A Bride at Last (18 page)

Kate’s throat tightened. She should just ask who awaited her, but the fact that the woman hadn’t told her didn’t bode well. Why hadn’t the Logans invited him inside? Wouldn’t that have been more proper than sending her out alone at dusk? Kate smoothed her hands along the planes of her simple dress and grabbed her shawl off the foyer hook.

She opened the door and fell on her knees. “Anthony!”

The boy stood on the bottom step, his hands behind his back, one foot crossed behind the other, his head hung low. A slight movement a few yards away by the poplar caught her eye. Silas had found him!

She held her arms wide, and when Anthony didn’t come, she reached for him and smashed him against her. “I’m so glad you’re back.” She sniffed against the wetness taking over her eyes, nose, and throat.

If her heart were a cage equipped with a strong padlock and chains to keep him there, she’d never let him escape again. She glanced over Anthony’s head toward his father, who sported a charming, albeit sad smile. She forced the boy out in front of her at arms’ length and attempted not to shake him. “What were you thinking?”

Anthony at least looked remorseful, though he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Do you know how much you worried your father and me?” A flush crawled across her cheeks. Her question sounded like what Anthony’s mother—Silas’s wife—might say rather than a teacher.

But she felt like this boy’s mother. That’s why her heart hurt so much to see him again, knowing he was safe . . . knowing he’d
soon be as far out of reach as he’d been yesterday. She looked at Silas, whose smile had faded. His eyes seemed even more beseeching than when he’d begged her to dump his liquor for him. What could he want from her? He had what he wanted. She pulled Anthony closer, hoping he’d soften a little. “Where have you been?”

“He was at Myrtle’s.” Silas’s rough voice answered for the mute boy.

Myrtle?
“Who?”

“The young black maid who serves at the boardinghouse.”

She turned back to Anthony, her fingers digging into his arms more than they should. “You were there this whole time?” At his nod, she did shake him a little to make him look at her. “Do you know how much trouble you’d bring her family if certain people discovered they’d been hiding you? Especially if Richard found you!”

The boy shook his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing a few times, protesting his attempts at swallowing. “I didn’t want to get them in trouble.”

Kate looked over the top of Anthony’s head at Silas. “I thought you checked every neighborhood.”

“I did, but no one near Myrtle’s gave me more than a shake of their head. They might not have known, or if they did, they feared what would happen. I’d knocked on Myrtle’s door, but no one answered.”

Anthony shifted away from her. “They told me no one could know where I was. They were trying to figure out where I should go and how to take me there without anyone knowing, but I didn’t want to go anywhere, not until Pa and Mr. Jonesey left. I wanted to come back to you.” His big eyes dripped with more heartache and sorrow than a boy of nine should know.

Silas pushed off the tree and walked toward them. “They should be all right. No one knows where he was but us, Myrtle’s
family, and some neighbors.” He put his hands on Anthony’s shoulders. The two of them standing together made her throat ache. Silas had found his family, but what about her? She’d soon trudge back up a tiny staircase to sleep on a sliver of a bed for the rest of the school term before trundling off to another student’s house next year.

Pressing a hand against Anthony’s slightly wavy hair, she smoothed it away from his face. “Don’t you ever run away from your father again. He told you he’s your real pa, right? The court even says so.”

Confusion flashed in his eyes. “But I was coming back to you. Don’t you want me?”

She blinked against the tears welling up. “I’ll always want you, but . . .” Her throat closed off for a second, and while keeping her hand tight on his shoulder, she stood and looked into Silas’s worried eyes. “Do you mind if I talk to him alone?”

The right side of Silas’s mouth turned up. Oh, he was handsome. And not just because of the way his eyes looked just now, but because she didn’t have to worry whether he’d love this boy he barely knew or give him a better life than she could.

“Just keep him in sight, if you would.” He gave Anthony’s shoulder a squeeze, then walked back to the poplar.

“Let’s go to the swing.” She took Anthony’s cold hand and led him to the tilted oak. She gestured to the rough wood plank tied at the end of the knotted ropes, but Anthony didn’t sit.

