Always (8 page)

Emily looked around at Karen. “What articles?”

“He wrote a series on his experiences as a prisoner of war. He spent some time at Andersonville.”

“Andersonville?” Emily repeated softly. “I didn’t know. Everything I’ve heard about that place—”

“Yes. It must have been horrible. After he came back and wrote the articles, he showed them to Papa. The
Gazette
was no longer in business, but Papa wrote a letter to Mr. Greeley in New York and urged Ross to submit them. Mr. Greeley was impressed enough to run the whole series in the
Tribune
. After that, Malcolm snapped Ross up and put him on staff.”

Emily frowned. “You mean, it’s true that Ross didn’t go to Davenport for the job? Davenport went to him?”

“That’s the way I heard it. Now I understand he’s working on a novel.”

“A novel?” Emily flashed a smile despite herself. “That’s wonderful. I always knew he could do it.”

Karen gave her a sardonic look. “I’ll just bet you did.”

Emily almost retorted, then stopped herself. What was the point in trying to pretend with Karen? “All I meant was, he’s a good writer.”

“Mmm.” Karen also looked as if she were about to say something more, but then changed her mind. She broached a new subject. “What do you say we get going to market?”

Emily turned away. “Do you think you could wait for me? I’ll be out in a minute.”

“You have a lot of memories to sift through, don’t you?”

“Something like that.”

“Fine. I need to get something at the dry goods store. I’ll meet you there, but don’t be long.”

After the door closed behind her sister, Emily released a long sigh. It was much too warm and stuffy in here from being closed up for the past few weeks, but she could still detect a trace of those wonderful old smells underneath. Ink, turpentine, pipe tobacco. Memories. Of this place, Papa, and of so many other things.

*

August 1855

“It’s beautiful, Em. Exactly how I imagined that scene when I wrote it.”

Emily beamed, pleased at Ross’s compliment.

He hunkered down next to her on their picnic blanket by the creek, examining her sketch with an appreciative eye. “The bear looks so big next to poor little Matthew. And so ferocious. He doesn’t know if he can really shoot that old grizzly.” Ross looked up with a grin. “It’s perfect.”

Emily gave him a sly smile. “Flawless.”

Ross raised an eyebrow, taking up her challenge. “Peerless, in fact.”

“Impeccable.”

“Supreme.”

Emily’s brain reached and stumbled. Best? No, any two-year-old knew that. “Uh, unequaled.”

Ross’s grin widened. He was sensing victory. “Consummate.”

Good one
, Emily thought grudgingly. “Matchless.”

“Superlative.”

Superlative? Jiminy pats. She’d have to look that one up when she got to the print shop. “Um ...”

“Sublime,” he said when she paused too long.

Emily wrinkled her nose. Who could beat a word like that? Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, maybe. She let out a bothered little sigh—her way of conceding defeat—before taking the sketchbook from him. “So, now that I’ve done such sublime work, does that mean you’re finally going to let me read the end of the story? Does Matthew shoot the bear or not?”

Ross ran a hand through his tawny brown hair, clearing a stray lock from his forehead. It had lightened considerably over the summer. Streaks of gold ran wild all through it. “Next Saturday,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ll let you read the end next Saturday.”

Emily tore her gaze from his handsome face to look down at the sketchbook on her lap. Next Saturday. It would be their last Saturday before school started again. The summer was rapidly coming to an end.

“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” she said. “What if it rains and we can’t meet, and...”

It wasn’t really the possibility of waiting two weeks to find out the end of the story that bothered her, it was the approaching end of summer. She had never had a summer as wonderful as this one, and that was because she had never had a friend as wonderful as Ross.

He was two years older, and he was a boy, but somehow that didn’t matter. They thought the same thoughts, they shared the same dreams. Emily had other friends, friends that were girls, friends that she went to school with and played hopscotch with, but none of her other friendships had ever been like this. Secret and exciting.

She heard a sound—
dip-dop-dop-dop
!—and looked up to see Ross skipping rocks across the sparkling surface of the summer-shallow creek. He was tall and solid for a boy of thirteen and growing taller with each passing month. The sleeves of his homespun shirt—a shirt that had fit him perfectly in June—now barely reached his wrists. His denims were rolled up to his shins, disguising the fact that he was growing out of them, too.

