After the Storm (14 page)

Brendan jumped down off the wagon. “Can I go and see my friends while you're talking to Doc Bamburger?”

“Just watch for when I come out. Supper will be late if we linger too long here.”

He ran off with a shout, and she saw the boys by the church waving to him again.

Cailin straightened her bonnet, which was almost as bedraggled as her dress. She stepped down from the wagon. Dust rose from the road, clinging to her hem. More sweat trickled along her back, and she wished she had a parasol like the fancy ladies in New York. Any shade from the sun and any respite from the heat would be welcome.

Walking through the gate of a white picket fence, she went to the door that was painted bright blue. The door opened before she could knock.

The short man wore a red vest beneath his black coat. His dull graying hair contrasted with the glitter of sunshine on his glasses. He peered over them. “Mrs. Rafferty! This is an unexpected pleasure.”

“Are you Doc Bamburger?”

He looked startled, then said, “A fair question, since you were not yourself when I saw you previously. Yes, I'm Doc Bamburger. Come in.”

“Thank you.”

As soon as she entered the house, she saw it was as grand as Samuel's. Paintings and photographs hung on the wall of the entry foyer, and more of those frames with words within them in the small room he led her to. Like the room Samuel called his office, this room had a desk. Two glass-fronted cabinets did not contain books. Instead boxes and bottles filled them. She guessed these were medicines.

“It's good to see you looking well, Mrs. Rafferty.” He motioned toward a chair by his desk. When she sat, he pulled out the chair at the desk and did the same. “What brings you to see me today?”

“Lottie.”

His smile vanished. “Is something wrong with the child?”

“No, I'm just curious about her eyes.”

“It must have been startling for you to see her with spectacles.”

“I'm very glad she has them. Mister—” She recalled how Lottie had said everyone addressed Samuel by his given name. “Samuel said you're quite confident she won't lose more of her sight.”

“There's no reason to believe so.”

“Good.” She forced her stiff shoulders to loosen. “I don't question Samuel, you must understand. He has taken such good care of my children.”

“But you wanted to be reassured yourself by hearing it from me.”

She nodded. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Lottie will need to have her eyes examined often, and if you see her seeming to have difficulty seeing, you must bring her to me right away.”

“I will.”

“How are you doing, Mrs. Rafferty?”

“I'm fine, thanks to you.”

He shook his head. “Thank Samuel for that as well. He was determined you'd overcome that fever. He's a good man.”

“Yes, he is.” She was not sure what else she could say, because she was ill at ease discussing Samuel with the doctor. Coming to her feet, she said, “Thank you again, Doc Bamburger.”

“Just keep an eye on that youngster. If she starts squinting, bring her in right away.”

“I will.”

He walked with her to the door. “But don't worry, Mrs. Rafferty. Lottie's going to be just fine. All of them will be.”

She nodded again, but just like when she talked to Brendan, everything the doctor said created more questions in her head. She wanted to ask if Doc Bamburger was talking about the children being fine in Haven or when she took them back to Ireland. Instead she bid him a good day and went out to the wagon.

Brendan came loping across the green as she climbed up to the seat. All the way back to the farm on Nanny Goat Hill Road, he spoke nonstop about what he had talked about with his friends and the baseball game they would play during the next Grange meeting.

The wagon rattled into the yard, but no one came to meet it. When she saw the girls sitting on the shady porch, she smiled. At least,
they
had the sense not to go out in the bright sunshine. She needed to watch what the children did and do the same until she became accustomed to this weather.

Stepping down from the wagon, Cailin stepped to the side and away from the dust that billowed up even though Brendan led the plodding horse slowly toward the barn. She was about to go up to the house when a motion just to the left of the barn caught her attention.

Samuel was chopping wood on a stump that had been cut to the exact height for him. She forgot the sun's heat as a sweeter warmth boiled within her as she watched his fluid motions, swinging the ax to split the log. He picked up a piece, set it on the stump again, and sliced it in half. Tossing the two chunks onto the pile, he took the other half and broke it into smaller pieces.

Sweat glistened like a sheen of jewels along his naked back, and his black hair shone blue-hot in the sunshine. Muscles she had touched through his shirt knotted down his arms and across his back. His skin was as bronzed as his face, and she wondered how often he dispensed with his shirt when he was working around the farm.

He heaved another section of tree trunk onto the stump and raised the ax. Slowly he lowered it and turned, catching her staring at him. He leaned the ax's handle against the stump and pulled on the shirt she had not noticed lying atop the wood waiting to be chopped. Not bothering to button it, he walked toward her with the agility she had seen when he wielded the ax.

“How was your trip into Haven?” he asked.

“Good.” The word came out on a gulp.

He smiled. “There's cold water in the bucket by the well if you're all choked up from the dust.”

“Thank you.” She tried to keep her gaze focused on his face, but it kept drifting down along his chest and the firm lines of his abdomen.

“Did Doc Bamburger ease your mind about Lottie?”

“Yes.”

“I'm glad to hear that.” He picked up his shirttail and wiped his forehead.

“Oh, my!” she whispered as she was given a better view of that strong chest. What was wrong with her? She had been married. He was not the first man she had seen with his shirt unbuttoned. Yet she could not stop herself from staring.

A hand against her cheek tipped up her head so her eyes met his. “You look as if you're wilting, Cailin.”

“It's the heat.” She hoped he would misunderstand, thinking she spoke of the sun beating down on them.

“It is mighty warm today.”

“Is it always like this?”

He smiled. “Lately.”

“How long has this heat wave been going on?”

“Since you got here.”

She started to reply, then saw the amusement in his eyes. He knew just how much he was disconcerting her … and he understood exactly what she had wanted him
not
to understand. Stepping back from the fingers that were stroking her cheek, she said, “You think you're funny, don't you?”

