Sweet Forever (12 page)
“I’m as eager as you are to get the church built, Reverend,” he said. “Why, just the other day, our little Sophie mentioned what a beautiful setting it would be for a fall wedding—the finished brick church with a fine, grand bell tolling the happy event. I’m sure you can appreciate and share that vision.”
Jacob’s voice stumbled slightly. “Yes, yes of course.”
The smile left Stinnett’s voice, which hardened to a no-nonsense business tone. “I realize our congregation is small, and the building funds, shall we say, insufficient to expedite the task. I’m prepared to make Sophie’s vision of a finished church by September a reality if you are prepared to make the wedding a reality.”
Rosaleen’s heart stood still then broke at Jacob’s quiet response.
“I’d say that would be for the lady to decide.”
A numb emptiness filled Rosaleen. How could she have believed, even for one moment, Jacob would prefer her over sweet, pure Sophie? And even if he did, how could she stand in the way of all the dreams he held so dear? If she stayed and Jacob chose her, Stinnett might very well cause a rift in the congregation, jeopardizing Jacob’s dream.
“You look like death warmed over!”
Rosaleen jerked at Patsey’s voice.
Patsey shook her head and reached for the tray. “Better give me that ’fore you drop it an’ smash Mrs. Buchanan’s good dishes. Imagine you best go lay down. ’Spect you’ve got a touch of the ague.”
Feeling the strength drain from her limbs, Rosaleen didn’t argue with Patsey. Mumbling her thanks, she allowed her friend to take the tray from her limp hands.
Rosaleen knew she should feel happy for Jacob. He’d be getting his church before winter, the bell he had his heart set on, and sweet Sophie for a bride. A host of feelings surged through her, but happiness wasn’t one of them.
At the staircase, she swiped at a tear coursing down her cheek, grasped the balustrade, and started up the steps. One thought formed in her mind as a prayer.
I have to leave Madison. God, help me find a way to leave Madison.
On the second-story landing, she collided with something solid. Emitting a soft gasp, she found herself engulfed in Alistair’s arms.
“You keep runnin’ into me like this, and I’ll start thinkin’ it’s on purpose,” he said in a teasing tone that sounded superficial.
Pushing away from his grasp, Rosaleen rubbed at the place beneath her throat where Alistair’s embrace had caused her brooch to bite into the skin. Like the summer heat lightning that lit the window at the top of the stairway, a sudden thought flashed into her mind. She fingered her mother’s brooch and said the words she’d vowed never to say. “Alistair, how much would you pay for my brooch?”
His eyes narrowed. “You’d never sell it before. Why now?”
“I want to leave Madison. I want to go to New York.”
“Ah, New York. I haven’t been to that city for years.” Interest flickered in his gray eyes. “A town ripe for the picking, if memory serves. How ’bout we go together? What do you say?” He reached for her again, but she evaded his grasp. “How much will you give me?” She needed to keep this on a business footing.
“Fifteen dollars.”
“No, fifty.” He must think she’d learned nothing during her years on the riverboats.
A slow grin crept across his mouth. “You drive a hard bargain, and that’s a fact. Your dad would be proud.” He cocked his head toward the south wall. “There’s a couple fellers on the
Kentucky Queen
who owe me. That’s where I’m headed. Let me call in some markers, and I’ll get your money.”
A blinding flash of lightning and near simultaneous crack of deafening thunder caused her heart to lurch with her body.
“Scared of thunder?” Chuckling softly, he cast a quick glance at the summer storm brewing outside the little second-story window and clamped one arm around her. With his other hand he touched the jeweled brooch at her bodice, his breath warm against her face. “I can turn this little bauble into enough money to keep us in high style for weeks in New York,” he told her in a husky whisper. Slipping both arms around her, he wrapped her in an iron-hard grip. “I like to feel you tremble in my arms.”
Panic rose inside Rosaleen when he lowered his head and pressed his lips against the hollow of her throat. He’d abandoned his earlier, casual friendliness. Alistair left no doubt as to his intentions.
She knew she was playing a dangerous game, but the brooch was the only thing of value she owned. Shaken, she twisted from his grip. “Just get the money.”
