Hearts Awakening (35 page)

She nodded toward his father for an answer, more than happy to defer to him, since he had decided the boys had needed to learn about the third, stillborn puppy.

“Do you have a name already picked out for him?” Jackson asked gently.

Daniel shrugged. “We think we should just call him Puppy. Can Miss Ellie help us bury it in the cemetery? Do you wanna come, too?”

Ethan stared at his father, as if anxious to know the answer to his brother’s question.

Ellie stared at the boys’ father, too, wondering most if he would pose an objection to having the puppy buried in the family cemetery rather than a place in the side yard or the woods.

Jackson set down his fork. “I’ll come if you want me to, or Miss Ellie does, but there’s rain coming today. I have a lot to do to get ready for tomorrow. It’s our last day at market until next year, remember?”

Daniel shrugged. “You don’t have to come. We like it when Miss Ellie helps us.”

“I don’t mind helping the boys alone. Other than the threat of rain, it’s certainly safe enough,” Ellie offered. “If we go to the cemetery right after breakfast instead of starting our lessons, I think we’ll be back long before the rain starts. If the boys move the stones along one side of the perimeter, I think we can make a special place for the puppy there,” she added, just to let him know that the puppy would not be buried directly alongside any of his relatives.

“That’s fine. I don’t think we’ll see much rain before dinner, but it’s probably wise to get the puppy buried this morning. I’ll get a few small tools ready for you before I head out to the orchards. Perhaps after supper tonight, we can all make a few plans for tomorrow,” he suggested.

Ellie narrowed her gaze. “But tomorrow’s Market Day.”

Jackson shrugged. “I know, but I expect we’ll sell out the last of the Russets well before noon, which means we’ll have the afternoon to spend as we like.”

“We wouldn’t come straight home?” she asked.

“Actually, since I had someone get the Sunday house fixed up a bit for us, I thought it might be nice if we took the time to stay the night so you could do some shopping. We should probably stop by and let Reverend and Mrs. Shore know about the puppies, too.”

She caught her breath, surprised by his offer for them to spend time in the city. “What about Poor Thing? We can’t leave her here alone for two days, especially with the puppies.”

“I don’t think Grizel would mind coming over to take care of her. Besides, I need the boys to help me with something in town.”

Daniel clapped his hands. “We’ll help, Pappy, won’t we, Ethan? What are we gonna do?” he asked.

“First and foremost, we need to see if we can find anyone in town who’d like to have one of Poor Thing’s pups. While we’re looking, I was wondering if the two of you would help me decide if Mrs. French’s gumdrops really do taste better than Widow Franklin’s.”

The skies were darkening. The air was growing raw. The smell of rain was thickening.

More than anxious to get back to the house before the storm broke, Ellie shoveled the last bit of dirt on top of the little pup’s grave and stepped back. “You can smooth the dirt down now.”

Ethan knelt down and started patting the earth with his hands while Daniel raced back from rearranging the stones around his mother’s headstone.

“I think Mama’s really happy now,” Daniel said as he plopped down next to his brother.

“Why is that?” Ellie asked.

Daniel answered without looking up at her. “ ’Cause now she has a puppy to play with in heaven.”

“They have puppies in heaven?” she questioned, reminded she did not always know what he was thinking.

Ethan looked up at her before Daniel challenged her answer. “Don’t they?”

“Of course they do. I was only teasing you,” she said quickly to ease their worried expressions. “I think it’s time we get back. We have lessons to do.”

Daniel stood up and brushed off his overalls, which inspired his younger brother to follow suit. “We can’t go back yet. We have to put stones on the puppy’s grave.”

Ellie looked overhead at the dark clouds gathering there, shivered, and shook her head. “Not today. There’s a storm brewing. We don’t have time to walk to the landing to find them and bring them back before the rain starts. We’ll go tomorrow after the weather clears.”

“But tomorrow’s Market Day and Pappy said we weren’t even coming home. We’re staying at our other house,” he argued, puffing out his little chest.

Ethan grabbed his brother’s hand, silently taking his side.

“Oh, I forgot. Then we’ll have to wait a few days to get the stones. In the meantime, why don’t you borrow some from over there?” she asked, pointing to the perimeter.

“No,” Daniel said, stomping his foot. “The puppy wants new stones, just like we gave our mama.”

“No,
you
want them, but you’ll have to get them another day. I don’t want any of us to be caught outside when the storm hits. Besides, we need to get back to the house for your lessons,” she said, far more sternly than she intended.

Daniel grabbed Ethan’s hand. “Come on, Ethan. We’ll get the stones later,” he said and marched away with him.

Holding the larger shovel, Ellie grabbed the two smaller ones the boys had used that were lying on the ground with her other hand and hurried to catch up with them. She rarely had to refuse the boys when they asked to do anything, but she chided herself for letting her fear of the brewing storm make her so tense she had spoken to them more harshly than they deserved.

