Ripples Along the Shore (2 page)

Cora latched on to Caroline’s leg. “I thought you weren’t coming home.”

Jewell sighed, fluttering the wisps of hair on her forehead. “I said it time and again—your aunt Caroline was needed in Memphis to care for Aunt Inez.” Her voice quivered. “Of course she came back.”

“She has nowhere else to go.” There, she’d finished Jewell’s statement for her.

Jewell’s eyes widened. “Saint Charles is your home. You needn’t go anywhere else. This is where you belong.”

Where she belonged
. Another topic to add to the list of things she and Jewell needed to discuss. Later. Alone.

Eight-year-old Gilbert slid her valise off the trunk. “Aunt Caroline, lots of folks are forming a wagon train come spring. You could take a wagon west.”

While her nephew’s matter-of-fact suggestion made Caroline smile, a frown creased her sister’s brow.

Jewell pressed her shawl to her middle. “Of all the outlandish things to say! Treks across the wilderness are for men with strong constitutions.”

Not for widows, who apparently lack the disposition.

Before Caroline or her nephew could respond, Emilie cleared her throat. “I was on my way to the Queensware Emporium when I happened upon Jewell and the children.”

Caroline smiled. “Looking for a wedding dress, are you?”

Blushing, Emilie clasped her hands at her chin. “The wedding is next month.”

“I’m glad to hear you and Quaid are still getting along.”

Emilie nodded, rubbing her gloved hands together.

“Quaid is actually the real reason Emilie came with us.” Jewell cocked her head toward a cluster of freight wagons.

Caroline raised an eyebrow. “A-a-a-h.”

“He’s working in the woodshop today, not driving the wagon.” Emilie stepped forward and enveloped Caroline in a warm embrace. “I really did come to see you. I was sorry to hear about your aunt’s passing.”

“Thank you. But with me living in Philadelphia, Jewell had spent much more time with her.” Caroline reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand.

Jewell glanced at the trunk, then at the riverbank toward her house. “I should’ve brought the wagon.”

“I returned with a few of Aunt Inez’s memorables.”

Jewell nodded. “You managed to sell the rest of her belongings?”

“I did. And her house.” Which meant she and Jewell would both have a bit of money … until Jack learned of his wife’s modest inheritance.

“I wouldn’t have known where to start.” Jewell’s eyes moistened. “The children and I will go to the livery and fetch the horse and wagon.”

“We could be home and seated at the dinner table with the time that would take.” Caroline grasped the leather strap on one end of her trunk. “It’d be easier and faster to carry it ourselves.”

“I can make myself useful.” Emilie lifted the other end and peered up at her.

Caroline smiled. She’d only been gone from Saint Charles six weeks, but she’d missed her friends from the quilting circle. For more reasons than their physical strength. Mrs. Brantenberg and the others had given her a shoulder to cry on and bolstered her faith when it had dwindled.

With Jewell and the children in tow, Caroline and Emilie stepped into the slushy ruts leading up the bank. They hadn’t made it twenty feet when Caroline began to huff and puff. When her shoulder began to cramp, she stopped.

Emilie was accustomed to physical labor, working as she did in her father’s dry goods store and grocery, and didn’t seem burdened by the load in the least.

Gilbert stepped forward. “I can do it, Aunt Caroline.” He wrapped his small hand around the leather strap and heaved. His end of the trunk hopped off the ground, then quickly went back down. “That’s heavy!”

Caroline looked at her sister. “I brought the two brass elephant bookends you liked as a girl.”

A smile bunched Jewell’s cheeks. “I still do.”

“Good, because getting them home isn’t going to be easy.”

“If Quaid’s brother is here, he’ll be happy to deliver the trunk to the house.” Emilie glanced upriver. “Why, there’s Mr. Cowlishaw.”

Caroline’s stomach knotted at the memory of their last encounter in Mrs. Brantenberg’s kitchen. She followed Emilie’s gaze to the brawny man seated atop a buckwagon.

Emilie waved at him like a woman without any sense, then looked back at her. “His timing is nothing short of perfect, wouldn’t you say?”

