After the Storm (36 page)

“Do call at your convenience. I look forward to talking with you about this attorney.” He tipped his hat to Cailin. “Good day, Mrs. Rafferty.”

“Mr. Thanington,” she said.

His eyes twinkled, and she guessed he was amused at the way she had undermined his attempt to pass himself off as a lord. Bidding them all a pleasant day, he walked away, his gold-tipped cane glistening in the sunshine.

“We've got our library. We did it!” Samuel twirled her about and set her on her feet, kissing her soundly. The children laughed, and Reverend Faulkner offered his hand in congratulations.

Pumping his hand, the minister said, “This is even more than I'd prayed for.”

“It's wonderful,” Alice added. She glanced at her husband. “I told you that miracles can happen.”

“I think we're all sure of that now,” Reverend Faulkner replied.

As the three walked away, discussing when they would start building the shelves for the library, Cailin heard a distant rumble of thunder. She glanced toward the western sky. The clouds were climbing up from the horizon, but slowly.

“Shall we eat?” she asked, seeing Samuel look at the sky, too. “Then we can visit the rest of the fair.”

He halted the girls' protests. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Cailin.”

By the time he had retrieved the basket from the carriage, Brendan had joined them. Cailin opened the basket and lifted out the food inside. The children held their breath with as much anticipation as on Christmas morning, even though they must have smelled the aromas coming from the kitchen yesterday. Or maybe they had been so absorbed in their preparations that they had taken no notice of hers. A potato-and-carrot pie was warm as was the sliced ham. Butter for the rolls came from deep within the bed of mostly melted ice that also had kept the lemonade cold.

Lottie peeked in. “Is my chocolate birthday cake in there?”

Cailin tugged on the little girl's ear. “You're going to have to eat your lunch before you see what's for dessert.”

“But it's my birthday, Mama!”

“And you need to start growing for another year.” She relented and said, “Your cake is in there, Quarter-pint.”

“That's what Samuel calls me!” She giggled.

“And for you, Samuel,” she said, drawing out a bottle of beer. “I thought you might enjoy it for our celebration today.”

He chuckled. Holding up the bottle, he said, “To Lottie on her birthday, to Brendan and his red ribbon, and to the new library in Haven.”

After they clinked cups of lemonade against the bottle, Cailin served everyone. She knew better than to offer them too much, because the children could barely sit still. Even the birthday cake got scanty notice before they were begging to walk around the fairgrounds.

Samuel took the basket back to the carriage. As soon as he returned, all three children bounded to their feet and scurried toward the smaller barn. Only his shout to wait slowed them.

“This is such an exciting day for them,” Cailin said as she put her hand on his arm.

“What about you?”

“Me? I'm having a grand time.” She stared as they came around the back of the smaller barn. A round platform was topped by wooden horses. Above them on the circular roof, bits of gilt paint glittered. The clatter of a steam engine rumbled beneath the excited voices all around it. “Oh, my!”

“It's a carousel,” Samuel said.

“I've never seen one before.”

“Nor have I.”

“You haven't? But didn't they have fairs in Cincinnati? I thought you said it was a city.”

He chuckled. “Before I came to Haven, I never visited a fair. I was too busy with work.”

Megan raced up to them. “May we ride?”

“Yes,” Samuel replied with a grin, “all of us.”

“All of us?” Cailin asked.

He lowered his voice as the children cheered. “I know you'll want to make sure neither Megan nor Lottie fall off their chargers, so we'll have to stand beside them to keep them on their horses.”

“But that will cost extra.”

“I think I can afford it.” He chuckled. “I'll take the penny out of your wages if you'd prefer that.”

“No, I don't prefer that.”

“So you'll accept
this
from me?”

“I don't think it will start too many new rumors.”

“This may.” He gave her a swift, sweet kiss before going to buy tickets for the carousel.

