Twice Blessed (5 page)

He folded the invoice and stuck it in his pocket along with his wallet. As he walked out of the store, he heard her cry, “Botheration!”

He turned to see her standing on tiptoe to put the pages back on the upper shelf. All around her other papers tumbled to the floor.

Mr. Baker was trying to get to his feet, calling, “Let me help you.”

“No, let me,” Noah said. “It's my fault.”

“It's no one's fault.” Miss Delancy tried to capture some of the papers, but even more fell.

Noah strode back to the counter as she disappeared behind it. He saw her on her knees as she gathered the papers into a single pile. Over her head, the shelf trembled. He catapulted over the counter, ignoring the scale that rang like a bell when his boot struck it. Then he steadied the shelf and shoved back the heavy books before they could fall.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “Are you—”

“Trying to keep you from getting some sense knocked into your head.” He drew his hands back slightly, but the shelf tilted again. He used his hands as bookends to lift the books down to the counter. Dropping them there with a thump that drew a grin from Mr. Baker, he said, “These were ready to knock the spots off you.”

She looked up, brushed her hair back out of her face, and gave him an uneven smile. “Thank you, Mr.—”

“Noah. My name's Noah. And yours?”

“Emma.”

He smiled. That name fit her perfectly. Short and to the point, a very no-nonsense name. “Let me help you pick these up.”

“No need,” she said, stacking the pages again.

“It's no trouble.” He squatted beside her in the narrow space between the shelves and the counter. When he noticed she was being selective about which ones she took, he asked, “Do you need these in any particular order?”

“I keep them by date of the order, but you don't need to bother.”

“It's no bother.”

She raised her eyes again, and he smiled as emotions sped through them like a runaway train. Hastily, she went back to work. “Thank you, Noah.” She picked up one page, then dropped it back to the floor and reached for another. She tossed that one aside again.

“What date are you looking for?”

“Anything from January.”

Noah looked around himself and chuckled when he leaned against the counter so he could hoist one foot and pull out a page beneath his boot. “This one says January.” He brushed dirt from the page with the date written in big letters across the top. “Sorry.”

“You don't have to apologize. 'Tis my fault for trying to shove everything up on that high shelf.”

“Did you ever think of getting a step stool? I suspect the owner of Delancy's General Store would be glad to order one for you.”

She laughed, and he wondered if she had any idea what crazy things that lilting sound could do to a man's gut. She must not, because she said only, “I'll have to speak to the store's owner and see about ordering one. Do you see any others with January on them?”

“No … wait!” He stretched past her to pick up a page that had slid away from the others.

His fingers remained above the page as he stared into her face. She was so near he could taste her sweet breath as it burst from her in soft gasp. All he had to do was close his arm around her and press his lips over hers to discover if her kiss would be as luscious as he suspected. He watched her eyelashes lower to curve along her cheeks as he leaned toward her. Was she trying to shut him out or inviting him to kiss her?

Footsteps sounded hollowly from the front porch. Noah grasped the page behind her and shoved it into her hands. He gathered up more of the papers and placed them on the counter as he stood. Recognizing both the minister and the boy who had stolen his hammer, he stepped back as Emma peeked over the counter. Who had persuaded Reverend Faulkner to take that troublesome boy?

“Reverend Faulkner!” she cried, firing a guilty glance at Noah that suggested they had been doing something far more illicit than picking up scattered papers.

Coming around the counter, Noah chuckled under his breath. That glance told him her thoughts had not been so different from his. As he bid her good day and went back out the door, he smiled. Maybe coming to Haven had not been such a bad idea, after all.

CHAPTER THREE

“Disgraceful! Completely disgraceful!” Mrs. Randolph dropped the newspaper back onto the worn counter.

Leaning one elbow on the glass jars where she kept candy for the children, Emma smiled. “Mrs. Randolph, you should not read about what is going on in Washington, DC. It always upsets you.”

