Mission of Hope (16 page)

“I
find them rather eager, don't you?” Simon surprised her when they'd closed the door behind them on the back porch. “Is there some sort of horrid fact about you they've yet to disclose? I can't possibly be the first caller you've had.” He'd identified himself as a “caller”—knowing all that the term implied—with an unnerving confidence. As if they'd spoken of it for years instead of days, if not hours. As if there was no question how things would proceed from here. “They do seem in a hurry all of a sudden.” It seemed the most neutral thing to say.

He tucked his hands in his pockets and walked out on to the lawn toward the rows of green shoots surrounded by a makeshift fence. “Many are, you know. It's a natural reaction to a shock such as the disaster.”

Yes, he had several years on her, but even aside from that, Major Simon looked as if nothing ever shocked him. She had a sudden vision of him standing amid the roiling army barracks, legs braced wide on the shuddering ground, timing the earthquake on his pocket
watch. “Were you frightened?” she asked. “When the earthquake struck?”

He raised a dark eyebrow, stumped by her sudden change of subject. He left his inspection of the fence to look at her for a moment. “I'd not be much of an officer if I panicked in a tight spot, now would I? I must be ever the stoic and fearless Major Simon.”

Nora leaned back against one of the fat pillars that held up the porch. “I'm not at all sure I'd trust a fearless man. There are many real things in life to be afraid of. And after all, ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.'”

“I leave those ponderings up to the reverend.”

“You're not a man of faith, sir?”

“All men pray in battle, Miss Longstreet.”

Nora crossed her arms over her chest. “And that is not an answer, Major Simon.”

He looked at her for a long moment. She could see him think, see him weigh her question and analyze its intent. “That is an important question for you, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is.”

Simon clasped his hands behind his back. “Faith, to soldiers, is a luxury. Obedience and survival are our anchors.” He returned his gaze to her. “I suppose the best answer I can give you is that I
could
be. Perhaps that is one of the things I might learn from you. If we were to…pursue things.”

“I could never give you faith, Major. That is something only God can do.”

“Perhaps,” he said, his smile broadening. “But there is something I know you could do.”

“And what is that?”

“You could call me Albert.” He looked around. “At least, in less formal circumstances.”

How had her parents, who never seemed to view her “spinster” circumstance with any anxiety before, suddenly become so focused on marriage? She supposed the great, awful lesson on life's fragility they'd all had was at the root of it. It wasn't hard to grab at happiness with both hands when even the slightest prospect of it rose. The number of marriage licenses issued since the earthquake proved there was an overwhelming, unspoken fear that destruction could happen again at any moment. That the whole world could shake and tumble off into the ocean tomorrow morning. It made some people desperate to do “what's right.” It made other people desperate to do whatever it was they most wanted.

Calling him “Albert” should have come easily. Still, Nora found the only reply to his request she could manage was to say, “Perhaps someday.” When his face fell at her response, she added, “Soon.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes as if she had just become an objective. She could literally see him setting, as Mama would say, his cap for her. “You'll find I'm a persistent fellow.”

 

Nora lay awake for hours, pondering her life's current complexities. She'd stayed up at first to merely read more of Annette's journal, her guilt at opening the private book overcome by the joy of just hearing her cousin's thoughts again. Annette was gone forever this side of Heaven, but reading the diary, Nora could imagine her sitting on the edge of the bed, recounting the dramatic details of her secretive meetings. Annette's
life was such a tumult, it made her own life seem settled by comparison—even with the sudden social acceleration going on. Why were Mama and Papa suddenly eager to marry her out to a man she'd just met and a dozen years older than she? Stability? Protection? To simplify the rebuilding of their own home and lives? Suddenly, everyone had layers that weren't there before—Annette, Mama, Papa, Major Simon, even Reverend Bauers and Quinn—and clarity eluded her as surely as sleep did.

Quinn.
She welcomed the use of his first name, clung to it, even though she'd resisted with…Albert. She tried his given name out in her thoughts, inspecting how it felt. It failed to hum in her head the way Quinn's name had. As if the word itself had colder, sharper edges instead of the curled warmth of Quinn's. The two men couldn't be more different. From a sheerly practical standpoint, she had no business even considering Quinn Freeman at all. Then again, Annette had been beyond impractical in her association with Eric. And yet, it had made her desperately happy. Ready to risk all she knew and loved to make a future with such an unknown, inappropriate man. It was romantic. It churned up a vibrant sense of adventure Nora had almost lost in all the day-to-day survival of the post-earthquake city. Everything had been so very serious for so very long.

