“No, that’s not it. I know you’re sincere. It’s just that…” Pressure built behind her eyes as tears threatened to spill. She looked away from him and toward the front of the room where her desk would be, where she would stand and teach and fumble for words when they disappeared from the page, where her fraudulence would be exposed.
The children deserved a better teacher, and Gabe deserved a better mate. The least she could do was give him some warning their courtship would never lead to marriage. “You have been good to me, patient too, but I wouldn’t make a good wife.”
In one swift motion, he stepped close and reached for her arms. “You would.”
“I’m afraid I would not. Nor would I make a good mother.”
“Yes, you would. You’re wonderful with children.”
“I’m afraid we—”
“No, you aren’t afraid of us...” His searing gaze begged to be met. “Not of our future together. You are afraid of something. I just haven’t figured out what it is, but I will.” He grinned with the sweet self-assurance she used to think was cockiness. “By the time I finish building these desks, I’ll prove your fear is unfounded.”
She blinked back her tears. “And if you can’t?”
“I’ll start on the bookshelves.”
His blithe spirit made her smile, but he had no idea she was a fraud. The thorn in her side would always remain and would end her teaching career if discovered. “I will disappoint everyone, especially now that everything is going ahead with the school.”
“I thought you were happy you are finally getting what you want.”
Unless something somehow assured her that every time she looked at a page she would be able to read clearly, she would always be afraid. If she could tell anyone that, it was Gabe. Some part of her was desperate to, but instead she forced a half smile. “I am happy. But the further I go in all this, the more likely I am to… disappoint someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know… you.”
“You could never disappoint me.”
“You don’t know everything about me.”
“That’s what we have our whole lives for.”
She held back her tears. “What if you find out everything about me and decide you don’t want me after all?”
“Impossible.”
“You say that now but—”
“You’re wrong.” He lowered his chin, and his faint grin deepened. “But if it will help you accept my love, I promise to keep my expectations low so I don’t get disappointed.”
“Now you are teasing me.”
“I’m not. I love you, Liv.” He lowered his face to hers. “I can’t remember not loving you. That won’t change, no matter what comes. Or what you think might come.”
His tender words were followed by an even sweeter kiss, smothering her anxiety. Held in his confident embrace, the affection from her heart and the desire from nature swirled into a passion that could not be ignored. She parted her lips, inviting him to deepen the kiss.
He pulled back with a heavy breath.
She opened her eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “Heavens, no. You’re amazing. Perfect for me.” His voice was quiet and gruff. “I shouldn’t be alone with you like this one more moment until we are man and wife. Either go with me to the reverend’s house to get married this instant or leave me here to work alone.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I do wish she’d answer quickly,” Alice shielded her ruddy face from the frigid wind. “Maybe she didn’t hear you knock.”
“It’s a one-room cabin.” Olivia rolled her eyes at her sister and knocked a second time on Marian’s door. “She’s probably tending to the baby.”
The door creaked opened a sliver. Marian squinted out against the cold. Her eyes widened when they landed on Olivia. “Oh, heavens! I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed as she flung the door wide. “Do come in. I thought you were Jonah knocking the snow from his boots.”
Olivia and Alice stepped inside. Olivia closed the door behind her sister, trying to keep the precious warmth inside Marian’s home. “Alice and I spent the morning double-lining our bonnets. It made them divinely cozy, so we did it to these booties for Frederick.” She held the tiny baby socks out to Marian.
“How thoughtful of you!” Marian glanced at her son, who was sleeping in his cradle on the other side of the room. “They will keep him warm when we walk to church on Sunday.”
Sweat moistened Olivia’s forehead. She untied her thickly lined bonnet. “Maybe too warm.” After removing her gloves, she lifted the curtain’s edge and looked outside. Wind-driven snow made it difficult to see far. “Where is Jonah?”
“He and Doctor Ashton are at the Colburns’ house. Little Anthony fell from a horse and broke his arm.”
