“That sounds like Jesse, except he was never married before. At least he didn’t say he was widowed. Surely he would have mentioned that if he was.”
“I’m sure he would have.”
“But something does weigh heavily on him, and I think it has to do with fire.”
“Fire?”
“From the first moment I met him, he has been overly cautious about fire.”
Amanda looked off in the distance. “Garrett feared the river, but he overcame that fear. Jesse led the efforts that saved our town, and he braved the flames to rescue you. That shows true courage.”
Louise had to agree, but that left just the one immovable problem between them. “Then it’s all because of children.”
“What children? He’s making whistles and helping out a lot.”
A lump formed in Louise’s throat. The words had been nearly impossible to say to Jesse. It would be easier to tell a woman. “I can’t have children.”
Amanda stopped stitching shut one of the dolls. “Oh, Louise. Are you certain?”
“As certain as an infertile marriage can be.” She managed to shove away the memories of Warren’s rough handling of her. “Jesse wants a large family.”
“There are other ways,” Amanda said softly. “I’m an orphan. So is Pearl. A family took me in. It wasn’t a good situation, but at least someone wanted me. No one chose Pearl. We would have given anything to have parents like you and Jesse.”
Louise blinked back tears. Jesse had set his mind on children of his own. She doubted he would have considered adoption.
Louise rose, the tears unstoppable. “Forgive me.”
Before Amanda could respond, she hurried from the room.
Head down, she skirted the parlor entrance and the joyful camaraderie of women working together for a cause.
“Louise—Mrs. Smythe?”
Jesse’s voice made her stop. She stared. He was dressed like normal, with that navy hat on his head. His back was straight, stiff even, and his expression was so stern that he reminded her of the soldiers she had seen marching past the house on their way to war.
“Jesse.” It came out in a gasp. Then she remembered herself. “Mr. Hammond.”
He removed his hat. “You are well?”
How could she answer? It was not right for her to speak to him at all.
“I—I need to go upstairs.” But her legs would not move. She looked away and grasped the banister before her knees gave out.
“Jesse?” Miss Pickett emerged from the parlor. She looked from Louise to Jesse and back again. Her initial puzzlement gave way to understanding. Her lips pressed together, and her arms crossed. “You know each other.”
So, he hadn’t told her. That left the task up to Louise.
“We once did,” she whispered before hurrying up the stairs.
* * *
Jesse struggled for words as his future wife glared at him. This was not how things were supposed to happen, but he’d brought it on himself by not telling Ruth about his friendship with Louise.
“We were once friends,” he said.
Ruth snorted. “Friends? Friends don’t look at each other the way you two do.”
“Any relationship between Mrs. Smythe and myself is over.” Yet he couldn’t help but look at the empty staircase that Louise had just ascended.
“No, it isn’t. I’m no fool, Jesse Hammond, and I don’t much appreciate bein’ treated like one.”
The full impact of his error struck home. He had hurt a decent woman—two good women.
“Forgive me.” He looked Ruth in the eyes, noticing for the first time that they were brown. “I should have told you everything at once.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“Let me try now. Mrs. Smythe and I were friends. I never courted her.” At Ruth’s skeptical look, he added, “We did...do...care for each other, but a future together is not possible.” Not after the way he’d messed up things.
She lowered her arms. “That’s not what I saw.”
“It’s the truth.”
She shook her head. “I don’t wanna be your second choice.”
What could he honestly say in response? Ruth was his second choice. He should never have put her in that position.
“I’m sorry.”
“Humph.” She squared her shoulders and tossed her head defiantly. “I didn’t much care for you neither, if truth be told. Yer too set on following yer rules and regulations to pay much attention to anything else. I’ve been in a mind to call the whole thing off.”
“You have?”
She nodded.
Jesse had greatly underestimated Ruth. She not only had a big heart but strength of spirit. “You will make someone a wonderful wife.”
Ruth jutted out her chin. “Yes, I will. But not you.”
Jesse swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d never experienced such undeserved generosity. “I will pay all your costs for coming here and going home.”
“Yes, you will. And then you can patch things up with her.” She jerked her head toward the staircase.
Though Jesse naturally looked in that direction, only the empty staircase met his gaze.
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“With God, anything’s possible,” Ruth stated.
It was exactly the sort of thing Louise would say.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Though Mrs. Calloway told Louise that Ruth had broken off the engagement with Jesse, Louise stayed far from him. She felt terrible for Ruth, who not only held up under the constant speculation but made a point to tell Louise that she wished her the best. The woman’s graciousness humbled Louise.
When it came time to collect the toys from all the people making them, Mrs. Calloway insisted Louise do it. Louise refused, for it meant gathering the whistles from Jesse. Only after Ruth insisted did Louise agree.
