“Don’t worry,” Jonah said, interpreting her uncomfortable expression only half correctly, “I was nervous the first time my father put me behind the counter too. I got used to it. I’m sure you will as well.”
“How long did it take you to learn?” she asked, eager to put aside both her anxiety and the churning currently working up inside her.
“Well, it was a bit different for me,” he said. “I grew up in the shop. I watched both my parents work behind the counter for years. By the time I was twelve Pa was preparing me to take over.”
“That’s very young,” she said. “Though, I suppose I was doing quite a bit for my parents at that age as well.”
“Here, or in Ireland?” he asked curiously.
“Ireland,” she said reluctantly. “I didn’t come over until I was fourteen years old.”
She felt her shoulders instinctively begin to curl. She couldn't seem to help looking down at the wood of the counter as though it were suddenly inherently interesting.
She rarely ever talked about the home she’d left behind. Even when she mentioned it, she didn’t talk about her parents along with it.
“No wonder you’re so quick to pick up on things,” Jonah said after a brief silence. “I’m sure you had to be. Couldn’t have been easy coming over all on your own.”
She shrugged her shoulders still refusing to look up at him.
“My aunt was here all ready,” she said. “I had a place to live. And, I was able to find a job fairly easily.”
“As a maid?” he asked. She nodded feeling as though she should be doing something inherently more useful. Like, sweeping or scrubbing at the mere mention of her former job. But, her feet did not seem to want to move.
“Well, Miss Rose,” he said in a genial voice. “You’re still impressive to me, no matter what you say.”
She looked up at him to find him smiling kindly at her. She smiled back at him feeling a good deal more at ease.
“I hope I’ll be more impressive when I can count sums without having to use my fingers,” she said with a smile, referring to the trick he’d taught her about adding sums together using her ten digits. He chuckled, and once again felt her heart fluttered in her chest.
She realized now that he rarely laughed with anyone else. He would give small smiles to customers who came in. He was genial and spoke kindly to them. He spoke kindly to everyone. But, he only laughed with her. The idea that he did something for her alone, that he showed her a side of himself he didn’t give to everyone else, made her feel more than a bit special.
“You will be,” he said, amusement still lacing his voice.
Rose’s smile suddenly turned to a wince of pain when her stomach turned in a much more painful way than it had before. She felt nausea move over her and bit her lip trying to force it back.
“Now, if you’re ready, we can work on making change for the two dollar- Rose?” Jonah asked noticing the pain written on her face. “Are you alright?”
There was a sharp stabbing in her abdomen accompanied by another turn of her stomach.
She barely managed to mutter a quick “Please excuse me” before rushing out the back door of the shop.
Rose hurtled towards the outhouse just behind the shop’s main wall. She was two feet from it when she felt her stomach turn and knew she could not wait any longer.
Her face beginning to heat from a mixture of embarrassment and illness, she bent over, retching as she emptied her stomach of its contents.
“Rose?” she heard Jonah’s voice from somewhere very far away. She tried to answer but all that came out was a harsh cough.
“What’s wrong?” Jonah asked. She barely felt his warm hand settle on her shoulder. A feeling that would have sent her chest into a fluttering frenzy only moments before caused only a passing lurch as she struggled to get her stomach under control.
“I’ll be fine,” she said weakly. “It might be something I ate earlier.”
Her assurance was undermined by another stabbing pain in her stomach. For a moment, a horrible fear came over her. Perhaps there was something wrong...something wrong with the baby.
“We need to get you inside,” he said. Though she could not see him, she could hear the concern lacing his voice. “Then I will fetch Dr. Gregson.”
Rose’s eyes widened and her mind began to fret at the thought. A doctor meant that she would be examined. It meant that this doctor would learn her secret. It meant that her condition could be revealed to Jonah...
“No!” Rose said so forcefully that she felt Jonah take his hand off her shoulder and step back.
She took a deep breath and turned back to him.
“There’s really no need,” she said trying to force a neutral expression. “It’s…”
She tried to say “it’s nothing”. At one point, she even thought she had. That’s when the spinning started. She felt the world around her tilt sideways as she lost her balance and leaned against the shop’s wall.
She looked down at the ground as she heard Jonah rush over to her.
“We need to get you inside and into bed,” he said.
She couldn’t disagree with him. In fact, she could barely keep her eyes open.
Faintly, she felt his arm move to wrap around her waist as he all but carried her through the shop’s back door and into her small bedroom.
The spinning had not stopped. In fact, it seemed to accelerate as he walked her towards the bed. Rose allowed her head to fall against Jonah’s strong chest as he gently laid her down and put the coverlet over her.
“You rest,” he said. “I’m going to fetch the doctor.”
She tried to tell him no, tried to stop him, but she could not seem to find her voice.
She saw his gentle eyes looking into hers, so filled with concern. Felt a soft warm hand reach up to feel her cheeks and forehead.
