Twice Blessed Page 2

  His brows arched. “Strong charge, Mr. Sawyer.”

  “Only the truth. That boy stole the hammer and nails from my wagon over there.” He pointed to a dilapidated buckboard in front of the store.

  The sheriff looked at the boy. “Is that true?”

  “I didn’t really steal them.” He shuffled his toe again in the dusty road. “I was just looking ’round. I wanted to see what this place was like. We went through lots of towns on the train, and I wanted to see one up close. So I was looking ’round. Then he came up and I got scared and I ran and he chased me and—”

  “I think I’ve got a good idea of what happened.” Lewis smiled when he turned back to Mr. Sawyer. That smile wavered when Mr. Sawyer continued to scowl. “Sounds like it was just a boy’s curiosity, sir.”

  “Sounds like he was poking his fingers into things that don’t belong to him,” Mr. Sawyer fired back. “There’s a big difference between looking and helping yourself.”

  “True, and I’m sure the boy knows the difference.” He gave Sean another small shake. “Tell the man you do, son.”

  “Do know that, sir,” he said, not looking up.

  “Now that you’ve been caught?” Mr. Sawyer asked.

  Emma suspected she would regret getting more involved in this, but this commotion had gone on long enough. “May I speak with you a moment, Mr. Sawyer?”

  “Sure.” He spit out the word as if it were strained by clenched teeth.

  She glanced around at the crowd. “Privately?”

  “I haven’t got anything to say that I’m ashamed to have everyone hear.”

  Fire coursed across her cheeks, and she knew she was blushing. His answer suggested she had a reason to guard her words. Another shudder ached in her stiff shoulders as she hoped no one guessed how right he was. This was going all wrong.

  With what dignity she still had, she said quietly, “Mr. Sawyer, he’s just a boy.”

  “A boy who is old enough to know better than to try to help himself to tools that don’t belong to him.”

  She took his sleeve and drew him to the edge of the road. Paying no attention to the shocked expressions around them, she found it more difficult to ignore Noah Sawyer’s frown. His gaze led hers down his arm to her fingers. Abruptly, she was aware of the firm muscles beneath that cotton sleeve. When his hand covered hers, she could not silence her gasp. Something twinkled in his eyes, but vanished as he lifted her fingers away.

  “Miss Delancy, isn’t it?” he asked coolly.

  “Yes.”

  “Miss Delancy, I trust you’ll resist using your feminine wiles to persuade me to change my mind. I assure you you’ll be wasting your time and mine.”

  “Mr. Sawyer,” she said as she clasped her hands tightly and hoped that the fire again burning her cheeks was not coloring them bright red, “I’m asking you to reconsider. Every child makes mistakes now and then.”

  “He made a mistake now. Some of those tools could be very dangerous for a young boy who doesn’t know how to use them properly. That he ran carrying that bag of nails and a hammer warned me he didn’t have respect for the tools. If he’d fallen, he could have injured himself horribly.”

  She faltered on the retort she had been about to snarl back at him. Because he had spoken only of his determination to see the boy punished for daring to steal his tools, she had not guessed he was worried young Sean would get hurt. Maybe Noah Sawyer was not the icy-hearted beast she had labeled him.

  “You should have told me before that you were concerned about the child’s safety,” she said.

  “I didn’t think explaining myself to you was as crucial as stopping the boy before he was hurt, Miss Delancy.” He paused and glanced at the storefront across the street. “Delancy? Like the name on the store?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I own the store.”

  Surprise flashed through his mercurial eyes, and she could not keep from raising her chin. During the past seven years, folks in Haven had gotten accustomed to having a woman running the village’s store. Mr. Sawyer would just have to get used to it, too.

  “Then,” he said calmly, “you must be well aware it’s vitally important that a young thief learns his lesson so he won’t repeat it.”

  “I think the boy has learned his lesson. Heavens above, Mr. Sawyer, he’s a stranger here and just a boy. He was curious, that is all.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but she did not give him the chance.