The elderly woman, whose hair was still the color of the mourning she wore for her husband, who had died a dozen years ago, tapped her finger on the front page of the Indianapolis newspaper that was only a few days old. “They are thieves! I say it's time we told them that. With the surpluses they have in the federal treasury, they should be sending some of that money back to us here in Haven. Miss Underhill could use new primers at the school, and the sheriff …”

Emma let Mrs. Randolph continue to vent her spleen, but paid no attention to the specifics of her complaints today. Mrs. Randolph did not care if anyone listened to her, for she would gladly talk to herself if no one else was about. Or maybe she thought everyone listened so intently they were speechless. She even sat and talked with Mr. Baker for hours on end, refusing to admit the man could not hear her soft voice.

“Here you go,” Emma interjected when Mrs. Randolph halted her tirade to take a breath. Handing the small package wrapped in brown paper to the old lady, she added, “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Randolph.”

“Young fools! Not one of them has the brain of an earthworm. Twice as slimy.”

Emma came around the counter and gently steered Mrs. Randolph toward the door. The old woman was still outlining each shortcoming of the federal legislature as she walked down Main Street. Leaning her head against the open door, Emma watched, wanting to be certain Mrs. Randolph did not walk right past her small house on the corner of Maple Street. More than once, lost in her outrage, Mrs. Randolph had wandered halfway to the bottomland down by the river before she had turned about to come home.

Smiling, Emma straightened and stretched her tired shoulders as Mrs. Randolph opened the gate in the recently painted picket fence surrounding her house. Haven had more than its share of eccentric characters, which might be the very reason Emma liked living here. The townsfolk accepted everyone's idiosyncrasies, even hers.

She turned the sign in the door to let any stragglers know Delancy's General Store was closed for the day. The sun had not yet set, but it was Saturday evening, and she always closed early on Saturdays. Few customers came in after mid-afternoon. Saturdays were for baths and courting. She would enjoy the former tonight, but not the latter. Thank goodness Harvey Schultz had finally gotten it through his sweet head the last time he had walked her home from practice for the village chorus that she was not interested in more than friendship.

“Sean?” she called.

The boy peeked out from the storage room. The apron she had given him hung past his knees and was spotted with dust and flour and something she could not identify from where she stood. In the past two days, the boy had treated each hour as a special adventure. He was fascinated with everything in the store, and she wondered if he had ever been inside a mercantile before his arrival in Haven.

“I'm here, Miss Delancy.”

Lifting her own apron over her head, she looped it onto the peg beside the door. “Sean, I told you you may call me Emma, if you'd like.”

“My ma always said a man calls a lady ‘miss.'”

“Whatever is comfortable for you.” She held out her hand for his apron.

He untied it, then grasped at his waist. Several things hit the floor and bounced. His face blanched as she bent and picked up one of the pieces of candy.

“Did you take this?” she asked.

He nodded, grinding his toe into a space between the floorboards as he had dug it into the dirt when he stood with the sheriff in the street.

“Why, Sean?”

“I like candy.”

“You could have asked for some rather than trying to sneak it out of the store.”

“It costs a whole penny for the bag!”

She set the hard candy on the shelf next to a bolt of lace. “You've been working hard, Sean. If you keep helping around the store as you have, I believe you deserve a bag of candy each week.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She fought the tears that wanted to fill her eyes. If he saw them, he was certain to be upset. “Why don't you pick up the candy? Don't eat any before supper.”

“Miss Delancy! Not even one?”

She smiled and ruffled his hair. “Maybe one, as long as you promise to eat all your supper.”

“Yes, ma'am!” He hung up his apron next to hers. In quick order, he had gathered up the candy. He wrapped it in a page of the newspaper Mrs. Randolph had left behind and stuck it in his pocket.

