Collision of The Heart (2 page)

He set her down. “Straight ahead. Pa’s just arrived with the sleigh. We’ll take these people home.”

“I thought you might.”

“You can come, too, you know.”

She shook her head. “Not a good idea. I’m staying at the boardinghouse.”

“I expect it’s already full.” He moved past her to lift down the children and their mother.

Euphemia didn’t move. “I have a reservation.”

“Did you intend to stop here, ma’am?” Ayden asked the mother.

“We were going to my parents in Chicago.” She sobbed as hard as her two children. “I don’t know nobody here.”

“That’s all right. You can stay with us. Mia, will you take one of the children and show this lady to our sleigh? It’s about a hundred feet straight ahead, with the two lamps on it.” He started toward another car.

“Wait,” Euphemia called. “There’s another woman in there. She’s injured. She says she can’t walk.”

“I’ll get her.” Ayden hoisted himself inside the car.

Euphemia gave the mother and her children a reassuring smile. “I’ll help you all get through this snow to the Goswell sleigh. You’ll be safe there.”

“I don’t know, ma’am.” The woman clutched her children to her skirts. “They’re strangers.”

“You can trust them.” She grimaced. “Not that you have any reason to trust me.”

Somehow, that remark seemed to reassure the woman. She released her hold on the taller of the two children, a girl inadequately clothed for the weather. “Can you help her? I never seen such snow.”

“I have. It’s like walking through a bag of flour,” Euphemia said.

“Cold flour,” the girl added through her snuffles.

Euphemia took her hand. “Really cold flour. I hope you can walk. You’re too grown up for me to carry you.”

“I’m seven.”

“Really grown up.” Euphemia clutched the child’s mittened fingers and started toward the twin carriage lamps suspended from a sleigh, no doubt the one she had taken dozens of rides in over the years, tucked up between Ayden and his younger sister or his mother or cuddled just with him . . .

She slammed the door on those memories and trudged forward. Newly fallen, the snow lay in fluffy drifts atop a layer of hard-packed snow from another storm. She sank up to her knees in places. The child struggled beside her. Her mother carried the boy. Each step proved an effort. There was no way Euphemia could walk into town. But surely someone would give her a ride, someone other than the Goswells.

Except she couldn’t go into town yet. She must get these children and their mother to the Goswell sleigh. She had to find that toddler’s people. Once she accomplished those tasks, she could find transportation into Hillsdale.

Plan made, she continued to tramp through the snow. Her feet felt like the packed-down stuff, heavy, solid, immovable. She didn’t want to see Mr. Goswell any more than she wanted to see Ayden again. He had been a father to her, more so than her own parent, who had disappeared in pursuit of nameless dreams only to return when those dreams faded or grew dull, until he disappeared permanently. Her father’s last words to her had been “I’ll be back.” Mr. Goswell’s last words had been “I’m so disappointed in the two of you that it hurts.”

Her response was nothing she was proud to recall, and a fresh wave of guilt stabbed her as he loomed before her. Unlike Ayden’s hair, Mr. Goswell’s hair was gray rather than mahogany brown, but his eyes were still as blue and his smile as warm as his son’s. “Euphemia Roper, what a sight for sore eyes. I knew you’d be back.”

“I’m not returning. This is a brief stop for business purposes.” She kept her tone neutral. “Right now, Ayden sent me over with this family.”

Mr. Goswell squeezed her shoulder. “Good. You’ll stay with us.”

“No, I—”

“I have that little one tucked up until we find his people. And whom do we have here?”

“Some passengers who don’t have a place to stay in Hillsdale.”

“Yes, they do—with us.” Mr. Goswell crouched to be eye-to-eye with the children. “Would you like to come to our house for soup and biscuits?”

The children stood in silence, turning into little snowmen beneath the tumbling flakes.

“I . . . I don’t have much money,” the mother protested.

“They won’t want money.” Euphemia touched the woman’s arm. “I know the Goswells. They have lots of room and will feed you until you cry for mercy.”

