Lisa Plumley (6 page)

He should have known, by now, to steer clear of a reformer.

“Apple pandowdy is not the loveliest of desserts, I’ll grant you that,” Violet said, “but it’s quick and delicious.”

Tobe grunted his assent, still eagerly fisting his spoon.

“It’s
beyond
delicious,” Cade assured her. His own flatware clinked into his serving dish as he set it aside. “And there are many things more valuable than merely being lovely.”

“Like...being lucky?” Her smile looked mischievous.

“And being here, right now, to enjoy all this.”

“Ah. I see.” Violet’s eyes sparkled at him. She set aside her own plate. “You’re a man who lives for the moment, then.”

“I’m a man who lives for enjoyment. I just said so.”

“But what about planning for tomorrow?”

Cade glanced at Tobe. “Plans go awry. Only a fool counts on tomorrow. All you really have is the hand you’re dealt today.”

“Or the dice,” Tobe put in matter-of-factly. “You might have dice to use.” He finally set aside his spoon, then gave an exaggerated groan of contentment. “Thanks for them new cheaters, by the way,” he told Cade. “I seen right away that you swapped ’em out for my old rough pair the other night. Soon’s I’ve practiced enough, I oughtta clean up plenty.”

“I’ll give you a few tips after dinner,” Cade volunteered.

Openmouthed, Violet stared at them both. “Are you offering to help Tobe learn to
cheat
more effectively?”

The boy nodded guilelessly. Cade did, too, unable to see what the problem was. “It will keep him safer in the long run.”

“What would keep him safer is a secure home to live in,” Violet disagreed, rallying handily. “And his mother to care for him!” Concerned, she turned to Tobe. “Where’s your father?”

The child shrugged. “Dunno. He run off a while back.”

“Before you got on the train to come here?” Violet pressed. “Or after you and your mother arrived in Morrow Creek?”

Tobe squirmed, plainly uncomfortable at being questioned.

“You can tell me, Tobe,” Violet urged. “It’s important that you do, so I know how best to help you. Unless I know where your mother and father are, I won’t know how to proceed. Please, isn’t there anything you can tell me about their whereabouts?”

With panicky eyes and a quarrelsome expression, the boy glanced at Cade. His whole demeanor seemed a plea for help—a plea for rescue from Violet’s questioning. Tobe seemed either unwilling or unable to answer her...at least right now.

“Can’t we leave now? I done ate everythin’ I got given.”

“And then some.” Mustering a courteous smile, Cade pushed back his chair. It was just as well Tobe had spoken up. Cade suddenly felt less than cozy here himself...especially with Tobe’s entreating gaze—so much like Judah’s—fastened on him that way.

His brother wasn’t as tough as Cade was. He never had been. Their orphan life had been harder for Judah than it had been for Cade. That’s why Cade, as the eldest brother, had taken it upon himself to settle the discontent he knew Judah must feel.

He’d taken it upon himself to help Judah feel
whole
again.

For himself, Cade figured, it was already too late.

“I guess we’d better get going.” Signaling as much, Cade rose. “Thank you for dinner, Violet. Everything was delicious.”

“You’re welcome.” Violet gawked at him, seeming entirely taken aback. “But you’re not really
leaving
already, are you?”

“It’s time.” Cade summoned Tobe with a nod, rescuing them both from further questions. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to see Reverend Benson again. I would have liked to say hello—and to get this deal squared between us, of course.”

“‘Again’?” Violet repeated, seeming stuck on the word. “But when did you and my father ever—” She broke off, her gaze sharpening. “Did you help Papa cheat, too, like you did Tobe? Is that how you knew Papa won at cards the other night?”

Beside her, Tobe rose from his seat. Taking advantage of Violet’s distractedness, he swiped a butter knife. He slid the utensil’s long silver handle up his shirtsleeve for safekeeping.

Cade raised an eyebrow. The little troublemaker was on his way to becoming a full-bore criminal, the way he was behaving.

“I may have slipped your father an improving card or two,” Cade acknowledged. Reverend Benson had been on the verge of losing his clerical collar
and
his shirt in the game they’d played together. “But whether he used it or not, I can’t say.”

“Oh,
I
can say.” Violet folded her arms. “You’ll be happy to know that those winnings of his went to the church collection basket, though. My father is completely incorruptible.”

Cade frowned. “I’m not trying to corrupt anyone.”

