Beauty for Ashes (7 page)

Griff took off his hat and wiped his forehead. Rounding a bend in the road, he spotted a woman marching ahead, arms swinging, a straw hat perched precariously on her head. There was something oddly familiar about the sway of her hips, the set of her shoulders. He drew alongside her.

“Mrs. Daly?” Saints in a sock, but she was a sight for sore eyes, even with that ferocious scowl on her face. “What are you doing way out here?”

Carrie pushed her hat to the back of her head and fixed him with a determined look. “Running away from home.”

She looked so young and vulnerable he couldn’t suppress a smile. “Without the requisite bundle of clothes and victuals for the road?”

A tiny smile tugged at her mouth. “I left in a hurry.”

“So it seems. Dare I ask why?”

“It’s intolerable. I’m on my way into town. I have a friend there who will help me move my things.”

“So you’re serious about quitting the farm.”

“Yes, sir, I am. Serious as a boil on the—never mind. Let’s just say I’m never going back there. Once I retrieve my possessions, that is.”

“I’d be happy to help you. Save you a trip all the way to town and back again.”

“Would you?” Without waiting for an invitation, she climbed into the rig beside him. “I can’t take many of my things. The rooms at the hotel are quite small. But I won’t leave behind my mother’s walnut chest or my books and clothes. Or my good umbrella.”

He glanced at her. “Of course not. It’s true the rooms at the inn are a bit lacking in the size department, but it’s clean and quite comfortable.”

“Oh, I’m not staying at the inn. I’m headed for the Verandah Ladies’ Hotel. I made some inquiries at church last week, but I didn’t make my decision until today.”

“I see.” He turned the rig around and they headed for the farm.

“I know the hotel is an awful wreck, but the plain truth is that I have only a bit of money saved and I can’t afford the inn. I’m counting on Mrs. Whitcomb—she runs the Verandah—to let me help with serving meals and cleaning up to help cover my expenses.”

“Cooking and cleaning in a derelict hotel? I don’t know you very well, but somehow I want better things for you.”

“Me too, but it’s the best I can do for now. At least I won’t have to deal with Mary’s two ruffians tossing snakes in my lap and hitting me. I won’t have to listen to her incessant complaining about all the work of running a farm.” She fanned her face, which, he couldn’t help noticing, was a charming shade of pink. “If she hates farm chores so much, she should have stayed on at the telegraph office.”

He nodded. “The grass is always greener, as they say.”

A short time later they arrived at the farm. Mrs. Bell was in the garden gathering strawberries in her apron. A cool mist had moved in from the mountains, and a breeze shivered the flowers blooming on the trellis. Griff tethered the horse and helped his passenger from the rig.

“Right this way.” She led him through the parlor and up the stairs to her room. While he wrestled the walnut chest down the stairs, she tossed her clothes, books, and journals into a battered suitcase. She retrieved her small travel satchel, her hat box and umbrella, and met Griff in the yard.

Perspiring from the exertion of carrying everything down from the steep stairs, he wedged the chest onto the seat between them and set the suitcase on top. He mopped his forehead and tucked his handkerchief into his breast pocket. “We’ll be a tight fit, Mrs. Daly, but I don’t mind if you don’t.”

Mary Bell rounded the house, her apron full of strawberries, and stopped short. “Carrie? You’re leaving?”

Griff touched his finger to the brim of his hat. “Mrs. Bell.”

She ignored him and glared at Carrie. “You’re taking all your things?”

“Not all my things. Half of this farm is still mine. But there’s no room at the hotel for everything.” She set her hatbox into the rig. “Joe and Caleb can have the room you promised them.”

“If you’re going to run out on us like this, you might at least wait until your brother gets back from the fields and say a proper good-bye. You owe him that much.”

“I’m sure you’ll be only too happy to tell him where to find me.” Carrie climbed into the rig so quickly that the wheels creaked.

Griff climbed in beside her and picked up the reins. “Goodbye, Mrs. Bell.”

“Wait.” Mary crossed the yard to where the rig stood beneath the trees. “You’ve made your point, but you can’t go through with this, Carrie.”

