Liz Ireland (17 page)

It seemed like years since he’d seen her, and now he couldn’t help watching closely as she made her way cautiously down the narrow staircase. He saw the bottom half of her first, and he was shocked by how much more obvious her condition seemed to him now. What had it been…a month and a half since she’d first come to Paradise? When she’d stepped off the train he hadn’t noticed that she was carrying a child. In part, probably, because she’d been trying to hide it.

Then again, he’d been distracted by how pretty she was.

Something similar happened to him now. His first glimpse of her brilliant red hair was a shock, and he froze, unprepared for the onslaught of emotions that began tussling in him again. He dreaded another confrontation and hoped she wouldn’t cry and plead to stay with his mother now when he informed her that she would have to go. The last thing he needed was
two
crying women on his hands!

He prayed she wouldn’t tearfully ask him to take her back.

He also prayed she would.

She came to the bottom of the stairs and turned,
sucking in a surprised breath when she saw him standing there. “Roy!” Her green eyes sparkled in their old way, only there was doubt and dread mixed in with the old friendliness.

Then she looked over at Isabel’s tearful expression and sucked in a breath. “What’s happened?” Her face went white. “Has something happened to Parker?”

Parker again!

“No,” he bit out, more forcefully than he’d intended.

His mother shook her head. “No, Roy and I were just…talking.” She turned to put on a cape and brushed past Roy. “I have to go to the mercantile to hunt for some fabric. Heaven knows they probably won’t have anything, but it’s worth a try I suppose.”

He frowned as she disappeared through the door, then turned back to Ellie with more trepidation than he should have felt.

To his surprise, her expression had fury in it. “What happened?” She tapped her foot like an angry schoolmarm. “What did you say to reduce your mother to tears? Were you berating her for taking me in?”

“No!” Lord knows he would have liked to, but he hadn’t even gotten that far!

“Good. Because you have no right to come barging in here and taking your anger at me out on her!”

He tossed his hands out in frustration. “I haven’t taken my anger out on anybody yet!”

She jumped on the small opening he’d given her and marched up to him until they were standing toe-to-toe. “But you
intended
to, didn’t you?”

He sputtered in confusion for a moment, but before he could spit out a coherent answer, she brayed in displeasure. “Roy, you’ve been
drinking!
” She
stepped back, her hands on her hips. “And look at you! You look terrible!”

He shrugged. “I just got in a fight over at the Lalapalooza.”

Her angry stance dissolved as her hand moved to her mouth in surprise. “Oh, no—were you hurt?”

He shook his head, amazed at what a good job she could do of pretending to care for him. He almost believed her. “I nearly got thrown out, though. Thrown out, Ellie,” he repeated for emphasis, “of the bar I’ve been going to since I took my first drink.”

“What happened?”

He let out a snort of laughter. “I was defending a lady’s honor.”

Her face went slack. When he said nothing more, she sighed. “I knew there was probably talk around town. A hush usually falls over a room when I go into the stores here. I was hoping it was because I’m still a stranger, and not because people were being malicious.”

Frustration battled with sympathy in him. Even good people could be so damn cruel! He could well imagine the reception she’d been getting all over town.

But then, what did she expect? “Is it malice when people are just reacting to the truth?”

Ellie’s round face looked stricken. “No, I suppose not.”

Roy shifted uncomfortably. He reminded himself that he was here on a mission, plain and simple, and that he needed to get on with it.

Then he remembered something his mother had said. “Parker’s been coming here a lot?”

Ellie smiled that sweet smile of hers. “Do you object to Parker’s visiting here for some reason?”

“Of course!”

“He’s just being nice to me.”

That’s what Roy objected to. “He’s always had a soft spot for you—I’d hate to see him be taken advantage of.”

Her expression turned stony. “He won’t be.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s hard to tell what you’ll do—but whatever course you take, it’s usually the one most liable to put people out.”

“Put
you
out, you mean?”

“Yes.”

Her cheeks heated with fresh rage. “Oh, I see! I’m supposed to beg your permission from now on before I see anyone or go anywhere.”

“I didn’t say that,” he replied. “But now that you mention it, it might have helped if you’d left here with the money I gave you.”

She laughed. “I’ve never thanked you for that, did I? It was so kind of you to help me start my new life.”