Too exhausted to worry or object anymore, she closed her eyes and the world turned to black.
*****
“How long has she been asleep?”
“Since I left.”
Rose heard the voices softly at first, then louder. As though she were moving closer to the men speaking.
“Sleep is good,” the unfamiliar voice said. “It means she should be coming out of it.”
Something cold and wet touched against her forehead, it caused a shiver to course through her as she opened her eyes.
Above her, a man with a pointed and trimmed white beard, long slicked back white hair and pale blue eyes looked back at her.
“It’s all right, Miss O'Neil,” the man said. “My name is Doctor Gregson. Mr. Henderson tells me you took a rather nasty turn.”
“It really wasn’t anything so terrible,” Rose lied. “Perhaps a bit of indigestion.”
“It was more than that,” Jonah said. For the first time, Rose saw him standing in the corner of the room behind the doctor. His face was pale and his voice though harsh, carried a worried maybe even frightened tone.
“Miss O'Neil was so faint when I brought her in, she could hardly keep her head up,” he said.
“Well, I’ve done a basic examination,” the doctor said, choosing not to acknowledge Jonah’s interruption. “You slept through most of it. Which, in your condition is not surprising.”
“What condition is that?” Rose heard Jonah ask from the corner of the room. He looked anxiously between from her to the doctor.
Rose felt her heart begin to pound and her face color. She would have to tell him. She would have to tell him that she had become pregnant out of wedlock, that she had hidden the truth from him.
Though, with the doctor in the room, it seemed quite impossible to find the words.
“No condition other than the expected,” the doctor said, answering Jonah’s question before Rose could find the voice to speak. “This phase is fairly common in the early stages. It should pass. And, in a few months, the baby should be born perfectly healthy.”
“Baby?” Jonah asked.
He was
not looking to the doctor at all now. His eyes were focused solely on Rose. Her heart sunk to the bottom of her chest when she saw his wide eyes and stunned face looking back at her.
The doctor, however, was looking between Jonah and Rose now. Clearly wrong-footed.
“Mr. Henderson,” he said sounding as surprised as Jonah looked. “I am sorry. I thought...surely you would know about your employee's condition.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Doctor,” Rose said finally. Her voice sounded unimaginably quiet. Even to her own ears. “I should have told Mr. Henderson long before now.”
Rose moved her eyes down to her clasped hands sitting on top of her coverall; unable to look at Jonah any longer. None the less, the hurt, betrayed tone with which he asked the next question caused tears to form in her eyes.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“About two months,” she answered. “As soon as I found out, I boarded a train west.”
Silence filled the room and Rose tried, as best she could, to keep the giant sob rising in her throat from being given voice.
Finally, Doctor Gregson cleared his throat. Rose felt him stand awkwardly from the bed though she still did not dare lift her eyes.
“Make sure to get plenty of bed rest, Miss O'Neil,” the doctor said. “And you should, perhaps, put an end to any heavy lifting.”
She felt her head nod at the doctor’s words though she still refused to lift her eyes from the coverlet. She did not think she could bear to see the hurt or disgust she knew would be on Jonah’s face when she looked at him.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she heard Jonah say. “I’ll see you out.”
It was not until she heard the door click closed that Rose dared to look up.
He was gone. She was sure, after what he had learned tonight, after what she had kept from him, he would not come back. She knew, most likely, he would never wish to see her again.
If Jonah did speak to her after this, it would only be to tell her that she could no longer work in his shop.
It was a conversation Rose had dreaded ever since entering The Henderson’s General Store. She had known, if her employer learned of her...situation...she would have to leave.
Even when she worked so happily alongside Jonah. Even when they were joking or smiling or learning something new about each other, Rose had always known this day would come. It had always been there, in the back of her mind, taunting her.
Now it had come.
Of course now that she knew Jonah, perhaps better than she had known any man before, she could not imagine him being quite so harsh with her. Knowing him as she did, he might even insist that she stay, at least until the child was born.
But, even if he asked this of her, she knew that she could not. If word spread in town that a pregnant, unmarried young woman was working in Jonah Henderson’s shop, the store was bound to lose business. There would be gossip, whispers, Jonah’s reputation might never recover.
There was nothing else to be done. She would have to move on.
The tears that she held back when the doctor was present flowed freely now. She knew it was no use to try and hide them. It was no use to try to deny that her heart was breaking.
She gave herself several minutes. Several minutes of tears. Silent minutes to acknowledge the grief and loss she would feel at being forced to leave the one person who had showed her any kindness at all since she came to this continent. The one person who truly seemed to care for her.
After those few minutes were finished, she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress and slowly, tenderly, got to her feet.
The dizziness was gone, as was the churning in her stomach. Taking a breath made up of half relief and half sorrow, she moved slowly to the side of the room where her small bag sat against the wall.
Carefully, she began to pack her things.