She was only a few feet behind them, hoping to soften her words with a promise to ask their father to take them to the landing for stones later if the storm did not last long when she heard Daniel whispering to his brother.

“Don’t be sad. If Miss Ellie is mean to us again, we don’t have to keep her. We can give her back to Pappy whenever we want.”

She hurried her steps, more anxious than ever to make amends. She tried to shove aside her fear of storms, but it landed right next to her fear that their pappy would give her back to her old life, too, if he ever got the chance to reunite with Dorothea.

Jackson reached home an hour before dinnertime.

He charged into the house just steps ahead of the storm, which threatened to hit the island much sooner than he had expected. But it was not the storm that had him rushing back here. The gusting wind almost blew the porch door out of his hand, but he managed to grab it and close it behind him.

Confident that Ellie’s fear of storms had kept his sons inside with her, where it was safe, he called out for them.

“Ellie! Daniel! Ethan!”

He paused to catch his breath, but when no one answered his cries, his confidence failed.

“Ellie! Daniel! Ethan!” he cried, even louder.

When he still got no response, he glanced around the kitchen, which was unusually chilly. In fact, Ellie did not have anything simmering on the cookstove for dinner. Poor Thing, who was still lying in her bed with her puppies, looked at him as he passed by with those big brown eyes of hers, as if pleading with him to start a fire to warm them.

It was then he spied the note Ellie had left for him on the worktable.

When he read the note, he grew more than alarmed. His body turned cold, and his heart pounded so hard in his chest he found it hard to breathe:

We went to the landing for river stones
for the puppy’s grave. Ellie

Fear for his family’s safety, heightened by an ominous clap of thunder that shook the house, sent him charging back toward the door again. With visions of the animal tracks he had recently spotted mocking his assurances to Ellie that no wild predators were likely to be on the island, he stopped just long enough to get his rifle and load it.

He ran across the porch and took the steps two at a time. Startled by a flash of lightning that magnified his fear, he raced for the cemetery, hoping to find them on their way home.

For the first time, however, his fear did not unleash anger at anyone other than himself. Had he taken Ellie’s alleged near-encounter with an animal of some kind more seriously and made more than a cursory search of the island for animal tracks, they would not be in danger now. If he had taken the time to go with her and his sons to bury the puppy this morning, instead of worrying about getting his work done to make sure nothing interfered with his plans for their visit to the city, they would not be in danger now, either. They would be here, safe at home.

With a prayer on his lips only God would hear above the wind that whipped at the treetops, he pleaded for help in finding his family and keeping them safe until he did. He knew Ellie would protect their sons at all costs, but he also knew there was only one thing that might prevent her from doing just that: her uncommon fear of storms.

Thirty-Five

“Don’t move. Don’t even try, or we’ll all fall.”

Ellie held tight to the boys’ hands as they straddled a thick branch some ten feet off the ground. Unfortunately, the tree they had climbed had already lost most of its leaves, and there was no chance of hiding. They also had no protection at all from the elements, and with the wind increasing in strength, she feared nothing short of divine intervention would save them.

To keep her from dissolving into sheer panic, now that the storm was growing ever closer, she kept her gaze focused on the gray-and-white animal that was pacing on the ground directly below them, just as it had done for the past twenty minutes.

She tightened her hold on both boys and glanced down at the bag of river stones she had abandoned below. If she could only get her hands on that bag of stones, she could try throwing them at the animal to force it to leave, but there was no way she was going to risk climbing back down to get it. Not with that animal so close and not without putting both boys at risk by leaving them, even for a moment.

“I wanna get down,” Daniel whined as he tried to tug his hand free.

She held him firmly. “Not yet.”

“But I wanna play with the dog.”

“It’s not a dog. It’s a wolf, and it’s not safe to play with it,” Ellie repeated for the third time, trying to keep their climbing up the tree more of an adventure than what it was: a desperate attempt to avoid being dinner for a rogue wolf.

The wolf stopped pacing for a moment, looked up at them, growled, and bared its teeth.

Ellie caught her breath and froze. When Daniel yelped, and Ethan edged even closer to her, she did not think either boy would ask to play with the animal again.

“I’m very glad you’re such a good tree climber, Daniel, and I’m especially pleased you taught Ethan how to climb trees, too. Your pappy will be very proud of both of you,” she offered to distract them. She prayed that by now Jackson might have realized they were not at home and would come looking for them.

When the first clap of thunder broke overhead, sounding like a giant drumbeat, the tree literally shook, along with Ellie. She might be terrified during a thunderstorm when she was inside the house, but being outside was far, far worse.

Almost paralyzed with fear, she glanced at the boys. Daniel’s eyes were dark with terror, and Ethan’s hold on her hand was like a vise that was making her fingers tingle.