Her raised eyebrows suggested otherwise. “Even me?”

That was easy. “
Especially
you.”

“Oh.” Paradoxically, she seemed almost disappointed.

That made no sense. At a loss to understand her—and wondering why he wanted to—Cade deepened his frown. Who cared what pious Violet Benson thought or felt? By the time the first snowfall blanketed Morrow Creek, he would be gone from here.

He would be gone from her life, likely for the better.

Tobe wriggled impatiently. “Are we pullin’ foot or not?”

“Yes.” Cade headed for the entryway. “It’s time to go.”

Tobe and Violet trailed after him. So did an odd sense of disappointment. He’d been having a nice time...until Violet had kicked off her damn reformer routine and ruined everything.

He should have known that taking up with a do-gooder was an endeavor doomed to failure. The two of them were like oil and water. Trying to put them together was like trying to glue down dice and expecting them to still produce a win. It didn’t work.

“You can’t leave yet,” Violet protested. “What about our...” She cast an aggrieved glance at Tobe, plainly hesitant to speak openly in front of him, then finished, “agreement?”

She meant his reckless offer that she behave as his lucky charm, Cade knew, in exchange for his pretense of a courtship.

“I reckon that’s worked about as much as it’s likely to.”

“For today, you mean?” Violet specified, hurrying in Cade’s wake to the front entryway. She handed him his hat along with a perplexed, entirely too-wounded look. “But tomorrow—”

“I don’t plan on tomorrow.” Cade reminded her. “Besides, your father hasn’t given his blessing yet. He might never.”

“But you can’t just leave!” Violet insisted. Her expression turned insightful. “If you’re merely being protective of Tobe—”

Cade scoffed, irked that she’d read his intentions so effortlessly. “Why would I be? I barely know the boy.”

“There’s no need for that,” Violet hastened on. “In fact, I was thinking—Papa and I have plenty of room. Tobe could stay here with us if he wants to. Just until he finds his family.”

Now it was Tobe’s turn to scoff. “I ain’t no charity case.”

Reminded of something similar that he’d told Violet himself just yesterday, Cade shifted uneasily. Like Tobe, he didn’t want charity from Violet. He wanted...nothing at all.

Except maybe a pinch of good fortune. And another smile.

Hellfire! What was wrong with him? He was behaving like a besotted fool—and all over a woman whose feminine curves scarcely showed beneath her prim, starched-and-pressed gown.

“I have no claim on the boy. He can do what he likes.”

As though freed—unreasoningly—by his statement, Violet crouched in front of little Tobe. Gently, she smiled at him.

“I’d be very pleased if you’d agree to stay here awhile, Tobe. You can have plenty of food and a nice soft bed, and I think we even have some spare clothes in the church’s donation box to lend you. You can wear them while I mend yours for you.”

“Not my overcoat!” The boy hugged it. “It’s new!”

Giving Cade’s former outerwear an overly observant glance, Violet agreed. “That’s fine. Of course, you’ll want a bath—”

Now Tobe looked petrified. “A bath?”

“Careful there,” Cade warned, unable to hold back a grin. “If you scrub off the grime, there’ll be nothing left of him.”

Violet tossed him an amused glance. Unreasonably, Cade felt blessed by her approval...and warmed clean through. too. He
liked
being included in their comfy, bantering conversation this way. It felt curiously as though the three of them were...a family.

That thought hardened Cade’s resolve instantly. He had all the family he needed in Judah. Everyone else could go hang. Including spinsterish Violet Benson and her interfering ways.

“Pish posh. There’ll be plenty of him left over!” Oblivious to Cade’s glowering look, Violet gave Tobe’s gaunt shoulders a heartfelt squeeze. She addressed the boy directly next. “I, for one, can’t wait to see what color your hair is!”

“It’s blond!” Tobe blurted. “Blond like my mama’s.”

“Truly?” Violet pretended to be flabbergasted. “Blond?”

At that, the boy actually
giggled
. “Yep! You’ll see!”

Cade couldn’t help staring. He went right on staring as Violet, with no evident persuasion at all, convinced Tobe to stay.

Disbelievingly, Cade stood by as Violet divested Tobe of his overcoat, his various pilfered household goods and even his hoarded-for-later foodstuffs. The latter she wrapped securely in a big plaid napkin and set on top of a cupboard in the kitchen.

