Collision of The Heart (13 page)

“Deputy?” she called to Lambert softly.

He jumped away from Rosalie as though she’d shouted. “Yes, ma’am?”

“It might be a trick of the light, but I believe I just saw someone sneaking around the side of the house.”

Mia barely got the words out before Lambert sprinted across the snowdrifts to the front corner of the house. He stopped to examine the ground, then took off running.

Rosalie rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I had best get used to this sort of thing.” She looked at Mia, concerned. “Do you think it’s someone dangerous?”

“I don’t know, but perhaps we should stay here.” She turned toward the house.

Fletcher Lambert appeared around the house again, mopping his brow with his sleeve and scowling. “He had snowshoes. I couldn’t keep up.”

“Just a youth playing a trick, perhaps?” Mia asked.

“I expect so, but why don’t you ladies go on to the sledding alone? I’ll stay here for a while and join you later.”

Mia glanced at Rosalie, expecting to see disappointment or even annoyance. Instead, the younger lady was gazing at her intended with adoration. “You be careful, Fletch.” She blew him a kiss, then linked arms with Mia. “Let’s be on our way before everyone else is having fun except for us.”

“If you’re sure.” Mia glanced back at the deputy tramping around the perimeter of the house. He waved her off.

“He takes his work seriously.” Rosalie poked Mia in the ribs. “As you found out.”

“He told you about my misspent youth?”

“He did, but I never told Ayden.”

“He knows now and likely considers himself lucky to have gotten out of marrying me.”

“Not lucky if he marries Charmaine. Did you notice those claws she displayed the other day?”

They laughed and chatted as they made their way through the snow, sliding and holding one another up.

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.

The verses from the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes ran through Mia’s head. In Boston, she had acquaintances, but no one who would hold her up if she fell. If her work dried up, no one would be there to give her food and shelter until she found other employment. If she fell ill or injured herself, no one would be there to care for her needs.

There in Hillsdale, people cared. She had neglected them for a year and a half out of hurt and anger at the town that kept her beloved in its clutches, yet they welcomed her with all the warmth and love of the father of the prodigal son.

All except for Ayden. He had opened his arms to another woman.

Mia’s laughter died, and if Fletcher Lambert had been there with Rosalie, Mia might have gone back to the house. But he wasn’t, and the shrieks and laughter from the sledding site reached them long before they rounded a curve in the road and found the familiar snow-clad hill descending before them.

And Ayden stood near them, with the Herring children tucked up on the sled, ready for a nudge down the gentlest part of the slope. “Hang on tight, kids.”

He pushed. The runners bit, caught, and carried the sled sailing down the hill to the accompaniment of shrieks of glee. Ayden ran after them to help them make the climb up with the heavy wooden sled.

Halfway up the incline, he caught Mia’s gaze upon him. His eyes widened, looking extraordinarily blue against the backdrop of white snow and distant pinewoods. For a moment, he didn’t move. For a moment, Mia didn’t breathe. Beside her, Rosalie giggled, then ran forward to pick up little Ellie, who was struggling to manage the last yards of the hill. And then Ayden reached the top, repositioning the sled for another run, his back to Mia.

She expelled her breath in a sigh intended to lift the weight upon her heart. Through the vapor swirling before her face, she watched Rosalie put the children on the sled, then squeeze herself on behind them.

“No need to follow us,” she called to her brother. “I’ve got them.”

They sped off down the hill, and Ayden stood a mere yard from Mia with two score or more of college students and children racing, slipping, and dodging around them.

“You’ll want the steeper side of the hill,” Ayden said.

“I’ll wait for Rosalie, then.” Mia backed up a step.

“She’ll stay here with the children. Where’s Lambert?”

“Someone went running around the corner of the house right before we left. He thought he should wait and keep an eye on things.”

Ayden took a step toward her, closing the distance between them so no one could overhear. “Someone after Jamie?”

Mia crossed her arms over her middle. “Possibly. Enough of a possibility he thought he should stay.”

“Should I go back, too?”

Mia narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

Ayden grinned. “I know that look. What did I say to annoy you?”