Emma tied on her straw bonnet and settled her knitted shawl over her shoulders. The night was going to be chilly again. She needed to speak with Reverend Faulkner to see if there was another coat in the used clothing box at the church. The one Reverend Faulkner had brought to the store was too small for Sean, whose arms hung out of the sleeves above his wrists.

She blew out the lantern in the storage room and locked the back door. In her mind, she heard Noah Sawyer's laugh. She could not fault him for laughing at her when she had been so silly to announce in front of half the village that the store was always unlocked. Lewis had warned her later that she should have been more reticent. She might trust the residents of Haven, but trains and the steamboats on the Ohio often stopped in town.

“Who knows who might have been listening when you said you didn't lock up?” he had asked her. Since that afternoon, she had locked the store, although she knew there probably was no need.

“But you never know what people will do,” she whispered as she turned the key in the front door. She pushed thoughts of the past out of her head. She tried to smile as she added, “If you keep talking to yourself, people will think you're as batty as Mrs. Randolph.”

“What did you say, Miss Delancy?” asked Sean around the candy he had popped into his mouth.

“Check that the barrels on the porch are shut, please.”

He rushed to obey, and she sighed. Sean was a great deal of help. If she could convince him to stop sneaking food from the store, it would be a sign he was beginning to trust her. He was polite and helpful and watched every motion she made as if he were seeking a way to flee at the first opportunity. She hoped she was wrong, but he resisted every overture she offered to help him feel at home in Haven.

It has only been a few days
.

She needed to remember that, for it felt as if it had been a year since she agreed to take him to help at the store and welcomed him into her house. Maybe because she had not been able to relax a moment since Reverend Faulkner had made his suggestion about placing out Sean with her.

Emma walked along the street with the boy. There were no walkways in Haven. Folks here were used to dust on their shoes, because most of her customers came from the farms surrounding the small village. Even the people who lived in town, as she did, liked soft earth under their feet. Otherwise, they could go and live in Chicago or New York.

The aroma of mud from the river filled every breath. Lights glowed from lamps in the windows they passed, and shouts resounded along the street, then cheers. The village's children savored the brief hours they had when schoolwork and chores were completed. Games of hide and seek lasted until darkness and bedtime called for an end.

She looked at Sean, about to ask if he wanted to join the other children. He was staring at his feet instead of watching the games on the green. Raising her arm to put it around his shoulders, she stiffened when he cowered away.

“I won't hurt you,” she said.

He hunched his shoulders and kept on walking.

With a sigh, she followed him around the corner to the cozy house on the other side of the barn behind the store. The red paint glowed dully in the fading light. Waving to Alice, who lived across the street, she climbed the five steps to the porch.

Emma opened the front door and smiled when she heard Cleo's soft purr. Bending, she picked up the calico cat. Another cat was asleep in the biggest window behind the sofa. By the potbellied stove, a nondescript shaggy dog wagged its tail before coming to its feet and stretching.

“I see you all missed us.” She laughed as she put Cleo on the sofa. Patting Butch on the head, she asked, “Have you been sleeping the whole day?”

The dog's tail wagged faster.

“You have a horrible life, don't you?” Going out into the cramped kitchen, she swung open the screen door. “Out with you, Butch.”

Emma could not help laughing again as the dog ran out the door with Cleo in pursuit. The two, which she had raised from abandoned waifs, had no idea they were supposed to be enemies. She was not sure if Cleo thought she was a dog or if Butch believed he was a cat. Either way, they treated each other like littermates. Queenie, who seldom deigned to leave her sunny spot on the windowsill, ignored both of them.

“Why don't you wash up before supper, Sean?” she asked.

He did not reply, but she heard the door open and close again.

Taking off her bonnet, she went back into the parlor. She sat beside Queenie and rested her elbow on the back of the sofa. She stroked the black cat as she gazed out the window at the barn.

She never had thought sanctuary would be so serene … and so boring.

They were coming. She could hear their voices
—
shouting, angry, lusting for vengeance. The familiar voices with such an unfamiliar fury
.