“You’ve never been out here before?”
“Only in passing from time to time. I really never noticed how beautiful it is. I can imagine how lovely it would be to live here. Can’t you?”
He studied her face. Was she fishing for clues, assessing his potential as a husband? After all, that cad Chastain had broken her heart. And the honest truth was, Carrie Daly was no longer a girl. He looked past her shoulder to the barn, now bathed in late summer sunlight. “It’s a pretty place, all right. Good as any, if a man is the settling-down sort. But that isn’t the life for me.”
“I see.”
Was she disappointed, or was he flattering himself? “I guess I was just born restless, Carrie. My father tried to settle me down. I was in and out of boarding schools until I was nearly grown. But I always found some way to get myself dismissed.”
“You’re not the scholarly type then.”
“Oh, I liked the classes well enough. And I made some good friends along the way. It was the rules and expectations I couldn’t abide. I like to come and go without explaining myself to anyone.”
She looked up at him, an odd light in her eyes. “What are you running away from, Griff?”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Well, you’re wrong about that. I want to experience as much of life as possible, so I won’t have any regrets when the candle finally burns down and flickers out. That’s easier to do when other people aren’t depending on me.”
They reached the road. He helped her inside the rig and handed her the reins. “If you promise to come back, I’ll—”
He broke off as another rig rattled along the road.
Carrie turned. “It’s Mrs. Spencer and Mariah Whiting. I wonder what they’re doing out here.”
“They’re probably wondering the same thing about you.”
Mrs. Spencer halted the rig in the road. “Carrie Daly? I thought that was you, but then I said to Mariah, surely—”
Carrie hid her mud-caked shoe beneath her skirt and straightened her hat. “Hello, Eugenie. Mariah.”
Mariah nodded, her expression wary.
“You remember Mr. Rutledge. You met him at Henry’s wedding.”
“We remember,” Eugenie said.
Griff nodded and crossed his arms, waiting as Mariah took in Carrie’s dusty skirt and hastily tied hat. “Mrs. Spencer, Mrs. Whiting. A pleasure seeing you both again.”
“Carrie,” Mariah said at last, “Do you think it’s proper, being out here alone with someone we hardly know?”
Griff didn’t wait for Carrie’s answer. He smiled at both women and said, “I don’t blame you for being concerned about your friend, but I assure you nothing untoward happened.”
Eugenie sniffed. “I don’t wish to be rude—”
“Then don’t be.” Carrie picked up the reins and smiled at Griff. “Thank you for the riding lesson, Mr. Rutledge. I quite enjoyed myself.”
The flour bin in the Verandah’s kitchen was nearly empty. Carrie sprinkled a scoop onto the wooden pastry board and made a mental note to remind Mrs. Whitcomb to buy more. After church last Sunday, Reverend Patterson had asked for volunteers to bake bread for several farm families who were having a hard time keeping food on the table, and Mrs. Whitcomb had signed her up. She finished kneading the dough and set it aside to rise. She’d have preferred being asked outright, but she was too grateful for something useful to do to make a fuss about it. Without her work at the bookstore, she felt aimless and unsettled.
At least there was plenty to do around the hotel, and she was grateful for the modest pay Mrs. Whitcomb offered. While she waited for the dough, she tidied the kitchen, filled the oil lamps, and swept and dusted the parlor. When the dough was ready, she lifted it from the yellow crockery bowl, punched it down, sprinkled on more flour, and picked up her rolling pin, Granny Bell’s voice a whisper in her ear.
“Baking bread is a lot like growing your faith in the Lord, Carrie Louise. You mix together the best ingredients you can find and wait for the mixture to mature, but it’s the heat of the oven that makes dough into something of worth and of substance. The same way the tribulations of this world mature a person’s faith.”
Carrie fitted loaves into greased pans and placed them in the oven to bake, wincing as a sore muscle protested. The morning after her ride with Griff, she had noticed a fist-sized bruise ripening on her thigh. Now it was fading, but the soreness remained. Still, the exhilaration of flying along the pasture aboard Griff’s horse, her arms wrapped around his firm middle, had been worth every bit of discomfort, even worth Mariah’s disapproval. She’d needed that brief respite from the tribulations of her own life.