Cailin shared her children's excitement as they waited to ride. When she stepped up onto the platform, which was smooth from hundreds of feet before hers, she lifted Lottie onto a horse that was painted white with flowers twisted through its mane. Telling the little girl to hold on tightly, she heard Megan's squeal as Samuel put her on the black horse behind them. Brendan scrambled onto the red one just in front of Lottie's.

With a jerk and a sputter of steam, the carousel began to turn. Lottie bounced up and down on the horse as if she expected it to come to life and take her off on a great adventure.

Cailin laughed, looking over her shoulder. Samuel's hand curved around her side, and she wanted to nestle closer to him. As the carousel continued to twirl, its steam engine spitting and hissing like a maddened snake, she looked from her children's ecstatic faces to Samuel's smile.

She could not imagine leaving Haven and this life she had never guessed she would find here. All she needed was for Samuel to ask her to stay.

Twenty

“Did you have a fight with a pincushion?”

At the question and the laugh that followed, Samuel turned. He had been on his way to see the boxing matches, something Cailin had refused to witness. She had taken the children to look at the exhibits in the smaller barn.

A dapper man was stepping out of what must have been the livery stable's finest buggy. Theo Taylor had not changed a hair since Samuel had bid him goodbye and good luck in Cincinnati more than a year earlier. His thick mustache was a black smudge on his face, and his clothes, though well-made, hung on him, for he was as thin as a scarecrow.

“Theo!” He clapped his onetime partner on the shoulder. Sneezing as the fitful wind sent dust twirling around them, he said, “You're a sight for sore eyes.”

“And you've got a sore one, so you should know. What happened to you?”

“A few days ago we intruded on some yellow jackets.”

Theo shuddered. “Spare me the details. Just looking at you is bad enough.” He drew off his unblemished tan leather gloves. “Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here? I didn't come all the way out here just to see how you're doing.”

With a laugh, Samuel asked, “Why are you here?”

“To find out if it's true that you've gotten yourself a family.”

“I wrote to you months ago about having three orphan train children placed out with me.” He motioned toward the agricultural hall, where he could see Cailin and the children talking with Thanington. Lottie was jumping from one foot to the other, and he wondered what Thanington had said to make her so excited. “There they are right now, those three young redheads.”

Theo smiled. “The ones with that pretty gal?”

“Cailin is their mother.”

“Mother?” He frowned, grasping his bowler before a gust of wind could pull it off his head. “I thought they were orphans.”

“I thought so, too, but I was wrong.”

“And?”

Samuel chuckled. “It's a long story, but suffice it to say, she's really their mother.”

“Cailin Rafferty, right?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

Theo reached under his black alpaca coat and drew out a letter. “This came to the office. It was addressed to you, but I opened it, thinking it might be some matter we'd dealt with before you got the silly idea of throwing everything away and moving out here to be a farmer. I had no idea why else anyone would be writing to you from New York City.”

“New York?” He snatched the envelope out of Theo's hands. Seeing the fancily embossed return address, he withdrew the pages inside. He scanned them quickly and chuckled.

“I thought you'd be pleased to get this,” Theo said. “What did you say to those folks to persuade them to part with a penny for the Rafferty kids?”

“Me? Nothing. I had Lloyd Sanders pay them a call and remind them of the truth. The bastard was their father. He owes them at least three-fifths of his inheritance.” He put the pages back into the envelope and stuck the envelope into his pocket before it could blow out of his hand. He looked about. “Did you see in which direction Cailin went?”

“No.” He grasped Samuel's sleeve. “Wait! There are a couple of other things I need to discuss with you.”

“I want Cailin to hear what this letter says.”

“Just a minute.”

“What's so blasted important?” he asked, irritated. This had been one of the reasons he had left their partnership. Theo insisted on being heard, no matter if something else was more crucial.

“What can I say to convince you to come back to Cincinnati, Samuel? Your brain must be rotting out here.”

“Actually, I've found it quite a challenge to stay one step ahead of the weather.”

Theo waved his words away. “Bah! Any fool can do that. You have a mind trained for the law.”

