slowly, as though she was out of practice at laughing. Mama raised the hem of her stained, smelly dress up over her knees and began to tear at the stitching—except by then she was laughing so hard her fingers were shaking.
“Mama, what on earth are you—?”
“I did grab those keys, Christine,” she said with a conspiratorial grin, “because when I heard him run out the back, after you revealed yourself, I knew we’d be on the run again. And I knew he’d blame me that you’d gotten so close this time—”
She looked away suddenly, her fingers still.
“Mama, I never meant to put you in danger,” Christine murmured. “I—I just wanted to see you again.”
“I know that, sweetheart. I’m your mother, after all.”
Mama got control of herself and then groped along the hem of her skirt again. “And I also had a feeling that if I didn’t see to my own . . . resources, I wouldn’t have any. But now I have at least—”
Another tug pulled a long section of hem loose, and then she fished out six keys. “Atchison . . . Kansas City . . . Abilene . . . Omaha . . . Cheyenne—and Denver,” she said as she held them up. “I slipped them into my hem when I used the washroom on the train. Richard was due to check the boxes for money, so I figured I’d have something to get by on if I could slip onto an eastbound train without him knowing—”
Mama had been in Abilene? And hadn’t gone to see Billy while Christine had been away at school? Christine filed this away for later, preferring to pursue the subject at hand.
“But he drugged you and beat you. Because you didn’t bring the keys.”
“Because he guessed that I did. And he couldn’t make me give them up.”
Christine shivered, reliving the fear and stench and horror of that awful Chinatown alley. “Dear God, Mama, what kind of man—”
Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy) Page 23