She wiped her floury hands on her apron and wandered toward the front of the house, thinking of everything that had happened since Henry’s wedding. Was Granny Bell right? Could God use her hurts and disappointments to mold her into a woman of substance?
The clock in the parlor chimed. Lucy Whitcomb, hat in hand, slid down the banister and landed with a thump on the hallway carpet. She grinned at Carrie, a playful look on her face.
“It’s a trick I learned from the Grayson kids. But don’t tell Aunt Maisy. She’d have a conniption fit.” Lucy retrieved her hat from the rack in the corner. “She thinks I should behave like a lady.”
Carrie fought a stab of envy. Despite the difficulty of looking after so many children, Lucy seemed to be enjoying her life. Never in her own life had Carrie felt young and carefree.
“I’ll show you how it’s done sometime,” Lucy said. “But not today. I’m already late. Save me a piece of your wonderful bread, all right?”
“It’s for—”
“Charity. Right. Never mind.” Lucy donned the straw hat and tied the bright green ribbons in a saucy bow beneath her chin. “I’m sure Reverend Patterson appreciates your help.” She sighed. “If things don’t improve around here soon, I’m not sure Aunt Maisy can afford to keep this place open. We may wind up needing charity ourselves.”
She waggled her fingers and left, the screen door slapping shut behind her.
A rectangle of early September sunlight filtered through a chink in the heavy parlor curtains. Pushing them aside, Carrie stared onto the busy street, her thoughts a-jumble. If the Verandah closed, where would she live? What if Henry found work in Chicago? Would he sell the farm, leaving her without any place to hang her hat? Or suppose he left it all in her hands. How would she manage the plowing, planting, harvesting all alone?
Across the way, a man in a felt bowler entered the bank. Two mill hands emerged from the bakery carrying white paper sacks. Outside Jasper Pruitt’s mercantile, a drayman halted his freight wagon just as Mariah Whiting came out, her arms full of packages.
Carrie felt a stab of guilt. She shouldn’t have spoken so sharply to Mariah and Eugenie that day at Mr. Gilman’s place. Despite their evident disapproval, she wanted their friendship. She glanced at the clock. The bread wouldn’t be done for another few minutes. She took off her apron and hurried out the door.
Outside Jeanne Pruitt’s dress shop, she caught up with her friend. “Mariah?”
The mill foreman’s wife turned. “Oh. Hello, Carrie.”
Mariah’s brown eyes, usually so warm and alive with light and affection, were wary. She turned to study the dark green dress displayed in the shop window.
“I saw you coming out of Mr. Pruitt’s just now, and I came to apologize.” Carrie laid one hand on Mariah’s arm. “I didn’t intend to speak so harshly to you and Eugenie the other day. I don’t know what possessed me, really.”
“Eugenie and I know very well what possessed you. And we’re very concerned about you.” Mariah whirled around, her skirts sweeping the sidewalk. “Mr. Rutledge is not a proper gentleman.”
She glanced at two women coming along the street and lowered her voice. “His brother came here to visit him, all the way from Charleston, and Mr. Rutledge turned him away. His own kin. What’s worse, they say he frequents that disgusting gambling house down in Two Creeks.”
Carrie fought a stab of disappointment. She didn’t want anything to mar her impression of Griff. “Are you sure? You know how people love to gossip.”
Mariah nodded emphatically. “I know all too well how folks like to gossip. That’s why Eugenie and I are so worried about you. We don’t want you to ruin your reputation by keeping company with the likes of Griff Rutledge.” She patted Carrie’s arm. “Even if the gossip about him isn’t true, after Race Day he’ll be gone, and then what? If you insist on consorting with him, no respectable man will want you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve given up on finding love.”
Mariah’s expression softened. “You’re still in shock about Nate and Rosaleen. But that’s no excuse to take up with Mr. Rutledge. This obsession with him is quite unlike you, Carrie.”
