Home by Morning (20 page)

A feeling of foreboding settled on Jessica as she tidied the apartment, washed a couple of dishes in the kitchen, and drew her bath.

Since Cole would be here soon, she wouldn’t get to enjoy the long soak she’d planned, but at least she’d be clean. Given these busy days, that was good enough. It had to be. As the tub filled, she unwrapped her last cake of Créme Simone and savored its sweet aroma. She’d had no trouble finding the French-made soap in any New York drug or department store. In Powell Springs, Mr. Bright would probably have order to it, and with the war on, there was no telling how long it would take to arrive. When this miserable conflict was finally over—after that he might have less trouble.

After that—

She stopped herself, realizing the direction of her thoughts. She wasn’t going to stay here. This was temporary, all temporary. Leaning over the tub, she turned off the faucets, shed her dressing gown, and sank into the hot water. She had no place in Powell Springs anymore, she reminded herself. Despite the chaos of the epidemic, she was surprised by how often she’d thought of herself as home for good.

Though the steam and heat eased the tension from her shoulders, her thoughts marched on. If she had no place here, why then did it feel as if she did? Questions plagued her. She dunked her head to wet her hair, then worked suds into the strands. She scrubbed hard, as if hoping to quiet those questions, but they still bounced around her mind. She suspected Cole was going to tell her something that would upset her wobbly emotional equilibrium. He might have uncovered a clue about the telegram’s sender, perhaps forcing her to abandon the grudge he’d accused her of harboring. She’d carried it so long, it had become a kind of shield against him and the world in general. Without it, silly as it seemed, what would she have left? Her last shaky defense would be lost.

Finally, she rose from the water and dried herself. Cole would be here soon, and she didn’t want him to find her wearing only her dressing gown. After she worked the snarls out of her hair, she wove it into a braid with clumsy, nervous hands, and put on a simple gray blouse and skirt. She was still standing before her bureau mirror, fiddling with a hook and eye on the neckline, when she heard his knock at the front door.

Making sure the doors to her bedroom and bathroom were closed, she hurried down the stairs. She detected his silhouette through the window and realized he was so familiar to her she would have known his wide-shouldered shape and cowboy hat anywhere.

She opened the door, trying to suppress the leap in her chest and the unwanted flush of pleasure when she saw him. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept any more than she had. But he was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen, here or anywhere else. He’d washed up, too, slicking back his long hair with water, and changed into a clean shirt and jeans. He carried a napkin-wrapped bundle with him.

“Come in. I don’t have anything to eat here, but I can put on some coffee.”

“Jacobsen didn’t come back, did he?”

She shook her head.

“Good.” He offered the parcel. “I stopped by the saloon and asked Tilly to put together some sandwiches. I figured you hadn’t eaten.”

“I didn’t think anyplace in town was supposed to serve food.”

“They aren’t, but he’s got provisions for himself in the back. He had a roast beef and a couple of potatoes.”

“Oh, and I still have some butter. Thanks, Cole, I really appreciate it. You’re right, I haven’t eaten since this morning.” She took the sandwiches from him and felt something heavy wrapped up with them. Hefting it a couple of times, she asked, “What else is in here?”

“A bottle of whiskey.”

She flushed. “Oh, well, I don’t think I should be drinking, especially spirits.”

He took off his coat and hat, and slung them on the coat tree by the door. “You might change your mind after I tell you what I’ve learned.”

The sense of foreboding that she’d felt earlier was back, now as heavy as a millstone on her shoulders. “W-what is it?”

“Naw, we’d better eat first.”

“All right. Come on.”

She led him upstairs to the combination parlor and dining room, and gestured at the table. “Please…sit.” While he unwrapped the food, she fetched dishes and silver from the hoosier, along with some of Horace Cookson’s butter. “I’m sorry, I don’t have much in the way of appropriate glassware.” She nodded at the whiskey bottle.

“Don’t worry, this isn’t what you’d call a high-toned party.”

She brought out two plain glasses and filled hers with water at the sink.

“Have a seat,” he said, and pushed out the other chair with his foot.

