Lost Lady (20 page)

“Mrs. Ellison's grandmother, who had the stroke last year, and Mr. Watts still had milking to do, and…,” she trailed off apologetically because she could think of no other missing townspeople.

“Mrs. Brown's sister is visiting, came in yesterday, and she's dying to meet you. Brought all six kids over, too.”

Regan put her arms on the desk and buried her face. “Can a person die by will, just by wishing it? How can I face all those people?” She looked up at Brandy, her face horribly distressed. “How could Travis do this to me?”

Brandy knelt beside her friend and touched her hair. “Regan, can't you see that he just wants you so badly that he'll do
anything
to get you back? You don't know the hell he's been through since you left. Did you know that he lost forty-five pounds when you first left him? It was a friend of his named Clay who talked him out of giving up on life.”

“Travis told you all of this?”

“In a roundabout way. I did some prying, and it took a while to piece together all the facts, but I did. Right now the man is past any sense of pride. He doesn't care what he has to do to get you back. If he can enlist the whole town to help him, then he will. Maybe his tactics are a little…well, maybe he's not exactly subtle, but would you rather have one rose and a man like Farrell or, what was the final count, seven hundred and forty-two roses and Travis Stanford?”

“But does he have to do all this?” Regan pleaded, flipping the thread leading to the note that had been under her desk.

“You've told me repeatedly how Travis never asked you anything, but only told you what to do and how to do it. If I remember correctly, at the ceremony you said no to him just because he hadn't
asked
you to marry him. I don't believe you can accuse him of not having asked you now. And, too, you said you wanted to be courted.” Brandy stood, smiling. “This courtship may go down in history.”

Regan, in spite of herself, began to smile. “All I wanted was a little champagne and a few roses.”

Eyes wide, Brandy put her fingers to her lips. “Please don't mention champagne. You may start a flood.”

A giggle escaped Regan. “Will he ever do anything on a normal scale?”

“Don't you hope not?” Brandy said seriously. “I'd give a lot to be in your shoes.”

“My shoes are all packed full of notes,” Regan said, deadpan.

Laughing, Brandy started toward the door. “You'd better prepare yourself. They are waiting eagerly for you.”

Brandy laughed at Regan's heartfelt groan before leaving the room.

Taking a moment to calm herself, Regan thought about Brandy's words. Everything about Travis was overscale, from his body to his house to his land, so why did she expect his courting to be any different?

Carefully, she retrieved the ribbon from the trash and tenderly folded it. Someday she'd show this to her grandchildren. With resolve, shoulders straight, she left her office and went toward the public rooms.

Nothing could have prepared her for what was awaiting her. The first person she saw was Mrs. Ellison's grandmother enthroned in a chair, smiling at her with one side of her face, the other side paralyzed by her stroke.

“I'm so glad you could make it,” Regan said graciously, as if she'd issued invitations to this party.

“Seven hundred and forty-two!” a man was saying. “And the last one was made of glass, all the way from Europe.”

“Wonder how he got it here and didn't break it?”

“And wonder how he got up to my loft? The ladder broke two days ago, and I ain't had time to fix it. But there it was, just as pretty as you please, a ribbon around a bale of hay and asking Regan to marry him.”

There was a man painting a vine of roses on the wall behind the bar in her taproom, and beside it were numbers—5:00
A.M.,
1 rose; 5:30
A.M.,
2 roses, all the way down to 38 roses at 11:30
P.M.
and one rose at midnight and the total at the bottom. She didn't bother to ask who the painter was or who had given him permission to paint on her wall. She was too busy fending off questions.

“Regan, is it true this man is Jennifer's father yet you're not married to him?”

“We were married at the time Jennifer was born,” Regan tried to explain. “But I was underage and—.”

Someone else's question interrupted her.

“I hear this man Travis owns half of Virginia.”

“Not quite, only about a third.” Sarcasm didn't dull their interest.

“Regan, I don't like this man leaving notes in my private safe. I have private documents in there, and a lawyer's word to his clients is sacred.”

On and on they went, hour after hour, until Regan's smile was plastered on. Only a small voice at her side made her respond. “Mommie.” She looked down to see her daughter's small face, obviously worried about something.

“Come on,” she said, lifting her daughter and carrying her to the kitchen. “Let's see if Brandy can fix us lunch, and we'll go on a picnic.”