“Eight o’clock next Sunday morning, we can take the
Swiftsure
packet to Cincinnati.” He caught her arm, his gaze softening with his voice. “Rosaleen, I wouldn’t pay so much if it were anyone else.”
Rosaleen watched Alistair descend the stairs. She hated the fact that she’d allowed him to think she would be leaving with him. According to the
Madison Courier
, the packet
Swiftsure
left at eight a.m. every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Alistair had said Sunday, so she would simply leave the Thursday before—that was, if he got the money to her in time.
Several minutes later, she finished making up the beds as Opal had requested, and still shaky from her exchange with Alistair, Rosaleen went back downstairs. She’d need to find Opal and inform her that the rooms had been prepared. Hearing Opal’s voice in the parlor, she walked into the room and studiously ignored Jacob’s presence.
Opal stood beside the long front window that rattled from the latest thunderclap. “Fixin’ to blow up a real dandy,” she said, pulling back the lace curtain to peer at the darkening sky studded with barbs of sharp lightning.
Jacob rose from his desk chair. “Good thing Roscoe left when he did.”
Rosaleen stood in the doorway, planning to head for the kitchen as soon as she’d given Opal the information. “The rooms are ready, Opal,” she murmured, refusing to look in Jacob’s direction. For the next several days she would need to perform a delicate dance, evading both Jacob’s questions and Alistair’s advances.
Opal let the curtain fall across the window, a look of concern wrinkling her broad brow. “Are you all right, Rosaleen? Patsey said—”
“I’m fine,” Rosaleen blurted, eager to get away. The last thing
she wanted at the moment was sympathy in any fashion.
Leaving the parlor, Opal said nothing as she passed her in the doorway, but her quizzical look questioned Rosaleen’s claim.
Rosaleen turned to follow Opal, but the serious tone in Jacob’s voice halted her.
“Rosaleen, I’d like to talk to you.”
“The kitchen windows will need to be shut.” She mumbled the excuse to leave, poised for a hasty retreat.
Jacob shook his head. “Andrew and Patsey are both in the kitchen, so I’m sure they’ve already taken care of that.”
“I—I. . .” Unable to think of another reason not to stay, she simply turned and started toward the kitchen. Her heart felt unready to hear from Jacob’s own lips the news of his engagement to Sophie Schuler.
A banging at the front door turned her around, and she hurried to answer it.
“Is Reverend Hale home?” The wind whipped the black slouch hat Charley Keller twisted in his hands. The worried look drawing hard lines on his face struck Rosaleen’s heart with fear. She knew that Charley, a member of Jacob’s congregation, belonged to the Fair Play Volunteer Fire Company.
“What is it, Charley?” From behind her, the fear tightening Jacob’s voice echoed her own.
“It’s the church, Reverend. Lightning struck it. We have a bucket brigade goin’ from the river but. . .” The helpless look in his eyes conveyed his grim prediction.
Opal gasped and Jacob’s face went paper white.
Bolting out the open door, he leaped from the porch and raced up Mulberry Street toward Main-Cross, Charley Keller at his heels.
Dread squeezed Rosaleen’s throat as she and Opal watched from the porch until Jacob disappeared at the junction of Main-Cross and Mulberry. “I think we need to pray, Opal.” She slipped a trembling arm around Mrs. Buchanan. Together, they walked inside to join the Chapmans in the kitchen.
Outside, the winds wailed, and leaves from the bowing ash and oak trees blew past the kitchen window.
Opal arranged four chairs in a crude circle and asked Andrew to lead them in prayer.
Rosaleen slumped to the seat of a kitchen chair, her tears mimicking the rain sheeting down the windowpane. The image of Jacob’s church—his dream—consumed by flames gouged at her heart.
Why, God? Why?
How could God do this to such a good man? A man who’d worked so hard for Him. The man who never gave up on her but helped bring her to the salvation of Christ. The man she loved. Her heart ached, remembering the pride in his face as he’d gazed at the unfinished church.
Andrew sat with his head bowed, his arms resting on the tops of his legs and his fingers laced together. “We don’t know Yer mind, Lord. But we ’cept Yer will and rest in Yer promises.”
