Into the Whirlwind (34 page)

She tried to move past him through the gate, but he blocked
her exit. “I
did
think highly of Frank. And I adore you, which is why I am not going to let you waltz out of my life so easily. I’ve given you a month, Mollie.”

“I didn’t ask for a month, I asked for a lifetime. Zack, it is over. I don’t want to see you again. I don’t know how to make it any more plain to you than that.”

“Why can’t you look me in the eye when you say that?”

She forced herself to meet his gaze. Against the snowy backdrop and dull gray sky, he was a smoldering dark force. His face was flushed with good health, his dark gypsy eyes beaming at her. Looking at him was unbearable. Her heart swelled and ached. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and tell him everything that had happened with Sophie and her triumph with the commemorative watches and her alliance with Dr. Buchanan. Most of all, she wanted to listen to his laughter and let him tease her about her braids.

She raised her chin and held her gaze steady. “It is over, Zack. If not for the fire, there would never have been anything between us at all.” She turned, and this time when she pushed past him, he turned to walk beside her.

“A little bird tells me there are no wedding bells on the horizon. I wonder why that is.”

“Maybe because Colonel Lowe is a decent man who doesn’t toss out marriage proposals to a woman he barely knows. His self-restraint is one of the things I admire about him.”

She could hear him snickering. “Then you ought to adore me. I knew you for three years before I tossed a marriage proposal your way.”

He was doing it again, drawing her into an argument against her better judgment. She picked up her pace as she turned the corner and headed toward the streetcar stop.
Don’t engage with him.
Anything she said would just give him ammunition to keep
the argument going, and how many times had Zack told her he loved a good air-clearing argument?

“So am I getting the cold shoulder?” he asked, striding alongside her. “Just as well. Look, you told me you wanted a chance to get to know the sterling Colonel Lowe a little better, and I gave it to you. But I’m not going to surrender without a fight.” He wrapped a firm hand around her arm and spun her toward him, smiling down at her with lethal charm. “I’m getting back in the battle. Fair warning.”

She jerked her arm away and kept marching toward the street corner. “Would you just stop?” she said between clenched teeth. “You may think this is fun, but I don’t.”

“Fun? Actually, that’s not a word I’d use to describe you, Mollie.” He returned her glare with a roguish smile. “You are fascinating, admirable, exhilarating . . . but fun? Sorry, Mollie, that’s never been you.”

Hadn’t Frank often said the same thing? That she should learn how to seize the day? Unwind the braids she had twisted tighter than a Gordian knot? On the previous New Year’s Eve, a group of people from the 57th had made plans to watch the fireworks, but Mollie had been working on a deadline and insisted she needed to get to bed by nine o’clock. “
Mollie Knox, you could steal the light from a sunrise
,” Frank had laughingly said. He had hugged her when he’d said it, and they had all shared a glass of champagne, but Mollie had gone to bed that night at nine o’clock while the others went to celebrate.

Frank was allowed to tease her; Zack hadn’t earned that right. Her heart squeezed. She should have gone with Frank that night. She couldn’t even remember what she had been working on so hard, but she had lost her last opportunity to ring in the New Year with a man whose wisdom and kindness had been a lifelong gift.

They arrived at the intersection, where half a dozen factory workers and two nuns were waiting for the streetcar. The nuns occupied the lone bench, and Mollie loitered nervously. Was Zack really going to continue this conversation while they were surrounded by a bunch of strangers? She couldn’t leave. This was the last streetcar of the day, and being stranded five miles from home after dark was not an option.

Zack drew alongside her, leaning down to murmur in her ear. “Mollie, I’m not leaving you again. If the city burns to the ground for a second time. If an earthquake splits the land in two or a plague saps us dry . . . I am not leaving. I’ll show up at your doorstep every morning and every evening for the rest of the year if that’s what it takes.”

She needed Zack to get out of her life. Forever. How could she let a good man like Colonel Lowe into her life if Zack wouldn’t give her any breathing room?

“Don’t you have any pride?” she snapped. He blanched, but she was too angry to stop. “You’re like a stray dog I can’t get rid of. I want
nothing
to do with you. Not with your business, not with you. Just go away. Please, just go and stay away.”

