by Carol Arens
“Sit down there on the rug in front of the fire,” Lilleth told him. Jess did so, placing himself between the hearth and his baby sister. “Careful with the crumbs.”
Lilleth sat on the rug and broke off small pieces of cinnamon bun, feeding them to Mary. Clark, with his glasses perched low on his nose, completed the circle. He sat beside her with his ankles crossed and his knees sticking out. He didn’t seem to notice that his left knee bumped into her right one.
Any other man would get a swift boot in the... But this was Clark, and chances were he was oblivious to where his limbs ended up.
“I have good news,” Lilleth announced, scooting beyond reach of Clark’s knee. “I’ve found us a place to live!”
“Why, that’s... Well, it’s...” For some reason it took an instant for his smile to reach his eyes. “Truly wonderful news. Where?”
“We’ll be neighbors, Clark. I’ve rented the cabin in the woods, just down the path behind the lending library.”
He choked on cinnamon and honey.
“That’s just...” He managed to catch his breath despite the crumbs still lodged in his throat. “I’m pleased as can be.”
But he wasn’t. And that was as clear as could be.
* * *
Trace stood on his back porch watching Lilleth and her brood, valises in hand, walking down the path that led into the woods. Cold sunshine winked on the snow and glinted off his fake glasses. He’d have to keep them on, though, even though the glare was making his eyes sting.
At the tree line, Lilleth turned and waved. The confident smile on her face wouldn’t last long. In another five minutes she would discover that her cozy, furnished cabin was barely fit to live in.
Trace waved back, but watching while she vanished among the trees made him feel off-kilter. As if something precious had been given, and then snatched away before he’d even had time to blink at the wonder of it.
Trace was a man grounded in reality. Facts were what he lived and breathed.
Still, it couldn’t have been an accident that his long-lost Lils had spent the night under his roof. It couldn’t have been pure chance that put them both on the same train platform at the same instant in time.
Letting her walk away now felt like an act against their common destiny.
Or could it be that their destinies weren’t common? Maybe letting her walk away was fulfilling that.
It was all just a bunch of fancy thinking, anyway, fate and destiny.
Facts, on the other hand, were what they were, no guessing or wondering involved. It would serve him well to keep them in mind.
Here was a hard and cold fact: Lils was walking into a bad situation and taking her children with her.
Another fact was that Trace was honor-bound to protect the inmates at Hanispree, and the safest way to do that was to let Lilleth take that path into the woods and deal with her problems on her own.
And the last fact on his mental list...he would not do it.
Trace picked up the ax leaning against the woodpile beside his back door and followed Lilleth’s footprints into the woods.
He grinned, considering a fact he had just added to his mental list. It didn’t have a thing to do with fancy thinking; it was as hard as facts go.
Clark Clarkly was going to kiss Lilly Gordon.
Chapter Four
A ray of sunshine filtering through bare tree branches dappled fingers of light on the roof of the small cabin. Close by, Lilleth heard the welcome rush of a creek.
In the event that the cabin did not have an indoor pump, it would be an easy task to fetch water.
“What do you think, Jess?” Lilleth went up the stairs with Mary in her arms. The third step cracked under her weight. “Be careful, this one might need to be replaced.”
The broken step was a minor problem, but for the rent she was paying she would make sure the landlord had it repaired by this afternoon.
“The place seems safe, Auntie Lilleth, way back here in the woods.” He grinned up at her. “Maybe I can explore later.”
Looking safe and being safe weren’t necessarily the same thing, but the boy needed to be out, running and playing. Poor Jess had been confined to trains and secrecy for much too long.
“Let’s settle in now, and we can explore together.”
“You like to climb trees and stuff, Auntie Lils?”
“Let me tell you, when I was your age, you couldn’t keep me out of a tree.” Not that anyone had ever tried to. “I suppose I can still manage.”
Blazes, if she wouldn’t make this time as easy on the children as she could. Hiding out in the little cabin for a month might be made into an adventure.
She turned the key in the lock and opened the door.
The very fingers of sunshine that dappled the roof dappled a broken kitchen table. It shone on a floor with layers of dusty things scattered about. It filtered over a lumpy bed where a family of raccoons was suddenly startled from sleep.
Mary squirmed and reached for the floor, but there was not an inch of space that was clean enough to set her down.
“Take Mary outside, will you?” Tap, tap, tap. Lilleth fought the urge to kick a crushed pail that she had come close to tripping over. It was best to get the children outdoors for a moment. It wouldn’t begin their cabin adventure well to see Auntie in a fit of despair.
“Stay close by,” she called after Jess.
He, at least, seemed happy enough, galloping around to the back of the house with his sister giggling in his arms.
But what was Lilleth going to do? Dusty spiderwebs sagged across shredded curtains at the windows—which, by God’s own grace, were at least not broken. The bed was not fit for the raccoons that had just scurried into a back room.
There was a nice stone fireplace, if one ignored the giant mound of ashes spilling out of the hearth. Hours of scrubbing from now, it might be cozy with a couple of chairs set before it.
