Just Once (19 page)

He was about to step back inside and close the door when he heard a commotion that sounded like it was coming from the pigpen. Dismissing it as nothing more than the exuberant porkers welcoming the morning slops, he smiled and stepped back inside, his hand on the edge of the door.

A high-pitched squeal that sounded far more human than piglike started him running. As soon as he rounded the root cellar, he caught a flash of sky blue almost hidden behind a wall of hungry pork. His initial panic ebbed when he heard Jemma shout.

“Get off me! Get away, you … you pigs! Ouch! Let me up.”

The wheezing and snorting pigs were far too busy gobbling down the mixture of corncobs and scraps to pay her any mind. Hunter ran up to the split-rail fence that hemmed in the young porkers and the old sow, reached over and grabbed Jemma beneath the arms, and pulled her up and over the rail.

For a moment she simply stood beside the fence, staring at the pigs that still swarmed the bucket of slops dumped on the ground and smeared on her skirt.

“What in the hell were you doing in there?”

He saw her shudder. She stiffened her shoulders before she turned to face him.

“Nette sent me out to slop the hogs.”

“You aren’t supposed to slop
yourself
,” he said, shooting a glance at the front of her dress. “And you’re sure as hell not supposed to get
in
the pen to feed ’em. If those hogs were a few months older, they could have killed you. You’re lucky that mother pig didn’t charge you.”

“Nobody told me that,” she shot back.

“Did you tell Nette you didn’t have any idea how to slop pigs in the first place?”

“No—”

“You wouldn’t think of telling the truth and asking her for help, would you? If I know you, you probably told her you’ve been slopping hogs since you could walk. You probably said you were the head hog slopper at the convent in Algiers.”

She crossed her arms, tapped her foot, and avoided his eyes by staring at the root cellar not far away.

“Well?” His temper fizzled and died when she looked up at him with her blue eyes swimming with tears.

“When Nette asked me to do this for her, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t know how, because then she would have jumped in and done it herself. She’s been so good to me already; she … she loaned me this dress and now it’s filthy and I’m sure she doesn’t have another one to spare.”

When she paused to look down at the hopelessly soiled gown, tears slipped down her cheeks. She whirled around and wiped them off with the back of her hands, smearing her cheeks with mud.

“It’s barely daybreak and I’ve ruined everything,” she whispered.

Hunter reached into the pigpen and collected the bucket. Tempted to slip his arm around her shoulders, he took her by the arm and led her back to the trading post, purposely skirting the front of Nette’s cabin. Jemma went along without a word, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve until, by the time they reached the post and he opened the door for her, she had collected herself. The fire was back in her eyes.

“Come with me.” He led her up to the loft, lifted a striped wool blanket that was folded across the end of the bed, and handed it to her.

“I’ll go out to the kitchen and pour some coffee while you slip out of that dress and wrap up in this.” He handed her the blanket.

“Thank you,” Jemma mumbled, carefully holding it away from the front of her muddy gown, waiting for him to leave.

She didn’t move until the sound of his footsteps faded on the stairs; then she dropped the blanket and unbuttoned the borrowed gown. Letting the soiled garment fall, she stepped out of it, surveyed the damage to her petticoat, which was minimal, and then walked over to a series of pegs on the wall where he had neatly hung his shirts. There were but three extra. She chose one, slipped into it and was reminded of the huge shirt she had worn on the journey north. Somehow, the familiarity comforted her.

The loft was sparsely furnished. His bed was covered with a quilt that she suspected was more of Nette’s handiwork. Beside the bed, Hunter had placed a trunk, on top of which stood a candlestick. She walked over to the bed and let her fingers trail over the intricate quilt patches, up to the pillow. Lightly she skimmed the cotton case, closed her eyes, inhaled.

She drifted over to the window that gave him a view of the other cabins. Leaning against the window, she looked down at Nette’s and the Boones’ cabins and saw Hannah accompanying Callie to the outhouse in back. Finally, she picked up the blanket he had offered, draped it over her shoulders, and closed it, hiding her bare thighs and legs. Collecting the soiled gown, she rolled it into a tidy bundle and climbed down the stairs to the floor below.