Kind, generous, godly—all words to describe the Goswell family. She should want to stay with them. She shouldn’t have left them behind. She hadn’t wanted to leave them behind, not permanently. She and Ayden were supposed to return to Hillsdale for holidays, but Ayden chose to stay instead of choosing to love her.

She shook off the hurt like snow accumulating on her coat and held out her hand to draw the woman forward. “Is Mrs. Goswell in the kitchen already?”

“The minute we heard the wreck.” Mr. Goswell returned his attention to the children. “Would you like a sleigh ride?”

The children nodded. Their mother made protesting noises in her throat.

Mr. Goswell glanced up at Euphemia. “Will, uh, you stay to help me with these little ones?”

“I need to look for the baby’s mother or whoever should have been in charge of him.” Euphemia stepped back. Her foot sank into a pile of soft snow, and the crystallized wetness tumbled over the top of her boot to soak her stocking and freeze her foot. “Perhaps this lady can help.”

Mr. Goswell rested his hand on Euphemia’s shoulder. “She already has her own two, and you shouldn’t be charging off on your own through this crowd at night. It’s not safe.”

“I’ve been in worse,” Euphemia said.

“I’m happy to see to the little one to pay my way,” the woman said.

“There’s no need,” Mr. Goswell began.

“That’s an excellent idea.” Euphemia recognized the woman’s need to contribute to spare her pride. “If you go to the Goswells’ house, I’ll know where to find you when I find the baby’s people.” Without further ado, she yanked her foot from the snowdrift and headed toward the train, the worst of the crowd and the blazing fire creeping back from the engine.

“I’ll be back to fetch you,” Mr. Goswell shouted after her, but she continued without glancing behind her.

The going grew rougher with each step. Snow clung to her skirt and petticoats, weighing them down. More snow filled her boots. She should have gone into town with Mr. Goswell. His wife would have all the fires going and hot coffee on the stove. But duty called.

Euphemia approached a group of women huddled together. “Are any of you missing a child about a year and a half old?”

The women stared at her, their faces blank with shock in the flickering light of the burning train.

“No,” one finally answered.

“If you hear of anyone, send them to the Goswell house.” Euphemia turned away.

She went around, asking another group and then another. The answer remained the same—no one had heard of anyone seeking a baby like the one she described. Plenty of people sought loved ones. They wandered through the snow and stench of burning coal like sheep without their shepherd despite the dozens of townspeople who moved through them, talking, soothing, gathering the stranded passengers to transport them into town. Every conversation focused on the train—or more specifically, the
trains
. Off their schedules, the eastbound and westbound locomotives had crashed.

“The eastbound didn’t have no headlight,” one man said again and again. “It didn’t have no headlight.”

Frozen to her bones, Euphemia paused on snow packed as hard as ice from scores of feet and the heat of the fire. Mere yards away, the trains blazed, some of their cars broken free of their couplings and toppled over. Others leaned at a precarious angle, and the cars farther back, like the one she’d ridden in, appeared undamaged.

“What a mess.” She took in each detail, committing it to memory.

If only she owned a camera and knew how to take photographs, this incident would do more for her journalism career at
Ladies’ Monthly Fashion
than any of the stories she wrote. She should take notes, write down snatches of conversations. The conflagration provided enough light for her to see a page in her portfolio.

Careful of her throbbing wrist, she opened her writing case and extracted a pencil and paper.
Stray toddler. Woman broken leg. Old woman . . .

“What are you doing?” Ayden snatched the pencil from her gloved fingers.

“I’m taking notes so I don’t forget any of my impressions.” She held out her hand. “Please give me back my pencil.”

He did so. “You always were taking notes on something.” He smiled. A dimple flashed in his left cheek, and her heart performed a somersault inside her ribs.

No, no, no. She would not succumb to the charm of that smile, that boyish dent in his cheek, his deep, resonant voice.

