Lisa Plumley (18 page)

Violet squirmed, remembering that incident from last year. Papa had thought she wouldn’t be safe at the jailhouse. She’d insisted on doing her charitable work there anyway, arguing that no one needed aid more than those people who’d been forsaken and separated from the people who knew them and cared for them.

She guessed she still maintained that philosophy—after a fashion—with Tobe and Cade. Her feelings for them had grown far beyond the compassion she’d felt toward the inmates, though.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to defy you,” Violet said in her own defense. “I had to do what I thought was right.”

“I understand that,” her father told her. “I realized then that that’s the sort of person you are—the sort of person you’ve always been. You’re helpful and kind and determined, and I rightly cherish those qualities in you. I’m proud of you.”

For a moment, confusingly, all her father did was smile at her. Violet began to nurture a burgeoning hope that her father would neither disown her nor begin praying for her redemption—nor decide to march her and Cade down the aisle by force. Not that that last consequence would have been entirely unwelcome....

Unfortunately, her father dashed her newfound optimism by frowning at her in a troubling fashion. He inhaled deeply.

“But that incident taught me one important fact—you
do
have a contrary streak, my dear. That streak, coupled with the fact that you’re about as wily and cynical as a newborn puppy—”

“Papa!” Violet exclaimed, thoroughly taken aback.

“—meant I could hardly ignore what was going on when you became enamored of a hard-bitten, hard-drinking, dangerous-looking professional gambler who was willing to slip me an ‘improving card’...and was able to discern that I would use it.” Somewhat sheepishly, her father glanced at Cade. “But I could hardly just rush ahead willy-nilly, either,” he told Violet. “Approving your friendship would have sent the wrong message. Yet if I forbade you outright from seeing Mr. Foster, you might have rebelled and begun a relationship purely
because
I’d prohibited it. I’m sure you appreciate the fix I was in.”

Violet did not. She felt much too baffled for that.

“I didn’t want to increase Mr. Foster’s rascally allure by putting him off-limits—” astonishingly, here her father
winked
at Cade “—but I felt duty-bound to step in and protect you if I could. Because the truth is, Violet, you’ve given too many foolish men far too many opportunities to hurt your feelings—and all because you insist on seeing the best in people.”

He meant the times, Violet knew, when she’d given someone a chance to become close to her, only to learn that he was solely interested in her as Adeline Wilson’s best friend—as someone who could offer an introduction to the most beautiful woman in town.

“Seeing the best in people is what you taught me to do,” she said in her own defense. “It’s the Christian thing to do.”

“It is,” her father agreed. “But it can be dangerous, too. Seeing good where there’s also plenty of bad can be misleading. People are a fickle mix of both.” He slanted a perceptive glance at Cade. “So when you told me about your Mr. Foster and I saw that telltale sparkle in your eyes, I knew I had to...intervene.”

“You mean you had to separate us,” Cade guessed in a knowing tone, “before we became too involved in one another.”

Astonishingly, her father nodded. “Yes. As a result of my wager with you, Foster, I reasoned that either you would realize my gullible daughter was
not
easy pickings for a scoundrel—”

Violet frowned, unhappy to hear herself and Cade described that way. “I’m not gullible, Papa! And Cade is no scoundrel.”

“—or you would rise to the occasion and prove yourself. Either way, I reckoned things would work out in the end—
without
my inciting Violet’s more defiant instincts. Judging by the way you two have been mooning over one another since I’ve been here, I’m guessing everything is coming along just fine.”

“I wish you’d trusted me, Papa,” Violet protested. “I wish you’d let me make my own decisions about this.”

“But I did!” Her father blinked. “You didn’t have to know what I’d done to acquit yourself splendidly—from arranging these apprenticeships for Mr. Foster to helping him quit gambling and drinking. You did all that on your own.” At Violet’s look of bewilderment, her father explained, “The desk clerk at the Lorndorff told me you’d been visiting Mr. Foster to help reform him of his debauched habits. That’s admirable work, my dear.”