Jessica sat down, and they ate without much conversation beyond the most superficial small talk. She inquired about the farm and the Braddock family. He asked if she thought the worst of the flu epidemic was over.

“I’m not sure just yet,” she said, spearing her last piece of potato with her fork. “It
might
be slowing down. I’ve had fewer cases at the infirmary this week, but I can’t say it’s a trend. Next week will give me a better idea. You never can tell about these things.” She began to describe the possible course of any given epidemic, and cited information she’d received from the East. When he looked at her with his penetrating blue gaze, she realized she was babbling, trying to stave off the inevitable reason for his visit.

He pushed his plate away and, pulling the cork out of the whiskey bottle, poured himself two inches of amber liquid. He bolted half of it, sucked a breath through his teeth, and set the glass down. Then he reached into his shirt pocket. Withdrawing the folded telegram that she recognized instantly, he opened it and put it on the table. It lay between them like a three-day-old fish before he nailed it down with a forefinger.

“I didn’t send this to you.”

She glanced at it and then busied herself with smoothing the napkin on her lap. “So you’ve told me.”

His eyes didn’t waver—she could feel his gaze even though she looked away. “I went to see Leroy Fenton to find out who did.”

She forced a small laugh. “Oh, I’m sure poor Leroy wouldn’t remember something like that after all this time. He’s getting on.”

“He remembered just fine. He asked me if
my
memory was giving me trouble.” He went on to explain their encounter. “Then he told me who brought the message to him, sealed in an envelope, and paid him to send it.”

Jessica leaned forward. “And?”

He picked up his glass and drank the other inch of liquor. “It was Amy.”

She jumped to her feet with such violence, she knocked over her chair. “Amy! Cole, do you expect me to believe that? How dare you come here with such a vicious lie about my own sister?”

He didn’t raise his voice. He just sat back and looked up at her. “I figured you might say that, but it’s not a lie. Trust me, I thought Leroy had lost his marbles when he told me. Then he described that day in such detail, I knew it was the truth. And it made sense. I’ve had days and nights to think about it.”

“It doesn’t make any sense at all!” He sat there so coolly, so unperturbed, he could have been discussing the weather. Meanwhile, her breath came in gasps, and blood pounded in her ears. “How can you sit there, calmly sipping whiskey, and tell me this—this horrible
fable
, like you’re sitting in the saloon gabbing about the price of oats?”

He frowned. “It’s not a fable, and I’m not calm. It’s been eating me up inside. I puked when I heard about it, and I don’t sleep much at night.” Reaching into his pocket again, he produced another piece of paper, one that Jessica recognized as a Western Union blank form. “Read this.” He pushed it across the table, and she snatched up.

I, Leroy Fenton, swear that I keyed a message to Miss Jessica Layton, as signed by Mr. Cole Braddock and delivered to me in a sealed envelope by Miss Layton’s sister, Amy, dated May 20, 1916.

Leroy’s signature and last week’s date followed the crabbed, handwritten statement.

“What is this? Did you blab our personal business to him?”

He gave her a sour look. “No, but I figured you might not believe me. All I did was ask him to write down what he knew on this note. At first he didn’t want to because I wouldn’t tell him why I needed it, only that it was important. In return, I had to swear that this had nothing to do with him, his job, Western Union, or the American Protective League. Thank God, he trusted me.”

He stood and came around to right her chair. She stared at him, her entire being pulsing with fury and insult. He didn’t move. He simply stared back, held her chair, and waited, silently directing her to return to it. Finally she sat down again, hard, and he went back to his own seat. Lifting the whiskey bottle, he tipped it toward her glass. She nodded, and he poured in enough to give her water a tint.

Raking a hand through his drying hair, he poured another inch of liquor for himself. “But I knew it would be a shitty thing to do, to tell you about this with Amy at death’s door. Now that she’s getting better, I had to let you know…everything. First of all, it can’t come as a big surprise that I’m not going to marry her.

