Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (26 page)

“My lips are sealed.” Mae shook her head in sympathy. “That’s a tough break, honey. Any chance you’ll find the guy and get your money back?”

“I doubt it.” Elizabeth looked up as the door swung open and Henry entered, grim-faced. “Hi, sweetheart. You remember Mae.”

“Of course.” Henry went to the kitchen, pumped water into the sink, and briskly washed his face and hands. Elizabeth quickly offered him a towel. “What brings you to the Arboles Valley? I have to admit, you’re the last person I expected to see here.”

“You get right down to business. I like that.” Mae crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap. “Why don’t you pull up a chair and we’ll talk?”

Henry left the damp towel on the kitchen counter and took a seat on Elizabeth’s steamer trunk across from Mae. Elizabeth hesitated before following. When all were seated, Mae gave them a dim smile. “I think you know that Peter works for some tough characters.”

“He’s in prison now, though, isn’t he?” Elizabeth asked. Somehow that seemed to offer some protection against whatever it was that Mae had come to tell them.

“Yes, but that doesn’t let him off the hook,” said Mae. “His bosses sent him to Los Angeles to solve a transportation problem bringing certain goods from the city to their clients in Oxnard and other places further north. If they manage to avoid getting hijacked or having their drivers run off with the merchandise, they have to dump the cargo when the Feds set up a roadblock. It’s always one thing or another, and it’s ruining business.”

“Peter mentioned that,” said Henry. “He asked for my help and I refused. I haven’t changed my mind.”

Mae held up a hand, a request for patience so she could continue. “Peter was also supposed to deliver a payment—a huge chunk of change—to the Los Angeles bosses. When the cops took Peter in St. Louis, they also took the money.” Mae took a deep breath and clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “They expect me to pay them back, or work off Peter’s debt.”

“Why you?” exclaimed Elizabeth. “None of this is your fault.”

“That’s not how they look at it. They don’t like losing money. They think—or at least they
say
—that Peter’s too smart to allow himself to be taken in with that kind of cash on him. They think he must have left it on the train, and that I picked it up.”

“Is that true?” asked Henry.

“No,” retorted Mae. “What do you take me for, some Dumb Dora who’d steal from the Mob? If I did have the money, you’d better believe I’d hand it over rather than be in the spot I’m in now.”

“What spot is that, exactly?” asked Elizabeth.

“Like I said, I have to pay them back. Either I give them the cash or I work it off by setting up the deal Peter wasn’t able to arrange.”

Henry’s expression was stony. “And if you don’t?”

Mae took in a shaky breath, but she met Henry’s gaze steadily. “They’ll kill me. Not only because I’ll have proven that I’m not useful, but to get back at Peter for letting himself get caught with their cash on him.”

“You should go to the police at once,” said Elizabeth.

Mae made a strangling noise, incredulous. “You’re a regular laugh riot, Liz. You should be on the radio. Me, go to the police with this story? I don’t think it would wash.”

“We can’t help you,” said Henry, rising abruptly from his chair. “I’m not about to get mixed up in criminal activities. Even if I were, take a look around. This is all we have now, and it’s not even really ours. Peter would be the first to tell you to look somewhere else.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Are you kidding?” Mae rose and turned around in the center of the room, taking in the cabin. “This is even better than Triumph Ranch. This is perfect. What cop is going to suspect a farmhand and his wife living in a dilapidated old cabin in the middle of nowhere? Let me tell you, the people who work for Peter’s bosses live it up. They don’t rough it. No one would ever think to look here.”

“And we’re going to keep it that way.” Henry strode across the room and opened the door. “I’m sorry you’re in trouble, Mae, but I have to ask you to leave.”

“But her life is in danger.” Elizabeth rose and put her arm around Mae’s shoulders. “They’ve threatened to kill her. We can’t just send her away.”

Henry hesitated before closing the door. “Can’t you just disappear, Mae? Can’t you change your name, start over in San Francisco or Seattle, someplace as far from New York as you can get?”

“You don’t know these people. They’ll look for me no matter where I go.” Mae chewed on her lip then shrugged “If I lie low for a few years, dye my hair, keep my nose clean—I don’t know. It might work. Except that I’m broke. Peter’s bosses took every cent I had. I can’t even pay for that tiny room in that hotel where Liz found me. If I get caught stowing away on a train to San Francisco, Peter’s bosses will send someone to finish me off.”

“You won’t have to stow away.” Henry went to the fireplace, reached up into the flue, and pulled out the coffee can, covered in soot. He lifted the lid and took out three rolls of bills bound with rubber bands. It was every dollar they had saved since coming to work for the Jorgensens.

Henry weighed the rolls in his palm for a moment, and then pressed them into Mae’s hands. “Here. Take them.” He let the coffee can fall to the floor with a thin clank. “Make a better life for yourself somewhere, and don’t come back.”

Mae fingered one of the rolls, and Elizabeth could tell she was rapidly calculating her windfall. “Are you sure you can spare it?”

Henry dropped tiredly into a chair. “Just take it and go before I change my mind.”

Elizabeth quickly guided Mae to the door. “Come on.” Without a word, Mae hurried along beside her across the sagging porch and down the steps. “Lars Jorgensen offered to drive you back to the hotel. Wait in the garage while I get him.” How she would do that without provoking curiosity from the other Jorgensens, she had no idea.

When they were halfway to the yellow farmhouse, Mae said, “Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome,” said Elizabeth, because she could think of nothing else to say. She was proud of Henry for the sacrifice he had made to save Mae’s life, and yet—all of their wages, gone. They were as poor as they had been on their first day in the Arboles Valley.