“Then why the heck didn’t you start it in Omaha or somewhere else?”

“Because if I’d used the money for train fare, I would have been broke when I reached my destination. So I gave the money to your mother to train as an apprentice for one month, and she graciously took me in.”

Roy’s face burned. He should have either kept his money or given her enough to send her back to where she came from. In fact…

He reached into his jacket for his wallet and pulled out several larger bills.

Ellie stepped back, clasping her hands behind her back. “No, Roy!”

Her stance only made her belly stick out that much more, and the reminder of her child only made him that much more determined to give her the money.

He jabbed the bills toward her. “You could go back to New York with this.”

“I don’t want to go to New York.”

“Chicago, then.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t accept a nickel from you, Roy. You’ve done too much already.”

Too much?
All he’d managed to do was wedge her firmly in the middle of his town, in his mother’s house, in his brother’s sympathies!

If the truth be told, it was that last part that really bothered him. What if Parker went and did something really foolish, like marrying Ellie because he felt sorry for her? Roy would have to spend the rest of his life with Ellie as his sister-in-law. That would be too much! He’d have to leave town himself rather than live with a situation like that, and he had no intention of being the one who was drummed out of Paradise.

“Take the money,” he commanded.

She smiled at him. Smiled! “No thank you, Roy. I’m doing very well right where I am.”

All he could tell was that she was doing a bang-up job of irritating him. “But you just said you’re being snubbed in this town, that no one will talk to you. Rumors are flying around the Lalapalooza, and they aren’t pretty.”

Her chin jutted stubbornly. “Parker says all that will change after the dance.”

Roy blinked. “The dance?”

“At the school,” she told him. “It’s the fall dance to raise money for a library. Parker’s taking me.”

Parker was insane. “You can’t go to that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re pregnant!” he thundered. “There’s enough gossip about you as it is. You don’t
have to flaunt your condition in everyone’s faces when they’re already straining to be civil.”

She chuckled. “That sounds like something Cora Trilby or Munsie Warner would say.”

“It
is
what they’ll say, believe me.”

“Parker says that if I hold my head high and go to the dance with him, people will tire of gossiping about us.”

Us
—as if she and Parker were an item. Roy felt heat flood his face. “Parker doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You two showing up together there will be like throwing kindling on a bonfire.”

Ellie shrugged and let out a wispy sigh. “We’ll see.”

Roy gaped at her, amazed by her complacency. Then he realized that he was still standing there with a wad of bills jutting out toward her. Money that she had no intention of taking.

Mumbling a curse, he shoved the bills into his pocket.

“Are you going to the dance?” she asked, as if they were having a pleasant social conversation.

“I’ve always gone to them before,” he said curtly.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “It’s been a long time since I’ve danced.”

“No it hasn’t,” he blurted out. “We just—”

His mouth snapped shut. For a moment, he was nearly blinded by the memories of holding Ellie in his arms, the two of them turning and swirling through apple trees dusted with white. The whole world had seemed so sparkling and fresh that morning, like a wide-open sunkissed ballroom put there for their pleasure. They’d danced and spun and laughed until they were dizzy.

Didn’t she remember?

“Roy? Are you all right?”

He looked back down at her, frowning.

“You were weaving.”

Her bow lips turned up at the corners, and in that moment, he knew. She did remember. She was just teasing him, taunting him, and for some reason he wanted to take the bait. He suddenly couldn’t help imagining how different things might have been if he’d never found out the truth, if he and Ellie were standing here right now planning on continuing their dance into the future together. He could have swept her into his arms and practiced a few steps right then and there, and held her tight until he couldn’t resist stealing a kiss and…

He turned, suppressing a groan. “Tell my mother I had to leave,” he said, rushing out the door before he could look into those captivating green eyes again and relinquish all claim to common sense.

As he rushed down the sidewalk toward his horse, it occurred to him than instead of scoring a victory by going to Isabel’s, it felt as if he were just barely escaping with his life. Instead of drumming her out of town, he’d only managed to have her reaffirm her intention to stay—and to have her thank him for helping her do it!

Instead of coming out victorious, he’d had to surrender to the fact that Ellie might be here to stay, a constant reminder that love had made a fool of him.