“You're wrong, Counselor. Not just any fool can be a successful farmer. There are more skills in farming than in the law.” He shook his head, then pushed the hair out of his eyes. The wind was getting stronger, warning that the storm would soon reach Haven and put an end to the dry spell. “If you came here to persuade me in person to come back to be your partner, you've wasted a train ticket.”

“Two.”

“Two? Who else did you bring along to convince me?”

Theo looked toward the hired carriage, and a sinking feeling dropped through Samuel's gut. Was it Theo's smile or the faint scent of perfume—an aroma that once had been so familiar—that warned him who had used the second ticket? He glanced over his shoulder to see Beverly walking toward them.

She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered … as he had been unable to forget. From her clothes, which were made to accent each of her superb curves, to her perfect, pale complexion that was hidden from the sun, as always, by a stylish bonnet, she looked exactly as she had the last time he had seen her. The night before the wedding that had never taken place.

“Gentlemen,” she said with a warm smile. Putting her hand on his arm, she added, “Samuel, you're looking well.”

“As you are, although I never thought I'd be saying that to you here. Welcome to Haven, Beverly.”

“Your haven?”

“The town's name is Haven.” He remembered the discussion he had had on this very subject with Cailin. It had been so easy to confide his pain to her, but the words refused to form on his lips when he looked at Beverly. Amazed, he realized he had never confided anything of importance to her, except when he had asked her to marry him. “What did Theo do to persuade you to come here?”

“I persuaded
him
to let me travel with him. I felt it was time for me to apologize to you.”

“There's no need for an apology.” The words were not just trite ones, he was astonished to discover. They were genuine.

“Is that so?” Beverly smiled when Theo bent toward her and whispered something quickly. The only word Samuel could discern was
Cailin
. “I'm glad, Samuel. You're a good man, but not the man who would have made me happy. You wanted a life away from the city, and I couldn't live in the country.”

“You should have told me that.”

“I was a coward because I didn't want to hurt you. Nor did I want to destroy your dreams.”

“So you married Newsome?”

“I made a mistake, I'll admit,” she said, startling him with her unexpected honesty. She put her hand up to hold her bonnet in place as a gust tore at the flowers on it. “But it's my mistake to live with. I want you to keep from throwing your life away, too.”

He looked from Beverly's sincere face to Theo's expectant one. “What makes you think I'm throwing my life away?”

“You were a brilliant lawyer.”

“And now I'm a brilliant farmer.” He shook his head. “Nothing either of you can say will persuade me to change my mind. Coming to Haven is one of the best decisions I've ever made. Bringing the Rafferty children out to the farm was also one of the best decisions I've ever made.”

“What was the very best decision you ever made?” she asked.

“One that I can't talk about yet.” He was unable to halt his smile as he thought about what he had decided while he had ridden the carousel with Cailin and the children. “But it is, without question, the very best decision I've ever made.”

“I'm glad, but I wish it meant you were coming back to Cincinnati.”

He shook his head. “No.” When Theo opened his mouth to speak, Samuel shook his head again. “No.”

“That's pretty definite.” Theo frowned.

“Very definite. Why don't you come and see my son Brendan's prizewinning cow?”

“Your
son?” asked Theo.

Beverly glared at him as she shuddered with something that looked like horror. “No, thank you. Theo, if we stay here much longer, we're going to get soaked.”

Samuel looked up to see the clouds rising rapidly to overtake the sun. Lightning flickered across the sky, and thunder boomed from not very far away. The storm was approaching even more quickly than he had guessed. He needed to get Cailin and the children back to the farm before it broke—if that was possible.

“Are you staying in Haven?” he asked to bring the conversation to a close.

“At the hotel.” She shuddered again. “Such as it is. We'll be taking the train back to Cincinnati tomorrow.”

He smiled. “Theo, there's a gentleman—a wealthy gentleman—here looking for some legal advice on securing a legal claim to property he has bought. I'm sure it's just the sort of complex problem you like to unravel. Let me see if I can arrange for him to stop by before you leave. I'll say goodbye to you both, then.”