Hunter was just entering the main room with two cups of coffee and a wet dish towel. Jemma, bundled up from neck to toe, sat down at one of the trestle tables and laid the rolled-up blue dress on the bench.

“Here.” He handed her the towel and as she wiped off her face and hands, he sat down on the opposite side of the table.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” she said without meeting his gaze. “Most of the dirt is on the front of the dress, and a little in back where I sat down in the mud, but it’s not soaked through.”

He slid a cup of coffee across the table to her. Jemma set down the towel and hugged the coffee cup with both hands.

“I’m glad we’re finally alone. We need to talk,” he said.

“I’ll tell Nette I’m sorry—”

“I know you will.” Hunter stretched his legs and crossed his ankles.

Jemma knew that the warm, cozy feeling she was experiencing was not hers to keep. Taking a careful sip of the hot coffee, she waited for him to speak his peace.

“I’ve made a decision,” he said.

She took another sip, looked at him over the rim of the cup, and waited expectantly.

“Circumstances being what they are, I think it would be best if you stayed here for the next couple of weeks. I won’t be going anywhere either, until things are settled.”

“Settled?”

“Until you know for certain you aren’t with child.”

She blinked twice. “
With child?
”

“You know what I mean.”

“With child?” Dear Lord, she hadn’t thought about the possibility of
that
complication, but then again, she hadn’t been thinking very clearly for quite a while. Her hand went to her stomach, resting there. Even now, her and Hunter’s child might be growing.

“I can see that the idea comes as a shock to you.” He was looking at her as if she were thick as a post.

Jemma swallowed. “It does. I never … well, I just never thought about it. You mean? That is to say, we only did it once.”

“Once is more than enough to make a child.”

Her cheeks were afire. She could feel her skin burning and looked down at the table to avoid meeting his eyes. Obviously he wanted her to stay, not because he felt anything for her, but because he felt responsible for the child she might have conceived that night under the stars.

Once she had accidentally dropped a sky-blue robin’s egg she found on her windowsill. She had watched it fall to the ground, seen the contents spill out on the ground. Right now she had that same sinking sensation.

“Jemma?” He set his cup down half-full.

She started. Her thoughts had been miles away. “I want to stay.” She blurted out the first words that came to mind. “Not because of what you just said, that I might … that we might have … anyway, I decided last night I would like to stay a little while longer, if you and the others don’t mind.”

“I thought you were desperate to find your father and your brother.” He watched her wrestle with an answer.

She ran her fingertip around the lip of the cup, trying to come up with some reason why she had suddenly lost interest in her trek to Canada.

“Tell me the truth, Jemma. Just once.”

Sitting there in the quiet stillness of the morning, the time of day that held the most promise, a time for starting over, she wished she could tell him the truth.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

She could see it wasn’t the answer he expected.

“Hunter, I wish I could tell you, but I can’t, not yet. All I know is that I’m not sure where I’m headed anymore or what I’m going to do.”

She could hear the confusion in her tone that sounded nothing at all like the brazen girl who had cajoled him into taking her up the Trace with her ridiculous bold talk of rebel Berbers and daring escapes.

“I promise I’ll try not to be a burden to anyone. I’ll work from dawn until dusk. I’ll stay out of your, way.”

He had grown so still, so contemplative that she was afraid he was thinking of a way to deny her request. Finally, he set his cup aside, folded his hands, and looked her straight in the eye.

“I once brought a woman into our lives and she stole from me and my family. I don’t ever want to make that mistake again.”

His words hurt her deeply, but she didn’t argue.

“Promise me two things,” he added.

“Of course.”

“Don’t do anything to upset Nette or Lucy while you’re here.”

She instantly took offense, then realized that his past directed his present. He really knew nothing about her. “I would never intentionally hurt anyone,” she assured him.

“And Jemma?”

“What?”

“Stay out of the pigpen.”

Chapter 13

“Now, you sure you want to do this for me, honey?” Nette sat at the quilting frame, her glasses riding the end of her nose. She threaded a needle with white thread.

“Of course, I’m sure.” Jemma watched her wrap the thread around the end of her needle to knot it. “I may never master pie dough, but I think I can dust without any problem.”

