An Inconvenient Match (13 page)

A knock at the back door startled her. Who could that be?

Cora poked her head in, her salt-and-pepper tresses pulled into a tidy bun. “Abigail Wilson, I never expected to find you here.”

“I’m your replacement.” Abigail gave a weak smile. “A poor substitute.”

The cook glanced at her laced no-nonsense shoes. “Not likely to fill these clodhoppers,” she said with a grin. “Consider yourself lucky.”

With an air of authority, she stepped to the counter. Not surprising considering she’d cooked for the Cummingses for as long as Abigail had lived in town, maybe longer. “I’m here to make the mister a rhubarb pie, one of his favorites.”

Perhaps Cora’s presence would give Abigail an opportunity to learn more about the trouble between Wade and his father and the reason she’d quit.

Cora wagged a finger. “Not that you’re to tell him I’d do such a thing. The man doesn’t deserve it. But…” She met Abigail’s gaze. “I can barely sleep at night for worrying he’s starving. I’ll rest easier knowing you’re fixing his meals.”

“He’s eating better.”

“Thank the Good Lord.” She removed the towel from the bowl she carried. “I brought the rhubarb.”

Without further to-do, she tied a crisp white apron around her bulky middle and lit the stove. “Has his cranky disposition improved along with that appetite?”

“Cranky doesn’t begin to describe him.”

“Never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad he’s his old prickly self.” Cora grabbed a blue-banded crock from the cupboard and then poked about, gathering ingredients. “The first week, that man had me frantic. His tray returned to the kitchen untouched. Didn’t have any fight in him.”

“Yet you left.” Abigail raised a brow. “Why?”

“After the crisis passed, I had to. Not for the way the mister treated me—heaven knows I’m used to his barbed tongue—but I can’t abide the way he treats Wade. Wade nearly killed hisself filling his daddy’s shoes all day and sitting at his bedside all night. I warned the mister I’d leave if he didn’t change his ways.” She gave a lopsided smile. “Hard to bully a bully.”

“Well, his fight’s back, especially with Wade.”

Cora sifted the flour, added lard then water. As she tossed the mixture with gentle fingers, her warm brown eyes locked with Abigail’s. “I’d hoped with me gone, they’d find a way to get along. Perhaps you’ll smooth the waters between Wade and his pa.”

Abigail heaved a sigh. “I don’t see how, especially with the trouble between our families.”

With flying fingers Cora floured the countertop, plopped the dough in the center and began rolling out the crust, her large bosom bouncing with her movements. “Maybe that’s why God planted you here.”

“I’ll earn my wage, but a Wilson bringing peace to a Cummings…?” Abigail snorted. “I’d have more success controlling the weather.”

Chuckling, Cora draped the dough over the rolling pin and onto the pie plate, then filled the shell with sugared rhubarb. “Listening to that mule bray is enough to make a grown woman weep,” she said, adding the top crust, trimming the excess with a knife and then twisting thumb and forefinger to crimp and seal the edges.

“You make that look easy.”

“Been making ’em since I was eight.” She winked. “Wish I could twist, crimp and seal the mister as easily.”

Abigail giggled and Cora joined in.

Abigail glanced at the clock. Almost eleven. “I’d better get back upstairs before Wade returns for lunch.”

“He never leaves his desk till noon.” Cora cut two slits in the top, spread milk over the surface and sprinkled the crust with sugar, then cocked her head at Abigail. “Are you avoiding my boy? Not that he’s mine but since his mama left I claim him.”

Before Abigail could harness her tongue, she blurted, “You can have him.”

The cook slid the pie into the oven. “There’s a story in there somewhere. Keep an old lady company and tell it.”

Curiosity about Wade made Abigail stay, but she wouldn’t appear too eager and give Cora the wrong impression.

While Cora put away ingredients and cleaned the counter, Abigail washed the bowl and utensils.

With the kitchen in order once again, Cora motioned to the table in the corner where the help took their meals. “Let’s have a cup of tea and one of my cookies.”

“I will as long as you understand I have no story to tell.”

