Courting Miss Adelaide (31 page)

What a hard life Frances had endured. First losing her only child, then the murder of her mother, now this severe beating.

Charles returned to the kitchen and paused in the doorway. Even battered and bruised, he looked solid, trustworthy, in control. Charles, the man she loved. His smile dazzled her. His voice soothed her. Tension slipped off her shoulders and her breathing slowed—all because Charles stood nearby.

“I found an empty can of kerosene near the back—” He glanced at her and stopped.

Without warning, a deluge of tears flowed down her face. Charles dropped to his knees at her feet and took her hand in his. “What is it?”

“I feel responsible for what happened to Frances.” She covered her mouth with a fist. “When she asked to talk to the committee, I should’ve insisted she stay in town with me.” Her voice broke. “Instead, I thought only of myself.”

“You weren’t thinking of yourself—you were thinking of William.” He rose, tugging her with him, drawing her into the comfort of his arms. “Ed would have gotten to Frances, no matter what you did, or what the sheriff tried to do. The man’s deranged.” He leaned back, cupped her chin with his hand. “Frances did what she did for William, not for you.”

With the pads of his thumbs, he gently brushed the tears away and then kissed her cheeks, the tip of her nose and each eyelid. His words and the touch of his lips brought healing, a blessed release from self-blame.

“My brave Addie.”

“Brave?” Her voice shook. “Me?”

“You’re the bravest woman I know. I saw you with that knife, ready to enter the fray. I’ve never been so scared.”

She shivered. “He was trying to…to kill you.”

Charles pulled her tight against him. A moan tore from his throat. “Oh, Addie, I could have lost you.”

She loved Charles for his courage, for the risks he’d taken to protect her. For being a loving man, though he didn’t believe that yet. She started to say she loved him, but then bit back the words. She wouldn’t say them just because they’d shared this terrifying night.

Charles stepped back and met her gaze. “We’re alive, Addie. We’ve survived Ed, and we’ll survive the trouble in this town. Marry me. I’ll see that you get Emma and William. I’ll give you everything you ever wanted—a home, a family.”

She heard the sweet words and wanted to say yes. He had been in her heart since the first day she’d walked across the street after placing that ad. Her feelings for him had grown until she couldn’t imagine life without him. But she couldn’t marry him, not without the three little words he did not say.

If she forced his hand, perhaps he would. “What about love?”

A shuttered look came over his face. “I want to, but, I don’t know what love is. Something’s missing…inside. But—”

Her heart plunged. “No buts, Charles.” She couldn’t marry him and relegate herself to a life half-full. “I won’t settle for less than love.”

Tears collected in his eyes. “I can’t survive being separated from you. Please say that’s enough.”

“I wish it were.” She sighed. “No, Charles, I won’t marry you.” The finality of her words struck like a bolt of lightning, searing her heart.

“If we’re married, we might be able to have Emma and William. That’s the only way you’ll get the children. Don’t you see that?”

His words stung and she moved past him. “That’s probably true. But what kind of a marriage would that be for me? For you? For the children?” Her heart lurched into her throat. “You’re afraid to love. You can’t even speak the word. You can’t forgive God for your past, can’t worship. You’re stuck back there, Charles. Well, I’m looking to the future.”

He flinched. “Addie…I don’t know what to say.”

She met his gaze, tried to see what truths were hidden in the depths of those dark pools. “You make your living with words and now you can’t speak the words that will open your heart to me.”

“I’m not like you.”

“People can change. I have. Before I asked for one of the orphans, before I expressed my views in the paper, I didn’t speak up on issues that mattered to me. And you know what? I like the new me. You may not realize how much you’ve helped me change. Whether you meant to or not.”

“You’ve always been strong.”

“I get my strength from God, from His word, from worshipping in His house. I can’t marry a man who won’t trust God and I won’t settle for a loveless marriage, even for a child.” Her voice broke. “E-even for Emma.” She squared her shoulders. “I won’t end up like my mother.”

“I wouldn’t leave like your father did.” He took her hand. “If you’ll marry me, I’ll be committed to our marriage.”