If that was a romantic notion dancing in Emilie’s brown eyes, Caroline would have no part in it. She’d be better off to walk away from her family, step back onto the
New Era
, and take her chances with Mr. Lewis G. Whibley.

Garrett had been too distracted to notice the gathering of women and children—until Quaid McFarland’s intended waved at him. That’s when he’d seen Mrs. Milburn standing beside a trunk with a gloved hand perched on her waist. He returned Miss Heinrich’s wave as he prodded the horses in that direction. Garrett stopped the wagon beside the shopkeeper’s daughter and the young widow and her family. “Good day, ladies. Children.”

“Good day.” Miss Heinrich and Mrs. Rafferty were the first to return his greeting. The children followed. Mrs. Milburn seemed reluctant to speak, but when he looked directly at her, she finally did.

“Good day, Mr. Cowlishaw. I’m surprised to see you down at the river, with all the westward planning.”

“That’s precisely what brought me here today.”

“Oh?”

He glanced back at Captain Pete’s freighter grounded at the shoreline. “Can’t go west without a proper wagon and supplies.”

She studied the empty wagon bed.

“Neither were on the boat today. Delayed.” Garrett set the brake and climbed down from the wagon.

“You’re the man who fixed our wheel.” The older of the two young Rafferty girls had the same wide-set eyes as Mrs. Milburn. She shifted her attention to her aunt. “Do you like Mr. Cowlishaw now?”

Heat seared Garrett’s cheeks, despite the snowy blanket on the ground around him. The impetuous child’s statement may have colored Mrs. Milburn’s face too, but she’d turned away from him before he could see for himself.

“Cora, dear.” The young widow tempered her voice. “It’s not a matter of whether or not I like Mr. Cowlishaw. We are scarcely acquainted.”

“We know him, Auntie. He’s Mr. Rutherford’s friend. He lives at Mrs. Brantenberg’s farm.”

The boy, Gilbert, shifted the valise to his other arm. “It’s possible to like someone you just met, if they’re likable.”

The children clearly liked him. Problem was, in Mrs. Milburn’s eyes he was entirely unlikable, and understandably so. He’d fought for the South, then delivered the news of her husband’s death. He couldn’t expect her to like him.

Her lips pressed together, Mrs. Milburn brushed a red curl the color of sunrise from her face. “You helped us with the wagon wheel last autumn, and it seems we are once again in need of your assistance.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“I’ve been to Memphis to care for my aunt and returned with a heavy load.”

He looked at the worn trunk by her side.

“Might you be willing to haul the trunk to my sister’s house? It’s up the bank a bit.” Mrs. Milburn looked up the slope toward a row of small houses in the shadows of the main buildings downtown.

“Consider it done.” Had her eyes always been that green? Like sycamore leaves in spring. “I hope she’s faring well. Your aunt.”

“She passed on.”

He removed his slouch hat. “My sympathies. I’m sure you did your best.”

“Will it ever be enough?”

A question he knew all too well. “Our best is all we have to offer, ma’am.” That’s what he’d told himself time and again.

She nodded, her lip quivering, and he had to look away. He darted past her and had the trunk and valise loaded onto the tailgate in no time. This more vulnerable side of the widow tangled his insides.

Caroline Milburn was easier to be around when she had her guard up.

Two

T
he limp Caroline had detected in her first encounter with Mr. Cowlishaw didn’t seem to bother him in the least. Within mere minutes of her request for assistance, the man had the trunk and her valise strapped into the wagon, and the children seated in the back beside them. Caroline and Jewell shared the driver’s seat with Mr. Cowlishaw, while Emilie chose to walk the short distance to her father’s dry goods store. Since it would be improper for a married woman to sit beside a man other than her husband, and Caroline was no longer married, she sat in the middle. She would’ve walked, but whether she liked the man or not, she didn’t wish to appear rude. Or ungrateful.

Her niece’s and nephew’s forthright comments came to mind. She may have been amused by their candor had she not been so uncomfortable considering the question.

