Sew in Love

by Debby Lee

  But what did he know about raising a child?

  One thing was clear. Phillip’s fine speech wasn’t always polished after all. When provoked, his language slipped into something more natural, just like Maggie when she’d suddenly spoken with her heavy Irish accent in front of the other men.

  His gaze drifted toward the ragged sleeves and gaping hole in his nephew’s shirt, which was in dire need of mending, and realized that providing for another person was going to cost him. Set back his dream of purchasing land and building that house for a while. And most definitely set back his desire to marry a pretty woman and start a family of his own.

  Which meant he had no business thinking about Miss McDermott’s pretty eyes, hair, and bonnet, or the endearing little quirks in her speech. No business thinking about them at all.

  And yet, how could he not?

  Especially when she kept placing herself in his line of sight. Ben’s gaze drifted toward beautiful, sweet Maggie as she walked along the water’s edge with her long, full pink skirt bunched in one hand to keep the hem from getting wet. His heart lurched in his chest, aching to help her. To protect her. Provide for her. Even though his head knew he couldn’t.

  “Have you come to pan for gold?” he teased.

  Maggie laughed, the joyous sound mixing with the tinkling of the river. “I doubt I would be able to tell the difference between gold and these other rocks, even if I did come upon some. But I am not to start work with the washerwoman until tomorrow. However will I spend the rest of my day?”

  Ben froze in place, unable to tear his gaze from hers. Was she hinting that she wanted to spend the rest of the day—with him?

  Her gaze shifted and she pointed, redirecting his attention to Phillip, who was smiling as he made his way toward them, and Ben realized, with an unbidden pang of regret, that he’d been mistaken. Her target had been his nephew.

  “Would you mind if I borrowed Phillip’s company for the rest of the afternoon?” she asked, with a lift of her fair delicate brows.

  “Yes, can I?” Phillip asked, his voice pleading.

  The boy looked at Maggie with stars in his eyes. He probably saw her as a mother figure. Perhaps, more than anything, that was what he needed right now. He certainly wasn’t interested in panning for gold. And it sure was good to see him smiling again.

  Ben decided small progress was better than none and gave his assent.

  Even though that meant he’d later have to retrieve the boy. And see Maggie again. When what he knew he should do … is stay away.

  Maggie took Phillip back to the bakery, leading him along the path she’d used earlier. They passed Lewis’s grave, a rock mound marked by a wooden cross bearing his name. She and her mother had taken Esther and Agnes’s advice and visited the site that morning, wearing their undyed, light-colored gowns. While her mother cried, Maggie had stood there biting her lip. She knew that one day she’d have to forgive him, and God too. But right now, she couldn’t. Not yet. Her anger over the predicament she now found herself in was still too raw.

  Especially after she and her mother visited the shack Cousin Lewis had left them. The moment Maggie opened the door, it fell off the hinges, and a rat ran out through a crack in the wall. Besides being infested with rodents, which Maggie couldn’t abide, the wide hole in the roof and half-broken beams made the place uninhabitable.

  Esther said most of the damage came that past winter when the camp had been assaulted by wind and heavy rain. A tree had come down on the shack, knocking it off-kilter, forcing Cousin Lewis back into a tent. This was also the same winter storm that made the flood-waters rise in Sacramento. Cousin Lewis had gone into the waters to help others to safety but consequently came down with the pneumonia that later cost him his life. One could say he died a hero, something else she should be thankful for, if she wasn’t feeling so sorry for herself.

  But now that Phillip was here Maggie was certain his presence would put an end to her mourning.

  “Why do you have mud on your nose?” he asked, frowning as he looked up at her.

  “To protect my skin from the sun.” She laughed and wiped her nose clean with her handkerchief. “Now I see why the men wear wide-brimmed straw hats. Bonnets may look pretty, but do not appear to be very practical to keep one’s nose from turning red.”

  Phillip grinned. “My nose burned too.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how to spot gold?” she asked, taking a small shiny river rock from the pocket of her apron.

