thirteen

The moment Ben’s lips touched Sam’s, he knew he shouldn’t have kissed her. Brief though the kiss was, he’d never forget the sweet warmth of her lips, and once would never be enough.

He wanted to talk long into the night, try his best to convince her to marry him, and kiss her again, but she looked so totally exhausted that he knew what she needed most was rest. They walked around back again, and he saw her inside the boardinghouse.

“Sleep well, Sam. Try not to worry. We’re not going to let him ruin your life or ours.”

“I’m not sure we can stop him, Ben. But thank you for being here for me, for coming in tonight.”

“There is no place I’d rather be.” And he meant it. He loved farming but not more than he loved this woman. He’d do anything he could to make her see they could have a good life together, that the Lord had brought them together for more reasons than just him keeping her from running back into that tent. “See you in the morning.”

“All right.”

“I trust that you’ll be here.”

“I promised. I will be.”

“Sleep well, Sam.”

“You, too.”

Ben made sure she closed the door behind her and then forced himself to turn away and head across the yard. All the way, he prayed. Dear Lord, please be with Sam tonight. Please give her peace and let her realize You are in control. Please give her comfort for the pain this man has caused her and help me to persuade her not to leave, not to let him have any control over her at all. Please help me to find a way to convince her of our need for her to stay here where she means so much to me and my family.

Somehow Ben wasn’t surprised to see his son waiting up for him when he opened the door to the apartment. Matt was drinking some hot chocolate that Faith had taught him to make in the same way Ben had taught her.

“There’s more in the pan over on the stove, Papa. Want me to get you a cup?”

“I can get it, son. Thanks.” Ben poured himself a cup and joined Matt at the table in front of the window. He could see no light in Samantha’s room and wondered if she’d made herself a warm drink or if she’d run into Faith and Gabe. He took a sip of the sweet, warm drink. “You did good, Matt. This is real tasty.”

“Thank you. Can you tell me what’s going on, Papa?” Matt got right to the point. “Aunt Faith told me and Hope that she sent Uncle Gabe after you, that Miss Samantha needed you here. What’s wrong? And why does Miss Samantha look so sad? She was fine this morning, but when school got out. . .well, she looked like she was about to cry even though she tried to act like everything was all right. But Hope and I knew something was wrong.”

Ben needed no more proof that his children were maturing. If these rumors about Sam spread as fast as she seemed to think they might, he wouldn’t be able to keep them from hearing about them. It would be much better coming from him.

“Well, son, we found out why Miss Samantha left Kansas to come here, and it’s not a pretty story. But you and Hope are old enough to know what happened. That way, if you hear something, you can defend Sam more easily.”

“What happened?”

“For starters, you know Samantha taught school up there, right?”

“Yes, sir. And she’s a great teacher, too.”

Ben nodded. He had no doubt about that. “Well, she had a principal who. . . ” This wasn’t going to be easy. He and Matt had talked about how to treat women, but—

“Who what, Papa?”

“He tried to get her to. . .become his mistress and threatened to ruin her name if she didn’t. You know what her answer was. She resigned and left the state. But he meant what he’d said, and the lies have followed her here. He’s saying she tried to seduce him.”

Matt had just taken a sip of hot chocolate and spewed it all over the table. Ben quickly got a damp rag and wiped it up. Then he sat back down and continued. “The mother of a new student evidently believed the lies and told the principal here when they took her son to Samantha’s class to introduce him as a new student. At the end of it all, rather than wait to be fired as Sam figured she would be, she gave her resignation.”

“Oh, but she can’t do that, Papa! She’s a wonderful teacher, and she can’t let lies—”

“I know, Matt. We’ve told her that. But she’s afraid that they’ll hurt all of us, and she thinks she has to move away to keep that from happening.”

“Papa, you can’t let her do that!”

“I know. I’ve asked her to stay here and marry me, but—”

“You did?” A grin split Matt’s face before it turned to a frown. “And she said no?”