Naturally, there were no chairs.
No chairs, no indoor pump, not a decent bed. There was the dining table, but one would have to sit on the disgusting floor to make use of it.
And thanks to the family of raccoons, the place smelled. No doubt it also had fleas.
She gathered the hem of her skirt into the crook of her arm.
“We’re going to the creek, Auntie Lilleth,” Jess called through a cracked board in the wall. “It’s real close by.”
That was a mercy. It would take endless buckets of hot water to make the place decent enough even to put Mary down.
“Blasted raccoons.” Lilleth would start by getting rid of them. “You better have found an escape hole back there. I’m coming in!”
She’d need a weapon, though. There! In the corner of what used to be the kitchen area, beside a rusted cookstove, was a broom. Too bad no one had ever seen fit too use it.
She held it before her, business end first, and entered the back room with a sweeping motion.
Sure enough, there was a hole. She made contact with a striped tail just as the tip squeezed through.
This apparently was a storage room, stacked from ceiling to floor with buckets, rugs, dishes, more broken furniture and some things she could not identify.
Horton File might believe that this trash counted as furnishings, but he was about to discover that their opinions on what was livable lay miles apart.
Before that, though, she would have to strap Mary to her back in order to clean a spot big enough to set her down.
A faded red blanket lay on the floor. Lilleth picked it up, sneezed, then wadded it up and stuck it in the raccoon hole. She dusted her hands.
If only the cabin didn’t smell like old things and wild animal fur.
Night, along with temperatures below freezing, would be here too soon.
She would need to clean the fireplace first thing. Then have Jess gather wood.
“Dear Lord, how will I get it all done?” she murmured. Already, grime caked her skin and she hadn’t even begun.
The first thing she would need was light, then fire. She walked to the window and yanked on the curtain, which dropped on the floor. Dust billowed out of it and sent her into a full sneezing fit.
She rubbed the window with the hem of her petticoat. A small clear circle appeared on the glass.
Within that circle appeared a man. Clark Clarkly was striding forward with an ax gripped in his fist.
* * *
Clark Clarkly was not a bumbler. Well, he was, but not always. Not now. For the past thirty minutes Lilleth had been peeking at him through the window while she passed back and forth, sweeping the floor.
He stood by a woodpile, one stacked from fallen limbs that he had dragged out of the woods. Through the open cabin door she listened to the steady blows of his ax.
As far as she could tell he hadn’t come close to chopping off his foot, even though the pile of cut logs now stood thigh high.
One time, when he looked up to see her watching him, he stumbled backward and dropped the ax.
What a puzzle he was. One moment falling all over himself, and the next, as capable a man as she’d ever met.
One would expect a bookish man, one who stacked volumes in alphabetical order, to be fragile in his bearing. Not so Clark. Trip and stumble as he might, beneath those clothes she suspected he was muscle upon muscle. How could he not be, the way he swung his ax.
Passing the window once more, she paused. He didn’t notice her this time. She watched the ax circle in the air, then hit a log, splitting it down the center. Clark tossed it aside and spilt another, then another, in the same way.
Those were not the shoulders of a slightly built man. They flexed beneath his shirt with a regular rhythm. Even in the cold, sweat dampened his shirt between his shoulder blades.
To add to his mystery, he was a take-charge kind of individual. One would expect a librarian to be comfortable in the sanctuary of his library, his life as predictable as the next printed page.
But Clark, as soon as he’d glanced about at the rubble-strewn cabin, had taken control of the undertaking. He’d sent the children back to his place, putting Jess in charge of lending out books for the day.
Now here he was, getting her cabin tidy and shipshape. Later she was to come back to his place and spend another night tucked safe under his roof, and no arguments about it.
Truly, she wouldn’t tell him no even if she had a choice. There was something about Mr. Clark Clarkly that drew her to him, and it wasn’t just a common love of books.
Clark looked up and spotted her at the window. He grinned, wiped one sleeve across his forehead, then waved the ax at her in greeting.
To all appearances, he liked nothing more than to cut and stack wood. Any other man she had known would want something in return for his kindness—which in her mind didn’t make it a kindness in the end—but so far Clark hadn’t made an improper move toward her.
Still, hadn’t it been only a day since he’d snatched her off the boardwalk? She’d known men who hid their true natures much longer.
The light streaming in through the window and the front door suddenly dimmed when the sun passed below the tree line. Time to quit trying to figure out Mr. Clark Clarkly. Whatever tugged at her about him would have to wait.
There was enough work here to keep her busy for a week, and at some point she needed to figure a way to make a secret visit to her sister.
Bethany must be frantic with worry over the children. She had no way of knowing that Lilleth had kidnapped them from their unsavory uncle.
“All finished out here.” Clark strode through the door, carrying a load of wood in one arm. Just inside, he stopped abruptly, set the load on the hearth and touched his face. He rooted through his shirt pocket. “Must have lost my glasses someplace.”
