Ace's Wild (25 page)

“I never said you were.”

“No, you just assumed.” Her voice was carefully hushed. “You do that a heck of a lot. Like you do with Ace, and me and people in general. You might have a ton of book learning but what you need is people learning. Maybe if you had that you’d stop being so damn blind and see what you’ve accomplished here in Simple.”

“I—”

Hester cut her off with a wave of her hand. “This may be a backwater town and we might be backwater people of little note in the society pages, but damn it, we matter. You’re the only reason we matter to all the narrow-minded folk in this town. And in some ways to ourselves. But you take that kind of knowing for granted.” She stabbed her finger at her. “And now you’re going to up and leave, move on to more important folk, letting all that’s started here crumble.”

“I’m not—”

Again she was cut off. Face flushed and eyes narrowed, Hester continued, “Don’t give me that hogwash about how you’ve set it up to go on. Without you here to keep this moving and people motivated, Providence will just fall apart. But that’s all right. You won’t be here to see it, and once you get on that stagecoach, we won’t matter.”

To Petunia’s horror, the ever so strong Hester, the woman who always did what was necessary with gruff efficiency, the one who’d taken on Brian Winter without a quibble, broke down in a sob. Covering her mouth quickly as if to snatch the sound back, Hester turned away.

Left staring at her back, Petunia didn’t know what to do. She’d never seen Hester flustered, let alone crying. She wanted to reach out, touch her. Apologize. Explain...something. “I don’t know what to say.”

Hester didn’t turn around. She just squared her shoulders.

“There’s nothing to say. You are who you are.”

Anger bit into Petunia’s shock. Hester made it sound as if she’d done something wrong. “And what’s that?”

“Someone who should be ashamed.”

* * *

P
ETUNIA
SAT
AT
the table a good fifteen minutes after Hester left. Part of her expected the other woman to come back and apologize. Her attack had been unwarranted. Petunia hadn’t done anything but take care of everyone here. Doing what she could in the time she’d had available to fix things, but not once had she lied. It’d never been her intent to stay. It’d never been her intent to actually set up the school, but once here, she couldn’t ignore the need. What had Hester wanted her to do? Leave Terrance to his father’s beatings? Pretend Hester’s own situation hadn’t been in need of repair? She’d seen this all her life, over and over, town to town, time after time. Women trapped in impossible situations, locked in by the law and society’s inequities. Children, victims of their parents’ frustrations, beaten and abused, left in ignorance. It was a huge problem affecting every single person in this nation. The letter to her father pressed into her leg as she shifted positions. Taking it out, she set it on the table. Her father’s address stared back at her boldly. Anyone who hadn’t grown up in the East wouldn’t recognize the name. Here he was just nothing. Just as she was. Here she wasn’t hampered by his expectations, nor by men pretending to understand her cause in an effort to gain access to her father’s fortune. She couldn’t expect Hester to understand that freedom, though. For all that Hester had grown up back East, she still thought small.

Petunia didn’t want to think small. Didn’t want to work small. She wanted to smash through that wall of oppression. She wanted to make a dent in women’s rights. She wanted women like Hester to have options other than selling their bodies. She wanted kids like Terrance to have a voice somewhere through someone. She didn’t fool herself. If Ace and Luke hadn’t gone out to Terrance’s house, he’d still be trapped—beaten daily, humiliated, denied the right of every child to learn, to laugh, to hope. She wanted women like herself who, through no fault of their own, suffered fates that wounded reputations, to still have a future. Not just rich women like her, but all women.

Her father once told her that everything didn’t happen at once, but from what she could see, it wasn’t happening at all. And she couldn’t stand that. She’d grown up watching him move mountains in business every day by putting the right pieces in the right place. He never accepted little gains. He always went big. She tapped her finger on his name. Why didn’t he, or anyone else for that matter, understand that when it came to what mattered to her, she had to go big, too?

“My mom is crying.”

