Northern Lights Trilogy (45 page)

“Thank you,” Elsa said. “Thank you, Mrs. Keller.”

“Oh, please. Call me Emma. Short for Emmaline. Too much name for me, though. Everyone calls me Emma.”

“Emma,” Elsa said, smiling at her new friend.

With one glance at her face, Peder knew the Kellers would stay for dinner.

Long afterward when they had finished dinner and both ships were once more underway, Peder sat down with Elsa to read the letters. Most were for her from Kaatje, with one from Tora and another from Kristoffer to Peder. Peder read his own letter, mumbling about what Kris had to say about the status of his next schooner, problems with laborers, and weather delays. Meanwhile, Elsa read through Kaatje’s letters, most of them seeming too personal to read aloud.

“Elsa … Kris writes with news of Tora—” his voice broke off as he studied her face. “You have bad news?”

“I do,” she said. “That lout Soren left her to work on the railroad. Left her alone on all that land with a baby—or babies, as she says, although I cannot fathom of what she speaks. They could not have had another already!”

“Maybe one seems like two to a woman alone on the prairie.”

“Indeed. If it hadn’t been for her neighbors and the Bergensers, she would not have brought in their first crop.”

“He did not return to help her?”

Elsa scanned through the letters again, looking for an answer. “No. He has not returned at all.”

“You think he has left her?”

“She says little of him in the last letter. The only good thing about it all is that she says, ‘I have been forced to my knees, and somehow I feel taller. The grace of God is an amazing thing, Elsa. For he lives within me. I had forgotten that for a time. But remembering has made me strong.’ No, she says it here: ‘Pray for me and my daughters. The Lord is mighty, but this world is harsh. Your ever-loving friend, Kaatje.’ She says ‘daughters’! Another! So soon! And that rat Soren has left them high and dry.”

“Perhaps he’ll return.”

“Perhaps. Why do I doubt him?” she asked, hating the sarcasm she heard in her voice but unable to curb it. “Peder, we must send her some help. Might we wire her some funds? A little something to get her through the winter?”

“Indeed. Consider it done. We shall do it in New York when we unload the Whitehall cargo. It will get to her faster.”

“You are so good, Peder. Thank you.” She picked up the last letter, a note from Tora. Perhaps her sister had better news. The brief letter was not dated, but covered in her sister’s distinctive scroll-like script.

“Her penmanship was always far grander than she,” Elsa muttered.

Elsa gasped and swallowed hard, feeling sick to her stomach.

Peder looked up from his own letter in concern. “What? What is it?”

“Tora,” she said, numbly.

“What has she done now?”

“She left her baby with Kaatje. That is the second child to whom Kaatje refers.”

“Kaatje? Why on earth—”

“Soren. Soren is the child’s father.”

Peder slammed his fist down on the table and swore under his breath. “How could she? How could she do that to Kaatje? She was the innocent among them!”

“She was the means to an end,” said Elsa. “Tora wanted Soren to be punished. So she left her child. Her dear, sweet baby …” Elsa turned away from the letter, miserable at the grief her sister had brought into Kaatje’s life and home.

Peder picked up the letter and read on.

T
rent Storm had been dawdling in his courtship of late, Tora decided. The only way to make a man act was to force his hand.

And she thought she knew just the way to do it. As usual, she swept past his secretary and into his office without awaiting permission.

“Miss Anders!” the secretary said loudly, clearly irked at being ignored again. “Miss Anders! He is taking a meeting!”

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “He will not mind, since it’s me.”

She opened the massive wooden double doors and smiled sweetly as Trent rose and said, “Miss Anders, I’m sorry. I am in the middle of an interview.” Tora looked over the sad woman in the chair before his desk and immediately knew she would be placed in the kitchen of some dreary train-stop restaurant.

“I need to speak to you, Mr. Storm. As soon as you are done here?”

The young woman rose. “If you wish, I could come back …”

“No, no,” said Trent, irritated. “We will only be a minute.” He
turned to Tora and took her firmly by the arm. “You must stop doing this. You are important to me, but this is rude.”

Tora raised her chin in the air and cocked one brow. “I am sorry if I intruded,
Mr
. Storm. It is simply imperative that we speak right away.”

“All right, all right.” He ran one hand through his elegantly graying hair. “Give me five minutes, and I will meet you for lunch down the street.”

