Just Once (21 page)

Hunter took off his buckskin coat and draped it over the chair he pulled up to the table. He sat down across from the girl and laid the package on the scarred wooden top, which was almost white from so many scrubbings. He laid his hands palms down on the tabletop. They were big hands, work-worn and scarred by honest labor and long hours clearing the land. They were the opposite of her father’s—hands that had never done anything harder than sign business agreements and her marriage contract.

She watched his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts.

“Would you like Nette and me to go up to the loft?” Jemma asked, willing to give him time to talk to Lucy in a more private atmosphere.

Lucy’s eyes begged her to stay.

“No.” Hunter shook his head. “What I’ve got to say to Lucy needs to be said and I don’t care who hears it.” He turned to the silent, watchful girl who sat so still that she didn’t even appear to be breathing.

“Lucy, I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you reason to fear me or to believe that I might think less of you because of your ma,” he said.

Jemma could see that the girl was stunned; her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

Hunter took a deep breath. “I don’t ever want you to feel beholden to me or Nette or the rest of us.”

“But Ma stole from you—” Her voice quivered.

“You aren’t your mother,” he said softly. “I know that and so does everybody here.” He glanced down at the Bible beneath her hands. “Your mother might not have known right from wrong, but God made you good so you can balance things out. We all think of you as one of us, and we always have. I’m the one who took up with your mother. When she left, we all wanted you here, but I never figured you didn’t know that. Until today, I never knew how you felt.”

Lucy didn’t say a word. She wiped away tears with the hem of her skirt.

Hunter spoke softly, pausing as if organizing his thoughts.

“You’re as close as I’ve ever come to having children of my own. Don’t fault me for not realizing you felt the way you did all this time. I was doing the best I knew how. I guess I kept thinking of you as that little girl who stepped off the boat holding on to your mother’s skirt, but you’re nearly grown. If you need anything from now on, you be sure to ask any of us and if it’s in our power, we’ll see that you have it.”

He shoved the bundle into the center of the table and began to open the string. When he had trouble untying the knot, Lucy touched the back of his hand. Hunter let her do it.

Jemma’s eyes were moist with tears. In the corner, Nette watched in silence. Inside was a folded length of the pink fabric that Lucy had admired.

“This is for you,” he said, offering Lucy the material. She picked it up and smoothed her hand over it before hugging it to her heart. Her lashes were still spiky wet from her tears but she was smiling at him as if he had just given her the moon.

Hunter turned around. His eyes met Jemma’s across the room. “I brought the things you asked for.”

It was a night for truths. She set her brush aside and stood up. He had opened his heart to Lucy and let the tenderness pour out. Jemma walked over to the table and sat down next to him. She felt him stiffen but ignored it. The paper, pen, a box of nibs, and a pot of ink were all bundled together in an open box. She reached for them and smiled over at Hunter.

“I’m going to write my father,” she told him. “And let him know where I am.”

Hunter leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. He watched her closely, making no comment. Jemma heard Nette stir behind them, leaving her chair. The old woman’s rheumatism had hurt her of late. When she moved, her left foot shuffled along the floor. She came slowly to the table, pulled out her own chair, and eased herself into it.

“So, you’re writing to your father in Canada?” Nette said to Jemma.

Jemma blushed and glanced at Hunter from beneath her lashes. She toyed with the corner of the paper box and then took a deep breath and let it out.

“My father is in London right now, if I’m lucky. If not, he’s in Boston or New Orleans looking for me.”

“What about your brother?” Nette wanted to know.

She could feel Hunter’s gaze boring into her and chanced another glance. There was a just-as-I-thought air about him.

“I don’t have a brother,” she confessed.

“But you told Hunter—” Lucy began.

“I lied. Well, actually, I made up a little story in order to persuade him to take me with him so that I could get out of New Orleans.”

“It wasn’t a
little
story.” He amended.

“Yes,” she nodded in agreement. “It was quite a tale.”

“So, there was no convent escape, no emir, no Berber rebels in Algiers?” Nette sounded heartily disappointed.

“No oil jar?” Lucy asked.

“He told you both?” Jemma was appalled.

“Hannah told me,” Nette confirmed.

“Me, too.” Lucy added.

“Oh.” Jemma would have liked to crawl beneath the table. It was one thing to make up a whopping lie on a dark, rainy night when one’s entire future depended on it, but to have it passed on to people who deserved the truth was yet another.