An hour later, Regan and her daughter were alone together by a little stream north of Scarlet Springs. They'd demolished a basketful of fried chicken and little cherry tarts.

“Why doesn't Daddy come back home?” Jennifer asked. “And why doesn't he write me letters like everybody else?”

For the first time, Regan realized that her daughter had been excluded from the notes and roses. Thinking back, she knew Jennifer's room had been free of any marriage proposals.

She pulled her daughter to her lap. “I guess because Daddy is trying to get me to marry him, and he knows that wherever I go, you go too.”

“Daddy doesn't want to marry me too?”

“He wants you to live with him; in fact, I think at least half of the roses are for you, to get you to come live with him too.”

“I wish he'd send me roses. Timmie Watts says Daddy only wants you, and I'll have to stay here with Brandy when you go away.”

“That was a dreadful thing for him to say! And totally untrue! Your Daddy loves you very much. Didn't he tell you of the pony he bought for you and the treehouse he built? And this was before he'd even met you. Just think what he's going to do now that he knows who you are.”

“You think he'll ask me to marry him too?”

Regan had no idea how to reply to that. “When he asks me, it means he wants you too.”

Sighing, Jennifer leaned against her mother. “I wish Daddy'd come home. I wish he'd never go away again, and I wish he'd send me roses and write me letters.”

Rocking her daughter, stroking her hair, Regan felt Jennifer's sadness. How Travis would hate knowing he had hurt his daughter by excluding her. Perhaps tomorrow she could make up for Travis's oversight. Maybe she could find some roses, if there were any left within the state after Travis's harvesting of them, and give them to her daughter—from her father.

Tomorrow, she thought, and almost shuddered. What could he be planning for tomorrow?

J
ENNIFER WOKE HER MOTHER THE NEXT MORNING, A
little bundle of roses clutched in her hand. “Do you think they're from Daddy?” she asked her mother.

“Could be,” Regan said, not really lying but giving the child hope. She'd placed the little bouquet on her daughter's pillow early this morning.

“They're not from Daddy,” Jennifer said with great despair. “You put them there.” With a fling, she tossed them across the bed and ran to her own room.

It was some time before Regan could comfort her daughter, and she was close to tears herself before Jennifer quietened. If only there was some way she could get a message to Travis and tell him of Jennifer's distress.

When they were finally dressed, both of them far from cheerful, they held hands and together prepared for what the day—and Travis—had planned for them.

The reception rooms were full of townspeople, but since there was no new excitement, often only one family member was present. Stiffly, Regan fended off their questions and kept Jennifer near her as she checked the rooms of the inn and tried to keep up a normal routine. She was quite tired of being a spectacle for everyone to stare and gawk at.

By noon nothing new had happened, and the townspeople, deflated, began to go home. The dining room was filled but not packed, and Regan noticed Margo and Farrell dining together, their heads bent, almost touching as they talked. Frowning, she wondered what the two of them could have to say to each other.

But she had no more time to think about anything else, because the noise coming from the hall was rising in tone and pitch.

Eyes skyward, she felt like crying in despair. “Now what has he done?” she muttered.

Jennifer clutched her mother's hand. “Do you think Daddy's come home?”

“I'm sure he's done something,” she said, and started for the front door.

Music began to fill the front of the inn as soon as they left the dining room. The sound of horses and wagons and other sounds she'd never heard before became louder and louder.

“What is it?” Jennifer asked, eyes widening by the second.

“I have no idea,” Regan replied.

The front of the hotel was plastered with people, all frozen in their places at the six windows in front and the open door.

“Jennifer!” someone yelled, and all the people suddenly came alive.

“It's a circus!”

“And a menagerie! I saw one in Philadelphia once.”

Jennifer's name was repeated several times before Regan could make a place for herself and her daughter on the front porch.

Just rounding the corner by the schoolhouse were three men, their faces painted, wearing satin clothes sewn with spots and stripes of outrageous colors, and they were doing flips, tumbling, jumping over each other.

Something on their chests seemed to be letters. It took Regan a while to make out the word because of the clowns' acrobatics.

“Jennifer,” she said. “It says Jennifer.”

Laughing, grabbing her daughter in her arms, she pointed excitedly. “It's for you! They're clowns, and they have Jennifer, your name, written on their suits.”