“That happened to Walter when he was a child. He cried all night.” Olivia glanced at Alice, who was still standing by the door in her heavy winter coat with her bonnet tied and her gloved hands clasped. “You were just a baby, so you probably don’t remember.”
Alice shook her head. “We should go back soon.”
Olivia returned her attention to Marian. “When did Anthony fall?”
“This morning. Jonah has been gone all day.” Marian stepped to the oven. “I baked bread for him to take to Mr. Weathermon on his visit this afternoon. I don’t think he will make it home in time to walk to Mr. Weathermon’s cabin and return before sunset. I was going to ask Gabe to take it. He usually stops here on his way home from working on the schoolhouse, but he hasn’t come by yet either.”
Olivia rubbed the warm lining of her bonnet between her fingers. “We will take the bread to Mr. Weathermon.”
Alice drew her head back. “You can’t be serious.”
“Sure, why not? We are bundled warmly and the snow isn’t deep. Think of poor Mr. Weathermon out there by the stream all alone.”
Alice smirked. “You just want to see if Gabriel is home next door.”
“No, there is a lonely, elderly man who needs fresh bread and we are fit to take it to him.” Olivia hid her hands in her gloves. “Besides, Gabe’s house is hardly next door to Mr. Weathermon. You can’t even see Mr. Weathermon’s cabin from Gabe’s house.” The urge for sisterly bickering rose up in Olivia, but she ignored it. She held out her hands to Marian. “I will take it to Mr. Weathermon myself. There is still an hour of daylight left.”
Marian cocked her head. “But it is snowing.”
“Not badly.”
“And windy.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Marian wrapped the hot pan in a towel and passed the bundled bread to Olivia. “Stay on the path. Turn left at the bent pine. Please be careful out there.”
“I will,” she said and then turned to her sister. “Are you coming with me?”
“Must I?”
“No.”
Alice grinned slightly and stepped outside. “Then I shall see you at home.”
“Tell Mother I won’t be long.”
Alice waved to Marian and trotted east toward their family’s house.
Snowflakes doused the warmth in Olivia’s cheeks as she hurried west on the path through the forest toward the stream. She glanced back once, but couldn’t see Marian’s cabin for the falling snow. Round, wet flakes clung to one side of the pine branches, creating a shadowy beauty along the path.
The wind increased. Though she couldn’t see more than ten yards in any directions, she knew exactly where she was. The open meadow where fawns played in summertime would be on one side and gray leaf trees on the other. She kept a brisk pace through the ankle-deep snow and in less than a quarter hour, the bent trunk of a tall pine appeared to split the path ahead.
Gabe’s house was only a few yards to the right, but she couldn’t see it. How she wished he were home right now! But he would be working inside the school. She tried to peer through the white wall of snow falling around her and still couldn’t see his
house or the stream beyond it.
Hugging the warm pan of bread against her coat, she followed the path that veered to the left. Chimney smoke clung to the air. As she hiked between snow-covered hemlock trees, the dark wood of Mr. Weathermon’s cabin appeared in front of her. He answered the door quicker than she expected. “Miss Owens?”
The wind momentarily stilled as if frightened by Mr. Weathermon’s booming baritone. He leaned his ample figure against a cane and looked down at her disdainfully.
“Yes, sir.” She proffered the wrapped pan of bread. “This is from Marian. Jonah is assisting Doctor Ashton, and Gabe is working in the schoolhouse, so I offered to—”
“Come in, girl. Come in.” His jowls wobbled as he spoke. “No sense in dawdling at the door and letting the heat out.”
Still holding the bread, she stepped inside and gave his cabin a quick glance. Tidy, but cramped. A patchwork quilt neatly swathed a drooping mattress by the curtained window. Clothes and coats hung on pegs, and a full bucket of clean water sat next to the washstand. A bull’s horn, an assortment of iron files, and odd shavings covered a square table by the fireplace. Three intricately carved powder horns hung on the wall over the mantel.
