Bending Toward the Sun (2 page)

The reins lay slack in Quaid’s hand as he guided the freight wagon up Salt River Road. Red and golden leaves fluttered on the tangle of trees that characterized the river valley. If there were words strong enough to describe how right it felt to be away from the city, they’d escaped him.

Ever since he’d returned from the war, he’d been cooped up under his mother’s watchful eye. He knew why she’d clung to him. Scores of mothers didn’t have the opportunity to welcome their sons home. But when his father mentioned this job, Quaid pled his case until he broke free.

Smoke curled above one of several chimneys on the plantation house. He pulled up on the reins and slowed the two horses, guiding them beyond the rose bushes that lined the long path to the columned front porch. The freight wagon rumbled up Brantenberg lane past the cluster of brick and wood buildings. Widow Brantenberg’s palatial house was set in the center with its milk cellar, granary, and the smokehouse. All German farmers here had one.

Quaid’s Irish ancestors, however, could do without a smokehouse, but wouldn’t own land without a hops garden for the making of a little stout.

He passed the hog pens, grazing cows, and wheat and oat fields. The orchard came into view, and so did about two dozen people, including a few scampering children. A couple of buckboards were parked in front of the rows of trees.

Rutherford Wainwright waved his kepi from the cider press and pointed Quaid toward an assembly of baskets—the freight he’d come to haul into town. Quaid returned his friend’s wave, then stopped beside the baskets and hopped down from the wagon. Apple cider scented the cool air.

“Quaid.” Rutherford shook his hand. “Good to see you.”

“Thanks, me friend. It’s by the grace of God that I’m able to be seen by anyone.”

“You finished the new cupboard?”

“I did.” Quaid wrapped the reins over a low branch. “Then me mother said the family had outgrown the meager number of porch chairs and wanted two more.”

“No wonder I haven’t seen your hide but once since you come home.”

“Plenty of rockers now for you and your intended to come and sit in the shade of our roof for a spell.”

“We might just do that. Especially if I catch wind there’s a pot of your mother’s stew on the stove.” Rutherford pressed his cap over his brown woolly hair. “You and I were two fortunate ones to be able to return.”

“We were.” They’d fought in the war together and seen hundreds of men face to the sky.

A young woman waved from one of the tables.

Rutherford returned her wave, his smile as wide as the Missouri. “There’s my intended now.” He motioned for her to join them.

But it was the young woman beside her that captured Quaid’s attention. Emilie Heinrich?

Couldn’t be her. Since when was she so tall and … shapely?

“Mr. McFarland, permit me to present to you Miss Maren Jensen.” Rutherford turned to Miss Jensen. “Corporal Quaid McFarland and I served in the same regiment.” His glance came back to Quaid. “Miss Jensen and I will wed in February.”

Miss Jensen bowed with measured dignity. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Corporal McFarland.”

Quaid offered a proper nod. “The pleasure is mine, Miss Jensen.” He turned his attention to the woman seated next to her, whose cocoa-brown eyes shined like polished stones.

“I trust you remember Miss Heinrich from the—”

“Yes. I do.” As a girl with pigtails. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you.” Emilie held his gaze with a confidence he didn’t recall. “The last time I saw you, you were … skinny as a pole.”

Her face suddenly flushed pink. Had she just realized she’d been staring?

“The man has done some growin’ up since then. Saved my hide at least once.” Rutherford glanced toward the food-laden tables, then at Quaid. “We smoked a pig and we’re fixin’ to sit down to a feast. Please join us.”

Quaid was hungry, but it was his curiosity about Emilie Heinrich that compelled him to say yes.

Emilie had satisfied her hunger with generous helpings of pork and potato salad, red cabbage slaw, and apple crisp. Rutherford had read from the Scriptures and thanked God for the bounty of the harvest. Mrs. Brantenberg recited a poem, and then she and her granddaughter, Gabi, delivered three proverbs in German and English.

Emilie always enjoyed harvest days and the feast that followed. But today’s celebration … She couldn’t remember when she’d sung loud enough to hear herself and laughed hard enough to have tears stream her face. And it was all thanks to Mr. Quaid McFarland.

She remembered him as an ornery kid full of vinegar around his friends. But he’d changed.

After the meal, Rutherford seated himself with his zither on a bench at one end of the tables, next to a balding neighbor who had brought his mandolin. With very little coaxing from Rutherford, Quaid had pulled a harmonica from his coat pocket and joined them for a stirring round of patriotic songs and a few hymns.

Judging from the fervor with which Quaid played his harmonica, she’d say he, too, was enjoying himself. On the last note, Maren started stacking plates, and Emilie reached under the table for a crate.

“Been too long since I’ve had that much fun.” The familiar Irish lilt drew her gaze to the bronzed face of the man now standing beside her.

She moistened her suddenly dry lips. “Yes.” She didn’t remember his eyes being such an intense shade of green. Bright like emeralds. “When did you take up the harmonica? You’re quite accomplished.”

His smile having faded, he lifted the stack of plates into the crate. “It belonged to a buddy o’ mine. In the war. Didn’t have need of it anymore.”

Breathing a prayer of thanksgiving for Quaid’s safe return, Emilie added empty bowls to the crate. “You haven’t been in the store, and since I hadn’t seen you, I worried—”

“I’m fine. Thank you.” Quaid reached across the table for the empty steins and goblets. “ ’Twas me mother.”

“Was she ill?”