“There was none of that,” Jemma confessed. “Except for the convent. I went to convent school in Boston until a few months ago.”

“Then what happened?” Lucy wanted to know.

“How’d you end up here?” Nette asked.

Jemma thought Hunter might say something, but he simply sat there waiting for the truth. The look on his face told her he still wasn’t certain he was going to hear it.

“My father owns an import company in Boston. He’s moving it to New Orleans. In his opinion, it was high time I wed, so he arranged a marriage to a French Creole whose family is quite prominent. Father believed it would be good for his business contacts and that I would be well settled near him. I—” She looked over at Hunter again, then back down at the paper. “I objected, but he played on my sympathy and reminded me that he had never asked anything of me before. Finally I promised I would go through with it.”

“But you didn’t,” Lucy smiled. “You ran away from your father.”

Jemma shook her head. “Oh, no. I fully intended to keep my promise, even though my father went to London to settle business affairs and sent me on my way alone, except for one of his bodyguards. The night the ship from Boston docked in New Orleans, I received word that the man I was to marry had been killed in a duel.”

“And you were left wandering the docks with nowhere to go,” Nette finished.

“Not exactly,” Jemma said. “The Creole family wanted me to go through with the marriage. You see, they planned to substitute a cousin.”

Lucy leaned forward. “When you got there, the bridegroom was a hideous creature and you refused to marry him. You ran screaming into the night, right into Hunter.”

“She’s been around you too long.” Hunter’s gaze was intent, as if he’d never seen Jemma before.

“Let Jemma tell it, child.” Nette was sitting on the edge of her chair, her elbows on the table, chin propped in her hands.

Jemma took a deep breath. “I realized I had been freed from the promise I made my father. I knew he wouldn’t get back from London for at least two or three months, and even then, he might not get word of what had happened until he reached New Orleans. All my life I had yearned for adventure. I wanted to see the world, embark on a dangerous journey into new lands. I slipped away from my father’s man and ran through the streets of New Orleans.”

“Until you saw Hunter,” Nette said.

“Yes,” Jemma nodded, looking over at him again. She couldn’t help but smile. “Until I saw Hunter.”

She was looking at him
that
way again. The way a child with a sweet tooth looks at a gumdrop. Hunter felt his blood heat up. At this rate he was going to die of frustration.

“You said before that you thought Hunter looked like he could be trusted and that he could protect you. You saw that right off about him, didn’t you, Jemma?” There was more than a hint of pride in Lucy’s voice.

“I … I certainly did. Persuading him to take me with him was another thing. That’s why I resorted to making up that long, involved story.”

“Now what will you tell your pa?” Lucy wanted to know.

“I’m going to let him know I’m safe, that I’m well taken care of.” She smiled at Nette. “I’ll tell him how I changed places with another girl that night, a stranger who took my place in the carriage headed for the wedding.”

“Will he forgive you?” Lucy was still holding the fabric.

Hunter wondered how anyone could be immune to her charm. The mystery was solved. Now he knew why she had run, why she had demanded that he make love to her. She had taken away the one thing her father had the power to barter with—her virginity. But now she had put herself in a worse situation. Not only would her father be furious, but few husbands would want a soiled bride.

“I’m going to let him know that I’ll not be home until I’m good and ready. I want to wait until he is over the notion that he can choose a husband for me.”

A husband
. Someone who had the right to kiss her, to hold her, to take her to his bed. Although it shouldn’t have, the thought jarred him.

Her revelation also explained away the expensive dress she had worn the night they met, her smooth white hands, the gold she had given him. He thought of the life she must have led in Boston, a life he could only imagine. She was well educated, used to culture and the best of everything.

Yet she had let him drag her through the wilderness with barely a complaint.

She had fallen in the pigpen trying to help Nette.

She had come to him on behalf of Lucy, to set things right between them.

She had asked him to be her lover, talked him into taking her innocence.

She had almost made him forget who he was and what he wanted. Now that he knew that their backgrounds were worlds apart, he should have been relieved. She would be going back to New Orleans, to her father. She wouldn’t be his responsibility any longer.

He should be happy.

But as he sat there listening to Nette and Lucy ask her all about Boston and the latest styles, as they conferred about the cut of Lucy’s new dress, he didn’t feel relieved or happy.

Not even a little.

