After the Storm (26 page)

The schoolteacher held it up to Cailin and said, “Perfect!”

Her fingers trembled as she touched the sleeve. At the cuff was another mother-of-pearl button, as well as a hint of lace to match what decorated the collar.

“Do you like it?” Rachel asked, smiling.

“It's beautiful.” She could speak no louder than a whisper.

“It looks as if it'll fit you well.” Alice smiled.

“Fit? Me?” Cailin took the dress as Alice pushed it into her hands. Looking down at it, she wondered if, even in her dreams, she had imagined owning such a splendid garment.

Rachel led Cailin toward where the women were stepping aside to reveal a table topped with three more dresses, undergarments, and even an umbrella. “Do you like these other dresses, Cailin?”

She nodded, unable to speak. Her mind was frozen as she stared at the table.

Picking up a blue dress with strips of darker blue velvet accenting its sleeves, Rachel said, “This one looks as if it'll fit you perfectly, too.”

“Too? This is for me, too?”

Emma reached across the table and took Cailin's hand. “This is for you,” she said as gently as she would have spoken to a child. “We heard how you sold almost everything you owned except the clothes on your back to get here to find your children, so we thought we'd help.” She motioned toward the table.

“This is unbelievable. I don't know what to say.” She touched the small buttons on the cuff of the dress she held, then whispered, “Thank you.”

Hearing delighted laughter around her, she slowly turned her head to look at the door where Samuel still stood. Her gaze was caught by his, and it seemed as if they were the only ones in the room. The women's excited voices diminished as her uneven breathing grew as loud as thunder.

Then he was gone. She was unsure how long she had stood there, connected to him in a way that defied definition.

Emma's hands on her shoulders gently brought Cailin back to the table. Then she motioned to the other women. Curtains were drawn at the windows and the door was closed. A woman stood in front of the main door and another by the door on the side near the platform.

Cailin did not need coaxing to strip off her worn gown and pull on the green dress. As it dropped to the perfect length atop her scuffed shoes, she ran her fingers along the skirt. “It fits just right! How did you know?”

Laughter burst forth around her again.

“Samuel advised us on your size.” Emma chuckled as she hooked up the back. “I'd say he's a very good judge of your measurements.”

“When a man looks at a woman as much and as long as Samuel looks at Cailin,” Alice said, “he becomes quite the expert.”

Throwing open the windows and doors, the women brought out cake and iced tea to enjoy while they caught up on the news they had not had a chance to share before. Cailin accepted a plate and a glass. She sank to sit by the wall and set the food on the next chair.

“May I?” asked Alice.

“Please.” She motioned to the chair on her other side. “I think I'm too overcome to be able to eat at the moment.”

The schoolteacher laughed. “When Emma came up with this idea after your visit to her store, we all set to work. We spoke to Samuel at the library committee meeting, and told him to keep it a secret.”

Cailin knew she was blushing. Even though Alice was being circumspect, the visit to the store she mentioned must have been the one when Cailin had refused to let Samuel buy her the bolt of cloth.

“This is too grand a gift,” she said. “I don't know how I'll ever repay all of you.”

“There's no need. We take care of each other in Haven.” Alice leaned toward her. “To tell you the truth, much of the clothing Rachel brought from River's Haven. It was left there when the members of the Community fled from the diphtheria outbreak.” She smiled. “It would have been easier to make you clothes from theirs if you'd been shorter.”

She lifted the hem of the green gown. “It doesn't look as if you added fabric to this.”

“Actually, we ended up taking the clothes apart and using the material. You'd have looked silly with ten inches or more of fabric beneath the original hem.”

“Ten inches?” she asked, astonished. “Were they all as short as children?”

“The Community members chose to wear clothing a bit different from the rest of us.” She looked to where Rachel had Kitty Cat perched on her lap while they shared a piece of cake. “If you're curious, you can ask Rachel about it. But please wait. It has been such a short time since she left the Community, and I think, no matter how happy she is now, she regrets the decisions she had to make. Please wait a few months.”

Cailin continued to finger the soft wool. “I don't know if we'll be here in a few months.”

“Are you planning to leave? The children were so happy to have you arrive.”

“I'm not leaving my children behind if I go.”

Alice frowned. “If you take them, Samuel will be shattered. He loves them as if they're his own.”

“But they are
my
children.”

“And they are his now, too.”

“Did he tell you to talk to me about this?” She started to stand.

Putting her hand on Cailin's arm, Alice said, “Of course he didn't ask me to speak to you about this. Samuel Jennings is too private a man to do something like that.”

Cailin sat back on the chair and sighed. She was making a mess of this. “I know.”

“He loves the children deeply.”

“I know that, too.”

“He's looking to the future of Haven because he now has a part in it. There's no doubt that his determination to get the library built is because of your children. He was only mildly interested in a library for Haven before he took them into his home. Before they were placed out with him, he seldom came into Haven, and when he did, he said so little, some folks thought he might have left his voice behind when he moved here.”

Cailin did not try to hide her surprise. Then she realized this should be no surprise at all. “He's been a good influence on them, too.”

“They certainly are more focused on their schooling than they must have been before. It was as if I had to start from the beginning with both of them.” She smiled. “They've been so eager to make him proud of them. Now they'll work to please you, too.”

“I know.”

Alice hesitated, then said, “I know it's none of my business, but the best thing you could do for those children is to let them put down roots here. It wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to do the same.”

“I've given it some thought,” she replied, choosing her words with care.

“And so has Samuel, if I'm any judge of the man.” She laughed. “His smile as you were dancing at the meeting made that obvious. You two look as if you truly belong together. He has shoulders just the right height for you to lean on. Certainly that thought crossed your mind, at least for a moment?”

