Home by Morning Page 5

  Another guest passed him in the hallway, and Cole didn’t want to be seen lurking out here like some kind of big bad wolf. He rapped sharply on the door.

  He heard her footsteps cross the floor. “Who is it, please?”

  “It’s Cole.” She opened the door a crack to make sure, then swung it wide. “Expecting the boogeyman?”

  She had changed into a slim, fawn-colored dress with a collar so wide it touched her shoulders and tiers of skirting that were edged with black trim. It enhanced her curves and made him look twice.

  “No, I’ve just become more cautious over the years. No one needs to lock their front doors here, but Powell Springs isn’t like New York.”

  As if he needed reminding. “I didn’t think it was. Is this everything?” He gestured at two trunks and a few suitcases stacked against the wall in her hotel room. Women never traveled light, he thought, and while practical, apparently Jessica was no exception. But then, to be fair, she was on her way to Seattle to…continue her career. Of course she’d have all her possessions with her.

  Although the door was wide open, Jess fidgeted, letting her hand wander from her large hat, to her cuffs, to the simple gold chain hanging from her neck. “Yes, I’m sorry I couldn’t have them brought down before you got here so you wouldn’t, well—” Her gaze darted to the bed.

  It wasn’t a small room, but the iron bed was the most obvious piece of furniture within its walls.

  One winter night, more than two years earlier, he had lain with Jessica on a bed similar to this one.

  Her father’s funeral had taken place that afternoon, and she had been stoic, organizing the gathering after, greeting neighbors, comforting the sobbing, inconsolable Amy. When everyone had finally left, she’d put her sister to bed with a strong sleeping powder. Only then had Jessica’s numb composure cracked. She had cried in his arms until he thought her heart would break, and his as well. They’d spent the night lying on her bed, still dressed in the clothes they’d worn to the funeral, while a fierce January wind howled around the corners of the house and seeped in through the window casings. His shirt front had been wet with her tears. In those cold hours of darkness they had never been closer, not even during their brief, desperate moments of hungry passion stolen in summer wildflowers.

  It had been the last time he’d seen her cry. It had been, he realized, the only time.

  She set her purse on the bureau and draped some dresses over her arm. “Didn’t you bring help?”

  “Help—what for? If I can’t manage this load, I might as well hang it up and spend my days with Pop at Tilly’s.”

  She lifted an eyebrow but said nothing more.

  He carried the one trunk down the hall and to his Ford TT out front. The truck had created a ruckus in the house when he bought it last year. Riley had insisted they couldn’t afford it, when Cole knew full well that they could. His father had declared that he’d shoot the thing between its headlamps before he’d let it near the horses. Pop still eyed it with suspicion but admitted grudgingly that it served a purpose, especially when it came to hauling. With so much work to be done, Cole had made good use of the vehicle.

  Jessica followed him with her purse and the dresses. When they went back for the second trunk, she repeated, “You’ll need help for this one. It’s heavy.”

  He gave her a dismissive wave. “I can control Bill Franklin’s Percheron, so I think I can handle this. That horse weighs twenty-five hundred pounds.”

  “Really? Do you haul it around on your back?” she asked sweetly.

  He frowned at her and bent his knees to lift the trunk. It didn’t budge. He tried again, his muscles tight and burning with the effort. He got nothing but the sound of joints popping in his shoulders. He glanced up at Jess, then tugged at the edges of his gloves and grasped the leather grip on one end of the leather-bound case. Pulling hard, he barely managed to shift it three feet.

  “Jesus, what’s in this thing?” he demanded, out of breath and feeling as if every vein in his head was about to explode.

  “Medical books.”

  His frown turned into a scowl. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?”

  “You said you could handle it just fine. I’m sure it doesn’t weigh as much as the Percheron, does it?”

  “How did you get this up here?” He lifted his hat and resettled it more firmly on his head.

  “It took three men and a small boy. I hired them at the railroad station.” She looked very pleased with herself.

