When Love Comes My Way Page 9

  “This I do not care to discuss.”

  Lannigan was so abrupt. Tess figured that most women would probably find it hard to converse with him, and yet a man with his extraordinary good looks should appeal to single women. He appeared to be a decent man, one who ran his camp with admirable morals.

  But she knew so little about him… and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know more. It wasn’t for her to judge the foreman or his actions. Lost memory or not, she instinctively felt that was the Lord’s place. However, her earlier attraction had worn thin now that she’d actually spent time with the man.

  “Many pretty girls run after him,” André offered. “But besides Marcy Wetlock, I don’t know of anyone Jake…”

  She glanced at the Frenchman when he paused, as if he realized he was revealing more than he should. “Marcy Wetlock?”

  “Ah, oui…”

  “Now that you’ve mentioned her, André, you may as well tell me who she is.” She couldn’t fathom why she wanted to know, but something made her curious. Was she trying to fool herself when she said she didn’t care? The man was undeniably appealing.

  “Ah, er…she is an acquaintance who lives in Shadow Pine.”

  He straightened his hat and changed the subject. “The sky pilot will be here soon for Sunday service. Perhaps you would like to attend his preaching, non?”

  She turned to peer over her shoulder at Lannigan. Marcy Wetlock. What kind of woman is she?

  Looking back at André, she brought up what had been uppermost on her mind this morning. “Last night I asked if you would be able to enlighten me about my background.”

  “I am afraid I cannot tell you anything other than that which is on your application, ma chère.”

  Disappointment tugged at her heart again. She desperately needed help. “Nothing?”

  “Your application says you lived in Philadelphia, you are single, and that you have no close family. You are welcome to read it,” he offered. “Why don’t you stop by after school Monday afternoon and we will look it over together? Perhaps something will help prompt your memory.”

  “Thank you. I shall do that.” With any luck, the document might contain a useful clue. “André, earlier you mentioned the sky pilot would be here today.”

  “Oui. He goes from place to place and preaches the Good Book.”

  A preacher. Well, perhaps he could help her.

  The older man arrived after daybreak. The snow was deep enough that people had to travel by sleigh. Tess watched as road monkeys worked tirelessly to keep paths cleared in camp.

  André told her Sunday services began at nine thirty. When she arrived at the schoolhouse, which doubled as a church, she glanced around the cramped classroom and realized that not everyone in camp came to hear the inspiring message read from the book of Acts. Those who did attend made the service a warm and enthusiastic one.

  The service had already started when Jake stepped in and stood at the back of the room. Tess felt his presence before she saw him. When she turned her head and met his hazel-eyed gaze, she felt like a smitten schoolgirl. The man radiated power and authority. He shifted his focus from her to the preacher and remained standing, listening to the sermon, until he was called away.

  Lunch was another ordeal. The cook stepped outside of the shack about eleven fifty and began blowing various trills and arpeggios on his tin horn. Immediately, the people in camp stopped what they were doing and came running.

  Dinner tables were piled high with bowls of beef stew, slices of hot bread, bowls of rutabagas, the inevitable prunes, and more cakes, pies, and cookies. Tess was sure she would grow as large as the camp’s prized horses if she ate half the portions that were offered.

  She had observed that the cookshack didn’t bustle like this on weekdays or Saturdays for the midday meal. Why today? She was sitting next to Fred Massey. The eating hadn’t started yet, so she knew it was safe to talk. She didn’t want another scolding from Big Say.

  “Why all the fuss for lunch today, Fred?”

  “Well, ma’am, usually the only thing we jacks get for lunch are flaggins. The cooks bring them to us by sleigh and hand them out when we’re working in the woods.”

  “Flaggins? I’ve never heard of such.” She saw kindness in Fred’s eyes when she smiled.

  “It’s mainly bread and meat, Miss Yardley.”

  “That’s all you get for lunch?”

  “Yes, but they feed us plenty for supper, after the woods are dark and we come back to camp. They treat us real good here. Big Say sees to it.”

  The hush came over the room, and it wasn’t long before the meal was over and the food and dishes cleared away. The men returned to the bunkhouse to write letters to their wives and sweethearts, sharpen their tools, or mend their socks.

  Tess discovered that Sunday was also boil-up day. She watched as the men dragged their clothes and blankets outside and dumped them into large vats of hot water in an effort to delouse their personal belongings. Good-naturedly referring to themselves as crumb-chasers, the men went about picking lice and bedbugs out of their clothing.

