Stephanie Mittman (31 page)

Only Abby didn’t worry him. He didn’t even waste a thought on her. She was out of his head, expunged from his mind, gone from his heart. Yup, not a thought for the beautiful woman with the ready laugh and the quick wit. Not a second spent on remembering the way her eyes danced, the way she skipped across his threshold, the way she’d wound her way into his heart.

Nope, not a thought for the life they could have had together, doting on each other, raising a houseful of little Abidances who would light up the day like so many suns.

“I can’t argue with you there,” Ella said. “But by degree, men are far worse. It’s a matter of intent. A woman has a good reason for being an idiot—love, family, hopes, dreams—they all make her do things any rational person can see won’t work. But she can’t help trying because she’s got this ideal in her head.”

“And what makes men worse than that?” Seth asked, agreeing sadly with her assessment of women and the things they would do to stop a dream from dying.

“Simple. Men don’t have any hope. Oh, they have plans, they have schemes, they have arrangements. But they don’t have that belief that—”

“That love can conquer all? Don’t tell me you’ve been reading that ‘Dear Miss Winnie’ column, too. I’d have never pegged you for—”

“For what? A romantic? A believer? Miss Winnie understands something that you never will—because
you’re a man. She knows that every woman believes that the key to happiness is the same key that opens her front door—she said that, you know.”

“She’s obviously never met some of the patients I’ve had to treat after their husband’s have gotten a little too drunk, a little too impatient, a little too angry.”

“Sometimes a woman gives the wrong man the key, but a smart woman knows in her heart that all she has control over is her tiny piece of the world and that if she wants to be happy—”

“That’s ridiculous. There’s a much bigger world out there than a man and his wife. There’s a war in Cuba, men are dying. There’s poverty and hunger and—”

“And is that why you’re so unhappy today, Dr. Hen-don?” she asked, one perfectly plucked eyebrow raised as she assessed him boldly. “Is that why you want to bolt from this train at the very next stop? To enlist?”

“I was thinking about it,” he said, sticking out his chin. He didn’t add
As you were saying it, I thought of it
.

“I’m sure,” she said sarcastically. She waited a beat or two and then stated, “You never married.”

“I never joined the army or rode bareback either, and I’m inclined to try those first.”

“And then will you be headed back to Eden’s Grove, when you’ve gotten the itch out of your skin and the wanderlust out of your belly? Then will you head back with your tail between your legs looking for that girl to soothe the ruffles you’ve put in your feathers, the kinks you’ve put in your soul, and the bumps you’ve put in your life?”

He could have pretended he didn’t know what girl
Ella meant. He could have denied until doomsday the notion that there was anything between himself and Abidance Merganser.

And Ella Welsh wouldn’t have believed it.

Not any more than he would have himself.

“Our church,” her father said, and added the most wistful sigh. “Our church is days away from completion. So many times I have asked you to stop and consider God’s miracles—those over which we have no control—the rain, the budding of a flower, a hiccup.

“Now I ask you to consider the miracles that man has made. I mean those that man has helped God to accomplish. Or that God has helped man to accomplish—”

Ansel coughed loudly, encouraging his father to just get to the point. His father had a way of killing the bush he was beating around and then dragging it behind him until it was nothing but splinters.

“That church,” his father said, raising up his arm so that the sleeve of his robe hung down like an angel’s wing as he pointed across the street, “is a monument to the Lord. Well, all churches are monuments to the Lord, of course, but our church—the cooperation, the zeal, the commitment—it leaves me speechless, so all I can say is that I am proud of every member of this congregation for not doing what they were supposed to be doing so that they could do this, instead.”

The choir seemed to take their cue from the lull in his father’s talk and began singing “Jesus Keeps Me Near the Cross” with a zeal usually reserved for the last
song—when they’d clearly rather be getting back to their cooking and on with their day.

And while they sang, Emily slipped her hand into Ansel’s and squeezed it tightly. Her strength surprised him. Oh, not the strength of her hand, but the strength of her resolve. And the strength she loaned him to face his sister and pretend that this was just another Sunday, and not one of a precious few that were left to her.

Abby stood on Emily’s other side, her voice pure and clear as she sang. He fought the urge to reach across his wife and pull his sister to him, to shout at the Lord that He had no right to take her from them, not Abby, not the girl that half of Eden’s Grove called Miss Sunshine and the other half called Missy Smiles. Not the imp who made some of her typesetting mistakes on purpose, he was sure.

The children’s choir, including Gwendolyn, sang “The Lord Is My Shepherd” and he saw Abby’s toe tapping along with most of the others in the makeshift pew. “Let’s make a picnic after church,” he whispered to Emily. “A grand affair.”

Emily nodded and whispered to Abby that they were planning a picnic for the afternoon. With one of her dazzling smiles, Abby leaned forward and nodded at him. She arched her brows in question, asking silently about the rest of the family, knowing that he’d rather be on the moon than spend a Sunday afternoon with his brother or his father.

But it wasn’t his Sunday, and so he put his hand out, palm up, as if to say it was up to her.

“The cherubs will now come forward,” his father announced. “And will sing ‘Stand Up, Sit Down.’”

Ansel gave Suellen a little push out into the aisle, and bore Michael’s feet treading upon his toes as the boy scampered across him to join his cousin. Annesta Spencer, the choir leader, collected the children and herded them to the front of the room, where she raised her hands and the babies stood at attention. At least Suellen did. Michael sat on the floor, and Eric Youtt pulled someone’s braid and Miss Spencer had to stamp her feet a few times before the children were ready to sing. And then, like a choir of angels, their little voices rang out, and he turned to look at Emily and share a moment of pride.