Violet and Cade exchanged a guarded glance. Violet bit the inside of her cheek, suppressing an urge to confess everything. Too late, she recalled that her father knew just as many—if not many
more
—residents of Morrow Creek as she did. It made sense that he would learn of her comings and goings without much effort. How could she have been so blind? So blithe? So foolish?

At least her father apparently thought that
all
she’d done was legitimately reform Cade by helping him quit drinking and gambling and carousing, though. There was a blessing in that.

“But all that generous charitable work would mean nothing,” her father continued in a more fired-up tone, warming to his usual oratory vigor now, “if your Mr. Foster hadn’t done his share. I put as many obstacles in your path as I could, sir, but you hurdled them all.” Briskly, he saluted Cade. “Well done. I approve of you,
and
I approve of your courting my daughter. The two of you officially have my blessing and my well wishes.”

Violet felt delighted. Cade appeared gobsmacked.

“You were
testing
me?” he asked, skipping over her father’s hard-earned approbation for the moment. “You weren’t trying to get rid of me? You were testing me?”

“I had to.” Reverend Benson’s tone sounded matter-of-fact. “I had to know if you truly cared for Violet or if you were simply using her for your own nefarious and immoral purposes.”

Cade scowled. “I would never abuse Violet that way.”

“Well.” Her father chuckled. “Of course, I know that
now
. But I also had to know if you were worthy of my daughter, too.”

I could be moved to approve of the right man,
Violet recalled her father saying earlier.
The man who could make you as happy as you deserve to be.

Cade
had
been that man, just as she’d hoped.

“You
liked
Cade,” Violet accused her father. “You liked him!” She shook her head in astonishment. “Why didn’t you just tell me so? We could have avoided all this subterfuge.”

Her father gave her an unreadable—but quite possibly playful—look. “Where would have been the fun in that?”

“Fun? Papa!” Exasperated, Violet waved her arms. “What is
fun
about sneaking around, meeting in smithies and stables—”

“You
will
have to quit smooching in public,” her father cautioned her. “I can’t condone that. I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“—and not knowing if your love is doomed?” Growing suddenly overwhelmed, Violet inhaled. Beside her, Cade squeezed her hand. “Don’t you know? I worried every day that I would have to choose between you and Cade, Papa. That I would want to be with him and you would say no. That a decision would be forced on me that I was in no way prepared to make. It was crushing me!”

Her father sobered. “I finally guessed as much.” He touched her shoulder, then gazed into her eyes, his full white whiskers and earnest expression ever comforting. “I had a feeling there was something you weren’t telling me. Just this morning, when we were talking about that stranger in church, I knew it. I knew you were keeping something from me. I knew it was bothering you to do so. That’s why I followed you here, so we could talk about it. You, my girl, are not someone who keeps secrets easily.”

“That’s for certain!” Violet laughed, even as grateful tears sprang to her eyes. She felt
so
relieved to finally have things out in the open. “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to tell you about something wonderful Cade had done—”

At her side, Cade grew suddenly alert. She hoped he didn’t think she wanted to confide anything
intimate
. Silly man. She might be a freethinking woman, but she wasn’t entirely daffy.

“—and had to rein in my thoughts for fear you wouldn’t approve. I meant to tell you everything, Papa,” Violet assured him, “once Cade had finished his apprenticeships. I thought I could present the whole thing as another of my charitable accomplishments!” Giddy with relief, she waved her arms and enthused, “You know, just another lonesome soul, brought from darkness into light, saved from demon drink and the perils of gambling...” She paused, grinning. “Something like that.”

On the heels of her own dramatic oratorical triumph, Violet became aware that Cade had grown quite still beside her. He’d turned verifiably wary when she’d begun discussing his overall wonderfulness and her wish to describe that wonderfulness to her father. But that previous guardedness was nothing compared with the way Cade seemed now. His face looked stony, his eyes impassive, his muscles rigid with what appeared to be...anger?

“I’m not anyone’s charity case.” With his jaw tight, Cade clenched his fists. “Especially not yours, Miss Benson.”

His gaze swerved to Violet’s. In his eyes, she glimpsed deep hurt, abundant confusion...and no small measure of defiance.