What am I to do, Lord?
Nora sat back, clutching Annette's diary tightly to her chest.
Surely, You've spared me for some reason. Let me find Annette's journal for some purpose. Is it fair to ask for more guidance? For some sign as to where I go from here?
It was larger, even, than the two men. She was powerfully drawn to Dolores Park and its courageous occupants. The desire to help them was like a pulse in her head, making her
look at every scrap of food or clothing with keen new eyes. Could this be used here? Could that be put to use there? The world, which had tucked itself neatly inside the confines of her house and social engagements, had suddenly expanded outward with connections and relationships feathering out in all directions to a variety of fascinating people.
You want me to do something, Lord. I feel it. I think I've grasped on to it a time or two, like with Edwina or Sam, but I can't see the whole of it.

She thought of the woman, Sister Charlotte, that Reverend Bauers had told her of the other day. The frail nun, now older than Reverend Bauers, had once been an outrageous diva of the stage. A societal maven, one of those people whose parties ended up in society pages from a grand time when Nora was young, according to the reverend. When her husband had died, Charlotte had opened up her huge estate as almost a public haven, helping just about anyone who came knocking.

Evidently, Sister Charlotte still raised eyebrows, for Mama's nearly shot into her hair when Nora asked if she could go with Reverend Bauers to meet her. God had certainly charted a wild course for the woman—even after decades in the church, people still tittered about how any woman like that could take vows. Had Charlotte heard God crystal clear to make such risky choices? Or was she just groping her way through the fog as Nora seemed forced to do? There must be something I'm supposed to do. Some difference I'm destined to make.

Nora went to her window, wanting to see the expanse of stars. They weren't always visible in San Francisco's fickle climate, but the vastness of them was a comfort to Nora when she could look up and see them. Great
swaths of them were visible in between patches of clouds tonight. It was as if God was reminding her they were always there, even when the clouds hid her view. It was not much as signs from Heaven went, but it would have to do. Sighing, Nora peered down into the little, optimistic garden Mama and Aunt Julia had made. It would have to do, too.

She noticed it, just before she turned to go to bed.

A small bouquet of blue flowers, tied to the post that held up one side of the makeshift fence. Larger versions, Nora realized, of the tiny buds Quinn had fastened into her repaired locket.

He'd been there.

Yes, of course some other explanation was possible, but somehow Nora's heart was sure Quinn had left those flowers. The thought of him staring up into her window in the moonlight was so potent it stole her breath. They'd talked about how her window looked out on to that garden. She was even sure he'd caught her watching him as he removed the house column that had become the tent city's second message post. Quinn had been here. Tonight.

She yearned to dash downstairs, throw the back door open and peer around to find him waiting on the edge of the lawn in the way he waited across the street. To find those golden eyes amidst all the blue cream of the moonlight. Surely he must be awake, waiting, imagining. It was as if she could feel him out there in the night.

 

Quinn slumped on to his cot with such force he was sure Ma would wake from the sound. There must be some psalm filled with ache and misery to describe his
current state, but he hadn't enough energy to recall a single verse.
It's too much, Lord,
he lamented in silent prayer.
There's just me and so much need. I've never been so tired.
So tired he'd almost been caught. The fog of his fatigue had made him sloppy, and he'd almost walked headlong into two men with guns. In that hollow gap between his mistake and his safety, he mind went straight to Nora.

I don't want to die without kissing her. That had been his thought. There, in the dark, his longing galvanized into something almost reckless. She would know, however he could manage it, what she meant to him. He would never take a kiss that hadn't been freely given, but if she gave him her affections he would grab at that treasure with both hands.
If you grant me her heart, Lord, I could take on anything.

He walked out of that close call steeled to one purpose: letting her know.

How, exactly, does one man let a woman he can't see know what she can only guess, in the middle of the night? Quinn looked up, as if to dare Heaven to solve this whopping riddle, and saw his answer: in the flower box above his head was a collection of blue flowers. Nora's flowers, as he'd come to think of them.

