Twice Blessed (33 page)

Setting the message aside, he picked up the one that had been delivered to him while they ate lunch. His face, which he could see in the mirror above the table, became pensive as he reread it. He understood why Gladys had insisted he should read it, for it was signed by Gilson.

He tilted the paper to see it better.
This
message was unquestionably clear. Gilson wanted to meet with him to discuss a compromise which would benefit both of them.

His lips tightened. It was as he had expected from the beginning. Gilson had no interest in Belinda. All he wanted was to be paid off the amount of her inheritance from her father. Noah knew that, by this time, Gilson knew what the exact value of Belinda's share of the business was and would want every penny that he could obtain quickly. Gilson could not afford to go to court, where public sentiment might easily turn against him. Noah would gladly pay him, but this would not be Gilson's only demand. Gilson would not be satisfied until he had control of the business
and
Belinda.

Noah folded the note and put it in an inner pocket of his coat so Emma would not see it. By Jiggs! He had not guessed he was hurting her this morning. He
had
been furious with her when he had stormed out of the parlor, but one look in the direction of the hotel where Gilson was staying had been enough to cool that anger. Emma could not be blamed for a mistake she had made when she fell in love with the wrong man.

That pinch of jealousy returned. He did not like to think of that worthless crook holding Emma and kissing her and making love with her. But she could change her past no more than Noah could change his. What mattered was now. She had promised him to keep a watch on the children so he could concentrate on finding a way to stop Gilson.

Picking up the messages he needed telegraphed, he walked down the stairs. He smiled when he saw Gladys by the door. Standing guard? He would not add to her distress by teasing her now.

She turned and regarded him with red-ringed eyes. Dabbing at one, then the other with the hem of her apron, she said, “Forgive me, Mr. Sawyer.”

“For what? For caring so much about Belinda?”

“And you. If that man has his way, you will—”

He held up his hands. “Let's not talk about that. Belinda is the only one who should be on our minds.”

“I'm worried about both of you, and so is Mrs. Sawyer. She took all the rope in the store and hid it beneath the hay in the barn.”

“Did she?” Noah chuckled. “However, that's not the only rope in town.”

“If I know Mrs. Sawyer, by the time that court is called to order next week, there won't be a length of rope found in this town long enough to go around your neck.” She shuddered and looked away.

“It still may be possible to stop Gilson.”

Gladys's head snapped up, her eyes filling with hope. “Thank heavens, but how?”

“How else? By giving Gilson what he has wanted from the beginning. Money.”

“That's what I figured.” She reached beneath her apron and pulled out a handful of money. “I have nearly fifty dollars here. Take it.”

“You've been saving to buy a ticket to visit your brother in Buffalo.”

“Take it, Noah.” She held out the money. “'Tis two lives we must save.”

Although Noah wanted to refuse the generous offer, he took the money. It might take days for his brother to get money to him. He needed to pay for these telegrams
today
. Quietly he said, “Thank you, Gladys. I'll repay you as soon as I can.”

“Just keep Belinda away from that man!”

“I shall!” He added nothing else as he went out the door and along the street toward the telegraph office.

The sunlight was glorious, and birds sang as they flitted from tree to tree. He could hear children's excited voices as they played some game. Someone was singing the first hymn that had been played in church this morning. Everything was exactly as it should be, and all wrong.

A gunshot echoed through the bucolic afternoon. Birds scrambled with strident squawks up into the air, and the singing and children grew silent. He froze, then realized the sound had come from behind the livery stable. Anderson must be shooting at the rats which got into his feed. He had been complaining about that at the Smiths' wedding.

Continuing along the street as the birds settled back into the trees, Noah opened the door to the telegraph office. Kenny came to his feet and held out his hand. Without a word, he began tapping the messages into the wire that followed the train tracks north.

“All sent,” Kenny said as he handed the pages back to Noah. When Noah nodded, but did not move, the telegraph operator asked, “Anything else?”