She took a step away from him. “I should get into town, I suppose. I heard something about the churches opening up to help stranded passengers. Perhaps I can find that boy’s people there. Did you get that woman help? I suppose Dr. Clark is run off his feet help—”

“Hush.” Ayden laid a gloved finger across her lips. “You don’t need to be nervous around me, Mia.”

She laughed. “Why would you think I’m nervous around you?”

“Because you’re talking too much.” His smile faded. “And to answer your question, no, I did not help that woman. She wasn’t there. The car was empty of people.”

Chapter Two

M
ia’s eyes widened, dark against her face, which was washed of color in the lantern light and snow reflection. Ayden gazed into those green eyes, and his heart performed an acrobatic flip inside his chest. It was perhaps the tenth or so flip his heart had performed since he looked up at the doorway of the railroad carriage and saw her, the woman he had adored for nearly eight years now, returned to the town he loved.

She came home!
his heart had cried.

Even if she had returned to stay in Hillsdale, he did not—would not—love her now, whatever his heart believed. Loving Mia Roper brought too much pain into his life. Charmaine Finney, daughter of the director of the Hillsdale College Classics Department, who was Ayden’s superior, was the lady in his life. She, not Euphemia Roper, held the key to his future happiness.

Yet he could not forget how Mia had turned him inside out from the day he had met her and kept him off balance until the day she’d dealt him the blow that toppled his world. He’d rebuilt that world over the past year and a half. One look into her heart-shaped face, framed in some kind of white fur on her hood, should not send him reeling like a man struck on the head. He intended to marry Charmaine Finney, not let Mia tie him into knots again.

He turned his face to the cold blast of wind. “Let’s get into town. Perhaps we can find that baby’s people there.”

The sooner he got her into town, the sooner he could forget about his misbehaving heart.

“There’s no room on the sleigh.”

“I have a horse.”

She flashed a glare from beneath her lashes. “You expect me to ride with you?”

“It won’t be the first time.”

The reminder was a mistake. Too late, the words spilled out, evoking happier times of summer picnics and winter sledding parties.

She swung away. “I’ll walk.”

“Don’t be a fool, Mia.” He slipped his hand beneath her elbow and guided her toward the edge of the thinning crowd along the length of the wrecked westbound train. “You can ride behind me.”

She would still have to hold on to him somehow, but not as closely as she would if she rode in front of him.

“It’s less than ten minutes,” he reminded her.

She said nothing, and simply slogged through the snow with her head bent against the wind. She bent her left arm, hugging that writing case of hers as if it were an infant, except her hand didn’t touch it. Her fingers stood straight out inside the glove, as though they had frozen stiff in that position.

“Mia?” he asked as they tramped through the snow to his mount. “Is your hand all right?”

“My hand is perfectly all right, thank you.” Her tone sounded as stiff as her fingers looked.

“Then let me have it so I can help you mount.”

She pressed the writing case more tightly against her front. “I can mount once you’re up.”

“That would be interesting to watch if I were attending a farce. But since this is reality, I’m lifting you up.”

She took a step back.

Ayden sighed. “How old are you now? Twenty-six?”

“January first, yes. Why?”

“I thought perhaps you’d have outgrown that stubbornness by now.”

The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “It might be worse.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of.”

He sounded like a curmudgeon, as he always did when speaking to his nineteen-year-old sister, Rosalie. A year and a half of persuading students to pay attention to his lectures must have aged him beyond his twenty-eight years.

“Mia, what are you afraid of?” he asked in a gentler voice.

“I’m not afraid of anything, Ayden Goswell. I would simply rather not spend more time with you than necessary.”

“This falls under the necessary category.”

No longer giving her a chance to protest, he picked her up by her waist, a waist that felt too slender through her thick coat and all the other things ladies wore, and hoisted her onto the back of his chestnut gelding. She never released her hold on that writing case or her handbag. The latter smacked him in the face. The horse, old, a little overweight, and steady, remained motionless through the ordeal of Mia arranging her skirts and then Ayden mounting.