“It doesn't hurt anyone to laugh now and then.” He eyed her up and down, and she knew her dress was clinging to her when his smile broadened. “I know you can laugh. You've got a very nice laugh. So why are you being somber now?”

“Because I don't like your idea of what's funny.”

His eyebrows rose. “Do you want to explain that?”

“You think it's funny when you try to disconcert me by wandering about half-dressed.”

He grasped her around the waist and tugged her closer. “I'm not trying to do anything to disconcert you, although it seems I am. I'm trying to get some chores done around here just as I did before you turned up in Haven and just as I'll continue to do. If you haven't noticed, it's as hot as Hades.”

“I've noticed.” The heat from his bare skin seared through her thin dress. “Will you release me before we do something stupid?”

“Like what?”

When she saw his lips tighten, she feared she had insulted him again. How could she know what to say or do? One minute he was distant and formal; the next he was treating her as if she had no more sense than Lottie. And, then the very next minute, he was touching her and creating the most bewitching sensations.

She peeled his arm from around her waist. “I've had enough of this silliness. I've got work to do, too.” She started to walk away, then heard his laugh behind her. Whirling, she said, “I know you think you're irresistible, Samuel Jennings, but let me tell you something. You're not!”

“You're not telling me anything I don't already know.”

She stared in openmouthed amazement as his smile vanished, and she saw pain in his eyes. Pain and grief and loss. She knew that expression well, for she had seen it, when she passed a mirror, on her own face since her arrival in America.

He walked back toward the woodpile. She took a single step to go after him and apologize for … for causing that heart-wrenching pain. She wanted to tell him that she had not meant to hurt him.

Or had she?

Pressing her hands over the buttons on her bodice, she bit her lip. She had needed to avoid succumbing to the easy sensuality that enticed her each time she was close to him. Her sole defense against it had been anger and sharp words.

As he picked up his ax and slammed it into the wood, she winced.

He's a good man
. Doc Bamburger's voice now joined Emma's in her head.
Everyone was astonished when Samuel offered to have the three children placed out with him. Three children for a bachelor
!

She walked toward the house, not glancing back. That was the problem. He was a good man, the kind of man she had not believed, in the aftermath of Abban's betrayal, existed. She had thought Abban was a good man, too.

She must not allow another handsome man's charms—or the pain she was tempted to ease for him as he had eased her fever—to bewitch her again.

Cailin smiled as she entered the kitchen. In the past week, this had become her favorite room in the house. Whimsical stenciled flowers danced across the pine cupboards. A half-dozen chairs surrounded the kitchen table, each a different style and color. Glass bowls in every shade and shape were set in a row near the ceiling along three walls. The fourth wall held a hearth and the stove. The mantel was bare.

Looking out the window, she saw wildflowers growing past the kitchen garden. Many drooped in the heat, but some in a glass would add color to the mantel.

She knew from the children that the bowls and the stenciling had been here when Samuel bought this farm. He had not changed it, and she wondered how long he had lived here before the children came to this house. Maybe he simply did not care about the kitchen, preferring to spend his time in the lavishly decorated parlor.

The kitchen was far cozier for her than the parlors or even the room where she slept. She liked the children's simple rooms, which were far nicer than anything they had had in Ireland, but not too elegant to unsettle her. The parlors and the grand dining room reminded her too much of Mrs. Rafferty's house, and she suspected Abban's mother would be jealous of Samuel's fine furnishings.

She pushed the thought of her husband's family out of her mind. In the past week, she had been so busy trying to finish the work that waited to be done while finding time every afternoon for a refreshing nap. Yesterday had been the first day she had not needed to sneak away for some rest.

With a laugh, she flexed her arm as Brendan did almost every morning.

“Checking to see if you're getting stronger?” Samuel's question was followed by a chuckle from behind her.

She whirled. “Do you have to sneak up on a soul like that?”

He paused in the doorway, clearly unsure if he would be welcome in his own kitchen. She could not blame him. Her retort had been chilly.

“I'm sorry,” she said, falling back on the courtesy that had become her preservation. “You startled me. Come in.” Pulling the green chair out from the table, she added, “You're late for lunch. The children were wondering where you were. They've already eaten and are off playing.”

“The wagon busted an axle out in the cornfield.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a stained handkerchief. “I'll have to get it fixed before I can do much more out there.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Why do you keep saying you're sorry for things that aren't your fault?”

“A habit, I guess. When I was working in New York, it didn't matter which maid made a mistake. I got used to saying I was sorry, even if it wasn't my fault.”

“That doesn't sound too fair.”

She went to the table and began to slice bread to make a sandwich of the roast chicken remaining from last night. “It's just the way it was. My employers didn't see us as individuals, just as the maids. They addressed each of us as ‘Bridget.'”

“Why?”

“There were four Irish maids in the house by that name, so I guess they believed it was simplest to believe we all were named Bridget.” Placing the slices of chicken on the thick bread, she put the sandwich on a plate and brought it to the table.

A wry grin on his face, he rested his elbow next to the plate as she went to pour him a glass of milk. “Being so accepting of the circumstances doesn't sound like you,
Cailin
.”

“What do you find funny about it?” she asked, then wished she had remained silent when his smile vanished.

“Nothing, I suppose.”

Again her tone had been too sharp. She needed to find a way to speak to him that was somewhere between this sharp voice that suggested they were—and always would be—strangers and the invitation that softened every word when she gazed into his eyes.

Sitting across from him, she set the glass of milk by his plate. “I'm sorry again, and this time I have a reason for saying it.”

“Maybe it's time we both stop giving each other a reason for saying those words.” He picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “You haven't said anything at a temperature above freezing for the past week.”