C
lara was wrestling several bolts of cloth, trying to roll them back into some kind of tidy order. Isabel Dotrice had come in and made her take down at least twenty samples one after the other, and had picked over each one for at least five minutes before discarding it, severely testing Clara’s patience. If it weren’t for the fact that she was Parker’s mother….

The doorbell jangled. Clara sighed, vexed. More customers! And she’d just got rid of the last one. They
would
flood in the one afternoon she was stuck here alone. Her parents were visiting her grandmother, who was ill, and had left Clara in charge. If it were up to her, Clara would have just put the Please Call Again sign up and gone for a piece of cake at the hotel’s café, but no doubt word would get back to her parents. It always did!

“Oh, miss…?”

At the high-pitched whiny voice behind her, Clara whirled impatiently on her heel, sending three bolts of cloth dropping to the floor. Couldn’t whoever it was see she was busy?

Then she saw
who
it was, and nearly fell to the floor herself.

Parker!

He was staring at her with that teasing grin, his eyes practically laughing at the little trick he’d played on her. “Who were you expecting, Munsie Warner?”

At the sound of his real voice, her skin tingled all over. He hadn’t spoken to her directly in almost a year—and it seemed longer! She tilted her head, smiling. As always, Parker looked good enough to eat. Tall, fair, muscular—a veritable Adonis.

And finally,
finally
he’d come to apologize for treating her so miserably all these months. He deserved a good tongue-lashing for being so mean to her and so stubborn, but at the sight of him her woman’s heart stirred with forgiveness. Love’s victory would be so sweet. Maybe now he’d even be escorting her to the dance!

She scooted around the counter, primped her skirts, and looked up at him expectantly. “Did you come here for some particular reason?”

He gazed down at her for a long moment, as if drinking in her every feature. Then, in a warm voice, he replied, “I just came to buy something.”

Her mouth, which had been frozen in a smile, went slack. She swallowed with effort. This was hardly the apology she expected.

She tilted her head. “Anything specific?”

He crossed his arms and his brows puckered in thought. “Well…it’s for a lady.”

She clutched the counter behind her for support.
For a lady?
He’d come here to buy a gift for another woman? “For your mother, perhaps?” she asked sweetly. “She was just here buying the prettiest…”

He shook his head distractedly as he looked around the store. “No, it’s not for my mother. It’s for someone considerably younger.”

“Oh!” She nearly slapped the counter with her fist,
then realized she had yelled. She forced a smile. “I mean,
certainly
we can find something that will satisfy…this woman.”

No doubt he was buying something for that Fitzsimmons creature. Everyone knew he was next door practically every day, and not just to visit his mother, either. The final insult! Clara was not only being passed over, but passed over for some woman who was not rich, had red hair the color of rust, and was pregnant to boot! Only the greatest effort kept her from losing her composure.

Oh, but she wouldn’t give Parker McMillan the satisfaction of seeing her feathers ruffled! “What kind of present are you looking for?” She led him over to their ready-made clothes and picked up a pair of tiny crocheted blue shoes. She knew she was being catty, but she didn’t care. “Baby booties, perhaps?”

He inspected the item carefully and shook his head. “No, those wouldn’t fit her.”

Clara let out a huff. “Hair ribbons? Chocolate candies?”

“Actually…I was thinking of something more personal.” He grinned down at her. “You know, the dance is coming up.”

“I know!” she bit out.

He lifted a brow and she tried to keep hold of her temper. But honestly, what did the man come in here for, to torture her?

He fingered a silk handkerchief absently and glanced over at her. “You’re going, of course.”

“Of course!” She said brightly, lifting her head proudly. “Leon O’Mara is taking me. He asked me months ago, and naturally I said yes right off.”

Parker smiled. “Naturally.”

She tossed her head. “I wouldn’t dream of going
to the dance with anyone besides Leon. In fact, I’ve promised him every dance!”

“Have you now.” Parker smiled politely. “I think I’d like to look at your jewelry.”

She turned on her heel and marched over to the jewelry case. “We have some combs with pearl inlay. Those are nice.” She’d had her eye on those herself.

Parker’s lips turned down in distaste. “Aren’t they a little…ordinary?” He squinted down into the case. “What I’m looking for is…there!”