“Hold on,” he directed.

A tug on his coat told him she held the fabric and no more. He set the mount to a slow, even pace to accommodate the extra person perched behind him. All the way past stragglers finding their way toward Hillsdale, past the mail cars flaming with their paper contents, Ayden tried not to think about the lady perched behind him. He shoved memories away. He conjured images of Charmaine with her sunshine-yellow hair and big blue eyes. She was as sweet tempered as Mia was stubborn.

Charmaine did not cradle a writing case against her like it was a newborn or a shield, as Mia did. The portfolio’s presence was a constant reminder of why he and Mia had broken their engagement. With every jolt of the horse’s hooves on the uneven and snow-laden ground, a corner of the case jabbed Ayden’s shoulder blade, interrupting his attempts to focus on thoughts of Charmaine, a jab to his pride, a stab to his heart.

He tried to shake off the wrong thoughts penetrating his head like the cold through his coat. “Shall I leave you at First Church?” His voice rang harsh in the quiet land between the wrecked trains and the town.

“Th-that would be b-best.” She spoke through teeth clattering together loudly enough for Ayden to hear.

“Are you cold?”

Stupid question. Of course she was cold. Snow had begun to fall more heavily, and the stuff coated her, crusting on her skirt from knees to hem.

“Perhaps I should take you to the boardinghouse first,” he suggested. “They’ll have a fire, and you can change into something dry.”

“I have nothing to change into. My luggage is back on that train.”

Along with a host of other people’s belongings, the fire would soon destroy her personal effects if it wasn’t stopped. With the cold and snow, Ayden saw no way for the fire wagons to reach the conflagration.

“I’m not your c-concern, Ayden. I haven’t been since you d-decided to stay here instead of going to Boston with me.” Even through her cold-induced stammer, the acid dripped from her voice hot enough to melt the snow around them.

Ayden flinched. He jerked the reins, and the gelding halted.

In an instant, Mia slid to the ground. “There’s a wagon ahead. I’ll see if they’ll give me a lift to Howell Street.”

“Mia, don’t.” Ayden leaned down to rest his hand on her arm.

She drew her breath in through her teeth and jerked away from him.

Ayden leaped from the horse and grasped her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m sure. Just a bit of a sprain.”

Ayden took her left hand in his. “You said your hand was all right.”

“It’s my wrist. I fell when the trains collided.”

He ground his teeth. “Splitting hairs, Mia, mi—” No, she wasn’t his love any longer, though the idea that she had stayed to help so many people despite an injured arm reminded him of one of the many reasons why she had been his love. She was strong and courageous, caring and generous.

“I didn’t want you to fuss,” Mia said. “And you can’t do anything about it here in the snow.”

“I’ll get you to Dr. Clark before I do anything else.”

“I must find that baby’s people.”

“And what if your wrist is broken, not just sprained?”

“Oh, well, um . . .” She gulped. “All right, but let me walk. It’s not far now, and I might be warmer moving.”

“At least let me hold your portfolio.”

She ignored his request and started along the ruts the wagon had left in its wake. Snow was beginning to fill them, but it was light and fluffy, easy to walk over. It silenced their footfalls and the gelding’s hooves. Ahead of them, light from houses and businesses reflected off the whiteness to make the world glow. The wind carried the scent of wood smoke with its promise of warm fires, hot soup, and hotter coffee.

Ayden lengthened his stride and then slowed again so he remained at Mia’s side. “Will you be all right if I leave you at Dr. Clark’s?”

“Yes, of course.” She walked with her head bent and both arms around her writing case.

“I’ll help you find that child’s people,” Ayden offered.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

So she didn’t have to see him. Although she didn’t say so, the certainty of the meaning behind her refusal of his help rang loud and clear through the night. And it stung like the pellets of white crystals against his face.

“It’s been eighteen months, Mia,” he burst out. “Surely after that much time you can forgive me.”