“I believe you. You’d stick by me. You’d fill a seat at the table, take care of the hundreds of details a husband would. And day by day I would die in tiny increments, waiting for the words that might never come.”

“What do you want from me?”

As if he didn’t know. “I want
more
than a commitment. I had that much with my mother.” She softened her voice. “I want your
love,
Charles. I’ve spent a lifetime without it. I know now what it’s like to feel it. And you…you still don’t understand how important love is.” She bit her lip, determined not to cry, and pushed him away. “Please—go.”

He hesitated, took a step forward.

“You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

He stood, looking bereft, but saying none of the things that would have changed her mind.

She lifted a palm to his cheek, seeking one last touch. “You deserve a lot more than you think. One day, I hope you’ll believe that and find peace.”

Her hand fell away. “You know the way out.”

Addie deserved love and Charles didn’t have it to give. He left by the back stairs, too tired to move with any speed. Every muscle in his body ached, and his brain was numb with fatigue.

But he still had enough presence of mind to go to
The Ledger
by an indirect route, in case some night owl would see him and spread the story, hurting Addie.

As if he hadn’t hurt her enough. She’d asked only one thing of him—to love her.

She had no idea what she asked.

His mother had loved his father and look where that had gotten her—years of demeaning treatment and pain. He’d even loved his father once, always hoping Adam Graves would change, but he never did, and Charles’s love had withered and died. Replaced with fiery hot anger at his father and, yes, at himself, for being unable to handle the situation he called his family.

Everyone he’d ever loved had hurt him or let him down, even Sam, getting himself killed in a barroom brawl. He believed Addie was different. But what if he didn’t have that kind of giving love in him? What if his capacity to love had been destroyed in the place he’d once called home?

Charles entered
The Ledger
’s office. His steps, hesitant, unsure. He walked like an old man, probably from the beating he’d taken and given. The printing press sat silent, the energy gone from the room, along with the appeal of the place.

In the back, he knelt before the safe and removed the bullets in the cylinder, then laid the gun and belt inside, shut the door and twirled the lock.

He might have saved Addie from Drummond, but he’d let her down tonight. Just as the selection committee had let down the Grounds children.

Well, there was one thing he
could
do for Addie, for Emma and William. Tonight. He headed out the door.

Chapter Twenty-One

W
ithin minutes Charles had dragged John Sparks and Thaddeus Paul from their beds. Morris Wylie lived too far out to get tonight, but if he needed to, in the morning Charles would be knocking on his door, too.

Once he explained the evening’s events, the two men agreed to accompany him to Frances’s bedside.

At Doc Lawrence’s they found William looking dazed, sitting in the outer office. Mary sat nearby, calm and competent as always, doing what she could to comfort the boy.

Charles gave her a weak smile.

Mary gasped. “What happened to you?”

He looked at William. “I’ll tell you later.”

Mary nodded, studying first Charles and then the somber faces of his companions.

“How’s Frances?” Charles asked.

“About the same. Daddy wrapped her ribs, set her arm and stitched her up.” Mary lowered her voice. “He’s not sure about her organs.”

“Is she conscious?” Mr. Sparks asked.

“Yes, amazingly, she is.” She looked at the boy and smiled. “I’ve been telling William, Frances is a strong woman.”

Sparks and Paul went inside to see Frances. Charles lagged behind. He hoped Frances had the strength to tell the men what they needed to know. He couldn’t do anything in there. But maybe, like Addie once said, he could help the boy.

Head down, William drooped in the chair, the slump of his shoulders telling Charles plenty. His hair and clothes were disheveled and stained, probably from Frances’s blood. Hands clasped tight in his lap, he didn’t look injured, at least not on the outside.

Charles sat on his haunches and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. William flinched. Charles should have known better than to touch him. “I’m Charles Graves, William, a friend of Emma and Miss Crum.”

Frightened eyes turned to him and then darted away. William seemed to shrink into himself, trying to be invisible.

Charles’s heart tumbled. He knew the signs. Charles removed his hand, giving the boy some distance. “I’ve been in a bit of a fight, but I’m fine. And Mr. Drummond is in jail.”

