Sweet Forever (2 page)
Heart pounding, he dropped to his knees beside the woman. Taking her cool hands into his, he began rubbing warmth into her long, delicate fingers.
Her eyelids, fringed by thick dark lashes, fluttered open.
Slipping his left arm beneath her back, Jacob lifted her head and upper torso from the riverbank. “It’s all right. You’re going to be all right,” he assured her, brushing hair and sand from her face with his free hand.
Her lips parted to emit another soft groan.
Jacob wrenched his attention from the arresting beauty of the woman to focus upon her plight. “You’ll be all right now,” he repeated. “I’m going to take care of you.”
She blinked several times before squinting blue-green eyes against the morning sun. “Donovan? Is that you, Donovan?” It was all she managed to mumble before her eyes closed again.
Lowering her to the riverbank, he anxiously pressed his fingers against her throat just below her jaw. A strong pulse beneath his touch brought him a measure of relief.
Ephraim. I need to get her to Ephraim.
Hurrying back up Broadway, he fetched his mule-drawn wagon full of lumber down to Ohio Street then carried the woman up to his wagon.
Dear Lord, please just let her live.
As gently as possible, Jacob laid her on the two-by-sixes in the wagon bed. He climbed to the wagon seat and slapped the reins down hard onto the mules’ backs. “Heyaa!” he yelled, urging the animals to a quickened pace up Broadway toward Main-Cross Street.
A strong smell of camphor caused Rosaleen to jerk awake. She blinked and the image of a man came into focus.
“Ah, there you are.” The tall, dark-haired man smiled as he waved the offensive-smelling bottle in front of her nose.
Where was she? How had she gotten here? Confused, she cast quick glances around the room. A large green cabinet sat against one wall. Corked bottles holding varying colors of liquids and powders crowded on four shelves behind the cabinet’s glass doors.
The man picked up a trumpet-shaped object from a side-board. “I am Dr. Morgan and, with your permission, I’d like to check the strength of your heartbeat.”
Rosaleen nodded her assent, and he pressed the broader end of the instrument against her chest while holding the small, ivory-colored end to his ear.
“Well,” he said, laying aside the instrument, “other than some bruising and exhaustion, I can find no injuries.”
“Wh–where am I?” Disoriented, Rosaleen attempted to rise from a large, leather-upholstered chair.
A woman she hadn’t noticed before gently restrained her. Dark brown curls peeked from beneath the white cotton cap framing the woman’s pleasant face. “You’re all right, dear. You’re in Madison, Indiana, in Dr. Ephraim Morgan’s office. I’m his wife, Becky Morgan.” The kindness in the woman’s soothing voice helped to quell Rosaleen’s anxiety.
Sinking back into the chair, she submitted to the pressure of Mrs. Morgan’s gentle grasp on her shoulders.
“You’ve been through an awful ordeal, but you are safe now.” The woman’s bright blue eyes conveyed assurance above an encouraging smile as she smoothed the white starched apron covering her blue calico day dress.
Still trying to make sense of it all, Rosaleen paid scant attention when the doctor’s wife walked to a side door. Opening it, Mrs. Morgan spoke quiet, unintelligible words in a summoning tone.
“How did. . . How did I get. . . ?” Rosaleen murmured. Suddenly, it all flooded back into her consciousness with dizzying speed. The explosion. The fire. Bill.
She remembered the sun’s warmth on her face and a man with light hair. Donovan? No. Donovan was dead. Had she been visited by an angel?
Do angels really exist?
“I found you on the riverbank. Thought you. . .hadn’t made it.” The voice that answered her fractured question belonged to the figure of a second man who’d just entered the room.
Following the sound of his voice, Rosaleen blinked again as the man moved from the glare of the window.
Dressed as a common laborer, he wore a pair of black wool work trousers and a white work shirt. The shirt’s sleeves, rolled above his elbows, revealed tanned, muscular arms. His vivid blue eyes, so like those of the woman who’d comforted
her, peered intently into her face. It was his hair, however, that
helped untangle her snarled memories. A shock of thick, light hair framed his tanned features.
Her “angel.”
“Do you have any family we should contact?” The man took a step nearer.
For a moment she sat mute, gazing at her rescuer. “Family?” The stern features of Wilfred and Irene Maguire swam before her eyes. “No.” She heard the word leave her lips on a sad whisper. “I have no family who cares for me.”
