Love's First Bloom (23 page)

She cocked her brow. “Abigail?” she asked and assumed Abigail was the woman Mr. Flynn had referred to as “darlin’.”

“That’s his wife. She died a few years back, but when he’s consumed more spirits than he should, he sometimes gets confused, I suppose,” Mr. Burkalow explained, nodded to the other two men, and motioned for them to help get Mr. Flynn on his feet.

“He’ll be right upset when he wakes up and learns he attacked you,” Mr. Ayers said as he braced one side of the unconscious man with his shoulder.

Mr. Toby braced the other side. “I came runnin’ as soon as I heard a man hollerin’ and poundin’ on somebody’s door. Met up with these two fine gentlemen at the corner.”

“I wish we’d gotten here sooner,” Mr. Burkalow offered meekly, picking up the lantern. When he glanced at Mr. Flynn’s face, she thought she detected a bit of a smile, but dismissed it as nothing more than embarrassment. “Young Maxwell here can’t speak for himself right now, but I expect he wishes we got here a whole lot sooner, too. We’ll wait while you lock up again,” he suggested, “but since Elias is away, if anyone else comes knockin’ again, don’t open that door. Whatever it is you think they need from the apothecary isn’t somethin’ they can’t wait to get until morning.”

“Yes, thank you. Thank you all for helping me,” she said before slipping back inside. Once she had the door latched closed, the light from the lantern disappeared, and she heard the men dragging Mr. Flynn away.

Leaning back against the door, she hugged the broom to her chest and sighed. She did not relish the idea that Mr. Burkalow or the other two men thought she had been foolish to open the door this late at night when she was all alone. But she rather liked the glimpse of admiration in those men’s eyes that she had been able to defend herself. She was rather proud of herself, too, now that the whole sorry incident was over.

After she set the broom in the corner, she grabbed the railing and realized her arms were aching from her encounter with Maxwell Flynn. Then she looked down and realized she had just spent a good bit of time standing outside with three men in the middle of the night discussing why she had rendered a man unconscious, all while she was wearing nothing but a nightdress and robe.

She groaned and shook her head. The gossipmongers would find great entertainment at her expense. “But at least I don’t need to worry that some newspaper will have a sketch of me beating that man with a broom in their next edition. All I have to contend with are a few wagging tongues, and those I can ignore.”

She took four more stairs, misjudged the last one, and stubbed her toes. Tears sprang to her eyes as pain shot up her leg. She wriggled her toes to make certain she had not broken any of them before continuing, and realized for the first time how close she had come to being dreadfully hurt by Maxwell Flynn.

But with each step she climbed, she unleashed the deep resentments still churning beneath the faith she was trying so hard to rebuild. “I wouldn’t have even gone outside tonight if I hadn’t been worried that it was Farrell or some other newspaper reporter pounding at the door. I could have stayed inside where I would have been safe,” she snapped.

Two more steps and her resentment focused squarely on the person responsible for putting her in this situation in the first place. The only person she had loved all her life, the person she grieved for now because she would never see him again in this world, and the person whose name she would never carry again: her father.

“I wouldn’t be worried about reporters at all if you hadn’t dedicated every waking moment to minister to those … those women and forced me to come here. You knew how much I wanted to stay with you. You knew how hard it would be for me to learn how to take care of Lily, but Lily was more important to you than I was,” she whispered. “What about me? Why wasn’t I important to you, too?” She sat down on the top step.

Surrounded by darkness and weakened by her frightening encounter tonight, she wept for every heartbreak and disappointment that she had been too afraid to voice, as a child or as a young woman. The long, lonely hours she had spent growing up, waiting for her father to come home, only to have him leave again right after dinner and supper. The disappointment of having him forget her birthday, or be so late for an outing they had to cancel it. The series of housekeepers he had hired to care for her physical needs, though they had neither the time nor the inclination to see how very lonely she was.

She leaned against the frame of the open doorway and did not wipe away the tears that covered her cheeks. She was too drained physically to stand up. She was too drained emotionally to pray. But when she wondered why God had put her on a path that had held so much heartache in the past and offered nothing more in the days ahead, she felt His presence.

And for now, that was all she needed in order to face another day when she was strong enough to trust in Him again and truly follow His light.

Twenty-Four

“In all truth, I prefer Darlin’ Deputy. Which do you like best? Darlin’ Deputy, Night Witch, or Broom Lady?” Gertie Jones asked, ignoring her cousin who stood next to her at the apothecary counter. She looked at Ruth with a hopeful expression on her face.

Lorelei sniffed. “Broom Lady is the best of the lot, if you ask me.”

“I wasn’t asking you. I was asking Ruth. It’s her nickname, after all.”

“I hardly think Ruth is interested in a nickname when she has a perfectly lovely name already. But you stated your opinion, and now I’m stating mine: Darlin’ Deputy sounds a bit tawdry.”

“Broom Lady makes her sound standoffish—”

“Exactly my point. If any man, or woman, for that matter, thinks they can take advantage of her—”

“Broom Lady!” Ruth blurted, exasperated. Still, she managed to smile. “Is there something I can get for you this morning, ladies?” she prompted.

“Not today,” Gertie replied with a triumphant sparkle in her eyes.

“We just stopped by to reassure ourselves that you weren’t hurt by that awful man,” Lorelei offered. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned over the counter as far as she could and stared at Ruth from the top of her head to her slippers and back again. Gertie did the same.

Ruth froze in place. She knew her face did not have any marks or scratches, and she was relieved neither woman could see through the sleeves covering her arms. Otherwise they would have seen the angry bruises that skipped from elbow to shoulder on both of her arms, which ached every time she moved them. They could not see her stiff neck, either, but she could definitely feel it.

