“Stop!” A deep commanding voice with a Kentucky lilt sounded behind her.
Hesitating, one foot on the step above and the other below, Rebecca grasped for the handrail but finding no purchase, rested her palm against the wall.
“Don’t run away from me, miss. I believe I know you.” His steps moved closer and he grasped her elbow. “It’s Miss Daggenhart, not Miss Hart, ain’t it?”
She nodded slowly and felt the exhalation of his breath against her neck.
“I’ve never forgotten you, Janie. I’ve prayed for you all these years.” His voice dropped into the bass register. “Please don’t blame me for bringing up bad memories for you.”
She drew in a slow breath and then exhaled, aware of his warm fingers on her arm. Heat from his broad chest emanated from close behind her. He pressed a handkerchief into her other hand.
“Please, come downstairs for dinner. It’s some good victuals and I don’t want ya to miss out. I’ll make up a story about why you ran off from the table.”
“I didn’t run off,” she huffed.
“If’n you say so, but it sure looked like it.” He sighed. “Come back downstairs and eat up. No one but me knows who you are.”
“Doesn’t your sister know?”
“No.” He barked out the word, then regretted his angry response and softened his words. “My parents wanted to protect her from any of those stories of what happened.”
Some of the tightness in her shoulders eased. “And Mrs. Jeffries—does she know?” She sniffed.
“No.”
Slowly she swiveled to face him. With Garrett a step behind her, she was now face-to-face with the handsome man. The gaslight reflected in his dark eyes. What she saw wasn’t censure, ridicule, or accusation. She gazed into eyes filled with compassion that darkened when she remained fixed there.
Rosy patches shone on his cheeks as he averted his gaze. “Best be gettin’ back downstairs, Janie.” He turned, then stepped to the side to allow her to come down adjacent to him. Garrett slid his arm through hers, his knuckles brushing her waist, and she shivered.
“Garrett, I go by Rebecca Hart now, so please don’t address me as Janie. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “Safer that way. Let me escort you to the dining room.”
She moistened her lips as once again she drew near to the brightly lit dining chamber. The scent of roast pork, potatoes, and turnips mingled and appealed to her senses if not her intellect. The smartest thing would have been to continue up to her bedroom. Now, Garrett would have some explaining to do.
The others in the room quieted as they returned. What had they speculated?
Garrett pulled her chair out further for her and then pushed it beneath her voluminous skirts as she settled back in at her place. “I’m afraid Miss, um Hart, had the unfortunate situation of meeting me earlier at her new store when I was in my lumberjack gear. And I think seeing me without my beard has given her a bit of a shock.”
“Indeed,” Rebecca agreed, a smile tugging at her lips. She’d been more shocked to learn that the very man she needed to build her cabinetry was staying in the same hotel and was the one who’d made it possible for her to be there today, alive. But his presence reminded her that others might recognize her. And know. She didn’t know if she could bear her new acquaintances learning of what had happened. She picked at some make-believe lint on her skirt.
“Well, then, let me commence with the prayer,” Mrs. Jeffries suggested.
Jo, sitting adjacent to Rebecca, nudged her and whispered, “Yes, let’s pray Garrett leaves that beard shaved off.”
At that, Rebecca grinned and glanced shyly across the table. Dark penetrating eyes met hers as an ebony lock of hair fell across his brow. Yes, indeed, he needed to leave that beard off his handsome face.
***
Sitting across the table, gazing at the now austere looking woman, Garrett drifted back to a summer night a decade earlier. He and his younger brother, Richard, had finished a happy day fishing for the plentiful and beautiful grayling fish in the AuSable River. They’d been preparing to return to camp after cooking come of their catch over the fire. They’d lingered far too late and the sun had already set when Garrett discerned the sound of a woman crying out—as though in pain. He’d told Richard to be still and to listen.
Thrashing in the nearby dark woods, unlike that of moose or deer, was accompanied by a low, menacing male voice. Suspecting foul play, Garrett had doused their fire. Both of them had been instructed in the dangers presented not only by animals but by some of the men in the rougher lumber camps. Pa had rejected many a shanty boy who had only whiskey, fighting, and women on their minds.