It probably took more time, but it felt like mere seconds before he'd cut half a dozen from the flower box, pulled a handful of threads from the woven edge of the blanket, and ran all the way to Nora's home. A smile swept across his face when he saw what Nora must have thought of as the “rose trellis”—it was merely a fence post around the tiniest of gardens. Even if it held his weight, it would have provided four feet of altitude at best—hardly enough to reach the corner window he
knew opened into Nora's room. He stood staring at the window for a while, willing her to come to it despite the lateness of the hour. Imagining what he would say, what he would do if she appeared.

It was probably God's grace that she didn't, for he was sure all his restraint would be lost if he saw her. Just before he left, Quinn ran his finger along one of the blooms, wishing it was Nora's cheek he touched. She'll know.

He repeated that thought—the half declaration, half desperate prayer that she would know his heart—as he lay on his cot.
I can't bear it if she never knows, Lord. Even if she doesn't feel the same, I need her to know.

But she did feel the same, he was almost sure of it.

He fell asleep praying for God's mercy to find some way through the multitude of hurdles that kept them apart.

B
y Tuesday, Nora felt time had crawled to a halt. She was grateful to have the task of doll-making, for the days seemed to lumber by, mocking her impatience. A struggle raged inside her: she needed time to assemble the dolls well, but she couldn't get to Grace House fast enough. Nora knew the flowers were a gift from Quinn, even if her mother persisted in her belief that Major Simon left them as a token of his coveted esteem. It seemed an act of God's kindness that Albert's schedule kept him from a visit—Nora wasn't at all sure what she would do when she faced him again. She had no idea how to handle his advances when she felt such an impossible and unlikely longing for Quinn Freeman.

And she did long for him. By the time she finally sat beside Reverend Bauers on his cart as it wound through the city, it had grown close to the desperate craving that Annette described in her diary—a nonstop fixation. But then again, it seemed entirely different. Annette talked of Eric's physical characteristics, things he did that made her feel special. Nora did find Quinn exceedingly handsome, but her attraction to him ran far deeper
than that. It was his character, more than his eyes, that stole her breath. His thoughts, how he saw the world, how tenderly he treated Sam or Edwina. Certainly his eyes were capable of taking her breath away—even from a distance, as they often did—but it was the soul she glimpsed behind the eyes that captured her heart. He
had
captured her heart. No matter how appropriate her parents found Major Simon, Nora's heart was no longer hers to give. Marriages for love did happen, but rarely. Did every woman let go of her heart in order to marry a suitable husband? It just seemed so wrong—so far from what God surely meant for His Holy Sacrament of Marriage.

“I need your help with a most peculiar problem,” Reverend Bauers remarked jovially as they turned the corner toward Grace House. “What should I do about the persistent man pacing in my study? He's been hounding me daily regarding a certain woman. Miserable that Tuesday has taken so long in coming. I'm besieged.”

“How unfortunate,” she teased in return, delighted to know Quinn found the gap between this meeting and their last as unbearable as she had. “Tell me, Reverend, do you believe them well-suited for each other?”

“Oh, aye, I do indeed. It's true, they are worlds apart in life, but a perfect pair in spirit. Were they any other pair, I would count the obstacles between them as insurmountable.”

Insurmountable. It was the perfect word for the sadness that overtook Nora at times when she thought of Quinn. It did seem as if the social chasm between them loomed insurmountable.
Were they any other pair
…She loved how Reverend Bauers had phrased it. “So, you do hold out hope for their prospects, then?”

“Oh, my dear, there is always cause for hope. Hope can accomplish the most amazing things.” The reverend turned to look at her for the first time in their journey, and the knowledge in his eyes sparkled deep in her chest. “Yes,” he said, at what must have been her desperate expression. “I am on your side, Nora. And his.”

She wanted to wrap her arms around his shoulders and plant an affectionate kiss on his round cheek. “Reverend,” she said, gazing into his amused eyes, “what are we to do?”

“Beyond prayer?”

“Yes, Reverend. Beyond prayer. I have prayed until my soul hurts and still feel like a storm surrounds me at every turn. It feels as if everything is against us. So if you have encouragement for me, I'd very much like to hear it.”

“You have great reason to be encouraged, my dear. You have the heart of a relentless man of astounding character. Quinn will find a way. He found a way for you to meet today and will continue to vault over every hurdle between you, if I know him.” A twinkle lit the old man's eye. “He simply can't bear to be separated from you, and as you know, your Quinn is not the most patient of men.” He leaned in. “But you must take care, too. You will not be able to hide this for long, and I fear your own challenges once your family finds out. Society has some walls even an earthquake can't tear down.”