Clara looked down at the beautiful ring with pearls and little diamonds in the shape of a flower. She felt crushed. He was going to buy
that
for some pregnant New York woman who wasn’t even rich?

Oh, life wasn’t fair!

She couldn’t help herself. She took the ring out and slammed it onto the glass counter with more force than she should have. It was painful almost past bearing to think of Parker slipping that ring onto anyone’s finger but hers. Was he blind? Couldn’t he see that she still cared for him?

She cared for him so much she wanted to shriek.

Curiosity burned in her. “Is this ring for some special occasion?”

“Mm.” He smiled down at her, his rich blue eyes twinkling at her so much like they used to that she thought she might melt. And then he spoke. “I’m hoping it will be an engagement ring…if the lady says yes.”

Clara felt every ounce of blood drain right into her shoes, and sagged against the counter more than was ladylike. She was so filled with envy and thwarted desire and sadness that she could barely stay upright.

“She’ll say yes,” she assured Parker joylessly.

“You think so?”

“I’m sure of it.”

Because if there’s one thing Clara knew now, it was that the woman who let Parker McMillan get away from her was a silly fool.

Ed’s clothes made it just in time for the dance. He had that to be thankful for, at least.

The bad news was the suit he’d ordered didn’t exactly fit him right. He’d gotten a lot bonier, apparently, since the last time he’d had clothes made, with the result that this suit draped over his body much as his old one did. It looked newer, of course—there was that consolation. And a black wool suit was good for any occasion, even a fall dance. On the other hand, for courting purposes it might have been more appropriate to stretch his imagination a little toward a rich brown or even a lively check that the sports were wearing now, instead of showing up at a party looking like an undertaker.

Behind the schoolhouse, Ed sprang off his wagon and mopped his brow nervously. He was here now. Too late now to worry about his clothes! He set to work unloading the things he’d brought for the buffet—little apple tarts, some sweet cinnamon cider, and spice cookies with dried apples.

Vernon and Margaret Healy pulled up next to him. Vernon laughed in greeting. “Ed McMillan, you old cuss—haven’t seen you for ages.”

Ed nodded, overly aware of his long neck protruding through a collar that was too roomy by an inch. He’d tried to remedy the problem by tightening his tie, but that had created a rather peculiar effect of material bunching around his Adam’s apple, so he’d let the matter be. “Been busy with the harvest.”

“Had a good one this year, did ya?” Vernon asked.

His wife chuckled. “Obviously, Vernon. The man’s got a shiny new suit on.”

Good lord,
Ed worried, glancing down,
did it really shine?

“You look very prosperous, Ed,” Margaret went on.

Vernon, who had the round, florid face of a man who spent summers laboring in wheat fields under the hot midwestern sun and winters drinking concoctions from the still in his barn, guffawed loudly and slapped Ed on the back. “I was going to say it looked like the suit was swallowing you whole, but it’s the ladies’ opinions that matter, idn’t that right?”

Ed smiled self-consciously, looked out over the darkened fields heading out of town and seriously fought the urge to vamoose.

“Oh, now Vernon,” Margaret scolded her husband, “don’t go teasing an old bachelor that way.”

Old bachelor.
Old fool, maybe.

“See you inside, Ed!” Vernon said, following his wife toward the school.

Ed was sweating so hard now his stiff new shirt was sticking to his back, and he hadn’t even stepped foot into the schoolhouse yet. He felt conspicuous and awkward and woefully unprepared to socialize. How good an impression would that make on Isabel?

Gathering his things before his courage could fail him completely, he scurried toward the school building, mindful of others trickling in the same direction down the dark streets of Paradise. ’Most everyone was in their Sunday best, he was glad to see, but somehow his snowy shirt seemed whiter than anyone else’s. Perhaps he was just being overly sensitive about his new duds.

He kept a watchful eye out for Isabel but didn’t see her. Of course, there was no guarantee that she would even come to the party, though he couldn’t imagine the Isabel he knew all those years ago staying away.
The lively fiddle music spilling out of the schoolhouse would surely beckon her like a siren song. She’d been so light on her feet in the old days that she looked like she was dancing when she was just walking across a room. On a real dance floor, she moved like a fairy spirit, as if there were nothing but silvery clouds beneath her heels.

