Dorothy Garlock (2 page)

He appeared to be fond of all his offspring. Beside their names he had noted physical descriptions and whether or not they appeared to be healthy. Beside two names he expressed regret that he had not been more careful when he chose their mothers. He was not pleased with the care they were being given. He was even exploring the idea that if something happened to the mothers, it might be possible for him to adopt the children.

The woman sitting in the rocking chair began to rock energetically. She felt suddenly as if she had come alive. The mantle of grief for her lost love had slid from her shoulders. She’d often heard that hate was very close to love and that nothing energized the soul as much as hating someone and seeking vengeance.

The dull and listless life she had lived since his death was over; she now had a goal in mind. It would be a few years before the offspring he had so proudly sired would be old enough to fit into her plans. But that was all right. She was in no hurry. She would spend the time getting to know each of them, and when the time came, she would be ready.

Chapter 1

Fertile, Missouri
1934

A
PRIL SAT IN THE CAR
, her hands gripping the steering wheel, and peered at the muddy road ahead through the windshield of her Model T Runabout. Amid the heavy rain, she could see only a few feet past the radiator cap on the hood of her car. The road behind her would be deep in mud by now, so there was no point in turning back even if she could.

With a sigh of despair she turned off the motor, closed her eyes and said a little prayer. “Please, God, let someone come along to help me.” Then a little voice whispered in her ear. “God helps those who help themselves.”

It was impossible to see out through the isinglass on the side curtains. April worked the lever that wiped water from the windshield. During the second or so that the glass was clear, all she could see was the muddy road ahead and a fence that ran along the side. The last time she stopped she had estimated that she was about ten miles from Fertile. Surely she had come five miles since then.

She had walked five miles many times and could do so again.
The watch that hung from a gold chain around her neck said three o’clock. She had two choices. She could sit here for the rest of the day and let night come, or she could get out of the car and walk to Fertile. The days were getting shorter this time of year, and if she didn’t want to be stranded out here in the dark, she had to get along.

April removed her shoes and stockings, took her valuables out of the suitcase on the seat beside her and put them in the pockets of the old coat she decided to wear. She tied her shoelaces and hung her shoes around her neck, opened her umbrella and stepped out into the driving rain.

Cold, soft mud covered her feet to her ankles. Standing beside the car, she adjusted the umbrella and gave the auto an affectionate pat.

“You’ve been a good girl, Daisy. You brought me this far without a single complaint. I hate to leave you, but I have no choice.”

She had inherited the 1925 Model T Runabout when her grandfather died. It had served her well during her last year of nursing school and during the two years her grandmother lived following his death.

Despite the heavy downpour, only a trickle of water had seeped in around the side curtains. The top was as good as the day her grandfather replaced it shortly after he had brought the shiny new car home. Hortense, her grandmother’s pet goat, had climbed on the top of it, and her sharp hooves had gone through the roof. She had hung there, suspended, until April’s angry grandfather, threatening to kill her, had pulled her out. The car had been kept in the shed with the doors closed after that.

“I’ll be back for you, Daisy.”

April started up the road. She had gone only ten steps when her feet slipped out from under her and she fell back in a sea of mud.

“Dammit!” The hand not holding the umbrella had instinctively gone out to break her fall and was now covered with mud to her elbow. She had to use it to tip her straw hat back out of her eyes so that she could see. “Damn, damn, dammit to hell!” she swore.
Sorry, Grandma, you said not to cuss unless I just had to. Well, this is enough to make a preacher cuss.

Rain hit her in the face as she tried to scramble to her feet only to fall back again. Finally she had to turn over on her knees and put her hand down in that soupy dark mess to push herself up. When she was back on her feet, she righted the umbrella to shield her head and shoulders from the rain and trudged on down the muddy road.

If she’d had the sense of a goose, she thought now, she would have stopped when she saw that it was going to rain. But how did she know that it had probably been raining here for hours and that she was heading into it? Her skirt was wet and wrapped around her legs, making it difficult to walk. She reached down and pulled it and the coat up past her knees. There surely wasn’t anyone around to see her legs except maybe a cow or two in the fenced pasture.

