Mittman, Stephanie (34 page)

"Miller,
what's the matter with you?"

There
was Sissy Morrow, good old Sissy Morrow, standing by him, trying to calm his
overwrought nerves. She was a wonderful woman, a pillar of the community, loved
by everyone who knew her. And soon she would be his. If she'd still have him
after this.

"It's
my fault," he admitted, raising his cold hands and touching her soft
tear-streaked cheeks. "I could have prevented it with just a word, and I
didn't."

"Don't
be silly," she said, her own warm hand covering his as it stroked her
cheek. "There was nothing you could have done. No way you could have known
any better than the rest of us."

"But
you, Sissy, you knew better. And so did that man. And I was so busy distrusting
him that I refused to raise my hand to aid my own community. I was too busy
preserving my wife's good name to worry about the welfare of a small boy and
countless others."

"Elvira?"
Sissy looked at him blankly. No one had more trust or belief in her fellowman
than the woman who stood before him, he thought. "What does Elvira have to
do with this?"

"I
loved her, Sissy," he admitted, tears filling his eyes. "Out of love,
look what I've done!"

"Ssh,"
she said. She wrapped her arm around his waist so gently it was like a feather
touching his back. "I'll walk you home. Come, Miller. Let's go home."

If
love made you do things too disgraceful to admit, perhaps it was just as well
he didn't love Sissy Morrow.

"Yes,"
he agreed. He looked behind him and saw Doc Woods helping Noah Eastman to his
feet. "Let's go home."

***

When
they got to the house, Annie watched Miller fumble with the knob to the front
door and then stand, foolishly lost, in his own front parlor.

"I'll
make you some tea," she said after she finally got Miller out of his
worsted overcoat and helped him to the silk brocatelle gent's easy chair in the
parlor. Miller let his head rest against the doily that waited for him, and Annie
hurried to the back of the house to get the water on.

She
had never, not in all the years she had known Miller, seen him so stunned. Even
when Elvira died he had seemed more in control, but of course her death had
come as no surprise.

She
unbuttoned her mackintosh, noting the black circle of soot that remained where
only minutes before Noah's head had rested against her. She touched the spot
gently as though stroking his hair. He was safe. For his children's sake she
heaved a sigh of relief. For those two dear little ones to be left motherless
and
fatherless—well, she didn't even want to think about that.

When
Elvira was dying, those last awful months, Annie had become very familiar with
the Winestocks' kitchen. The tea was where she had last put it away. If Miller
had ever fixed some for himself, he had returned the tea to where he had found
it. Putting the kettle on the Sterling range, she looked around the tidy
kitchen.

The
fact that she hadn't come during the week hadn't meant the house went uncared
for. It was a relief, she told herself, that the man could manage to take care
of himself. She'd been needed enough in her life. What a luxury to think that
her husband would require so little of her. A hot meal every day, a mended
shirt here and there, clean sheets at night....

Steam
poured from the kettle spout and Annie reached for a dishrag with which to
grasp the handle. As the hot mist rushed toward her she thought of Noah and
Paulie, lost in the smoke of the schoolhouse fire, and shivered. As soon as she
had Miller settled, she'd go check with Doc Woods and see if there was anything
she could do for either of them. Yes,
either
of them, she thought,
trying to be concerned for both victims equally.

Paulie,
the more injured of the two, had his mother to look after him. But who would
see to Noah if he needed tending? Ethan would have to do the harvesting, so it
appeared that taking care of their father would fall in with taking care of
Hannah and Julia.

A
soft knock at the back door broke her chain of thought, and she poured water
over the loose tea and set the kettle down quickly. A second, slightly more
forceful knock followed.

"Yes?"
Annie said as she opened the door. It was rare that anyone other than a
delivery boy came to Miller's back door.

But
it wasn't a delivery boy who stood on his back steps that morning. It was
Tessie Willis, her flyaway auburn locks tucked neatly into a bonnet, her navy
mackintosh buttoned to the neck, her cheeks rosy from the cold.
"Sissy," she said with a tremble in her voice. "I didn't expect
to find you here."

"I
might say the same," Annie returned. Tessie Willis didn't even attend
church anymore. What was she doing at Miller's back door?

"Is
the Reverend Winestock in?" She fidgeted with her gloves, pulling them
tighter onto her hands as if making ready to do battle with the elements once
again.

"Reverend
Winestock?" It was a stupid question, but somehow Annie was having
difficulty grasping the idea that Tessie Willis was here to see Miller.

"Well,
he does live here," Tessie said dryly, losing some of her nervousness
along with her patience. "And he did ask me to come this morning."

"Oh!
Please, come in. I didn't mean to keep you waiting in the cold." She
backed out of the way to give the woman room to enter. "I'll tell Miller you're
here."

She
found Miller where she had left him, still in his dressing gown and nightshirt.
Chalky white ankles and feet emerged from beneath the robe and were lost in
velvet slippers.

"Miller,"
she said tapping him gently on the shoulder. "Tessie Willis is in the
kitchen. She says you told her to come here?" She tried not to make it
sound as if she didn't believe the woman, but she wasn't sure she succeeded.

"It
was because I loved her, you know," Miller replied.

Annie's
heart stuck in her throat. "Tessie?" she asked.

Miller
blinked a couple of times and then focused on Annie. "Tessie?" he
repeated. "Tessie who?"

"Tessie
Willis is here to see you," she repeated, watching him closely. On his
face was that look he always got when he spoke about Elvira. Only this time she
could swear it was mixed with pain and guilt.

"Oh."
He looked down at his clothing and blanched. "I forgot she was
coming." He looked at Annie helplessly.

"I
could send her away," Annie whispered. "Why is she here?"