Do you like Mr. Cowlishaw now?

She didn’t want to like Garrett Cowlishaw. She shouldn’t. He may not have killed Phillip, but a man wearing a uniform similar to his
had
ended her husband’s life. Caroline straightened her spine against a shiver having nothing to do with the chill in the air.

Mr. Cowlishaw flicked the reins, and the horses lunged forward. Even with layers of trouser, petticoat, and skirt between them, there was nothing proper about their thighs touching. Phillip would be mortified.

If he were alive to care.

Caroline drew in a deep breath, hoping the exercise created more space between them.

“Mrs. Milburn.”

The way he kept coming to their rescue, she should invite him to use her given name, but no amount of his chivalry could make that feel right. She angled her head to look at him. “Yes, Mr. Cowlishaw?”

“Ma’am, I neglected to welcome you back to Saint Charles.”

He was nothing if not a polite Southerner. Swallowing another dose of regret, she met his gaze.

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you.” She hadn’t noticed the dimple in his chin. “I hear you have a lot of folks interested in joining your caravan.” Simple conversation seemed the least she should do.

“Yes ma’am. A handful of families are already making plans. Others are still thinking on it.”

She nodded, then held her breath while the wagon rocked and clunked up the bank. According to her nephew, she should be among those thinking on going west. The silly notion of an eight-year-old child, certainly not the consideration of a rational woman.

“How many months do you expect your journey will require?”

His hazel eyes widened, furrowing his brow. “Why do you ask?”

She hadn’t a reason, except to make conversation. Should she say that?

He glanced at the children in the bed of the wagon. “Is your family contemplating a change?”

“No.” Jewell’s resolute response startled Caroline, causing her shoulder to brush against the man’s firm upper arm.

She leaned into Jewell. Her sister’s “no” was as deeply rooted as Jack was—immovable.

Mr. Cowlishaw finally answered her. “Usually takes four months, if there aren’t any extraordinary delays. Taken as long as six months, when that’s the case.”

Leaving in April, six months would take them into fall. No, thank you. Perhaps Jewell was right—the journey west by wagon was for men with a strong constitution.

“This’ll be my third wagon train company on the Oregon Trail. My first as the leader. Worked as a scout on the first two.”

Not only was the man a Southerner, he was a vagabond … a wanderer. When his muscular thigh relaxed against her, she again pressed against Jewell. Mr. Cowlishaw definitely fit her sister’s requirement for a trek in the wilderness. The man had to be strong to have been a soldier. If only Phillip had been the one to survive.

An awful thought, she knew. Especially after Mr. Cowlishaw had been nothing but helpful … Still, he wasn’t Phillip.

When the wagon stopped to let a carriage pass, Caroline recognized the familiar “Yoo-hoo,” then saw a gloved hand waving her direction. Mrs. Kamden sat beside a stick-thin woman, presumably her daughter-in-law, since five children filled the two back seats.

Caroline waved, thankful Mr. Cowlishaw was turning in the opposite direction. The woman was nice enough, although a tad plainspoken for Caroline’s current sensibilities.

“That’s our house. Up there.” Jewell pointed to the square-cut log cabin. Melting snow fell in chunks from the shingle roof, forming a berm along the front of the house, although it looked like someone had shoveled the path to the front door that morning. Most likely Jewell.

Mr. Cowlishaw pulled up on the reins. “This is it?”

Caroline nodded. “It is.” Before she’d left six weeks ago, she’d done what she could to help Jewell around the place, but there wasn’t much she could do about the winter drab that had settled on it. Outside, or inside.

“Thank you.” Jewell stepped toward the back of the wagon. “We can carry the trunk in from here, Mr. Cowlishaw.”

The brawny man looked from Jewell to the roughhewn door. “Your husband?”

“He’s in there. But he can’t help.”

“Pa lost a leg in the war.” Gilbert worked to untie the strap securing the valise. “That what happened to you? You get shot in the war?”

“I’m sorry about your husband’s injury, ma’am.” He helped Gilbert with the strap. “I’ll be taking this inside for you.”