Summer Breeze (12 page)

Rachel didn't have wor4s. To hear a woman's

voice--to know that a friend from childhood was only a few steps away—was almost overwhelming. Tears sprang to her eyes, so many that she could barely see.

Caitlin.
As a girl, the redhead had often sported bruises, which she'd gone to great lengths to hide.

Even so, everyone at school had seen the marks at one time or another. When asked about the injuries, Caitlin had always sworn that she'd had an accident, her explanations never ringing true.

Her father, Conor O'Shannessy, had been an ill-tempered man with a heavy fist, an unquenchable thirst for whiskey, and little if any regard for his children.

"Hello?" Caitlin called again. "I'm just
dying
to see you, Rachel, and if it was only me—well, I'd be back there, lickety-split. But I have my little boy to think of. Joseph says you have a loaded shotgun. Little Ace, he's such a dear. I can't bring him back there until I know for sure that it's safe. Do you understand?"

Rachel tried once more to speak and simply couldn't.
Caitlin.
A ghost from her past, part of a world to which she no longer belonged but had never stopped missing.

"Okay, fine," Caitlin called. "Visiting is just talking, right? We don't have to see each other to do that. Although I must warn you, Little Ace is active. He's already squirming to get down. If I let him loose and he gets away from me, you won't shoot him, will you?"

Tears streaming, her throat closed off so tightly that she couldn't breathe, Rachel managed one choked word. "No." It came out so faint that she doubted Caitlin even heard.

"Well, then!" Caitlin said cheerfully, "He's down. And, oh,
dear,
he's off and running down the hallway. Don't be startled, please. He just
goes
as fast as his chubby little legs will carry him. He's

— Little Ace, come out of there. Is there anything that he can get into in the rooms along the hall?"

The concern in Caitlin's voice had Rachel at the hole in her barricade, trying to remember the contents of the rooms along the corridor. Was there anything that might harm a small child? The
sewing room.
It would be full of dangerous things. Rachel couldn't clearly recall what she had removed from the room or left lying about, but she knew that the child might find something injurious if he were left to explore.

"Go get him, Caitlin!" she cried. "He's either in Pa's library or Ma's sewing room. There are lots of bad things in Ma's sewing room. Scissors, maybe. And needles! I'm sure there are lots of needles."

Footsteps scurried up the hall. Then she heard Caitlin laughing. "You silly boy! What will your pa think if he sees you in that? It's a dress, sweetheart. Dresses are for ladies, not little boys."

Rachel recalled the half-finished dress that her mother had been working on when she died. It had been for Rachel, a graduation dress to mark the end of her school days. More tears sprang to her eyes.
Pain.
Over the last five years, she'd blocked out so many memories, unable to bear thinking of them. Beyond her barricade, the house was filled with them—memories that fairly broke her heart.

Rachel's hands were clenched over the jagged edge of the hole. The shards of splintered wood cut into her

fingers and palms. Eyes closed, cheeks wet, she stood rigidly straight, every muscle in her body aching with the strain.

"Pa?"

Her eyes popped open, and there, standing at the other side of her barricade, was a toddler—a pudgy, raven-haired, sloe-eyed little boy with rosy cheeks and absolute innocence shining on his face. He wore a blue shirt without a collar, knickers that drooped almost to his ankles, and a grin to break Rachel's heart.

"Pa, pa, pa, pa,
pal"
he shouted. And then he grinned, displaying pristinely white bottom teeth, with little ruffles along the edges. "Pa, pa, pa, pa,
pal"

"Little Ace, you get
back
here this instant!" Caitlin cried, and then there she was, hovering in the doorway, a mother intent on protecting her baby. Her red hair was done up atop her head, just as Rachel remembered the fashion to be, only now long tendrils dangled before her ears and curls popped out almost everywhere. The latest in vogue? Or was the untidy look a result of motherhood and too few minutes in the day?

"He knows his papa is on your back porch," Caitlin said breathlessly. "If you feel uncomfortable about this, I'll gather him up and go back outside."

The child chose that moment to lift his arms to Rachel, his plump face dimpled in a happy grin.

"Pa, pa, pa, pa!" he cried.

