The cheers were deafening, and Alex hopped off the table to pull Enzo into a bear hug. In a better world, they would have been lifelong friends. As it was, their lives had only intersected during these stress-filled weeks, but their camaraderie flourished as if they’d known each other for years.
Enzo accepted the toasts with a hearty, flushed face. “Next time I come I shall bring my daughters,” he said. “I don’t think my girls really believe their father is off doing work when I leave for months on end.”
“You’d better keep a close eye on your daughters,” Oscar Ott hooted from the back of the tavern. “Everyone knows Alex likes young girls.”
Alex shoved a chair aside and went to confront Oscar. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
“Oh, pardon me.” Oscar smirked, his breath stinking of liquor. “It’s not like everyone doesn’t already know how you got caught fornicating with Garrett’s ward when she was only sixteen,” he said with a leer at Eloise.
Alex held his breath, for Eloise had just gone stark white. It looked like she hadn’t realized that everyone in town knew their business. Alex had never learned who snitched on them all those years ago, but he’d always suspected Oscar.
He grabbed Oscar by the lapels, shoving him against the wall. “That woman walks on air. She’s given us her time and talent, all for free. You’ve given us nothing but a load of bile.”
Murmurs of approval rumbled around Alex, but it wasn’t unanimous. A few people cast sidelong glances at Eloise, who looked ill as she handed the baby to her maid and bolted for the door. People parted to let her through. Oscar deserved a face-bashing, but Alex wasn’t going to waste his time with a drunken man when Eloise was hurting. He shoved Oscar aside to rush after her.
The sleet storm had deposited a layer of ice on the ground, but Eloise was heedless as she scurried toward the hotel.
“Slow down!” he hollered, following as quickly as he dared. It was early for a storm this bad, and he only caught up to her at the hotel porch, where she turned her horrified eyes on him.
“The whole town knows? You let me live here and didn’t tell me that they all knew?”
It stunned him that she hadn’t realized that. It was a small town. He’d been beaten within an inch of his life and had to flee town to join the army. Everyone in Duval Springs knew what had happened, but Eloise was from the city, where things were different.
“We don’t have scarlet letters in this town. We have imperfect people who sometimes make mistakes.”
Her lips twisted with bitterness. “Those people were all judging me.”
“So? I’ve judged you and think you’re spectacular.” He injected a little humor into his voice. “What do you care what the small minds think?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, and her voice shook with anger and embarrassment. “I care that you didn’t bother to warn me. I let Fletcher fire me because of you. I thought you had changed and could be the kind of man a woman could depend on, who wouldn’t—”
“Of course you can depend on me!”
“You kept a big secret from me.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “You’re being unreasonable. You can’t control the world like a timetable or an accounting ledger.”
“Leave my ledgers out of this.”
He held up his hands and struggled to keep a straight face. “I’m sorry I insulted your ledgers.” Laughing would be the kiss of death right now, but she was being ridiculous. No one cared what they had done behind the old cider mill twelve years ago. But she didn’t know these people as well as he did, and her pain was real. He took a breath and spoke straight from the heart. “It’s going to be all right,” he said gently. “You can trust me on this.”
She turned her back on him and headed inside, marching up the stairs without even breaking stride. He heard the door slam on her third-floor room with enough force to rattle the windows.
Eloise was tempted to leave with the rest of the demolition team. She didn’t owe the people of this town anything. While she had deluded herself into believing she belonged, half of them had been snickering behind her back the whole time. She could board the train and be safely home in Manhattan by lunchtime tomorrow.
Would Fletcher rehire her?
Sleet battered the windowpanes all through the awful night, and her thoughts kept straying back to Fletcher. He wouldn’t have been flippant like Alex had been last night. Fletcher never would have compromised her to begin with!
She was still conflicted when she ventured downstairs at six o’clock the following morning. It was frigidly cold, and she needed a cup of coffee to clear her head. She’d just taken a seat in the dining room when Enzo came downstairs, lugging his bags.
“What time are you leaving?” she asked.
“Not until the 8:30. Why? Are you joining us?”
It was now or never. “I’m not sure. You were there last night. You know everything.”
Enzo crossed to the sideboard to get himself coffee. They were the only ones in the dining room, and his voice was straightforward. “So you wish to run away?”
She shrugged and slumped back into her chair. “It would be safer.”
“Yes. It would have been safer for me to stay in Italy. There was no work and no prospects, but it would have been safe. I have been through some rocky times in the past few years, but I don’t regret any of it. It is in tackling the new and the scary that we become who we are meant to be.”
“I’ve been venturing into new places all my life,” she defended. Getting dumped off at Bruce’s house as a child hadn’t been easy. Then there was the convent, and college, and a series of assignments in Manhattan where she was constantly new and required to prove herself.
But she’d never been part of a family before, and there wasn’t a rule book for how to behave when people hurt her feelings. She drew her wool shawl closer as the cold seeped all the way to her bones, and tried to speak without her teeth chattering.
“Everything in me wants to run away,” she confessed. Because the longer she stayed, the more it would hurt when she ultimately had to leave, for she truly didn’t belong here. Constant exposure to new people and unfamiliar tasks was wearing her down, making her brittle and tired. She wanted a normal job in an office where duties and expectations were clear. The temptation to go home where she belonged grew by the minute.
