Home by Morning (30 page)
Authors: Alexis Harrington
She was only crying.
The tears would come in waves, as did the relentless questions that kept nagging at her. The aching emptiness in her, though, was constant.
Had she made the wrong decision to leave Powell Springs? Had she run away again, as Cole had said? And if she’d made the right choice, why was she so miserable? Leaving New York had not felt like this.
She glanced around, wishing that she could be one of these people with their faces buried in books or chatting with companions, going about their business. One man held a copy of an area newspaper with today’s date, November tenth, and she noticed distractedly that not one mention was made on the front page of the carnage the Spanish influenza had wrought. People were still getting sick, still dying, and she knew that although the West Coast didn’t seem to have suffered the staggering number of cases the East had, the epidemic wasn’t over.
Turning back to the window, she saw a deep river gorge below the trestle they were crossing. But it was Cole’s face that kept coming to her mind’s eye. The memory of Cole’s touch on her bare skin, holding her hand, the warmth of his body through his shirt.
More questions plagued her. Could she have faced the small, angry group in Powell Springs with him standing beside her to give her strength? Did she owe it to her own townspeople to stay and care for them, instead of leaving them to haughty Dr. Pearson?
Very worst of all, despairing though she was—had she broken her own heart this time?
“Olympia!” the conductor announced in a booming voice. “Ten minutes to Olympia, Washington!”
Her nerves as frayed as an old rag rug, Jessica jumped at the intrusion.
“Excuse me,” she said, flagging down the gauze-masked conductor. “How much farther to Seattle?”
He consulted his big railroad pocket watch. “That would be about another three hours, ma’am, counting the stops.” She nodded her thanks, and he moved down the aisle, continuing his blaring announcement.
Three more hours of this. Maybe at the station in Olympia, she could get off the train for a few moments to wash her face in the ladies’ room and collect herself. She just had to.
It sounded like a monumental task. She had never felt more scattered or alone in her life.
The next afternoon, Cole stood at the forge in the shop, pumping the bellows until the embers glowed red with a heat that could incinerate a steak in sixty seconds. In the stall, Mr. Bright’s beautiful chestnut Morgan, the one he used for his grocery deliveries, stood waiting for a new set of shoes.
He didn’t really want to be here. But the only temporary escape from heartache he knew, besides alcohol, was work. Back-breaking, constant labor that made every muscle scream for mercy and would let him fall into bed and into a sleep that came close to death. Last night, he’d ended up bringing his whiskey back here and leaving it, corked, on the shelf in the tack room. Only about two inches were missing from the full bottle, and those he’d shared with Pop. Getting drunk wouldn’t have changed anything—he’d have just felt worse today.
And he felt bad enough as it was.
1918 was not turning out to be a good year for anyone, but Cole felt like the Braddocks had had more than their share of misery. The only thing he could say—so far—was that by the grace of God, or luck, or whatever made the world turn, the entire family had escaped the influenza epidemic, and not many could claim that.
Suddenly, over the sound of his own tools, he heard the fire bell ringing. It was located next to city hall, and when it rang, everyone who could was expected to drop whatever they were doing to run and help. Cole bent to put down the tongs he held and in his haste touched his shoulder to the forge. Swearing, he looked down to see a one-inch triangular piece of fabric burned right off his shirt and an angry red mark beneath. Granny Mae’s sovereign treatment for burns was urine. Huh, he’d like to hear Granny Mae tell him to pee on this…
Still cursing and trying to see how bad the burn was, he walked to the double doors. Just as he reached them, he heard an odd whooping coming from the street, as if it were New Year’s Eve. From the train station a steam whistle blew, continual, long sharp blasts that carried all the way down here.
God, what was going on?
People opened their doors, and from the shops that had reopened, customers and proprietors poured onto Main, all looking to see what the hoopla was about. Then he saw Leroy Fenton’s bicycle boy peddling up and down the street, waving a piece of paper and shouting at the top of his lungs.