“They're for me?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Your Daddy has sent you a whole circus, and if I know Travis, it's no little circus. Look! Here come some men doing tricks on horses.”

More than a little stunned, Jennifer watched as three horses, beautiful, golden, long-maned horses, came galloping toward them, a man in each saddle, one standing up, another jumping in and out of the saddle, his feet barely touching the ground, and the last man's horse seemed to be dancing. As a body, they stopped in the midst of a storm of dust and saluted Jennifer. Grinning almost enough to tear her skin, she looked at her mother.

“The circus is for me,” she said proudly, turning away to look at the other people beside her. “My Daddy sent a circus for me.”

A stilt-walker followed the clowns and equestrians, and then came a man pulling a small black bear on a chain. Everything had Jennifer's name written on it. The music was growing louder as the band came closer to the inn.

Suddenly a hush fell over all the townspeople as around the corner came the biggest, most bizarre creature anyone had ever seen. Lumbering slowly, its massive feet making the ground quake, the animal with its trainer leading it stopped before the inn. The man unfurled a sign down the animal's side: “Capt. John Crowinshield presents the first elephant to appear in these United States of America. And at a special request of Mr. Travis Stanford, this great beast will perform for—.”

Regan read the sign to her daughter, who was clinging tightly to her mother.

“For Jennifer!” a second sign heralded.

“What do you think of that?” Regan asked. “Daddy sent the elephant to perform just for you.”

For a moment Jennifer didn't answer, but after a long pause she leaned toward her mother's ear. “I don't have to keep him, do I?” she whispered.

Regan wanted to laugh, but the more she thought of her daughter's question and Travis's sense of humor…. “I sincerely, truly hope not,” she said.

Thoughts of the elephant vanished as soon as it moved away, because behind the animal was a pretty little white pony covered with a blanket of white roses with “Jennifer” spelled out in red roses.

“What does it say, Mommie?” Jennifer asked with hope in her voice. “Is the pony for me?”

“It certainly is,” said a pretty blonde woman in a revealing—scandalous actually—costume of stretchy cotton. “Your Daddy found you the sweetest, gentlest horse in this state, and if you like you can ride him in the parade.”

“Could I? Please?”

“I'll take care of her,” the woman said. “And Travis is on the grounds.”

Reluctantly, Regan relinquished her daughter and watched as the woman lifted the child into the saddle. From the side of the pony, the woman took a vest completely covered in pink roses and slipped Jennifer's arms through it.

“Roses for me!” Jennifer yelled. “Daddy sent roses for me too.”

Regan noticed she seemed to be looking for someone, and a quick glance showed Timmie Watts hiding behind his mother's skirts. Feeling rotten as she did it, Regan pulled the boy into Jennifer's sight, where the child promptly stuck her tongue out at him and pelted him with a rose. To clear her guilty conscience, Regan asked if Timmie would like to walk beside Jennifer's pony in the parade, which he accepted gladly.

Waving gaily and somewhat regally, Jennifer rode down the street toward the south end of Scarlet Springs. More men and women followed her, some walking, some on horses, all dressed outlandishly and garishly, followed by a seven-piece brass band. At the end of the parade, more clowns came, bearing signs announcing that a free performance of the circus, courtesy of Miss Jennifer Stanford, would be given in two hours.

As the last person disappeared around the curve of the road past the church, the townspeople stood silently for a few moments.

“I guess I better get on with my chores,” said one man finally.

“I wonder what a person wears to a circus?” asked a woman.

“Regan,” someone else began. “I'm sure this town's gonna lay down and die from boredom when you leave.”

A hastily stifled giggle that could only be Brandy's made Regan turn.

“What do you think Travis is planning now?”

“To get to me through Jennifer,” Regan replied. “At least I hope that's all he plans. Come in, we've got to get busy. We'll close the inn, put signs on the door, ‘Gone to the circus,' and everyone can go.”

“Great idea. I'll pack food for us and half the town, and we'll be ready in as little time as Travis has given us.”

The two hours passed too quickly, and it seemed minutes before Regan was driving a wagon loaded with food to the circus grounds. A large enclosure had been made by stretching canvas walls around trees and posts. Long wooden benches had been set up, the ones in back taller than those in front, and already most of them were filled with townspeople. In one center section was a large space set apart by pink and orange ribbons blowing in the breeze.