She smashed her skirts to sit between the ropes and took both of his hands in hers, hoping to warm his ice-cold fingers. The sun’s fiery glow warmed his hair. “I’m so glad your father found you. He’s been worried you were gone forever. You’re his only family, and he’s the only family you have now too.”

He took a tentative step forward, his chest puffed as if he were filling his lungs for a good cry. “You don’t want me anymore?”

“Oh, Anthony, I want you more than ever.” She pulled him in for a hug, but his bony little shoulders stayed stiff. “I’m a lot like you, you know. I’ve never been good at obeying authority or doing what I ought.” She pulled back and gave him a grin. “My parents were good people, but I often ignored my chores to run in the pastures with the puppies or anything else I thought sounded fun. But when I was a little older than you, they died and I went to live with my older sister and her husband. Do you remember the story of Cinderella?”

He nodded.

“They treated me more like a maid than a sister, but I wasn’t as good as Cinderella. I argued and hid and did as little as possible. My brother-in-law wasn’t nice to me or my sister because of how I behaved, and no Prince Charming came to rescue me.” Probably because she chose to steer her own pumpkin and never ended up in front of the right castle.

“But Mr. Jonesey is not like my brother-in-law. He cares so much about you, though he’s only just met you—before he even knew he was your father. He spent hours knocking on doors trying to find you; he went to the orphanage he grew up in to look for you, even though it wasn’t—”

“But Mother didn’t like him. How do you know he won’t be awful to me after we leave?”

“I think your mother and Mr. Jonesey had a hard time getting along, but he seems to have learned from it. It’s good to learn from your mistakes.” Was that why she was always in a bind? Because she needed to start learning from her mistakes—pay attention to propriety, stop shirking authority, quit agreeing to hasty marriages?

She smoothed Anthony’s hair. “He used to drink, but he doesn’t anymore. He knows that got him into trouble with your mother, and he doesn’t want to hurt you like he did her.”

“You said he only wanted me for chores.”

“Did I say that?” What kind of parent would she have been, telling him such things with no more proof than one person’s word against another’s? “I don’t think that way anymore. I think he’ll expect you to help around his farm, as you should, but not to the point he’ll be unfair. He’ll want you to learn how to homestead so when you leave—when you’re much, much older . . .” She poked him in the chest and tried to smile big enough he’d give her one back, but he refused. “You’ll be a wonderful, hardworking, knowledgeable man. You’ll grow to love Silas. I’m sure of it.”

Who wouldn’t love Silas after being with him for a while? She swallowed. Had she grown to love him? She hadn’t lied to Anthony. She believed Silas to be all she’d described. If only she could find a happy ending like Anthony would.

“I want you to go with him, not because I don’t wish to keep you, but because he’ll give you a better life than I could, a better one than I had myself.”

Anthony nodded slightly, then sighed, his little chest caving in on itself as he slumped into submission. She pulled him into an embrace and talked against his hair. “I’ll miss you more than anything, so we need to enjoy the rest of the time we have together—”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” he mumbled against her shoulder.

She stopped rubbing Anthony’s arm. Her lips twitched. “Tomorrow?” She shouldn’t have said that aloud. It sounded so . . . whiny.

But tomorrow? She’d just gotten him back! “Oh, Anthony. If you hadn’t run, we could have had more time.” She swallowed against the lump in her throat.

“I’m sorry, Miss Dawson. I thought . . . I didn’t want to go with Pa or Mr. Jonesey.”

“Silas is your pa, Anthony, and he’s a good man. In time, he’ll show you.”

Still leaning against the poplar, Silas watched them. A kind, wistful look on his face.

She stood and turned Anthony by the shoulder and gently pushed him toward his father. She couldn’t look into either of their faces or she might cry. “We’ll write to each other every week. It’ll force you to practice your penmanship.”

The boy groaned, and she ruffled his hair. She left her fingers curled into his thick locks at the base of his neck, unable to take her hand away from him. Would this be the last time she touched him?

“Are we better?” Silas cleared his throat, love and concern nearly dripping from his eyes as he looked at his son.

“Is there any way you might . . .” She frowned down at Anthony. She didn’t want him to argue with his father, so she shouldn’t model the behavior. “Anthony, why don’t you go inside and get yourself a cup of tea? Mrs. Logan always has some brewing. It’ll warm you up.”