When a feminine shriek echoed through the woods, Richard tried to rise, but Garrett held him there for a moment, trying to get his bearings. The commotion was happening about thirty feet upriver from them, in the woods along the banks. Was it only one man or a gang of them? He crept closer to the edge of the clearing but couldn’t hear anything. Soon, Richard joined him.
When the distinctive splash in the water occurred, both young men ran for the canoe, Garrett whispering to wait a moment before setting off. Where the sandy point jutted out, the full moon reflected in the water, revealing the dark shape of a rail-thin man as he turned and headed back into the woods.
Richard scanned the silver moonlit path on the water.
Then he saw her.
“Get in!” he’d yelled to Richard, and they’d canoed out as fast as they could into the river’s rapid current.
The still form in the water began to flail, moonlight glistening off the girl’s blonde head as it bobbed above the water.
“God, help me!” she cried as they paddled toward her.
After maneuvering for the current, Richard held the canoe steady while Garrett pulled the soaked young woman into their boat, almost capsizing them in the process as she struggled.
“Help me,” Janie had whimpered as she tugged at a rope still wrapped around her slender neck.
Careful to not rock the canoe further, Garrett untangled the cord and pulled it free, tossing it into the bottom of the boat.
“Thank you.” The moon streamed down on the lovely face of the mercantile owner’s daughter.
“Janie…” he’d whispered. “What happened?”
In the course of the upcoming weeks, when both he and his brother had to give testimony, Garrett heard what Myron Peevey had plotted against the pretty girl, who’d just attained her seventeenth birthday. Several years earlier, when Garrett’s family had moved to the area, both he and Pa took note of the youth who trailed around after young, blonde Janie Daggenhart like a puppy. When they inquired about the odd Peevey boy, townspeople claimed he was Janie’s friend. To learn what he’d done had sickened him. He and Richard determined to prevent Jo from ever suffering a similar fate.
He’d blamed himself for not running to Janie as soon as he’d heard the first cry. Should have grabbed Richard and then pummeled Peevey. What if he’d succeeded? Because of what happened, those dark memories propelled him past self-restraint and he’d begun reacting rather than thinking about, and being cautious, before responding to threats—especially where his own sister, Josephine, then fifteen, was concerned.
In a short time, he’d gone from Garrett, the boss’s eldest son, to Ox, the young lumberjack who’d filled out, added eighty pounds of muscle, and couldn’t be beaten at arm wrestling. As soon as Richard sprouted up, he’d been renamed Moose. The two brothers never let their sister out of sight.
Across the table Jo leaned in, whispering something to Janie that made her blush. Then she glanced at him. Was his sister talking about him?
Jo pushed a basket of fragrant hot rolls across the table to him and Tom. Her fiancé snatched them up first.
“Age before beauty, Ox,” Tom said, before releasing them.
“Ox?” Miss Daggenhart arched an eyebrow at him.
He cleared his throat. “Yes’m, that’s what they call me.
What they used to.” He shot a warning glance at Tom.
Josephine cast a glance at Janie. “Where are you from, Miss Hart?”
She began to gag on the tea she’d just raised to her mouth. When her choking spell stopped, she dabbed at her pink lips with the linen napkin. “All over Michigan.” Then she stared downward at her china plate as though it was the most interesting specimen she’d yet seen of its kind.
Tom elbowed Garrett. “With as many relocations as the Christy lumber camp has had, I believe you could say the same thing.”
For the meal’s remainder, unease disturbed Garrett’s enjoyment of the hearty fare. Eating in full view of the ladies slowed his intake. He wasn’t performing a lumberjack’s work right now, but his appetite hadn’t yet matched up with his new activities. He’d helped the custodians chop wood, but no longer did he tramp out to the worksite and then back again to the camp.
