Ripples Along the Shore (9 page)

He pulled the roster from the table. “I’m the captain, and—”

“What you say goes.” She crinkled the provisions list. “Even if it’s wrong. Unfair. And vindictive.” She spun around and marched toward the door.

Vindictive?
Someone had to be sensible. Certainly wouldn’t be her … thinking she could up and drive a wagon through hill and dale, mile after mile.

Boney joined him at the table and let out a low whistle. “Looks to me like you’ve got lady trouble.”

“Not anymore.” Garrett glanced toward the stiff-backed redhead. “She’s a war widow. Told her she couldn’t take a wagon west by herself.”

“Sounds to me like she might have something to prove.”

“Well, she won’t do it on my watch.” He’d have his hands full with all the young uns riding along. Didn’t need her distracting him … worrying him.

Caroline didn’t bother to mind a ladylike pace. Her neck burning under the heat of ire, she marched toward Anna, who stood alone near the back.

If Caroline had her druthers, she’d walk straight out the door, not look back. But she didn’t have a say in anything. She was a widow, and that changed everything. Without a man, she couldn’t go west. Not in a wagon, anyway. On a ship, she’d have no escort. No friends accompanying her.

And no Garrett Cowlishaw in sight.

That suddenly seemed reason enough not to go on the caravan come spring. Four months with that man would be more burdensome than fording rivers or facing a bear. Six months under his leadership would be the death of her.

“You look like you’ve swallowed a frog.” Concern narrowed Anna’s blue eyes. “You told Mr. Cowlishaw you wanted to add a wagon to the train, did you? What did he say?”

“No.” She refused to follow Anna’s gaze to the man. Whatever she did, she wouldn’t give Garrett Cowlishaw the satisfaction that he’d won his first battle as captain of the company. “He said no.”

Anna didn’t look the least bit surprised. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it.

“Mr. Cowlishaw doesn’t want widows on the trail.”

“He said that?” Anna’s eyebrows arched.

Guilt dried Caroline’s mouth. “Not in those words, exactly.” She moistened her lips. “But he did say a single woman couldn’t travel alone … in her own wagon. He thinks every woman going should have a man.” Grudgingly, she did too. Elsa Brantenberg had Rutherford. Mrs. Kamden had her son. Anna had her grandfather.

All options she didn’t have.

“Life’s not that easy.” Anna’s statement carried a wistfulness that Caroline understood.

She knew Anna expected the trip to invigorate her grandfather’s spirit and pull her family together.

Caroline swung her shoulders, settling her cape. She wouldn’t be a wet blanket putting a damper on her friend’s hopes. “Speaking of men, has Mr. Hughes talked to you yet?”

“Ha! Mr. Hughes. I can’t make myself think of him so formally. My brother called him Boney.” Anna shook her head. “Not yet. But he’s busy talking with Mr. Cowlishaw right now.”

“No doubt about addle-headed women who don’t take the dangers of the trail seriously and think they have the constitution to make the trip west.”

“We can leave any time Charles is ready.” Anna looked about the room. “Have you seen him or Hattie? Boney and I can catch up on another day.”

“Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Milburn.”

Caroline’s shoulder’s tensed. She was hardly in the mood for polite conversation, but she turned toward the familiar voice anyway. Mrs. Kamden waved a gloved hand and rushed toward her, the littlest of her five grandchildren in tow.

Anna raised her hand to her mouth. “The woman you told us about from your trip home from Memphis?”

Caroline nodded. “Hello, Mrs. Kamden.” She regarded the little girl with the big brown eyes.

“This is Maisie, the youngest of my Ian’s children.”

Following the introductions, Mrs. Kamden laid her gloved hand on Caroline’s arm. “Dear, I saw you at the table with your friends, then in line behind us. Are you going west with the caravan?”

“I had hoped to.”

“With your sister and brother-in-law?”

“They’re not going.”

“Oh.” The woman’s lips formed an elongated O that shrank, while her eyes did the same. “Well, with all that man’s talk of death and peril”—Mrs. Kamden looked at the little girl—“I’m having second thoughts about going.” Her ability to whisper hadn’t improved in the least.