“You are dripping,” he said, using his cane to mop a towel along the floor from the front door to her feet.
She quickly returned her snowy boots to the mat by the door. “My apologies.”
“Not to worry.” He pointed at one of two chairs at the table. “Sit yourself down.”
“No, I should be getting back.”
“You need to warm your boots before you go out in that again.” He took the bread from her. “You’ll be walking into the wind on your way back. Frightfully cold, I’d expect.”
She removed her gloves, which were still warm from holding the bread, and pointed at the ornately carved powder horns on the wall. “Did you make those?”
“Indeed.” He slid the bread pan onto the table between a burning oil lamp and a dusty chisel. “Except this one,” he said, selecting the furthermost of the three powder horns. “My grandfather used this one during the war.”
Olivia stepped closer and stuffed her gloves into her coat pocket. “Which war?”
“Eighteen-twelve. He fought at Fort Madison.” Mr. Weathermon ran a finger along the inscrutable letters carved into the horn. “Do you read Latin, girl?”
Though she knew some Latin, at present the letters were a blur. She shook her head, thankful he hadn’t asked her to try and read it.
Passing her the horn, he read the phrase. “Ad victoria. It means for victory.”
She turned the horn in her hands and followed a line of ivy trailing around the design all the way to the tip. “It’s lighter than I expected.”
“Because it’s empty.” He returned the horn to its place on the wall. “I wouldn’t dare use it. Not that I’m much for sentiment. It’s old, that’s all. Might crack.”
“I see.” She moved close to the table and examined the horn he’d been working on. “How long does it take you to finish one?”
He didn’t answer. Why had she expected him to? He’d already said more to her in a few minutes than he had in the entire two years she’d known him.
The intricacy of the details he’d carved astounded her. Such minutely detailed work seemed tedious for a former shipping tycoon. She lowered herself to the chair’s edge. “How many of these have you made?”
He sat in the chair opposite her and sliced the bread. “Just those two on the wall and the one you’re picking at.”
She drew her hand away from his work in progress. “My apologies, sir.”
“You’ve said that twice now, girl.” He offered her the first slice, and she took it. “Do you always cower?”
“No, sir. I was being polite.”
“Seemed like cowering to me. You don’t cower, do you?”
“I hope not.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he boomed.
She’d walked in the cold to bring him bread, showed interest in his lonely life, and now he was mocking her. How impertinent! She stood abruptly, her chair screeching on the floor. “Then I retract my polite apology, sir. I’m not sorry I touched it.”
He laughed, mouth full of bread. “There’s a girl!” He tapped the table with two stubby fingers. “Now sit yourself back down and finish your bread. I can’t stand a crumb-dropper any more than a soft sap.”
Slowly, she lowered herself to the chair, not in obedience, but in curiosity. “Mr. Weathermon, why did you come here with us? Why settle somewhere new all by yourself at your age?”
“You are a nosy girl, aren’t you?”
Resolved not to apologize, she set her uneaten slice of bread back in the pan. “Why did you leave America?”
Unshaken, Mr. Weathermon finished his bread in silence then wiped the crumbs from his fingertips. “I was a fraud. I lived pretending to be something I was not and it led to my failure.” He tapped his chest. “And my heart warned me. One heart isn’t enough to sustain two people, you see.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I lived as myself and as the person I pretended to be. It was too much for one heart.” He rested his heavy arms on the table. “Doctor Ashton and I were old chums and once he confirmed my condition was mild, he suggested I come out here with you all.”
She searched for an explanation. “For the fresh air?”
“That and to enjoy my retirement in peace.” He grinned and for a moment he reminded her of her grandfather.
“Fair enough,” she said raising her bread slice as if congratulating him. As Mr. Weathermon ate, he told her about his carvings, picking berries, living near Gabe, and his hope she wouldn’t mind having an old man around from time to time once she and Gabe married.