“Wonder where you're to sit?” Brandy laughed at Regan's look of embarrassment. “Come on, it can't be as bad as you imagine.”

The young woman in the pink tights directed both Regan and Brandy to the ribboned section and left them. Within minutes two horses, at full gallop, came tearing through the enclosure with one man on top, one leg on one horse, the other on the other horse. As he reached the end of the field, he jumped to one horse, turned both of them around, and, again at a gallop, leaped from one horse to the next.

“Oh my!” Brandy breathed.

After that, they had no time to think as the field filled with more and more horses. The horses did tricks; the men did tricks atop the horses. Two men stood on two horses, and a third man stood on the men's shoulders as the horses ran round and round the ring.

After the equestrians left, Jennifer rode into the ring, her pony led by the lady in pink, and Jennifer was wearing an identical costume of pink bits of gold glitter here and there. As Regan watched, her stomach in her throat, the woman took the little girl's hand and Jennifer stood in the saddle and slowly rode the pony once around the circle.

“Sit down!” Brandy commanded as Regan started after her daughter. “She can't fall very far, and the woman's holding her.”

At that the circus woman let go of Jennifer's hand, and she cried, “Look at me, Mommie!” to which Regan nearly fainted, especially when Jennifer gave a jump and the lady caught her.

Jennifer took several bows as she'd obviously been taught, and all of Scarlet Springs applauded explosively. She ran to her mother, and Regan caught the child tightly.

“Was I good? Did I do it right?”

“You were splendid. You nearly scared me to death.”

Jennifer seemed pleased at that. “Wait till you see Daddy.”

It took Regan a while to calm her racing heart, and when she could speak again there was no time to ask after Travis as the elephant was once again paraded before them. The clowns did more tricks, making everyone laugh, and the little bear danced. But all the while Regan was looking for Travis.

The band had been playing constantly, and now it struck up some eerie music that made everyone quieten.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” bellowed a good-looking man in a red coat and shiny black boots, “we bring you a death-defying act. Our next performer will walk a tightrope—without a net. If he falls…well, you can use your own imaginations.”

“I don't think I like this part,” Regan said, looking upward at the rope strung between two poles high above the ground. “Perhaps I should take Jennifer and leave.”

The look on Brandy's face changed. “Maybe you should stay, Regan,” she said in a funny voice.

Following Brandy's stare, Regan wasn't sure of what she saw.

Travis walked into the ring, one arm raised, as if he'd always worked in a circus. The costume he wore, of black cotton, fit him like a second skin, showing the big muscles in his thighs, his small tight buttocks, and his broad, hard chest. A black cape lined in scarlet satin hung from his shoulders. With a flourish, he tossed it to a beautiful woman wearing a tiny bit of green satin. “No wonder the man drives you crazy,” Brandy said.

“What in the world is he doing out there?” Regan gasped. “Surely even Travis wouldn't do anything so foolish as….”

She couldn't continue as the horns blared and Travis calmly began to climb the swaying rope ladder to the tiny platform high over their heads.

“That's my Daddy! That's my Daddy!” Jennifer yelled, bouncing up and down on the hard wooden seat.

Regan couldn't move. Her eyes didn't blink, her lungs didn't function, even her heart stopped beating as she stared at Travis on the platform above them.

At the top he again raised his arm to the crowd below, and everyone clapped loudly. There was complete silence as Travis began his slow, careful journey across the taut rope, a long pole in his hand, and it seemed an eternity before he made it to the other side.

The applause made the benches rattle, and Regan buried her face in her hands, tears of relief coming quickly. “Tell me when he's on the ground again,” she said to Brandy.

Brandy was unusually quiet.

“Brandy?” Regan said, peeking out through her fingers. Her friend's expression made her head swivel to look up at Travis again. He was standing on the platform, calmly looking down at her, seeming to be waiting for something. When she looked up at him, he hooked something onto the platform pole and another thing onto the wide black leather belt he wore.

“He's going to walk it again,” Brandy whispered. “But at least he's using a safety cable this time.”

Travis was several feet across the rope before everyone began to realize just what his “safety cable” really was. Slowly the banner began to unfold. “Regan” was the first word they saw, and after having seen the sentence hundreds of times in the last two days, they needed no one to read it for them.