Jemma was determined to do her share while she was in Sandy Shoals, and so far she had helped Nette with everything except cooking—which continually proved to be almost as big a disaster as pig feeding.

“Hunter’s mighty particular about his things,” Nette warned. “Just stick to dusting the shelves and sweeping the floor. That’ll be plenty.”

“All right.” Jemma buttoned up her wool coat and wrapped a wool scarf around her face and neck until only her eyes and nose were showing.

“Try to be finished before he gets back from Noah’s.”

“I will.” Jemma had yet to lay eyes on the elusive Noah LeCroix, the half-breed renowned for his ability to pilot boats through the shoals.

“If any boats pull in, ring the bell outside the kitchen door and Luther’ll come runnin’.”

“I know, Nette.” Her voice was muffled by the wool scarf. She had her hand on the door latch.

“And keep the fire going.”

“I will.” The shawl hid Jemma’s smile. Nette looked after everyone like a mother hen. Jemma loved it.

“If you see Lucy anywhere, remind her that I need her to card more wool so I can do some spinning later.” Nette began rocking a needle through the layers of pieced materials and the cotton batting.

“All right.” Jemma stood there waiting for the final word before she opened the door and let the cold air into the cabin.

Glancing up from her work, Nette waved in the direction of the trading post. “Well, what are you waiting for, child? Get a move on.”

Jemma laughed and stepped out into the cold.

Thanking the saints for her good fortune had become a habit. A fair share of keelboats and flatboats were still headed downriver, but November had brought snow, and even though it soon melted, mornings like this one were still biting cold. The trees were skeletal, the sky gray. Except for an occasional ruckus from the henhouse or a complaint from one of the pigs, it was absolutely still outside. The contrast between mornings in Sandy Shoals and the hustle and bustle of the vendors, carriages, and wagons on the streets of Boston was the same as the contrast between night and day. The peacefulness of the place permeated her soul.

Burying her hands in the sleeves of her coat, Jemma gingerly picked her way through the scattering of snow and ice that covered the ground between Nette’s cabin and the trading post. She was determined to linger there until Hunter showed up so she could tell him that his worries were over. Her monthly time had come to her in the night. For the week-and-a-half they had waited, he had avoided being alone with her.

Inside, the trading post was warm and cozy. Hunter had left a low fire burning in back of the massive hearth. The tables were wiped clean. Everything was in its place. She found the rags under the counter just where Nette had said they would be, along with some oil for polishing and a turkey-feather duster. Jemma took off her scarf and coat, rolled up the sleeves of the blue gown that had survived the pigsty, and went to work.

An hour later she stood atop a ladder propped against the highest shelf in the store. She tossed the dust rag onto the counter behind her and had started down the ladder when the toe of her heel caught in the hem of her gown. There was a rending tear just before she fell backwards. Polished shelves full of trade items flashed past her as she hurtled to the floor with a startled cry.

Jemma heard an angel singing with such heavenly sounds that she was certain she had died and gone to paradise until she realized that her head was pounding. She didn’t think there was supposed to be pain in heaven.

When she opened her eyes, the angel was still singing. Stars danced and shimmered on the ceiling of the trading post. She blinked to clear her vision but otherwise lay still, not certain if she could move anything at all, unwilling to try.

Gradually the stars faded and she slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position, pausing when her head began to swim. The angel was still singing, the notes so pure and ethereal that Jemma didn’t know whether it was the sound that made her want to cry or the horrid pain at the back of her head. She reached up to feel her scalp and her hand came away bloody.

Jemma couldn’t utter more than a squeak at first, but as she sat there on the floor behind the counter staring at the blood on her palm, she finally managed to shout, “Help!”

The angel abruptly stopped. Jemma heard footsteps outside the post. The back door flew open and someone ran in.

“Jemma?”

“Lucy, I’m down here.” Jemma breathed a sigh of relief as Lucy rounded the corner of the counter and ran over to her.

“What have you done?” The girl tossed aside her thick shawl and knelt down on the floor beside Jemma.