"I
hired her to work for me," he said, as if everyone gave Tessie a job on
Tuesday mornings. "She'll be doing the secretarial work for the
church."

"But
Miller," Annie began. She'd been learning so much this past week from
Noah. She hardly ever, except under the strain of the fire, said
ain't
anymore.
She was racing through the book Noah had loaned her and practicing with
newspapers, as well. Her penmanship still looked like a grade schooler, but she
was hoping to get Noah to help her with that too, after his hand was fully healed.

"I
know," he said gently. "That should be your job. But she needed work,
and your time could be so much better spent."

"I'm
an embarrassment to you. I know it, but I could learn to be better at writin'
and things. I'm gettin' better at them all the time."

"Don't,"
he said, rising and taking her face in his hands. "Don't try to change. It
wouldn't do to have you perfect at everything."

"What?"

He
dropped his hands and looked toward the kitchen door. "Tell Tessie I'll be
down in a minute. I can't be meeting my new secretary in my nightclothes, now,
can I?" He tried to smile but the attempt fell flat.

It
wouldn't do to have you perfect at everything.
Fighting to put
one foot in front of the other she made her way back to the kitchen in a
stupor.
It wouldn't do to have you perfect at everything.
Whatever did
he mean by that?

Tessie
was waiting, sweat forming on her upper lip as she stood in her heavy coat,
gloves, and bonnet. Annie apologized and offered to take her things.

"Then
he'll see me?" Tessie asked. Annie hadn't realized how much older Tessie
had grown since she'd gotten a good look at her. A couple of years Annie's
senior, Tessie had lines that joined her nose to her mouth and a sallowness to
skin Annie remembered as pale and flawless.

Annie
nodded. "He ran out to the fire in his nightclothes," she whispered
conspiratorially. "He's gone up to change."

"The
fire sure was something, wasn't it?" Tessie said. "That Mr. Eastman
is one fine-looking man."

Annie
bristled. "I suppose everyone has a right to an opinion."

"I
suppose you haven't noticed those blue eyes of his, or the way the skin beside
them crinkles when he smiles."

Annie
felt her cheeks redden. There wasn't a thing she hadn't noticed about Noah
Eastman, from the mole that the hair near his temple all but covered to the
fact that the man's socks needed mending. "The girls have his eyes,"
she said, somewhat curtly.

"Cute
as buttons, those two," Tessie said.

If
they'd been there, Annie would have hidden them behind her skirts. As it was,
she had an overwhelming desire to tell Tessie to stay away from them.
"They're delicate children," she said. "What with losing their
mama and movin' and such. I surely would hate to see them shook up any more
than they have been."

"I
had a nice talk with Ethan two weeks ago at the Harvest Social," Tessie
said. "He sure has grown up."

"He's
still a boy, Tessie," Annie said, a note of warning in her voice.
"He's only just nineteen and he's still acting like he did when he was
ten."

"He
seemed very grown up and very nice."

"Well,
that's 'cause he didn't show you his real self. The boy still wants to be a
cowboy, just like when he was little. He's never lost that wanting to find
adventure. Always looking for excitement, that one." She didn't know how
to make it any clearer without being rude. Ethan's only interest in Tessie
Willis would be the thrill of an older "ruined" woman. She was
warning Tessie that she didn't want to see her brother involved.

"Well,
looking for excitement can be the ruination of a person's reputation."

Annie
didn't like standing around and talking to Tessie Willis, especially about the
men in her life. She heard Miller's footfalls on the stairs with relief and
directed Tessie to go on into the parlor.

"Is
the tea for the minister?" Tessie asked. "I could take it to
him."

First
Ethan and now Miller. Was the woman shameless? "I'll take it," Annie
said authoritatively. "But then I've got to go."

"Oh,
yes," Tessie said. "I guess you've got to get over to the Eastman
girls. Watching them must be very hard. But then, it seems like you've been a
mother for so long."

"I
ain't their mother," she said, forgetting her grammar for the moment.
"I'm just helping out for a short while. Until... well, just until."

"I
see," Tessie said, and headed for the parlor with Miller's tea before
Annie could stop her.

All
anyone wanted to talk about was the fire at the school. Family after family
stopped by at the Eastman farm afterward to thank Noah for saving Paulie and
for trying to warn them all about their furnaces. It seemed as natural as could
be for Annie to be there watching the children and helping out. No one seemed
surprised or shocked to find her playing the mother hen in someone else's coop.

And
no one except Risa made any assumptions that something might be going on
between Annie and Noah. On the contrary, nearly everyone had a woman for Noah
now that he seemed to be in need of one. Mrs. Wood had a distant cousin out in
Montana who was a widow with two children of her own and would surely be
interested in meeting Noah with the intention of matrimony. Jane Lutefoot had a
dear niece with a pronounced overbite who would give the children all the love
they needed and be a most passable wife to Noah as well.

And
so it went, with each visitor. None of them seemed to notice, as Annie did,
Noah's discomfort every time someone brought up the possibility of his marriage
to their relatives. None of them raised an eyebrow, nor batted an eyelash when
he called her "Annie my sweet" or touched her gently in passing.
Knowing she would never make a fuss in front of the neighbors, he seemed to get
bolder and bolder.

A
big sign with black lettering couldn't have been more obvious than he was about
his feelings toward her.

"Annie
is a godsend," he said to Peter Gibbs, when he and Della stopped by with
the boys. "Taking care of the children, taking care of me. She walks in
the door, and I feel better at the sight of her each morning."

"Oh,
Sissy,"
Peter said when he realized who Noah meant. "Yes,
well, you're a lucky man. I don't think anyone but Mr. Winestock would be so
tolerant about their intended taking care of someone else's family."