*****
Rose knew that packing would not take her long. She had only one other dress, one bible and one framed photograph of her parents. That was not counting the bills she had earned for her work at the shop.
These, she knew would be enough for a train ticket further west. She would go to California this time, she decided.
She would give her name as Mrs. Rose...something and start a whole new life as a pregnant widow. People took pity on widows. She was sure to find some kind of work in California.
Her plan firmly in place, she lifted her dress from the small wardrobe, folded it and bent down to put it in her satchel. As soon as she did, she heard a knock on her bedroom door.
“Rose?” she heard Jonah’s voice call out. “May I come in?”
Rose hesitated. She had not thought that Jonah would wish to see her again. She certainly had not expected him to return that night.
Perhaps he had come to send her away. She knew that was the most likely scenario. And if that was the case, it was probably best to get it over with as quickly as possible.
“Come in,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
The door opened slowly. When Jonah entered, his eyes narrowed in a look of confusion as he glanced from Rose’s standing form to the travel bag at her feet.
“Why are you standing?” he asked. “The doctor said you needed rest.”
Looking into his eyes, Rose felt the tears she had shed only moments before begin to form again. She swallowed and wiped them as she looked back down at her satchel and continued to put her things inside.
“I will rest once I’ve finished packing,” she said.
“But, why are you packing?” he asked. She felt Jonah move closer to her. Even so, she did not dare look at him as she grasped her Bible at the foot of her bed and placed it in her satchel on top of her folded dress.
“I’m leaving, of course,” she said. “First thing in the morning.”
“There’s no need-”
“Yes, there is,” she said firmly. Finally looking up at him. “It would not do for you to have an unmarried woman in...in the family way working for you. People will talk.”
“Rose-”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, truly,” she said speaking over him once more. “But, I won’t put you through any humiliation or gossip on my account.”
“Rose,” he said firmly. This time, he placed one hand firmly on her shoulder. The other reached up to her jaw and forced her eyes up to his. That soft, kind expression was there, just like it always was. It was the look that had comforted her during their lessons; the look that had made her smile for the first time in weeks when she first arrived in Denver.
“Please,” he said, “for my own sanity, at least, sit down.”
Her legs felt suddenly weak and she could feel the baby turn in her stomach. Unable to protest, she allowed Jonah to lead her gently by the arm towards the bed where they both sat.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. Rose searched his tone for any hint of accusation or anger but was shocked to find that there was none. Instead, his voice was gentle, almost understanding.
“I didn’t think anyone would hire a woman in my...condition,” she answered. “And I desperately needed work. I had nearly run out of the funds that I used to travel here from Boston.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jonah nod. Silence fell between them and Rose found herself, once again staring down at her hands as though they were the most interesting things in the world.
The longer the silence progressed, the more tension seemed to mount between them. Rose knew Jonah wanted to ask her something else. Something that was, apparently, much more difficult for him to voice.
“Does...does the father know?” he asked finally.
Rose looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. He was looking down at his hands as well and she could see a blush coming into his cheeks.
“No,” she said looking at him fully and trying to gauge his reaction. “I wouldn’t want him to even if I had the chance to tell him.”
“I take it then that he was not...a good ma
n,” he said. He still wasn’t looking at her and the red in his cheeks had deepened. She knew a simple “no he wasn’t” would have sufficed in answer and Jonah would not have asked her anymore about it.
But, she realized that she didn’t want to have any secrets from him. Whether she left Jonah or stayed with him (if the heavens could be so kind), she wanted him to know as much as she could tell him.
“He was my boss,” she began slowly. “When I worked as a maid, back in Boston, he was the man of the house. Married, of course. But, that didn’t stop him from chatting up some of us girls. He could be...quite persistent.”
Jonah lifted his head and looked at her his eyes narrowing once again.
“Did he force you?” he asked. Rose hesitated before answering. She was not quite certain how to explain what had happened between her and her former employer.
“No,” she said finally. “Well...not exactly. He did...ask that I come to his room alone. And he said if I didn’t he would make sure I didn’t have a job any longer. I did everything he asked for months but one day...one day I decided I couldn’t anymore and... he made good on his threat.”
Rose watched as Jonah’s hands formed fists on top of the bed coverings. His face was now red, not with embarrassment but with anger.
“He may as well have forced you then,” Jonah said with a slight growl to his voice. He looked as though he would like to punch her former boss in the face if he had the chance.
Under any other circumstances, this would have brought a smile to Rose’s face and possibly have made her heart dance in her chest. She had always dreamed of a man who would fight for her. But, she knew the gesture would not do Jonah any good. Besides…
“I could have said no,” she told him softly. “If I’d really wanted to…”
“Then you would have been out of work,” Jonah said.
“I would have been no worse off than I am now,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Jonah asked turning to her again. The red was receding from his face and his fists over the covers were loosening.
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