Ben shook his head. That gave him his biggest hope. She hadn’t given him an outright no. “We’ve both agreed to think on it and pray on it. But at least she promised not to leave town until we talk about it again.”

“Why do you think she didn’t say yes right off? I’m sure she loves you, Papa. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Nothing his son could have said would have meant more to him at that moment. “I hope you are right, Matt. But again, I think she’s putting us all first. She is afraid the rumors and lies will hurt us.”

“They can’t hurt us more than they’ve hurt her.”

“I know that. It’s convincing her that’s the hard part.”

“Maybe you ought to have Uncle Gabe talk to her. Remember how he was afraid that his being in jail for a crime he didn’t commit would hurt Aunt Faith and any children they might have?”

Ben sat back in his chair and grinned at his son. “When did you get to be so smart, son?”

“I must take after you, Papa.” Matt grinned back.

Ben chuckled. He was pretty sure his son was smarter. “Having your uncle talk to her is a great idea, son. I think I’ll talk to Gabe about that. I may have to enlist the whole family’s help to convince her she can’t leave before all is said and done.”

“You won’t have to do any arm-twisting. We all want you and Miss Samantha to get together.”

“Hope, too?”

“Yes. We’ve talked about it a lot.”

His children never ceased to surprise him. They wanted him to marry again, wanted him to have someone to love. His heart swelled with love for them. “I think that might be something else she worries about. Being a stepmother and all.”

“Well, she’d have nothing to worry about from us. We love her.”

Ben swallowed hard. So did he. “I’ll be calling on the two of you for help in the next few days, I’m sure.”

“Anytime, Papa. Anytime.”

Ben looked over across the way to see the light in Samantha’s room was on. After talking to his son, Ben was sure he’d sleep better. He prayed that Samantha would sleep well, too. It was going to be all right. He would put his trust in the Lord and count on Him and the family he’d been blessed with to make it so.

❧

Samantha thought Faith and Gabe had gone to bed when she came back inside, but as soon as she locked the back door and turned around, it was to find them at the kitchen table as if they were waiting for her. “Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you’d already retired for the evening.”

Gabe chuckled. “We were waiting up for you.”

“We wanted to make sure you are all right before we went to bed.”

Tears gathered in Samantha’s eyes once more at the love these people showed her. “I’ll be all right. But I hate for any of this to touch you—you’ve all been so good to me.”

“Please, come sit with us, Samantha,” Faith said. “I have a pot of hot chocolate. Would you like some? It might help you sleep better.” She jumped up to pour a cup before Samantha answered.

“That would be nice. Thank you, Faith.” Samantha took a seat at the table. The aroma from the cup Faith handed her took her back to her childhood when her mother would make hot chocolate whenever she was feeling blue. She closed her eyes and took a sip. “Mmm. This is wonderful.”

“I know it’s the wrong time of year for it, but I love it anytime. It’s a—”

“Drink of comfort.”

“Yes. I hope so, anyway. We’re so sorry about the day you’ve had and—”

“Thank you for believing me, for trying to help and for sending for Ben. I still think I should leave, but I’ve promised him I won’t do anything until we talk again.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

“I don’t want all of this to hurt any of you.”

“Samantha, you are the one who’s been hurt. We’re sitting here wanting to make things right for you, and you’re worried about bringing trouble to us,” Gabe said. He and Faith exchanged a look, and his wife gave a slight nod.

“You know, you aren’t the only one who has something in their past they’d rather not think about again. Some-thing they’d rather the whole town not know about,” Gabe said.

A shadow of sadness passed over his eyes as he stopped to take a sip of hot chocolate. But then he looked at Faith and smiled, and Samantha could almost feel the love arcing between them. He took his wife’s hand and turned his attention back to Samantha.

“I was engaged before. Several years ago, my fiancée begged me to sell out and go back to Virginia, but I wanted to hold on. Then when she was in town one day, a bank robber shot and killed her.” He paused and took a sip from his cup, then cleared his throat. “After that, all that mattered to me was finding the man who shot her. For a year, I hunted him down. Going from lead to lead and town to town.”