“Always is. Always is.”

Once they’d sat with the teapot and a couple of those enormous cookies Cora had unearthed, Cora stirred two teaspoons of sugar into her cup. Then took a sip and sat back with a satisfied sigh. “Nothing soothes like a cup of tea. From the sound of it you could use some soothing yerself. If you don’t want to see Wade, then my boy must be the reason. I may be poking my nose in, but what’s he done?”

The tea brewed at just the right temperature and strength hadn’t soothed, not with Cora asking the questions. But if Abigail opened up, perhaps Cora would do the same. Yet how could she explain to this woman who obviously adored Wade?

“We’re in disagreement over what’s best for a student of mine, Seth Collier.”

“Two hounds fighting over one bone. I pity the boy.”

Recalling the uneasy expression on Seth’s face as he ran out of the shop, Abigail’s heart lurched. In her effort to help had she behaved that badly?

“I reckon a bone’s better off fought over than abandoned.”

Abigail bit into Cora’s cookie, moist, soft and delicious. “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

“Seth’s got two people caring about him. Even if that caring puts you at odds and the boy in the middle, that’s better’n neglect.”

Neglect described Seth’s life with his father, the reason he should leave.

Across from Abigail, Cora thrummed an unnerving tune on the table with her fingers. Apparently the calm of that tea had vanished. Why would talking about Seth upset her? Who besides Seth was neglected—?

Her breath caught. Cora was referring to Wade and his sister Regina. Abigail had heard about Wade’s mother’s desertion. The entire town knew. When a traveling opera company hit town, Ernestine got acquainted with the actors. When the troupe moved on she went with them, leaving her children behind.

Abigail loved her nephews and couldn’t conceive of such a thing. “Do you know why Mrs. Cummings left?”

Cora sighed. “I’ve thought on it and thought on it, but I’ll never understand her leaving.”

“You don’t think her husband’s conduct drove her off?”

“The mister treated Ernestine just fine. Gave her this grand house, every comfort, but I could see she wasn’t happy.”

“If she was treated well, how could she leave her children?”

Cora’s cup clattered to the saucer. “The day Ernestine left, I watched some lackey haul out her trunk while she stood by wringing her hands, fretting about her children. But no matter what she said, she was giddy too, as if she’d found something exciting she couldn’t live without.

“I pleaded with her to wait for the children to get home from school. Those younguns loved their mama and I knew her leaving would break their hearts. But she wouldn’t wait. Said the opera company had to make their next performance and she couldn’t bear saying goodbye. Said to tell her babies she’d only be gone a little while, a week at most, only long enough to fill in for the leading lady who’d taken sick.”

She and Wade had lost a parent, difficult anytime, but especially when the parent made the choice to pull away.

“I sent word for the mister to get hisself home.” Cora’s voice broke and she swiped at her eyes. “But those younguns got here before he did.”

Wade had dealt with heartache even grown-ups couldn’t fathom. Appetite gone, Abigail put the cookie aside. “What happened?”

“They stopped in the kitchen for a snack, like usual. Wade chattered on about winning the fourth-grade spelling bee. Before I could stop him that boy trotted upstairs to tell his mama the news.

“I gave Regina a cookie and followed him to Ernestine’s bedroom. His eyes had this wild look. ‘Where’s my mother?’ he asked. I said, ‘She’ll be back in a week.’ Maybe he read something in my face he didn’t like ’cause he ran to her bureau, looking for her clothes. He turned to me, his eyes as empty as those drawers.

“Right then the mister come in. ‘Where is she?’ Wade asks in this high-pitched voice. ‘Where’s my mother?’”

Abigail remembered the panic of watching her father fade away. For a small boy to learn his mother left with no warning… Goose bumps rose on her arms.

“The mister plops on the bed, a note dangling from his fingers. ‘She’s gone.’ Wade stood there waiting for an explanation, but the mister doesn’t give any. He just sits there like he’s in a trance.

“I gathered that boy in my arms and hugged him tight. ‘She said she’d be back. She’ll be back.’

