Where The Heart Is

by Sheridon Smythe

  More memories followed, uglier and more frightening. Jo clamped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Despite the protective action, she could hear her mother's screams and that savage, ugly voice cursing her.

  Jo wasn't likely to ever forget the face behind that voice. She also wasn't likely to ever forget the sight of her broken, bleeding mother. After that, she had lost days where she couldn't remember what she'd done or where she had gone. Then one morning, she found herself outside of Ivy House without having a clue how she came to be there.

  Abruptly, Jo stood and mimicked Natalie's stubborn stance. Back straight, shoulders square, chin firm. When she darted a shy glance in the mirror, she noted that her eyes glistened with the light of battle. She'd march into town and get that job, and nobody would bother her. Of course they wouldn't. This was Chattanooga, and while people appeared indifferent to the lost orphans of Ivy House, Jo didn't think they would stand by and let someone attack her—

  What was she thinking? She was silly for dwelling on something that would never, ever happen! Laughing at herself and spurred by an unaccustomed excitement, Jo went to fetch her shoes from her room.

  A half hour later, she emerged from the restaurant simply titled MAMA'S KITCHEN, grinning foolishly. People passed her on the boardwalk; some curious and some too busy to notice that the orphan girl who dressed like a boy wore a dress for the first time. Or maybe, Jo thought, those who knew her didn't recognize her. The possibility made her giggle. Would Jeb know her? Would he like her this way? Or did he only like her as a friend, and felt comfortable around her because she dressed like him?

  Standing in front of the door enjoying her newfound independence, she nodded at those she knew, and smiled at those she didn't as she pondered her future. She was to start her new job on Monday at five o'clock sharp. Tapping her foot, she cast her thoughtful gaze on the boarding house just down the street. Why wait? Why not go ahead and ask Clyde for a room with a promise to pay him at the end of the week? Clyde was a round, jolly man well-liked by everyone; his wife was a perfect match. They ran a respectable business, and their friendly manner and comfortable lodgings couldn't compare to the cold hauteur of the fancy new hotel that had sprung up last year.

  No, the hotel hadn't hurt the Nolens in the least.

  Deciding she'd take the challenge while her confidence soared, Jo made her way to the boarding house, a two-story affair squeezed between the jewelry shop and a funeral parlor. Clyde answered her knock with a welcoming smile and a wave of his thick, hairy arm. His eyes twinkled kindly.

  "Aren't you little Miss Jo from Ivy House?"

  She nodded, nervous now that the moment had come. “I—I'd like to let a room. I've gotten a job at the eatin’ place, but I won't get paid until the end of the week. If you could just let me stay until then, I'd pay you the moment I—"

  "Whoa, girl!” Clyde's laugh boomed through the house. “That's a lot to follow, and at such a speed!” He turned and bellowed, “Mama! Come here! Come see this pretty little lady on our doorstep."

  A woman came through a doorway Jo suspected led from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a food-splattered apron. She was frowning. “What is it, Clyde? You know I've got to get those pies baked before—why, isn't that Jo from Ivy House?” she asked as her gaze lit on Jo standing in the doorway.

  Jo studied her in return. She had warm brown eyes like her husband's, set in a kind, wrinkled face. Thinking of her own brown eyes, Jo thought, I could have been their daughter. Startled more by the wistfulness of her thought than by the fact that she had thought it at all, she gave her head a slight shake. She'd gotten over those ridiculous dreams a long time ago, hadn't she?

  "What on earth are you doing here, Jo?” Mrs. Nolen asked, pulling her inside. The buxom woman smelled of apples and cinnamon, familiar, comforting scents to Jo. “Shut that door, Clyde, it's gettin’ cold."

  She kept her arm around Jo, and Jo decided she didn't mind at all. In fact, it gave her a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach. Looking into those welcoming, friendly eyes, she found herself pouring out the entire story.

  By the time she had finished, Clyde and his wife were clutching each other, nearly helpless with laughter. Watching them, she began to chuckle. Before long, she was laughing as heartily as they were. Yes, it was funny, to hear it told. A passel of match-making orphans and a well-meaning pregnant woman acting as general.