Mia shrugged and started to turn away. A hundred feet from her, the young woman introduced to her on Sunday as Liberty Judd of Chicago stood dispensing hot beverages near a roaring fire. Mia could make a great deal of hay in shining sunlight if she spent time with the college girl and the others who approached her for refreshments. But as she took her first step toward the younger women, she decided she was not yet done with what she had to say to Ayden and swung back, her hands on her hips. “You haven’t taken any interest in the child’s safety for two days because you’ve been so occupied with advancing your career. Oh, wait, I meant to say courting your lady. So why are you running back there now? Because sledding with riffraff like me and your own sister, not to mention a Judd and Divine of Chicago, aren’t good enough for her?”

Ayden’s head jerked back as though she’d struck him on the chin. “That was uncalled for, Euphemia Roper. Yes, Charmaine isn’t here because her father thinks it’s too unruly a crowd for her sensibilities, but I’m here. I happen to enjoy a rowdy crowd.”

Cheeks heating, Mia ducked her head. “That will make for a difficult future with Charmaine.”

“Her father forbade it, and she still lives under his roof.”

Mia cocked her head to one side and gave him an oblique glance. “You think she’d be here otherwise?”

“Of course.” Ayden didn’t meet her gaze. “We have our own sledding outing scheduled for Saturday.”

“Sans riffraff.” Mia sighed and stomped her feet. “I’m either going to join Miss Judd at the fire or go sledding. Standing around is making me cold.”

She had said all she wanted and likely a lot more than she should have.

“Will there be a sled I can use over at the steeper hill?” she asked.

Ayden laughed. “Mia, a lady who looks like you do will have no trouble finding college boys willing to push you down the hill. But if you wait, I’ll use ours. The children need to go warm up. They’ve been here for a while.”

“There’s no need. I’m sure I’ll enjoy myself with the college boys.” She started for the other side of the hill, where the land sloped at a more precipitous angle.

The instant she reached the summit, a half dozen youths surrounded her.

“We have our sixth lady,” one of them cried. “Miss Roper, will you form a team with me?”

“Are we racing?” A frisson of excitement ran through Mia. “I haven’t raced on a sled in years.” Her last winter in Hillsdale, she was tucked up on the sled with Ayden. “I was a champion here, you know.”

She allowed the shouting youths and giggling girls to hustle her forward to the line of sleds, poised for flight.

“Mia, wait,” Ayden yelled above the tumult.

She clambered onto the end sled. A laughing youth slung himself on behind her.

“Henry Powers,” Ayden bellowed, “don’t—”

“Ready, set, go!” The cry for start drowned Ayden’s shout.

Someone shoved them off the lip of the hill. Beaten down from hundreds of runners before them, the track was slick as ice. No friction slowed the runners. Wind whipped into Mia’s face. She closed her eyes against the sting and gave herself up to the flight, the speed, the exhilaration of rocketing forward. Her companion emitted a sound like a war whoop. Mia laughed aloud, mouth open wide, for the first time since she couldn’t remember. This had to go into her article somehow, these moments of sheer exuberance—

The left runner struck something solid and immovable. The sled spun sideways, backward, sideways again. Sky, sledders, and trees far too close twirled by once, twice. Mia’s breath snagged in her throat. Her companion and she leaned one way and then the other, trying to stop the momentum.

The back right quarter of the sled slammed into the trunk of a spruce tree. The equipage flipped over, disgorging its passengers.

Mia sprawled on the snow, too winded to move.

“Miss Roper.” Her companion leaned over her, patting her cheek. “Miss Roper? Are you all right?”

“If she is, it won’t be because of you.” Ayden shouldered the youth aside. “What were you thinking, sledding that close to the tree line? Mia?” He knelt beside her. “Mia, can you hear me?”

She tried to drag in a breath to tell him she could hear him fine, along with a few screams and too many tramping feet.

“Mia.” Ayden sat cross-legged on the snow and propped her head on his knee. “Can you open your eyes?”

She managed a gasping “Yes,” but kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to observe the score of people she was sure stared at her.