  Phillip shook his head.

  “Nor do I,” she said, and sighed. “But it would be exciting if we found some, wouldn’t it? I’d buy supplies to fix up Cousin Lewis’s shack and turn it into a real home.”

  “I would buy a horse,” Phillip said, his tone wistful.

  “A horse?” Maggie lifted a brow. “’Tis a fine goal. I have a book about a young boy and his horse. Would you care to read it together?”

  Phillip nodded, his face radiant. “I would indeed.” He hesitated a moment, looked just a wee bit uncomfortable, then confided, “My mother used to read to me.”

  His tone had turned wistful again and Maggie’s chest tightened, for of course the boy must miss his mother. And he was still so young to be without one.

  Could this be the reason God had brought her here? What if His intention hadn’t been for her to marry Cousin Lewis, as she supposed, but to help this young boy who had no mother? At the very least, she could offer to tutor him. She wasn’t heavily skilled in arithmetic, but she could help the boy read and write so he wouldn’t fall behind in his schooling.

  She could also mend the hole in his shirt, which Phillip insisted had been chewed by rats.

  Maggie smiled with affection for this boy, and once she and Phillip were seated at the table inside the bakery, she opened the book and read aloud, whisking them away to a land of awe and adventure, where beauty reigned and dreams could come true.

  Ben leapt up the stairs leading to the bakery, then paused to take a breath and told himself to slow down. You just need to pick up the boy. That’s all. Don’t go entertaining thoughts of conversing with Miss McDermott. You don’t have the money to properly support Phillip and a wife.

  The problem was he couldn’t stop thinking about her after she’d left the river that day. Neither could the other men. The afternoon had been filled with boasts to win her hand and accompanying laughter. She’d have over a dozen suitors by the end of the week, if not by nightfall. And while that didn’t exactly sit well with him, Ben knew it was inevitable that Maggie would most likely marry someone else.

  Someone with money. Someone who struck gold.

  He’d redouble his efforts at the river tomorrow, but for now, he had to keep himself from becoming overly attached. For if he failed, it would pain him too much in the end, a lesson he’d learned before and wasn’t too keen to repeat.

  Just get the boy.

  Ben opened the door of the bakery and walked in, determined to do just that, when the sight before him stopped him in his tracks.

  Maggie and Phillip sat at the table side by side, so engrossed in the book she was reading that they didn’t see him. He watched their rapt expressions change from wide-eyed intrigue to subtle grins, then dart into a look of surprise. But what drew his attention most was the way they leaned toward one another, their heads so close they were nearly touching, and how Phillip’s hand gently clutched Maggie’s forearm. As if he needed reassurance she was still there, even as their minds wandered within the scenes from the story.

  If ever he had a family of his own, this is how he’d picture it to be.

  A picture of love.

  Phillip’s eyelids fluttered closed and his head sank against Maggie’s shoulder. Smiling down at him, she laid the book aside, then looked up when Ben walked toward her.

  “You’re very good with children,” he said, his throat tight.

  Maggie smiled again, this time at him. “I was an only child, like Phillip, which can be lonely. Especially in
a new land. When I was about his age, I used to read stories to the other neighborhood children in the hope of making new friends.”

  “You’ve certainly bonded with Phillip.” Ben’s gaze drifted toward his sleeping nephew. “I wish I could say the same, but he doesn’t seem to be as pleased with me as he is with you.”

  “Just give him time,” she said, her face full of sympathy. “You forget we’ve shared over six months of travel together while sailing west. Relationships grow with patience, persistence, and time.”

  “I doubt I’ll earn his favor by waking him, but I must get him back to our own tent.”

  “Wait. There is one more matter I would like to discuss,” she said softly. “I was wondering if you would let me tutor Phillip on a regular basis. When I’m not working, that is.”

  Ben hesitated. He knew it would be in his nephew’s best interest to keep up with his studies, but the arrangement would also continue to draw the three of them together and play havoc with his own growing attraction to her.