“I’ll repay you someday.”

“When you can,” agreed Elizabeth, although she did not expect to hear from Mae ever again.

“Wait, Liz.” Mae stopped short. “Even if I disappear, Peter’s bosses are still going to want a place to stash their merchandise. If not Triumph Ranch, then somewhere else in the valley. Someone’s going to get paid to help them. It might as well be you.”

“You heard Henry. It won’t be us. We can’t help it if someone else goes into business with Peter’s bosses, but we won’t. How could you suggest we get tangled up with those people after what they’ve done to you?”

Mae shrugged, acknowledging her point. “Maybe there’s another way. What’s the name of the fellow who conned you?”

“J. T. Simmons, or at least that’s what he called himself. But he’s long gone. As far as we know, he’s back east looking for his next victim.”

“Peter has connections all along the East Coast. Maybe they can track this fellow down and get your money back.”

“If he hasn’t spent it already.”

“It’s worth a try.” Mae grinned. “At least we can make him sorry he picked Henry for his mark.”

“No, Mae.” A vision of how Peter’s friends might punish the con artist came unbidden to her mind. Sickened, she forced the thoughts away. “Please don’t do anything rash. If Peter’s contacts do find this Mr. Simmons, turn him in to the police.”

“Liz, don’t you know me by now?” Mae gave her a smile that was almost wistful. “Peter and me and his friends, we don’t go to the cops. Cops aren’t for people like us. They’re for people like you.”

Elizabeth muffled a sigh. Mae did not sound like a woman who intended to break all ties with her past and start a new life as a law-abiding citizen. “I don’t want any man, however despicable, to be killed for any wrong done to me. Besides, you can’t contact any of Peter’s old friends. Someone will talk, and then Peter’s bosses will know where to start searching for you.”

Mae nodded, and Elizabeth could read in her expression her dawning awareness of all that her self-imposed exile would require to succeed.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. To Elizabeth’s relief, Lars had anticipated their arrival and was waiting for them in the garage, sparing her a trip into the farmhouse, where Mrs. Jorgensen and Mary Katherine were sure to wonder why she had come. Mae squeezed her hand in farewell and gave a jaunty wave as the car pulled away. Then she was gone.

Elizabeth made her way carefully along the moonlit path back to the cabin, where she found Henry slumped wearily in his chair, staring at the dying embers in the fireplace. “I’ll get more wood,” she said, turning to go back outside.

Henry jumped up from his chair. “No, I’ll do it.” He paused as he passed her in the doorway, then reached out to brush a loose curl off her cheek. “Your hair is growing out.”

She nodded, knowing what that meant.

“You would have been able to go home soon.” His hand fell to his side. “Now it will be months.”

“You did what you had to do,” said Elizabeth firmly. “We couldn’t send Mae back to those vicious men.”

“How do we know she isn’t on her way to them right now?” he countered. “She could use our money to pay off part of Peter’s debt, then turn around and find someone else to help stash his bosses’ contraband. Next thing you know, she’ll be up to her neck in a sea of other problems.”

“When someone desperately needs your help, you don’t stand around and ponder what they’ll do once you help them, or philosophize about whether they deserve your help. You simply help them.”

Henry stared at her for a moment before choking out a bleak laugh. “You sound exactly like your aunt Eleanor. Without a doubt, you belong back in Pennsylvania with your family.”

“
You
are my family,” said Elizabeth. “I’m getting tired of repeating myself. I’m not going home without you.”

Without a word, Henry touched her cheek gently with the back of his fingers, but his eyes told her he was resolute. Before she could seize hold of his hand, he stepped outside into the night. For one fearful moment, she forgot he was only going out back for more wood for the fire. For a moment, she forgot that he would return to her.

1912

John Barclay courted Rosa for two years. Once a month he came to Sunday dinner at the Diazes’ home, and every other Saturday he took Rosa out on a date—a picnic, a dance at the church social hall, a day at Lake Sherwood with friends. John was courteous, polite, with a smoldering reserve that lingered long after the couples’ secret was exposed. Isabel was glad that Rosa seemed to be taking her time to make up her mind about him, because she wasn’t sure how she felt about him herself. John had a steeliness about him that made Isabel uncomfortable. He was so unlike her Miguel, warm and affectionate, that she wondered how Rosa had ever become fond of him. Perhaps he had hidden qualities, rich strains deep within, that only Rosa had discovered. In time, perhaps Isabel and Miguel would find them, too.

Isabel had hoped that allowing Rosa to see John openly would bring an end to her late-night disappearances, but in this, Rosa bitterly, bewilderingly failed her. Isabel begged her to stop running off at night, wept over her, threatened to tell her father, but it was little use. Rosa would mend her ways for a little while to appease her mother, but within a month or two, Isabel would wake in the night to find her daughter’s bed empty.

“Why don’t you just marry him?” she begged, meeting her daughter at the door one morning before dawn. Rosa was pale and frightened to have been caught in the act of returning home after staying out all night, but she was also resolute. Although she apologized for upsetting her mother, she would not promise to put an end to her illicit disappearances. Isabel knew then that nothing she said or did would prevent her daughter from following the path she had chosen, even if it led to her ruin.

She was at a loss to explain Rosa’s behavior. She was twenty-two, old enough to be married with a home of her own. Why sneak off at night to be with the man she loved when she could become his wife and be by his side for the rest of her life? Nothing impeded Rosa except her inexplicable reluctance to give her consent. Isabel marked John’s growing impatience and feared that he would tire of waiting, tire of Rosa herself. What would Rosa do if John decided not to wait anymore and found someone else, someone more willing to become his bride?