A Chance at Love (6 page)

Bebe said, “Our teacher, Mr. Hazel, told Aggie the same thing when she said she wanted to be a doctor. He told her that's not a job a woman's supposed to have. Is that what you mean, Uncle Jake?”

Uncle Jake stammered, “Well no, I mean—I don't know what I mean.”

Bebe declared, “Well, Aggie's Auntie Kiss said that that kind of thinking is called prejudice, and that a woman can be anything she wants, 'specially if she's good at it. Is that true, Uncle Jake?”

Jake twisted in his own trap. “I suppose it is prejudice in a way, pumpkin.”

Dede looked surprised. “That's what Loreli calls us. Are you going to start calling us that too?”

Jake swallowed hard. Good lord! Where had that come from? Better yet, what was wrong with him? He'd never
called the girls by pet names before, ever. He added yet another failing mark to Loreli's slate. “No. I guess I picked it up being around Loreli today.”

Smiling, the girls settled back against the seats. They remained silent for the rest of the ride home.

When he stopped the team beside the house, the girls left the wagon without a word. He remembered how his heart had panged upon hearing Bebe's brave declaration that they didn't mind growing up without a mama. Watching them slowly and silently entering the house made the pang return. He was the only one who could give them the thing they wanted most, and he was at his wits end as to how.

After putting the girls to bed, Jake went out to the barn to check on his overnight patients: a sow that had gorged itself on so much of its owner's rhubarb it could barely waddle, and a sheepdog who'd tangled with a wolf and lost badly. Upon finding his guests settled in, he walked back around to the front of the house. It had become his habit to sit on the porch and let the night breeze ease away the worries of the day.

Tonight, however, he was brought up short by the sight of Bebe seated on the edge of the porch in the moonlight. Her brown ankles were visible beneath the hem of her flannel nightgown as she slowly brushed her toes against the grass.

Jake joked gently. “Didn't I put you to bed
hours
ago?”

She looked his way and solemnly nodded. “Yes.”

Concerned he stepped up on the porch. “Not feeling well?”

“I feel fine. I came out to pray to mama. Aunt Leslie told me that when mothers go to heaven, God makes them
into stars so they can look down at night and make sure their children are having good dreams.”

He smiled softly. Leslie had been a friend of his sister's who'd taken the girls in for a short time after Bonnie's death. “Which star is your mother?”

“Dede and I decided it's that big one right there, because it's always in the sky.”

She was pointing at the North Star. “You may be right, Be.”

“I miss her, Uncle,” Bebe said softly.

Her sadness mingled with his own. “We all do.”

Bebe confessed, “I asked her to ask God to send us another mama. Dede needs one so much….”

Her honesty cut open Jake's heart. “Yes she does, doesn't she?”

“I don't think she'd be scared all the time if she had another mama.”

Bebe turned around to look up at him. Even in the dark Jake could see the plea in her eyes. Dede hadn't adjusted as Bebe had to the death of their mother. Rebecca Appleby kept insisting Jake force Dede to move on with her life and face the fact that her mother was gone, but Jake had no idea how to force an eight-year-old to do that, nor would he feel comfortable doing so. Everyone dealt with grief in their own way. The loss had left Dede fragile in many respects. Her aversion to horses being one. She also had nightmares. He doubted she'd ever get on a horse of her own free will. He hoped time would eventually cure her, but there were no guarantees.

Bebe then asked, “Do you think mama will hear me?”

“I'm sure of it, but now you should head back to bed, Be. It's late.”

“Yes, sir.”

She got up slowly, then gave him a hug. “G'night.”

He bent and kissed the top of her hair. “Good night. See you in the morning.”

Alone now, Jake looked up at his sister's star and said, “Well. Bonnie? I'm still waiting.”

As if in reply, a shooting star streaked across the sky. Jake's eyes followed it until it burned out of sight.

“Thanks,” he said aloud, then to himself,
Now if I only knew what it meant
.