  No. He couldn’t do it. Shouldn’t do it. But seeing the determined look in her eyes, he sighed with amused resignation. “You’re not going to stop harassing me about his schooling until I give in, are you?”

  Maggie lifted her chin and smiled. “No, I doubt I will.”

  “All right. You may tutor him,” he agreed, and inwardly groaned.

  Yes, it was going to hurt to have to watch her marry someone else.

  Chapter 4

  The following day Maggie and her mother rose early, before dawn, and made their way over to Agnes Henshaw’s wash shed, down near the river. The roofed timber-post structure hadn’t any side walls and was no bigger than the square wooden stand beside the bakery that posed as the post office.

  Agnes introduced them to her husband, Charles, a rugged, soft-spoken man with a lopsided grin, who took a bucket of steaming water off the steel grate over the fire and dumped it into one of the large, half-barrel washtubs. This washtub, Agnes explained, was for the washing, while the other one on the bench beside it was for the rinsing. Maggie’s mother assured the woman that she’d washed plenty of clothes before, as their family did not have the money to hire servants, and Agnes handed her a washboard, a plunger, and a cake of soap.

  Maggie, who had better eyesight for threading needles and sewing fine stitches than her mother, took out her leather sewing kit holding her thimble, needle holder, scissors, steel ribbon bodkin, and a small wooden spool of pale cotton thread. Agnes directed her to a chair beside the clothesline and pointed to the straw basket piled with clothing in need of repair.

  “Just do what you can with them,” the elderly lady told her. “The men don’t expect much.”

  Maggie picked up a white cotton shirt and had not even finished mending the hole in the sleeve when four men came down the path to pay them a visit, followed by two more.

  “You’ll have to form a line,” Agnes commanded, her voice stern.

  The men obliged, smiling, and the first one stepped up to Maggie, a pair of trousers in his hands. “I was hoping you might be able to wash these for me, Miss McDermott?”

  Tom Green, the postmaster.

  Maggie pointed toward her mother, who was busy scrubbing laundry beside Agnes. “Clothing that needs to be washed can be set over by the tubs. I only take the clothes that need repair.”

  The owl-faced man with round, black-rimmed spectacles pulled at the waistline of the trousers, causing the material to rip. “Looks like these will need mending.”

  “I’ve got clothes that need mending too,” called out a short, round-bellied man behind him.

  Willis Cogsgrove, the camp cook.

  “So do I,” said a third, his hooknose resembling a bird’s beak as he broke into a broad grin.

  Obadiah Brewster, the gold digger who also served as the camp preacher.

  She’d met most everyone in the Gold Bar camp at dinner the night before, and because of the repeated attention the men continued to pay her, it had not taken long to learn their names.

  Maggie set the piece she’d been working on in her lap and stared at all the garments they held up for her. Then she glanced at Agnes, who told the men, “If you want them fixed, you need to pay her twenty cents for each item.”

  Each man handed over the required amount, which Maggie deposited into her apron pocket. She was thrilled that she’d be able to pay Esther for another night’s lodging but thought of Phillip and wondered how she would be able to tutor him when she had so much work to do. The mounting pile would surely keep her busy until nightfall.

  She quickly found that mending wasn’t the only thing the men were after. By midmorning she’d also received over a dozen marriage proposals.

  “If you can mend my clothes, I can mend your heart,” one of them promised.

  The man behind him swatted the fellow with his hat. “Don’t mind him, Miss McDermott. He has no manners, but if you marry me, I promise that I will treat you with respect.”

  Quincy and Rufus Vaughn, the squat, dark-haired brothers who work for Hugh Kendrick.

  “Step aside, boys,” the devil himself said, giving his minions a look of warning as he made his way toward her. “And leave the lovely lady to me.”

  Maggie pursed her lips. “Does your clothing require mending, Mr. Kendrick?”

  “No,” he replied. “I’d like to mend things between you and me.”