Caroline noticed Anna’s attention drift away from their conversation, then saw that Boney Hughes was approaching.

Mrs. Kamden glanced down at Maisie. “It’s time we return to the rest of the family.” She looked up. “The Lord bless you and keep you, dear. And you, too, Miss Goben.”

Caroline smiled. “And you, Mrs. Kamden.”

“Thank you.” Anna’s gaze darted to the woman, then back to the young man now standing at her side.

“Have a pleasant evening, Mrs. Kamden. Miss Maisie.” Boney tipped his hat, and the woman shuffled away.

Caroline needed to do the same. “If you two will excuse me—”

Anna grasped Caroline’s cape. “No need for you to leave. Please stay. We don’t want to make it difficult for Charles to round us up when he’s ready to leave, now, do we?”

“All right.” She looked at the young man, feeling like a third wheel on a pushcart.

Boney cleared his throat. “About the other day …”

Caroline looked down at Anna’s hand, which still had a firm grip on the edge of her wrap. “I don’t wish to intrude.”

Anna drew in a deep breath. “Please stay. Any friend of mine is a friend of Boney’s. He said so himself.”

“I did indeed.” He removed his hat and faced Anna. “I saw the chairs he ain’t fixing, Anna. And I saw the way she is. I’ve heard how hard you’ve been working since Dedrick died.”

“Großvater has been under the weather. Mutter too.”

“You don’t have to hide the truth from me.”

“They’re my family.”

“Marry me.”

Caroline barely heard Anna’s gasp over her own.

“Come with me on the wagon train as my wife. You deserve to be taken care of.”

Tears stung the backs of Caroline’s eyes and she turned away. Since when had she become such a romantic?

“I … uh.” Anna held firmly to Caroline’s cape. “You’ve been gone for five years. We’re not children in the schoolyard anymore.”

“No. We’re not.” He stepped forward, his gaze tender. “Anna, you’re a beautiful young woman with lots of life left in you. If you don’t squander it.”

Letting go of Caroline’s cape, Anna reached for Boney’s arm. “You are a dear to notice and to care.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “This is so sudden.”

Boney nodded. “Will you think on it?”

“Yes.” Her hand swung to her side. “I will think about it.”

An idea dawned …

Yes, Anna would think on it. And so would Caroline. If she had a man willing to marry her, that would put an end to Mr. Cowlishaw’s concerns about her going west with the caravan.

Caroline couldn’t help herself.

She smiled.

Eleven

B
raying donkeys woke Garrett on Wednesday morning. Or was he awake? Perhaps he was dreaming.

Rolling, he pulled the wool blanket back over his face. After all, he had behaved like a donkey last evening. Caroline Milburn lived in a hopeless house. She obviously dreamed of starting a new life out west. He’d puffed up under the guise of captain and crushed her hope of a new beginning.

“For her own good.”

Yawning, he tossed to his other side, tangling himself in the blankets. Rimming the edge of the cot, he rolled out of bed. His covers went with him. “What a mess!”

“Couldn’t, in good conscience, approve of her foolish plans.” He had a responsibility to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. Garrett swatted at the blankets anchoring his feet, then stood. “What kind of a leader would I be if I caved in simply because she was a charming woman?” If she had simply been a charming woman, he would’ve slept better. “Caroline Milburn. Of all people.” He cringed at his reflection in the washstand mirror, then splashed his whiskered face with cold water. It didn’t matter who it was that he’d turned down, he’d made the right decision. Although, he agreed with the mirror that he could’ve been more diplomatic in dashing her dreams.

The sound of hooves and more braying jerked Garrett out of his daydreaming.

The animals were real. And close by. Inside the granary!

Garrett scrambled down the shallow steps, nearly toppling off of the last one.

Rutherford stood near the door with a smug smile on his face. Three donkeys stood at the end of the lead ropes wrapped around his friend’s hand.

Garrett blew out a long breath. He obviously hadn’t latched the door last night, leaving an invitation to a grain feast.