But Emily wasn’t looking back at him, or at Suellen in her pretty pink dress with the oversized bow. She had her arm around Abby and the two were whispering. He felt shut out, and a fire burned in his belly that his own sister had chosen not him but his wife to confide in, to share her fears and—

Emily was giggling. There was no doubting it. Something that Abby had said was so funny that Emily was covering her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter.

“What?” he asked Emily. “What’s so funny?”

“Jed tried using some of the palm leaves for fuel,” Emily whispered at him. “He figured if they raised the Lord …”

“They didn’t—” he started, but Abby winked at him and patted Emily’s back as if the only care she had in the world was making Emily smile.

She’d taken the news about Seth’s leaving awfully well, almost as if it didn’t even matter to her. Maybe he
hadn’t had a right to, but he’d poked about in the boxes that Seth had left for her and found the present he’d mentioned. And now, seeing her smile, seeing her laugh, he wondered if he should leave well enough alone, or if he should hand over to her the box of things Seth had wanted her to have.

K
ANSAS
C
ITY WAS BIGGER, BOLDER, BRASSIER
, and louder than Seth had anticipated. He’d checked into the K. C. Park Hotel with Ella, still amused that she’d told the clerk that she was recently widowed and that Seth was her dear brother, come to help her get settled in a new life. The clerk had given them adjoining rooms, and Ella had opened her door in invitation, making Seth wonder just what kind of “new life” Ella was planning on.

“Now, you aren’t planning on being faithful to a woman that dumped your sorry ass, are you?” Ella asked, standing in the doorway that divided their rooms.

He put his trunk up on the stand and opened it, ignoring Ella’s question.

“You have been with a woman, haven’t you?” Ella asked. “Wasn’t there something between you and the widow Draper?”

“I’ve been with women,” Seth said, shaking his head at Ella as she unfastened several buttons on her traveling suit. He’d been with women, and he’d been with
Abidance, and the first had had nothing to do with the other. Now he had the uneasy feeling that lying with Abby had changed all that, that the relief he’d found before, the physical release from too much caring, was going to be out of his reach. “I thought you were starting fresh here, Ella.”

“Just don’t want to get stale,” she said with a wink. “Once we check out of here I’m gonna have to be on my best behavior if I want to find just the right kind of man to share my life with.” She slipped out of her jacket and began unbuttoning her shirtwaist.

Ella Welsh was well endowed, and Seth thought it should have raised some interest to have her sashaying about losing pieces of her clothing as she went.

“You sure your equipment is still in working order?” she asked, eyeing his crotch, which showed no evidence of the interest he knew he should be feeling.

Every night since he’d been with Abby he’d been aware of his working parts, and cold showers, dull books, and even his anger hadn’t dimmed the want he felt. So where was that desire now? Ella Welsh wasn’t just built like an hourglass, she had dancing eyes and a warm smile. Sure, she sagged here and there, but Seth had more gray hairs than she had wrinkles. And if her bottom had spread, so had his middle.

“Is that a flicker of interest I see?” Ella asked. “Or did you pack your tongue depressors in your pocket?”

“Where’d you learn to talk like that?” Seth asked, sitting down on the bed and working at his bootlaces.

“You don’t like it?” she asked, suddenly timid in her chemise and skirts. “Joe—”

“Is that the kind of man you’re looking to hook up
with?” he asked, his tone reminding her that Joe Panner had never married her, never given her the respectability she talked about on the train.

“What’d
she
say?” she asked.

At first he thought she meant Abidance, and the thought of anyone knowing that Abby had allowed him to take her outside of marriage so burned his gut that he couldn’t even look at Ella.

“The widow woman. If I’m going to be a widow, I ought to know the right thing to say.” Her skirt puddled around her feet and she stepped daintily out of it. He kept his gaze glued to the floor.

“You don’t really imagine that I would tell you such things, do you?” Seth asked. Helen Draper’s words were no less privileged than Abby’s, though they’d meant little to him, just as they’d meant little to her.

“All right, what does a
respectable
woman say then?” she asked, and he saw several layers of petticoat fall.

“
No
.”

“
She
says that?” Ella asked. “Or are you saying that?”

Seth got up from the bed and walked over to where Ella stood, rising from her skirts like the last shaft of wheat in a winter field. He bent over and picked up the skirts and petticoats, Ella stepping out of them so that he could. He gathered them into his arms and then pushed them at Ella, covering her chemise with the mass of fabric.

“I’m saying it,” he admitted.

He didn’t feel noble. He didn’t feel pure or morally superior. He felt hollow and empty and adrift.

And he knew damn well that until he got back on
that train, took it to the end of the line, finished what he’d had a mind to do when he’d boarded it back in Eden’s Grove, he’d have no peace.

Not that he expected much peace once he’d done what he needed to do…. He just wanted to put a period to this chapter of his life, and lying around in a hotel room in Kansas City with Ella Welsh wasn’t going to do that.

He didn’t know if anything would.

Jed begged off on the picnic, complaining about how his broken fingers were hampering him and muttering about not having much time to get his flying machine in working order. Abby couldn’t help wishing him luck, despite Ansel’s look of disgust at their brother’s obvious foolishness.

The rest of the Mergansers headed out to gather up fixings for a picnic for six hungry grown-ups and three squealing-with-excitement children.

Abby offered to help Emily prepare her share, and headed off with her while her sisters and parents headed in the opposite direction with all three of the children in tow.

“I know that you know,” Abby said to Ansel when she and Emily and Ansel were alone.

Ansel tried to look uncertain about what she was saying, but finally he just shrugged and nodded.

“Did you know before Seth left?” she asked, wondering how hard it had been for him to keep her secret.

“Yes,” Ansel said. “And for that, you owe me.”