Later, lying in bed, Jake realized he had to make a decision. The girls needed a mother and he needed to find them one as soon as possible, not only for their well-being, but for his future as well. He needed to get back to work. Since their arrival he'd had to cut back not only on his delegate duties but his doctoring as well. An offshoot of his political work were his attempts to organize the area's farmers into a union so as to counteract the heavy-handed tactics of men like the banker Diggs. Thanks to Diggs and his bank policies, most of the farmers in the area were wallowing in debt. Not only did they have exorbitant mortgage payments over their heads, but the large debt was compounded by the additional monies borrowed to buy seed, livestock, and equipment. Jake and a few of the other descendents of Hanks's founders were fortunate enough to own their land, yet they still felt the pinch at harvest when their hogs and crops went up for sale at prices that barely returned a profit. Jake thought that forming an alliance might help. Farmers and fieldworkers all over the South were organizing into similar cooperative groups, then banning together with unions like the Knights of Labor to demand, among other things, fairer
prices for their crops, equal pay for workers in the fields, and a reformation of the way the government handled everything from banks to the distribution of silver. Times were hard for everyone trying to make a living from the land and even more taxing for those in the fields in the South. The Knights of Labor and unions like it were vowing to change things and Jake had been quietly doing his part to make sure the farmers in the colony knew about the Knights' beliefs. Since the arrival of the girls, however, he'd been unable to be as active in the effort because he no longer had the ability to just pick up and go. One couldn't leave two eight-year-olds at home alone, no matter how important the call.

But who could be their mother? As he'd noted before, pickings here were slim. Rebecca had been the only reasonable candidate, but he'd ruled her out. Maybe he could travel to Kansas City or St. Louis to see if he could find someone there to marry. In reality though, trying to saddle a woman of good character who would consent to a hasty courtship and an even hastier marriage would be a difficult task. Many women wanted to take their time and be sure their potential mate was a person of good quality. Jake wanted to throw up his hands, but couldn't; the girls needed a mother, and he was the only person who could provide them with one. With that admission came an idea he'd been refusing to consider for the past few days because of its absurdity, but, suppose he asked the gambling woman? Jake questioned whether the situation had become that desperate? The answer came back, yes. He was desperate and the girls, too. Maybe if he could get her to agree to stay with them for say, a year, it would give him time to find a real woman to marry.

He mulled it over some more. If he brought the Winters woman into his household, the gossips would rip him to pieces—but he'd never let the opinions of others color his decisions, and he had no intentions of doing so now. His father had been a minister, had ridden with Captain Montgomery's Jayhawkers during Kansas's bloody campaign for statehood, and fought in the Civil War as a member of the famed First Kansas Colored troops. His father's commitment to justice resulted in Jake growing to adulthood filled with pride and purpose. He'd learned at an early age to do what was right, no matter the sacrifice or consequences, and in this case, the right thing to do for the girls would be to meet with the Winters woman and lay his cards on the table; his own personal feelings about her be damned. Granted he knew nothing at all about her, but the twins had become taken with her and she seemed to have been taken with them as well. Yes, she had a questionable occupation and wore expensive, fancy clothes, but she'd impressed him the day she found the girls at the train station. A less responsible woman wouldn't have bothered to fetch them back to town nor been able to extract their promise to never do such an outrageous thing again. Rebecca hadn't been able to get the twins to promise to buckle their shoes.

Jake's inner debate continued, but in the end, he knew the choice had to be made. The girls needed someone, now. Yes, he'd much rather offer his proposal to a more traditional woman, but since there were none available, Loreli Winters would have to do. Satisfied with his plan, but wary of the results, Jake punched at his pillow to make it more comfortable, closed his eyes, then slept.

 

The next morning, Loreli heard a knock on the door. Pulling her ivory wrapper closed, she tied the satin strings and called, “Yes? Who's there?”

“Jake Reed.”

Loreli paused for a moment. Jake Reed? What could he be after so early in the morning? “What do you want?”

“I'd like to speak with you.”

