Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles] (33 page)

He was saying
no.
She nodded.

“So … I need to go.” He smiled. “For now.”

“Good evening, then,” she croaked and headed for the house, feeling foolish. Embarrassed. Like a child who’d reached for something and had her hand slapped. She hurried inside. But she couldn’t keep herself from walking to the front of the house and watching him retreat toward town through the parlor window.

Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another.
1 P
ETER
3:8

H
e didn’t look back, even though he wanted to. Was she watching him ride away? Did she understand?
Please, Lord. Let her understand. I couldn’t just come out and say it.
A man didn’t blurt out his feelings to a widow of only a few months. But a man couldn’t just stand a few feet away from a beautiful woman and let her cry without doing anything, either. At least he couldn’t.

Did Juliana realize how close she’d been to getting herself kissed out at the house when she spun around and looked up at him? Did she have any idea what it did to him just now to have her look up at him in the fading light with sadness looming in those dark eyes? The power of the emotion that had roiled through him just now almost scared him. And recognizing it for what it was changed everything.

As he dismounted at the livery and went through the motions of unsaddling Baron and rubbing him down, Cass gave himself a good talking-to. It was true that his heartbeat ratcheted up a notch every time he saw Tecumseh loping across the prairie toward Friendship Home. More than once, he’d fabricated a reason to stop at the house to update Juliana or to ask a question he already knew the answer to. But it was also true that he and Juliana Sutton were worlds apart. Even if there was something between them beyond—even if there was, it couldn’t happen right now. Juliana needed time, and he would be well served to remember that and to get on about the business of finishing Friendship Home and starting the next project.

The next project.
What would it be? He and Finney had responded to a number of inquiries and put some bids out. A few decisions were also pending on bids the boss had handled before his death. Now that Cass thought about it, he should be giving more attention to the future of Sutton Builders and less to pondering sad brown eyes. Bids on new projects and visiting sites for new construction and poring over plans with potential customers wouldn’t keep him awake at night. At least not in the same way thinking about Juliana did.

He thought his way back through what seemed to be her new vulnerability today. Why today? Maybe she’d spent more time with him since the aunts had gone on their summer retreat because she was unexpectedly lonely. She might have been surprised by new waves of memory and grief. Without the distraction of committee meetings and company, she was more vulnerable. All of that was very normal, and he shouldn’t read more into what had just happened than that. He’d been a friend in a time when she needed a friend.

All the way home from the livery, Cass turned things over in his mind, and by the time he got home, he was thinking straight again. He would forget the warmth of her body leaning back against him. He would not dwell on the sweet scent of her clean hair or the fact that she’d asked him to call her Juliana. It would be one of the more difficult things he’d done in a while, but with God’s help …
Please, Lord. Show me the way through this.

Finally home, Cass made his way around the side of the house and to the backyard. He set his hat on the porch, then went to the pump and, ducking his head beneath the spigot, doused himself with cold water. He took a kerchief out of his pocket, soaked it, tied it around his neck, and headed inside. Not thinking about Juliana.

Sadie called out, even before he had closed the back door. “Don’t believe I know you. You sure you got the right house?” When he didn’t answer, but only bent to kiss Ma on the cheek and head into his room, Sadie called after him. “I remember now. I think we’re related.” She grinned. “That highfalutin boss lady didn’t fire ya, did she? You look like you just lost your best friend.”

Highfalutin? Juliana isn’t anything of the kind.
“She doesn’t like being called ‘the boss,’” he snapped. Snatching at the curtain across his bedroom door, he stepped inside. And of course, the first thing he noticed was the Bible on his night table.
Good work, Gregory. You ask God for help, and not a minute later you’re lashing out at Sadie.
His anger dissolved just as quickly as it had flared up. With a sigh, he took his hat off and tossed it across the room, intending for it to land on his bed. It tumbled across the blanket and landed on the floor out of sight.

He turned around and stepped back out into the living area. Sadie was at the table, her head down, scratching Patch behind the ears.

“I’m sorry,” Cass said. “I don’t know what got into me.”

Sadie shrugged. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t always be so full of sass.” She sniffed and swiped at a tear.

“Please forgive me. You did nothing wrong. It’s just this heat and—” He shook his head.

“‘Course I forgive you. Whatever it is, though, I hope it gets mended.”

He shrugged.
Not likely.
How could he stop thinking about Juliana when he had to see her several times a week? He avoided looking at Ma as he reached over and ran his palm across Patch’s smooth coat. “I think I’m going to spend some time in my room. The heat’s wrung me out. If I don’t come to the table for supper, don’t worry about me. I’m not really hungry, anyway.”