“Five minutes,” she repeated meaningfully. It felt delicious to have such a hold on a man like Trent Storm! She swept out of the room and down the stairs, again plotting just what she would say and the tone of voice she would use. The next step had to be carefully orchestrated, and it had to be done quickly. Tora had received an invitation from Alicia Hall to attend a ball the following week. She intended to be gone before the woman could figure out the truth. When Trent’s ring was on her finger, she could face anyone.

True to form, Trent arrived at the restaurant five minutes later. He sat down and steadily gazed at her across the table. “What do you have up your sleeve?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Tora, you never make a move without thinking about it twice. Why the drama? Why the grand entrance and hush-hush of urgency in your voice?” He leaned back and methodically unfolded his cloth napkin across his lap. The waitress emerged and took their order.

She chose to ignore his questions. “I have been thinking a lot about us of late, Trent. While I enjoy your company, I still have not done what I wanted to do when I first came to Storm Enterprises.”

“And what is that?”

“See the wild west. You keep me working here under your eye during the day and on your arm in the evenings. I believe if you and I are to have more than a passing relationship, I need to go on and discover who Tora Anders is … what she’s made of.”

“And you need to go west to do that? All along, I thought you knew exactly who you are.”

Tora fidgeted. This was not going as planned. “Of course. Perhaps I misspoke. I suppose I am looking for more. In me and in my life. You offer me the best here in Duluth. But I want adventure. I want to be on my own, prove to the world that Tora Anders is strong and independent.”

“I see,” Trent said, looking at the plate of food the waitress set before him. “And I hold you back from that?”

“Well, yes. While I have enjoyed your company immensely, Trent,” she said, “and it is difficult for me to leave, I feel I must. Send me to the end of the line on whatever railroad John Hall is building currently. I want to set up with the town at the end and roll with the train as we move on. I want to be
first
, Trent. I want to be there. I have a certain business acumen. I could be your representative and get things set up just as you would have them. I know you better than most,” she added.

“Indeed. And what if I said I was sorry to see you go?”

Tora smiled. “Do not be silly, Trent. Could you not come to see me anytime you wished? Besides, you have not shared your intentions with me.”

“Is that what this is about? Forcing my hand?”

Alarm bells sounded in Tora’s head. She needed to douse that fire immediately. “Certainly not,” she said with a frown. “I am simply stating the facts. And the facts are that I was promised a position in the West, but then you began to court me. I know not what you intend. I am a woman alone in the world, Trent. And I must look out for my best interests.”

“And why is it not in your best interest to remain here and be courted by one of the wealthiest men in Duluth? Do you wish to be rid of me, Miss Anders? For if so, simply say the word. Do not fear for your position. I am a man of honor and would allow you to keep working for Storm Enterprises.”

Tora sighed and reached across the table to take his long fingers in her own. “That is not at all what I am saying. Will you not let me go away for a while, Trent? You can determine your intentions, I can have some adventure, and then we will reunite and discuss our future, should there be one.”

“So forthright, so businesslike.”

Tora winced. “I feel I have little choice. People are beginning to talk. It is unseemly for an employer to see an employee socially. Surely you realize that. I must go. And if you will not send me, I will go see Fred Harvey.”

Trent raised an eyebrow. “Resorting to threats, Tora? You must really feel as if your back is against the wall.”

“I feel I have few choices.”

“I’ll send you, my dear. But I will send you where I can keep a close eye on you.”

“I do not need a father’s eye, Trent.”

“You need someone.”

“And you, Trent? Do you need anyone?”

He smiled. “I do. Don’t we all?”

They finished their noon meal while discussing the places Tora could go and the potential of various sites for a new Storm Restaurant.

“Do you have the time?” Tora asked as the waitress cleared away their plates.

Trent took out his pocket watch. “It’s a bit after one o’clock.”

“I must go. I do not want to be late for work,” she said with a wink. “The boss is liable to fire me.”

“Or take you out for dinner. Tonight? Eight?”

“I am sorry. I do not get off shift until nine, and that’s a bit late for supper. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, then. I would see you to work but I have business down the street.”

“That’s all right. Good day, Trent.”

Trent Storm watched Tora Anders’s trim form disappear through the hotel doors and past the wide windows. She was a fireball, that one, and planning something more than she would admit. When would she be honest with him? When would she tell him the truth? Tora Anders was hiding something. He was sure of it. It was both frustrating and intriguing.