  When the laughter finally died down, Mrs. Nolen wiped her streaming eyes and said, “Well, I thought I'd heard it all, girl! ‘Pears I hadn't! Of course you can stay—we want to do our part in bringing those two together. You can take the room opposite ours, top floor, last room on the left. That way we can keep an eye on you."

  Jo started to protest that she didn't need looking after, but then she remembered the fear that came upon her at night sometimes. She clamped her lips shut. “Can I see the room?” she asked instead.

  "Sure can. Go on up, I've got to check on the pies, but I'll be along in a minute.” Mrs. Nolen shoved her gently toward the stairs. “Clyde, you need to set the table for dinner."

  Left alone at the bottom of the stairs, Jo glanced up at the shadowed stairway and began to climb the steps, nearly tripping over her skirts before she remembered to hold them up. She'd rather have waited for Mrs. Nolen, but if she was going to become independent, she had to learn to put her fear behind her. Just like Natalie said, there wasn't any shame in being a woman. And besides, she continued to assure herself, Chattanooga was a safe town.

  On the second floor landing, she hesitated, then started down the hall to the last door on the left as Mrs. Nolen had instructed. Halfway there, she heard the sound of muffled, male voices. She paused, heart pounding. The voices came from the other side of the door directly to her left.

  Keep going.

  Her body ignored the order. A cold, terrified sweat popped out along her spine. The tiny hairs at the nape of her neck rose in warning.

  She recognized that voice!

  "He's here, mark my words, and we'll find him. We're not leaving until we get the boss's money."

  "Does this hole in the ground sport a brothel? I didn't notice on that bone-jarring drive from the river—"

  The man who opened the door snapped his lips closed the moment he noticed Jo frozen in the middle of the hallway. He held a cigar clamped between his teeth. Shoving it to one side of his mouth, he drawled, “Well, who have we here?” His watery, blood-shot gaze trailed up and down her slim form in bold appraisal. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and glanced over his shoulder at his partner. “We didn't order room service, did we Evans?"

  Jo didn't hear him; she was watching the other man. He'd aged, but he hadn't changed so much that she didn't recognize him. She'd never forget as long as she lived. The same, cruel black eyes, and the same twisted mouth caused by a scar that lifted his lips upward in a permanent snarl.

  Paralyzed with horror, she dropped her gaze to his hands. Yes, he still wore the rings. He'd cut her mother's face beyond recognition with those rings.

  "Hey, don't I know you?"

  She jerked her gaze back to his face, her eyes widening in shock. “I—I—” It was no use, she couldn't make her throat work, just as she couldn't make her legs move. It was the same nightmare come true for her, one she'd lived in fear of repeating for a very long time.

  The man she knew as Randal Evans brushed past his partner and stepped into the hall. He reached out and grasped her chin, jerking it roughly from side to side. “Yes, I know you. Aren't you the brat of that whore who thought to rob—"

  It was the feel of his cold, slimy fingers on her skin that released her muscles.

  Jo whirled and practically fell down the stairs. She snatched open the front door and raced down the steps, hiking her dress high and not giving a fig who saw her.

  Her heart pounded in rhythm with her borrowed shoes on the warped and scarred boardwalk. She let out a gasping sob and rubbed at her chin, trying to erase the horror of
his touch as she raced toward Ivy House and safety.

  Those same hands had killed her mother.

  Painful sobs began to build in her throat. People stopped to stare, but she continued running, her one single thought to get home and lock the door, hide under the bed...

  Ivy House came into view, but just as a sob of relief bubbled in her throat, she heard footsteps behind her. Not daring to look back, she picked up her pace, her harsh breath whistling in and out of her lungs.

  He was behind her!

  She tripped on the blasted dress she'd never wear again and pitched forward, flinging out her hands to catch herself. Strong arms circled her waist and snatched her up just inches before she hit the ground. With the last, tortuous breath left in her lungs, she screamed.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Elliot pounced on Natalie the moment she entered the parlor. “How is she? Is she all right? What in the hell frightened the child?"