  By God, but she was sassy. She always had been. How could a woman with such a serious mind and occupation be so sassy? But that had been part of her allure—a mingling of opposites within the same person. Studious and disciplined, but rebellious and daring, knowing yet innocent. Amy was unworldly and uncomplicated. Though he’d known Jessica longer, Cole had never quite figured her out. It was irritating, but it had its appeal. When she wanted to, she could have a man stepping all over his own feet.

  “All right, I’ll have to get someone to help. You go back to the office.”

  “I’m going to stop at Wegner’s Laundry first.”

  He dug around in his back pocket. “Here’s the key. I’ll see you over there after I find another man to—after a while.”

  He wasn’t certain, but he thought he saw an evil gleam of satisfaction in her smile as she left.

  “Don’t you worry, ma’am, we’ll deliver these to you later this afternoon, pressed good as new.” Clarence Wegner took Jessica’s creased, wrinkled dresses from her arms. After days of sitting in her luggage, they’d been crushed beyond wearing. He prattled on in a friendly, interested manner. “It’s good to see you again after all this time. I’ll bet you’re glad to be home. Looks like we might see your sister getting married here one of these days.”

  “Um, yes, Mr. Wegner…”

  “It’s a shame that Riley Braddock is off in France. But here’s hoping he’ll make it for the wedding. My brother was best man when I married Mrs. Wegner and…”

  Jessica struggled to concentrate on their conversation. While the sky was clear, it was a cool day. Despite the open door, though, the air in the laundry was stifling and humid. She could see through the gap in the purple drapes meant to separate the working part of the place from the storefront. Steam poured out of the laundry tubs to combine with the hot irons and the mangle. Cooking smells floated in from somewhere. Maybe from Mae Rumsteadt’s café down the street, or maybe there was something on the stove upstairs. Jess knew that Clarence Wegner and his wife lived in rooms over their business.

  In her mind there suddenly rose a vivid memory of the stench of boiling cabbage and rancid pork fat trapped in dark, stifling hallways connected by dark, stifling staircases. Children wailed in the summer heat, and their mothers carped in strident tones or moaned with despair. A cacophony of voices raised in anger, pain, or helplessness, drummed through the thin walls of the tenements. It didn’t matter which building—in New York’s poor neighborhoods they were all alike. Hell on earth. There was a little girl with a broken arm in one room, a stringy-haired new mother barely clinging to life with childbed fever down the hall, and still another lying shrunken and hollow-eyed on a stained, bare mattress with only a ragged quilt for cover, a tumor the size of a lemon in her breast.

  The heat.

  The rats.

  The poverty.

  The hopelessness.

  They haunted her dreams, but Jess hadn’t remembered it all quite so clearly since she’d left New York for her sabbatical in Sarasota Springs.

  “…all right, Miss Layton? You look a little peaked.”

  Jessica was jerked back to the counter at Wegner’s Laundry. “Yes, I’m sorry.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. Her dress was stuck to her back, and her heart felt as if it were pounding as hard as the grange band’s bass drum. A suffocating feeling of panic overwhelmed her, and she struggled to hide it. “It—it’s quite warm in here, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, sure, summers are real
hard in this business, although that new electric fan helps.” Mr. Wegner’s own face gleamed with a sweaty luster as he pointed to a spinning blade in its wire cage. “But come next month—from November to March, we’ll be warm as toast.”

  She reached into her bag and withdrew a handkerchief. “Well, I—I must be running along.” If she didn’t get out of here, she was afraid she’d faint. Or worse.

  “That’s fine. I’ll send a girl around when—”

  But Jess had already edged out the doorway and was on the sidewalk. Pausing under Wegner’s awning, she dabbed at her temples with the square of linen balled in her hand. She was relieved to be outside where it was much cooler, but was troubled by the panic she’d felt.

  When would the memories leave her in peace? she wondered. Had they become so deeply etched in her mind that they would play again and again, like scenes in a moving picture? No, she asserted, it wasn’t possible. She’d feel better when she got to Seattle—she’d get a fresh start and new memories to shut out the old ones.

  Drawing a deep, steadying breath, she pushed the damp hankie into her skirt pocket and made her way back down Main Street. When she reached the office, she saw that Eddie Cookson was gone.

  Good. At least someone had come for him. He really needed bed rest and decent nursing care.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Boy, now what are you up to?” Shaw Braddock reined his horse in front of Cole’s building.