  “Mr. Sawyer, you must be new in Haven, too.”

  “How do you know?”

  She laughed, then wished she had not when his scowl drew his lips tighter. “If you’re planning to stay around here, you need to learn the folks in Haven trust each other.” She motioned toward the store’s front door. “I haven’t locked up since the first week I came here.”

  “You could be robbed blind.”

  “I could, but I haven’t. The Andersons live right across the road, and they would be certain to send for me if they heard anything amiss.”

  His brown eyes narrowed as he combed his fingers through his russet hair. “You don’t live above the store?”

  “No. Mr. Baker lives up there. That was part of the deal when I bought the store from him. I got it lock, stock, and Mr. Baker. He claims to be half deaf, but he doesn’t, I assure you, miss a thing that happens in the store. No one could sneak in without him hearing.”

  “That protects you—”

  “It protects all of us.” She folded her arms over her blouse, which was probably as dusty as his shirt. “Let me give you some advice, Mr. Sawyer, whether you want it or not. You’re new in town, and this isn’t the best way to make a good impression on your neighbors.”

  “So you think I should just let the kid go without punishment? Is that how you do things here?”

  “He’s far from home, whatever it was, and in trouble. Isn’t that punishment enough?”

  “If someone does something criminal, he should have to pay for it.”

  “Here in Haven, we help each other instead of trying to make trouble for each other.” She faltered, then hurried to say, “Mr. Sawyer, trust me on this.”

  When his eyes widened, she knew her request had startled him. He jammed his fists into the pockets of his denims and nodded with reluctance as he looked back to where Lewis was talking quietly to the boy.

  “It seems,” Mr. Sawyer said, “I’m in the minority on this. All right. I’ll give the kid this one mistake this one time.”

  “That’s all I ask. Simple justice.”

  He laughed tersely. “You’ve got a strange idea of justice, Miss Delancy. A real strange idea. I’d be right interested in knowing why a shopkeeper is so generous with a thief.”

  She knew she should say something, anything, but every word vanished from her head. A single wrong word might reveal what had happened before she fled Kansas.

  When she did not reply, he tipped his hat to her. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Delancy, I think I’ll retrieve my hammer and nails and be on my way.”

  As he walked back to the sheriff, Emma wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly as cold as if a blizzard were sweeping along the street. A panicked laugh tickled her throat. Once she had shared Noah Sawyer’s opinion about those who broke the law. Punishment should be as heinous as the crime.

  That had been before she learned how many victims a crime could truly have.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Emma was not sure why she agreed to walk with Lewis over to the Grange Hall to return the lad to the chaperones who had brought these orphans on the train from the east. Maybe it was as simple as wanting to avoid speaking with Mr. Sawyer again.

  She could understand his irritation at having young Sean O’Dell poking through his tools in the back of his buckboard. That his anger had come first from his fear for the child’s well-being, rather than the theft of his tools, had unsettled her. It had been easy at first to be aggravated at him. When his concern for the boy had proven he was not a cad, she had not had her
anger to keep her from realizing how his eyes suggested he was thinking of things far different from a mischievous lad.

  “Hope he won’t be trouble,” grumbled Lewis.

  “I’m sure he has learned to be more careful,” Emma said, giving Sean a smile.

  The lad looked away, glowering. She had never guessed such a young child could wear such an aged expression.

  “Not the lad. Sawyer.”

  “Why do you think he’ll be trouble?” She wondered what the sheriff had noticed that she might have missed. Had she let Mr. Sawyer’s concern about Sean dupe her as she had vowed never to be duped by a man … again?

  Lewis shrugged. “Just a feeling. He shouldn’t come into town and give orders as if he owns the place.”

  Emma hid her smile as she twisted her hair into a single braid so it did not fly about her face. She should have guessed that Lewis would be annoyed by Mr. Sawyer’s demands. The folks in town closely heeded the sheriff’s counsel and trusted him to keep the peace in any way he deemed necessary. Now Mr. Sawyer had come along and questioned the sheriff’s authority.