“You look fine,” they said in unison and dropped back to the soles of their feet.

Gertie put a small basket she had been carrying on top of the counter and grinned. “We brought you something, too.”

“I thought I smelled something good,” Ruth offered.

“That’s just the molasses cookies we put in there so people wouldn’t know what we really brought,” Lorelei replied. “Go ahead. Take a peek.”

Ruth lifted the checkered napkin covering the basket and looked inside. Sure enough, she saw half a dozen molasses cookies, but they were sitting next to something else. When she removed the cloth, she realized it was a pipe of some kind, only slightly longer than her hand.

Lorelei waved her hand anxiously. “No, don’t lift it out. Cover it up again. Somebody could walk in and see it.”

Ruth rewrapped the pipe, placing the napkin over the top of the basket again. “Is that a pipe?” she asked, although she was not entirely certain she wanted to hear the answer.

Gertie nodded. “We each have one under our pillow for protection, and we wanted you to have one, too.”

“It’s made of iron. That’s why it’s so heavy,” Lorelei said. “After the way you defended yourself last night, any man with a lick of sense will know not to bother the Broom Lady, but you never know what a man will do when he’s as addled as Maxwell Flynn must have been last night. Keep that piece of pipe handy, just in case you can’t get to your broom in time.”

“It might even fit in your reticule,” Gertie suggested.

“Thank you. I think it might,” Ruth replied with a small smile.

After she stored the basket behind the counter, she looked from one woman to the other and moistened her lips. As much as she hated gossip and tried to avoid it, even before her life had been turned upside down and inside out, she had to expect customers would invariably bring it into the apothecary, especially today. Curious to learn how Mr. Flynn was faring, she asked the two cousins about him.

Gertie chuckled. “From what we heard, once Dr. Woodward patched him up and he sobered up, Mr. Flynn stopped at the general store and then the bank on his way out of town.”

“He frightened poor Spinster Wyndam before he left, too. Told me so herself,” Lorelei added.

“I expect she’ll be by shortly. She told us she had a few errands to finish first,” Gertie said and nudged her cousin with her elbow. “Come along. We have just enough time before we have dinner to stop and thank Mr. Ayers and Mr. Burkalow for helping our dear Broom Lady,” she announced, and the two cousins took their leave without saying another word.

While Ruth was happy to see them go, she was concerned about her plans to have supper at Spinster Wyndam’s home tonight. At Phanaby’s insistence, she had reluctantly accepted the woman’s invitation at the church picnic, but at the time she had not known that Elias and Phanaby would be away and returning later today. Since they had taken care of Lily for the past two days, she did not want to impose by asking them to watch Lily while she went out for supper. Besides, she was growing more and more anxious for them to return, if only to find out if traveling with Robert Farrell had posed any problems and raised any concerns that might affect her remaining here with them.

Until she reminded herself of her promise to remain always in His light.

She could not decide if the fact that Jake Spencer would probably not be there, with his back bothering him again, made the invitation more or less appealing. She felt bad that Elias had not left any remedy she could take to the cabin for him and wondered if she should get word to Spinster Wyndam, suggesting she postpone their plans since it would be pointless to have a matchmaking supper for Ruth alone.

Not that she was interested in matchmaking at all. After the way she behaved at the cabin yesterday, she would not be surprised if Jake did not want anything to do with her. Even if he did, she was in no position to marry any man. Not now with a child and a tenuous future. Perhaps not ever, unless the press ended the public’s fascination with her whereabouts once and for all.

She was, however, quite certain she would much prefer having a quiet supper at home with the Garners. In addition to hearing about their trip, she also wanted to explain her misadventure last night before they heard any of the rumors circulating around the village. But mostly, she wanted to have time with Lily.

“I miss that little one,” she murmured. She was surprised by how empty she felt after not being with Lily for an entire day and night since she had been feeling so burdened lately by all the care a child her age required.

Yet for the next four hours she had little time to think of anyone or anything else other than the virtual parade of women who marched in and out of the apothecary bearing more gifts for her. Some of the women she knew from the congregation; others she had seen in the village at one time or another, but now she had names to put to their faces.

By the time she was ready to close the apothecary for the day, she had a shelf behind the counter that was filled with quite an assortment of “weapons” to keep at hand to defend herself just in case she could not get to her broom, along with well-meaning advice not to answer the door so late at night.

She went into the storeroom to get a basket to store her gifts, looked around, and sighed. One of the rickety shelves Mr. Garner was going to have Jake Spencer replace was lying on the floor, along with everything that had been stored there, leaving the room once again in disarray.

She picked up her gifts and set them into the basket she found. In addition to the piece of iron pipe from the Jones cousins, she had a hatpin from Mrs. Sloan at the general store that was similar to the one the woman claimed she kept behind the counter, and a horseshoe only large enough to fit a pony, which Mrs. Avery had gotten from the livery when her husband was not looking. She also had a corkscrew from Mrs. Burkalow, who had borrowed it from her husband’s tavern, a wooden spoon with the handle sharpened to a point from Mrs. Toby, and a host of other implements.

She snatched one of the molasses cookies from the other basket and ate it slowly, wondering why Spinster Wyndam had not stopped by the apothecary since both Gertie and Lorelei had said she would. After she finished the cookie, she set the basket of gifts on the floor and walked around the counter. She was halfway to the front door to latch it closed for the day when she saw Spinster Wyndam through the display window. She was holding a rather large box. When their gazes met, the woman waved to Ruth with her cane to indicate she wanted Ruth to come outside.