Inside the school, the rows of desks had been pushed back against the walls, and the long teacher’s desk was being used as a buffet. Swags of blue fabric decorated the windows, and bouquets of dried sunflowers, mums, and roses were placed along the wall, giving the room the cheery, homey aspect of a parlor. The music, a light jig of a tune, took the creak out of his joints as he ducked his head and moved quickly with his things toward the buffet table. The music reminded him he’d been quite a dancer himself once upon a time and boosted his spirits.

This was going to take two trips. He’d brought the tarts and a bottle of cider, but he hadn’t been able to balance the cookies, too. He hurriedly placed the cider on the table, which was filling up quickly, and then, to his horror, looked across the room and saw Miss Munsie Warner bearing down on him.

In all of Paradise, there could be nothing more terrifying. Small, bespectacled Munsie, the outspoken octogenarian and longtime decrier of the town’s persistent moral downslide, poked menacingly at Ed’s cider jug with her cane, the top of which was shaped as the head of a duck.

“That’s not applejack, is it, Mr. McMillan?” she barked at him.

Ed was quick to reassure her. “It’s just spiced cider, Munsie. No harm in that.”

“Last time you came to one of these socials you brought applejack!”

Ed blushed. Though the incident had occurred eight years before, Munsie had a mule of a memory. She also considered anyone under the age of sixty suspect. “Only by mistake.”

“A mistake that threatened to turn the celebration of the election of Mr. Grover Cleveland into a drunken orgy!” Munsie barked loudly, so that all eyes were now staring at him.

“Well, see, the jugs looked so alike—”

Munsie’s ranting cut him off. “A mistake that threatened to turn a good example of civic pride for our children into a shameful spectacle of slovenly excess!”

The fiddlers stopped playing their snappy ditty, and the room would have been deafeningly quiet but for the roar of Munsie’s accusations. Time seemed to stop, and all Ed could focus on was Munsie’s pinched face and her voice braying at him. The cane that had been poking the cider was now poking threateningly at him as she warned him in a loud staccato barrage of the dangers of leading children astray, undermining the efforts of the women of the community to maintain high moral values and encouraging men to indulge their weak, base natures. Ed found himself backing up to avoid being speared by the duck, then, unfortunately, he accidentally swiped the buffet table with his arm, sending a pitcher of lemonade spilling to the floor.

The glass shattered in an explosion of sticky, sugary lemonade, and as he hopped forward to avoid being sprayed by the juice, he ended up falling prey to Munsie’s duck anyway, clumsily knocking it out of her hand. Attempting to catch it, he lost his grasp of the tray of apple tarts he’d been holding aloft in his right hand. They fell splat on the floor at his and Munsie’s feet, and though he did his best to avoid
them, his heel squished down on a piece of cooked buttery apple from one of his tarts, sending his feet flying out from under him.

The next second, he was splayed on the floor—though luckily not in the pool of lemonade. He could hear Munsie still yelling, and see skirts swirling around him as kindhearted yet slightly exasperated matrons scurried to help tidy the area he’d managed to make such a mess of in so short a time. His destructive power amazed even himself.

After a silence that seemed to stretch into an eternity, a slow murmur of voices rose around him, and the fiddlers struck up “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”

Ed felt tired and old and foolish; his bones ached from the spill and he was half tempted to pretend he’d broken something so he wouldn’t have to move at all. They could just carry him out.

Then again, if he could just get up, he could make a run for it out to the wagon….

“Ed?” A gloved hand reached down to him, offering help.

He looked up, then froze.

Like a vision, Isabel stood over him, resplendent in a gown of such deep red it was almost purple. A queenly color. And indeed, in the room with its bare wood walls and dried flowers, she seemed like a queen among the commoners.

She grinned down at him, her white even teeth still holding the gleam of pearls. “You can’t stay where you are all night, Ed. I was hoping you would dance with me.”

He chuckled, and clasped her outstretched hand. The warmth of it, the reassurance, coupled with her smile, gave him the spunk to unfold his old knobby limbs and stand. The party going on around them suddenly
seemed like a dream; there was just Isabel, in the flesh, picking him up and dusting him off as if the past twenty-four years had never happened.