Harmony (54 page)

Her eyes rose to his, lashes casting soft shadows on her high cheeks as the candles sputtering above them cast her in silhouette.

“I've never seen you in a suit,” she commented. Safe subject. He could tell she was nervous.

“Yeah . . .” Tom gazed down at the funeral suit Shay had made him buy for the occasion. He'd never had any call to wear a gray coat and trousers—worse yet, a white shirt—with a tie, no less. “It's a suit, all right.”

“Well . . . I should go see if Crescencia needs my help . . .”

Tom didn't want to let her go yet. He felt that if he
let her walk away this time, he'd never get the chance again to talk with her . . . watch her kissable lips when she spoke, see the different hues of green in her eyes. “Ed . . . let's not end things the way we did. I want to be with you. I want to marry you. This wedding made me see how much I need you in my life.”

He couldn't read her thoughts. She'd closed off the emotion from her face. He wished he knew what she was thinking. For the faintest of moments, she gave him hope when the dimness in her gaze lightened, flickered, bringing a degree of warmth. And maybe love?

“Have you changed your mind about my continuing teaching?”

Damn and double damn, he didn't want to talk about that. The subject would sour her on the idea of marriage. But at the same time, he couldn't ignore her question because the school was still the issue that stood between them.

“Edwina . . .” He tried to put her hands in his, but she shied away. “You have to understand that I want what's best for us . . . for you. I'm thinking about you.”

The hue of her eyes went from light to fiery. “You're thinking of yourself, you mean. You just have no idea how it is for women. No concept. No clue. I could be my own woman and be married—I'm already half there with the school started. If you can't see that, if you can't try to put yourself in my shoes, give a minute over to my dreams and ideals, then we have nothing to talk about. Ever again, Mr. Wolcott.”

That tone again.
Mr. Wolcott.
That teacher one that drove him up a wall. It didn't suit her. She wasn't a shriveled matron. She was all vinegar when she got like this. Inasmuch as he loved her, dammit all to hell and back, he could not tell her what she wanted to hear just to win her over. It wouldn't be fair to either of them.

“Regardless of our personal feelings for one another”—Tom went for his Richmonds, but remembered he shouldn't light one up in church—“we're going to have to put on a front while at that reception.”

“I'm not going.”

“What do you mean, you're not going?”

“Crescencia understands. As does Mr. Dufresne. I explained it all to them. I have to go home and pack.”

Placing the cigarette on his lips anyway, Tom said, “What for?”

“I'm surprised your friend didn't tell you. I'm leaving town. First thing in the morning.”

21

E
dwina stood on the depot's snow-edged platform with Honey Tiger's basket looped through her arm. The No. 84 had come in and would leave in less than two minutes for the Cheyenne junction, hooking up with the outbound No. 101 to routes south of the Wyoming border. Puffs of vaporous steam hissed from the pistons on Harmony's only Christmas Day train. Marvel-Anne waited beside her while the porter took her baggage to the car.

“Now, you be certain to write, Miss Edwina,” Marvel-Anne admonished, her hair pulled back in a severe bun.

“I'll write, I promise.” Edwina's hands quivered from nervous energy. This was a monumental step, a big change—worse than when she'd gone to Chicago, because then, she had known she was coming back home. To Harmony . . . a place that didn't seem so ordinary and plain anymore. This trip would take her to a city, far away from comfortable things and family—namely Marvel-Anne, who was the only mother figure she had. Away from the people she knew and . . . yes, loved—still—in spite of how it had ended. Familiarity would be traded for newness.

“I'm sorry, Marvel-Anne,” Edwina blurted out. “I
wish I could have given you more than a fifty-dollar compensation check.”

“Oh, pish, Miss Edwina. I told you it wasn't necessary at all.” Marvel-Anne's stiff straw hat covered her hair like a helmet. “All these years, your father kept me on and paid me a decent wage. Your mother treated me like one of the Huntingtons from the start. I never had any need to buy anything other than something to clothe myself with or pay any bills besides the small rent at Mrs. June's. I've got enough in my bank account to live on until I die, with plenty left over for a right grand funeral.”

“Don't talk about funerals,” Edwina ordered with a fond smile.

“We've all got to go one day.”

Edwina took in a shaky breath, anxious to be off because she feared she'd make a spectacle of herself by breaking down and weeping. Yet at the same time, she was so afraid to get on that train, she wasn't certain her feet could take her onboard.

Motion caught Edwina's attention and caused her to gaze across Old Oak Road to the town square. Dashing past the gazebo, Camille, Johannah, Lucy, Meg, Ruth, and Hildegarde ran toward the station in a most unladylike flutter of skirts and petticoats.

The girls tromped up the depot steps, breathless and rosy-cheeked.

“We didn't think we'd make it!” Camille exclaimed.

Ruth added, panting, “No, we didn't!”

“My mother told me the present was supposed to be here yesterday. She even telegraphed to find out what happened. The order didn't make the train; it came in the mail, and we just now tracked down Mr. Calhoon so we could get it.”

“We just wrapped it at my house,” Meg said.

“All of us.” Johannah now held the small gift and presented it to Edwina.

“We hope you like it.” Lucy's hands were stuffed in a fur muffler.

