Home by Morning (17 page)

“Jesus, he would have shot the first thing that twitched. All I could do was stay there and not move a muscle until he went around the house in the other direction.”

“Then we
ran
. I didn’t know I could move that fast. I had to grab Amy and drag her along or she probably would have hidden in those bushes all night.”

“I was scratched up from those roses. They had thorns like arrowheads.” He looked at his bare arms, revealed by his rolled-up plaid shirtsleeves. The scars were no longer visible, only the muscle and sinew of a man who’d worked hard for years.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

“We were
all
lucky we didn’t get caught. I thought Amy would spill the beans for sure.”

“Actually, I thought she would, too. She’s such a poor liar. But no one ever found us out.”

“I was scared to death they would.”

She raised a brow. “You told me you weren’t afraid that night.”

He waved off the comment. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t let you know. I had my sixteen-year-old ego to defend. But old man Leonard would have staked me out in his backyard and let the dogs eat me. He’s such a sour crank.”

Their laughter finally faded, like a rocking chair that had coasted to a gentle stop, leaving a palpable silence.

“We had some fun back then, didn’t we?” Cole said, a bittersweet catch in his voice.

They’d had more than that. They had a history together, one that began in childhood. “We sure did. Before everything got…complicated.” She bit on the sandwich crusts, but they’d dried out so she pushed them aside.

“Jess, I wish you had come home to stay when your father died, instead of going right back to New York.”

“Sometimes I wish I had, too. I learned a lot in New York, but I’m not certain I’m the better for it. It cost me my peace of mind. I still have nightmares about the things I saw.”

His eyes locked with hers, his gaze pinning her to her chair. “No, I mean I wish you had come home—to me.”

Jessica’s heart squeezed in her chest like a fist. Her throat turned dry and felt as if she’d swallowed a burr. “How can you bring that up now?”

To her utter surprise, he slid off his chair and dropped to one knee beside her. His eyes never leaving hers, he reached up with one work-roughened hand and pushed loose strands of hair away from her face. The backs of his fingers grazed her cheek, and goose bumps bloomed on her entire body, giving her a delicious shiver. Then his hand snaked around the back of her neck and pulled her face down to his. She felt his warm breath, smelled the scent of him, and she was powerless to stop him.

She didn’t want to stop him.

His lips touched hers, tentatively, seeking. For that instant, all the years and hurts and betrayals fell away. This was Cole Braddock, the man she’d always loved. She remembered his kiss well, yet it felt brand-new at the same time.

She pulled back, her breath coming fast. “We can’t do this,” she protested.

“I know.” Then he kissed her again.

Adam Jacobsen sat at his desk, a sheet of blank paper in front of him. These days, there were no Sunday sermons to compose. Tonight, another writing activity would occupy him.

Outside, the October night had fallen with a clearing sky that made the darkness as black as velvet. His desk lamp provided the only light in the house—he’d come straight to this task as soon as he’d gotten home. Nettie Stark had gone home hours earlier.

He took up his pen, dipped it in his father’s inkwell, and with decisive strokes addressed a letter to the lieutenant of his APL platoon. He had a special appreciation of the American Protective League, with its carefully managed organization of captains and companies, lieutenants and platoons. Sometimes he even envied bigger cities and their large financial and industrial employers. Often a majority of the workers were members and reported to leaders at their jobs. Because Powell Springs was a small community, Adam was the only operative in town. His leader, a banker in East Portland, oversaw operatives in other nearby towns as well.

Adam didn’t go out of his way to trumpet his association to anyone—an operative was not supposed to disclose his membership or show his badge. But most people around here knew about it, and he was certain this position gave him status that he wouldn’t have as a mere clergyman. A minister in the organization might not be common, but he probably wasn’t the only one.

Now he sat back in his chair to compose the lines of his weekly report. He generally identified those people he deemed to be unpatriotic—draft dodgers, slackers, or those who did not buy Liberty Bonds or follow the recommended rationing system. He noted overheard conversations that even hinted of sedition or complaints about the war. Anyone whose patriotism was in the slightest doubt was subject to investigation. In fact, he had mentioned Mae Rumsteadt in a couple of previous reports for her dual offenses of refusing to buy bonds and not observing any of the food rationing requirements. Strangers and foreigners were also high on the list of persons to watch, though there weren’t any foreigners around here.