Cailin did not answer because she did not want to lie. That thought
had
crossed her mind many, many times. Each time she reminded herself she did not need any man—handsome or not—in her life. Only idiots made the same mistake twice. Yet had it been a mistake to spend last night—and tonight—with Samuel?

Alice came to her feet and smiled. “I see you're listening to someone who knows better than I do.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your expression tells me you're listening to your heart, and it's listening to his.”

Again Cailin remained silent. She did not have to worry about anyone noticing, because several other women came over to join them. After they had asked some questions about New York, and Cailin had given them what answers she had, the conversation turned to Alice's wedding, which was set for the following Wednesday evening.

It was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement as the women spoke about what dishes they would be bringing to share. Cailin was included, and when she hesitated, Alice told her that everyone in Haven—including the children—was invited to the wedding, which would be the last event of the summer. The fair and school opening would herald in the fall.

She thought of the new potatoes waiting to be dug in the kitchen garden. A pot of potato and leek soup, chilled for this hot weather, would be a good dish to share at the wedding. She would have to ask Samuel if he knew where she might find some leeks. Onions could be substituted, but she preferred savory leeks.

Just as she was about to offer to bring the dish, she heard a shout and her son crying. She jumped to her feet, rushing to the door. Brendan ran in, holding one hand against his left cheek. His sisters and Emma's children and a boy someone called Jesse followed, all of them shouting as if only the loudest would be heeded.

Cailin ignored everyone but her son. He reeled, nearly collapsing. She caught him and exclaimed, “Brendan! What happened to you?”

Megan cried, “Sean hit him! Knocked him right down onto the ground.”

“He hit me first!” Sean fired back, his fists at his sides.

“That's because you said—” Brendan bit off his words and leaped toward his friend.

Cailin grabbed him. “That's enough.”

“Tell him to shut up!” shouted Brendan.

“All I was doing was telling the truth.” Sean raised his chin. “Right, Jesse?”

The other boy shuffled his feet and wisely kept silent.

“If you don't want to hear the truth,” Sean snarled, “don't listen.”

“That's enough, Sean.” The male voice startled Cailin, and she saw a slight, light-haired man standing behind her. He tipped his cap to her. “I'm assuming you're Mrs. Rafferty, ma'am.”

“Yes.”

“I'm Sheriff Parker.”

“Sheriff?” she choked.

Emma patted Cailin's arm and asked, “Lewis, did you have to get involved in this spat?”

“Jesse came and got me.” He put his hand on the third boy's shoulder.

“Jesse is Reverend Faulkner's nephew,” Emma said softly.

“They were rolling about in the dirt on the street,” the sheriff continued, “and I didn't want them to get run over by a wagon.” He smiled before frowning again at the boys, who were glaring at each other.

Cailin released her anxious breath. This sheriff clearly was not like the one she was familiar with in Ireland. That man had taken his job of overseeing the lord's tax-collecting too seriously, and breaking a few heads was his method of stopping a fight.

“Thank you, Lewis.” Emma put her hand on Sean's shoulder. “I think it'd be best if we discussed this at home, young man.” Looking at Cailin, she added, “I'm sorry.”

“I am, too.” She frowned at Brendan. “Whatever made you think hitting your best friend was a good idea?”

“He was talking about stuff he didn't know anything about.”

“So you decided to teach him a lesson?” She handed him one of her new handkerchiefs to put against his scraped right cheek. “That was silly. Haven't I told you that words are the best way to end an argument?”

“I saw Papa come home several times with a bloody nose, and his eye was black the next day.”

She looked away before she said the words burning on her tongue. In that way, she had hoped her son would not grow up to be like his father … and hers. Both of them could not be halted from vengeance if they thought their pride was being belittled.

“Megan,” she said, “go and find Samuel. He should be at Doc Bamburger's house now.”

“Don't you want Brendan to go and see the doctor?” Megan asked.

Fearful of what she would see, Cailin drew his hand away from his face. He tried to hide it, but she could see the scarlet imprint of Sean's knuckles on Brendan's face. She wanted to ask what had started the fight. However, she would follow Emma's lead and wait until they got home.

“Go and get Samuel,” she said.

Megan ran out and then popped right back in, holding Samuel's hand. “He's right here, Mama.”

When he asked no questions as he herded the children out of the Grange Hall, Cailin was astonished. She thanked the women, who gathered up the clothes and put them carefully into a pair of wooden crates. Samuel returned to take them out to the wagon.

He handed Cailin up onto the seat. When Megan started to talk about the fight, his glance in her direction silenced her as quickly as if he had snarled an order at the child. Lottie crawled up onto the seat and into Cailin's lap. The little girl shivered, and Cailin wondered what had happened before the boys struck each other.

Samuel's terse order sent Brendan to the well behind the kitchen to wash his face before going to his room. Megan and Lottie hung back for once. Heaving the two crates out of the back of the wagon, Samuel carried them into the house and set them in the front hall.

“Cailin?” he asked.

She paused with her hand on the banister. “Yes?”

“Let me talk to Brendan.”

“He is—”

“I know he's
your
son, but this isn't
your
problem.” He motioned for her to follow him into the front parlor.

“I don't know how you can say that.” She ignored his gesture for her to sit on the sofa. “He has done something he shouldn't have. The sheriff was involved!”

“Don't fret about that. Lewis Parker likes to keep things from getting out of hand.”

“It's my place to correct Brendan.”

“No, it's not.”

Cailin stared at him, too shocked to speak.

Resting his folded arms on the back of the chair where he sat each evening to read his newspaper, he said, “It's my place to correct him because this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened since you last saw them.”

“It isn't?” She sank to the sofa.

“Brendan presents a cheery face to anyone he meets, but he has occasionally been very unhappy.”