“It’s over! The war is over! Armistice! The fighting stopped at eleven o’clock in the morning in France. The war is over!”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cole said aloud and laughed. He leaned against the doorframe and watched people hug and cheer. Now and then he looked down at the burn that was beginning to blister. Pulling off one heavy leather glove with his teeth, carefully he tore open the hole in his shirt for a better view. God, he was getting to be as clumsy as Jeremy. At least the kid had survived his injury and the influenza. “Oh, hell,” he muttered.
“Do you need a doctor?”
Cole’s head flew up and he saw Jessica walking toward him, carrying her doctor’s bag. She looked as tired and worn as he felt, but she was smiling, and though her skirts were wet and dirty from the street, it was as if the sun had come out. The pain of his burn forgotten, the pain of everything forgotten, he opened his arms to her.
Jessica dropped her bag in the mud and ran the last few feet right into his embrace. He rained kisses on her, inhaling her fragrance. Holding her face between his hands, he asked, “Jess, is it really you? Are you home?”
“I’m home, Cole. I was an idiot. I never should have gone. You were right, this is where I belong, with you, the love of my life. I got off the train yesterday in Olympia and exchanged my ticket to come back. I had to spend the night in Portland to get my connection, and the station master there said I’d be home by morning. But the train was late—Union Station was mobbed with people celebrating the good news.”
He looked down at her, and saw the love in his heart mirrored in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You came back. You’re here. The war is over. This is a great day!”
“It’s a
wonderful
day.”
He picked her up and whirled her around, laughing again. “Wow, just wait till Pop hears about this.”
“Jessica? Are you ready?” Susannah stuck her head through an opening in the door and whispered to her. Jess stood in a small side room off Mayor Cookson’s office.
Nervous, she nodded. In turn, Susannah nodded to the small assembly behind her, then slipped in.
“Do you have everything you need? A handkerchief?”
Jess took a deep breath. “I’m fine.” She reached out and grasped Susannah’s hand. “I want to thank you for doing this, for being my witness. I know the timing isn’t the best, considering everything. But you look beautiful.”
“I am
honored
to be your witness,” she replied. “This is the way things were always meant to be, you two together. I hope you’ll be as happy as Riley and I…were.” She swallowed and her eyes were bright with standing tears. Jess squeezed her hand. “Here’s your bouquet. I ordered it from a florist in Portland. The conductor held it the whole fifteen miles out here to keep it from being crushed.”
Jessica took the arrangement and smiled. “Pink roses.”
“That’s what Cole told me to get. He said they’re your favorites.”
She nodded, amazed that he’d remembered.
This wedding had been cobbled together in a week’s time. Jessica was not getting married in a white gown, but under the circumstances, they’d done well enough. Granny Mae had done all the cooking for a feast that would be held in the town council meeting room.
Best of all, Cole Braddock stood on the other side of that door.
Sometime during the past week, Amy and Adam had left town in the middle of the night on a train headed east. That was all anyone knew. She had left no letter for Jessica, who’d decided it was just as well. Maybe someday, after enough time had passed…
Frederick Pearson had indeed traveled north to take Jessica’s place at Seattle General Hospital. Whether Dr. Thomas Martin, the chief of staff, would keep the odious man was another issue. But not her concern.
Right now, Mayor Cookson was ready to officiate at her wedding to Cole, and that was all that mattered.
She smiled at Susannah again. “All right.”
Susannah opened the door to Mayor Cookson’s office, and the first person Jessica’s eyes fell upon was Cole, dressed as handsomely as she’d ever seen him.
Waiting for her.
Waiting to take her home.
THE END
by
Alexis Harrington
Copyright © Alexis Harrington, 2012
An Excerpt from CHAPTER ONE
Meuse Valley, Northern France
July 1920
Although he had no memory of it, he had arrived here in that ambulance.
Leaning again on the hoe handle, he heard a motor start up, then saw a car with the Red Cross emblem on its side pull out onto the road. Obviously, it had been visiting this farmhouse. It moved away slowly, and the man at the wheel eyed him, but too much distance lay between them for either to really see the other. Finally, the car rounded a bend in the road and disappeared.