She approached the lighthouse in the morning, hoping Jesse would be sleeping after working the midnight shift. Jane Blackthorn would either know where the whistles were located or could have Jesse bring them to the hotel later. From there, Fiona would make sure they were stored in the school until Christmas Eve, when they would give the toys to the parents while the children prepared the nativity play that Pearl had organized.
Louise didn’t need to imagine the reaction they would receive from parents who could provide nothing. She and the town officials, such as they were, had already received much gratitude and many emotion-filled embraces. It had moved her to tears and took away some of the sting of Jesse’s rejection.
She rapped on the door to the keeper’s quarters on this bright Friday morning before Christmas. A chill was in the air, which seemed only right. There weren’t any wreaths or garlands or matching bows on doors, but each front door in town displayed a drawing of the manger scene made by one of the children. Louise pressed a hand to this one, drawn by Sadie Decker, who was an exceptional artist for her tender years. Each child carried a gift of hope inside him or her, and these drawings reflected why they had this hope.
“All is calm, all is bright,” she sang softly from the hymn, “Silent Night.”
The door opened, and Jesse stood just inside.
“You have a lovely singing voice.”
Louise felt the heat flood her cheeks. She averted her face, ashamed that an ordinary compliment from him excited such a rush of emotion in her.
She searched for something to say and settled for “Thank you.”
“What brings you here so early in the day?”
You, she wanted to cry out, but that was selfish. “I—I’m collecting the toys for the children. Your whistles.”
“Of course. Come in. I’ll be right back with them.”
She stepped insid
e as he headed deeper into the house. “Jane isn’t here?”
He turned. “She’s up to her elbows in flour.”
“Oh.” She should have realized the early hour would mean Jane Blackthorn would be busy. With the next three days consumed with practicing the play, Sunday service and Christmas worship and festivities, she would want to get as much done today as possible.
Jesse had vanished, leaving Louise alone in the front hall. A hall table and receiving plate waited on one side of the room while a chair, umbrella stand and hat rack stood on the other. All manner of family outerwear was at the ready. Louise brushed a hand over a knit cap. That’s what a home was like. Instead of seeking a place to hang her coat amongst those of strangers or storing it in her bedroom, parents’ scarves mingled with those of their children. Each one was treasured.
Eyes filling with tears, she pulled her hand back.
“Here we are,” Jesse said, coming into the room with a cloth bag the size of a pillowcase. Judging from the way it bulged, he’d been very busy.
“Is that all whistles?”
“Whistles and birds and fish.”
“Fish?”
He shrugged. “It seemed appropriate at the time. Maybe some of the smaller children would like them.”
“Did...did Miss Pickett paint them?” She prayed he would answer in the negative.
“Some but not all. Take a look.” He set the bag on the foyer table and spread open the mouth of the bag.
A riot of color greeted her. She could not resist one of the birds, so beautiful that she had to pick it up.
“A hummingbird!”
He smiled. “That’s right.”
Oh, how his smile sent her emotions soaring! She turned over the bird. “So pretty, with the ruby-red throat.”
“Keep it.”
“Oh, no.” She hastily put it back in the bag. “These are for the children. I certainly don’t need something so frivolous.”
She quickly closed the bag, lest she be tempted again.
Jesse placed his large hand over hers, stilling them. “I’m sorry.”
“You did what you felt you must do.” Though Amanda’s words about adoption replayed in her mind, she could not bring herself to reveal her heart, not now, not while Ruth was still in town.
“I was a fool.”
Each word hit with the impact of one of Warren’s fists. She staggered slightly, off-kilter after such a declaration. “Me too. Ruth is a good woman.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say that she was sorry the engagement didn’t work out.
“She will leave on tomorrow morning’s ship for Chicago. It should get her home in plenty of time for Christmas.”
“I will wish her a safe voyage.”
He nodded. “I should never have let it go on as long as it did.”
Louise didn’t know what to say.
“I wasn’t honest with Miss Pickett,” he continued, “and I certainly wasn’t honest with you.”
Louise trembled.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It’s no place to live. I know that now, after a lot of talking to God and reading His Word.”
Jesse was afraid? “Fire?”
He took in a deep breath, and his gaze slipped far away. “I worked under the quartermaster in Vicksburg after the war ended. The soldiers were going home. They came from everywhere, from the prisoner of war camps, from every Union encampment in Confederate lands.”
Louise thought of Warren, who had died before the war ended. If he’d lived, he might have gotten the political position he craved. At this moment she might be living in the New York capital of Albany or even Washington rather than in a boardinghouse in Singapore, Michigan, but she wouldn’t trade places for anything. “They must have been eager to get home.”
“Too eager. Couple that with greedy shippers as well as captains and army officers who were supposed to look out for the men, and disaster was inevitable.”