“I fell off the ladder,” Jemma said, unable to keep the embarrassment out of her tone. “And I think I cracked my skull open.”

Crawling around behind her, Lucy gently parted Jemma’s hair and inspected the wound.

“You cracked your head good. Sit tight and I’ll press a clean rag to it.” She pulled a rag off the shelf under the bar top and held it against the cut.

“Was that you I heard singing?” Jemma fought to keep her mind off the throbbing ache at the back of her head. She tested her ankles and bent her knees one at a time. Everything seemed to be working.

Lucy didn’t answer outright. Making conversation was an effort for the girl, especially when the subject was herself.

Finally, after she had helped Jemma to her feet and led her over to a bench, Lucy blushed. “That was me singing.”

Jemma reached up to hold the compress herself.

“When I came to and heard that voice, I thought I was in heaven listening to an angel,” Jemma said.

Lucy’s eyes began to sparkle. Then she smiled one of her rare smiles. “Jemma, you say the funniest things.” After a moment she lifted a hand to her hair and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Lucy, you are so genuinely beautiful when you smile. You should do so more often.” Jemma was stunned by the change that had come over the girl.

Lucy was blushing, staring at the table where her graceful hands lay folded one atop the other. “I’m
not
beautiful,” she whispered. “Please don’t say that.”

The cut on her head had stopped bleeding and the throb had receded to a dull ache. Jemma set aside the compress. “Yes, you are. Why, I’ll bet with a bit of spit and polish and that new dress Nette’s promised you, you’ll turn the head of every young man who stops here. And that voice! Lucy, have the others ever heard you sing?”

“I don’t want to turn heads,” Lucy cried, twisting her fingers together. “I’m
not
beautiful. Not like my ma. And Nette’s never gonna finish making that dress, not with her quilt takin’ up every spare minute she’s got.”

Jemma reached out and lifted a lock of Lucy’s hair off her shoulders. “I could fix your hair, if you let me. It would be fun—”

A sparkle replaced the pained look in Lucy’s eyes. “I never had anyone fix my hair for me.”

“This is as good a time as any to start. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Since her arrival at Sandy Shoals, Jemma had tried hard to fill Lucy’s wish for a friend, but the girl was so shy; she kept to herself most of the time and spent the quiet hours of an evening reading the Bible by firelight. As much as Lucy claimed she wanted a friend, Jemma had almost despaired of ever really getting to know her.

“You know, Lucy,” she said, “I’m not a bad seamstress myself. At least, I’m fairly certain I could manage to put a dress together. I used to embroider samplers in … well, at home.”

“It’d be a heap of trouble for you.” Lucy protested, but there was a thread of hope in her tone.

Jemma stood up and waited to see if her head would start spinning. It merely thrummed, so she smiled over at Lucy and took the girl’s hand.

“Come on. Let’s look through the bolts of cloth Hunter has on the back shelf and find one that will look good on you.”

“I don’t think we should.”

“Why not?” Jemma shrugged.

“Nette already cut out a yellow dress for me.”

Jemma looked at Lucy’s tangled brown hair and her big, wide, brown eyes. “What’s wrong with owning two dresses? You would look wonderful in pink.”

“
Two
new dresses? I think that fall might have knocked you senseless, Jemma.”

Lucy hadn’t budged, so Jemma sat back down. She thought of her armoires in Boston, full of gowns that she hadn’t worn in ages. Noticing Lucy’s forlorn expression, Jemma asked, “Lucy, what’s wrong?”

Lucy shook her head and shoved her hair back off her face, looping it behind her ears. “I can’t ask Hunter for material for a dress. I heard Nette tell you all about my ma the night you came here, about how she up and left me with Hunter and Nette and didn’t look back. I’m beholden to them for everything as it is. I can’t ask for more.”

“But—” Jemma knew Hunter was thrifty, but she couldn’t imagine him begrudging Lucy a few yards of material and some thread. “I’ll ask him for the things we’ll need myself. Surely he won’t mind.”

“Don’t you see? It’s not that he might mind—”

“Then what is it? Something else is bothering you.”

Lucy stared down at her hands.