“No husband?” The blond young man shot a quizzical glance at her gold wedding ring on her left hand.
“Dead.” Tears sprang to Rosaleen’s eyes at the awful memory of Donovan slumping over the card table, his blood spreading a maroon stain across its green felt top.
“Others survived the explosion,” the doctor interjected with an encouraging lilt. “Most survivors were rescued on the Kentucky side of the river, but I treated a few last night. What was your husband’s name?” He turned to his wife. “Becky, love, would you please get the record book?”
Mrs. Morgan stepped toward a large mahogany desk at the end of the room.
“No.” Rosaleen’s definitive tone arrested the woman’s slight, energetic form. “He’s dead. I watched him die.” Caving beneath the weight of all that had happened to her in the past months, Rosaleen pressed her hands to her face and wept.
“Oh, you poor dear.” The doctor’s wife rushed to Rosaleen’s side, gathering her in a lye-soap-and-verbena-scented embrace.
Allowing her body to sway with the woman’s rocking, Rosaleen sobbed, eagerly embracing the genuine caring she’d craved since Donovan’s death.
When her tears subsided, Rosaleen twisted in Mrs. Morgan’s arms, sniffed, and gazed up at her “angel.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, ma’am. Jacob Hale, at your service.” He dipped a quick bow. “I’m Mrs. Morgan’s brother,” he added. “And you are. . .”
“Rosaleen. Rosaleen Archer.”
“Well, you’ll need somewhere to stay.” Mrs. Morgan’s tone solidified. “You must stay with us.”
Dr. Morgan turned to his wife with a rueful shake of his head. “Darling, you know I would normally encourage such a philanthropic notion, but think, there is nowhere at the moment we could comfortably situate a house guest.”
His wife’s sigh conveyed her regret. “Of course you’re right, my dear. With the upstairs being renovated, we do well to manage accommodations for ourselves and the children.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude. I’m sure there must be somewhere. . .” Without the prospect of a roof over her head, Rosaleen battled a resurgence of panic.
“Mrs. Buchanan has a spare attic room at the boardinghouse at the moment. She’s also been looking for an extra hired girl now that Patsey is in the family way.” The corner of Jacob Hale’s mouth quirked in an encouraging smile. “I’m sure I could work something out.”
At his steady gaze, Rosaleen’s heart quickened. She scolded herself sternly.
I can’t make attachments. I must get away from here as soon as I can. I must get away from the river.
❧
Riding on the wagon seat beside Jacob Hale, Rosaleen took in the town of Madison. Cradled between the Ohio River to the south and steep, stony hills to the east and north, the “Porkopolis” seemed focused on the river to which it owed its prosperity.
She’d passed the place many times on riverboats yet had never disembarked here. Once, Donovan had pointed out the town to her from the pilothouse of a sternwheeler. He’d explained that most of the pork in the country was packed at Madison, Indiana.
As they traveled down a street marked Main-Cross, the smooth gravel paving the extraordinarily wide thoroughfare crunched beneath the wagon’s iron-rimmed wheels. A couple of blocks beyond the doctor’s house, the neat two-story brick houses lining the street gave way to bustling shops—all brick.
“Is everything made of brick here?” she asked, voicing her thoughts.
“Almost.” His lips curved in a grin. “Five years ago the town adopted an ordinance requiring all new buildings be bricked in order to cut down on fires.”
As they turned left onto a much narrower street, panic clenched her insides as tightly as her laced fingers whitening in her lap. What if the Buchanan woman didn’t accept her?
What if—
“Opal Buchanan is a good woman,” Jacob Hale said with a kind smile as if he’d read her thoughts. “Her husband, a coffee merchant, died of dropsy six years ago. After George’s death, she sold the business and opened her home as a boardinghouse. Well, here we are.” He pulled the mules to a halt in front of a two-story home.
The brick facade of the boardinghouse looked unpretentious in its coat of gray paint. It seemed warm and homey. Its white-pillared porch reached out a welcoming greeting.
Rosaleen felt safe—a feeling that had been absent in her life during the six months since Donovan’s murder.
A small brass bell at the top of the front door jingled as Jacob Hale ushered her into a front hall brightened by the opaque glass of a transom window.
The warm, comforting aroma of freshly baked bread greeted them, causing Rosaleen’s stomach to grind with hunger. She soon heard the sound of quick footsteps, and a tall, large-boned woman appeared, smoothing back her graying blond hair.
