by Jody Hedlund
A gust of wind blew at the shack, rattling the walls and threatening to tear the roof away. A shower of snow blew in between several cracks, sending a dusting over them.
He glanced at the roof, and worried lines quickly replaced all humor.
“Sounds like it’s still storming,” she said. How many hours had elapsed since she’d left the hotel? “When I left I never expected it to start snowing or for it to get so cold so fast.”
“Last time I went out we had ten and a quarter inches on the ground.”
He was so matter-of-fact and precise she couldn’t keep from teasing. “Are you sure it wasn’t more like ten and a half?”
His eyebrow quirked.
She smiled. “I don’t suppose you had a ruler to measure it now, did you?”
He ducked his head, but not before she caught sight of his grin. “I don’t need one. I have one built into my brain.”
“Built in?” This time her brow shot up.
“I’m good with figures.”
The wind rattled again, whistling through the many crevices in the walls and down the narrow pipe that served as the chimney for the small dugout fireplace.
He stood, bumping his head against the ceiling. With a frown, he shrugged into his plaid mackinaw and then reached for his heavy coat.
“Is it time to go?” she asked, propping herself onto her elbow.
He tugged up the collar of his coat and slipped his feet into his boots. Then he looked at her with a seriousness that sent a jolt of fear through her. “We can’t leave.”
“Sure we can.” She pushed herself up but was immediately overcome by a wave of dizziness.
“Even if you were up to leaving, which you’re not”—he nodded at her weak attempt at sitting up—“I let the horse go last night. It was her only chance of surviving. Hopefully she made her way back to the stable.”
“We could walk—”
“Not without snowshoes. The snow’s too deep and the wind too harsh.”
She leaned back again, suddenly weary and cold. “Then we’re stuck here?”
“Until a rescue party comes for us.” He pulled on his gloves. “Or until spring. Whichever comes first.” He gave a halfhearted grin at his attempt at a joke.
But the shadows in his eyes gave testimony to the seriousness of their situation. “I’m going out to get more firewood.”
When he opened the door, the overcast daylight streamed in, along with a swirl of snow and wind. All it took was one glimpse of the blizzard that was still raging for her to realize he was right. They’d be foolish to attempt to go anywhere—as foolish as she’d been to set out in the first place.
He was gone longer than she’d hoped. And all the while the wind raged harder, squeezing between every crevice and slithering over her. She tried to sit up, then to kneel, knowing she couldn’t lie helplessly while he did all the work.
She reached for her dress, and her body shook with the effort. As her fingers made contact with the damp material, she knew she wouldn’t be able to put it back on yet, not while it was still cold and wet. She tried to spread it out to help with the drying but fell back against the ground, exhausted.
“Please don’t let us die, God.” Her heart cried out, just as it had when she’d fallen into the snow, unable to go another step forward. She couldn’t die now. Not yet. Not when Daisy and Frankie still needed her so desperately.
Hunger gnawed at Connell’s stomach. He handed Lily another slice of dried apple. “Come on now, one more piece.”
She pushed his hand away. “I’m too tired to eat any more.”
He’d managed to stuff half a loaf of bread, a few dried apples, and a wedge of cheese into his sack, enough to tide them over for one missed meal, but certainly not enough to sustain them long term. And now, after just one day, their supply of food was low, even though he’d rationed himself to the barest minimum.
“You need to eat a little more,” he urged, kneeling next to her.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Bet you’d eat it if it were a cookie.”
She managed a small smile. “Probably.”
Worry gurgled with the acid in his stomach. She’d grown pale and listless as the day had worn on.
“You eat it,” she said.
“No,” he insisted, holding it out to her.
He’d taken Oren’s rifle with him during one of his forays for firewood. But he hadn’t figured on finding any game. With the intensity of the storm, every living creature was holed up, safe and warm where it belonged—unlike them.
Still, his stomach would have thanked him for a hare or even a squirrel.
Lily finally took the brown, shriveled piece of apple. “You need it more than I do. And you shouldn’t have to suffer for my mistake.”
“My mam taught me to take care of a woman’s needs above my own.”
Her lips formed into another protest.
“Besides, I wanted to help you,” he said. “I made the decision to come out here of my own free will.”
Her words died away, and she searched his face, as if trying to understand why he’d risked his life for her. But he couldn’t find an answer for her any more than he could for himself.
What was it about her that made him rush headlong into doing things he normally wouldn’t consider?
Certainly not just because she was an attractive woman.
He glanced at her lips, and his gut heated with the memory of lying next to her and how much he’d wanted to kiss her. He tore his gaze away. He couldn’t let his mind dwell on the intimacy. He’d already had a hard enough time wrenching himself away from her earlier. If he let himself think of how soft and warm she’d been in his arms, he’d only feed his appetite for her—an appetite that didn’t need any more fuel.
He reached for another log he’d split and tossed it onto the fire. Sparks flared into the air, crackling with power. If he wasn’t careful, he could easily let the sparks he’d felt with Lily turn into out-of-control flames.