Chapter 15

Sister Augusta Aleria had been right about everything. Once a girl had fallen into sin, she was doomed. A life of endless kissing and
other things
was about all Jemma ever thought of in her spare time.

Seated on her bed in the loft, taking advantage of the heat trapped beneath the eaves, she finished hemming the sleeve of Lucy’s new gown, tied a knot, and bit off the thread with her teeth. She shook out the near-finished dress and held it up to survey her work. The seams were straight, the stitches even and carefully placed. The simple gown wasn’t dressmaker-quality, but it was her best effort. All the embroidery she had completed during those long, quiet hours alone in Boston were paying off. Every time she began to fret that her skills were lacking, Nette bolstered her confidence.

“Lucy will love it,” Nette had assured her time and again. “The girl only sits still when she settles down to read the Bible. Whatever little mistakes you made will never show on a galloping horse.”

Before she began the pink gown, Jemma had gained experience by finishing the butter-yellow dress that Nette had already started. She had worked all month long so that by Christmas, a week and a half away, Lucy would have not one, but two new gowns. Jemma began to thread the needle again so that she could hem the other sleeve when she heard the door open downstairs.

“Jemma? Are you here?”

Jemma recognized Lucy’s voice when the girl called up to her. Since her talk with Hunter, Lucy had lost much of her hesitance and reserve. Jemma had taught her how to style her hair and now she kept it clean and shining, tied back with a ribbon or woven into a long, fanciful braid.

“I’m right here, Lucy.” Jemma quickly put her thread and needle away and folded the dress, hiding it beneath her bed. Lucy knew she was working on it, but Jemma wanted the finished product to be a surprise. She hurried down the ladder from the loft.

“What is it?”

“Do you think you could go over to Hannah’s and watch the children for a while? She and Luther are going over to the post to finish up making Christmas presents, and Nette needs my help with the breadmaking. She didn’t think you’d mind.”

Jemma smiled, happy to think Hannah wouldn’t hesitate to ask her to help out. She was proud that they trusted her with the children. “Of course not. I’ll go over right away.” She grabbed her cape and was out the door in less than a minute.

When she reached the Boones’ cabin, Hannah was hesitant to leave. “Are you sure you don’t mind looking after them, Jemma?”

Hannah stood in the middle of the main room with her hands on her hips, her brows drawn together in a frown. Jemma waited beside her, looking over at the four children. Luther Junior sat at the table with his head propped on his fists, smiling. Callie was on the bed in the corner, playing with baby Timmy, who lay on his back, gurgling up at his sister. Little Sadie was sitting on the floor pounding on the bottom of an empty pot. How much trouble could such darling innocents possibly be?

“You just take your time. We’ll be fine,” Jemma assured her. She was actually looking forward to caring for the children.

When the door closed behind Hannah, the toddler, Sadie, threw the pot against a table leg and let out an ear-splitting howl. Jemma slapped her hands over her ears and rushed to the child, afraid the little girl had hurt herself.

“Sadie, what’s wrong?” As Jemma bent to scoop her up, the child shook her head yelling what sounded like, “No, mama! No, mama!” at the top of her lungs.

“Mama had to go out for a minute,” Jemma said, her hands slipping off Sadie’s waist. The girl was crawling beneath the table, so Jemma was forced to go down on hands and knees to retrieve her. She grabbed hold of Sadie’s ankles, impeding her forward progress, but couldn’t pull her out.

Baby Timmy joined in the screaming, and to further add to the din, Callie was yelling, “Timmy wants you, Jemma!” over and over.

Junior smiled, stood up, and began to drag his chair over to the shelves of food staples hung alongside the fireplace.

Jemma left Sadie wailing under the table and hurried over to the bed, where Callie was bellowing, “Timmy wants you
now!
”

She reached for the bundle of flailing arms and legs and picked up the beet-faced infant. “Shh. Shh, Timmy. Please.” Jemma tried holding Timmy against her shoulder, bouncing him up and down the way she had seen Hannah do so many times. The motion only seemed to upset the baby even more.

Jemma peeked beneath the table to be certain Sadie was still there, then turned toward the bed to ask Callie what to do, but Callie wasn’t there. In fact, Callie had disappeared.

“Luther Junior, where’s your sister?” As she raced to the window, Jemma saw Junior climbing onto his chair. Could Callie have slipped outside without her noticing? She didn’t think the door had opened, but—

“Sadie’s still under the table.” Junior shouted over the din of both screaming younger children.