William turned solemn eyes on him. “He is?”

“Yes. And that’s where he’s staying.” Charles patted his stomach. “I’m starving. Are you hungry?”

William shook his head.

“How about some milk? I bet Doc even has a cookie or two.” Charles put out a hand. “Come on. Let’s raid the icebox.”

William hesitated, his gaze sliding from Mary, to the closed surgery door and then to Charles. His gaze caught, held there and then he rose and stepped beside Charles.

Mary blinked damp eyes. “I’ll check on Frances.”

Charles and William walked down the hall to Doc’s kitchen. Dishes, glasses, half-full cups of cold coffee covered every surface. Addie would have a heyday in here. Nice to know another bachelor in town would fail Addie’s neatness test.

Charles found two clean glasses in a cabinet and filled them with milk. Then pulled out a chair for William at the small drop-leaf table and sat beside him. For the second time today, Charles had no idea what to say.

If only he could find the right words, the words he would have wanted, needed to hear as a boy. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Drummond. She’s a good woman.”

Turning his glass in his boy-size hands, William nodded.

“It took courage to get her to the doc’s.”

William’s lips pressed in a tight line, but he kept his eyes averted. Still, Charles could see tears well up in pools, though not a single one dropped onto his tanned cheeks.

Charles pushed his untouched glass aside and leaned his chin on his hands. “I know what it’s like, William.”

The boy didn’t look at him, didn’t speak.

“I know the fear, the anger. What it’s like to try to keep the peace…and fail.”

“How?” he said softly, head down, spirit wounded.

“I grew up in a home with a pa like Ed Drummond.”

William’s head snapped up. Charles waited, letting the words connect them, seeing the moment the boy understood.

“I remember how the hair on my neck would rise, how my gut would knot.” Charles swallowed against the old familiar lump in his throat. “How I wanted to run, but knew running would only make it worse. It was the same for you, wasn’t it?”

Slowly, William nodded.

Charles lifted William’s chin with a palm. “I want you to know something else.”

The boy’s tear-filled eyes, the color of the sea on a cloudy day, met his.

“It wasn’t your doing.
None
of it was your fault, William. You were never the reason for what was said or done.
Never.
”

Charles said
never
again and again until a sob tore from William’s throat. The tears spilled over now, slipping down William’s cheeks in little rivulets, leaving trails on his dirty face. As he wept, William’s breath came in gulping hitches.

Charles rose and knelt before the boy, pausing only a second, and then pulled William tight to his chest. For a moment, William held himself stiff, his heart knocking against Charles’s torso, and then he burrowed into Charles’s arms.

“I was afraid.”

“I know. I know.” Charles clutched the boy and swayed to the rhythm of remembered pain that branded the mind and spirit.

“I didn’t know how to make him stop,” William spoke into Charles’s shirt.

Old feelings of inadequacy and helplessness roared through him. “Stopping Ed wasn’t a job for a boy. It was a man’s job.”

“I…I always made him angry.”

Ah, familiar words from his past. “Ed Drummond’s sick. Sick in the head and in the heart. Like my pa. His anger had nothing to do with what you did or didn’t do. It was
him.
” Charles shifted William in his arms and caught his gaze, then repeated, “It was
him.
”

William’s gaze tumbled away from Charles. “I hate him.”

“I know about hate.” All too well. Hate lived in him still, gnawing at him, dumping the past on his every today. As surely as he held William, hate held Charles in its clutches.

Suddenly, he knew what else needed to be said to the boy, to himself, the boy he used to be. “When we can, you and I need to forgive. Hating eats us up inside, keeps us from trusting all the good people.” Good people like Addie.

The harsh lines in William’s face eased, leaving his expression solemn, but perplexed.

He ran his hand through the boy’s silky strands. “Forgiving won’t be easy.”

Though Addie had told him he should, until that moment, Charles hadn’t truly comprehended the importance of forgiving. He had to forgive his mother for staying, and then his father for inflicting wounds that might have mended on the outside, but underneath festered still. Until he could forgive, he’d be stuck, unable to move beyond his past.