Louise shivered. She remembered it now. The terrible explosion and sinking of the paddlewheel steamboat. She had read of it with horror and had even wondered if Warren had been onboard, since word of his death had not yet arrived. “The Sultana. You were there?”
“I was on it.”
“Oh, my.” A hand went to her mouth, as if it could stop the horror. “You were not...”
“Injured? Yes, but not in the way you think. My injury couldn’t be covered by a bandage or cured by a doctor.” He gripped her shoulders, his expression so earnest that it frightened her.
“You don’t need to talk about this.”
“I do. Don’t you see? The guilt has followed me ever since that night.”
“Guilt? Why would you feel guilt? You suffered through the disaster and survived.”
“I shouldn’t have.” His expression had grown grim. “You see, I should have stopped the steamboat.”
“You had that power?”
“I could have. I could have notified my commander’s superior. I could have told the soldiers to leave the ship when I saw how overloaded it was. I didn’t. No, I stood by, loyal to my commander even though I suspected he was taking a percentage of the bounty paid by the government for each man loaded on the ship.”
His grip had grown so strong that she cried out.
He pulled back his hands like he’d grabbed hold of a log in the fire. “Forgive me. It wasn’t fair to burden you with this.”
“No. I want to hear. I want to know.”
But he didn’t look like he believed her.
So she pleaded in a different way. “I too carry a hidden pain.”
His anguish eased. “Your inability to have children?”
That wasn’t it. Not really.
She shook her head. How difficult it was to speak this aloud, as if saying it betrayed Warren’s memory. His parents would deny it, just as they had denied any of his shortcomings over the years.
“My late husband,” she whispered, barely getting it past her throat.
He waited, holding her shoulders gently now, as if to support her.
She had to close her eyes. She could not say this while looking at anyone. “He drank spirits often. It made him mad. H-he would attack me.” She touched her jaw, which had begun to ache.
“A man should never strike a woman, especially his wife.”
“He did not love me. He never loved me. He married me to make his parents furious. They hated me,” she said softly. It seemed excessively cruel, but it was the truth. “Each day he was home I lived in fear.”
He gathered her in his arms and held her close. Her defenses broke then, washing away with the finality of a broken dam. The tears came, and she held on to Jesse like a buoy in a raging sea.
“I won’t let that ever happen to you again.” His voice was ragged.
She looked up into his eyes. They were stormy, filled with anger and intensity. Not the love she had hoped to see.
“You cannot stop pain.” It was something she’d come to accept. So too must she accept that their relationship could never go any further. Then she noticed a sprig of something green pinned to the lintel above Jesse’s head. Mistletoe? Was it a sign that he had changed his mind? There was only one way to find out. “Life has its burdens. I cannot give you or any man an heir.”
Instead of holding her close, he stepped back to arm’s length. “Did he do that to you?”
The separation knifed through her. She fought disappointment. “Does it matter? The past is over. The future is in God’s hands. Each of us has only this day.”
His jaw worked, as if he was trying to come to terms with something unpalatable.
She had one last shot, the one Amanda had suggested.
“There is adoption,” she said softly. “Many orphans long for a home.”
She gathered the bag of toys. “Thank you for helping the children.”
Then she left.
* * *
Adopt? Jesse had seen the street urchins in every city he’d entered. He’d endured enough panhandling and pickpocket attempts to last a lifetime. As a boy, his father had threatened to send him to the orphanage if he didn’t behave. Pa’s words still rang in his head. Only the worst children went to orphanages. Only children that no one else will take. Adopt?
Jesse shuddered.
What was Louise thinking? It must be desperation. No, the choice was clear. Marriage to Louise meant a lifetime without holding an infant son in his arms, without searching the boy’s face for any resemblance to himself. A man needed a son.
Yet he could not forget the disappointment in Louise’s eyes and the quick averting of her face. It had torn through him like a bullet and still stuck in his mind that night when he lay down to sleep.
The next day, he saw Miss Pickett off and then checked with Roland to see if any mail had arrived.
Roland looked up from his ledger. “Not this time.”
Jesse felt a flood of relief. “I hope there won’t be any more.”
Roland set down his pen. “Have you made a decision then?”
Jesse blew out his breath. “Not yet.” The desire for children warred with his love for Louise. He couldn’t imagine never holding his own child. Neither could he imagine a life without Louise. It was a hopeless dilemma.
Roland shook his head before tackling the ledger again. “Is there anyone you can imagine seeing every day?”
Louise. But Jesse couldn’t say that, or Roland would ask why he didn’t just propose to her. That was something he couldn’t answer without betraying her privacy, which he would never do. He’d already hurt her enough.
“Let’s just say I’m undecided,” he finally answered.
“Mmm.” Roland shook his head again.
“What does that mean?”
“All I can tell you is that once you’ve found the woman who captures your heart, you’d better do everything you can to hold on to her.”
Would-Be Mistletoe Wife Page 23