“Yes, I can—forgive and forget. Or did you think I came back here to see you?”

“I wouldn’t be so foolish. But you must have known you were likely to see me here.”

“I expected to be able to get away from you if I did.” She picked up her snow-crusted skirts in her good hand and increased her speed.

Ayden let her walk ahead of him. She had always carried too much pride on her shoulders. Far be it from him to remove it. He had dealt it too much damage the summer she left town.

With Mia walking a yard in front of Ayden, they finished the last half mile into town. The closer they drew to Hillsdale, the brighter the lights shone. Nearly every house and business glowed with candles, oil lamps, or lanterns in windows and hanging outside. Though a block off Howell, one of the main streets, First Church stood out the brightest and loudest. Ayden and Mia turned toward the building and began to wend their way through the wagons and sleighs lining the thoroughfare in front of the white building. Bedraggled, snow-covered people swarmed in and out of the front door, many crying, raging against the railroad’s incompetence, and others pleading for help.

Dr. Clark’s house and office lay farther on, but as Ayden and Mia began to pass the church, the doctor himself appeared in the doorway for a moment, engaged in conversation with one of his students, Miss Liberty Judd. She was dressed in a fancy green gown, and jewels sparkled in her hair, of all the ridiculous things.

Ayden closed the distance between Mia and himself. “You may as well stop here.” He reached out his hand but didn’t touch so much as her coat sleeve. “If you need anything while you’re here, don’t hesitate to come ask us. You know we’ll do anything for you.”

Except for the one thing she had asked of him.

He winced inside as he smiled outside.

“Thank you.” She flashed him her quick, brilliant smile and swung toward the church.

Dr. Clark and Liberty would take care of Mia, attend to her injured wrist, get her to her room for the night, and get her anything else she needed. He must get home and help his parents and sister with the woman and three children they had gathered from the wreck.

He led his horse to the stable behind their back garden and rubbed him down. Stroking the gelding’s chestnut mane reminded Ayden he had purchased that particular horse because the color matched Mia’s shining hair. In spite of that illogical reason for buying a mount, the gelding had proven to be a fine animal, placid and biddable, not at all like Mia.

Smiling at the comparison, Ayden scooped a measure of grain into the horse’s feed trough, noted with some concern that the sleigh team were still absent from their stalls, and crossed the yard to the house. Light blazed through a window in the back door. He yanked it open and sighed with contentment at the heat and aromas of chicken soup, brewing coffee, and baking bread that surrounded him.

“You look frozen,” his sister, Rosalie, greeted him from the stove. “Go change before you catch a chill.”

“Thank you, Mom.” He tugged one of Rosalie’s dark curls tumbling down her back. “Where is Mom anyway?”

“Upstairs getting those poor children and their mother some dry clothes so we can feed them.”

“So Pa has been home already? The team is gone.”

“After he left the woman and the children here, he headed out again to see who else he could gather up.” Rosalie set aside the spoon with which she stirred a pot of soup and faced him, her blue eyes dancing. “Where’s Mia?”

Ayden suppressed a groan. “I should have known Pa would tell you all she’s in town.”

“He was bursting with the news.”

“Such a vulgar expression. If you’d go to the college, you’d learn better—”

Rosalie whacked the back of his hand with her heavy wooden spoon. “Not tonight, Ayden.” She tossed the spoon into the dry sink of dirty dishes and selected another one from a hook on the wall. “Go get yourself into dry clothes and come back for something hot to eat while you tell us all about Mia.”

“Not tonight. Or any night. I’m too weary from pulling people out of railroad cars and need to get up to the church to see what else I can do to help.”

“I’ll go with you if Pa gets back. Fletcher has been at First Church since they started taking stranded passengers there.” A smile played about her lips, and her eyes softened as she referred to the man who’d been courting her for nearly a year. “He asked me to come with him, but I didn’t want to leave Mom home alone.”

“Wise of you,” Ayden said.

For once.
He wouldn’t say that aloud, even though the words spoke the truth.