“I know. I don’t understand it myself.”
“You need to pray about this, my dear, and wait upon the Lord.”
“I do pray. Every day. But sometimes I wonder whether God is listening.”
A rig clattered along the road. The train whistle shrieked.
“Sometimes he seems remote to me too.” Mariah nodded to a farm boy who passed them on the sidewalk. “All those years ago, when our little daughter drowned, I felt as if he’d abandoned me. But his love is constant, so it must be us mortals who move from beneath his wing.”
Mariah shifted her packages to her other arm and peered up the street. “Here comes Sage. I shouldn’t keep him waiting. He worries about the mill every moment he’s away from it.”
Carrie nodded. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”
Mariah waved and hurried down the sidewalk. Carrie watched Sage stow her packages inside her rig. They drove away. Carrie headed back to the Verandah, her thoughts racing, her feelings a mix of shock and disappointment. She hadn’t known about Griff’s visits to the gambling house. No wonder people were talking. On the other hand, according to the books she read, gambling among prominent men was an accepted practice in the Carolinas. Or at least it had been before the war, when slaves did all the work and there was nothing else to occupy a gentleman’s hours. Was it Griff’s fault if some folks in Hickory Ridge didn’t realize that?
Anger propelled her along the dusty sidewalk. How dare anyone judge her? Head down, she stomped past the barbershop just as the door swung open and a man hurried out.
“Whoa there, Miss . . . well, hello, Carrie.”
Griff, smelling wonderfully of bay rum and shaving soap, smiled down at her. “We seem always to be running into each other. Literally.”
She returned his smile, stunned at how happy she was to see him. At how quickly the sound of his voice lightened her glum mood. She loved the sound of her name on his lips, his broad, confident smile and dark eyes.
He offered his arm. “Where to?”
“The Verandah. I’ve six loaves of bread in the oven.”
He grinned and brushed one finger across her cheek, sending nerves skittering along her spine. “That explains the smudge of flour.”
Heat suffused her face. “I saw a friend on the street and wanted to catch her before she got away. I should have checked my mirror first.”
“Mrs. Whiting, wasn’t it? I saw her through the barbershop window.”
“Mariah, yes. We’ve known each other for years.”
“And she warned you not to get mixed up with the likes of me.”
“No, she was—”
“It’s all right. I’m used to being new in town—an unknown quantity, so to speak.” He nodded to a couple of men who passed them on the sidewalk. “And she’s right, you know.” His dark gaze sought hers. “The last thing I want to do is make you unhappy, Carrie.”
Her heart stumbled. Something was growing between them, something that made her feel beautiful and alive. How could he dismiss that so easily?
They reached the Verandah. He paused, one foot on the bottom porch step. “So long as we understand each other, I would like very much to have the pleasure of your company. How about another riding lesson sometime soon?”
Suppose, in the end, he disappointed her? Shattered her heart? At least she would have a few weeks of happiness.
She smiled up at him. “I’d love to.”
Carrie slid into the back pew of the red brick church and peeled off her short lace gloves. The meeting was well underway. Up front Eugenie Spencer was speaking to a small group of women perched side by side in the first pew like birds on a wire. Through the open window came the clopping sounds of horses’ hooves and the squeak of the drayman’s wagon. In the hawthorn bush beside the window, a cardinal sang.
“. . . will need several ladies to take charge of the decorations this year,” Eugenie said. “Mariah has agreed to help and to play the piano for the Christmas Eve service.”
The ladies bobbed their heads in silent approval. Sitting alone in the back pew, Carrie couldn’t help noticing how many of their hats were Ada Wentworth designs, couldn’t help wishing Ada were here now.
Molly Scott, the mayor’s wife, spoke up. “I reckon I can get Hiram to chop us down a Christmas tree when the time comes. And I can help with the decorations too.” She shook her head. “I sure do miss the orphans. Mrs. Lowell had ’em trained into a right nice choir.”