Leslie LaFoy (14 page)

Jackson touched the brim of his hat in a quick parting gesture, knowing that Winifred probably missed seeing it; her gaze was raking him up and down, making him feel like a prize bull up for auction.

“What other commitments?” Jackson whispered as they went up the steps and Winifred all but ran down the sidewalk.

“I don't know,” Lindsay answered, “but I'm sure we'll think of something.”

“You two don't like each other, do you?”

“No, we don't. And it's a very long story.”

One she clearly had no intention of telling him. He suspected that it probably had something to do with her
old
companion. Maybe Winifred and Lindsay had once battled for the affections of banker Edward and Winifred had won. Which, of course, meant that Edward was deaf, dumb, and blind, and so not worth having in the first place. “Why did she invite us to the boathouse?”

“Because she thinks that I'm stupid,” Lindsay said hotly, coming to a halt in front of a door just inside the entrance and beside a narrow set of interior stairs leading to the upper floors. “And because she thinks that I'm naively trusting.”

Jackson reached over her shoulder, gently rapped his knuckles against the panel, and then drew back. Lindsay certainly wasn't stupid. As for naively trusting … The jury was still out on that one. But even a deaf, dumb, and blind man would have known that the memories Winifred had stirred up were painful ones and that Lindsay's scars were thin and tender.

She'd said she didn't look back at the bad times, and while he'd suspected the claim had been a lie, he knew it for certain now. Lindsay was looking back and remembering right this moment. What lesson was she mulling? he wondered.

The door opened, abruptly ending his musing on the subject. The powdery scent of newborn baby wafted past the tall, angular young man happily greeting Lindsay. Jackson clenched his teeth and swallowed hard. He'd gotten through this ordeal before and he'd get through it again. It had been a while since the last time, he reminded himself. It might be easier than he thought. At least he hoped so as he smiled and shook the hand of the proud father Lindsay introduced as Jebediah Rutherford.

F
IRST HAD COME
the exclamations over how beautiful and fair the baby was. Then Lucy had opened the packages from Lindsay, first protesting the necessity of gifts at all and then gasping words of gratitude and reverently trailing her fingers over the fine crochet stitches of the blanket Lindsay had made the baby and the shawl she'd made for Lucy. And in the course of things, Lindsay put the encounter with Winifred out of her mind and began to relax.

She noticed that the same couldn't be said for Jackson Stennett as Lucy wrapped the baby in the new blanket. The Texan stood on the far side of the tiny apartment with Jeb, looking pained—almost as though he had something caught high in his throat and couldn't get it swallowed.

“Would you like to hold her?” Lucy asked.

Lindsay accepted the squirming, plump bundle, saying, “She's beautiful, Lucy. Truly beautiful. A tiny little angel.”

Jeb came forward. “You should have a baby of your own, Miss Lindsay.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lindsay watched Stennett hesitate and then stoically follow in Jeb's wake. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable being there and she couldn't help wondering why he was behaving so oddly. He'd glanced at the baby when they'd come in, offered a polite comment on it being pretty, and then retreated as fast and as far as civility and the room would allow.

The baby smacked its lips and then began to fidget in earnest, interrupting her musing. The fair pink face began to slowly darken as the brow wrinkled. Lindsay lightly pat-
ted the well-padded bottom, hoping the contact would ease the infant's apparent distress.

“Yes, Miss Lindsay,” Lucy chimed in. “You should have a whole houseful of your own babies.”

“Given my circumstances, I don't think that there's much hope of that,” she countered, smiling at the new parents. “And it's probably for the best. I'm not at all sure that I'd be a very good mother.” Unbidden, an image of her own mother came to her; tight, thin lips and a hard frown, the air around her resonant with words of anger and condemnation. Lindsay instinctively drew a deep breath and held it.

Jeb saved her, his voice calling her from the past and into the present. “My mama always says that you learn just as much from watching someone do something wrong as you do in seeing it done right. I think you'd do just fine, Miss Lindsay.”

