Love's First Bloom (29 page)

“Why? Because I just happen to be spending a little time with the Broom Lady?” he quipped, finding her gaiety at his expense as unnerving as the matchmaking fever that had struck nearly everyone in the village where he and Ruth were concerned. He, however, found the notion all too distracting and had actually turned down several invitations to supper lately if Ruth had been invited, too.

“No. Guess again.”

He narrowed his gaze and tightened his hold on the cane. “I sincerely hope this isn’t some sort of joke—”

“It isn’t a joke at all. Apparently, the women who decorated those brooms all paid an entry fee, which will be donated to the church. They all took their work very seriously because they each wanted to win very badly. Would you like me to tell you who the winner is, or would you rather be surprised at dinner? No, now that I think about it, you can’t wait. I really need to tell you now.”

He snorted. “I think I’d rather wait, at least until you stop jabbering nonsense and speak plainly so I have some notion of what you mean.”

“Fine,” she said. “Plainly speaking, the broom I picked to win was the one Lorelei Jones decorated, although I didn’t know it at the time. You’ll be sharing the picnic dinner today with her, much to the dismay of the other unmarried women who entered the contest, because along with winning a blue ribbon, you were the additional prize given to the winner.”

Jake looked into her eyes, saw them twinkling with sheer merriment, and nearly choked. “I’m the
prize
? In that broomdecorating competition?”

Her grin widened as she took his arm. “Don’t be a spoilsport. It’s all in good fun, and those women raised quite a bit, considering they only had their pin money to use for their entrance fees. I’ll make your excuses for you with the Garners, too, and don’t worry about being alone with her and the broom she made,” she assured him before she leaned closer to him and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I heard from a very reliable source that she plans to share you with her cousin, too, but don’t say anything. I think it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

Most of the ribbons had been awarded, but the picnic dinner had not yet started when Ruth approached the table where Jake sat alone while his two companions waddled up to the judges’ stand for Lorelei Jones to accept her blue ribbon.

“You’ve managed to smile more than once or twice so far. Don’t stop on my account,” she teased when he got up from the bench to greet her.

“I wasn’t smiling. I was smirking,” he insisted, quite certain Farrell had good reason to disappear from this part of the festivities. “Contrary to all those ladies’ good intentions, I’m about as embarrassed right now as I was when I was seven years old and my schoolmaster, Mr. Ephraim Pitts, forced me to wear a toga costume for a play about Rome at the end of the winter session.”

She chuckled. “That doesn’t sound so awfully terrible.”

He snorted. “Trust me when I tell you that it was,” he argued, but for propriety’s sake he didn’t add that when the toga fell off, he ended up standing in front of the schoolroom wearing nothing but his nightshirt in front of everyone.

“Did you dig in your heels then, too? Or did you go straight to fuming and fussing and downright refusing to be in the play before he bribed you to participate, like I had to do?” she countered.

“If you need to know, Mr. Pitts didn’t try to bribe me. He had a very intimidating strap that I’d felt once too often. And in case you’re interested in being fair, wearing that costume may not sound too awful to you, but being a prize for anything or anyone, especially a ridiculous broom competition won by one of the Jones cousins, is a bit hard to swallow.”

“But you did it, even though you made me promise to do a whole list of things,” she said and pouted her lips. “I should think letting you escort me to the fireworks display tonight and allowing you to walk me home afterward would have been enough. You can drive a hard bargain, Mr. Spencer,” she teased.

Jake smiled. He looked forward to spending the entire evening alone with her and decided he deserved to be with her tonight, without any worries about Farrell or his assignment or even his brother. For this one night, he wanted to be with Ruth as the man he wanted to be, rather than the man he would turn out to be in the end: her nemesis.

And he knew just the man who could help him make that happen.

Thirty

The festive celebrations had replaced more than the humdrum of daily life in the village. For one entire day, villagers set aside their disappointments and disagreements, their sorrows and sins, to revel in the joy of simply being alive in the greatest nation on earth, where they were free to acknowledge their blessings, their love for God, and their belief that the government their forefathers created would protect their freedoms.

When darkness finally fell, all the preparations for the grand finale that would mark the end of the day were done. The air itself was thick with expectancy, as well as the realization that dawn would signal the return to the ordinary trials of life.

Most of the men, women, and children normally abed at this hour had gone down to the open land below Dock Street, a fifteen-minute walk east of the village, to view the fireworks display. Others who would not or could not walk that far crowded together on the bridge at the western end of Main Street. Yet a number of men remained in the village, just in case one of the fireworks went awry and landed on a building instead of fizzling out when it hit the river.

Ruth, however, was anxiously waiting for the darkening sky to explode with color. She was on board the
Sheller
, the very ship that had brought her here, with the captain who owned and commanded the vessel, and the man so often in her thoughts, Jake Spencer.

The night was perfectly clear, the river calm, but Ruth’s heart was racing with anticipation. Quite certain she was the only one on board the ship, if not the village itself, who had never viewed fireworks before tonight, she stood at the railing nearest the bow with Jake to her right and Capt. Grant standing next to him.