“Let her have some air.” Ayden lifted her to a sitting position in the crook of his arm. “You especially, Henry. Be glad you’re not in one of my classes this quarter.”

“Sir, I—”

Mia waved her arm. “Don’t . . . mad . . . him.” Her breath came marginally easier. “I should . . . noticed.” She dragged in a painful breath, but oxygen nonetheless. “Truly.” She opened her eyes to find the crowd tramping up the hill with the sleds and Ayden’s face close enough for the warm fog of his breath to brush against her lips.

“Thank goodness you’re all right, Mia. When I saw you lying there . . .” His face grew closer.

She closed her eyes. Her lips parted, and her breath ceased again, this time due to her racing heart, the anticipation, the longing. With one more beat of her galloping pulse—

“Ayden! Ayden!” Rosalie ran down the hill, slipped, and slid the rest of the way on her seat. “Ayden, we’ve got to go home. Someone tried to take Baby Jamie.”

Chapter Twelve

A
yden sprinted for the house, Rosalie and Mia somewhere behind him. He needed the run, the distraction, the worry over Ma and the kidnapped baby to take his mind off of how he had come a hair’s breadth from kissing Mia.

What was he thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. For a moment, while they sat on the snow and he cradled her in his arm, time had slipped backward, and she was the woman he had intended to marry, a lady he had the right to kiss on a snowy hillside.

Reaching his house, he slammed his fist onto the door handle and his shoulder into the heavy panel. It didn’t budge. Of course not. It would be locked up tight.

“Ma, it’s me, Ayden.” He pounded his fist on the door harder than necessary. “Ma, open—”

The door swung inward, and Ayden tumbled across the threshold, nearly knocking down his father. “Sorry, Pa. Is Ma all right? Is the baby all right?”

“We’re all fine now.” Pa rested a steadying hand on Ayden’s shoulder. “They’re in the kitchen with the sheriff.”

Ayden headed for the kitchen. Behind him, Rosalie, Mia, and Fletcher Lambert crowded into the front hall, chattering and asking questions.

Ma sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in front of her. Coffee sat before the sheriff, and Jamie appeared to be sleeping in a pallet of blankets as close to the stove as was safe.

Ayden stopped behind Ma’s chair and grasped her shoulders. “You’re all right. What happened?”

“Not as much as could have.” The sheriff rose at the entrance of the other ladies. “Miss Roper saw someone lurking about, and because of that and Deputy Lambert staying, we were ready for trouble.”

“Jamie was asleep upstairs, like the lamb he is,” Ma said, “when somebody knocked on the door. I opened it, and there was a man in a railway uniform.”

“Why did Lambert let her open the door?” Ayden glared at his future brother-in-law.

Fletcher frowned at him. “I thought it best to look like nothing was afoot.”

“So wise of you.” Rosalie looked at him with cow eyes.

Ayden managed not to gag, but when he met Mia’s gaze by accident, he couldn’t suppress a snort of mirth.

“It was the right thing to do,” the sheriff said.

“What did he say he wanted?” Ayden asked.

“He said he had orders to take charge of the child who’d lost his family.” Ma wrinkled her long, thin nose. “As though I would fall for such a tale. So I told him I had no idea what he was talking about and tried to slam the door in his face.”

“He slammed it right back,” Lambert added.

“Are you all right, Ma?” Ayden leaned over so he could examine her face.

She smiled and pushed him away. “It bruised my shoulder a little is all. But it made me yell, and Fletcher came out of the parlor. As soon as he saw the uniform, the man took off running.”

“Why was the deputy in the parlor and not behind the door or someplace closer?” The question came from Mia.

Ayden glanced back to see her with her portfolio balanced in the crook of her arm and her hand sending a pencil flying across the page.

“More grist for your periodical mill?” Ayden’s upper lip curled.

“Of course. People will want to read about this. Deputy?”

Lambert’s face turned nearly as red as his hair. “I went into the parlor to warm my hands by the fire. It was cold in the hall.”

“And quite understandable.” Rosalie took one of his hands in hers and began to chafe it as though he were still cold.

Ayden cast his gaze heavenward, then turned his attention to the sheriff. “So should we move the child now?”