As Andrew prayed, Rosaleen remembered a scripture from the Gospel of John she’d read the night before. “
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
”
How could this tragedy glorify God? Perhaps the rain had put out the fire, saving the church.
Hours later, Rosaleen realized there’d been no such miracle. Long after the Chapmans had left for home and Opal had gone to bed, Rosaleen could not bring herself to climb up to her attic room while still unsure of Jacob’s safety. Regardless of her earlier resolve to avoid him, she could not abandon him tonight.
She sat at the piano, softly playing “Rock of Ages”
by the flickering light of a single lamp. The jingle of the front doorbell halted her fingers.
Jacob trudged slump shouldered into the parlor, bringing with him the smell of wood smoke. The despair on his soot-streaked face confirmed her fears. “It’s gone.” With those two words, he walked to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sank to the seat, a vacant look in his blue eyes.
“Oh Jacob, I’m so sorry.” Choking back tears, she rushed to him, knelt at his feet, and took his sooty hands into her own.
“Was it my pride, Rosaleen? Was I too prideful about the church? Or is God just trying to tell me I’m not called to preach?”
Though her heart wept for his loss, Rosaleen’s love for Jacob wouldn’t allow her to sit mutely by as he turned his back on his dream of preaching in a church he’d helped to build.
“Not called? Jacob, it’s because of your preaching, your guidance, that I sought Jesus. How can you believe God hasn’t called you?”
“I just can’t believe it’s happened again.” As she’d seen him do many times, he absently touched the scar on his left cheek. She’d wondered about the scar but had never asked.
“Is that how you got that. . .in a fire?”
“My family’s barn burned when I was sixteen. When I went into the barn to chase out the livestock, I was burned by a piece of hot metal on a harness.
Smiling, she reached up and traced the raised scar on his cheek with her fingertip. “I’ve always found it attractive.” Love bubbled up inside Rosaleen as she imagined the young Jacob’s bravery during his family’s tragedy. “Did God restore your barn?”
Even in the dim light and beneath all the soot, she saw Jacob’s face flush at her touch. “Yes, the community raised us a new one.” His mouth lifted in a wry smile. “But that was just a barn, Rosaleen, not a church.”
Rosaleen gave Jacob’s fingers a little squeeze and willed him to look into her eyes. “Jacob, that night when the
Cortland Belle
caught fire, before I knew God loved me, I’d considered drowning myself. But when the fire forced me into the river, something inside me wouldn’t let me die. I know now that it was God, saving me so you could bring me to His Son. You told me Christ doesn’t reject anyone. It is people who reject Him.” She cupped the side of his face in her hand. “I’m a perfect example that God doesn’t give up on us. So we shouldn’t give up on Him, right? If God restored your barn, I’m sure He will restore your church.”
His eyes shimmered with tears in the dim lamplight. Rising, he gripped her hands and helped her to her feet. “You are amazing,” he murmured.
Her heart pounding, she stood immobile, held captive as his gaze melted into hers and he drew her into his arms. Melding into his smoke-scented embrace, she welcomed his kiss with a fervor that matched his own. Half believing it was all a beautiful dream, Rosaleen prayed it would never end. She wanted to stay here forever in the arms of her beloved “angel.”
In one swift movement, he knelt before her on one knee. “Rosaleen, I love you with all my heart, and I’ll need you for the rest of my life. I don’t think I can manage without you. Will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Her heart full to bursting with joy, she gazed down into his dear face through a mist of tears. At first she could only nod, emotion choking her voice. “Yes,” she finally managed to squeeze through a sob. “Yes, yes, yes—” She couldn’t stop saying the word until he stood, pulled her into his arms, and pressed his lips against hers once more.
A troubling thought intruded into her beautiful dream, and she pulled away from him. “But what about Sophie? I thought you and Sophie. . . I overheard Mr. Stinnett this afternoon. He said he’d pay for your church, even the bell, if you and Sophie. . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“Darling”—smiling, he cradled her in his arms—“what Roscoe proposed would not be fair to either Sophie or me. Sophie deserves a man who loves her. I don’t love her—not that way. I love you. You are the woman I want to be my wife.” He grinned. “Besides, from what I understand, Sophie has a constant bevy of suitors. Roscoe Stinnett has no right to choose a husband for his niece.”