He had a sheaf of notes to work with this week, but one name above all others kept coming to mind.

Cole Braddock.

He really had no concrete accusations to level against Braddock. The man’s exemption from the draft was a sore point with Adam, but acceptable to the government. There had to be something, though. By his very attitude, Braddock had displayed hostility and contempt for him again and again. Adam disliked him, it was true, but he knew that he wasn’t driven by pride, envy, or even personal animosity. No, indeed. There was something unpatriotic about Cole Braddock, and he was going to find it.

Adam always worked for the good of the country. And though he might not be with the Expeditionary Forces, he was still a soldier in God’s army.

He sat forward, dipped his pen again, and began writing.

Jessica pushed Cole away from her. “Stop it,” she demanded, her face tingling from the scrape of his beard. “We won’t do this!”

He sat back on his heels and looked at her, his eyes dark with an emotion she couldn’t identify—stronger than desire, more fierce than lust. His breath came in short, jerky gasps, and her own heart beat like rolling thunder inside her rib cage. With a shaking hand, she pushed her hair away from her face.

“Amy, my sister,
your intended
, is lying in a cot in the high school gymnasium, hanging onto life by a thread, and you—I—” Jessica sputtered to a stop, then finally said, “How dare you?”

Frowning, he stood up. He filled the little space with his presence, and wrath pulsated between them. “Why didn’t you come home? I’ve asked you so many times, but you’ve never given me a straight answer. You promised you’d come back and marry me. Instead, you strung me along for more than a year, then out of the blue I got that goddamned telegram from you, telling me not to wait any longer.
Why?
And don’t give me any of that bullshit about the poor and sick. Were you so busy trying to fix the world’s broken heart that you never thought about anyone else’s?”

Jessica stared at him. “Out of the blue?
Out of the blue!
” She jumped from her chair and marched to her bedroom to rummage through a trunk. She threw clothing here and there, things she hadn’t unpacked, until she found what she was looking for. It was a ribbon-bound packet of letters, on top of which was the wire she’d received from him before she’d sent her own reply.

She pulled it from the stack and stormed back into the kitchenette. He’d taken to pacing the small space like a feral, caged animal, his obvious fury barely contained. She shoved the envelope under his nose. “Here! Does this look familiar?”

He yanked it from her hand. “What is it?”

“It’s the telegram I got from
you
. There was nothing in this that would make me want to come home. After everything we’d meant to each other, you can’t begin to imagine how betrayed I felt. Then a few weeks later I got a chirpy letter from Amy, saying that you were courting her!” Tears streamed down her face, and angrily, she swiped at them with the back of her hand. “God, Cole, I don’t know how you have the nerve to act like the insulted, jilted suitor after that.”

He took the message out of its envelope and read it. Then he looked up at her, his baffled expression almost convincing. “I’ve never seen this before in my life.”

“What—what—” Once again, her tongue tripped itself on her frustration and incredulity. She plucked a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and wiped her nose with a savage pinch. “Don’t try to hand me that twaddle. You wrote it. It’s signed by you. It was sent from the telegraph office here in town. Really, are you going to stoop to a sudden case of amnesia to—”

He shook the buff-colored note at her. “I’m telling you I didn’t send this. I didn’t write it.”

Jamming her handkerchief into her pocket, she snatched back the paper from him and read it aloud. “‘Jessica, wanted you for my wife but refuse to wait one more day. I am sorry.’ If you didn’t send it, who did?”

Cole felt as if he were looking at a mirror image of his life, like that kid named Alice in a book Susannah had read to Tanner Grenfell’s nephews. Nothing was making sense, everything seemed backwards. He knew he hadn’t sent that telegram, but there it was in black and buff.

“So you got this,” he said, taking the paper away from her again. “Then you wired me back telling me not to wait for you.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Her voice had a ragged edge, and she sat down suddenly.

He remembered that April day. Vividly. He’d gone to Tilly’s and had gotten so drunk, Virgil Tilly had put him out on the saloon’s back stoop with a blanket and a bucket. At least that was where he’d regained consciousness the next day, with a hangover that would have killed a buffalo. It had rained sometime during the night, the blanket was heavy and damp, and he’d been thoroughly miserable. If the hangover hadn’t been bad enough, he’d felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest. Kicked in the heart.

