Two

“She’s a beauty, just like her mother.” Silas cradled Miss Dawn Matilda Mackenzie, gazing down into her tiny face. “You’re a blessed man, David.” He only hoped he didn’t drop her or break her.

David eased himself into a chair in the drawing room, his wide smile creating deep creases in his cheeks. “I try to remember that when she wakes the entire household squawking in the middle of the night.” Though blind, he wore a cloak of serenity and satisfaction Silas admired.

David’s wife, Karen, slipped out of her shoes and tucked her feet up under the hem of her dress on the settee, glancing ruefully at Silas. “You don’t mind if I get comfortable? We’ve been friends long enough for a little informality.” She smiled when he shook his head—faint dark smudges hovered under her eyes. Her hand came up to cover a delicate yawn. “It’s been two months since the baby arrived, and I haven’t managed a decent night’s sleep yet.”

Celeste Mackenzie, David and Karen’s adopted daughter, sat primly on a footstool beside David. The child wore a spotless pinafore and shiny boots as black as her hair. Her sky-blue eyes, thick lashed and striking, never left the baby’s face. Most beautiful of all was her smile.

Only a few weeks ago, Celeste’s upper lip had been a ravaged snarl due to a birth defect. Now, after surgery, a thin pink scar showed where repairs had been made. The surgeon had assured her parents the scar should fade in time.

“Are you a big help to your mother?” Silas knew the answer, but he loved to hear Celeste’s voice. For so long she’d hidden her mouth behind a scarf and kept her voice to a whisper, speaking only when she had to in a lisp so mangled only those who knew her well could decipher it.

“I try to help her all I can. And Buckford does, too. If I didn’t have to go to school, I could help more.”

David smiled. “I tried that very argument on mother when Sam was a baby. It didn’t work then either. You’re going to school, young lady. You’re all healed up from surgery, and you start tomorrow.”

“I heard you were going to finish out the spring term here in Martin City.” Silas gingerly shifted the baby so he could pat Celeste on the shoulder. “You don’t need to worry. The teacher is very nice, and you’ll have Phin and Tick there to introduce you around. Your cousins like the school well enough. You’ll soon find yourself with lots of new friends.”

The infant squirmed, squeaked, and shoved her fist into her mouth. Smelling faintly of milk and that special brand-newness that only very young babies have, she snuggled into Silas’s arms. An empty place in the corner of his heart swelled a notch. What would it be like to hold his own child?

Jesse strode into the room, his presence filling every corner. “How’re my best girls?”

Celeste shot off the footstool and ran to him, hugging his waist hard. Jesse put his arm around her shoulders, grinning.

Silas smothered a smile at how Jesse strangled his normally booming voice into a hoarse whisper so as not to scare his granddaughters. “You’d best be careful Matilda doesn’t find out you’ve demoted her in favor of Celeste and the baby.”

Matilda entered the room ahead of the butler with a tray of tea. “It wouldn’t be news. He’s been besotted since the moment grandchildren came into the family. If he isn’t fishing with the boys or teaching them to ride, he’s having a tea party with Celeste.” Warmth shone from her eyes. Though married for thirty years, the Mackenzies displayed a love and affection that didn’t seem to have faded or gone stale.

David rubbed his jaw. “Tell me about it. If he buys one more toy, we won’t be able to get into the nursery. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gone to get the baby from her nap to find Father there ahead of me cooing and babbling and fussing. I had no idea what a mush lived inside the man.”

Jesse grinned, unrepentant.

Matilda poured the tea, placing Silas’s cup at his elbow. She poured a splash of tea into Celeste’s cup and smothered it with a healthy dose of milk, smiling as she gave it to the little girl.

Silas decided to let the tea sit rather than risk trying to drink while holding the baby. “Thank you for inviting me today. Sharing a fine meal with friends would be enough of an inducement, but couple that with a chance to see this new little sweetheart”—Silas bent his head—“and I was all too eager to accept.”

“Mrs. Drabble wasn’t pleased you’d escaped her hospitality again.” Matilda sipped her tea.

Silas sighed and squelched the first thought that leaped to his tongue, since while truthful, it wasn’t edifying in the least. “I’ll call on her sometime this week to make amends. I’ve had conflicts of schedule every time she’s extended an invitation lately.”

“Lots going on in town this spring. Yesterday I noticed they were putting up some posters in front of the new theater.” Karen leaned back into the sofa and closed her eyes. “David, don’t forget about the tickets.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” David patted her leg. “Silas, I’ve acquired a box at the theater for the Friday after next. Not for opening night, I’m afraid, since I have to head to Denver and won’t be back in time. Mother and Father and Sam and Ellie will be joining Karen and me, and we hoped you’d be able to come, too.”