So touched she was speechless, Edwina could only silently unwrap the present, Marvel-Anne taking the paper from her. The case itself was a gift, long and narrow and made from mother-of-pearl. She undid the latchhook on the side and lifted the tiny hinged lid. Inside, on a bed of morocco satin, lay a pen and pencil of fine gold plate.

“Oh . . . girls. They're lovely.”

“Look on the pen, Miss Edwina,” Camille said, standing on tiptoes to peer into the case.

Edwina did so and held the pen to the light. On the delicate cylinder, letters were engraved in slanted script.

From your students with love.

Tears fell freely down her cheeks when she gazed at them, committing every one of their faces to memory. “I shall treasure it always.”

The train's whistle blew and the porter called, “All aboard.”

Without warning, Marvel-Anne pulled Edwina into her stocky arms and gave her a crushing hug. In a voice gravelly with emotion, she bade her to be careful. “Mind where you go in the city, Miss Edwina. Don't carry too much money in your pocketbook.”

Laying her cheek on the elder woman's shoulder for a moment, Edwina said, “I won't.”

Then pulling away, she gave her best smile to the girls—which wasn't easy, because she found it difficult to lift the corners of her mouth. “You girls fooled me. We said our good-byes yesterday with your mothers at Mrs. Kennison's house. So I won't say them again today.”

Hildegarde rubbed the bottom of her nose with fingers encased in woolen knit gloves. “I can't say good-bye again or I'll start crying. My mother said I don't look delicate when I cry.”

“Last call!” came the porter's cry.

Edwina braced herself, gave them a parting look, then turned and boarded the train. She went quickly to a seat, placed Honey Tiger beside her, and gazed out the damp
window. Using the heel of her wrist, she made a circle out of which to see. Spying the girls and Marvel-Anne still on the platform, she waved.

Then the engine lurched forward and wheezed, then began to chug up to speed. Edwina craned her neck to keep them in her view as long as she could, but soon the train was gaining too much ground. As the train went around the curve and clattered over the small span of bridge across Evergreen Creek, she spied Barkly baying up a tree. Behind the hound . . . Tom stood with hands in his pants pockets, a red plaid jacket spanning his chest. She put a hand to the glass as if to touch him.

Her gaze sadly clung to him, and for a moment, she thought he saw her in the small clearing in the cloudy window. But when her car went past, he kept on looking as if searching for her. If he'd come to stop her from leaving . . . to tell her he'd had a change of heart . . . he did nothing to show her.

Edwina lowered her hand and faced forward. Reality had to reign. Being with Tom had been the best time of her life. It had been a lovely affair; now it was over. She tried to blink back the hot rush of tears that swam in her vision. But she was quite unsuccessful.

•  •  •

Tom Wolcott had gone to hell in less than a month. He hadn't had a haircut in longer than he could remember, and he hadn't eaten a meal that had agreed with him since before Shay's wedding. He'd been an insomniac for weeks and lived only on what he could manage to talk himself into believing was appealing to his stomach—mostly beer. The empty bottles beneath the store's counter had been adding up, but he didn't give a damn.

Actually, he didn't give a damn about much.

Shay rode his tail a lot, telling him he needed to see a barber. But Tom had gotten used to the beard and mustache that concealed part of his upper Up. He just licked the beer foam off it when the bristles got in the way.

Standing between the aisle of clothing . . . elbow
supporters . . . and camping gear, he reeled his arm back and threw a ball at Buttkiss for the hell of it. The clown's teeth clunked inward. The store was empty; it was nearly five—almost time to go home. Alone. Sit around. Feel like crap.

But who did he have to blame? Himself. He was stupid, stupid, stupid—a real horse's ass.

Tom threw a dozen or so balls, then went to the counter and sat and stared at the store. He hadn't changed a thing since Edwina had doctored it up. The dried posies were still poked into the grizz's paw. Ribbons held the curtains back. On the countertop itself, all the walleyes remained sorted by colors, neat and tidy—a woman's touch. The only touch he'd ever get from a woman again . . .

Sometimes he went into Edwina's side of the warehouse and just stood in the middle of it, trying to smell roses hanging in the cold air. He'd close his eyes and see her sitting at her desk, with a shared dinner in a hamper, then standing, with a hoop around her waist.

Rather than selling her half of the building, she'd given it to him.
Given it to him.
He'd read the document that Fletcher from the bank had dropped by the day after Christmas. Edwina had legally relinquished all claim to the property known as lot four, block two. Why had she done it? Given him something this valuable under the circumstances? He'd pay her for it, come hell or high water. The whole damn transaction didn't sit well with him and made his stomach feel worse. Tom couldn't bring himself to use it. The contents remained how she'd left them.

Drumming his fingernails on the counter, he gazed at the accounting sheet in front of him—blank, of course. It had been blank for days—weeks. He might have sought another bookkeeper, but the hell he knew if Harmony had one. The owners of businesses that he had talked with all said they muddled through the ledgers and tallies themselves.

Tom shoved the paper and books to the side, in turn
knocking over a round canister of Powell's candied walnuts. Shay had given them to him for a Christmas present and Tom had yet to crack open the seal. He slid them toward him, pulled the key off the top, and began to unwind the rim of metal keeping the lid on. As soon as the top snapped, the scent of maple sugar and nuts filled his nose. He ate one, not really tasting it.