“Of course, not,” she said as she rose from the table. “If we marry.”
“You will, girl. You will.”
While he continued speaking, she unwrapped her heavy shawl and checked the time on her silver watch pin. “It stopped.”
“Pardon?”
“I must have forgotten to wind my watch.” She lifted the curtain, but a thin sheet of ice covered the outside of the glass. “Any idea of the time?”
“Probably past time for you to get back.” Mr. Weathermon stood slowly. “Here, take a lantern.” He took a lantern from a shelf by the door, struck a match, and held the light out to her. “Take care getting home. And thank you for bringing the bread.”
She tied on her warm bonnet and accepted the lantern, pinching its wire handle. “It was my pleasure, Mr. Weathermon.”
“Give my thanks to Marian,” he boomed from his doorstep.
She marched into the bitter cold and called over her shoulder, “I will.”
The thud of his cabin door closing sent a fresh clump of snow from his roof to the ground behind her. She picked up her pace. Her boots crunched the snow down the incline from his cabin, which seemed steeper on the way down than it had on the way here.
She hadn’t meant to stay at Mr. Weathermon’s house for so long. Thick clouds suffocated the last light of day, bringing an early night. What she’d thought was going to be a light snowfall had turned into a blizzard. It felt nothing like her first two winters in Good Springs—one with frequent light snows, and the other a mix of mild days and sporadic heavy snowfall.
The white of the snow all around created a false sense of light. She glanced back at where Mr. Weathermon’s cabin stood, but couldn’t see more than ten foot behind her. Snow fell rapidly, its flakes both boisterous and benign.
Shrill wind thrashed her face, tugging on her bonnet. She stopped walking long enough to set the lantern down, turn her back to the wind, and tuck her shawl higher around her neck. Holding the woolen mass tightly around her neck with one hand, she lifted the lantern.
The flame trembled inside its glass encasement.
“Don’t go out on me now,” she encouraged the little light as she held it up.
She’d hoped
to retrace her footprints home, but the snowstorm left only faint ovals in the rising snow. The closer she looked at the white ripples on the path, the less they looked like footprints. She searched the ground around her. Snow blanketed the forest floor in monotonous sheets between the trees all around her. She might not be on the path at all.
A blinding wall of blowing snow trapped her on all sides. The wind was on her back when she’d left Marian’s, so if she kept walking into it, she should be going in the right direction. Snowflakes nestled in her lashes and her eyes begged to close against the bitter chill. She would not let them close. She would press on and keep moving.
Her boots grew heavier with each step as the snow packed around the soles. The harder she hiked, the warmer her head became, but with each heavy breath, icy air stung the back of her throat. Wind rumbled the snow in maddening waves like the pelting grain from a thresher’s blade. Beneath the groan and pleas of the snow-drenched forest, water trickled nearby.
She stopped and listened.
Willing her shivering arm to hold the lantern farther from her body, she searched the area around her but saw nothing except white whirls and sticks. But now the brutal wind was at her back. She’d turned somehow. Or the wind had changed. It was toying with her, taunting her, luring her to a cold and pointless death.
How had this happened?
The snowflakes that had caught in the folds of her shawl near her neck melted and soaked her collar. Her cuffs were wet too, drawing heat out of her blood. Her fingers were stiffening around the lantern handle. She tried to switch the lantern to the other hand, but her fingers refused to move correctly. The lantern slipped her gasped, and the snow swallowed it whole.
“No!” Her cry dissolved on the relentless wind. She dug for the lantern, ignoring the sting of snow as it slithered into her gloves. As she pulled the lantern from its alabaster grave, she took a step back and sank her boot into the edge of the stream. Water seeped into her shoe faster than she could yank her foot from the mud. How had she come so close to the stream and not known it? Maybe this wasn’t the big stream, but a brook leading to it.
The Uncharted Beginnings Series Box Set Page 39