And somehow Rachel's arms were reaching for him. He was birdsong and sunlight and laughter and all that was lovely—everything she hadn't seen in far too long—a baby, toddling about, with skin so new it glowed.
Oh!
The word echoed and reechoed in her mind, an exclamation of joy she couldn't articulate. That inexpressible joy was amplified a hundred times more when soft, dimpled arms curled trustingly around her neck.

"Pa?"

Rachel could barely see the child for her tears. But she managed to nod and carried him to her back door. In a voice tremulous with emotions she couldn't separate or define just then, she said,

"He's out there."

Little Ace was a smart boy. He saw the hole and put his eye to it. Then he promptly started giggling. "Pa, pa, pa, pa!"

"Yes," Rachel confirmed, "that's your pa."

The toddler poked his finger into the hole, and then, as if mere pointing wasn't enough, he twisted his wrist to drive his tiny finger deeper into the depression. "Pa!" he said proudly.

And Rachel got lost in his dancing brown eyes. He was so soft and warm and dear, a pint-sized miracle, and she never wanted to let him go.

The peephole quickly became boring. He fastened a bright gaze on Rachel, grinned to display his new front teeth again, and said, "Hi!"

"Hi" was a lovely word, one that she hadn't heard or uttered in far too long. "Hi," she replied softly.

"I am
so
sorry. He can run faster than I can."

Rachel turned from the door. Framed in the hole of her barricade was the face of a longtime friend. "Caitlin," Rachel whispered.

"Yes, it's me. I hope you don't mind the intrusion. When I found out Ace was coming, I begged to come along. Joseph thought you might like the company because you'd mentioned knowing me, but my husband had an absolute
fit."
Her cheeks went high with color, and she flapped her wrist. "The shotgun had him worried. Ace is nothing if not protective, so he left me at home."

"So how—?"

"I hitched up the wagon and came on my own," Caitlin said with an impish grin. "He wasn't happy to see me, but he finally gave in after I promised to be careful." Caitlin rolled her eyes. "As if you'd shoot me. I kept telling him that we've known each other for years and
years.
I've never believed all those silly stories about you being—" Caitlin's blue eyes went wide, and she flapped her wrist again. "Well, you know."

"Crazy?" Rachel supplied.

"Well, there, you know how people talk. I never listened to a word of it. I used to come by once a week and knock on the door." She shrugged. "You never answered, so I'd just leave things on the porch."

Rachel's eyes went teary again. So it was Caitlin who had come calling so often in those early months after the tragedy. "The books," Rachel whispered raggedly. "You brought me
Tom
Sawyer!"

"Did you like it?

Rachel nodded, then laughed when Little Ace touched the wetness on her cheek. "It's one of my favorites. I never knew it was you who brought it. I heard you knocking, but I was afraid to open the door. Finally, the mystery of it bothered me so that I asked Darby to install a peephole, but after that you never came again."

"Oh, lands! I got married." Caitlin rolled her lovely blue eyes again. "And when I took on a husband, I took on every male in the family. Cooking and laundry and picking up. It took me a full year to train all the bad habits out of them."

Rachel put the squirming toddler down. The child sped off like a pea from a slingshot, heading straight for Rachel's crochet basket.

"Little Ace!" Caitlin scolded. "That's a no-no!"

Rachel had no sooner rescued her fancy work than the child turned to the parlor table, his chubby hands reaching for the lamp. If asked, Rachel couldn't have described how she felt in that moment. She only knew that resenting the intrusion wasn't one of her emotions. "Oh, Caitlin, he is
so
precious."

"He's a little pistol, into this and into that, his feet going a mile a minute. He fills up my days, I can tell you that."

He had filled up Rachel's heart, easing the ache in empty places that she hadn't even realized were there. A baby. She'd lived so long within four walls, with only herself for company, that a little boy with dimpled cheeks was the best thing she could have wished to see, even better than sunshine.

Rachel carried the child to the kitchen, opened the cupboard that held her pots and pans, and set Little Ace down in front of it.

"He'll pull everything out," Caitlin warned.

"Exactly," Rachel replied with a laugh, and even that seemed wondrous to her. It felt so fabulous to laugh. She took some large metal spoons from the flatware drawer and showed the child how to pound on

the bottom of a pot. Little Ace loved that, and soon the kitchen resounded with noise.