“I don’t need some self-proclaimed do-gooder looking out for me. I had all the ‘charity’ I’ll ever need when I was just a boy.” Cade swept Violet and her father with a damning look. “As a grown man, I sure as hell don’t need the blessing of a tippling, wagering, deceitful ‘man of God’ like yourself,
Reverend
. I can get along just fine without either of you.”

Motionless with shock, Violet stared at Cade. Didn’t he know she’d only been chattering on, only half thinking? She hadn’t meant to conjure up painful memories of foundling homes and abandonment. But that seemed to be exactly what she’d done.

“Cade, no!” Violet cried. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t think of you as a charity case. I don’t! I couldn’t—”

Determinedly not listening, utterly closed off to her, Cade grabbed his pitchfork. He stabbed it into a nearby pile of hay, his face as emotionless and fearsome as she’d ever seen it.

From nowhere, Violet recalled Tobe’s childish assertion.

I like bein’ dirty sometimes. It makes me look fierce!

But likening Cade to Tobe made no sense. Not in this context. Cade was no child. And he legitimately
was
fierce, now more than ever. He was streetwise and aggressive, too. If the hay he was pitchforking didn’t burst into flames beneath his gaze, Violet thought in a dither, it would be a miracle.

Which only served to remind her, in a scrambled and nonsensical fashion, of the stranger in church today. In a flash, his words came rushing back to her.
The moment I stepped inside, I half expected the whole caboodle to go up in flames.

If that man really was Whittier...

“I think you both should leave,” Cade said roughly.

“But I was only joking!” Violet grabbed Cade’s arm. He shook off her grasp, then went on working. “Cade, you must know I don’t think of you that way—as one of my charity projects. I—”

Love you,
she wanted to say. But his condemning expression and frighteningly lethal gaze left the words stuck in her throat.

Indomitably, Violet tried again. “I was only relieved! I was happy to have our courtship out in the open, that’s all. I spoke out of turn, without thinking clearly. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want your apologies.”

“But I
am
sorry! Please listen to me.”

Cade refused. Obdurately, he shook his head. Again, Violet was reminded of the stranger in church—of his grim expression, his tellingly dexterous hands, his unshakable belief that it was too late for him to apologize for the bad things he’d done.

It’s too late for that. Fifteen years too late.

All at once, Violet had an inkling of what the stranger had meant—and she didn’t like it. If this misunderstanding hardened between her and Cade, she didn’t know how she would cope.

“This is silly,” she insisted. “You can’t really believe—”

“Just go.” Cade turned his back to her. He forked up more hay, then tossed it into the nearest stall. “Leave. Now.”

“I won’t leave!” Violet planted her feet. “I said I won’t give up on you, Cade, and I won’t. Not now and not ever.”

Cade gave her a bleak look. “Spoken like a true do-gooder. Don’t you see? I’m a lost cause—a hopeless case. Just get out.”

No one has ever loved me
, she recalled him saying.
There’s no reason you should be different
.

Well, she
was
different. Determinedly, Violet rallied.

If she couldn’t reach Cade with caring or mulishness, then perhaps she could influence him with the pull of something she knew he wanted. “I saw Percy Whittier today. I met him. I talked to him.”

Cade gripped his pitchfork. Although his back was turned to her, she thought she glimpsed new tension in his shoulders. Before she could be sure, though, her father touched her elbow.

“Come along, Violet. What’s done is done. You can’t mend a sock that’s still coming unraveled, no matter how fast you darn it.”

Totally confounded, Violet shot her father a confused look. Her father knew nothing about mending. What was he saying?

“The reverend’s right,” Cade said roughly. “You don’t want to be here when I come undone.” He stabbed his pitchfork again. “A soft, sweet,
kind
person like you could get hurt.”

Violet couldn’t miss his embittered tone. Cade didn’t think she was kind. Not now. Not at all. Maybe not ever. Because just then, everything they’d ever shared felt as insubstantial and unreal as this conversation did.

“It’s too late,” she said. “I already am hurt.”

Then Violet picked up her skirts, nodded to her father and hurried away from the stable just as quickly as she could.