Bless Jeb. He'd heard the tales of her mother and he'd known just what she'd been thinking. She smiled at him gratefully and wished she had his faith in her ability to surmount her upbringing. The baby chose that moment to emit a deafening, bellowing cry. Lindsay looked down, startled. The sweet-tempered cherub was no more. In her arms she held a decidedly unhappy bundle of demand. She quickened the tempo of her patting. It had no effect and so she made little shushing sounds that produced equally ineffective results.

“See?” she said, giving Lucy a chagrined and weak smile. “I'd be a terrible mother. I can't make her quit crying.”

“She's hungry.”

Jackson Stennett's simple pronouncement was the first words he'd spoken since his earlier retreat. The quiet confidence in it prompted her to look up at him and ask, “And how do you know that?”

He shrugged. “Calves bawl for two reasons; they've either lost track of their mamas and they're scared or they're hungry.”

Lindsay had no idea whether or not he was right, but did understand that if he was, there was nothing she could
do in either case. She handed the child back into Lucy's arms.

“Do you have any children of your own, Mr. Stennett?” Lucy asked, draping the new shawl over both her shoulder and the crying baby cradled in the crook of her arm. Her free hand disappeared beneath the cover.

“No, ma'am,” the Texan answered, his gaze discreetly fastened on the wall behind the settee and just above Lindsay's head.

“Well, I've been praying that Lindsay will find a husband,” Lucy said as the baby's cries abruptly ceased. “If you don't mind, I'll ask the Good Lord to bless you and your wife with children.”

He nodded, but kept his gaze fixed on the wall. Lindsay saw the pulse pounding in his temples, could see the tightness of his jaw and the difficulty with which he breathed and swallowed. “Much obliged, ma'am,” he said tightly.

Lindsay felt as though her heart had been struck. Realization and understanding came with the blow. Jackson Stennett had once had a child. She knew it in her bones. And it had been lost, placed in a little grave beside all the others he'd had to dig in his life. And standing there watching others hold a newborn had brought back his memories of it all. She'd been right in her earlier observations. He was in pain.

“We should be going and let you and the baby rest,” Lindsay said, rising, determined to spare Jackson any further suffering. “Jeb, whenever you think they can manage without you, come back to the office. But not until then, understood?”

“Thank you, Miss Lindsay,” he said. “And thank you for the pretty blanket and the shawl. It wasn't necessary, but they're very much appreciated.”

She placed her hand on her employee's forearm. “It was my pleasure to make and give them, Jeb.” She gave him a quick and friendly pat before turning to Lucy and adding, “If you need anything, anything at all, please ask. I'd be happy to do whatever I can.”

“I will, Miss Lindsay,” Lucy answered politely. “Thank you for coming today.”

Jackson Stennett offered his own parting pleasantries,
clapped his hat on his head, and followed Lindsay out the apartment door. He got to the outside door first, wordlessly opened it for her, and just as silently followed her out onto the sidewalk.

The carriage was nowhere in sight. Lindsay looked up and down the street. “My driver apparently had to move on and is circling the block. He should return for us shortly.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Jackson remarked, expelling a long breath as he stared unseeingly at the buildings on the other side of the street. God, didn't the memories ever fade? Didn't the pain ever go completely away? Was he ever going to be able to look at a new mother, at the baby in her arms, and not remember what he'd had and lost? No, he answered himself. He'd failed them, and forever remembering, forever aching was his penance. He'd earned it.

Lindsay watched the shadows of pain pass over Jackson's features and her uncertainty increased with each passing second of silence. She didn't dare make any comments about the Rutherfords or their baby. To do so would be cruel. “I didn't realize that you're a married man, Mr. Stennett,” she said in a desperate effort to end her own tension. “You've neglected to mention that there's a Mrs. Stennett.”

He shrugged. “That's because there isn't one.”

“Then why did you let Lucy think that you were married?” she asked, and then suddenly saw the blunder in taking the course of conversation she had. If there had been a child lost, then it was likely that the wife and mother had been lost as well. Dear God, what had happened to her good sense? Heat fanned across her cheeks, even as her stomach went leaden cold.