“I need to wait for an answer to that first one you sent.”

“Sometimes it takes a few hours to get a message delivered.”

“Someone should be waiting for this one. Either we'll get an answer fast, or there won't be any answer.” Noah stared at the telegraph, willing it to begin tapping.

It did, and he leaned forward as if he could pull the very words out of the air.

Kenny frowned. “This isn't the answer you're waiting for, Noah. It's from New York City.” The telegraph ceased, and the telegraph operator began tapping on it.

“What is it?” Noah asked.

“I didn't get any of the message. Something must be going on along the lines. I'm telling them to resend the message.” He lifted his finger away from the key and watched the telegraph, waiting with patience.

Noah pushed away from the low wall. As the minutes ticked by on the large, round clock on the wall and the telegraph remained silent, he began to fear, for the first time, that there was no way to save any of them from what could happen next week at the hearing.

“Will you play hide-and-seek with me, Emma?” Belinda asked as she followed Emma down the stairs.

“I'm busy gathering the laundry for tomorrow.” She looked over the pile of bedding so she did not bump into the little girl and send them both tumbling down the stairs. “Why don't you play with Sean?”

“He isn't here.”

Emma tossed the bedding into a pile on the hall floor. Taking Belinda's hand, she asked, “Are you sure? He told me he was going to stay here and play with you all afternoon.”

“He isn't here.”

She frowned. Sean had promised her he would stay by Belinda's side and watch over her while Emma and Gladys did the chores that needed to be done this afternoon. If Gilson or anyone else Sean did not know came into the yard, Sean was supposed to alert her right away.

Had she expected too much of the boy? No, for he had
offered
to play with Belinda and keep the little girl from suspecting anything was wrong. When Emma had hesitated, he reminded her he had taken care of his little sister for the past three years until he was caught trying to steal some food and was taken to the Children's Aid Society.
Carted off
had been his exact words, which still seethed with his anger that no one had heeded his pleas to let him go so he could take care of his sister.

From the corner of her eyes, Emma saw Gladys at the top of the stairs, but she continued to look at Belinda. “Do you know where Sean went?”

“He told me to come inside and ask you to play with me.”

“Yes, but did he say where he was going?”

Belinda nodded, her eyes growing large as she realized both Emma and Gladys were listening eagerly to every word she said.

“Where did he say he was going, Belinda?” Emma asked.

“He told me not to tell you.”

“You must.”

“I promised.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “It's wrong to break a promise.”

Emma squatted in front of the little girl. “I know it's wrong to break a promise, Belinda. I wouldn't ask you to do so if I wasn't worried that something bad might happen to Sean.”

“What bad could happen to him?”

She tried to come up with an example that would not reveal to the little girl why they all were so edgy. She could not when her mind was so filled with frightful thoughts. “Belinda, please tell me.”

“Are you afraid something bad is going to happen to
me
?”

When Gladys gave a soft moan as she came down the stairs, Emma wanted to urge the housekeeper to be silent. She could not, for she must answer Belinda's question. Taking a deep breath, she said, “There is a very bad man who has come to Haven.”

“Very bad?”

“Very bad.”

“Will he hurt me or Sean?”

She shook her head. “You're safe as long as you stay close to the house and one of us. Sean will be safe if he stays here, too, until the bad man goes away again.”

“I want the bad man to go away now.”

“So do I, Belinda.” She glanced at Gladys, then asked, “Belinda, where's Sean? As long as that bad man is in Haven, it is all right to tell me even though you promised Sean you would not.”

Belinda did not speak for a long minute, then whispered, “He said he was going to pay a call on someone named Dickie and his boys.”

Emma gasped in horror. One of Dickie's boys was what Sean had called Gilson when he had feared the man was someone out of Sean's past. Although neither Sean nor Noah had explained exactly what Dickie's boys might do if they had come to Haven, she knew they were trouble. Just as Gilson was.