  “He was upset,” she said.

  “Why are you defending him? He was angriest at you.” He frowned. “It’s not like you to have your head turned by fancy talk.”

  She laughed as they reached the steps of the Grange building. The clapboards had been recently whitewashed.

  “What’s so funny?” the sheriff asked.

  “Men! You accuse me of letting him wheedle his way around me, and he accused me of trying to wheedle my way around him.” She shook her head. “You’re both completely wrong.”

  “Miss—Emma, I didn’t mean …”

  She patted his arm. “I know.” She paused at the bottom of the quartet of steps that led up to the front door of the Grange. “If you’ve said what you wanted to say, I need to get back to the store. I had customers when I ran out, and the wagon from the station should be delivering supplies soon.”

  “Reverend Faulkner said he wanted to speak with you before you went back to work.”

  “About what?”

  The sheriff shrugged again. “He didn’t say.”

  Emma climbed the steps and went into the Grange. Everyone was acting a bit strange today. Maybe it was spring fever. She hoped so. Spring seemed late this year, for snow had fallen earlier in the week.

  The Grange Hall was extraordinarily warm, so she guessed the stoves had been lit at dawn. She had forgotten the talk about orphans coming to Haven from … where? New York City, someone had told her. That would explain Sean O’Dell’s Irish name and accent.

  Walking across wood floors that Mrs. Parker, the sheriff’s mother, kept brightly polished, Emma guessed every resident of Haven and the outlying farms must be crowded into the room. Most of these people were members of the Grange, but work and the distance into town kept some folks from attending every meeting. She nodded to the people she passed, but looked for Reverend Faulkner.

  Her steps faltered when she saw almost a score of children clumped together at one end of the hall. They stood on the stage. It was a section of the floor that was raised a single step and served as the podium for the Grange leaders during the meeting. Some of the children were staring about in curiosity while others stood with their arms around each other as if they feared they were about to face a hungry lion. Their clothes were obviously new, and she guessed they had been given these outfits when they left New York to wear when they reached the end of their journey. No luggage was to be seen, and she wondered if the children had anything other than the clothes on their backs.

  “Poor dears.” Alice Underhill, the schoolmistress, shook her head in regret. “Abandoned on the streets in New York City, left by parents too drunk to care about them.”

  “Or maybe too sick,” Emma replied. “Those buildings in the city are said to be so close that no air or light can reach the inner rooms.”

  “What is she doing here?” Alice’s tone became venomous, surprising Emma, because her friend usually was pleasant to everyone she met.

  “She who?”

  Alice pointed to a woman who was speaking to a little girl at one edge of the platform. “She is one of those folks.”

  Emma understand instantly. Most of the residents of Haven avoided anyone who called River’s Haven home. The strange community had been forming around the time Emma had arrived here. They had bought a handful of farms on several of the hills overlooking the river and now lived there in a community. Occasionally they came into Haven, and Emma had done business with them, ordering supplies from Chicago or Louisville or Cincinnati. She found them to be quiet and courteous, and they always paid cash for what they ordered.

  She had no problems with them, but she knew others in Haven did. It was whispered throughout the village that the people in River’s Haven had peculiar rules about marriage and raising their children. So many stories flitted about that Emma had stopped listening to them.

  She had to admit the woman talking to the child looked as prim as a puritan with her gown of the same unremitting black as her hair. The two men accompanying her made no motions that suggested the three of them were more than neighbors.

  When she saw a woman she did not know speaking to the trio, she asked, “Who’s that?”

  “Mrs. Barrett from the Children’s Aid Society in New York City,” Alice Underhill replied. “She and her husband oversaw the care of the children during the train ride here. You don’t think she’s considering giving one of these children to those people. Someone should set her to rights right away.”

  Emma pretended not to see the glance the schoolmistress gave her that suggested Alice thought Emma was the perfect one to do that. “Have you seen Reverend Faulkner?” she asked.