  Apparently the battle against the vermin was vigorously waged with tubs of boiling-hot water mixed with laundry soap and tobacco. She found herself in the middle of the action, helping the crew scrub sheets and blankets. At the end of the day her hands were worn raw, but she felt a sense of accomplishment and contentment. The idea that she’d slept with bedbugs disgusted her, and she vowed she wouldn’t do that again.

  The men had been courteous and pleasant to her, and that evening, in the bunkhouse, a man they called Deacon brought out his fiddle and sang funny little songs like “Six Whistles,” “My Willie Oh!” “Tall Tales of Taylor,” and her personal favorite, “Sixteen Men in a Pine-Slab Bunk.” Everyone joined in on a rousing chorus of:

  Beans are on the table

  Daylight’s in the swamp,

  Hey, you lazy shanty boys,

  Ain’t you ever gettin’ up?

  Then Deacon struck a chord for a hoedown. André pulled Tess into the circle of men who grabbed other men for partners. They stomped the pine boards of the bunkhouse until she was certain the floor would give way.

  Sundays in a logging camp would be her favorite day.

  Late that night, as she snuggled down between extra clean sheets, she tried to clear her mind. She plopped her pillow over her face to drown out the noise in the next room, but tonight the men’s snores weren’t so bothersome. She knew the snorers a bit more personally now, and somehow that made the strange noises easier to tolerate. Thank You, God, for the new friends I’ve made today.

  For some crazy reason, she wished Jake Lannigan had been one of them.

  11

  Monday morning, dressed in brown and with outward calm that belied the fact that her insides were roiling like the waters of Lake Huron, Tess watched her students file into the classroom and take their seats.

  “Mornin’, ma’am.” A boy placed an apple on the teacher’s desk. “Name’s Scooter Wilson.”

  “Thank you, Scooter.”

  A little girl brought her a popcorn ball and then everyone settled down. “Good morning, children. First of all, I’d like to say how much I’m looking forward to having us learn together.” She walked to stand in front of her chair behind her desk and studied her class.

  Other than the fact that she didn’t have the vaguest idea of what she was doing, Tess felt slightly more confident today. The small one-room schoolhouse sat within easy walking distance of the bunkhouse, and so far the children’s eyes followed her with rapt attention.

  If only she felt qualified to teach.

  “Tirzah Reynolds?”

  A small girl in the second row raised her hand.

  “Thank you for the popcorn ball, and what a lovely name you have.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. It’s Hebrew. It means cypress tree.”

  “I think that’s beautiful. It’s from the Bible, isn’t it?”

  “It’s from my mom and dad.
”

  Tess chuckled at the response. “And how old are you?”

  Tirzah said, “I’m seven years old, ma’am.”

  Tess smiled again at the sweet child. Then she said, “Now, class, it would be nice if each of you would stand up and tell me your name and your age.” She smiled at her small flock encouragingly. There were nine in all, five boys and four girls. A few grumbles broke out, but one by one the children rose to their feet.

  “My name’s Modeen Menson. I’m thirteen and my father owns the camp store.” Modeen’s tongue snaked out at one of the older boys before she sat back down.

  “Uh…the name’s Toby Miller. I’m eight years old.”

  “Pud Wilkerson. Fifteen.”

  “My name is Violet Ann Jump. I am eight years old, and my daddy says I’m the prettiest girl in camp.” She tittered nervously before flopping back down on her seat.

  “King Davis, sixteen. And Violet Ann’s old man is full of it. Violet Ann’s so ugly her pa has to tie a pork chop around her neck to get the dogs to play with her.”

  Tess’s eyes widened as Violet gave an indignant gasp. She hoped this was first-day jitters and not how the children acted all the time.

  A boy in the third row sprang to his feet. “Quinn Morrison, ma’am. I’ll be eleven come Saturday. My pa’s giving me a gun so’s I can blow them heads off them sons-a-…” he rattled off an expletive…“jackrabbits.”

  She quietly made a note in her journal: Work on children’s language. Glancing up, she said, “Go on.”

  A shy, blue-eyed child hesitantly moved out of her seat. “My… my…name’s…Ju-ju-Juice Tett-tett…er…son. I’m sev-seven…ye-years ol-old, and…I-I…sta-stam-stammer a lit...a lit...a little bit.”