After taking only one roll, which he lightly buttered, Garrett passed the basket to the two male boarders. The scruffier one, Harvey Sanders, scrutinized Jo with lascivious looks that previously would have earned him an escort away from the table by the Christy brothers. Tom eyed the admiring men, too, and then stole a look at Jo, who appeared unaware of the male attention she’d attracted.
His sister was a beautiful woman, there was no arguing that point. But as younger girls, Janie had outshone her—both in her dimpled smiles, her musical giggles, the elaborate hairstyles and ornamentation, and in the beautiful clothing she wore, down to her silver-buckled shoes. Now, Jo’s fiery auburn radiance eclipsed “Rebecca’s,” who hid beneath her drab clothing and severe hairstyle as though in a shroud. What would it take to bring that laughing girl back to life again?
“You got a spittoon in here somewhere, ma’am?” Sanders asked.
Garrett stifled a laugh and instinctively felt in his pocket for his chaw. Gone. As was his usual inclination to correct someone’s attitude by the use of his hands, he lightly clenched and released his hands, flummoxed that he didn’t want to correct the stranger’s assumption that he could spit in this lady’s new inn. But hadn’t he asked Cordelia the same thing?
The innkeeper batted her eyelashes at the fellow, and offered a tight smile. “Mr. Sanders, we don’t allow tobacco in this establishment.”
“Nor cussing,” Tom added, wiping his mouth with the fancy napkin his mother always set out for them.
“Nor liquor.” Jo raised her eyebrows at the light-haired man.
“Ma’am, with the cooking you have going on here, I won’t need any of those vices.” The new fellow grinned at Cordelia. “And the company here is wonderful, too.”
When the boarder’s eyes settled on Janie, Garrett’s fists flexed of their own accord, and his heels dug into the oak floorboards beneath his feet as he prepared to push up. Tom grasped Garrett’s shoulders, staying him.
“My future brother-in-law has been enjoying Jo’s fine cooking for years, but I’m pleased to announce I’ll be the recipient for the rest of my days!” A muscle in Tom’s cheek jumped.
Garrett almost chuckled. Tom must have thought Sanders was gawking at Josephine and not at Janie. Drawing in a slow breath, Garrett removed Tom’s arm from his shoulder and rose from the table. “I’m gonna pour the coffee tonight, if you don’t mind.”
Janie peered up at him, her hazel eyes wide, and Cordelia did the same. “Why, Mr. Christy, thank you for your kindness to me and the staff.”
Coffee was the one vice he was allowed. That and imagining himself holding Janie, rather Rebecca, in his arms—this time as a happy woman, and not the terrified girl he’d pulled from the river.
3
More of Father’s dusty old stock arrived daily, as well as dribs and drabs of items Rebecca had ordered. At this rate, she’d never gain clients, especially if she didn’t bring in fresh goods. This sunny day, two carters bustled across Huron Street, from the railroad station and headed directly to her shop. A thrill of anticipation coursed through her as Rebecca opened the door for them. They grinned and pushed their loaded dollies up the walkway toward the mercantile.
“Missä haluat näitä laatikoita kyydistä, neiti?” The Finnish man from the dock spoke so rapidly, Rebecca had to consider the translation for a minute as she motioned him inside.
The other man, a younger blond who also appeared Finnish, followed the first into the almost empty room. He released the handles of his cart, straightened, and removed his hat. “Where you like them, miss?”
“Set the boxes here, please.” She motioned for the workers from the wharf to set her new merchandise in the store’s center.
The younger man removed his jacket and shoved his sleeves up. The odor of sardines clung to the two brawny men. Although she abhorred the fish, Rebecca carried the item in her shop, Father having ensured she received a case of his oldest tins.
The first man went back outside, ran across the street, and then returned with a tall barrel. “Täällä?” He set it down by the door and pointed.
The heavenly scent of apples emanated from the container. Finally, fresh produce.
“Kyllä, siellä, kiitos.” How many times and in how many different languages had her father taught her those simple words—yes, there, thanks—before she’d mastered them? The younger man grinned at her.
“How much Finnish you know?”
“Just enough.”