“Not
that
sister. Where’s Callie?”

“Probably under the bed,” he shouted back.

Jemma knelt down—nearly dropping the squirming, screaming Timmy—lifted the quilt, and peered beneath the bed. “Come out of there, Callie.” She tried a gentler tone. “You gave me quite a fright.”

“No.”

Jemma blinked.
No?
“Callie, come out of there right now or … or … I’ll be really upset.”

Callie scooted closer to the wall and tightened like a sow bug.

Her knees were aching. Jemma stood up and shifted Timmy to her other shoulder. She turned around in time to see Sadie crawl out from under the table and run headlong toward the door, her arms outstretched, screaming, “Mama! Mama!” as she went.

“Here, Sadie. Not the door,” Jemma said. “Come with me.” She took hold of Sadie’s wrist with her free hand and gently tried to tug the child away from the door. Sadie had pressed herself up against the wood panels like a spider, arms thrown wide, sobbing brokenheartedly.

Jemma took a deep breath and blew the wayward strands of hair out of her face. Timmy’s screams had ebbed to occasional bursts and hiccups. She had successfully pulled Sadie halfway across the floor when she glanced up and spied Luther Junior with his hand in a heavy crockery jar that was teetering on the edge of a high shelf.

“Junior, watch out!” Her warning came just as the crock tipped over and fell, thankfully missing Junior, but smashing against the floor and breaking into four huge, jagged hunks. Honey spattered and oozed over the floor.

“Don’t touch that,” Jemma cried. Callie suddenly appeared from beneath the bed to stand over the broken shards of crockery with her arms folded across her chest. With wide hazel eyes she stood there staring up at Jemma.

“Mama’s not going to like this one bit! Junior Boone, you’re in deep trouble,” Callie predicted.

Junior jumped down off the chair. “No, I ain’t.” He bullied up to his sister, his bottom lip out, his arms folded in imitation of hers.

Jemma kept an eye on the two combatants while she edged Sadie closer to the bed. Timmy was almost calm as he watched his older siblings’ performance. She put the baby down in the center of the bed, lifted Sadie up, and set her beside Timmy.

“Don’t move,” Jemma admonished Sadie, who immediately started howling again, but stayed put.

“Callie’s bleeding,” Junior yelled.

Jemma spun around and saw Callie holding one of the ceramic shards, her lower lip trembling at the sight of the small cut on the forefinger of her opposite hand.

“Luther, get something to wipe her hand with. Callie, come here and let me see.” Jemma cradled Callie’s hand in hers and led her over to the bed. Sadie crawled over to inspect the drop of blood along the cut on her sister’s finger. Callie was sniffling and whining. “Ow, it hurts.”

Junior came running back with one of his mother’s aprons. “Here.” He thrust it at Jemma. “Wipe it with this.” He leaned close to stare at the cut. “Is she bleeding to death?”

Callie screamed, a short, earsplitting burst of sound.

“No!” Jemma yelled. “She’s not even close to bleeding to death. She’s barely bleeding at all. Take this back and get me a dishrag or something and don’t step in that honey, Luther Junior, or I’ll tell your Mama.”

Junior took the apron and started off to do her bidding; then he paused in the middle of the room and smiled. “You sounded a little like Mama, just then.”

Jemma wondered how Hannah kept her sanity. She offered up a quick, short plea to St. Felicity, a martyr who had seven sons.

When Junior came back with a wet rag, Jemma pressed it to the tiny cut on Callie’s finger. She was holding the girl’s hand in hers when the door opened and Hunter stepped in, whipping the door closed behind him to keep the frigid air out.

His cheeks were red with cold, his eyes shining above the muffler around the lower half of his face. He took two steps and halted before he stepped into the honey.

Pulling off the muffler, his eyes met Jemma’s from across the room.

“What happened?”

Junior stiffened. His gaze shot to Jemma’s.

“An accident,” Jemma told Hunter. “The crock fell. I didn’t have time to clean it up.”

Callie was too preoccupied with her cut to tattle on Junior. Hunter crossed the room and stood over Jemma, watching her tend Callie’s wound. Suddenly, Jemma felt her hands begin to tremble. He was too near, watching her too closely. She would rather face another thirty minutes alone with these screaming banshees than have Hunter hovering nearby.

“Callie cut her finger,” Junior announced.

