Where Love Dwells (25 page)

“Perhaps not, but since he's a lawyer, I suspect he'll have a good bit more influence with you than my father ever did.”

She set aside her son's opinion of Zachary, as well as his father, for the moment in an effort to get at the root of her son's distress. “When Mr. Breckenwith is my husband, we'll make decisions together that affect both our lives, just as your father and I always did.”

“That was clearly not the case when you were married to my father,” he argued.

“Warren!” She clapped her hand to her heart, shocked that he would dare judge her relationship with Jonas, let alone disparage their relationship to her face.

“Well, it's true enough. As I remember it, you made all the decisions in the family, and he simply agreed with you. Not that I fault him for it. He had nothing but his own hard labor to bargain with. You held the purse strings tight, just as you do now.”

Her heart slammed against the wall of her chest, and she had to struggle to keep drawing one good breath at a time. “How your father and I . . . No. I am not going to explain matters that are beyond any concern of yours. It's clear to me now that the only concern you do have is about my fortune, or more precisely, how
my marriage to Mr. Breckenwith will affect my fortune and, in turn, your inheritance.”

Apparently unfazed by her unusually harsh condemnation, Warren glowered. “I'm the eldest son. I have every right to be concerned, even if Benjamin and Mark don't have the sense to realize what your marriage will mean to us. I can only hope you've taken legal steps to protect your fortune from Mr. Breckenwith the same way you did with my father when he was alive and the same way you continue to withhold any portion of it from your sons.”

Raw anger sliced through her efforts to remain calm, if not reasonable. “When each of you reached your majority, you all received an identical and quite substantial sum to start a business of your own choosing. Beyond that—”

“Beyond that, we've received nothing. Mark is barely scratching a living from his bookstore. Benjamin has to toil day after day just to survive in that blasted wilderness he calls home and—”

“Your brothers are happy, contented men who have never, ever come to me to ask for more,” she argued, a bit more evenly now that she had refused to let anger control her thoughts or her words. “Our conversation shouldn't be about Mark or Benjamin. We should be talking about you. You have a loving wife and two healthy and beautiful little girls. Of all my sons, you've been the most successful in business. You have a new home you built only last year. What more could you possibly want that I could give you, except more of what you already have? What drives you to want so much more? Is it status? Or greed? Please tell me, Warren.”

He looked away for a moment. When he met her gaze again, his expression was hard. “I want what is rightfully mine. I want what you would have given me outright if I had been your daughter instead of a son. I want the respect you never gave to my father. I want—”

“This conversation is over,” Emma announced, blinking back
tears as she got to her feet. She held on to the edge of her desk for support. “I'm sorry, but I cannot and I will not sit here and have you say one more cruel and hurtful word. I raised you better. Your father raised you better, and until you remember yourself and your place, I don't think I can continue this conversation,” she whispered and turned to leave.

“I'm bankrupt. I've lost my business and I've lost my house.”

She swirled about and stared at her son through a haze of disbelief that blurred her vision for a moment.

“Other than the clothes we were wearing when we arrived today, all I can claim to own is packed in the trunks we brought with us. I sold the rest to buy passage here, including my little Deborah's collection of dolls. Unless you help me now, I'm afraid we've nowhere else to go,” he snapped.

With his chest rising and falling rapidly and his cheeks mottled red, he threw up his hands. “There. Apparently all I had to do was humble myself and beg sufficiently to get you to listen to me.”

Stunned, Emma stared closely at her firstborn child to see that it was shame that colored his cheeks and shadowed his gaze. She also understood that fear was the root of his anger and resentment. Compassion for him soothed away his spiteful words to her earlier. Empathy sent her around her desk to sit beside him.

“I'm so sorry. I . . . I didn't know. Why didn't you write to tell me you were having financial problems?”

He slumped his shoulders and looked down. “I thought . . . I thought I could pull myself out of the mess I'd made of things, but the lawyers . . . those infernal lawyers . . .” He let out a heavy sigh. “I worked so hard and so long to prove myself. For nothing. So here I sit, a man as incompetent in business as his own father, with as little to my name as he ever had. At least he had a roof
over his head, which is more than I can possibly expect for myself or my family now that you're about to remarry.”

Confused and hurt by her son's perceptions of the life she had shared with Jonas or the place he had in her life now, she shook her head. “I had no idea you were so bitter or that you thought so little of the life your father shared with me, but I am equally distressed that you think I would not make a place for you here because I was planning to marry again.”

“Mr. Breckenwith may have his own thoughts about having your grown son and his family living with you,” he replied.

Emma set aside that argument, despite the fact that she knew Zachary would have very real objections to the idea. Determined to get to the heart of Warren's expectations, she pressed him to tell her more. “When you came back to Candlewood, what is it you wanted me to do for you exactly, other than give you and your family a place to live temporarily?”

He looked at her, his expression earnest. “I need a stake to start a new business. I know I've made mistakes in business before, but I know better now than to take capital that should have been put back into the business to build a new house. I know how to avoid making those same mistakes. Unfortunately, before and after I declared bankruptcy, that wasn't an argument that was convincing enough for any of the banks to grant me a loan.”

She cocked a brow. “The money to build your house came directly from your business account?”

“I didn't want Deborah and Grace growing up over the dry goods store like I did,” he explained. “I wanted more for them. At the time, business was good, so I took a chance and lost. We could have had more. Me and Benjamin and Mark,” he murmured.

Her heart skipped a beat. “I thought we had what truly mattered. We had each other.”

“And patrons arriving, day in and day out, interrupting our meals and putting purchases on accounts they never paid—”

“And yet you chose to start nearly the same kind of business I had here. I don't understand why. If you were so unhappy growing up living over the General Store, why didn't you start a completely different business?”