The man repeated her comment to the other Finlander and both men laughed. Rebecca plucked an apple from the barrel. Good color, lovely scent, and with a bite she savored the juicy fruit and affirmed the red Rome apple tasted delicious.
Once the porters completed depositing the cargo, she pressed several coins into their calloused hands.
“Kiitos.”
They departed and ran across the street, narrowly missing being trampled by a man on horseback. She shook her head as she watched. Hearing the back door open, she turned. She must have left it open, but she edged toward the front door, just in case…
Would Myron’s attack forever loom in her mind? She couldn’t panic every time a workman came to the back door. Her younger self would have bustled there to see who’d arrived, often to be gifted with a small whittled item, an especially pretty Petoskey stone, or a word of encouragement from the tradesmen. If it hadn’t been for their kind attention after the attack, what would she have done these past ten years?
“Hyvää huomenta,” a stocky man called out.
Rebecca exhaled the breath she’d been holding. She better get used to all the Finnish men in these parts. “Good morning to you, too, Mr. Haavala.”
He half pulled and half lifted a wooden structure into the store. She crossed the floorboards and stopped. The fisherman had asked her father for work. Before he’d departed for home, Father had tasked Mr. Haavala with the job of constructing a counter.
Rebecca scowled at the flimsy pine box cover with a foot-wide and seven-foot-long board. It reminded her of a coffin top. “That’s your idea of a counter?”
“Kyllä se on, neiti.” He smelled of stale beer. At least she understood his words of affirmation, having picked up some basic phrases from several of the lumberjacks who had frequented her father’s store. That had been before Father and Mother had kept her out of sight, in the back rooms.
“Well, it isn’t my notion of one.” She sighed in frustration but when he held out his dirty palm, she fished the money from her pouch and paid him. Father told her to make sure all workers were paid, and promptly.
"Kiitos."
“You’re welcome.”
He nodded and turned to leave.
She called out, “Älä vaivaudu tulossa takaisin.”
The so-called-carpenter turned and raised an eyebrow. She nodded at him. “I mean it. Don’t bother returning.” Father hadn’t said anything about not rehiring incompetent workers.
He pocketed his money, shrugged, and then left through the back. Rebecca placed her hand atop the plank, coming away with grit. The man hadn’t even bothered using tack
cloth to clean off the sawdust clinging to the board. And no doubt the sluggard would head down the street to the tavern.
When had she become so harsh? Rebecca crossed her arms as tears filled her eyes. She’d not become the woman she’d imagined she’d be—a kind and gracious lady, married, with a house full of children, engaged in church work. Myron Peevey hadn’t killed her, not for a lack of trying, but he’d destroyed her dreams and that was almost as bad. A chill chased through her as she wiped her eyes dry.
The shop doorbell jingled and a nun, dressed in a black habit and matching wool cloak, accompanied by a pretty little girl of about ten years old, entered. The woman carried a placard, which she brought to the counter and set down.
“Lumberjack Ball” the sign proclaimed. But the date on the bottom was several months hence.
Rebecca cringed at the reminder that lumberjacks and lumber camps were all around the area. Myron had changed, became violent, once he’d run off to the lumber camps. She’d not had to work the front counter at her parents’ store since the attack. She’d better accustom herself to waiting on them as well as the fishermen and merchants who populated St. Ignace.
“May I help you?”
The nun tapped a finger at the poster. “We sell crafts made by the orphans as a fundraiser at this event, but your competitor down the street won’t extend us credit.”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we haven’t met yet.” She’d learned her lesson from the other day when she’d failed to ask Garrett, or “Ox,” as he’d taken to calling himself, for his name.
“Oh, sorry, dearie, I’m Sister Mary Lou, and I’m at the convent down the street.” The sweet-faced woman wrapped an arm around the girl, whose braids were so tight her hairline almost seemed to pucker. “This is Amelia.”
The golden-haired girl bobbed a curtsey.
The Lumberjacks' Ball (The Christy Lumber Camp Series Book 2) Page 2