Loreli opened the door only wide enough for her to see out. She didn't want her attire to give him a case of the vapors.

Hat in his hand, he asked, “May I come in?”

He looked so stern, Loreli wondered if he ever smiled. “Have the girls run off again?”

He shook his head. “They're with Arthur Gibson and his girls.”

Loreli stepped back so he could enter. He took a moment to look around the small room, taking in the frilly female attire spilling out of the trunks she was living out of, her paints, powders, and creams on the small vanity table and a brown silk walking-dress lying on the bed, waiting to be donned just as soon as he stated his business and left.

“What can I help you with?” she asked.

Jake could see the outline of her nipples beneath the tightly tied satin wrapper. He moved his eyes to her face. “I want to buy your services.”

Loreli raised a finely arched eyebrow. “My services? Can you be more specific?”

“How much will it cost me to buy your services for, say, a year?”

Loreli looked him up and down. “I'm still a bit confused, Reed. When you say services, what are you meaning?”

“I want you to be the girls' mother.”

Loreli went still.

In the silence that followed he added, “They need a mother and you're the only one they want.”

Loreli spent another silent moment assessing him, then replied, “First of all, you can't afford me. Secondly, why do you think I'd agree?”

“Because you've probably done everything else in life but this, and you seem to care about them.”

Loreli thought that true, but…“You don't even know me.”

“No, I don't.”

“What about your neighbors?”

“What about them?”

“The gossip, Reed.”

He shrugged. “I'll handle it. Will you agree or not?”

Loreli sensed his inner struggles. He didn't look like a man happy with his decision. “You'd rather be making this pitch to someone else, wouldn't you?”

Jake didn't lie. “Yes.”

“But you're choosing me instead?”

He met her eyes. “Yes.”

Loreli had to give it to him. He was honest. “Why only a year?”

“It will give me a chance to find a real wife in the meantime.”

“A
real
wife,” Loreli echoed skeptically.

“Yes.”

Loreli chuckled softly. She didn't believe this man's arrogance. “And at the end of this year, then what, I disappear?”

“I don't know. I'm just trying to do what's best now. I'll worry about the future when it comes.”

“I see.”

“So, how much?” he asked.

“I told you before, you can't afford me.”

“Then what do you want?”

“For you to leave, and take your ridiculous proposal with you.” Loreli went over to the vanity table. She sat on the small bench, picked up her gold-backed hairbrush and began in on her hair.

He said, “Look—”

She interrupted him quietly, “No—you look. I'm the last person you want raising those girls. I'm a gambling woman, remember? How are you going to explain yourself to your neighbors?”

“I told you, I don't care about them, just the twins.”

Loreli scanned his mustached features. “You may not today, but you will eventually. Ever been run out of town, Reed?”

“No.”

“I have, numerous times.
Good
folks don't cotton to women like me in their midst. Makes them nervous.”

Loreli gave her thick hair a few stiff strokes, then fastened it fashionably low on her neck with a few hair pins. “If we're done here, I'd like to get dressed.”

“So, you won't do it?”

“No, because you haven't thought this out clearly, Reed. And even if you had, the answer would still be no.”

“Why?”

“Because in a year I might not want to let those girls go, then where would we all be?”

He looked away.

She added, “And besides, how are you going to explain my leaving to them when you finally find this
real
wife? Hell, how are you going to explain it to
her
? I'm a pretty tough act to follow, Reed.”

Jake's jaw tightened. “This isn't easy for me, Miss Winters.”

Loreli told him truthfully, “I don't deny that. Man like you having to come to a woman like me? Must be damned hard, but—the answer is still no.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Dying alone. I already told you that.”

“That isn't what I mean, and you know it.”

Loreli stood and faced him. “You want the truth? Well, here it is, Reed. I know less about raising children than you do. I spent my youth in gambling dens, cathouses, and places so foul dogs wouldn't even lie down. Those girls need a mother, not me. What about Rebecca Sourapple?”