  Damn it, Cole thought, his hand tightening on a suitcase grip. He’d hoped that Tilly’s and the excitement of the Liberty Bond doings would keep his father busy until Cole had gotten Jessica’s rigging moved into the new office space. Maybe he hadn’t heard that the mayor drafted her to fill in for Pearson, and that she’d be living in the doctor’s quarters. Now, here Cole was, with Jess’s trunks in the Ford, parked in front of the office. On the sidewalk next to him was Winks Lamont, whom he’d hired to help move the box of books. It wouldn’t cost him much more than the price of a couple of beers, since the simpleminded old rummy spent most of his time at the end of Tilly’s bar cadging drinks. On the other hand, he wasn’t worth more. Winks smelled like an overripe cheese left in an outhouse during a heat wave.

  “I thought you were hobnobbing down at the saloon.”

  “Did that already. I’m on my way home. It’ll be dark soon.” The old man waved in the general direction of the home place. “We put some pressure on those slackers in the crowd, too, the ones who claim they can’t join the army just now. They all have thin, whiny excuses. ‘My ma needs me,’ ‘I can’t see so good,’ ‘I got to tend the stock.’ Your brother didn’t say any of that stuff. He just went, like a man should. It ain’t a matter of convenience. This is war.”

  Cole clenched his jaw. “Maybe those men aren’t making excuses. They’re probably telling the truth.”

  “Bah! Anyway, you still haven’t told me what you’re doing with this junk.”

  “Jessica is going to stay here for a month.”

  The old man eyed him from Muley’s tall back. “Oh, she is, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Cole answered, hefting the case from the truck. “Horace asked her to stay for a while, and the town is paying the rent.” He shrugged. “It’s better than having the place go unused while we wait for the other doc.” He put a hand on the tailgate and vaulted into the truck bed. “Come on, Winks, grab the other end. Let’s get this thing moved and be done with it.”

  “That’s the trouble with Horace Cookson,” Pop began, “always letting his mouth get ahead of his brain. We don’t need that doctor gal, always too smart for—”

  “Shaw, how good to see you again.” Jessica emerged from the office. She carried a basket with her and crossed the sidewalk. “Would you care for a doughnut? I bought them at the bakery.” She flipped open the napkin covering the pastries and lifted the basket so that he could reach it.

  Cole glanced up from the trunk. The old man actually looked sheepish. He’d always been a pushover for sweets. “A doughnut…” Derailed from his complaining, his attention shifted.

  “How have you been?” she asked, nodding at the swan-neck deformity of his fingers as he took a treat. “It looks like that arthritis is still giving you trouble.”

  “Well, it don’t get better with age, does it?” Pop snapped, taking a big bite.

  She smiled, ignoring his cranky behavior. “No, but it can subside—I mean, it can improve sometimes, especially when the weather is good.”

  His scowl deepened and he swallowed. “Ditch water, girlie! I already know that.” Then to Cole he added, “What did I tell you? Doctors ain’t no help, and the new ones don’t know any more than the old ones.”

  “It’s too bad that you won’t stay active and get out more often,” she went on. “Amy mentioned that you spend a lot of time in the parlor, making Susannah wait on you. The condition gets worse if the patient just sits.” Jess had always been good at that, putting the old man in his place.

  “Sits! By God—”

  Winks’s hoot of laughter gurgled with phlegm.

  Cole turned away to hide his grin.

  Pop poked the rest of the doughnut into his big, rectangular mouth as color rose in his weathered face. “That’s what I tell ’em at home, that I’m as good as ever. But they try to keep me nailed to my rocker.” Crumbs and powdered sugar flew. “They say I’m too old and stiff to do anything else. Susannah is trying to turn me into an invalid with all her fussing and coddling. Huh! I can still whup ass and I’ll prove it to any man who’s willing to try me. And that goes for you, too, youngster!” he said to Winks, who was not much younger than Pop.

  He wheeled Muley around and took off at a trot toward the farm, which was probably joint-jarring for both horse and rider.