Brenda’s scared, high-pitched voice flicked across Petunia’s conscience with the bite of a whip. Rubbing her fingers across her forehead she took a breath and turned. Brenda stood in the doorway, fingers clutched in front of her, her big blue eyes wide. Phillip stood behind her. No fear lurked in his gaze, but a whole lot of belligerence glared out at her.

“What did you do to her?”

She was still trying to figure that out. “I don’t know.”

“My mom never cries.”

Terrance approached a lot more slowly. The dread in his expression about broke her heart.

You won’t be here to see it, and once you get on that stagecoach, we won’t matter.

Hester couldn’t be more wrong. She mattered. Children mattered. Everything Petunia had done here had mattered. The people she touched here were more than names. What she’d done here was bigger than the collecting money and organizing she’d done in the past. What she’d done here had touched her life, too. Hester was right. She really hadn’t understood. “Phillip?”

“What?” he said gruffly. Clearly, he expected bad news to fall upon them, and why wouldn’t he? Nothing in his life had been permanent. He knew she was leaving. And now his mother was crying. How could he interpret that as anything else but bad news? “Could you go to the well and bring me some cold water?”

“Why?”

She pushed her chair back and stood. “Because your mom is going to want to wash up.”

“Why bother if you’re just going to make her cry again?”

She ignored the belligerence but she couldn’t ignore the disrespect. “Phillip?”

“What?”

“You’re still a child, and I’m still the adult.”

“What’ll you do? Give me a whooping?”

The sneer in his voice made it very clear he didn’t think she was capable of any such thing.

“She might not, but I will.”

Petunia blinked. She’d rarely seen Terrance be the aggressor. She placed her hand on Phillip’s shoulder, ignoring his attempt to shrug it off. As he continued to glare at her, she clarified, “Nobody’s going to give anybody a whipping. You’re going to do it, Phillip, because I asked you to and because it’s for your ma. And you, Terrance, are going to help him, because Phillip is your friend, and friends help each other that way.”

“And me?” Brenda asked, wanting to be part of everything as usual.

Petunia gave her a smile. “You, sweetie, are going to go get me one of those nice facecloths we keep for guests.”

Their tasks assigned, the children disappeared in a heartbeat but were back just as fast. She didn’t know what they worried she might get up to in the short amount of time it took to perform their tasks, but they were in a hurry to get back. Phillip and Terrance stood just inside the back door frowning at her. Clearly they’d been talking outside.

Phillip shoved the bucket at her. Terrance elbowed him in the side. With a shuffle of his feet, Phillip said, “I’m sorry.”

She took the half-full bucket. “Thank you.”

Brenda handed her the washcloth. Pouring the water into a pitcher and draping the towel over her forearm, Petunia added, “And children?”

As one they looked at her. She felt the weight of their stares keenly, understanding with every passing second what Hester meant. She wasn’t a catalyst here. She was part of this. She held these children’s lives and futures in her hand. The responsibility made her tremble deep inside. But in a good way. A new way. This was what directly making the difference felt like. “None of you have to worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

* * *

T
HE
STAIRS
CREAKED
a reprimand as Petunia climbed them. She felt small and ashamed by the time she reached the landing. She should’ve known Hester was worried. She should’ve known what she was doing by leaving. Her only defense was she’d never truly been in the trenches before. She’d raised money, given lectures, listened to stories, but she’d never before been the one that actually did the work. She’d never been the one people depended on. She’d never been the linchpin in the plan.

Hester’s door was closed. Petunia wasn’t surprised. She knocked and wasn’t shocked when Hester told her to go away. She hadn’t come this far in life, however, by being easily dissuaded. She tested the handle. The door was unlocked. She walked right in. Hester pushed up from where she lay on the bed. Above her narrowed eyes, random tight curls stuck up and out like bits of red flame. That more than anything else told Petunia how upset Hester was. Hester was ruthless in containing the willful nature of her hair.

“What do you want?” Hester demanded, wiping her wet cheeks.

Petunia walked over to the bedside table and poured water into the basin. She dipped the towel in the cold water and handed it to Hester. “I think the children are going to mutiny.”

Hester took the cloth and wiped her swollen, blotchy face. “They’ve never seen me cry.”