“Why not?”

“Well . . . because. You know how much there is to do around here, especially with Henry working part-time at the mill. I don’t know how to milk the cow or work that infernal cook stove. And who’s going to help with the washing and all?”

“I suppose you’ll have to figure it out. Teach your boys to do the milking and such. I would advise Caleb not to punch Miranda in the gut while he’s milking her, though. She’s liable to punch back.”

Mary dropped her gaze. “I’m right sorry about that. But Henry punished him for it. You can’t still be mad about that.”

Taking up her shawl, Carrie nodded to Griff. “Let’s get going. I want to be settled before dark.”

“All right, you win.” Mary stamped her foot. “Since you’re making such a fuss about it, I’ll let you have your room back. The boys can bunk in with Henry and me until we can figure out something else. I never dreamed you’d cause such a ruckus.”

“And I never dreamed I’d be set upon with snakes and fists and ordered about like some hired girl. There’s room in a house for only one mistress, and since you are Henry’s wife, I must be the one to go.”

Mary clutched her apron. “If you won’t stay on my account, think of Henry.”

“I am thinking of him. He deserves to come home to a peaceful house. Now he can.”

She nodded to Griff. He snapped the reins, and the rig rolled down the lane.

FOUR

Carrie watched the farmhouse grow smaller and smaller, floating in the mist like something in a dream. Memories rattled around in her head like marbles in a glass jar—long evenings before the fire reading aloud with Henry, cold mornings in the barn, milking Miranda while a litter of warm gray kittens tumbled about her feet. She remembered the summer Henry saved enough to take her to Nashville on the train. The spring morning she’d looked up from her knitting to find a bearded and bent Uriah McClain at her door, come to pay a condolence call on his best friend’s widow nearly ten years after he lost his leg and Frank lost his life at Shiloh.

She and Uriah had talked for hours, reminiscing about happier times. Despite their shared sorrow, Uriah’s visit had been a balm to her soul, a blessing connecting her, however briefly, with her lost love. She could never thank Mr. McClain enough for returning Frank’s personal effects. Even now, they were the most precious of her possessions.

“Are you all right?” Griff glanced at her from beneath his mist-dampened hat brim. “You want to go back? It isn’t too late to change your mind.”

“I’m fine, and I won’t change my mind.”

He laughed and then instantly sobered. “Forgive me. I don’t mean to make light of your troubles. You sounded so determined just now, you reminded me of myself in my younger days. My father always said I was stubborn as a Missouri mule.”

She frowned. “That isn’t a very flattering comparison.”

“Between you and me, or you and the mule?”

She couldn’t help laughing. Griff Rutledge certainly had a way of seeing the humor in any situation. One of many qualities she was coming to appreciate in him.

At last they passed the train station, quiet now in the late afternoon light. Griff turned onto the main street and guided the rig past the Hickory Ridge Inn, the barbershop, and Nate Chastain’s bookshop. A line of buggies and wagons waited outside the mercantile. Scents of cinnamon and baking bread wafted from the bakery across the street. Sheriff Eli McCracken glanced up from his conversation with the postmaster as they drove past. He nodded to Carrie and touched the brim of his hat before resuming his conversation.

Griff drew up front of the Verandah. “Go ahead in. I’ll see if I can find someone to help me unload. That walnut chest is heavier than I thought. I’d hate to drop it and damage it.”

He helped Carrie out of the rig. Taking up the small bag that held her essentials, she went inside. Behind the rough pine reception desk in the parlor sat an olive-skinned woman wearing a dark green silk dress that exactly matched the color of her eyes. Her glossy black hair was swept away from her face with two tortoise shell combs. She turned a deck of cards, one card at a time, her slender wrist and bejeweled fingers working in rapid synchronization.

Carrie stared. Who was this exotic-looking creature, and what on earth was she doing in Hickory Ridge? Had Mrs. Whitcomb converted her genteel old wreck of a hotel into a gambling parlor? Carrie shifted her bag to her other arm. “Good afternoon.”