  He was a wreck, she thought, letting her gaze travel over him. His hair stood on end where he'd raked his fingers through it; the top few buttons of his shirt were in the wrong buttonholes as if restless fingers had worked them loose, then carelessly fastened them. His face looked haggard and his eyes held a wild gleam she recognized as panic.

  He'd never looked so handsome, and she realized something in that moment, something she'd been too blind to see or too proud to admit; Elliot did care about the children. He really cared. She sighed and passed a weary hand over her own frazzled hair. Yes, he cared, but if not for him and his determination to sell Ivy House, Jo wouldn't have felt the need to apply for a job in town, and she wouldn't be in the state she was in, for whatever reason. “She won't talk, but I do know that she applied for the job at the restaurant. She also mentioned something about checking with Clyde—"

  "Clyde?” Elliot strode to her, his expression growing wilder. “Who's that?” he demanded.

  "Clyde's boarding house,” she said in a soothing voice meant to calm. It didn't work. He swung around and paced to the fireplace, rubbing the back of his neck. She held still, fascinated with this new side of him. He always appeared so controlled, while she seemed to leap from one emotion to the next.

  "You should have seen her face, Natalie, when I caught her as she was falling. She looked at me as if I were the devil himself! And that scream—” His mouth twisted in a grimace that was more anguished than puzzled. “Something or someone frightened her, and I'll know who it is before the day is out!"

  She believed him, and she pitied whoever was responsible. “I'll talk to her again, see if I can find anything out."

  "Yes, yes, do that. If someone hurt her—laid a hand on her, I'll—” He let out a string of oaths that made her eyebrows rise. “I'm going into town to get some answers,” he growled, stomping past her.

  She watched him go, her heart aching with a fierce love she knew would never die. It didn't seem to matter to her heart that he had turned their world upside down.

  When the door slammed shut, she slowly climbed the stairs. Maybe when Jo's fear subsided, she would talk to her, tell her what happened.

  She could always hope for a miracle.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Kelley closed her fingers around the rolling pin, keeping a wary eye on the madman who had stomped uninvited into her kitchen. “I told you I didn't know which way she went. I was back here in the kitchen when she left."

  "And she didn't mention where she was going from here?” Elliot asked for the fourth time. He knew he repeated himself, but damned if he could help it. Blowing out a frustrated breath, he looked at Mrs. Kelley. She was a thin woman of about fifty, with dark hair peppered with gray and twisted tight in a conservative bun. From the looks of her skinny arms, she didn't eat much of her own cooking. Still, she appeared harmless, if a little tired.

  "I saw which way she went, Miz Kelley."

  He jerked his gaze to the huge black woman peeling potatoes over a slop bucket. He'd been distracted when he arrived and hadn't noticed her. Why in Heaven's name didn't she speak up when he first asked the question? he wondered with an inward snarl of frustration. “Well?"

  She rolled her round, coffee colored eyes in the direction of the swinging doors leading into the dining area. Amazingly, the knife continued to move around the potato with lightning speed. “I was sweeping the walk out front when dat girl left. Her was headin’ south."

  "Thank you,” he snapped ungraciously, slapping his hat on and stalking out through the swinging doors. South probably meant Clyde's boarding house, he mused, stepping outside.

  A brittle wind whistled around the corner of the building and cut clean through his thin coat, making him long for one of the heavier coats he'd left in Nashville. With a face full of thunder, he ignored the cold and walked the short distance to Clyde's boarding house. He'd get some answers, by God, one way or another.

  But Clyde and his wife, it seemed, were just as baffled as he. According to the couple, Jo had asked for a room, but had left without making arrangements.

  "She went upstairs to take a look,” Mrs. Nolen explained, “And came racing down—oh, couldn't have been more than five minutes—like the hounds of hell were chasing her."

  "Nearly tore the door apart leaving,” Mr. Nolen added on a worried note. “Can't imagine what spooked her."

  Elliot glanced upward and narrowed his eyes. “You've got boarders?” he questioned softly. He rested his foot on the bottom stair and contemplated the upstairs landing. Dark, shadowy, but enough to scare Jo? He didn't think so.