“One, because, while I don't hold with praying to get what you want,” he answered, studying the buildings across the crowded street, “I understand that some people do and that they honestly believe it will work. If Lucy Rutherford wants to pray, I figure there's no harm in letting her have her sense of working toward a good end.” His gaze came to her. “And two, I figured that if I mentioned that I wasn't married, Lucy'd be hitching my name to yours in her prayers the very next time she got down on her knees.”

“And we aren't the least bit suited for one another,” Lindsay quickly added.

“No, we aren't. I'm not about to live in this city and I can't, in my wildest dreams, imagine you living on a ranch in Texas.” Looking over her shoulder at the apartment house, he sighed and added, “It's no place for fragile flowers.”

Lindsay considered her options. She could pretend she didn't notice his pain and blithely chatter away about something utterly trivial and meaningless in the hope of distracting his thoughts. Or she could be honest and give him a chance to share the burden he so obviously bore. There was kindness in both courses. Which way should she go?

The decision was made for her when Jackson asked, “Didn't I see a coal stove in Jeb and Lucy's apartment?”

“Yes, why?” she replied, seeing John bring her carriage around the corner and waving to him. He wasn't going to be able to maneuver the carriage to stop precisely in front of them. They were going to have to walk a half block down to meet it.

“That's how the building's heated, isn't it? By coal stoves in each apartment?”

“Yes, but it's too warm now for anyone to use the stove for heating. Just cooking. The carriage will come to the walk a bit—”

“Well,” he interrupted, “either someone's got one stoked way too high with the flue closed or there's a fire in the back apartment.”

Lindsay whirled about. Thick black smoke roiled from around the edges of a window on the ground floor at the rear of her building. “Oh my God!” she cried, instantly gathering her skirts and starting forward.

Jackson caught her arm and pulled her back, saying, “Get in the carriage and I'll go see.” He released her and quickly strode toward the ominous clouds.

Lindsay was right on his heels, her hem well above her ankles as she all but ran to keep up with him.

“I thought I told you to go to the carriage.”

“I don't listen very well.”

“Lindsay,” he growled, taking her hand and drawing
them both to a halt midway down the side of the building. “I meant what I—”

The explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet. She felt Jackson pull her to him and shield her just as the rolling wave of heat and smoke and sound knocked them to the paving stones. She laid there, knowing that she was gasping for air, but unable to hear herself. The only sound in the world was the raucous, laughing roar of the flames.

“Are you all right, Lindsay?” Jackson shouted above the noise as he scrambled to his feet.

“I'm fine,” she assured them both as she sat up. Jagged bits of glass littered the stones all around around them. “Yourself?”

“Righter than rain.” He extended his hands and she took them, allowing him to pull her upright. Glass shards tumbled from her skirts. As soon as she had her feet beneath her, he turned, and still holding her hand, sprinted for the front of the building.

“Get Lucy and the baby out,” he commanded as he dragged her up the steps and into the entry vestibule. “Tell Jeb to spread the word on this floor. I'll see to the others.” He let go of her hand and started up the stairs. Only two steps up, he paused and leaned over the railing to add, “And once you're out, Lindsay, stay out!”

She nodded and breathlessly pounded her fist on the Rutherford's door.

J
‘EB!
J
EB!
” she shouted, slamming the side of her fist against the wooden panel. “Open the door! Hurry!” The door swung open, an already concerned Jeb standing on the other side. “The building's on fire,” Lindsay announced, pushing past him and into the apartment.

“Where's Mr. Stennett?” Jeb asked from behind her as Lucy struggled to rise from the settee with the baby in her arms.

“He's gone up to warn the others in the building,” Lindsay said, moving to the dining-room table and gathering up what infant items lay there. “He asked to have you warn those on this floor.”

“You see to Lucy and the baby,” Jeb instructed as he stepped out into the smoky hall. He paused just long enough to add, “Mrs. Kowalski on the third floor's almost deaf; she'll never hear him knocking on her door. Send someone for the fire brigade!” and then he was gone.

Lindsay nodded in wordless agreement as she tossed the baby items into the center of the coverlet of the double bed. At the edge of her vision she saw Lucy, struggling, one-
handed, to pull a large book from a high shelf on a rickety corner cabinet. “You don't have time to take anything, Lucy. It's burning fast. Things can be replaced!”