“I’ll leave this right here for you, in case you get hungry later tonight,” she assured the boy. “No one will touch it.”

Cade shook his head. “When your father comes home—” Reverend Benson had not yet returned from his counseling mission “—he might mistake that food for his. He might take it himself.”

At his blunt statement, Violet blinked. She appeared surprised to find Cade still there. He’d followed her and Tobe into the kitchen from the entryway...just to watch over the boy.

“No one will take it. I wouldn’t promise otherwise.”

“Tobe, you should put that food with your things,” Cade advised gruffly. “Keep it close to you. You might need it later.”

Plainly perplexed, Violet turned to Cade. “He’ll have it later,” she insisted. “It’s right there. He doesn’t need to hide it.” She touched Cade’s arm. “Why would you say such a thing?”

Hard-won experience
, Cade knew. A long time ago, he’d learned to keep the necessities close and to trust no one.

But he refused to say so. He didn’t want to engender any more reformer’s pity from Violet...or to reveal any more of his own vulnerabilities. He’d thought he’d erased those long ago.

He had. Damnation,
he had
. But Violet didn’t seem to think so. She gazed thoughtfully at him, seeming on the verge of offering Cade a consoling emergency food packet of his own.

He, foolishly, almost longed for a chance to take it, if only it would please her. Hell. Would his gullibility to her never find an end? Cade had never experienced its like.

Fortunately, Tobe broke the silence between them.

“All right. That’s good enough for me, I reckon.” Happily, the boy took off his hat. He set to work on his shoes. “Where’s that bath? ’Cause I been itchin’ somethin’ fierce lately.”

To her credit, Violet didn’t even recoil. “I’ll get it.”

Still feeling baffled and discomfited in ways he didn’t understand, Cade stepped into her path. Determinedly, he took hold of Violet’s arm. He pulled her into an alcove where they could speak privately, then lowered his head. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” In the midst of capably rolling up her sleeves, Violet paused, plainly baffled. “Haul some bathwater? Heat it? I assure you, Cade, that I’m more than up to the challenge.”

Her cheerful smile touched him again. Cade resisted it. Frustrated by his inability to make her see the damage she might do to Tobe, he raked his hand through his hair. He fixed her with a warning look, determined nonetheless to have his say.

“Don’t give that boy too much hope. It’s not fair.”

“Oh.” In a heartbeat, her face softened. “I see.”

He wasn’t sure she did. “You don’t know what you’re doing. If you get Tobe used to a soft bed and regular meals and—”
warm hugs
, he’d been about to say, but he stopped himself just in time “—plenty of silver spoons to line his delinquent pockets with, it will be doubly hard for him when he has to leave.”

Violet appeared to consider that. In the hallway they’d found themselves in—lantern-lit, safe and intractably homey—she edged nearer to him. Confidently and somehow sadly, she gave him a long look. “You know, a wise man once told me that the problem isn’t giving up on hope. It’s convincing yourself you don’t want any hope, even when it’s standing right in front of you.”

Recognizing his own foolhardy words, Cade looked away.

He hoped she didn’t mean him.
He
truly
didn’t
need hope.

“I agree,” Violet continued staunchly. “So I can’t see anything wrong with trying to make sure Tobe never gives up on himself. I
can
help him find his parents, Cade. I can! I know almost everyone in town. I volunteer everywhere. I have access to records most people don’t. Everyone from Sheriff Caffey to the folks down at the train depot will help me get information. I’m dogged, too. I promise you, I can help Tobe. And I will.”

“You shouldn’t.” Hoping to make exactly that point, however he could, Cade backed them up to the hallway wall. He caged in Violet with his arms, then ladled as much seriousness into his voice as he could. “You heard Tobe before. He doesn’t want to talk about his parents, or where they went, or why he’s alone.”

“He’s only just met me,” Violet insisted, not daunted in the least by Cade’s intimidating posture. “He’ll talk later.”

Cade couldn’t help admiring her spunk. “Now who’s the miracle worker?” he asked. With an amused sound, Cade slipped on his hat. He touched Violet’s chin, then smiled. “All right, then. Have it your way.” He shook his head, knowing she was much too confident about her plans to find Tobe’s parents. “I’d wish you good luck, but I don’t seem to have any to spare right now.”

She grinned. “Does that mean I’ll see you again tomorrow?”