Enzo seemed to be reading her mind. “You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you run,” he said simply.
He was right. It wasn’t going to be easy to face everybody today, especially since she’d made a spectacle of herself by fleeing the tavern like a frightened rabbit. Maybe it had been idiotic to imagine she had the guts to become part of this adventure story, but she’d already signed on for it and didn’t want to be the sort of person who ran away.
Two hours later, she waited in the hotel lobby as townspeople poured inside to await their assignments. They were supposed to move the Belmont house today, but maybe work would be canceled due to the sleet storm. The windows had a layer of ice on them, and Eloise couldn’t imagine how they would get anything productive done.
The front door opened, and Rebecca Wiggin entered, along with a gust of icy wind. “Alex says the move is a go! We need all hands on deck today. Line up for your assignments,” she said.
Eloise slid to the end of the line and tried to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze. No one had spoken to her, which was a relief. When she reached the front of the line, Rebecca gave her a genuine smile.
“You’re assigned to the team clearing ice from the rails. Are you game?”
“Of course.”
“Good! Get your warmest clothes; you’re going to need them.”
Eloise headed upstairs and opened her wardrobe, and there it was—her scarlet coat. Lined with fox fur and sporting brass buttons, it was the most conspicuous garment she owned. It hadn’t been cold enough to wear it yet, and the glamorous coat would look terribly out of place in this rural valley.
&
nbsp; But it was her warmest, and it was going to be a long, frigid day. She gritted her teeth and pulled it on, then headed out to the lumberyard to join the crew. At least it had stopped sleeting, and snow now fell in fat, puffy flakes.
The Belmont house had been jacked up yesterday, and Alex already stood in the front yard. The cold air made voices carry, and she clearly heard him calling out instructions to the crew.
“I need two people to go door to door and collect any portable heaters to be had. Kerosene heaters, smokers, coal-burning cans—whatever you can find. The rest of us will disperse them along the rails and then—”
He stopped the instant he saw her. His eyes flicked down to take in her coat, and a faint smile graced his mouth.
That smile irked. He’d better not think that her presence here meant she forgave him. She was here because she was loyal, nothing else.
“—and then we move the Belmont house as soon as the rails are clear,” he concluded. The crowd dispersed, each going to their respective positions. A dozen kerosene heaters already sat on the supply table.
“I’m glad to see you here,” Alex said as he handed her the wire handle of a heater. It was almost two feet tall, and the tin chimney was covered with soot. Her crimson coat was going to take a beating today.
She grasped the handle. “I’m freezing. Give me another heater; I can carry two.” She wasn’t going to budge an inch toward that easy smile.
Ice forced her to take mincing footsteps as she inched toward the rails. The freezing cold sapped her energy. How could people work in conditions like this? She delivered her two heaters to spots along the railway. They were being allocated every ten feet, and hopefully they’d soon soften the ice.
Eloise returned to the lumberyard, where brooms, shovels, and spades were distributed to the volunteers to start chipping the ice from the rails. She kept her head down as she grabbed a spade and trudged after a group heading back to the railway. Hercules led the group, appointing someone every ten yards to start clearing the ice. She cringed a little when she was assigned to work only one station away from Reverend Carmichael.
Did the reverend know too? He hadn’t been at the tavern last night and had never treated her with a hint of disrespect, but he still might now. He probably did know.
She started working close to a kerosene heater. Her spade knocked away slivers of softened ice, but only two feet away, the ice was still frozen solid. She moved the heater, but it was slow going as the spade chipped powdery white scars into the ice. She got winded quickly. Was it the cold that made this so challenging, or being hunched over? With each hard-fought inch of liberated rail, she got a little closer to Reverend Carmichael. She sank into a rhythm, attacking the ice as though it were a personal affront, and it felt good to vent her anger against it. She might be a fallen woman in the eyes of this town, but she knew how to work and would clear this stretch of railway if it was the last thing she did. The noise of her spade made a rhythmic clink, echoed by the reverend’s similar cadence as he closed the distance between them. Soon their shovels were only inches apart. His shovel banged into hers as the last of the ice chipped free.
His good-hearted laughter was contagious. “We did it!”
Her back ached as she straightened, surveying the stretch of freshly cleared railway line. Up and down the line, others were still stooped over and hard at work. Her crimson coat was smudged with soot and water stains, but she didn’t care, for the sense of accomplishment felt good.
“Let’s go help the others,” she said, leaning over to collect her kerosene heater.
Her good mood evaporated as she passed Oscar Ott. “A woman in scarlet!” he chortled as he plugged away at his own stretch of ice.
“Knock it off, Ott,” the reverend warned, a pretty good indication that Reverend Carmichael knew all about her tarnished past.
“I was just complimenting her coat,” Oscar said defensively. “It suits her perfectly.”
Eloise sank her spade into a pile of snow beside the rail and lifted it high. “Hey, Oscar, this is for you,” she said, and hurled a load of wet snow smack against his chest.