“I’ll help you look.” She leaned the broom on the fireplace. “They’re probably near the woodpile.”
She walked toward the front door, but he stopped her with a hand to her elbow.
“No need to bother, Lilly. It’s easier to work blind than have the things slipping off my nose, anyway.” He let go of her. “What’s next?”
“I’m going to scrub the floor, and you have done enough.” Clark looked like a different man without his glasses. It wasn’t only his face that seemed different, it was the way he moved. “Go home, Clark. I’ve taken up way too much of your time.”
“A librarian finds himself with an excess of time on occasion.” He shuddered and glanced about the cabin. “This is a nightmare for just one person. I’ll take care of the holes in the roof.”
“You don’t have to, really. You’ve done too much.” That was the polite thing to say, and having said it, she hoped that he wouldn’t leave.
He took her shoulders in his hands and looked her square in the eye. No doubt this was where he would seek repayment of his kindness.
“I don’t have a single thing to do that’s more important than helping you, Lilly.” He let go of her suddenly, rooted through his pants pocket and pulled out his glasses. “Imagine that! They were there the whole time.”
He spun about, crossed the room and stood in the open doorway, with afternoon shadows outlining his silhouette.
“I’m going to stay and help, because that’s what decent folks do.” When he turned she thought he might trip on the threshold, but he didn’t.
So far, Clark Clarkly was not like any other man she had ever known.
* * *
Walking up the path toward the cabin, Trace watched moonlight twinkle in icicles hanging from the eaves. The day had warmed, but tonight the temperature was dropping in a hurry.
He hoped the cabin was as warm inside as the firelight shining out of the newly cleaned windows indicated.
Lilleth had swept, scrubbed and polished herself to exhaustion. In a few more days the place might be habitable.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
Lilleth, facing the rusty stove, spun about. Alarm flashed in her eyes. She clutched the soapy dishrag that she had been using on the stove to her bosom.
“My word, Clark. You startled me.”
Maybe, but that fleeting fear in her expression seemed more than startled. Maybe she was afraid that her husband might have suddenly returned. If the expression on her face was anything to go by, he could be worse than she or her son had let on.
“I should have knocked.” Clark glanced around the cabin in surprise.
In the few hours that he had been gone she had accomplished quite a bit. Six chairs, two of which were placed before the fire, had been wiped clean of the layers of grime that had caked them.
The crate of dishes that he had dragged from the back room earlier were now scrubbed and drying on the table which he had repaired. He wouldn’t have believed that the wooden table had a shine left in it, but there it stood, gleaming as it surely had in its glory days.
“You must be starved,” he said, placing the pair of napkin-covered plates that he had carried from town on the hearth. “Hope you like steak and potatoes. They’re from the hotel.”
Lilleth dropped the sudsy rag in the sink and wiped her hands on her skirt. She closed her eyes and took a slow, savoring breath.
From under the cloth wrappers, the aroma of herbs and spices floated on the air.
“Clark Clarkly, I do believe that you are an angel fallen straight from heaven.”
Lilleth crossed the room in a hurry. Instead of collapsing into a fireside chair, she stood before him. Hands on hips, she studied him, cocking her head to the right. Then she wrapped her arms about his ribs in a hug.
For the briefest i
nstant her breasts pressed against his chest. His reaction to that was anything but angelic. Lucky thing she couldn’t tell what her embrace had done to him. Things stirred that had no business stirring for a married woman.
He stumbled backward, then hiccuped to cover his reaction.
“I’m sorry,” she said, clapping her hands to her cheeks, probably trying to hide a blush. “That was forward.”
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat.” What else could he say? He was starved, had been for sixteen years. No plate of food was going to solve that.
“How are the children doing?” Lilleth sat down and placed a dinner plate on her lap. She uncovered the food, tucked the cloth into the bodice of her dress, then sighed and ate a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “I’ve neglected them dreadfully today.”
He followed her example. “Mary’s asleep and Jess is reading. They’ve both had dinner, the house is warm and the door is locked.” There, just now, relief shifted in her eyes. He’d thrown that last out just to see how she would react.
Lils was troubled. Trace’s gut told him it was not only her living situation that was the problem. He wondered if her husband had run out not just on his family, but also his debts.
This cabin tucked away in the woods might be an attempt to hide from unscrupulous debt collectors.
Outside, the wind began to blow. It huffed against the windows and rattled the door. It moaned under the eaves and prowled around corners, as if searching for a way inside.
Let it do its best. He’d sealed the place up tight, even though he’d had to finish by the light of the rising moon.
“Mary misses you, but Jess is doing a fine job of tending her.” Trace chewed a bite of steak. “You are not neglecting your children, Lilly. You’ve worked yourself to the bone for them today.”
“So have you.” She watched him for a long moment, as if trying to see something deep inside him. She blinked, then seemed to give herself a mental shake. “I can’t think of how I will repay you.”
He set his plate aside, bent toward her with his elbows on his knees. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.