Mittman, Stephanie (35 page)

"She's
not Mr. Winestock's intended," Noah snapped back. "And sometimes
there's a fine line between tolerance and pure stupidity."

Risa,
who had been present throughout the conversation, nearly choked on her tea.
"There's so much stupidity going around these days," she said,
"it's a wonder anyone survives it."

Peter
frowned, but he let the comment pass. "Della, don't you have a letter from
Francie for Mr. Eastman?"

With
one eye on the boys she fished in her purse and came up with a mutilated
envelope, which she handed to Peter. Disgust crossed his face as he tried to
flatten it before giving it to Noah.

"Well,
what does she have to say?" Della asked. While everyone looked surprised
at the question, no one looked as uncomfortable as Noah.

He
cleared his throat, his voice still somewhat raspy from the fire. "I'm
sure it's the same thing she usually writes. She asks after the children, tells
me about her classes, and adds always that she misses the family." He put
the letter in his shirt pocket without opening it.

"Does
she write often?" Annie couldn't help but ask. She remembered well the
look of disappointment on her baby sister's face when Noah hadn't shown up at
the train to see her off. Not one of the letters that she wrote home failed to
ask about him, as if she still carried a torch despite all that was happening
in her life.

"Some."

"Mrs.
McCormick says at least twice a week," Della corrected. "She was
thrilled to hear we were coming out and could deliver it for her."

Twice
a week! Now Annie couldn't help but wonder what was in the letter. While Noah
was making eyes at her, was he receiving love notes from her sister?

"She
hardly ever writes to me," Della complained. "After how close we
were, and all. All the nights she cried on my shoulder when you wouldn't let
her do one thing or another."

Annie
sighed heavily. She had been as lenient as they allowed her to be, always. But
being nearly a child herself, she knew the mischief, the lies, the tricks too
well for her brothers and sisters to get away with very much. And they,
especially the girls, resented her for it.

Noah
looked tired. With his eyebrow half gone his face had a quirky look to it, as
if he were always questioning everything around him. It made him look as if he
wondered what everyone was doing in his parlor in the middle of the week. He
closed his eyes for a moment. He'd complained that they burned still from the
smoke, and resting them helped.

"Perhaps
we should leave," Risa suggested, but Della wouldn't hear of it.

"Please
just read us Francie's letter," she begged in that voice she used to get
men to do as she asked. She batted her eyes at Noah and he grimaced in
response. It was clear that he wanted to keep Francie's letter to himself,
which only egged Della on. "Please? We'll go as soon as you're done."

Samuel
and James were getting fidgety. Samuel had already tried to swallow the cap to
the bottle of Munyon's Burn Remedy while Noah had been dabbing the area above
his eye where his brow was gone. James had punched Hannah in the stomach and
had only been allowed out of the corner because the girls had retreated to
their room.

Annie
hoped that either Noah would read the letter or Della would give in before the
boys got into more trouble. The truth was. she hoped Noah would read the letter
because she wanted to know how things stood between him and Francie, but at the
same time something in her was fighting that knowledge, reminding her about
what curiosity did to the cat.

"Mr.
Eastman's tired, Della," Annie said. "It's time I got his supper on
the table and headed for home. Lord knows what Willa's poisoning Bart with
tonight." She bit her lip as her color undoubtedly rose. "I mean, she
probably needs a little help gettin' his meal on."

Risa
laughed. "They're alone and in love, Annie. Bart'll live on that for quite
a while."

Love.
It was all anybody seemed to talk about. Bart and Willa were losing sleep and
meals over it. Risa and Ethan were shoving it down her throat like some kind of
elixir that would cure ills she didn't even have. What ever happened to good
old common sense?

"Get
it out of your mouth," Annie said to Samuel more sharply than she
intended. "Now." She stuck her hand beneath his chin and he spit the
slimy centipede into it. It wriggled in her palm and she handed it to Peter to
dispose of, wiping her hand on her apron and feeling a strong need for a long
bath.

"Della,
can't you do something about him?" Risa asked. "It's a dangerous
habit he's gotten into."

Della
gave her usual shrug and said something about the stages a boy goes through
that the mother of a girl couldn't understand. Then she returned to the subject
of Francie's letter and announced she wasn't leaving without hearing it.

Slowly,
reluctantly, Noah withdrew the creased paper from his pocket and opened it.
"My eyes are bothering me," he said, squeezing them closed.
"Let's do this some other time."

But
Della grabbed the letter from his hand and began.

"'Dear
Noah'," she said, raising her eyebrows and making a big O with her lips.
"Ooh, she calls you
Noah!"

"What
else would she call him?" Risa asked with disgust. "It
is
his
name."

Della
let it pass, but it stayed in Annie's mind just the same.

"'Your
letter arrived yesterday. How slow the mail is! Especially to someone who is
waiting so anxiously. I know that you will disapprove of what I've done, but
I've written to my sister and begged her to let me come home.'"

Everyone's
eyes turned to Annie. "It's just homesickness," Annie said, defending
herself. "She'll get over it and be glad she stayed."

"'Every
day I am here, I worry about you and the children more. Not that I am sorry I
came, Noah. But now that we know where things stand, I want to come home and
help you put Wylene's death behind you.'"

"I
don't think you need to go on," Peter said, pulling the letter from
Della's hands and returning it to Noah.

"An
adolescent crush," Noah said. "She fancies me as some poor soul whose
wretched life she can save."

"And
how do you fancy yourself?" Risa asked.

Without
a moment's hesitation he looked straight at Annie. "I am a one-woman man.
To me Francie's just a little girl. She's like a sister to me, but she refuses
to see that for now."

"How
sad for both of you," Della said. She looped her arm through Peter's
possessively. "She loves you and you love a dead woman."