“Next, I want you to understand that I’m going to tell you the truth as far as I know it. I’m not trying to turn you against your sister, but I won’t mince words, either, and I’m not going to take the blame for something I had no part of. Our lives have been changed by things Amy did. What you do with the information is up to you.”

Jess sat stiff as a broomstick, her lips pursed.

“Like I said, I’ve had some time to think about this, and I guess I’ve got most of it figured out. When your dad died, Amy was sort of lost. I know she wasn’t especially close to him, but you were gone, and she had to move out of the house she grew up in.”

“I had to sell it to pay the property taxes and my father’s debts!” She was tired of defending the decisions she’d made.

“Yeah, I know.”

She slumped back in her chair and took a swallow of the diluted drink he’d made for her, feeling sullen and put-upon.

“Anyway, she got to be friends with Susannah. And I think Amy genuinely likes her, but I believe her main purpose was to hang around the farm so I’d notice her.”

Jess opened her mouth to refute this, but let the words go unspoken. She knew he could be right. Coming from another man, his observation might sound like the basest sort of vanity. But for all that Cole turned female heads wherever he went, he’d never seemed aware of it, or of his own powerful handsomeness.

He continued. “It seemed like more often than not, she’d be in the kitchen helping Susannah and then at the table for dinner. Riley or I would give her a ride back to town afterward. Sometimes she spent the night. She made a big fuss over Pop, and he ate up the attention. And she’d drop little hints about how you were so good at science that you’d never learned to cook or sew or keep house.” His expression turned wry. “Pop ate that up, too.”

Jess crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, I’m sure he did.”

“Then your letter came, saying you’d decided to stay in New York for a while.” He took another sip of his drink. “I can’t say I was happy about it, but you already know that. You kept stretching out the time, and when I look back, I realize that was when Amy really started turning up the heat under my skillet.”

Jessica’s imagination leaped into action. She remembered what she and Cole had once shared. “
Heat
—how? I can’t picture Amy…well, I just can’t.”

He smiled and raised his brows. “My, my, Jess, how your mind works. That’s not what I meant. Amy and I have never done anything more than exchange a kiss.”

Her face grew hot with the embarrassment of her own mistake and the unwanted images that had flashed through her thoughts. “Your choice of words didn’t help.” She took another sip of her watered whiskey and her tight limbs began to relax a bit.

“What I mean is that she stepped up her…campaign, I guess you could call it, to catch my interest.” He shrugged. “She started fussing over me the way she did Pop. She told me what a shame it was that you put your job ahead of our planned engagement, and that you were dangling me like a trout—”

“She actually said that?” Jess demanded, unable to keep the scorn out of her tone.

“Yes.”

“I suppose you agreed.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t happy about the situation—not happy at all. And you didn’t give me a good reason for staying away. At least not one that I could accept.”

She began tapping her foot. “Let’s not go into that again. And besides, we did not have an ‘engagement.’ At best, we had an understanding.”

He lifted a hand slightly, conceding the point.

“Then your telegram came. I thought of everything that had happened and what Amy told me. You didn’t come home and you’d met that man, Andrew Stafford.”

“Stavers, and I didn’t—”

“Whatever his name was. Yeah, I started to feel like that trout.”

She frowned at him, but it wasn’t an outright scowl this time. His statement of the facts was beginning to gel in her mind and freeze her heart.

“Riley left to join the army, and Susannah was pretty gloomy. So was I, under the circumstances. Amy became our bright spot. She kept us company.” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “I started courting her. And before I knew it, I knew she was expecting us to marry.”

“You didn’t waste any time, did you?” she observed tartly. “Did you ever think to write me to ask me about the telegram you received?” Her words still had a sharp edge, but his gaze on her was level and uncompromising.

“A dozen times, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Did you think to write to me about the one
you
got?”

She arched a brow and gave him a brittle smile. “Yes, but I didn’t think it would be very satisfying. I was so hurt and angry, I just wanted to shout at you. I’m not sure that I’m not still angry.”

He drained his glass. “But here we are, Jess. At the end of a long road we never meant to travel, brought here by someone who wanted her own way. And I guess she didn’t care who she hurt to get it.”