The woman’s hands stilled. She glanced up, a question in her eyes.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Whitcomb.”

“You and me both, honey. She promised to fix the leak in the roof over my room, but she took out of here awhile ago and hasn’t come back.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“No idea.” The woman gestured toward the threadbare sofa in the parlor. “May as well get comfortable. It might be awhile longer before she gets back.”

“I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Carrie Daly.”

Carrie paused, waiting for the woman to introduce herself, but she merely smiled. “Well, Carrie, if you want my recommendation, room number seven at the end of the upstairs hall is your best bet. It leaks, of course. They all do. But it’s the quietest spot in the house and Mrs. Whitcomb just put in a new bed yesterday. Mrs. Athison passed to her eternal reward night before last and Mrs. W’s been cleaning up a storm ever since.”

The front door opened, and Nate Chastain walked in with Carrie’s suitcase.

“Nate?” Carrie frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He thumped her suitcase onto the floor.

She peered past his shoulder. “Where’s Mr.—”

“Mr. Gilman waylaid him in the street. They’re talking horses. I happened along, and he asked me to help a lady moving in.” Nate shook his head. “I sure never dreamed it’d be you, though. What on earth happened, Carrie?”

“It’s a long story.”

The woman in green dealt herself another hand. “You movin’ in here for good?”

“For the time being, yes.”

“I suppose you know this is a ladies-only establishment, Mr. . . . ?” She smiled up at Nate.

“Chastain,” Nate said.

“Mr. Chastain.” She favored Nate with another smile. “I personally think that having gentlemen around elevates the atmosphere of a place quite considerably. Mrs. Whitcomb, unfortunately, does not share that view.”

She turned her extraordinary gaze to Carrie. “And what’s your name again, honey?”

“Carrie. Mrs. Daly.”

“Oh.
Mrs
. Daly. Is there a Mr. Daly somewhere?”

Carrie briefly closed her eyes and massaged the knot at the back of her neck. Hunger gnawed at her stomach. The woman’s flirtatious manner with Nate was getting on her nerves. “Mr. Daly is lying in a hero’s grave at Shiloh.”

“Oh.” The woman blushed. “I’m so sorry.” She laughed, a bell-like sound. “Seems I’m always opening my mouth and sticking my big ol’ foot right into it.”

Nate smiled. “Don’t worry. I find genuine curiosity in a woman quite attractive.”

“Do you? Well, Mr. Chastain, I am so pleased that you feel that way, because I find I am quite curious about you. And about all of Hickory Ridge.”

“I figured you must be new in town,” Nate said. “I own the bookshop here, and I don’t recall seeing you before today.”

“I’ve been so busy ever since I got here that I haven’t ventured out much. But I do intend to pay you a visit very soon.”

“Splendid.” Nate blushed. “If you’ll tell me what sort of books you like, perhaps I can have some suggestions ready for you.”

Carrie glared at him. Good gravy. Nate was grinning like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. She dropped her satchel onto the floor with a resounding thump. “Yes, please do tell. Who are your favorite authors, Miss . . . forgive me. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Well . . . I . . . that is, I like most every kind of book that ever was written. I am quite certain that whatever you choose for me, Mr. Chastain—”

“Nate, ma’am.”

“Nate. I’m sure whatever book you choose will be just perfect.”

“Yes, Nate knows books better than anyone in Hickory Ridge.” Turning to him, Carrie continued, “Would you mind seeing to the rest of my things?”

“Oh. Right. Got so busy talking that I almost forgot.”

He hurried outside. Minutes later Carrie’s belongings and her mother’s walnut chest lay in a jumble in the hallway outside room seven. The woman in green went downstairs to resume her solitary card game, leaving Nate and Carrie alone in the dim, chilly hallway.

“You’re sure you want to stay here, Carrie?” Nate looked around. “The place is almost deserted.”

“Mrs. Whitcomb says there are five ladies living here besides me. Two of them are ancient sisters who live on the third floor by themselves. She said they never come downstairs, not even for meals.”