Rutherford glanced up the staircase. “Who you talkin’ to up there?”

“I was talking?”

Rutherford nodded, wagging thick eyebrows.

“What do you think you heard?”

“Only that you’re smitten with Caroline Milburn.”

He brushed his woolen sleeves out to full length. “I didn’t say that.”

Rutherford shrugged. “Some things don’t need spelled out.”

Garrett swatted the air. “You’re a newlywed, hearin’ romance everywhere you eavesdrop.”

Rutherford’s laugh boomed.

Whether he was attracted to Caroline or not, he couldn’t let the young woman risk her life. Surely, there was something else the widow could do. Something safer. More comfortable.

Rutherford cleared his throat. “I’d ask you to help me take these well-fed jennies back to the barn, but”—he looked at Garrett’s bright red union suit—“there are ladies on the property.”

Garrett looked at the open door, then darted up the steps. “See you at breakfast.”

Tomorrow was quilting circle day on the farm, and he’d make it a point to be here. The perfect opportunity to make things right with Caroline. With another day for her to calm down, she’d surely be ready to listen to his explanation and have a better understanding of his position.

Twelve

C
aroline pulled a sedate brown hat from the wardrobe. She stood in front of the wavy mirror that hung above her dresser and placed the hat on her upswept hair. Mary sat on the bed watching her every move.

“Why you go away to church?” Her niece’s stocking feet dangled just above the rough wood flooring.

“Sometimes it’s good for me to get out.” Caroline pushed one of Aunt Inez’s pearl-tipped hatpins through her hair. She hadn’t been to the quilting circle the past two Thursdays. Since her run-in with Garrett Cowlishaw at the Boone’s Lick Wagon Train Company meeting, she hadn’t been anywhere but to the grocery. Jewell conducted a Sunday service for the children in their home, but it wasn’t the same. Today Caroline needed more. She’d not attended a formal church service since leaving Philadelphia.

Most of her friends here were members of German-speaking congregations, but Maren had invited her to visit the Presbyterian meetinghouse that she and Rutherford attended—the type of church Caroline had grown accustomed to in the East. Placing the last pin in her hat, she looked out the sunlit window. Her burdens seemed to lift with the promise of warm sunshine. A perfect day for a nice long walk. And an inspiring worship service.

“You were out yesterday. Remember?” Mary slid off the bed. “You washed the windows.”

Caroline giggled. “I did.” She lifted her Bible from the bedside table. “But I meant I need to be out among other people.”

“Oh.” Freckles dotted Mary’s round cheeks. “Then you’ll come back?”

“Yes.” Thanks to Garrett Cowlishaw’s sensibilities about single women on the trail, she may be here forever. Unless she found a man to marry.

And what better place than in a church?

Mary followed her out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Caroline had invited Jewell to come along this morning and suggested it would be good for the children, but her sister preferred to stay home. No doubt hoping that if Jack heard enough Scripture, he’d shed his nasty cocoon and become a new man. Caroline sighed. She didn’t have that kind of patience. She may not be a part of the wagon train come spring, but she was determined that things would be different for her. Soon.

Jewell looked up from the table where she sat with her Bible. “You don’t have to go. Are you sure you want to?”

“I’m sure. It’ll be good for me.” Caroline kissed Mary’s forehead, then patted her sister’s shoulder on her way to the back door. “I’ll see you this afternoon.” The moment the door clicked shut behind her, the tension in her shoulders eased. Her neck warmed by the sun, she crossed Main Street and walked up the hill. A cardinal chirped among the new leaves in a mottled sycamore. All signs that spring already had a foot in the door.

A red brick building on the corner of Jefferson and Boone Street housed the Northern Presbyterian Church, its bell tower and steeple a welcoming sight. It was a smaller version of the Presbyterian meetinghouse that she’d attended in Philadelphia. Men, women, and children dressed in their Sunday best mingled in the wagon lot, congregated at the hitching
rails in front of the stained-glass windows. Colored families rushed past, down Boone Street, as the bell on their meeting hall called them to worship.