Hearts Awakening (38 page)
“You may not,” Ellie replied with a grin. “Your pappy put them away for later. There aren’t any stores on the island, remember? If you eat all the gumdrops now, you won’t have any to look forward to when we get home.”
Ethan pouted for a moment before his eyes lit up. “Can we play with Griddle and Cakes when we get home?”
She cocked a brow.
Daniel puffed out his chest. “May we? Please?”
Ellie shook her head. “The puppies are only three days old. They need to stay with Poor Thing for a few weeks yet.” After spending the past month with the boys as they waited for their punishment to end, she knew how hard it was for them to understand the concept of time, especially when they were waiting for something like griddle cakes for breakfast or a puppy to play with. She also knew they would ask to play with those puppies every day, all day, unless she could think of something to help them.
“I have an idea, though,” she said and rifled through the trunk. When she found two of the half dozen slates Jackson had bought for the boys to use during their lessons, she handed one to each of them.
She found the chalk quickly enough, too, and gave each boy a piece. “Let’s sit,” she suggested and helped them get settled. “Listen first,” she cautioned when Ethan bent down to scribble on his slate. “There are seven days in a week. You’ll probably be able to play with the puppies in two weeks. That’s another fourteen days.”
Daniel scrunched up his face. “That’s a lot of days.”
“Lots and lots of days,” Ethan added for emphasis.
She smiled. “Yes, it is, but if you make fourteen marks on your slate and erase one each day when you have your griddle cakes for breakfast, you’ll be able to see how many more days it will be before you get to play with Griddle and Cakes.”
“I can count to fourteen,” Daniel said and started making his marks right away.
Ethan, however, held back, studying what his brother was doing instead of making his own marks.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you want to do it, too?”
“I can’t count to fourteen. I can only count to ten.”
“Here, I’ll help you,” she said, but before she could take the chalk from him, there was a loud knock at the door.
“I’ll be right back. Daniel, help your brother,” she instructed and went to answer the door, curious to know who might be calling, since Jackson would not have bothered to knock.
When she opened the door, she took one look at Jackson and burst into laughter. Between the stack of boxes in his arms and the parcels hanging from his hands, she could scarcely see his face. Still laughing, she stepped back to let him inside. “How did you ever manage to knock?”
“I didn’t. I had to kick at the door with my foot.”
The boys met him midway as he carried his purchases over to the table. “Presents!” they cried in unison as they clapped and skipped, rather awkwardly, along with him. “Presents! Presents!”
“What makes you so certain any of them are for you?” Jackson asked teasingly as he deposited his bounty right on top of the slates the boys had been using.
Ellie managed to slide the slates free, which smeared a few of the chalk marks the boys had made, while the boys climbed up onto the benches to see what their father had brought home.
Jackson cringed. “Sorry. I didn’t realize there was anything on the table.”
She laughed. “You couldn’t see the top of the table. But there’s no harm done. The boys can finish their lesson when we get home.”
“Which one is mine, Pappy?” Ethan asked.
Jackson looked down at his youngest son with such unconditional love that he nearly stole Ellie’s heart. Again. “This one,” he murmured. He handed a small brown parcel to Ethan and an identical one to Daniel. “I know you’re too young in your lessons right now,” he cautioned as they ripped their presents open, “but I wanted each of you to have your own Bible, one you can read each night before you say your prayers at bedtime.”
“Mama Ellie’s gonna teach me to read first, ’cause I’m the oldest,” Daniel said as he paged through the Bible.
Ethan, however, showed little interest in the book, set it down, and started fingering the rest of the packages. “Did you bring us more gumdrops?”
Jackson laughed. “No! Mrs. French gave you both more than enough gumdrops after you told her that you thought hers were better than Widow Franklin’s.”
“How is Mrs. French?” Ellie asked.
Jackson met her gaze and held it. “She’s well. Very well. I’ll tell you more a little later,” he promised. “In the meantime, perhaps you could make some room in that trunk so the boys and I can put what I purchased for myself inside and we can head home.”
Pleased that he had finally bought some things for himself after showering her and the boys with gifts, she shook her head. “I hope they fit.”
“Can’t we open the rest of the presents first?” Daniel asked.
“They’re not presents. They’re your father’s things,” Ellie replied.
“Pappy, did you find any homes for the puppies while you were gone?” Daniel asked as Ellie made her way to the trunk.
He laughed. “No, but I’m not worried. I decided that if all else fails, I’ll just take them both to the parsonage, since it’s Mrs. Shore’s fault we wound up with Poor Thing in the first place.”
Before Ellie could remark that Reverend Shore would definitely have other ideas about taking in two puppies, there was another knock at the door that made her turn to face Jackson again and offer him a grin. “Please don’t tell me you bought more and had it delivered. There’s barely enough room for what you managed to carry home.”
“No. This is it.”
Curious once again about who would be calling on them, she answered the door, only to find Christina Schuler standing there.
Wearing a black cape and matching bonnet, the woman appeared to be in mourning, although she had not dropped down the veil on the bonnet to shroud her face, and the beaded reticule she carried was far too elegant for a woman in mourning. “I only just heard you were in the city, and I was hoping you hadn’t left yet. When I saw your wagon outside, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to make that awful trip out to the island to see Jackson. May I come in?”
“Y-yes, of course,” Ellie murmured, stepped aside to let the woman enter, and closed the door.
Jackson froze for a moment and acknowledged Christina with a curt nod.
In return, their visitor glanced at the boys, who were standing on the benches looking back at her with curiosity before directing her attention at their father. “What I have to say won’t take long, but I’d prefer that I do it with you privately.”