A burly factory worker snickered, and another man started making barking sounds.

Zack looked like she had punched him in the gut. He reeled back, and his face lost color. If he heard the factory workers making dog sounds, he made no sign.

“So it’s Colonel Lowe, then.”

She forced herself to look him directly in the eyes. “It has
always
been Colonel Lowe.”

The little color left on Zack’s face faded away. His dark eyes aching with pain, he touched her on the shoulder and opened his mouth to say something. Then thought better of it. Finally, he nodded and turned away.

She wanted to call him back. Her hateful words tasted sour, and she wanted to wipe the wounded look from his eyes. She clenched her fists so tightly her nails cut into her palms. Calling him back was the wrong thing to do. He needed to understand she was never going back to him, and saying it nicely had not worked.

But she knew the sight of his tall, dark figure striding alone down the street would haunt her for years.

24

W
hat kind of insane man went to New York City in December? Zack pulled the collar of his coat higher in a useless attempt to block icy wind from seeping through every seam of his clothing. The meeting with the insurance adjusters had ended on time, but the streetcar running from downtown was out of service, meaning Zack was darting through piles of slush to be on time for his meeting with the imperious Josephine Hartman.

Zack was still making amends for dashing home from New York when he had gotten Mollie’s panicked telegram. Neither of the Hartmans had forgiven him for that dereliction of duty, but he would make it up to them. He had just spent a solid week negotiating mind-numbing insurance claims for the merchandise lost in the fire. When the store burned, it had liquefied jewelry, melted silver, and destroyed precious furs. All store records of the inventory had burned, and Zack’s attempt to document the merchandise had resulted in days snarled with litigation and short tempers.

He sighed with relief as he darted inside the Charen Hotel, where the lobby was decked out in a lavish display for Christmas. A towering pine tree dripped with ornaments and garlands. The mantel over the crackling fireplace was covered in boughs
of greenery, with tall candles behind glass lanterns. Even the air smelled of evergreens and warm cider.

Louis Hartman and his wife stood beside the fireplace, waiting for him. Josephine tapped her satin-clad foot in annoyance. “You’re late.”

Zack pulled off his scarf, shaking away the ice crystals. “The streetcar on Fifth is out of service, but we’ve still got time to make it to Bloomingdale’s before they close.”

“That little store in Brooklyn?” Josephine tilted her chin up a notch. “They are no competition for us.”

With fingers still numb from the cold, Zack bit the tip of his gloves to yank them off. He sighed in relief as he rubbed his hands together before the heat of the fire. “That’s not what I heard,” he said. “Rumor has it they’ve broken ground on a new flagship store on Third Street. We will want to keep our eyes on them.”

Josephine narrowed her eyes. “We will build Hartman’s bigger and grander than before. I don’t need to be scouting the competition like an oily spy. Besides, I intend to use this trip to seek out the very best artisans and jewelers. I want you to negotiate exclusive contracts with them.”

Zack glanced at Louis, sending him an infinitesimal shake of his head. Exclusive deals were costly and would serve little benefit at a store halfway across the continent. Louis understood and nodded.

“My poppet,” Louis murmured. “Let Zack work his negotiating wonders. I need you to find us the most exalted merchandise this side of Paris. Tomorrow we shall go to the Ladies’ Mile and see what goodies we can find for our new store. I also want to get a look at Macy’s. That fellow has some innovative ideas. I hear he even hires an actor to impersonate Santa Claus. Quite clever, that.”

The next day the trio walked the Ladies’ Mile, which stretched along Fifth Avenue all the way to Madison Square. The streets were dense with carriages, but it was the people on the walkways that Zack found so fascinating. Despite the sea of black wool overcoats, Zack could see the money in the exquisitely crafted ladies’ bonnets and the men’s walking sticks topped with shiny brass knobs. The street was lined with specialty shops featuring goods imported from the Orient, silks in every imaginable shade, and more jewelry than Zack had ever seen in one location.