Noah's
eyes widened and his jaw went slack. "No," he corrected, with just a
hint of laughter. "Francie doesn't love me, she just thinks she does. And
my wife is gone and life goes on. Don't feel sorry for me, Mrs. Gibbs. At
least, not yet."

Risa's
eyes went back and forth between Noah and Annie as though she were watching a
lawn tennis match at the fairgrounds.

And
between Annie and Noah ran a current that seemed every bit as visible to her as
the arc of electricity the power company had exhibited at the start of all the
wiring being done in town. It was as bright and hot and just as dangerous as
any electricity. Wasn't it searing her very soul?

"Come,
boys," Peter said rather abruptly, as though he sensed the change of mood.
"Will you be coming back with us?" he asked Risa, who had come out
with them while Charlie watched the store.

Looking
at her nephews, Risa's face wrinkled in pain. She would have to share a seat
with Samuel and James all the way back to town.

Annie
usually went home via the back roads, but going through Van Wert on her way
home wouldn't delay her more than a few minutes.

"I'll
take you," she offered, much to Risa's delight. In fact, Risa looked a
little too pleased, and the look she exchanged with Noah didn't escape Annie's
notice, either.

Noah
hurried them all out the door, barely giving Annie enough time to call out to
the girls that she was leaving and would see them in the morning. Ethan had
already hitched Blackie to the wagon, and Noah handed up first Risa, taking
great care to make sure she had her footing, and then Annie. His hand clung to
her elbow even after she had made her way into the wagon.

"Well,
I hope you don't get so much company tomorrow," Annie said as she looked
down at his crooked face, wondering when his hair would grow back in. "You
hardly got a lick of work done with everyone coming to praise you about saving
Paulie and ask you about their furnaces."

"Mm."
He reached in the back of the wagon and pulled out the lap robe, handing one
end to Risa and tucking the other around Annie. "I hope we don't get any
company at all." How was it, she wondered, that he could say the same
words as she and somehow make them sound so different, so indecent?

"'Night,
now, Noah," Risa said, as Annie picked up the reins. "You sure are a
hero in the eyes of this town."

"All
depends who's looking, Mrs. Morrow," he said with a laugh, as Annie pulled
on the left rein and headed Blackie for town.

Risa
didn't give her time to get lost in her thoughts or even fish around for
something to talk about. She started right in just as soon as they were out of
Noah's earshot.

"He's
a good man," Risa said.

Annie
nodded but didn't say anything.

"Don't
you think?" Risa continued.

Annie
opened her mouth, but no words came out. Only a sigh that sounded sad even to
her.

"He'd
make someone a real good husband." Risa pulled her cloak closer around her
neck.

"Cold?"
Annie asked. "You can take more of the lap robe. I'm plenty warm."

"Yes,
I noticed your cheeks were kinda flushed all afternoon."

Annie
felt them warm yet again.

"Are
you at least considering him?" Risa asked.

"Who?"

Risa
grimaced and a small breath escaped her lips. Now that the ground had hardened
with the cold, the road was rutted and the ride was more jarring than usual.
Still, Annie knew the pained look on Risa's face had little to do with the
bumpy ride.

"The
way he looks at you. Oh, Sissy, he's in love."

There
it was again, that awful word. If she knew anything, she knew that love had
nothing to do with what was going on between her and Noah Eastman. Love was a
warmth built on mutual respect and admiration, something that grew slowly and
blossomed under the nurturing hands of God-fearing adults. What Mr. Eastman felt
for her had no godliness associated with it. And what she felt for him ...
well, there was nothing she felt for him.

All
right, maybe pity. She did feel sorry for him, alone, raising two little girls.
But respect? Of course, the way he stood up to Miller and the whole town over
the furnaces, even when it seemed like he was wrong, was pretty impressive,
especially in light of the fire at the school. And saving Paulie: well, the
whole town admired him for that.

All
her life, Annie had been a reasonable, responsible person who was nothing if
not sensible. She was cautious, careful, thoughtful. All those qualities led
her to Miller Winestock and made her anxious to marry him.

And
every time she so much as looked at Noah Eastman, each of those characteristics
that she prided herself in, that she'd cultivated in herself since she was a
child, seemed to simply walk out the door and leave her standing naked and
alone and unprotected in his presence.

Risa's
hand, nestled in a brown leather glove, gently tugged at Annie's sleeve.
"Don't you like Noah, Sissy? Even a little?" Like him? Some days she
wondered if she could breathe without the sight of him. Others, she found she
couldn't breathe when he was around. But like him? "He's a nice enough
man," she replied, trying to hold on to her common sense when just hearing
his name made her heart flutter wildly in her chest. "He's fair with
Ethan. And he's keeping his bargain with me."

"His
bargain?"

Embarrassed,
she said, "He's teaching me to read."

"Sissy
Morrow! You know how to read." There was a quiet moment when all that
could be heard was the wagon's wheels scraping the dirt and Blackie's hooves
clopping slowly along. "Don't you?"

"Some.
Lists, notes, and the like, but not good enough to help Miller." She
turned and looked at Risa, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice or
the smile from her lips. "Oh, Risa! I'm learning to read real books—I'm
halfway through
Little Women,
and I've picked out a whole stack of
others for when I'm done. Noah has a hundred books, maybe more, and he says I
can read them all. And he's correcting my grammar so that I don't sound so
ignorant, and he says he's got a book somewhere on penmanship, and he's going
to—"

She
caught herself and quieted down. A minister's wife shouldn't babble.

When
she'd collected herself, she said, "By the time I marry Miller, I'm going
to be the most perfect wife for him. And he won't need Tessie Willis to be his
secretary, neither."