Your Quinn.
No, she wouldn't be able to hide this for long. His name hummed in her chest, and her hands tightened around the bouquet she seemed unable to put down since this morning. “He did arrange this, didn't he?”

“Of course he did.” The old man laughed as if it were obvious. “And he tried mightily to convince me to fetch you yesterday—and the day before that. I was hard-pressed to get him to see reason and be patient. Even so, he has been at Grace House since sunrise, and I fear he won't last the day if we tarry much longer.” His face grew more serious. “I'll be honest, my dear. I fear the strength of his affections may drive him to act unwisely. The two of you face so many challenges.” He directed the cart around a corner, clucking his tongue as if he'd been negotiating rubble-filled street all his life. She wondered if it was age or faith that enabled him to face all that chaos with such calm. “Major Simon, among other things.”

“Major Simon,” Nora repeated, trying not to let her heart sink. “You know about him?”

“Albert Simon is an ambitious man. When he knows what he wants, he gathers every ally he can find to get it. Yes, he has asked me to speak to your father on his behalf. He is most taken with you. And I don't have to tell you Quinn is most disturbed by the rival.” He leveled his dark brown eyes at Nora. “Should he be?”

She supposed a more sensible woman would have considered the situation carefully. As it was, “Not at all,” came gushing out of her as if she were a schoolgirl. She felt her cheeks redden and cast her gaze down into the now-wilting flowers. She should have pressed them, but she couldn't bear not to have them near.

“Tell him so. You have much to say to each other.” He winked. “But I believe he needs to hear that most of all.”

Nora leaned over and gave Reverend Bauers a kiss on his cheek. “You are a dear, dear man, Reverend.”

“Nonsense,” he said, his smile warm and broad. “I am an idiot who doesn't know when to stop tilting at windmills. It is a good thing God suffers fools gladly, don't you think?”

“You are no fool,” she said, wanting to get out of the cart and run the last few blocks while at the same time needing a host of hours to calm her nerves. “You are a very wise man.”

“Remember that when we are all knee-deep in trouble.”

 

Quinn looked at his reflection in the small, round mirror above the fireplace in Reverend Bauers's study. He wished mightily for a better shirt, for an unmended pair of pants. He looked at his bruised fingers, the ones that flexed so easily around the Bandit's sword, and willed himself to have Matthew Covington's elegance. That man was dashing and well-spoken. He? He felt like a joke of God's purpose, a fluke born of disaster and circumstance. More than anything at this moment, he wanted to feel worthy of Nora Longstreet.

It was, as Reverend Bauers was fond of saying, a God-sized wish. He heard the cart coming up the alley, and shut his eyes for a moment, drawing in a deep breath to slow down the cannon fire going off in his chest. He could have been sixteen instead of twenty-six the way his pulse was thundering. He was going to see Nora, alone. Not glancing over his shoulder or hers, but saying freely the things that had hung in the air unsaid between them. How he felt.

Hearing her say—and, mercy, he didn't know what he would do if he didn't hear her say—that she felt the same way about him.

The creak of the back kitchen door sounded her arrival, and Quinn dashed to the kitchen. She was looking down as she stepped through the door, her hat hiding her face, but when she met his eyes, a glow flooded his chest and banished every hint of worry. He understood now why men conquered the world for love. He remembered thinking Matthew Covington had gone mad when he watched that heroic man go completely foolish around Georgia Waterhouse. Back then, at his tender years, he'd thought Covington a fool. He didn't think so now. Had she asked him, in that moment, to lasso the moon, he would have said yes without thought or doubt.

“And hello to you, too, Quinn,” the reverend said, having a grand time with Quinn's current speechless state. “Glory, it is worse than I thought. Why don't we all sit a moment and have a cup of tea. I'm sure cook has made some, and if not, I do remember how myself.”

“I'm not thirsty,” Quinn said, not taking his eyes off Nora.

“Perhaps Miss Longstreet…”

“Not at all, Reverend.” After a dumbstruck second, she blinked and added, “Thank you.”

Her eyes said everything he needed to know. He longed to sweep her into his arms that very second and defy the world to ever part them again.