All she’d been through and they’d never seen her cry? “Not even once?”

“No. I was all they had.”

And Petunia understood. “I’m sorry.”

Hester pulled the cloth away from her eyes. “For what?”

“For being selfish.”

At that Hester lowered the cloth. “I don’t understand.”

How did she say this? Petunia motioned to the side of the bed. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

Dipping the cloth in the cool water, Hester muttered, “Go ahead” before placing the cloth back over her eyes.

Clearly, she wasn’t going to make this easy. “I’ve never built something like this before. Never been on my own before. I don’t tell anybody, but my family, my father, actually has a lot of money. And as such, he wields a lot of influence.”

“No fooling.”

“You don’t look shocked.”

Lifting the cloth, Hester gave her a wry smile. “I told you I wasn’t a hayseed. Only the wealthy have the belief that nothing can get in their way.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“It wasn’t my place to say anything and besides,” she said, shrugging, “your crusades worked in my favor.”

That was blunt speaking. “I suppose they did.”

“So what do we do now that you’re done crusading here?”

She wasn’t done. She didn’t know what she was, but done wasn’t it. “Well, first, I think we need to talk to the children downstairs.”

“And tell them what?”

Petunia fussed with her skirt. “That they’re safe?” It was her turn to shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“We can start with safe.”

Petunia was the first to break the silence that followed. “You were right when you said I didn’t understand. I’ve always done this from afar.”

“It wasn’t very satisfying, was it?”

“I don’t know about that.” Bracing her hands on the mattress, she shifted backward. “There were challenges.”

Hester carefully folded the cloth in half. And then just as carefully, in half again. “For someone who doesn’t know much about what makes her happy, you’re sure doing a lot of running away.”

That stung. “I think of it more like I’m running to something.”

Hester snorted. And then sniffed. And finally rubbed her nose. Her face was red and blotchy from crying. Her eyes swollen. None of it diminished the force of her disapproval. “The only thing waiting for you in San Francisco is a half-baked plan shored up by a whole lot of dreaming.”

“And what do I have here? I can’t even stay at the school with the damage to my reputation. Soon enough, the good people of this town are going to demand that I stop living here so the children aren’t corrupted by my presence or by the unsavory element ‘my type’ brings around.”

From the arch of Hester’s eyebrows she might have revealed a bit too much. “Just how disturbing was that walk of yours?”

Petunia didn’t know how much to tell.

“I’m hardly in a position to judge,” Hester reminded her.

“You’re my friend. Your opinion matters.”

“Then if I’m your friend, tell me so I can help.”

“I saw Brian.”

“Well, I can see where that would put you off your mood.”

The joke fell flat. Petunia licked her lips. “He propositioned me.”

“He thinks you’re desperate.”

“I am.”

Hester snorted. “Not that desperate. What did Ace say?”

She smoothed her hair. “I didn’t tell him.”

Hester took a slow breath. “Why not?”

“We were in the alley and—”

“And what? And why were you and Brian in the alley?”

“I wasn’t in the alley when I met him. I was in the store and he kind of cornered me, but when I met Ace it could’ve looked like I was meeting Brian in the alley.” She sighed. “Luke saw.”

“If Luke saw then Ace knows.”

“Ace knows. He beat Brian up.”

“Good.”

“I know, but I don’t want them to think...to believe...when he has time to reflect on things...” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Hester had no such trouble. “You don’t want them to think you’re that desperate.”

“No.” She didn’t. “Not even for an instant.”

“Ace isn’t the type of man to tolerate secrets between you.”

What he would and wouldn’t tolerate both scared and aroused her. “That’s going to make surprising him at Christmas a challenge.”

The joke fell flat. “You’re planning on surprising him with something?”

“I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“Except leaving. Providence won’t survive without you.”

“I think you underestimate your abilities, Hester. You could keep this school going with one hand tied behind your back.”

“I never underestimate myself in any situation, but I don’t have your skills.”

“Well, I don’t have—”

A knock on the door downstairs interrupted her. Petunia jumped. Hester dropped the washcloth. They looked at each other.