As he stood before her, with the late morning sun behind him, Emily evaluated his barefooted, broad-shouldered frame with the keen eye of a budding young artist. Her fingers itched to capture him on paper. Just like he was now. She wanted to trap this moment forever.

Tired of skipping rocks, Ross returned to her side and dropped to his haunches. “School starts soon,” he said, catching her gaze and holding it. “We’ll be in the same schoolroom this year.”

Emily didn’t reply. Neither did she look away. What he said was true. Emily was moving to the upper level classroom. Ross was in his last year there before moving on to the boys’ high school. For one year, they would share a teacher and a classroom.

“Between school and the shop, we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.” He narrowed his eyes, trying to ascertain if she followed his line of reasoning.

Emily nodded. “I know what you’re trying to say.”

“You do?”

“We can’t let anyone know.”

Ross smiled and let out a heavy sigh of relief. “You do know what I’m talking about.”

“No one would understand. They’d think—”

“Precisely. That’s why we have to act as if—”

“We barely know each other.”

“Or even as if we can barely stand each other, because—”

“The kids would never leave us alone about it,” Emily finished.

“That’s right.” Ross cleared a stray lock from his forehead and gazed absently at the slow-moving creek. For a few minutes there was no sound, no sound but the trickle of creek water passing over rocks and the soft flutter of summer breezes stirring the oak branches overhead. When Ross looked back at her, his expression was sober. “We’ve got a secret to keep, and there’s only one way I know to seal it forever.”

Emily’s eyes widened at the grim look on his face. “What?”

“We’ve got to seal it in blood.”

“B-blood? How do we do that?”

“It has to do with an old Indian ritual of becoming blood brothers. One blood brother can never betray the other.”

“Indian ritual?” Emily was doubtful. Was Ross pulling her leg? “Can’t we just swear on a Bible?”

“Not good enough.”

“What’s this old Indian ritual about?”

Ross didn’t answer right away. Emily watched curiously as he rose to his feet and moved to the edge of the creek. Soon, he bent and pulled something from the mud. After swishing it around in the creek water, he held it up like a prize. “This will do.”

As he approached, Emily squinted at the sliver of glass that glinted in the sun. Probably a shard from an old whiskey bottle. It looked wickedly sharp. “What are you going to do?” she asked, trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice.

Ross sank to his haunches again, his dark eyes searching her face for fear. Emily scowled, knowing that if he detected any misgivings, he would think her a weak-kneed female.

Ross waved the sliver of glass under her nose. “We’ve got to cut our palms. Just enough to make them bleed. Then we’ve got to mingle our blood.” Emily’s nose wrinkled before she had a chance to stop herself.

“Well, if you’re scared—”

“I’m not!” Emily denied quickly. “You go first.”

Ross opened his left palm and examined it. “Since you’re a girl, maybe we can just nick our fingers. How about that?”

“Fine. Just let me see you do it first.”

He gave her a wily smile, and Emily got the feeling that he was teasing her just because she was a girl, but before she could say anything, he had the sharp edge of the glass shard pressed against the fleshy pad of his forefinger. She let out a gasp when he slashed it, drawing a swell of bright red blood.

“Oh!” Her eyes crossed as he offered his wound directly in front of her nose for inspection.

“Quick. Give me your finger.”

Emily felt queasy. What was the matter with her? How many times had she tripped and fallen while running, skinning her knees or gashing her elbows? Plenty of times she’d bled. Plenty of times. Why did the prospect of it now suddenly seem so...
ghastly
?

“You aren’t going to turn all yellow on me, are you?”

Emily forced herself to meet his expectant gaze. There was no sound but the call of a wood thrush and a barely discernible plop from the creek, a small fish or frog. She thrust out her hand, forefinger extended. It trembled some, but there wasn’t much she could do to control that.

Ross took her hand in his. “This is it.”

Emily closed her eyes and held her breath. She felt pressure, then a sting. When she opened her eyes, she stared as one drop of blood billowed like a soap bubble on the tip of her finger.