Rosaleen could not so easily dismiss the concerns dulling her joy. She pulled away again. “But, Jacob, you need Mr. Stinnett’s offer more now than before. What if he becomes angry and causes you trouble?”
“Sweet Rosaleen.” Jacob drew her back into his arms. “You just reminded me not to limit God. If my church is to be, God will find a way.”
Even as Rosaleen snuggled against Jacob, unease gripped her heart, choking her happiness. What if God had provided Roscoe Stinnett’s offer as an antidote to the church fire? What if her selfish desire to marry Jacob denied him the church and congregation he had his heart set on?
Oh God, why can’t things be simple? Please don’t let this cause Jacob trouble.
❧
“What you grinnin’ like a ’possum about?” Patsey asked the next morning as she walked through the kitchen door, a basket of freshly picked okra on her arm.
Smiling, Rosaleen glanced up from rolling piecrust on the floured table. She’d decided to make Jacob’s favorite, blackberry pie, for supper to celebrate their engagement.
Enveloped in the sweet euphoria of her beautiful dream, Rosaleen could scarcely believe the events of the night before. Though still worried about potential repercussions of her engagement to Jacob, she’d decided to trust God and bask in her happiness.
Patsey narrowed suspicious eyes at Rosaleen, her brow scrunched. Her words slowed to a thoughtful crawl. “Come to think on it, the rev’rend seemed unusual happy this mornin’, considerin’ the church burnin’ an’ all.”
“Jacob asked me to marry him last night,” Rosaleen blurted. She’d planned to keep it a secret for a while and hadn’t even told Opal yet, but she felt her heart might burst with the news if she didn’t free it.
Dropping the basket of okra onto the washstand, a wide-eyed Patsey screeched. Waddling around the table, she hurried to her. “I knowed it, I knowed it, I knowed it!” She hugged Rosaleen as tightly as her extended belly would allow. “When?”
“We haven’t set a date yet.”
“This time next year, yer li’ble to be in the same shape as me.” Patsey patted her belly.
“Patsey!” Though heat flooded her face, Rosaleen couldn’t help grinning at her friend’s excitement.
“I can jis see our young’uns playin’ on the floor together.” Patsey seemed compelled to give her another hug. As she embraced her, she whispered, “Another train’s comin’ tonight. Crossin’ the river ’bout midnight. Need every willin’ hand to help. Can you meet me and Andrew behind the boardinghouse after dark?”
Rosaleen nodded. It would be harder now to keep such things from Jacob. She knew he would approve of her work with the Underground Railroad, yet she felt the need to protect him from such knowledge just as Andrew and Patsey protected one another. Rafe Arbuckle, or worse, the sheriff, might come to question him again.
❧
Later that afternoon in the parlor, Rosaleen had to think what Alistair meant when he said, “I have your money.”
Remembering their deal, she fingered her brooch. There was no need for her to sell it now, or was there? This morning, it had pained her to see Jacob’s glum face when he returned from the bank. He’d been unsuccessful in procuring a loan for more lumber, and a look of dejection had clouded his eyes as he left the boardinghouse to help clear away the charred remains of the church.
Alistair pulled five ten-dollar notes from his vest pocket. “C’mon, love. A deal’s a deal.” At her hesitation, he held out his hand. With impatient movements, he curled his fingers toward his palm.
Blinking back tears, she removed the brooch, placed it in his hand, and accepted the money.
Oh God, please let this buy lots of lumber for the church.
Rosaleen planned to surprise Jacob with the money at supper. But long after the supper table had been cleared, he dragged himself into the boardinghouse kitchen. The exhaustion and defeat in his face as he collapsed to a caned chair at the little kitchen table ripped at her heart. He seemed almost too tired to eat the cold chicken, fried okra, and black-berry pie she placed before him.
He looked up at her, his eyes full of regret, his weary face and blond hair streaked with the soot of yesterday’s fire. “I’m sorry, darling. Opal told me you made the pie to celebrate our engagement. But we’re halfway through July, and there’s not a minute to lose. I’d sure like for us to be married in that church before the snow flies.”