After a while she found her breath coming hard and her heart beating fast from the exertion. It was tiring pulling her feet out of the sucking mud. The rain had settled into a steady downpour. She stopped to rest, and when she looked back, she couldn’t see her car. Her entire world was a ten-foot radius around her.

When she came to a place where water ran over the road, she stopped and stood first on one foot and then the other.
He

who hesitates is lost.
The thought came and went as she lifted her skirt and coat up past her knees, and stepped into the muddy water again. When it reached midcalf, she took careful steps, feeling her way, until she knew that was as deep as it was going to get. As she walked out of the water, she let the wet garments drop around her cold legs.

With her head bent April plodded on down the middle of the road. Rain beat against the umbrella. Thunder rolled overhead. If she hadn’t been so wet and miserable when she thought about Elbert Prescott, the pharmacist back in Independence with whom she had kept company for a while, she would have giggled.

Short, plump, persnickety Elbert, who wouldn’t be seen without his starched shirt and bow tie, would be horrified to see her wet and covered with mud. If not for his snooty mother’s objection, Elbert would have asked her to marry him. Of course, she wouldn’t have accepted; but it would have been nice to have been asked, considering the Prescotts were supposed to be the upper echelon of Independence society.

April felt just a little guilty that she had led Elbert on a bit. It had been a balm to her ego to have the most eligible man in town pay attention to her. She had been a source of gossip during her school years because she and her mother had come back to town to live with her grandparents and had been silent about her father. Many thought she had been born out of wedlock; but she knew differently, and so had her grandparents.

She was beginning to despair of reaching town before dark when the rain slackened a bit and she spotted a small house and a lean-to shed set in the middle of a pasture. A burst of hope rose like a bubble in her heart. She would go there and ask for help. She wasn’t able to find a break in the fence or a lane leading to the house. To get there, she would have to go over or under two strands of barbed wire. Without her shoes, she couldn’t go over. She lowered the umbrella, removed her hat, lay on her back and scooted under the barbed strands.

After getting to her feet, she raised the umbrella again and trudged toward the house. Walking was much easier on the sod even though it was soaking wet. She thought briefly about trying to improve her appearance before she knocked on the door, but that thought fled when out of the corner of her eye she saw a large animal with horns! The beast stood perfectly still looking at her. She hurried toward the house, turning her head frequently to keep watch on the animal.

Thinking to use the umbrella to ward off the beast if it attacked, she lowered it and held it at the ready. The rain streamed down her face and filled her eyes. She blinked rapidly to keep them clear. When she was within a dozen yards of the house, the animal pawed the earth and started toward her.

“Stay back,” she warned. “Stay back or I’ll whack you!” The bull, blowing steam from its nostrils, came on the run. “Get away ...or... I’ll hurt you.” Panic made her voice loud and shrill. She raced for the porch of the small house, praying the door wouldn’t be locked. When she jumped up onto the porch, a man stood in the doorway.

“Don’t you dare hurt my bull! I’ve got every cent to my name tied up in that animal.”

April turned back with the umbrella raised to see that the bull had stopped and stood looking at her. Afraid to turn her back on him, she backed toward the door. The man reached around and tried to take the umbrella out of her hand, but she held on to it.

“How were you going to hurt Rolling Thunder with an umbrella?”

“I was going to poke him in the eye.”

The man eyed the metal tip. “That would have done it. I reckon the loss of an eye wouldn’t have kept him from doing what I bought him for.”

With the danger past, April looked up into the face of the tall man. He had laughing blue eyes and a head of sandy hair almost the same color as hers. He was grinning like a jackass eating strawberries!

“I’m stuck down on the road.”

“No, you’re not. You’re standing on my porch.”

“My car is stuck down on that poor excuse for a road.” “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Then, “You tried to drive a car down that road?”

“Evidently, or I’d not be stuck,” she said irritably.

“You got a little wet, too, didn’t you? And a little muddy.” “You’re very observant.”

“Hmmm . . . one of my better traits.” He tilted his head to look at her bare, muddy feet. “You’ll have to wash your feet before I can let you walk on my Persian carpet.”

“Maybe I don’t want to come in.”

“Sure you do. I’ve got a kettle full of beef stew. Smell it? Besides that, I don’t think Rolling Thunder likes you.”