  “The reverend! Just the person to speak to Mrs. Barrett to let her know how wrong it would be to place out a child with those people.” Alice scanned the room. “Oh, dear! I know he’s here, but I don’t see him.”

  “He was talking with Judge Purchase when I came in,” Mrs. Parker said as she poked her way into the conversation.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Parker,” Emma said, smiling.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here, Emma.”

  “I walked over here with Lewis,” she replied, noticing how Mrs. Parker’s eyes lit up. The sheriff’s mother had been trying to persuade her son to call on Emma for more than a year. Lewis had once, but they quickly decided it was worthless to try to be more than good friends, especially when he was sweet on Reverend Faulkner’s oldest daughter. “Lewis told me I’d find Reverend Faulkner here.”

  Alice gasped, “What’s the sheriff doing here?”

  “One of the children decided to look around Haven, and Lewis found him before he could get lost.” That was almost the truth. Mrs. Parker was the most prodigious gossip between Cincinnati and Louisville, so the less she knew of Sean O’Dell’s escapades, the easier it would be for the boy to settle here.

  “Dear me. I do hope these orphans aren’t going to upset Haven.” Mrs. Parker rubbed her hands together.

  “I suppose all the ones old enough will be coming to school.” Alice smiled. “That will keep them out of trouble.”

  “They probably won’t be in school until after the planting is done,” Emma replied.

  Alice nodded. “That’s true. They’re here to learn to work hard instead of wasting their lives drinking cheap whiskey. Look, there’s Samuel Jennings. Well, well, I hadn’t thought an orphan train would bring him into town.”

  Emma looked to where a tall man stood off to one side. He was wearing a grim expression that could not detract from his classic features. His clothes, like many people’s in the Grange, shone where hard work had worn them thin.

  “Do you think,” continued Alice, “that he’ll say anything to anyone or just stand there?”

  “He’s shy.”

  “Too shy,” Mrs. Parker said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him speak. I swear he wouldn’t shout fire in a burning building. I w
onder what he wants.”

  “Probably someone to help him on his farm,” she replied as she watched Mr. Jennings walk over to where two children held the hands of a younger child between them.

  Mrs. Parker rolled her eyes. “Don’t wish that on any poor child. It must be as quiet as the grave out there.”

  Emma excused herself. She did not want to listen to more gossip about the people who were generous enough to open their homes to these children who had nothing and nobody. Like the people in the River’s Haven Community, Mr. Jennings was a good customer at the store. She found the man who had a farm just down river from Haven to be quiet and unassuming and always polite.

  Quite the opposite of Noah Sawyer.

  Bother! Why was she even thinking of that boorish man? Yes, he was handsome, but there were other handsome men in Haven, and they had not cluttered her thoughts like this.

  “Emma!”

  She had to fight the yearning to throw her arms around Reverend Faulkner, who had rescued her from her own uneasy thoughts. Hurrying to where he stood at the opposite side of the room from the River’s Haven residents, she said, “Lewis Parker told me you wanted to speak to me.”

  “I most certainly do, but first …” He turned to the tall man standing beside him. It was not, she realized with astonishment, Judge Purchase. This man was much younger than the white-haired judge who presided over any cases heard at the county courthouse since he had taken over from the late Judge McShane. With a smile, Reverend Faulkner introduced the man as Mr. Barrett.

  “It’s a pleasure, Miss Delancy,” said Mr. Barrett, who resembled a cadaver with his gray, sunken cheeks.

  She wondered if he avoided the sunshine. Maybe he lived in one of those horrible tenements in New York City. Affixing a smile of her own, she answered, “The pleasure is mine, sir. I am delighted to meet someone who cares so much for these poor children’s welfare that you have traveled all this way with them.”

  “Reverend Faulkner was telling me how you jumped to the defense of young Sean O’Dell.”

  “He did no harm other than adding a bit of excitement to the afternoon.”