  Jessica waved as the old man left, amused and relieved to be rid of him. She knew he’d never really approved of her, and after she’d left Powell Springs the first time, he’d been downright rude during her visits home. But she wasn’t going to lurk behind the lace curtains covering the office’s bay window and listen to him criticize her.

  She turned and caught Cole actually smiling at her. It was a familiar smile that pulled at her heart. “Pretty good, Jess.”

  “He’s still a rough old cob, isn’t he?” She watched the dust stir around Muley’s retreating hooves.

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t get better with age, either. He treats us all like ten-year-olds, and tries to run the world.”

  “But now I’m worried that I’ve brought down the roof on poor Susannah. Maybe Amy too, for telling on him.”

  He took hold of his end of the trunk and lifted it. “Don’t let him fool you,” he said, his shirt clinging to his torso. “He’s a glutton for their attention. And Amy can sweet-talk him into just about anything. She can sweet-talk anyone. It’s part of her charm.”

  As she watched Cole and Winks finesse the trunk through the narrow doorway, her gaze landed on the back of Cole’s neck, where his sweat-damp hair curled below his collar. Unwillingly, she let her perusal slide down his lean, broad back, then lower to the seat of his jeans, just before he disappeared into the darkness of the office.

  She lifted her chin, refusing to let herself fall into a trap of self-doubt and second-guessing. The past year and a half had been hard enough.

  “Do you want to unload these books?” she heard Cole call from the back room.

  She walked inside, through the tidy waiting area and into the examination room, where he waited with Winks. His expression was not quite as hostile as it had been earlier in the day, but the brief smile she’d seen outside was gone now. It was as if a cloud had covered the sun, leaving a chill. “There’s no point. I’m not staying, you know.”

  His eyes lingered on her before he turned back to the trunk. “Yeah. I know.” Reaching into the front pocket of his tight jeans, he pulled out a silver dollar and handed it to Winks. “Here you go, you old horse thief. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  Winks practically leaped on the
money and showed off his foolish, almost toothless grin. “Thanks, Cole.” He nodded at Jessica and left them standing there, alone again and awkward.

  “He’s probably on his way to Tilly’s right now to drink up that dollar,” Cole said. His shirt was unbuttoned to the center of his chest, revealing a glimpse of a suntanned V which she knew would fade over the winter but never completely disappear.

  “Maybe if everyone around him is drinking, it will dull their sense of smell. I attended autopsies on bodies pulled out of the Hudson River that were less…aromatic.”

  He actually chuckled again. Then he considered her with a tense, searching look. Why didn’t it feel different now, after everything that had happened? For one brief moment, she expected him to open his arms to her and if he did, she would be sorely tempted to cross the narrow strip of flooring between them and walk into his embrace.

  The sound of footsteps echoed somewhere in the back of her consciousness, but she could not break eye contact with him. The very air seemed thick between them.

  “Oh, here you are.” Amy appeared in the back office doorway. “I managed to break away from the bandage rolling and—” Eying them, her smile faded. “Is everything all right? Did you get moved over?”

  “It—yes. It went just fine,” Jessica said at last. “I should reimburse you, Cole, for the money you paid Winks.”

  He took a step back and waved her off. “Forget it.” He looked at both women. “I’ve got to get back to work.” Then he turned and walked out.

  “Well, that was odd,” Amy said, watching him go.

  Jess turned away, inhaling the commingled blend of her sister’s vanilla fragrance and the equally familiar scent of Cole.

  Although her attention was fixed on getting settled, the sound of more music drew Jess to the sidewalk to watch everyone moving toward the park. Standing there, she had the sensation of being watched herself. She shrugged slightly, as if to shake off an invisible hand, but the feeling persisted.

  Finally, glancing to her left, she noticed Cole leaning against the door frame of his shop, his arms crossed as he viewed the passing crowd. Her focus shifted. The people seemed to fade into a blur, the music and noise grew muffled—there was nothing and no one except Cole Braddock. He wore no shirt, just the heavy leather apron that covered him from chest to knees. His shoulders and arms were corded with muscle that bespoke years of swinging a hammer and hard physical work. His handsome face was smudged and gleaming with sweat, as if he had just stepped away from his forge for a moment.