Josephine insisted on getting out of the carriage so she could inspect each of the display windows, carefully designed to mimic the finest European shops. Her eye for detail was astounding. She could glance at a row of thirty pairs of shoes that looked identical to Zack’s working-class eyes and hone in on the one pair that cost three times as much as the others because of the quality of the workmanship. She moved through store after store like a shark trolling through fishing grounds. She sampled perfumes, fingered silks, tried on jewelry. It generally took her less than ten seconds to render a verdict on each item. She took careful notes of who supplied the goods so she could arrange private meetings.

Toward the end of the street was a larger store that spanned double the length of the other shops. Zack was surprised Josephine was even willing to set foot inside, as it was an older store with racks of merchandise displayed with no more care than loaves of bread stacked on shelves. Bolts of cloth from a midrange silk down to homespun calico were propped against the wall.

Zack’s attention was snagged by a display of watches on top of a counter. He moved past a display of ready-made hats to get to the watch counter. He didn’t want to think about it, but Hartman’s would need to find another supplier of watches for
the new store. After the contested land deed, Louis Hartman would never do business with Mollie again.

A shaft of pain cut through him. How long would it take him to get over that woman? Whenever he glanced at his watch, he thought of her. Although that was to be expected, he supposed. Odder still was his longing to feed her properly. Whenever he sat down to a piping hot meal, he wondered what they were serving in the women’s barracks. When he saw a display of raspberry chocolates in Macy’s, he wanted to buy the whole case and ship it to her. And whenever the sky was that clear, shocking shade of brilliant blue, he thought of Mollie’s eyes as she gazed up at him.

Maybe this time next year he would be over her, but he doubted it. He had been on this planet for thirty-six years, long enough to know that Mollie Knox was one of a kind. Without thinking, he reached out to finger one of the watches displayed on the counter.

“Don’t bother,” Josephine said from behind him. “Too cheap and ugly.”

Zack hefted the watch in his hand. She was right, the watch was big and not particularly attractive. Cheap metal too. He rolled it in his palm, examining it from every angle. It wasn’t a bad watch. In fact . . .

He glanced up at the clerk who was folding handkerchiefs several yards down the length of the counter. “Why do you keep these watches outside of a case?” Zack asked. “Surely they are too valuable to display so carelessly.”

“We’ve got the pricey watches down here under glass,” the clerk said. He set the handkerchiefs down and walked to stand before Zack. “The watches on top of the case are the new ones, made by a factory over in Newburgh. Can’t beat the price. You can get a good solid watch for only three dollars.”

Zack almost dropped the watch.
“Three dollars?”
Even the Hartmans seemed stunned.

The clerk nodded. “You should see the operation they’ve got going over there. Hundreds of workers, feeding the pieces through a machine. That is how they make them so cheaply. Those watches sell so fast we can’t keep them in stock, even though we buy them by the caseload.”

Zack stared at the watch. True, it did not have gold or diamonds on the cover . . . but three dollars!

“Do they make any other versions?” he asked. “Other styles?”

“Oh yes,” the clerk said with a nod. “They’ve got a five-dollar model and one for ten dollars. They are a little nicer, but we find most folks prefer the one you are holding in your hand.” The clerk leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. “Although just between you and me, in a year or so that company is going to be turning out ones that are much nicer. They’ll look as fancy as the watches that Bloomingdale fellow is selling. I’ve got a sample in the back room if you want to see it.”

Zack did. He followed the clerk to the rear of the store, where the man unlocked a drawer, withdrew a box, and set the sample watch into Zack’s palm. The watch was smaller than the clunky watches on the counter, and it had more delicate artistry on the dial. Still not beautiful, but surely it was only a matter of time before these new factory-made watches would overtake the industry.

Zack’s fingers closed around the cold metal of the watch. In his palm he held the seeds of the destruction of the 57th Illinois Watch Company.

And Mollie didn’t even know it was coming.

25

J
UNE
1872

T
he best part about Mollie’s new apartment was her view of the bright green tips of the lilies pushing through the layer of mulch in the narrow garden beds that lined the front of the building. She always enjoyed watching bulbs flower into bloom, but this year they carried a special poignancy. Those bulbs had been planted before the fire. As the bulbs hibernated safely beneath the soil, the city of Chicago had burned to the ground. The fire had wiped miles of the city from the map, but now buildings were rising from the ashes, just as the bulbs were renewing themselves.