“Christophe! Viens. Prendsdéjeuner. Ne le laisse pas refroidir.”
His French was not as fluent as a native’s, but he understood that Véronique was calling him to lunch and to come while it was still hot. Turning, he saw her standing in the doorway of what had been a bigger farmhouse. The rest of the structure had been blasted away by a shell during the war. Both he and Véronique had to be careful when they worked the tract—unexploded shells lurked in the soil, as unstable as nitroglycerin. An old farmer farther down the valley had hit one with a shovel last spring and was killed. Another casualty of war, one claimed after the Armistice.
Waving to Véronique, he put down the hoe and reached for his crutch, a crude, homemade thing, and hobbled his way across the field toward her. She was a pretty woman, not yet forty years old, and despite losing her whole family to the Great War, she managed somehow to maintain a generous, hopeful heart.
“
Viens. Manger,
” she repeated when he reached her. The sun gleamed on her russet hair, the long part that hung out the back of her kerchief.
“
Parlesanglais, Véronique.
”
She gave him a mulish look. “
Non.
”
“
Oui, anglais.
”
With an exasperated sigh, she said, “Come to table.”
“Close enough.” He gave her a smile and a peck on the cheek. She smiled, too.
The single room that remained within the stone walls of the farmhouse was cramped but clean, and the roof didn’t leak. He hoped that when his strength improved, the two of them would be able to sort through the rubble of stones outside and rebuild a room or two. Though a relief group formed by the Society of Friends had offered to move them to a village with new housing, Véronique had refused to go. This land had been in the Raineau family for generations, she was the only surviving member of that family, and she was not about to leave it. She had, however, accepted basic furniture—a table and chairs, and a bed—vegetable seeds, and the gardening tools they’d provided. When a skinny milk cow wandered onto the property, now seeming as rare as a diamond, they’d captured it and let it graze on what weeds and other scrub it could forage. But if they couldn’t find a way to breed it again, the cow’s milk would dry up.
A small pot of rich potato-and-leek soup waited on the table, with a round of crusty bread and a bottle of wine. How she worked such magic at her stove with so little, he didn’t know. New shops in the nearby village carried staples, but money was still in short supply.
He pulled out a chair and sat down, his injured leg protruding stiffly. Véronique sat across from him, whispered a blessing in French, and crossed herself, the signal that they could begin eating.
The soup was warm and tasty, and his appreciative noises made her smile again. “The Red Cross was here today?” he asked in French. Christophe knew the term
Croix Rouge
. “I saw their car leave.”
She paused, her soup spoon on the edge of her plate. “While you were working?”
“Yes.”
“And they saw you?”
He shrugged. “I’m sure they did. We watched each other.”
“It was a man and a woman. Americans.”
“I hope they’ll bring help. We should need it.” He corrected his linguistic blunder. “We
need
it.” He knew that volunteers from the American Red Cross had come around before, checking on all those who had returned to the area after the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The organization had been part of a relief effort as well. “Did they mention the sheep from Algeria that have been promised?”
“No.”
“What did they want, then?”
Véronique was a forthright woman, direct and unsparing of her brandy-colored gazes. But now she glanced away. “They asked about you.”
He’d been pouring a glass of wine and stopped. “Me—what about me?”
“They know you are American, too. They are curious.”
Abruptly awash with a formless, uneasy dread, he put down the bottle.
“They wanted to talk to you, but I told them you were gone to the village. I was afraid they might upset you with their questions.”
He shook his head, puzzled. “I do not understand
‘détresse
.’”
She touched his arm to make him look at her, and put a hand to her forehead. “
Affliger.
”
Distress
. That he did understand. He felt safe here with Véronique.
“They asked where you are from, how you came to be here.”
He tore a piece of bread from the round loaf. “What did you tell them?”
“The truth. I pulled you from that wrecked ambulance beside the road. You were the only one still alive. The driver and the other man—” She shuddered. “The shell destroyed them.” She paused. “It has been almost two years. You still remember nothing?”
“No.”
“They asked if you had identification. But you did not, and I told them so. To me, you are Christophe. That is all I know.”