“Dickie?” asked Gladys. “Who's that?”

Coming to her feet, Emma said, “I know whom he's talking about.” She reached for her bonnet on the peg hanging by the door. How could Sean be so foolish? His attempt at heroics could be dangerous, for Gilson would not hesitate to hurt the boy. “Gladys, stay here with Belinda.”

“Where are you going?”

“To save Sean from his own foolishness.”
If I am in time
, she added silently. She did not want to think what would happen if she was too late.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Emma held her breath as she paused in the silent corridor of the town's hotel. She had managed to sneak in while Mrs. Riley was busy in her kitchen. Now she stood before the door with the brass number five set at eye level.

She had never been on the upper floors of this hotel. In the time since she had traveled from Kansas, she had forgotten about the odors that stayed in a boarding house long after the residents had moved on. Odors of sweat and burned food and smoke from trains and dust from dry roads. Dusk clung to the far end of the hall, which overlooked the green, as if something horrible lurked there. Nothing could be worse than what she might face in the room on the other side of this door.

A strange disoriented sensation surrounded her. Emma Delancy—no, Stephenson. Emma Stephenson Sawyer could not be standing in this hallway. Emma Stephenson Sawyer was not the person about to sneak into the hotel room of the man who wanted to see her husband hang. It was someone else treading this imprudent path.

What if Sean had not come here? If she was mistaken, she could be about to make matters worse. But if she was right, the boy needed to be brought to his senses before he did something in a naïve effort to protect the family he had gained here in Haven.

She strained to hear any sound that would tell her what was happening in the room. Nothing. She put her ear against the wood. The door swung open. She waited for the length of a single heartbeat. When no one called out or came to the door to see why it had opened on its own, she edged forward and peeked into the room beyond the iron bed that was set in the middle of the narrow space.

Her nose wrinkled. Smoke hung in the air, coiling near the open window. Seeing ashes in the bowl set beside the ewer on the washtable, she gasped when she recognized the writing on one piece of paper that had not been completely burned. This was the page Gilson had said proved he had a right to take Belinda with him.

“Oh, Sean,” she whispered, “how could you be so foolish?”

She looked out the open window. As she had guessed, a tree stretched out a thick branch toward the hotel. It was just the right strength to hold a nimble boy. He must have come in this way and slipped out the same way.

She must go, too. And she could not climb down the tree. Her dress was too close-fitting to allow her to do what she would have managed with ease when she had been Sean's age. She turned—and pressed her hands over her mouth as she stared at Laird Gilson.

“This is, indeed, a surprise,” he said, entering the room and closing the door. “I'd thought you would at least wait for Sawyer's body to be cut down from the gallows before you paid me a call.”

“I'm not paying you a call, Mr. Gilson. I came here looking for …” She realized it was useless to lie. “I came here looking for Sean.”

“Sean?”

“The young boy you met at my house this morning.”

He smiled. “I guess that excuse is as good as any.” His smile disappeared when he sniffed. Pushing past her, he cursed as he saw the ashes in the bowl. He swept the bowl off the table and cursed as it struck the floor and shattered.

Emma rushed to the door. She was not going to stay here to see what this volatile, violent man might do next. Her hand was caught in a viselike grip before she could turn the doorknob. Spun about, she was shoved up against the door. Her eyes blurred when her head struck the thick door.

“You know burning that paper was stupid, don't you?” Gilson growled. “That was not the only copy of that court order.”

“Where are the others?” shouted a young voice from behind him.

“Sean!” she cried as the boy jumped out of the cupboard. Its door crashed against the wall. She had not guessed he would hide from her in there. As Gilson whirled to face the boy, she gasped, “Sean, you …”

Her voice dried up as she stared at the pistol Sean held with the cool confidence. It was aimed at Gilson, whose face lost all color.

“You don't treat a lady like that,” Sean growled, as his thumb reached to draw back the hammer. “And you aren't going to take Belinda away.”