“For the sake of my family’s safety,” Pa said, “I would rather we did and let the world know so that no one tries to take him from here again.”

“How will you all catch the kidnappers, then?” Rosalie asked.

“We’ll find them.” The sheriff’s lips formed a hard, thin line. “That woman with the broken leg couldn’t have gotten far from here. And I agree. I’ll be taking the child with me, but I won’t say where I’m taking him. Best for all. I haven’t even informed his parents he’s safe, so no one knows we know he was stol—”

Mia’s gasp was nearly loud enough to be a cry. She stood with her notebook pressed to her side and her hand, still holding a pencil, pressed to her lips. Above her hand, her eyes had widened to near perfect roundness.

“What’s wrong?” Ayden took a step toward her.

She flung out her hand as though to ward him off. “I sent some telegrams yesterday. I didn’t think what I said was harmful, but . . .” She dropped her gaze, and her lower lip protruded ever so slightly.

“Mia.” Ayden dropped his hands onto her shoulders. His insides felt like a clock spring wound too tightly, but he managed to keep his voice light, conversational despite an urge to shout. “To whom did you send those telegrams and what did you say?”

“I sent them to my editor and some other newspaper folk I know between here and the coast.” She met his eyes. “I told my editor I rescued a child from the train, which everyone knows from our inquiries in town, and then asked the newspaper men if they knew of an abduct—”

“You sent that to journalists?” Ayden shoved his hands into his pockets. “Didn’t you think how it would direct the kidnappers to us? Have you no decency but to spread his story all over the world?”

“How would the kidnappers get the telegrams?” Mia bent over her portfolio again. “If I don’t, someone else will. I may as well get paid for it, as well as credit for rescuing him.”

Ayden stared at her as though she were a stranger, as his heart compressed in his chest. “I don’t know you anymore, Euphemia Roper.” With a mumbled apology to the others, he strode past the sheriff and the now wakeful child, slamming the back door on his way out.

He should go to Charmaine’s. He would find peace, calm, and polite dialogue there. She would welcome him without questions or accusations. Her smile would warm him, her beauty would please him, and her conversation would . . . bore him.

No, it wouldn’t bore him. It just wouldn’t hold his interest when he was as distraught as he felt at that moment. He couldn’t even discuss with her why he was distraught. She wouldn’t understand why whatever Mia Roper did made him want to beat his fists against something unyielding.

He lit a lantern in the stable and carried it to the woodshed instead. Nothing like an hour of chopping branches into kindling and splitting logs to renew a man’s sanity.

After three-quarters of an hour, Pa entered the shed behind him and removed the ax from his hand. “That’s enough wood to get us through August, son. Now get inside before you catch a chill sweating out here in the cold.”

“I can’t go back.” Ayden raised his arm to mop his brow. “If I see her with that portfolio, I just might toss it into the fire.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Ayden faced his father, his eyes wide. “Pa, she has no sense of decency any longer. She’s writing about the train wreck and all the suffering there.”

“She wrote about how this town came together to help one another in true Christian charity.”

“She’s writing about how women are treated in their classes, likely looking for ways they are slighted—”

“She’s writing about how much women are respected for their intelligence and ability to learn.”

“And how all the professors are male.”

“And how one of the professors takes his own time to tutor students at risk of failing.”

“And now to make a spectacle of that unfortunate child and his family, giving them no peace—”

“You don’t know that.” Pa jabbed a finger into Ayden’s chest. “You’re making unfair assumptions about that lovely young woman, just like you did eighteen months ago, and you’re not the only one who will be hurt over it this time.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “You weren’t the only one hurt last time. Your Ma and I love her like a daughter, and you took her away from us.”

“I took her away from you?” Ayden pressed his arms across his chest. “I was the one who stayed to help you all.”

“Is that why you stayed?” Pa propped a shoulder against the woodshed doorway. “We haven’t said anything to you about this. You’re a man grown and have to make your own mistakes. But I was perfectly capable of continuing my work at the store by the time you chose to stay. That was a poor excuse at best. You were afraid to go east—”

“Of course I wasn’t afraid to go east. I studied there for years. I was asked to return. I didn’t apply.”