Jacob Hale glanced from the woman to Rosaleen. “Mrs. Buchanan, may I introduce Mrs. Rosaleen Archer. She’s a survivor from last night’s riverboat explosion.”
Feeling Jacob Hale’s reassuring hand against her back, Rosaleen watched the woman’s curious smile fade to a look of sympathy.
Mrs. Buchanan’s kind green gaze seemed to flit over Rosaleen. “You poor soul, please come in and sit.” The woman reached out her substantial arm and encircled Rosaleen’s waist, quickly whisking her into a sunny parlor.
Stunned by Mrs. Buchanan’s swift action, Rosaleen glanced back at her rescuer, left standing in the front hall.
Jacob Hale met her look with an amused grin.
Entering the parlor, Rosaleen took in the room. Larger than she would have expected for this size of house, the parlor testified to the success of the late Mr. Buchanan’s business. Rich India carpets of green and gold hues dotted the floor. The room showcased several pieces of nice furniture, including a horsehair sofa, carved mahogany tables, as well as silk- and velvet-upholstered chairs and settees.
“You must be starving, poor thing. I’ll bring you a nice big glass of milk and some thick buttered slices of Patsey’s fresh bread.” The woman seemed adept at taking charge and obviously relished the position. “You sit right down here.” Mrs. Buchanan guided her toward a green velvet settee, pooh-poohing Rosaleen’s concerns about her skirt soiled with river mud.
“Mrs. Archer lost her husband in the accident and has no other family or place to stay,” Jacob said as he entered the parlor. “You’d mentioned you were looking for another hired girl. Mrs. Archer is willing to take the job in exchange for the use of the attic room.”
Rosaleen didn’t correct the man. Perhaps it would be better for them to think that Donovan had died in the explosion.
Opal Buchanan gave a sympathetic gasp and pressed her hand to her heart. “A widow, and so young. Why, you can scarcely be out of your teens.”
“Twenty,” Rosaleen supplied.
Opal glanced up at Jacob. “Yes, of course she can have the attic, but that little room is hardly more than a closet with only a straw mattress on the floor.” She turned back to Rosaleen. “I wish I could do better for you, dear, and you shall be paid besides. That is, as soon as you feel up to any work.” The woman clasped Rosaleen’s hands in her large ones, giving them a quick, warm squeeze.
Rosaleen’s helpless gaze traveled from one to the other as she wiped grateful tears from her cheeks with the lace handkerchief Mrs. Buchanan pressed into her hand. “I don’t know how to thank you both. I—”
“Now, now, dear.” Opal Buchanan patted her shoulder. “We are doing no more than what our Lord has asked of us. Isn’t that right, Reverend Hale?”
A preacher?
Dread knotted Rosaleen’s insides, and her heart raced. She let the kerchief drop to her lap. Her eyes widening, she raised her face to Jacob Hale’s.
“That’s right, Opal.” He smiled and dipped a bow. “Mrs. Archer, I shall leave you in Opal’s capable hands and see you at supper.” When his eyes—the color of an October sky—gazed deeply into hers, Rosaleen caught her breath.
“And don’t you be late, Reverend.” Rosaleen heard a measure of affection in Opal Buchanan’s teasing tone. “A preacher, and he’s the only one of my boarders who’s ever late for supper.” With a soft chuckle, Opal left the room shaking her head.
While she waited on the settee for Mrs. Buchanan’s promised bread and milk, a thread of disappointment embroidered the trepidation wrapping around Rosaleen’s heart. Reverend Wilfred Maguire’s disapproving countenance floated before her eyes. Her gaze dropped to the rose-patterned rug in the parlor doorway vacated only moments before by her handsome rescuer.
A preacher! Why did he have to be a preacher?
“Reckon this oughta ’bout do it, Rev’rend.” Freedman Andrew Chapman stood near the parlor door and mopped at his dark, sweaty forehead with a tattered kerchief.
Jacob straightened after helping Andrew place the last of a dozen two-by-eights across rows of low trestles. His slow gaze swept Mrs. Buchanan’s rearranged parlor. The sofa and settee made up the first row, followed by an odd collection of five chairs. Behind the chairs came the rows of plank seating. “Actually, Andrew, my fervent prayer is that it
won’t
be enough.” Jacob met the tall young black man’s wide grin with one of his own.