“Is your wife here?”

“Which one?” His brows drew together in question. “Listen, mister, call off your bull, and I’ll get on back down to the road.” She stepped to the edge of the porch and unfolded the umbrella.

“Ah . . . shoot! Can’t you take a joke? It’s been boring as hell here all day.”

“I’m in no mood for jokes. Amuse yourself with Rolling Thunder, not me.”

“Wrong gender, ma’am.”

“Oh!” With one eye on the bull April stepped off the porch.

“Come back now.” The man grabbed her arm. “I’ll behave. My name is Joe Jones. I don’t have a wife.”

“I can certainly understand why.” April shrugged off his hand and turned. “Jones? Do you have brothers?”

“Yes, and three sisters.”

“Your brothers’ names?”

“Jason and Jack, and little Jacob.”

“What does Jack do?”

“He’s helping Pa farm right now.”

“Does he do something else?”

“Plays baseball sometimes.”

“Dr. Forbes told me about Jack Jones being an exceptional ballplayer. He said the Jones family were a decent, well-respected family.” She gave him an exasperated look. “Was he wrong?”

“Doc was right. We’re pillars of the community. Are you the nurse he’s been expecting?”

“April Asbury, R.N.”

“Well, you sure don’t look like an R.N. or a P.N. or any other kind of N. You look like a half-drowned little kitty cat right now. Come in. I promise not to pounce on you.”

Holding on to the porch post, April held first one foot and then the other beneath the stream of water pouring off the roof.

“I’d hate to ruin your Persian carpet.” Not until her feet were free of mud did she step inside onto the wide plank floor.

Joe lit a lamp, and April could see that the one room had a cookstove, a bed, dresser, table and chairs.

“I’m warming up the pot of stew my sister sent over. You’d better get out of those wet clothes.”

“Yeah, sure.” April looked at him with lifted brows. He seemed to fill the small room. She felt crowded.

“I’ll go out on the porch if you insist, but I’d rather stay.” “It won’t be necessary for you to make the sacrifice. I don’t have any dry clothes to put on.”

“I’ll lend you some of mine until yours dry. Now, don’t get all starchy on me. I’ll go out on the porch. I can’t have Doc’s new nurse getting sick on my account. He’d be sure to find that I had TB or cancer or something just to pay me back.” Joe opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of worn work pants, a flannel shirt and a pair of socks. He tossed them on the bed. “I promise not to peek,” he said as he went out the door and shut it behind him.

April had to smile in spite of herself. She didn’t feel one bit threatened even if he was big as a horse. Dr. Forbes had amused her with stories about the people in Fertile. Joe and Jack Jones belonged to the Jones family who lived on the edge of town. During the summer months they had baseball games in a pasture beside their house and dances in the yard between the house and the barn.

“The boys, Joe and Jack, can spin some of the wildest yarns you ever heard.” She had no trouble believing that now. Dr. Forbes had told her about Julie Jones, who raised her siblings after her mother had died. She had married a neighbor and taken the younger children with her. The children’s father had married the sister of the Methodist preacher, and they’d had one child.

April wondered while she was getting out of her wet clothes why Joe Jones hadn’t married. He was certainly old enough. The flirt! She rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and the pant legs, cinched the waist with her belt and put on her shoes, which she had kept dry beneath her coat. She looked at herself in the small mirror over the washbasin. She was as bedraggled as a wet hen, yet Joe Jones had still flirted with her. She bet that he’d flirt with a stump. Some men were like that. She ran her fingers through her hair and opened the door.

“Well, now, that’s better. I was getting worried that Doc had pulled a fast one.”

“What do you mean, a fast one?”

“He said the easiest way to build a practice was to get a pretty nurse. He’s bragging that his new nurse will cause every single man within fifty miles to suddenly get sick. I had my doubts when you stumbled in here. But now . . .” He circled around her, his eyes going up and down as if he were judging a horse or a cow. “Hmmm . . .” Her dark blond hair was full of colors, curling wildly around her face and making an unruly fall down to her shoulders. “Pretty brown eyes,” he murmured. “And a kissable mouth. Tall, too. I don’t like to bend way over to kiss a woman.” He stroked his chin. “Doc did just fine for an old . . . goat.”