“We’re friends, aren’t we, Lucy? Friends share their troubles.” The silence in the post was deafening. Jemma waited, hoping she hadn’t pushed the girl too far. Finally, she watched Lucy swallow and then lift her soulful eyes.

“I don’t want to be like my ma.”

Jemma frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Ma is so beautiful that she can get a man to do anything for her. She came here and made Hunter fall in love with her and then up and left. It was that way my whole life, watching her move from one man to another, one place to another, takin’ and takin’ and never givin’ back.” She drew a deep shuddering breath. “I never thought she would leave me behind. You know what it’s like, bein’ left behind, Jemma? Havin’ someone think so little of you that they disappear without a good-bye, without any warning at all?”

Not only did Jemma’s heart go out to Lucy, but through the girl’s heartfelt words she had a glimpse of the pain her own disappearance would cause her father if he arrived in New Orleans earlier than expected and discovered that she had vanished without a trace.

Tears shimmered in Lucy’s eyes. “For a long time I kept waiting for Ma, thinking that she would just be gone a while and that she’d come back for me—”

“Maybe she will,” Jemma encouraged.

Lucy shook her head. “It’s been too long. She won’t come back now.”

At a loss for words, Jemma fingered her wound again. It was tender and still oozing, so she picked up the compress and held it against the back of her head.

“You’re not anything like your mother, Lucy.”

“But if you fix up my hair and I start wearin’ pretty dresses, then it might go to my head. What if I start thinkin’ like my ma, actin’ like her? What then, Jemma? That’s not the way God intended a body to behave.”

“Oh, Lucy.” Jemma set aside the compress and put her arms around the girl’s thin shoulders. “You’ve got too good a heart to change, no matter what you wear, or how you look. Why, you’re good to Nette, always doing your chores and helping out, and you take care of Hannah’s little ones whenever she needs you. I don’t think you have a thing to worry about.”

“Really?” Lucy sniffed and pulled back.

“Absolutely. Just like that wonderful voice of yours, beauty comes from the inside, Lucy. Not the outside.” Jemma glanced at the stack of fabric again and smiled. She pulled Lucy over to an open space between the counter and the table, prized the girl’s hands off her shawl, and set the knitted blue wool aside. “Stand here.”

“What are you doing?” Lucy looked around the room as if she expected Hunter to pop out of the mud chinked between the logs.

“What any good dressmaker would do—I’m going to see which fabric looks the best on you.” She opened a length of blush-pink fabric and draped it over Lucy’s shoulder. “
Very
nice.”

Lucy smiled. “Really?”

Jemma whipped another bolt off the table, shook it out, and draped it across the girl’s opposite shoulder. “Terrible,” Jemma mumbled as she pulled off the mustard-yellow cloth and tossed it behind her.

“I like the first one,” Lucy said, fingering the pink.

They both started laughing when Jemma wound a length of cloth around Lucy’s head like a turban and let the end of the fabric trail down to the floor.

“Do you know that some Africans wear turbans that are a foot high?” Jemma said as she unwound Lucy’s impromptu headpiece.

“Have you ever been to Africa, Jemma?” The girl was so sincere that Jemma couldn’t even launch into one of her tales.

“No, but my grandfather was a long time ago, and when he told a story, he had the ability to make me feel as if I had been there right along with him. I used to pretend I had been there, too.”

“You have that gift,” Lucy said. “When you tell one of your tales, I feel like I’m right there in it myself.”

“Why, thank you, Lucy. That’s quite a compliment.”

Lucy took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank
you
, Jemma. I never had this much fun before. Ever. I hope you don’t ever leave.”

So moved that she was unable to respond, Jemma picked up the cloth that Lucy liked best.

There was nothing to keep her here now. Hunter certainly didn’t share her feelings—that much was evident. She almost hated to see the look of relief that would surely come over him when she told him her news. No, Hunter Boone wouldn’t be begging her to stay. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t start packing the minute she told him.

“Someday I’ll have to leave, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still be friends. Why, I expect someday a young man will catch your eye and you’ll be thinking of getting married.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lucy said. “Nobody ever looked twice at me before, but I did hear that Hannah married Luther when she was sixteen and I’ll be that old in a few months.”