“It’s just a little cut,” Callie informed her uncle. “Jemma said I’m not bleeding to death.”

Hunter smiled. “I don’t reckon you are.”

“Bleedin’,” little Sadie mumbled.

“You need any help?” Hunter asked Jemma. She wanted to leap in the air and shout for joy. Instead, calm and collected again, she smiled up at him.

“Everything seems to be fine now, but if you care to stay and watch the others while Luther and I clean up that honey, I would appreciate it.”

Baby Timmy had fallen asleep with his thumb in his mouth. Hunter smoothed the little boy’s hair back off his sweaty face and gently shifted the infant toward the wall to make room on the bed.

“Come here, Sades,” he said, stretching out, planting Sadie on his stomach, where she began bouncing up and down. Callie climbed up beside him, holding her wounded finger in the air like a hard-won battle trophy. She lay her head on Hunter’s shoulder and joined him in watching Jemma and Luther as they scrubbed up the spilled honey.

Hunter found the view enchanting. Jemma was on all fours, wiping up the honey-smeared floor with soapy water, carefully instructing Junior, deftly making the boy think he was doing all the work.

When they finished, Junior insisted that they all had to have baths before they could be tucked into bed.

“Are you up to it?” Hunter asked

Jemma had pulled up a chair, slumped down into it, and stared over at the four children lounging on the bed with him.

She shook her head. “How does Hannah do this day in and day out?”

“A labor of love. Besides, she’s used to it,” Hunter told her, wondering what Jemma would do with a houseful of dimpled children that took after her.

“She’s a saint,” Jemma mumbled.

“I’ll help bathe them,” Hunter volunteered, knowing what torture he would have to endure in such close, homey confines with Jemma, watching her every move, listening to the honeyed tones of her voice, drinking in her loveliness. He had denied himself the pleasure of her company for so long now that his senses were singing.

Determination stiffened her shoulders. She rolled up her sleeves. “What do we do?”

“You tell them one of your stories while I heat some water and fill the tub,” he suggested as he eased himself off the bed.

He turned and pointed to each of the older children in turn. “You stay put and don’t give Jemma a minute’s grief while I fill the water buckets, you hear?”

“Yes, Uncle Hunt,” they chorused in unison.

“How did you do that?” Jemma whispered as he walked past her.

He leaned close and whispered, “I’m bigger and I look meaner.”

An hour later, Junior, Sadie, and Callie were bathed and dressed in their nightclothes and tucked into bed. Hunter decided it would be best not to disturb Timmy, and Jemma quickly agreed. Finally, the washtub had been emptied and the floor mopped again. She poured him a cup of coffee and they sat at the table, reveling in the quiet.

Hunter stared across at Jemma and tried to imagine her in the life she must have led in Boston. He’d been to Philadelphia once, seen the grand homes there lined up row upon row, marveled at the lacquered carriages, admired the fine, tailored clothes of the city folk.

“You ever scrubbed a floor before?” He spoke the thought aloud, before he realized what he was doing.

Startled out of her quiet thoughts, she looked up. One of her dimples appeared in her cheek. “Whatever makes you ask?”

“I was just wondering.”

Her finger traced the lip of her coffee cup. “No. I never scrubbed a floor before. Did I do something wrong?” She glanced over at the floor beneath the shelves, presenting him with a view of her lovely profile.

“Perfect,” he whispered. Hunter cleared his throat. “You did just fine.”

Even in the soft glow of the lamplight, he saw her blush.

“You’ve done well here, Jemma, getting along, helping out Nette and everyone else.” He meant the compliment sincerely. She had affected them all. In a few weeks’ time she had drawn Lucy out and given the girl new confidence. She had become Nette’s companion and lightened the old woman’s heart and load. She was anywhere and everywhere anyone needed her.

Jemma was silent for so long that he thought she hadn’t been listening, but when she looked up at him again, there were tears glistening in her eyes. Her smile was radiant. He watched her reach across the table, move her hand slowly toward his. He held his breath, waiting for her touch.

“I’ve never been needed in my life, never knew what it meant to really belong. My father … well, my father never had any time for me. He hired nannies and tutors and then eventually sent me off to convent school. You can pay someone to work, but you can’t pay them to care. My grandfather came to live with us for a time, and we grew close, but shortly after that he died. You and your family have given me something I didn’t even know I was looking for when I left New Orleans. No matter what happens, I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”