“I’d like that very much.” Pleasure warmed him at being included. Though sometimes he kicked against the demands of his job encroaching on his personal time, he had to admit evenings at home with only the cat to talk to weren’t all that stimulating. A chance to spend an evening in good company watching an excellent play. . .something to anticipate.

“Good.” David yawned, apologized, and yawned again.

Dawn squirmed and snuffled, and Jesse leaped out of his chair. “I’ll take her upstairs to the nursery. C’mon, Celeste, you can help me.” He scooped the baby up and strode toward the staircase, Celeste trotting at his side.

Matilda shook her head. “He’s just looking for an excuse to rock her and spoil her some more. I’m going to have a hard time keeping him from invading Denver every week or so to check on her when you go home this summer.”

Silas chuckled. Sipping his tea, he glanced at David and Karen on the settee, both with eyes closed. “I think we’ve lost them to sleep. I’d best be taking my leave, Matilda. Thank you for an excellent meal, and I look forward to the play.”

She took his cup and stood. “Do you want me to send around for the carriage to take you home?”

“No, I think I’ll walk. Some fresh air and exercise are just what I need.”

Striding along the road a short time later, he tried to thrust aside the feelings of discontent and longing nibbling at his heart. Over the past several months, he’d been aware of a growing sense of something missing from his life, of a void wanting to be filled. Being with the Mackenzies both alleviated and accentuated the sensation. It was impossible to be lonely while in their company, and yet the closeness shared by Jesse and Matilda, David and Karen, especially with the addition of that new baby, made him aware of his solitary existence in a new way.

Stripping off his tie, he thrust it into his pocket and shrugged out of his suit coat. Still feeling confined, he unbuttoned his vest and left it open and loosened the top couple of buttons at his collar. When he got home, he’d get out of this starched shirt and into his favorite plaid flannel, a relic from his seminary days when he’d worked on the docks in Upper Sandusky to put himself through school.

An unseasonably warm breeze scudded along the road, kicking up puffs of dust, and to his left, Martin Creek burbled and chuckled, throwing back sparkles and reflections that illuminated the undersides of the trees hanging over the water. The beauty of God’s creation moved him to a prayer he often uttered.

Lord, thank You for the people of my flock. Please help me to lead them to know You better and to seek Your will. Give me wisdom to minister to them and to be a good pastor.

Would he be a better pastor if he were married? Did he owe it to his congregation to find himself a wife and start a family? Would it matter to his performance review? The denomination preferred married ministers, but they didn’t require it.

He shrugged and shifted his jacket to his other arm. There were several nice young ladies in his congregation who had let him know, through means subtle and overt, they wouldn’t be averse to his calling upon them as a suitor, and yet not a one of them evoked a response in him beyond that of their pastor.

He’d always believed he’d know the minute he spotted her—the woman who would make his life complete, the woman who would balance out his shortcomings, bolster his strengths, complement him in every way. There would be a connection between them that neither could deny, a sense of rightness, of inevitability. Was he being stubborn and fanciful waiting for an ideal that wouldn’t materialize, or was he right in not settling for something less?

The idea of sharing the intimacies of marriage—not just the physical intimacies, but the spiritual, emotional, mental intimacies—with someone without feeling that spark of attraction and exhilaration was unthinkable.

Renewed resolve to wait—not to be pushed into marriage by Mrs. Drabble, or the denomination, or even his own loneliness and disquiet—flowed through him. He wouldn’t settle for second best. He would wait until God brought the right girl into his life.

With his mind at peace, he turned off the road and wended his way toward the creek bed. The sun still had some distance to travel before the mountains to the west obscured it and cast long dusky shadows. Time for a little rock hunting.

Reaching the water, he kept his eyes on the stones under the purling eddies. When an interesting color or shape caught his eye, he plunged his hand into the icy water to retrieve it. The best went into his handkerchief; the rest went back into the stream. He’d almost reached the outskirts of Martin City when movement upstream drew his attention.

A young woman sat on a flat rock at the edge of the stream, her knees tucked up and her head tipped back to soak in the sunshine. She spread her arms in a graceful arc, lifting her hands overhead. Her loose sleeves fell away to her elbows, revealing slender white arms. In a lithe movement, she rose and balanced on the rock, executing a pirouette, a musical laugh flowing out over the sound of the water. Her light skirts belled with her circling, and her hair, her beautiful hair, fell in glossy brown ripples around her shoulders.

Silas stilled, captivated. Such freedom and abandon, such joy in her surroundings—he instinctively smiled. When had he last met someone so carefree?

She began to sing—light, gentle, and dreamy—her voice a perfect match to her fluid movements.

“It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.”

As if he had no control over his tongue, his voice rose and blended with hers on the lines of the popular poem-turned-song.