Samantha’s heart went out to him at the loss of his fiancée and the misery that must have followed as he sought to avenge her death. She swallowed around the lump in her throat as she saw the tears that shimmered in Faith’s eyes as she heard her husband recount those years before they met.

“When I caught up with him, all I wanted was to take him in, but the man shot at me, and”—Gabe let out a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose—“I shot back, wounding him but not killing him. I took him in, but that wasn’t the end of it. He claimed to be innocent, and we were both put in jail until the sheriff could get to the truth. I was there several months until a trial proved that the man was the robber and my fiancée’s assassin. I was never so glad to get out of Kansas in my life.”

“And then we met,” Faith said. “After my husband died, I believed I’d never be able to have children and had decided never to marry again. And Gabe was— ”

“I was afraid that my past would come back to haunt me and anyone I might love, especially any children I might have one day.”

Faith smiled and wrapped her arms around her middle. “I suppose we’ll find out about all that later. But what we’ve decided to do is face it head-on. Tell this child and any others we might have about it. After all, Gabe only shot the man in self-defense. But if they know about it and some-one brings it all up later, it won’t have the power to hurt them like it would if we tried to keep everything a secret.”

They were absolutely right. Samantha knew they were. And what Gabe had gone through was heartbreaking and in so many ways much worse than what she was dealing with. Still, the other man had killed his fiancée, and no one was going to blame Gabe for trying to find him.

Even though it was worse, it still wasn’t quite like a woman’s reputation being sullied. That kind of rumor would have people always wondering if it was true. And it was her word against Jennings’s. Some people believed his lies without even asking her if they were true. But it couldn’t have been easy for Gabe and Faith to go over all their heartaches again for her sake. “Thank you for sharing your past with me, both of you. I am so happy you two found each other.”

“You can have the same kind of life, Samantha. Please, think it over and pray about it. We don’t want you to go.”

“And I don’t want to leave. But I’m not sure I can stay. . . .” How did she say that she didn’t want Ben to marry her just to save her again? She wanted his love. “But I did promise Ben, and I promise you, that I won’t be going anywhere until we talk again.”

“Then that will be good enough for us,” Gabe said.

Samantha hoped so. Because it was all she could give at the moment. “I think I’ll turn in now, but I’ll see you both in the morning.” She didn’t want them worrying that she would leave in the middle of the night.

“See you then. I hope you rest well,” Faith said.

“Thank you both again for sharing something that I know wasn’t easy for you.”

Gabe smiled. “It’ll be worth it if you decide to stay.”

Samantha smiled and headed upstairs. What a blessing to have people in her life who cared so much about her. How could she bring trouble to them? Yet how could she bear to leave? She was glad it was quiet upstairs. She didn’t think she could talk to anyone else tonight, and she couldn’t wait to crawl beneath the covers and sink into her bed.

Revived a bit by the time she readied herself for bed, she looked out her window at the apartment across the way. Lights were still on, and she could see Ben and Matt at the kitchen table. Oh, how she loved that man. She wanted nothing more than to tell him she would marry him, but she had much more to think about than simply what she wanted.

He had two wonderful children to consider. She didn’t want to bring them any embarrassment. And as for Ben, she had no doubt he’d defend her honor until the day she died, but was she what he needed? How could she bring honor to his name with rumors swirling about them at any time? She turned away from the window and went to turn her bed down. Then she slid to her knees and prayed.

“Dear Father, please help me to know what I should do,” she whispered. “Please help me to do what is best for Ben and his children, for Faith and Gabe. I don’t want to bring any embarrassment or sorrow of any kind to them. And I don’t want to leave them. I love them all. Please help me to know what to do. And if it is to stay, then please help me to be strong enough to withstand the rumors around town, the looks and the whispers behind my back that I’m sure to encounter. Thank You for these people You’ve placed into my life. Help me to do what is right for them. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.”

A lone tear slipped down her cheek as she finished her prayer, pushed herself up, and slipped beneath her covers. But for the first time since that afternoon, she felt at peace, knowing that the Lord would guide her. In His time.