The boy nodded and scuffed his way inside.

The second the door closed behind him, she turned to Silas, her right hand wringing her left. “There wouldn’t be any way you could stay longer?”

“I shouldn’t, not with my farm being in the condition Will says it is. Plus, if Anthony wanted to run, he knows Breton, knows people here willing to help him, but he won’t in Kansas. He’ll have to rely on me there.”

She held on to his gaze. “Just one more day?”

He stared back. She’d never noticed the dark flecks in his hazel-green irises, the smell of sandalwood coming from somewhere around his square jawline, something dark and warm dilating his pupils.

Her heart suddenly kicked up a notch, and she cut eye contact. Her body’s reaction was one of attraction. She definitely did not need that happening.

“Would another day help?” His voice sounded rough against the falling twilight.

“Yes.” She didn’t dare look at him. Another day would be torture, but she could handle it.

“All right, Kate. We’ll stay for the weekend. Make it good.”

Good? Only the day her parents had died would be worse than next Monday. Because then, this potential Prince Charming and the little boy she loved would leave when the depot’s bells announced the next Kansas train’s departure.

But she’d try to give Anthony the best memories possible before then.

Chapter 13

Following Silas out of the general store, Kate tried not to squeeze Anthony’s hand too hard, but she wanted to memorize the fragile little grip she held. About a year ago, he’d told her he was too old to hold her hand, yet today he’d slipped his long, thin fingers against hers as they walked down Main Street.

Two more days and she’d never hold his hand again. How would she get through teaching the rest of the year with his third-row seat empty?

Silas slid the two boxes of clothing he’d bought for Anthony into his rented buggy, one of which contained a band-collared shirt for himself, one with a golden line running through its checked pattern that would highlight the hazel in Silas’s green eyes. Not that she’d told him she knew his eye color well enough to know the fabric would play up the flecks of morning sun in his irises—she’d simply handed it to him and told him he deserved a new shirt too.

And she’d likely never see him wear it since he’d tucked it away with Anthony’s purchases. Helping them pick out new wardrobes and watching Silas buy things for his cupboards
reminded her that she should start detaching her heart from them both.

She needed to let them go, physically and emotionally. She had to. No choice.

And how her heart balked.

“Are you all right, Miss Dawson?”

She looked down at Anthony tugging on her hand. She’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk evidently. “Would you like to call me Kate since I’m no longer your—” she swallowed and had to clear her throat to continue—“teacher?”

“But you said you’d force me to practice my penmanship by writing too many letters. Shouldn’t I call you Miss Dawson in those?”

“Kate would be fine, if you’d like. And there’s no way you could write me too many letters. You could write me every day and it would never be enough.”

“Ugh.” The boy dropped his shoulders and lolled his head back exaggeratedly. “That’s too much. Maybe Mr. Jonesey can write you some of those days.”

Silas cocked his head. “What am I writing about?”

“Miss Dawson wants to know all about your farm and what your house looks like and what you do every day.” Anthony shrugged.

“You do?” Silas lifted an eyebrow.

Kate closed her eyes against his inquisitive expression. Anthony had made her sound like a busybody. “Well, he said he couldn’t possibly think of enough things to write me about, so I gave him a list of possibilities. I don’t actually need to know all that.”

Though she did want to.

What would Anthony’s life be like with Silas on a huge homestead with blooming pear trees and rust-red cows? She’d soaked up the descriptions he’d told Anthony before he’d run
away, and they’d invaded her dreams last night, complete with dandelion fields, a quaint little house, and a whitewashed fence.

Surely it wasn’t as welcoming as she’d pictured, considering Lucy ran from the place after a snake fell from the ceiling of his home.

But that hadn’t stopped her imagination from taking over. Perhaps she should paint the visions her dreams had conjured, since she’d never see the place any other way. She had a teaching course scheduled for the upcoming summer to earn her a proper certificate, and by the time the next year rolled around, Anthony would likely not write her anymore.

He tugged her toward a display window. “Can we get that for Myrtle?” Anthony pointed at a green, feather-covered hat.