Back on the other side of the curtain, he retrieved his hat from the floor and set it on the chair in the corner. Next, he raised the windows as far as they would go. Finally, he took his shirt off and sprawled across the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Not thinking about Juliana.

God, I’m gonna need some help here.

Jenny
Monday, August 20

It was getting harder to hide it. She hadn’t really felt all that good since she came to Mrs. Crutchfield’s, so the fact that she wasn’t eating much didn’t draw attention. Still, there were pains that Jenny didn’t think were right. Sometimes they knocked the air right out of her. The heat wasn’t helping. It made the babies fuss. Made them harder to take care of.

Johnny and little Huldah had raw bottoms. Dr. Gilbert said it was a heat rash. He had some ointment for it, but he said the best thing to do was to let them go without diapers, and that just wasn’t possible.

Mrs. Crutchfield said that if Jenny would only train the babies, they wouldn’t need diapers. That would save on laundry, too, and why didn’t she just do that? Well, she just didn’t have the energy. That’s why.

Mrs. Duncan hadn’t been by for a while. She’d gone off on a train excursion to the West Coast with her husband. Jenny wished that she could go somewhere. Anywhere. But of course her chance for that was past. Even if she were rich, she wouldn’t be able to do it now. Not the way she felt. Not even with a full-time nurse for Johnny and a maid.

Her dresses had been so loose when she first came that it was easy to hide things, but as her body changed it was beginning to look like she had a rubber ball under her skin in front. Almost like a deformity. She supposed that was because she was thin. Maybe that was why the pains came, too. It wasn’t going to be possible to hide it from Dr. Gilbert anymore. Of course he had to take care of her and be nice. But Mrs. Duncan was another matter entirely.

Jenny dreaded the next time Mrs. Duncan came to visit.

Just when Juliana thought that she had a friend in Cass Gregory, just when she’d asked him to call her Juliana, things changed. He stopped dropping by the house to tell her about the progress out at Friendship Home. She reminded herself that the summer heat would naturally make a working man eager to get home. She remembered what that had been like when Sterling was building his business. He used to come home on hot summer days and stick his head beneath the pump head and ask her to “soak me good” with cold well water. She couldn’t fault Cass for not wanting to stop by her house as often.

But that didn’t explain why he kept his distance at church. And it didn’t explain the emphasis he seemed to put on calling her “Mrs. Sutton.” She’d thought the two of them were past all of that awkwardness. She’d thought maybe … But apparently, she’d been wrong. Thankfully, with the planning for St. John’s Founders’ Day picnic, Juliana managed to stay busy. She began heading north to the cemetery when she went for a ride instead of south to Friendship Home.

Returned from her excursion west with her husband, Helen Duncan initiated more committee meetings. She seemed to have a renewed fervor when it came to providing for single women who found themselves “compromised” and took a new interest in the details of finishing Friendship Home, voicing a particularly strong opinion when it came to selecting which rooms would be available for single mothers. Helen wanted the former master suite with the private upstairs porch for them. And the rooms should be cheerful. She suggested yellow walls and white iron bedsteads. She brought in fabric swatches and wondered if the ladies might eventually make patchwork quilts “to give the rooms a homey feel.”

Juliana decided that whatever had happened between the Duncans on their trip west, it had been very good for Helen. She offered her parlor for more quiltings and welcomed the opportunity to be drawn back into activities that kept her mind off pointless musings as to the nature of her friendship with Cass Gregory.

Still, at times, when she sat at her dressing table brushing her hair or when she reached past the white lawn waist in her wardrobe to retrieve something black, she thought back to that day when he’d held her, when he’d said “Juliana” in a way that seemed almost tender. Thinking on it caused a curious kind of longing to rise up alongside a deepening sense of what she’d lost and a helpless regret over the idea that what Sterling had done could never be made right. She couldn’t confront it, because he was gone. If she forgave him, he would never know. She wanted him to know. To know that she had discovered his betrayal. And if she ever could forgive him, she wanted him to know that, too. It seemed important, although she didn’t quite know why.

Sometimes when she thought back to those first hours when she’d truly thought about strangling him with that locket chain, those first days when she’d wanted to dump his clothing into the burning pit, she was grateful for the anger that had helped her survive. But that emotion had begun to mellow. Now when she thought about it all, more often than not she found herself wondering about that girl and the child and hoping they were all right.

Things were changing as blessedly cool, fall air floated in Juliana’s windows at night to caress her skin. She was changing. And the words
Mrs. Sutton, ma’am
were beginning to grate on her nerves.

Juliana and the committee’s efforts at staffing the Friendship Home took on new importance in the month of October. The committee had planned a celebratory open house for the weekend before Thanksgiving, and the ladies agreed that it was vital for the new matron to be in attendance at that event. The problem was, applicant after applicant for the position failed to impress.