“Someone played a rotten prank on us, Jess.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. Who would do that?”

“I don’t know who or why, but it happened.” He saw the pain and certainty of betrayal in her eyes. He could also see that she didn’t believe a word he said. “I never should have—never
would
have started courting Amy if you hadn’t sent that wire.”

“So now it’s my fault?” She picked up the dry bread crusts and in a childish fit, threw them at him. He ignored it.

“No, I didn’t say that. But I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” He folded the message and put it in his shirt pocket. “I need to keep this for a while.”

Alarmed, she held out her hand. “No, it’s mine. Give it back.”

“Don’t want to break up a matching set, huh?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” She extended her reach, but he backed up and covered his pocket with his own hand.

“This message and your grudge against me. You want to keep them together and not let go of either of them.”

She dropped her arm, stung by the truth he’d revealed to her. “Why do you want it? What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet.” He wandered to the window and looked down the street toward the telegraph office. A few possibly guilty parties crossed his mind. Pop—he’d never much liked the idea of Cole and Jess marrying. Jacobsen—maybe, but that didn’t make much sense. He hadn’t really shown an interest in Jess until recently. “I’ll let you know when I learn something.”

“This is all so far-fetched, Cole.”

“I’m not perfect and I’ve done some things in my life that I’d give anything to do over,” he said quietly. “But I never lied to you. Not before, and not now.”

“Maybe not.” The vehemence had suddenly drained out of her voice, giving her words a hollow, weary sound. He turned toward her. She looked the same: empty, exhausted. “Anyway, it’s water under the bridge, a part of our past. I can’t think about this anymore tonight. I came here to rest, then I have to go back.”

“Go take your nap. I’ll wait for you right here at the table. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you over.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like a good…”

He dropped to his knee again, took her hand, and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Please. Let me do this for you.”

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment and she sighed. Then she gazed at him with that searching look that had always made him feel as if she could see into his heart. “I guess that would be all right. Give me an hour.”

“I think you’d better make it two.” He squeezed her hand, loving the way it felt in his.

She gave him a small, tired smile. “Okay. Two hours.”

He pulled out his pocket watch with his free hand. “I’ll be right here.”

Just over two hours later, Cole dropped Jess off at the infirmary. She watched the Ford disappear into the darkness as she stood at the door. In her apartment, she’d slept dreamlessly until she’d felt his hand on her shoulder, nudging her awake.

They’d ridden over here without much conversation, completely avoiding the can of worms they’d opened earlier—the kisses, their suppressed feelings, the matter of the telegram. What if it was true? What if someone else had sent that message? And who on earth would do such a devious, underhanded thing? Jessica’s mind whirled with the implications.

Forcing her thoughts to the current emergency, she turned and went inside. The odors that haunted her dreams and clung to her clothing and hair assailed her again. The overall scene was much the same one she’d left. After digging into her bag for her stethoscope, she passed rows of sickbeds and headed straight to Amy. She found Mrs. Donaldson sitting beside her.

“Oh, good Lord, Jessica, I’m so glad you’re here. The poor thing, the poor little thing.” Laura Donaldson shook her head and wept and wrung her handkerchief as if Amy was already dead.

Alarmed, Jessica took her sister’s wrist and peered at her fever-flushed face. Her condition was no better, but at least it wasn’t worse. Some people failed so quickly, their lives seemed to drain from them right before Jessica’s eyes. “Mrs. Donaldson, would you be a dear and get her a cold cloth for her head? I’d like a moment to examine her.”

“Yes, yes, of course!” The woman, whose eyes were faintly discolored from the broken nose she’d recently suffered, jumped off the stool at Amy’s bedside.

Taking her place, Jess put the stethoscope against Amy’s chest and listened to the sodden, crackling sound of her congested lungs. It resembled the noise of an ice cream soda being sucked up through a straw. With a heavy sigh, she covered Amy’s hand with her own. Her sister’s hair was a snarl of honey-colored strings resting on the pillow, and faint blue smudges underscored her closed eyes. But she still wore the earrings Cole had given her.

“Oh, Amy,” Jess intoned, more to herself.

Amy’s lashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes. “Jessie.”

It was a pet name their mother had used when she was a girl. No one had called her that in years. Jess’s throat tightened and she managed to quell the tears that burned under her lids.