She situated herself on the blanket and took a nibble of the apple. “It sounds like you had a wonderful mother.”
He nodded and sat back, putting a safe distance between himself and the temptation to pull her into his arms. “My mam is about as sweet as they come.” The complete opposite of Dad.
“Tell me about her,” Lily said wistfully.
“She probably would have joined a convent if she hadn’t met my dad. But Dad was fresh off the boat and starving, like most of the other poor Irish immigrants fleeing from the potato famine. She took pity on him and helped nurse him back to health. And, of course, he convinced her to marry him.”
Sometimes he wondered if she would have been happier at a convent.
Lily didn’t say anything and instead watched his face.
“What about you?” he asked, ready to take the focus off himself and his parents. “What kind of mom did you have?”
She hesitated. Her hair was unraveled and lay in a glorious display of long dark curls around her face.
The muscles in his hands tensed with the need to thread his fingers through the thick locks. Instead he grabbed his ax and poked the fire, sending more sparks flying.
“I don’t remember much about my mother,” she said.
He stared at the flames, trying to keep a rein on his thoughts about Lily.
“She died giving birth to Daisy.” Her voice dipped.
“I’m sorry.” He stilled and glanced at her again.
Her forehead crinkled above eyes that radiated pain. “My father couldn’t take care of us, and for a few years we were shuffled between relatives. Until he got into an accident at work and died within a few days.”
An ache wound around his heart.
“After that, no one wanted us anymore. I suppose without the money my father had provided them, they couldn’t afford to take care of two more children—not when they struggled enough without us. So they dropped us off at the New York Foundling Hospital.”
She pa
used, and he didn’t say anything, although part of him wished he could curse the family that gave up two girls with such ease.
“We lived at the hospital in New York City until there was no longer room for us. Then we moved to other orphanages.” She turned to look at the fire, embarrassment reflected in her face. “I made sure they never separated Daisy and me. I kept us together all those years, no matter where we were. And finally we had the option of moving here to Michigan. They said families needed boys and girls. We’d get to live in real homes.”
The grip on his heart cinched tighter.
“When we got here, I thought I was doing the best thing for Daisy by giving her a real family to live with. The Wretchams seemed nice. They lived on a big farm. Needed some extra help—”
“So you and Daisy didn’t stay together?”
“There weren’t any families needing two almost-grown girls. But I consoled myself that it was only temporary, that we’d only be apart until I could find a good job and a place for us to live.”
“That must have been hard on both of you.”
“Letting her go was like ripping out a piece of my heart.”
He wanted to reach for her, pull her into his arms, and comfort her. But everything within him warned him against even a move as innocent as that.
“When I learned she’d run away from the Wretchams, she ripped out the rest of my heart, and it hasn’t stopped bleeding since.”
No wonder she was so passionate about finding Daisy. “Why did she leave them?”
Lily shrugged. “From what I could tell the couple times I visited, they were taking good care of her. They had other children, and they made her feel welcome.”
“Sounds like it was a good family.”
Her face darkened and her eyes grew sad. “Since I never had a family of my own, I’m not very qualified to judge a family’s worth, am I?”
“Whatever happened, you can’t blame yourself—”
“I’ll blame myself until the day I die,” she said hotly. “I should have figured out a way to stay together.”
“But you couldn’t take care of her forever—”
“When I find her, I’ll never let her go again.” Her words rang with that fiery determination he was coming to admire. “I’m going to find a way to make a home for her the way she deserves.”
And just what was Lily planning to do? What kind of skill or training did she have that would enable her to support herself and her sister? He bit back the questions, not willing to be the one to discourage her or make her face reality. But the fact was, there wasn’t much a woman alone could do to earn a decent living except what Daisy was already doing—selling herself to men.
And he also wasn’t going to be the one to remind Lily it would take a miracle to find Daisy among the hundreds of illicit houses littering central Michigan.
Besides, what kind of life would Daisy be able to lead if she left prostitution? No decent man would ever want to marry her. And respectable society would shun her.
Daisy would be an outcast. And Lily would end up one by association.
As hard as it was to admit the truth, he had the feeling she was better off not finding the girl.
Chapter
11
The second night in the hut brought a new chill, an arctic wind that penetrated every crack and forced them closer to the fire.
The firelight flickered over Connell’s face, over the shadows of worry that he couldn’t hide.
From where she lay on the floor, Lily’s heart ached with the longing for him to gather her in his arms again.
But he’d done the honorable thing—he’d kept his distance. He’d shown her the utmost respect all day, as he’d promised he would. Without the slightest flicker of condemnation, he’d accepted her past, her homelessness, even her guilt over losing Daisy. He’d listened to her. She’d been able to bare her soul to him in a way she’d never been able to do with anyone else before.
Her admiration for him had only grown. As night crept in around them, she was certain she had never met a finer man than Connell McCormick.