  “Oh?” she asked, feigning innocence. “Why would you want to do that?”

  He took off his hat and leaned forward. “By now you must have noticed there are only four buildings in Gold Bar. Besides the post office, baker’s hotel, and the infirmary owned by Dr. Harrington, there is a large house behind the fire pit. Did you know that I am the owner of that magnificent house, Miss McDermott?”

  Maggie shook her head. “No, I did not. But I think you are forgetting one other building in Gold Bar, for I counted five.”

  Mr. Kendrick frowned. “Are you referring to Parnell’s shack?”

  “My house,” Maggie told him. “Or else at least it will be, once I can afford to fix it up.”

  “That old shack should be torn down,” Mr. Kendrick said with a scowl, then met her gaze. “Marry me, and I can give you a better house. Everything you’ve always wanted. I have money. Lots of money. Why, with your beauty and my resources, we could be the finest couple in all of California. Don’t you see?”

  Maggie picked up her sewing again and averted her gaze. “No, I do not see.”

  “Aw, you reject me now,” he taunted, sticking out his chest. “But there will come a day when you will change your mind.”

  She knew she would have to choose a husband before too long, and perhaps she should be thankful for the offers she’d already received, but if there was one man she would not marry, it was Hugh Kendrick. He wasn’t kind, compassionate, or honorable.

  Not like Ben.

  She glanced toward the other men coming down the path toward the river. Where was Benjamin Freethy this morning? Why wasn’t he here? Didn’t he have clothes that needed to be washed or mended?

  One man she had not yet met headed straight for her, a thin, well-dressed fellow with a limp who hobbled down the path with the help of a carved wood cane.

  Unlike the other men, his expression did not contain a hint of eagerness, joy, or amusement. In fact, as he glanced at the line of men before her then at the basket piled high with the clothes she was to mend, his countenance darkened.

  “You think you can ride into town and steal my business?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I—I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Well let me explain it to you, lassie,” the man said, in a tone meant to mock her accent. “I am the town tailor. When the men need a new garment made or their clothing repaired, they come to me. Understand? Now, if you need a job, I’d be willing to give you ten cents for each article of clothing you mend.”

  “She’s making twice that here,” Agnes said, le
aving her wash bucket to come around and wave her fist at him. “Now scurry off, you flea-infested rodent!”

  The tailor gave Agnes a menacing glare then returned his gaze to Maggie. “Your success won’t last long,” he promised. “I assure you, I will see that it doesn’t.”

  As the crippled man turned and hobbled back up the path, Hugh Kendrick touched her sleeve, and when she looked at him, he smiled.

  “Remember,” he said, his voice low. “I can give you anything you want, even save you from the wrath of the tailor.”

  At the end of the day, Maggie forced herself to recite everything she had to be thankful for as she accompanied her mother back to their room behind the bakery. They had missed the evening meal prepared by the camp cook, so Esther brought in a tray with biscuits, leftover chicken vegetable soup, and a pot of tea and set it on the dresser.

  “Looks like you had a very productive first day,” Esther said gaily, when Maggie emptied the coins from her bulging apron pocket.

  “I suppose I did,” Maggie agreed. “I also received fifteen marriage proposals, although not from anyone of interest.”

  Maggie’s mother chuckled. “I received three proposals of my own, two from men half my age. I also received a fair compliment from Dr. John Harrington. He said my cheeks were looking as rosy as an apple, much better than my first day in town when after I fainted he helped to catch me.”

  “Our good Dr. Harrington is certainly of your own age and would make a suitable match,” Esther teased.

  Maggie looked at her mother, who shook her head. “I already had one husband. I certainly don’t need another. Marriage is for the young, for those still strong enough to stomach it, not for someone in their midfifties like me.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to marry either,” Maggie said, handing Esther several of the coins to pay for their room that night. “But this money is not enough for us to live on forever, and I cannot afford to fix up the house that Cousin Lewis left us.”