“Some folks may call it an illness.” He glanced at his tatty boots. “With all the desperate reports coming from the battlefields, she feared the worst for me. Feared she’d never see me again. When she did, she wailed like a steamboat coming into dock and hasn’t wanted to let me from her sight.”

“And today? Your mother was ready to let you go?”

He darted a glance toward the road as if she may have followed him. “Me mother ran out of room to place any more furniture. She had to let me put me saw and hammer down.”

“You build furniture?”

“Of sorts. I like to work with wood. As a boy, I made a box for me sisters’ dolls and a footstool for me mother. Right before I left for the war, I made a desk for me father’s office and promised me mother I’d make her a cupboard when I returned.”

A man of his word. “I had no idea you were so talented.”

“You’ve changed some yourself. No longer the girl whose pigtails I used to tug.” He smiled. “Grown up and become a handsome lass.”

Heat rushed into her ears. “I’m attending college.”

His eyes widened. He looked as surprised by her odd response as she was. “Lindenwood, not far from the store.”

“At fourteen you were already smarter than most of us in town. Going for more sophistication, are you?”

“I gave up on sophistication the day I tripped in those fancy heeled shoes and spilled the sack of dried beans. We still find those beans.” She smiled.

A grin widened Quaid’s eyes. “I was in the store that day. Your father paid me fifteen cents to help clean up. They’d scattered clear to the back door.”

Emilie set a folded tablecloth on top of the crate. “I’m taking college classes because it’s what my father wants.”

“Ah. What we won’t do for our parents.”

She nodded, unable to keep from smiling around this new Quaid McFarland.

“You’re not working at the store anymore?”

“I am. On Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. That allows for my classwork. I try to come here on Thursdays for Mrs. Brantenberg’s quilting circle.”

They quieted, watching Rutherford walk toward them.

“I apologize for the interruption, Miss Emilie, but the sun is starting its descent.” He turned toward Quaid, an eyebrow cocked. “You about ready to load your wagon?”

“Yes, of course.” When Rutherford started toward the baskets, Quaid faced her, his green eyes commanding her attention. “It was indeed a pleasure to see you again, Miss Emilie.”

“And you.” She moistened her lips.

“Perhaps I’ll see you at the store. Or at Lindenwood on a Monday or Wednesday. We make deliveries there too.”

“I’d like that.” Emilie felt herself blushing. But it didn’t stop her from watching Quaid heave the baskets of apples onto the wagon as if they were feather pillows. He’d become a broad-shouldered man. An intriguing man.

“Emilie.”

She turned to see her father walking toward her, looking as if he’d downed a glass of vinegar.

Two

H
er father sat taller than usual in the wagon seat, his back stiff and his jaw tight. He hadn’t spoken a word since they’d pulled away from the harvest feast.

Emilie pressed her hand to his arm. “Are you not feeling well?”

“Mir geht es gut.”
His tone wasn’t necessarily gruff, but definitely flat.

She knew better; he wasn’t fine. “Did you do too much picking? Overfill your—”

“I’m not a child, Em. I don’t need you fussing over me.”

Her shoulders tensed. “You haven’t felt your best of late. And it’s not like you to be so quiet. If it’s not because you don’t feel well, then what’s bothering you? Are you upset with me?”

“I’m thinking you and Quaid McFarland were looking at each other like you’d never seen the other before.”

They hadn’t—not as adults.

“The two of you were talking as if no one else existed.”

He was upset because she had talked to Quaid? Was he jealous, or accusing her of being rude? Swallowing her frustration, Emilie folded her hands in her lap. “PaPa, I’ve known Quaid McFarland and his family since I was a little girl. He and I hadn’t seen each other for several years … since he left for the war.”

“You have your status to think about.”

Her stomach knotted. “My status?”

“The McFarlands are—”

“You’re upset because I was speaking to an Irishman?”

PaPa looked everywhere but at her. “The McFarlands run freight wagons to and from the docks. They’re teamsters. They’re Irish.”

The knots tightened. PaPa didn’t seem to mind that Quaid wasn’t a German farmer or shopkeeper while laughing at his stories and singing to his accompaniment on the harmonica.

Out of respect for him, she swallowed her impudent retort. “What does that have to do with two friends catching up during a harvest celebration?”

“I didn’t say he was a bad man.” PaPa met her gaze. “Just not suitable for you to waste your time, is my point.”

“To talk to?”

“To marry.”

“Then perhaps it’s wise that you keep me too busy to think about such things.” Turning away, she stared at the fluttering sycamore leaves. Quaid had it easy … all he had to do was fill his mother’s kitchen and porch with furniture before she’d let him go.

The bank of the Missouri teemed with activity. Wagons and carts vied for position at the freight docks, and Quaid’s was one of them. But he felt like he was floating high above the
road … above the tree line on the riverbank. Getting away from the city today had proven to be his best decision in longer than he could remember. Certainly an Irishman loves a party with rich food and lively music, but it was Emilie Heinrich who had him floating on the clouds. Emilie’s winsome smile. Her melodic laugh. Her puckered brow when he’d mentioned her going to college to gain more sophistication.

He chuckled, remembering her mock indignation.

Emilie and her father had left the farm before he’d loaded the wagon. She was no doubt already tucked away above her father’s store, just up the hill from the river. First thing Monday morning, he’d make it known at the freight company that he had first dibs on any Tuesday, Friday, or Saturday deliveries to Heinrich’s Dry Goods. Those were the days Emilie didn’t have classes. He’d also throw his hat into the ring for any deliveries to Lindenwood Female College on Mondays and Wednesdays.