Reverend Bauers stepped into his sight, mock sternness on his amused face. “I was thinking about how very nice it would be for Miss Longstreet to see the volume of Shakespeare sonnets Mr. Covington sent over earlier this year. The binding is exquisite.” Quinn stared for a blank second. Reverend Bauers's foot gently tapped Quinn's boot. “Get out of the kitchen before you make a fool of yourself, man,” he said in low tones. Raising a
conspiratorial eyebrow, he returned his voice to a more public volume. “I simply haven't the time to show it to her properly. Do you think you could manage?”

“I'm sure I could, Reverend.” With a grin he had no hopes of hiding, Quinn extended an elbow to Nora. “Reverend Bauers's study is just down the hall.” As he turned to leave the kitchen, feeling the rush of having Nora's arm on his elbow, he caught sight of Reverend Bauers holding up ten fingers and mouthing the words “ten minutes.”

Not likely. There'd be no rushing this moment, not for all the danger in California. Quinn forced his feet to move through the hallway at a casual pace, as if he were about to show Nora Longstreet the most mundane object in all the world.

Instead of showing her his heart.

 

Nora had thousands of thoughts tumbling through her head, feeling half her age and almost weightless as they walked down the hall. “You're hurt,” she remarked, noticing new bandages on his left hand, just as the right hand's wounds were healing. “How hard you must work to always be nursing wounds.”

Quinn opened the study door. “Many are hurt worse.”

After a quick glance up and down the hallway, Quinn closed the study door behind them. It wasn't as if Nora hadn't been unchaperoned with a man before—she'd been ostensibly alone with Major Simon just days before—but Nora's heart was pounding so hard she fought against the urge to put her hand to her chest.

Her chest, where her locket lay. The locket housing the tiny buds Quinn had given her. Her hand found its
way to the locket anyway, and she felt Quinn's eyes on her hand. On his gift. “Where is this book?” she managed to choke out.

Quinn's eyes glowed. “There is no book.”

“So, I've been tricked?”

“I hope not.” He looked at her, a long, unguarded gaze that sent her pulse skipping. “Have I?”

“I don't think so.” Surely, the air had been cooler in the kitchen. “Those flowers, they were…”

“…From me,” he finished for her, taking one step toward her. She'd known it all along, of course, but it felt so different to hear him claim them out loud. “I knew you'd recognize them.” He took another step toward her. “I'm done hiding it, Nora. I don't want to talk around it or pretend it's not there or pretend I don't think about you all the time or want to show you every pretty thing I come across. There's so much awfulness around right now not to…” He flushed, as if he hadn't meant to be so forward.

Nora felt for the chair back behind her, suddenly needing something solid to hold on to. “Not to what?” She wasn't even sure she'd managed to say it out loud. His straw-colored hair refused to stay the way he'd combed it. He was standing close enough to her that she could smell the soap he'd used.

“Not to grab at the one thing, the one amazing thing that's come out of it.” His face broke into that deep-down confident smile of his, a “count on it” quality that made her believe they could do anything if they were together. “It is amazing, isn't it?”

For a second, propriety made her consider denying it, but it would be useless. Even if she told him there was nothing between them, Nora was sure her
eyes and her very breathlessness would give her away. “Surprising.”

“Don't you think there's something planned here? I found your locket, I found you, all the ways you've helped?” He paused slightly before adding, “All the ways you've cared?”

He was right. It was as if forces had been pulling them together since that horrible morning. As if God had handed her some glimpse of dawn after so much darkness. Now, looking at the blaze in his eyes, it seemed completely useless to fight against it for a moment longer. And she didn't want to fight it. She wanted to be with him, to spend time with him, to share in the things he did and the thoughts he had. A determination—a defiance, even—sprung up where all the denial had been. “Yes,” she said, a surprising strength in her voice. “Yes, Quinn, I'm sure I…”

She was going to finish that thought. Just as soon as she remembered what it was. At the moment, the look in Quinn's eyes sent every shred of logic packing. His smile broadened. He closed the distance between them and put his hand to her cheek. His hand was warm and rough and exquisitely gentle. Nora thought the room would dissolve away to nothing around her, felt as if the floor would give way and the walls would fall over. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to memorize every detail of his touch, sure this stolen moment would be the only one they had. Life was too sensible to allow something like this to endure. This was fantasy and folly and…and she'd fight to keep it with everything in her power. “I'm sure,” she said again, whispering it this time as she opened her eyes to see him gazing at her.
She brought her hand up to rest atop his, desperate to hold on to him as he touched her face.