She dropped her arms and stopped mid-pirouette, and his gaze collided with the most incredible pair of gray eyes he’d ever seen.

❧

The shock of finding she wasn’t alone nearly propelled Willow off the rock and into the water. She stumbled, caught herself for a moment, and overbalanced again. A small shriek shot from her lips as she pinwheeled her arms, flailing the air to keep her footing.

Just when she knew she was headed into the icy creek, iron bands closed around her waist and hauled her landward. In a flurry of arms and legs, she and her rescuer tumbled to the grassy verge and landed with a thud. The stranger broke her fall, and the air whooshed out of his lungs.

She lay for a moment imprisoned in his arms, panting and stunned at this turn of events. Her cheek rested against his chest, and the solid thrum of his heartbeats reassured her that she hadn’t killed him. Realization flooded her. She was lying in the arms of a strange man!

Scrambling up and away, she managed to elbow him in the stomach and squash his arm before righting herself. “I’m so sorry.” A hank of hair slid over her forehead and obscured him from view. She scooped it aside, bunched her curls at the base of her neck, and tugged it all to lie in an untidy pile on her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

The man propped himself on his elbows and grinned. The most perfect, symmetrical smile with white, even teeth. Warmth flooded his brown eyes, and his rumpled hair fell onto his forehead. She couldn’t stop staring at so much handsomeness.

“I think I’ll survive. I’m sorry I startled you. Good thing we found a soft place to land. Another yard to the right or left and we’d have landed on boulders.” His deep, mellow voice rolled over her like the warmth from a stove on a cold day. He sat up and brushed at the dirt and twigs clinging to his shoulders and sleeves. A healthy grass stain decorated one of his cuffs. “Hmm, Estelle isn’t going to like that.”

His mutter jarred her. Estelle? Willow edged backward. She shouldn’t be noticing how handsome he was, or how strong, or how gallant his rescue of her was when he was a married man. The heat that had rushed into her cheeks when she first realized she wasn’t alone intensified until she thought she might burst into flames.

“I’m so sorry. Will your wife be angry?” Her lips felt stiff and uncooperative, and she grasped for her professional demeanor. The cloak of protection that usually came to her aid in tense situations proved uncooperative as well.

His eyebrows arched. “My wife?”

“Estelle? Who won’t like that you’ve stained your clothes?”

He laughed, and her heart tripped at the deep rumbly velvety sound. “Estelle isn’t my wife. She’s my housekeeper, and she is always after me to keep my Sunday shirts clean.”

Relief all out of proportion made Willow weak, and she joined in his laughter. “You really are in trouble then. I am sorry.”

“No worry, and anyway, I should be apologizing to you. I’m the one who scared you, belting out those lyrics like that.” He cast about him as if looking for something. “Be right back.”

With a fluid twist he leaped to his feet and jogged downstream.

How had he managed to cover so much ground to rescue her in time?

She took stock of her appearance. A dead leaf curled into her hair, and she’d ripped the lace edging on one of her sleeves. Lovely.

Francine would have a conniption if she heard about this. Imagine one of Isabelle Starr’s daughters caught so disheveled in public. Your image, my dear. It’s all an actress has.

Her rescuer returned with a suit jacket over his shoulder. The white edges of a handkerchief poked from his other hand. “I was sure I’d lost these when I dropped everything. It all happened so quickly. I thought you were going to get an icy bath for sure. This water comes down from up there.” He pointed with his thumb up to the peaks to the north where each rugged edifice bore a shawl of snow. “This creek never gets what you could call warm, but right now, it’s dangerously frigid.”

She shivered, grateful not to have had a dunking. “I shouldn’t have been acting so silly, twirling out there on that rock. I might’ve gone in with or without being startled.”

Opening his handkerchief for a moment, she caught a peek at a handful of rocks before he shoved everything into his pants pocket. Rocks?

“Actually, it was refreshing to see someone so carefree. Quite the most charming thing I’ve encountered since coming to Colorado.” His smile and the light in his brown eyes set off a fluttering under her ribs. “I’m only sorry I butted in and scared you.”

She wasn’t. She’d be quite content to be affected like this every day of her life. When she realized she was staring again, she let her lashes fall. He must think her a simple-minded idiot. And he wouldn’t be far wrong, considering how he’d come across her.

“As much as I have enjoyed meeting you”—he glanced at the sky and grimaced—“time’s marching on, and I have an appointment soon I can’t break. I’d be happy to walk you home on my way.”

Willow stiffened and sucked in a gasp. How had it gotten so late? Francine would have plenty to say if she was late for the read-through; and if she showed up in her current disordered state, she’d never hear the end of it. “I’m sorry, I have to go as well. Thank you for rescuing me.”

She lifted her hem and scrambled up the bank toward the road, realizing as she fled that she hadn’t asked his name.