“So Dad saved up every dollar he made working at lumber camps in Maine, and when he’d saved enough, he decided to come to Michigan.” Connell’s voice was soft. He’d stretched his long legs out in front of him and leaned against the wall. “He’d heard there was enough timber in Michigan to build a house for every grown man in America.”
A small part of her heart wanted to stay in the damp hovel forever—just the two of them.
But the other part of her knew the extreme danger of their situation. They were trapped. They’d eaten the last of the food. And there was no telling when a rescue party would be able start out or if they’d be able to find them.
“He started off as a land-looker for a mill owner downstate,” Connell continued. “But he was also a freelancer. So whenever he scouted out pine for the mill owner, he’d usually do a little buying on his own account.”
For once she didn’t have the energy or heart to argue with him about the destruction the lumber industry had caused. Instead, she watched the loose hairs that fell across his forehead and the way the firelight turned them to gold.
“One spring he located a fine stand of cork pine in the Saginaw Valley. But a rival lumberman was also looking at the same stand. Once my dad got the measurements and data he needed, he raced back to the nearest land office and registered his claim. The other agent showed up three hours later, but of course he was too late. My dad had won the race and established a small lumber camp there. Turned out to be a prime spot, the spot that turned him from a pauper into a very wealthy man.”
“Sounds like he was an ambitious man.”
Connell nodded. “And he’s still ambitious. Sometimes too ambitious.”
“Then you must take after him.”
Connell snorted. “My dad didn’t give me much choice. He’s always demanded much of my brother and me. He taught us to work hard, but sometimes I think he’s forgotten that we’re not in Ireland, we’re not in the middle of the potato famine, and we’re not starving to death.”
“I suppose he can’t forget his past.”
“Not when he had to watch every member of his family die of starvation in front of his eyes and not be able to do a single thing about it.”
“It’s hard when you want to be able to help your family and you can’t.” She knew that feeling all too well.
“They had nothing but dirt and grass to eat. He watched his three youngest siblings die in a corner of their shack, lying there because they were too weak to rise, their limbs emaciated, their bellies swollen, eyes sunken, voices gone. . . . After they died, he left.”
For a long moment he stared into the fire and didn’t say anything.
“And now,” he finally said, “nothing is more important to my dad than working hard and being successful.”
“Is that what you believe too?”
“I guess.”
“But you don’t have to let his definition of success be yours.” She tugged the blankets under her chin, but then felt a rush of cold air over her feet as the blanket slid off. Even though her dress had finally dried, she’d collapsed with weakness trying to don it on one of the occasions when he’d gone out. She’d had to give up and covered herself with her coat and blankets instead.
He leaned forward and tucked a blanket back around her feet. “When are you going to tell me about your striped socks?”
“Why, Connell McCormick.” She gave a mock gasp. “Have you been peeking at my feet?”
“I haven’t meant to. But there’ve been a few times—”
“Few!” Again she pretended shock, but her smile gave away her playfulness. “So not only have you been peeking, you’ve made it a regular practice to glimpse under my hem.”
“It’s hard to miss those bright colors—”
“Come on. Admit it. You like seeing my ankles.”
He poked at the fire and ducked his head.
S
he gave a soft laugh. Pleasure from his obvious attraction wove through her like a sweet summer breeze. She shifted her legs and let the blanket slide from her feet again, revealing them once more.
He glanced sideways for only an instant before focusing his full attention on the fire, prodding the logs and sending the flames higher—almost as if their lives depended upon how hot he could get them.
She laughed again.
A slow grin made its way up his lips.
“Well, if you must know,” she said, “Oren’s wife, Betty, made them for me.”
“I didn’t know Oren was married.”
“He’s not anymore. Betty died last summer.”
He sat back on his heels and gave her his full attention.
Keen wistfulness washed over her. Even though she’d lived with Oren and Betty for only a year, the woman had become as dear to her as Oren had.
“How’d she die?”
“She was already sick when I went to live with them. Their only son went west back in the ’60s, and they didn’t have any other family around. Oren needed someone to help take care of Betty so he could do his work without worrying about her.”
The distant howl of a wolf echoed through the night, which had finally grown calm.
“Betty was as sweet as honey. But I quickly realized Oren is just as sweet, once you peel back all those gruff layers.”
Connell nodded. “Believe it or not, I actually like Oren. Even though he’s threatened to blow my head off twice now.”
“Twice?”
“When he realized you were gone, he came to my door—”
“He probably just wanted your help and didn’t know how to ask.”
“It’s obvious the guy thinks the world of you.”
She smiled. She thought the world of him too. “I was worried after Betty died that he might make me leave. I don’t think he knew what he was going to do with me—especially once he left for his winter picture taking among the camps. But after I got Daisy’s letter and begged him to take me along, he hasn’t said another word about my leaving.”
Another long howl carried through the windless night—this one closer.
She’d been too old to be sent back to the orphanage. If Oren had decided he didn’t want her anymore, she would have had to make it on her own somehow.