With her heart anxious to know exactly what the woman had to say, Ellie rifled through the trunk, found one of the parcels she thought might be helpful to keep the boys occupied, and walked past the woman to Jackson. “I’ll take the boys outside and keep them busy. We’ll wait for you there,” she whispered.
Jackson took the parcel from her and handed it to Daniel. “Take your brother outside and wait for us in the wagon. Just don’t eat every single one of these gumdrops. And if you aren’t sitting in that wagon when I get there, you won’t see another gumdrop for a month,” he cautioned.
Without posing a single argument, Daniel ushered his brother outside.
Once the door closed again, Jackson stood next to Ellie and faced Christina. “What is it?”
Christina reached into her reticule, pulled out a letter, and handed it to him. “I’m not happy doing my sister’s bidding where you’re concerned, but she is my sister. I could hardly refuse to deliver the letter she took the time to write to you when she’s in mourning.”
“Did you say
mourning
?” Jackson asked as he put the letter into his pocket.
“Her husband died very suddenly and most unexpectedly just last week. Obviously she’s in a state of shock, as we all are. Even so, she’s determined to move back to Harrisburg, and I expect she’ll be here in a matter of weeks, if not sooner. Quite frankly, I’d expect you to consider her needs and her reputation very carefully, as well as your own, before you do something rash once you read her letter,” she cautioned before letting herself out the door, unaware she had taken all of Ellie’s hopes and dreams with her.
After losing yet another night to fitful sleep, Jackson woke just after dawn. He blinked hard, surprised by the bright sunshine that filtered into his room. It held all the promise of a wondrously warm day to come, a rare gift with winter drawing so near.
Unfortunately, he had forgotten, yet again, to add wood to the warming stove before retiring the night before, and the sunshine was still too weak to chase off the raw night air that surrounded him as he got out of his bed.
Shivering, he dressed for the day. But the gooseflesh that covered his body and the piercing chill that penetrated his bones was not as numbing as the dreadful confusion that troubled his very soul, despite the hours he had spent on his knees each night for the past week, begging God to have mercy on him and bless him with the grace of wisdom to know what to do now that Dorothea actually wanted to be part of his life again. He still felt as if he were hanging from a precipice by his very fingertips, with overwhelming joy and hope for the future beneath his hands, and dismay and disappointment waiting for him if he made the wrong decision.
Should he forgive Dorothea and reclaim the love they once shared? More important, could he? Or should he accept the fact that his responsibility to his sons was greater than his own needs and stay with Ellie?
Desperate to end the confusion and turmoil that continued to torture him, he sat down on the bed to reread the first letter he had received from Dorothea yet again.
My dearest Jackson,
I mourn for my husband, whom God has seen fit to take away from me, yet I grieve ever more deeply for the loss of the love you and I once shared, a love I so foolishly tossed away. I pray you will find a way to welcome me back into your life upon my return to Harrisburg.
Your Dorothea
Overwhelmed that the only woman he had ever loved still loved him, too, and not only wanted to come back to him but was free to do so, he refolded the letter. Carefully, he set it aside and stared at the letter that Christina Schuler had given to him yesterday when he had gone into the city, alone, to deliver the last of the apples to William Haines at his cider mill. He unfolded the letter for the second time.
More bittersweet memories assaulted him and grew even stronger as he skimmed through the three-page missive. Disregarding her account of the large inheritance she would receive, he also dismissed her childlessness, which she described as “joyful,” and her plans to stay, temporarily, with her sister. Instead, he focused on the final provocative paragraph that made his heart pound even harder than the last time he had read it:
It is with a faithful, trusting heart that I pray your love for me is still returned, twofold and forever, as you vowed it would be so many years ago. I am leaving Philadelphia soon and will come to you as soon as I arrive.
Your Dorothea
Gently, he refolded the letter, added it to the other one, and stored them away again beneath his mattress.
Twofold and forever.
How often had his heart pounded in his chest when she whispered those very words back to him? How often had he ached to make her his wife, with just a glimpse of her beautiful face or the velvety touch of her hand, and pressed her for an answer to his proposal? “Apparently not often enough, or she would never have left me in the first place,” he whispered and got to his feet.
As he started pacing back and forth, walking from his bed to the window and back again, the scorched wooden ring he still wore pressed against his chest, reminding him that his sons were not the only ones who would be affected if he took Dorothea as his wife and welcomed her return as a once-in-a-lifetime dream come true.
His heart pounded hard and fast as doubt and fear and confusion coursed through his veins. Doubt that he could truly trust Dorothea. Fear that she did not love him as fully as he loved her and that she would leave him again one day.
And confusion. A deep, soul-wrenching, heart-perplexing confusion that left him wondering if he even knew the meaning of true love between a man and a woman. Was love the passionate fire in his belly that grew hotter each time he was near Dorothea because she was so physically beautiful, or was that only carnal desire, nothing more than unadulterated lust?
He stopped in place for just a moment and juxtaposed his feelings for Dorothea with what he felt for Ellie. Was love something else, perhaps more like the way his heart warmed when he heard her laughing with his sons or watched her struggle to win her battle with the cookstove? Or was it the way she inspired him and made him feel like he was a man of honor and character and worth because that’s how she saw him? Or was he confusing love with nothing more than gratitude for her patience and her goodness and the way she had brought order back into his life, asking very little in return?
Had she been nothing more than a temporary gift, something God had given to him for just a short while, or was she something far more precious: a woman of faith who would be his lifelong helpmate?