“The mister says, ‘She isn’t coming back. Not ever.’ Wade pulled away from my arms and stomped over to his pa. ‘Would you let her?’ He grabbed the mister by the lapels. ‘Would you let her come home, Papa?’”

Suddenly chilly in the cozy kitchen permeated with the aroma of rhubarb pie, Abigail wrapped her arms around her middle, unable to take her eyes off Cora.

“The mister says, ‘Once she gets a taste of the stage, she won’t give it up.’ Then Wade says, ‘I want to live with Mama.’ Wade choosing his mama over his pa, well, I reckon that made things worse too. The mister’s face kinda crumbled then got hard like stone. ‘Traipsing around the country with an opera troupe’s no place for a child. She made her choice. She picked her dream over her duty.’

“Those words destroyed that boy’s hope. Wade ran out of the room. I found him in the stable, crying. Grabbed him up, sat on a bale of straw and rocked that weeping boy in my arms.” Tears slid down Cora’s cheeks. “I took Wade into my heart that day. Why I claim him as mine. Land’s sake, that was years ago, but the memory still makes me weep like a baby.”

Cora blew her nose on a handkerchief she pulled from her bodice. “His pa shoulda been comforting his son, not me. I’m not blaming the mister for his anger. He loved Ernestine. Her leaving nearly killed him.” She sighed, fiddling with her cup. “Killed her for sure. The manager of the opera company said she performed on stage once before she took sick.”

Abigail remembered the talk. Ernestine came down with influenza and in a matter of days, died.

“How old were Wade and Regina?”

“Wade was nine. Regina six.”

When Ernestine Cummings deserted her family, she erected a barrier between Wade and his father that they couldn’t hurdle.

When Abigail could speak, she took the older woman’s plump hand. “Thank God you were there for Wade.”

Cora straightened her shoulders. “The mister’s stubborn as they come and won’t make that first step. I reckon he’s scared Wade’s like his mama.”

“How so?”

“Wade’s what I hear called artistic, always has been.”

“Why do you think Ernestine chose to leave?”

“Her dream of becoming an actress was part of it.” She sighed. “The mister was good to her but wasn’t no Prince Charming.”

Abigail gulped. Underneath, wasn’t Prince Charming what she wanted? As if any such man existed. Fairy tales were for children.

“Reckon he did the best he could, trying to handle his work, his home, his children. But he didn’t know how to give Wade and Regina what they needed. Regina’s made a new life for herself, but Wade… I’m hoping you’ll bring those two hardheads close.”

Abigail gave Cora’s hand a squeeze then stood. “I’ll try.”

How could she help Wade and his father reconcile when the rift between her and Wade was even wider?

Chapter Nine

R
hubarb pie and a sandwich waiting in the kitchen was probably as close to Abby as Wade would get. She’d avoided him since their encounter that morning.

At the first opportunity, he’d apologize. Not that a simple “I’m sorry” would fix the trouble between them, but he’d sleep better knowing he’d tried.

He stepped out the back door, munching on the cheese and ham and ambled toward the carriage house. He spotted Abby in the garden, gathering an armful of iris. Tendrils of her hair had pulled loose from their moorings and peeked beneath her wide-brimmed straw hat. She met his gaze. Gone was the anger he’d last seen, replaced with a vulnerability that drew him closer.

A smudge of dirt marred the soft curve of her cheek yet he’d never seen her look lovelier. With those guileless eyes resting on him, he couldn’t get his mind to work. He couldn’t get his tongue to move.
Cummings, you’re behaving like a moron.

He swallowed hard and forced out “Thanks for making my sandwich and the pie.”

“Cora gets the credit for the pie.”

“Cora came by the house?”

“Yes.” She released a sigh. “Wade, I…I need to apologize for this morning.”

“I’m at fault for riling you.”

“Of late, that’s easy to do.” Those soft blue eyes of hers darted around the garden, as if she didn’t know where to put her gaze. “I thought these flowers might cheer up your father.”

“No more than the lovely woman delivering them.”