Ross let go of her and threw down the glass shard. He held up his bloody finger. “Now, touch.”

Feeling almost hypnotized by the sight of her own blood, Emily touched the tip of her forefinger to his. It was wet and slippery, but Ross grasped her wrist, holding her steady. A thin stream of blood ran down both their fingers, but by then she didn’t mind so much anymore. She’d done it! And she hadn’t even flinched!

“There,” Ross said after a long, properly respectful moment. “Now your blood runs in my veins and my blood runs in yours. Thus we are joined forever.”

When Emily raised her gaze to Ross’s face, she saw that all signs of tomfoolery were gone. She had never seen him so serious. Their eyes held for a breathtaking moment before he continued, lowering his voice. “I’ll never betray you, Emily. From this moment on, you’re my blood sister and I’m your blood brother. I’ll stand by you and I’ll never lie to you. Forever and always. Now you say it, Em.”

Emily knew then that Ross Gallagher was not pulling her leg. He meant it. She nodded slowly, solemnly. “I promise,” she whispered. “Always.”

*

1865

Emily’s attention caught on something shiny and silver lying on a nearby table. As she moved closer, she saw it was a string of metal bells. Door bells. For as long as she could remember, those bells had hung from the front door of her father’s shop, jangling noisily to announce arrivals and departures.

She picked them up, blew off a thin layer of dust, and gave them a gentle shake. The tinkling music seemed unfamiliar and oddly out of place in the quiet, and she frowned.

Ever since arriving home, she had assumed she would return to Baltimore. But why? What was she so afraid of? Memories? Wagging tongues?
People?

It was true that her life in Baltimore was adequate. She enjoyed the lively company of her maiden aunt Essie, but both of them had always known what Emily was really doing there. She was hiding. And what kind of life was that?

Her real life was here. Here with her mother and her sister and a niece she had never had the chance to know. She would stay. She would stay for as long as it took to face down her past, and when that was done—

In her mind, a stern voice interceded.
Hold those wild horses, Emily Elizabeth. Take it one step at a time.
Her father’s words.

Crossing to the front of the shop, Emily stood on tiptoe to hang the string of silver bells from their hook on the door. When she was done, she brushed off her hands and appraised her work. A business had died here, but in her heart she knew that a new business could also be born here.

“There has to be a way,” she said aloud.

But she was visited by no epiphany, no sudden flash of divine inspiration.
One step at a time
, she reminded herself. First, she would find a way to make this her home again.

Chapter Six

Ross followed Billy O’Leary into the dining room of the Blue Swan Hotel. Ross had been coming here for breakfast and dinner all week, ever since he’d heard that Emily Winters was still in town.

Billy scanned the crowded dining room for an empty table. “There’s one.”

Ross noted that the table Billy had chosen was one of Emily’s stations. “Lead the way, Big Bill.”

It wasn’t all due to altruism that Ross had invited his burly companion to share a midday meal. Although the man was now employed as a pressman at the
Herald
, Billy had formerly worked for the
Gazette
. Ross knew that Emily had always liked the gregarious Irishman. It would be impossible for her to continue to ignore Ross if Billy shared his table.

When the kitchen door swung open, Emily emerged carrying a water pitcher. As if by some sixth sense, her harried gaze immediately shifted to clash with Ross’s. Then she looked to Billy, and Ross knew just by the apprehensive tightening of her mouth that his idea of inviting Billy along had been a good one.

The jovial Irishman waved as she wove a circuitous path around tables and gesturing patrons. “Well-and-a-day! There she be! Me sweet
mavourneen
, Em-il-ee!” Billy’s booming voice reverberated throughout the dining room, turning more than a few heads.

Emily’s already flushed cheeks were set to blazing as she hustled to get to them. “Hello, Billy,” she greeted in a lowered voice. She poured them each a glass of water and set the pitcher down on the table. “How are you?”

“Why, I’m just fine, I am. But if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes! I heard you went back to Baltimore.”

Billy was wearing such a huge grin that it was impossible for Emily not to return at least a weak smile. “I decided to stay for a while. How are Lettie and the boys?”