“Then why didn’t you go when Mia made it clear she would?”

The heat from his exertions dissipating, cold began to seep deep into Ayden’s bones. Bone deep. Heart deep. Soul deep.

He yanked his coat from a peg and threw it around his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter now. She chose to leave me, and I’ve chosen someone else.”

Pa’s shoulders slumped. “For the right reasons?”

“Of course.” But Ayden couldn’t meet his father’s eyes.

Pa rested his hand on Ayden’s shoulder. “If you are certain you are making the right choices, then your mother and I will accept them. Now come inside and get warmed up.” He turned and left the shed.

Ayden followed, his footsteps dragging just a little. He didn’t want to see Mia. He probably owed her an apology. He had made judgments about her work without reading it first.

Seeing a light shining beneath the sitting room door, he knocked and opened it. Mia sat before the fire, still in that pretty pink dress that looked vaguely familiar to him. She wore no shoes, only her white lisle stockings, and her hair hung down her back in a single braid, her pins lying in a neat pile on the table beside her.

She glanced up at him and hugged a sheaf of papers against her as though she thought he might steal them away. “Did you find the supper your mother left warming in the oven?”

“Not yet.” He closed the door and approached the fire. As its warmth hit him, he began to shiver from the cold. “I can bring you more wood.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I chopped enough.”

“No need. I just wanted to finish making notes on this article, and then I’m off to bed. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.” She looked away and drew her stockinged toes beneath the hem of her dress. “Unless you won’t take me to campus.”

“I said I would.”

“You’ve said a number of things you would do.” She smacked the palm of her hand against her manuscript. “This is too long. I just can’t identify what to leave out. I have heard so many stories and have seen so much during and since the wreck.”

Ayden smiled. “I wish I had you for a student. Most don’t have enough to say about anything. I give them a topic like the Wars of the Roses, and they say they didn’t have enough to write a twenty-page paper.”

They exchanged polite, stiff smiles.

Ayden crouched closer to the fire, absorbing more of its warmth. “Why don’t you write a book about the wreck?”

“I don’t think I have enough material for a book. Perhaps two or three articles.”

“A novel?”

She laughed. “I am not Charlotte Brontë, as much as I wish I were.”

“If you wish it, why don’t you do it?”

Mia shrugged. “No time. I am always looking for the next story to write and sell.”

“You seem to be doing well.”

“I am for a lady journalist. But this salaried position will be less taxing.”

“I expect so.” Ayden shifted so he faced her. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“You were concerned about your family’s safety with reason. I . . . well . . . I sent those telegrams, no matter how important the story. I didn’t think the kidnappers would spy on the telegraph.”

“Have you heard anything back?”

She shook her head. “I’m beginning to think they intercepted any return messages.”

“It was a foolish thing to do, you know.”

“Why? They hadn’t come here before today, and we’ve talked about the boy all over town.”

“The house was full of people until this afternoon, making it much harder to manage another abduction.”

“Leave it to a war historian to think of tactics,” Mia muttered. She rubbed her eyes. “I just want this story so much. It’s exclusive and—”

“Potentially dangerous.” Ayden touched her cheek, her skin as smooth as fire-warmed silk. “Everything is all right now. The child’s been moved and will go home on Friday because you helped him on the train.”

“What else would I do? No one else seemed inclined to do any good beyond saving themselves.”

Of course not, except for Mia with her kind and generous heart.

His conscience jabbed him like a foil without its button tip, and he flicked his gaze to her papers. “I’m also sorry about the things I’ve been thinking and saying about your work. I shouldn’t have criticized your work without reading it.”

“Thank you for that. I try not to be a vulture feeding off others’ pain. I want this article about the college to encourage other young women to get an education. Even if they get married instead of having a career, an education is always a good thing. What if they end up moving to the frontier? They can educate their children well and even educate the children of others as well.” Her eyes sparkled like polished jade. “One thing I’ve learned while here talking to the women who graduated with me, and even before me, is that an education is never wasted.”