“It was all I knew,” Warren whispered and looked away.

She swallowed hard. “You were the one who insisted you wanted to leave when you could have stayed here in Candlewood. You could have taken over the General Store someday.”

“And be a lackey like my father until the day you decided you would turn the business over to me?” he asked and turned to her again. “I'm sorry. It's how I felt then.”

“And now,” she murmured, her spirit reeling as she juxtaposed her perceptions of her life with those of her son's.

“And now . . . now I knew I had little choice but to return to Candlewood, admit that I failed, and ask for your help. I couldn't see what difference it would make if you gave me money now, since I would only be taking what I'd inherit eventually. But the minute you told me you were going to get married . . .”

“You assumed I would be less inclined to give you the money,” she prompted.

“Or a place to live.”

“In part because Mr. Breckenwith is a lawyer?” she asked.

“In part. I haven't had a very positive experience with lawyers recently.”

She let out a sigh and tried to keep her tattered heart in one piece. “I won't pretend that learning about your financial difficulties won't have an impact on how soon I get married, because it does. I also won't be able to promise that I won't discuss the matter with Mr. Breckenwith, because I will. For two reasons. First, he's going
to be my husband, and I know his heart. Second, he's been my lawyer for five years now, and I know his judgment to be as sound as it is fair. For now, I can only hope to reassure you that I'll help you in some way. I don't know how yet, but I will,” she promised. “Did Anna know you were going to speak to me tonight?”

He shook his head. “She wanted me to wait a few days, but I was worried. The closer it gets to your birthday, the busier you'll be. I was afraid you wouldn't have the time before then and afterwards, it would be too late.”

“It's obvious we have much to talk about and to settle between us while you're here, but let me tell you this right now: Your assumption that I invited you all home on false pretenses is wrong. I only accepted Mr. Breckenwith's proposal very recently, and while we're discussing the possibility of getting married while all my sons are home, that's all it is. A possibility,” she murmured and got to her feet. “I . . . I think we've both said enough for one night.”

Warren stood up, as well, but he said nothing as she walked to the staircase that led up to her room. She was halfway up the steps when she heard the whisper of his voice.

“I'm sorry, Mother.”

She gulped down the lump in her throat. “Me too.”

Still fully dressed, Emma slipped under the quilt on her bed and curled into a ball. With one hand, she clutched at the delicate embroidery Aunt Frances had stitched on the hem of her sheet that created the outline of the General Store where she had loved her sweet Jonas and raised their boys, as if trying to hold on to the memories Warren had shattered. With the other hand, she held her keepsakes close to her broken heart.

And she cried.

23

M
ERE HOURS AFTER HER TALK
with Warren, the early morning sky was but a haze of gray that mirrored Emma's spirit.

As the earth quietly strained to escape the darkness of yesterday, Emma sat on the ground in the secluded cemetery behind the church. Leaning her side against her husband's marker, she struggled to escape a numbing sadness that left her weak and confused.

Driven here after a long and difficult night, she had spent her tears and instead offered her prayers. A heavy cape kept her warm from the chill and dampness in the air, but it was her faith and faith alone that kept her broken heart beating steadily.

She stared at her keepsakes, which were now resting on the earth at the base of the heavy tombstone, and caught her lower lip. She had always treasured the memories attached to each tiny piece of cloth. Some, like the piece cut from the work apron Jonas had worn in the General Store, were more threadbare than the rest. Others were new, like the pieces Catherine had cut from the babies' blankets.

All the keepsakes, however, were held together as much by memories as by the threads she had stitched. Warren's bitterness had
sliced clear through those memories as cleanly as if he had taken a pair of sewing shears and cut through the cloth itself.

She was still undecided what to do with her keepsakes. The greater part of her wanted to simply bury them here with her past, along with Warren's hurtful accusations and her fears that he might be right: Perhaps she was not the wife her beloved Jonas had so well deserved.

The rest of her wanted to hold on to the keepsakes as reminders that her perceptions of the past her eldest son had questioned were still valid and true.

She traced her late husband's name etched in the granite marker with her fingertips. “Was our marriage as full of disappointment for you as Warren believes? Did I fail you?” she whispered as her mind replayed their lives together.

When no answer whispered back to her heart, she bowed her head. “I did love you. I love you still. If I failed you, please forgive me.”

The snap of a twig close by sent her heart galloping, and she flinched. When she looked up, she saw the shadow of an approaching figure that was familiar enough to douse her fears, yet inspired guilt that lifted her to her feet. “Be careful not to trip. Some of the headstones are so low that—”

“I've walked this path too often not to know my way,” Mother Garrett replied and stopped at the foot of her son's gravesite. “I was worried about you.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you any worry. I left a note on the kitchen table to tell you I'd gone for a walk. Didn't you see it?”

“Yes, I saw it, then I tore it up. I had a good notion I'd find you here.”

“How would you know that?” Emma asked. “I wasn't even certain myself I was coming here when I left the house.”

“Because I know you, Emma. Better than you know yourself,” Mother Garrett countered. “When I heard you crying last night, I went downstairs to fix a cup of tea for you hoping that might help. Warren was just coming up the steps as I was going down.”

Emma swallowed hard. “You talked to him?”

“For a good hour or so, over a pot of tea. By the time I got back upstairs with a cup for you, you were asleep. I figured you needed your rest after what he'd put you through. The minute I spied your note this morning, I headed straight out. I knew you'd end up here sooner or later.”

Emma rested her hand atop the cold stone. “What did Warren say?”

“He wasn't too forthcoming at first, but I got him to tell me everything, at least his side of the conversation he had with you. I'm disappointed with him, but I can't say I was overly surprised he had behaved so badly with you. I could see he was in a bit of a snit the first moment I laid eyes on him yesterday.”