While the two men bantered back and forth about the future prospects of the village and the decline of available cedar wood needed to build masts for ships, she studied the two men. Since the differences in their ages and physical appearances were rather obvious in the full light of day, she detected more subtle differences now that they were shadowed by the evening’s darkness.

While Grant’s voice was raspy, he spoke with the assurance of a man accustomed to having his every word obeyed and his wisdom honored. Jake, on the other hand, had a rich, deep timbre to his voice, and he listened more often than he shared his views.

Still, the two men seemed to have much in common. She suspected each had a gentle heart beating beneath their manly demeanors, and there was an aura of mystery about each of them, too. She did not know much about Capt. Grant, but assumed he had a lifetime of experiences at sea she would find fascinating. Despite the hours she had spent with Jake, she knew just as little about him. He had never shared much about his life before coming to Toms River, and she had never questioned him because she could ill-afford answering questions he might have for her.

She also detected just a hint of familiarity between the two men, a certain level of easy comfort that seemed unusual to the point she wondered if they had known each other for a long time. She also considered her lack of experience being around men to be a detriment to fully understanding the camaraderie between Capt. Grant and Jake Spencer. Because her father rarely, if ever, had anyone call on him at home, even his closest friend, she had never been around men when they were having a conversation between themselves.

A soft whoosh, followed by an enormous burst of dazzling white stars, lit the sky directly in front of the ship and promptly ended her woolgathering, as well as the men’s conversation. Before the falling stars disappeared, an explosion of blue lights appeared, followed by a red umbrella of light that twinkled in the sky for several heartbeats before disappearing with a hiss as the particles hit the surface of the river.

When a barrage of very loud sounds that resembled the volley of cannon fire tore through the air, she leaped straight up from a sense of wonder and awe. Heart pounding, she gasped and grabbed hold of the railing with one hand. Fearful that a cannonball might actually hit the ship, she clapped the other hand to her heart, her thumb landing on top of the shell heart she wore every day now.

Jake moved closer to her and laid his hand on top of hers, but his touch was more unnerving than reassuring as warm sensations coursed up her arm. “Apparently, Lily isn’t the only one who dislikes loud noises. If you’d mentioned it earlier, we could have watched the fireworks from the bridge, but it’s not too late. If you like, I can row us to shore if you think you’ll be more comfortable a bit farther away.”

“No. I’d rather stay here. I-I just wasn’t expecting the fireworks to boom like that,” she blurted and gently withdrew her hand, hoping the reactions his touch inspired would quickly ease.

He did not reply until another wave of color hit the sky. “You’re serious? I thought you said you lived in New York City before you moved here. I saw the fireworks there a few years ago. As I recall, the display was more boom than anything else.”

Capt. Grant grunted. “That’s true enough. They don’t take enough precautions to protect the ships in the harbor, either, which is why my first experience at anchor there on the Fourth of July was my last.”

“I-I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen fireworks before tonight,” she admitted.

“Never?” Jake asked incredulously.

“Not once,” she replied, praying he would not ask the reason why, and then tensed when another volley thundered overhead.

“Were you always afraid of them, or not interested for some reason?” Grant asked when the noise abated.

“My father was a … a hawker. He sold … trinkets so he worked a lot, especially on holidays like the Fourth of July,” she said, voicing the first idea that popped into her head that made any sense. She could hardly tell them the truth.

Holidays were the few times when men who frequented brothels on a regular basis could be counted on to be with their families, which meant her father had more time to preach to the women who sold their bodies to survive. “Was your father a sea captain, too?” she asked the older of the two men when there was a lull in the display, if only to keep herself out of the focus of the conversation.

Capt. Grant yawned before he answered. “All his life, which included very little of mine,” he offered before he yawned again. “I’ve got some record keeping to finish before I fall asleep standing here, so if you folks don’t mind, I need to get it done if I expect to sail at first light. Assuming my crew makes it back in time,” he added with a snort and clapped Jake on his arm. “Let me know when you’re ready to row back. I’ll help with the dinghy,” he offered and promptly took his leave.

Series after series of impossibly beautiful displays of color, followed by loud bangs, kept Ruth too enthralled to ask Jake any questions about his life before he came to the village. Later, however, when he was rowing her ashore, she was able to gather her courage. She sat in the stern of the boat, holding his cane for him, while he sat in the middle, and their knees almost touched. Although the dark of night kept her from seeing his features clearly, she was close enough to hear him take a breath over the sound of the oars gliding in and out of the water.

“I don’t really know very much about you, beyond the fact that you injured your back in a fall from a roof you were repairing. I can only assume you’re a carpenter by trade,” she prompted, in part to keep her thoughts from focusing too completely on the man so near to her.

“That I was,” he replied, his voice straining as he pulled the oars through the water. “With my back healing as well as it is, I expect I’ll be leaving within the next few weeks to go back to the old homestead, but I’m inclined to choose another livelihood when I do. Painful mistakes can force a man to think long and hard about his future,” he murmured.