"Oh,
my.
Perhaps I shouldn't have come," Caitlin said. "Your nerves will be completely frazzled."

She chafed her arms through the sleeves of her green shirtwaist. "I took off my cloak before Ace boosted me up to climb through the window. Now I wish I hadn't. It's a bit chilly out here."

Rachel had a fire going in the stove and hearth to warm the kitchen, but she guessed only a little of the heat was escaping into the other room. "Would you like to come in?"

Caitlin took visual measure of the hole left in the barricade by the shotgun blast. "Do you suppose I can fit through?"

Rachel was trembling just at the thought. Since the day Darby had finished the modifications to her living quarters, no one besides Rachel had been inside. But this was Caitlin. Even though she was four years Rachel's senior, they'd been educated in the same one-room schoolhouse and had played together in groups during recess.

"If you pull over a chair, it'll be easier to climb through," Rachel suggested. Rushing over to the table, she said, "I'll get a chair for this side and help all I can,"

Within seconds, Rachel and Caitlin were giggling like schoolgirls. The hole wasn't quite so large as it had seemed in Rachel's imagination over the last many hours, and it had jagged edges to catch on Caitlin's clothing and hair as she twisted and bent into odd positions, trying to fit through.

"I'm stuck," she pronounced.

Rachel giggled and tugged on Caitlin's elbow, trying to get her loose.

"Is everything all right in there?" a deep, masculine voice called from the back porch.

Rachel nearly parted company with her skin, but Caitlin only laughed. "Yes, darling, everything's fine. Absolutely fine."

Hearing his father's voice, Little Ace scampered toward the door, pounding on a pot with every step.

"What in tarnation is that racket?" Ace Keegan asked.

"Not to worry, sweetheart." Caitlin tugged on strands of her hair that were caught on the wood.

"It's only—
ouch
—Little Ace playing with Rachel's pots."

Suddenly—and unexpectedly—Caitlin spilled through the opening and sent Rachel scrambling to catch her. When Caitlin had both feet safely on the kitchen floor, she dissolved into laughter. As her mirth subsided, she said, "I can't believe I just did that." She looked over her shoulder at the hole. "Now the question is, will I be able to get back out?"

That was a worry for later. Rachel stoked the firebox in the range, put on a fresh pot of coffee, and dished up bowls of peach cobbler. Soon she and Caitlin were sitting at the table, and Caitlin was chattering like a magpie, telling Rachel all the news and tidbits of gossip that she'd missed out on over the last five years.

"Remember Beatrice Masterson and Clarissa Denny?" she asked.

"The milliner and dressmaker? Of course I remember them."

"Well," Caitlin said in a low, conspiratorial voice as she spooned up some cobbler, "they're in competition for Doc Halloway's favor."

"Truly?" In Rachel's estimation, both women were too old to be entertaining romantic notions, especially about a stooped, elderly gentleman like Doc.

"You didn't hear it from me, mind you. Normally I try not to carry gossip. It's just that there's so much you don't know about." She tasted the cobbler. "Oh, my, Rachel, this is delicious. May I have the recipe?"

"It's just a bit of this and a dash of that."

Caitlin took another bite. "It's better than mine." She washed the dessert down with a sip of coffee. "Now let me think. What else has happened?" She grinned mischievously and pointed at Rachel with the spoon. "Hannibal St. John, the new preacher."

"What about him?"

"Pauline Perkins carries a torch for him."

"Pauline?"
Pauline had been a singularly homely girl, tall, rawboned, and hefty, with frizzy blond hair and as many pimples as freckles. Her father, Zachariah Perkins, published No Name's weekly newspaper,
The Gazette.
"Does the reverend return her fond regard?"

Caitlin let loose with a peal of laughter.
"No"
she said in a thin, breathless voice. "But Pauline won't leave him be. Last week—I have this on good authority, mind you—she cornered him in the church storage room and kissed him."

"When he didn't want her to?"

"Even worse, her mother, Charlene, caught them in

the act and was absolutely beside herself. She accused Hannibal of compromising her daughter's reputation and demanded that he marry her."

Charlene Rayette Perkins was an older and heavier version of Pauline. Rachel had always been a little afraid of the woman because she wore a perpetual scowl and snapped at people when they spoke to her. "What did Hannibal do?"