  "Couple of fellows from Nashville.” Mr. Nolen tugged at his beard and added, “Seemed like nice gentlemen."

  Elliot was beginning to have his doubts about that. “I'll just have a word with them, if you don't mind. Which room?"

  "Well—"

  An elbow to his side effectively silenced any protest Clyde thought about making. Mrs. Nolen glared at her husband before turning to Elliot. “Go right ahead. If those men frightened Jo, then I don't want them in my house, that's for sure. They're staying in the second and third rooms on the left."

  He left the couple arguing in a fierce whisper and took the stairs two at a time. He paused before the second door and listened. Nothing. Stepping a few feet to his right, he listened at the third door. Ah, voices, he thought, knocking sharply. Jo's terrorized scream still echoed in his head. He clenched his fists and waited.

  The door was yanked open almost immediately by a mustached man dressed in a somber gray pin-striped suit. He'd discarded the coat, revealing black suspenders with a startling slash of red through the center. One look in those watery, weak eyes and Elliot knew this was not his man.

  He shoved the man aside and strode into the room. Bare chested, Randal Evans stood by the wash basin, his face nearly hidden by a thick layer of lather. Apparently, he'd caught Evans in the middle of a shave, Elliot thought without sympathy. His lip curled in distaste. Even without his shirt and his face covered with lather, he recognized the man.

  "You found me,” Elliot drawled, guessing Evans was the man he was looking for. Anyone who worked for a ruthless tycoon like Bo Carnagie had to sport a mean streak, he concluded silently.

  Without haste, Evans grabbed a towel and wiped his face clean, revealing a permanent snarl that turned out to be an asset when collecting unpaid debts.

  It didn't scare Elliot. In fact, the thought of this hideous man touching Jo pushed his blood pressure through the ceiling.

  "Looks as if you found me,” Evans retorted. With a jerk of his head, he ordered the other man from the room.

  Elliot swung around. “You stay. I might have a few questions for you."

  Evans shrugged. “This is none of his business, but suit yourself.” He pitched the towel onto the wash basin and picked up his shirt. “Carnagie wants his money, Montgomery. We're not leaving this town until we get it for him."

  It was Elliot's turn to shrug. “Maybe you will and maybe you won't. That's not what I
want to talk about right now."

  Something flickered in Evans’ eyes. It might have been fear, or it might have been confusion. Elliot really didn't care. He stepped closer, wanting to watch the man's expression as he asked his questions. “Did you accost a girl in the hall an hour or so ago?” Evans gave a guilty start and even before Elliot looked at the other man to confirm his suspicion, he knew he'd been right in thinking Evans was the cause of Jo's hysteria.

  With almost casual ease, he took that last step that brought him to Evans. He grabbed the man's unbuttoned shirt and hauled him against the wall. Eyes blazing, he hissed, “What exactly did you do to her?” He shook him for good measure. Evans’ snarl became more pronounced. “And don't try to lie,” he added, “because I'll know it."

  The man standing behind Elliot let out an alarmed squeak. His voice was shrill as he cried, “He didn't do nothing but talk to her, ain't that right Randal? Didn't you know—"

  "Shut up, you fool!” Evans snarled. “I didn't know the wench. I was just making friendly conversation."

  Elliot pressed his knuckles into the man's wind pipe until his face began to redden. “If the conversation was so friendly, then why did she run from the house as if the devil chased her?"

  "She didn't—"

  "I have witnesses.” Although Evans’ partner had answered his question, he never took his eyes from the man before him. He couldn't get the image of Jo's terror-struck face from his mind. No, the man had not engaged Jo in friendly conversation. There was more and he intended to find out exactly what it was.

  Hauling Evans into a chair, he released his strangle-hold on his shirt and stood back. He dusted his hands on his pants as if to wipe away the filth before he fixed Evans with a deadly stare. “Tell me what happened and I might let you live."

  Evans breathed in great gulps of air, massaging his neck and glaring at him. “We found the girl listening outside the door,” he rasped. “I simply asked if we could help her with something, and she ran screaming.” He darted a glance at his partner as if for confirmation. “Tell him, Jules."