“What did I do to deserve that?” he asked, but everyone else smothered their laughter as they turned back to their work.
Alex sighed with relief as the crew sent to clear the rails returned. The ice had put them several hours behind schedule, but with luck they could still get the Belmont house moved today. A second team had gone up to Highpoint to be sure the foundation was free of ice and ready to accept the house.
“All clear!” Hercules hollered as he drew near, and Alex nodded to Dick Brookmeyer to harness the oxen.
In her red coat, Eloise stood out like a poppy in a field of rye. He’d heard about the shovelful of snow she’d hurled at Oscar Ott. That little morsel of gossip spread fast, and everyone thought it hysterical, but given the way she stood aloof from the others it looked like she was still upset.
“Eloise!” he called out. “Come help with the Belmont house. We need you.”
“Yes, come help!” old Mr. Belmont beckoned. “I don’t trust this lad to know anything about math. I tried like the dickens to teach it to him in school, but none of it stuck. I hear you’re much better with numbers.”
Alex’s smile tightened. Back in the day he’d often told Eloise how much better a teacher she was than Mr. Belmont, and given her spotless memory, she surely remembered.
She looked torn, and he strode over to see her. “Don’t let what happened last night ruin everything,” he said quietly.
“Why didn’t you tell me the whole town knew?” Her voice was frostier than the air. “Looking back, I can see the times people were teasing you and me, but it all flew over my head. I feel like such an idiot.”
“No one in this town thinks you’re an idiot.”
“I still don’t like that everyone knows.” Her teeth chattered, and they hadn’t been a moment earlier. It made his heart turn over that she was beating herself up over something like this.
“Yes, they all know,” Alex said, hating that she flinched at his words. “They know we weren’t perfect and that we acted like young, impulsive fools. In a town this small, we all know each others’ business, and no one is perfect. Do you want me to tell you what I know about Dr. Lloyd?”
“No!” she burst out.
“Because there’s some pretty rich scandal there. And the war between the Talbots and the Gallaghers is epic, all rooted in a snub over a wedding invitation. No one here is perfect, and yet we all still live and work together. We still hold our heads high.”
The sound of her chattering teeth cut through him like a pickaxe. It was his fault she still suffered over their wild-hearted idiocy. “Eloise, I’m so sorry,” he said gently. “I know you care what people think, and if I could somehow shield you from this, I would.”
She clutched her arms around her middle. “It just seems so sordid. The way Oscar sneered at me. And good people like Reverend Carmichael probably think the same.”
“It wasn’t sordid,” he said.
“But they don’t know that.”
“They’re about to.”
He grabbed her hand, tugging her back toward the group of people preparing to shift the house. Behind him, Eloise sputtered, tugging at his hand, but he knew what he was doing. If Eloise worried the people in this town didn’t respect her, he was going to disabuse her of that notion.
He jumped atop the empty wagon bed. “Gather around, everyone. I have an announcement!”
Eloise let out a whimper, but it wasn’t possible to squelch unsavory gossip by burying her head in the sand. People swiveled to look at him curiously, and he took a deep breath and began.
“I have been in love with Eloise Drake since I was eighteen years old. I should have married her back then, and the only reason I can’t today is because she won’t have me. Mercifully, I’ve now got a second chance. I intend to pull out all the stops and win her back. If that means shooting down gossip or stomping on peop
le who look at her the wrong way, I’m ready to stomp.”
“Tell it like it is, boy!” old Mr. Belmont shouted. Plenty of others nodded in approval, while others didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. But Eloise did, and that was all that mattered.
He looked back at the crowd. “When I was eighteen, I was an irresponsible idiot, and I snuck around behind closed doors. No more. I’m proclaiming my love and admiration openly. Without shame.” He looked her directly in the eyes, speaking only to her but loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I love you, Eloise. I did back then, I do today, and I expect I’ll love you a dozen years from now, even if you go back to the city and marry that stuffed shirt. Which I sincerely hope you don’t.”
He hopped down from the wagon and walked toward her. It looked like she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or run and hide. At least she wasn’t ashamed anymore. “You’re making this very hard,” she finally said.
“That’s the idea,” he said. “I saw that guy. You deserve better than that.”
Her teeth still chattered, and standing here so long was making him cold too.
“Let’s go move the Belmont house,” she said.
He reached for her hand. “Friends again?”
She didn’t need to say anything. She just slipped her glove-encased hand in his as they walked toward the Belmont house, and he let out a sigh of relief. Today everything was fine; that might not be the case tomorrow. So many unknowns loomed on the horizon, but he’d battle those dragons when they came.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Eloise slipped into a routine over the next month. Each morning she and four other women headed out with shovels and brooms to clear the railway lines of snow and other debris on the track. It took an hour each morning, then they repeated the task every evening. It was tiring work, and the cold meant her toes were blocks of ice, her nose red and hands so frozen she could barely hold her pencil as she and Alex reconciled their budget at the end of each day. Their tentative courtship was fresh and new and wonderful. She could be herself with Alex. As they embarked on the biggest challenge in their lives, it was a blessing to have a person with whom she needed no artifice.
A Desperate Hope Page 19