  The younger children burst into giggles, and Tess quieted them with a sharp look. “Juice. That’s a unique name.”

  “Thank… thank… you. My moth-mother named m-me...aft-after an orange.” The child gave a proud grin, revealing the wide gap of her missing two front teeth.

  “Scooter Wilson, ma’am. I’m nine years old, but I’m mean for my age.” He gave the other boys a pointed look and then dropped to his seat.

  “Well.” She smiled back at the children. Merciful heavens. She tried to ignore the attitudes in the room. “My name is Miss Yardley, and I think it’s time we got down to work.” Reaching for the spelling book, she said a silent prayer. Father, please allow me to bluff my way through this day.

  “Can anyone tell me what page we’re on?” Feeling for her chair, she seated herself.

  “Page fifteen!”

  “Uh-uh. Page twenty!”

  “Fifteen!”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

  “Shut up, pig face. We’ve already done fifteen. We’re on page thirty-two. Ain’t that right, Pud?”

  Amid the competing shouts of the children, a sharp crack sounded, and Tess felt herself falling. The chair she was sitting on shattered into pieces, pitching her to the floor in a heap. Chaos broke out as her feet flew into the air. Stunned, she lay flat on her back for a moment, trying to focus. She could hear the children snickering, and her temper flared. Nails and screws lay haphazardly on the floor. Someone had deliberately tampered with the chair!

  Gathering her fortitude, she slowly pulled herself above the edge of her desk and leveled a stony look at the little hooligans. They would see who laughed last. “We will begin on page one.”

  By the end of the school day, she realized she’d have to study long into the night to prepare her lessons for the following day.

  She felt certain she’d forgotten everything she’d ever known—about everything.

  Early that afternoon, André strode into Jake’s office and pitched a telegram on his desk. “Take a look at that.”

  Picking up the scrap of yellow paper, Jake’s eyes scanned the message. “I see the telegraph line is installed.”

  “The work was completed about an hour ago. I wired Talbot Wellington-Kent first.”

  The wire from Talbot Wellington-Kent indicated he was upset over news of the accident and inquiring as to the whereabouts of his fiancée, Tess Wakefield.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Sounds like Mr. Wellington-Kent can’t keep track of the woman he’s engaged to marry.”

  “Come now, Jake! This confirms that Tess Wakefield left Philadelphia a little over two weeks ago on a train headed for Shadow Pine. That can only mean one thing.”

  Jake got up to pour himself a fresh cup of coffee. “It doesn’t tell us if Miss Wakefield was the woman swept downstream.”

  “Well, it could have been her!” André’s face grew troubled as he walked to his desk to pick up his cup. “It would certainly explain why she has not shown up to close the deal with Sven. If this is true, someone will need to inform Wellington-Kent that his fiancée most likely died in that wagon accident.”

  Jake moved back to his desk. “I’m not telling him any such thing.”

  “Why? The man needs to know!”

  “Because we could be mistaken. We don’t know for certain the missing woman is Tess Wakefield. Have you sent Fedelia Yardley’s kin a telegraph?”

  “You know she has no family!”

  “The dead woman could be Fedelia Yardley or Burl Sutter’s intended—”

  “Nonsense. Miss Yardley is here, teaching this morning.”

  “The woman you want to think is Miss Yardley is teaching.” His eyes met André’s. “We can only speculate if she is the new schoolteacher. We haven’t found a body to identify. It would be cruel to inform a man that his fiancée is deceased when we have no proof.”

  “It would be far crueler for Miss Wakefield to act as if she is a schoolteacher if she is not,” André argued. He glanced up. “This is not good. What if the woman swept downstream was Fedelia Yardley?”

  Jake shrugged. “André, we have no proof of who survived that accident. At this point, all we know for certain is that one of the two women in that wagon was apparently Tess Wakefield.”

  “Alors! How could this happen? Tip’s granddaughter killed?”

  “We’ll hold off on getting Sven back to camp for a while longer. You should wire Wellington-Kent and inform him that he will have to come here and identify the surviving woman.”

  André whistled under his breath as he stirred his coffee. “This will be very bad news to the man. His fiancée is missing and most likely dead. And the early snows are making cross-country travel impossible.”

  “There you go thinking that Miss Yardley survived the accident and Miss Wakefield didn’t.” Jake shoved aside a brief pang of guilt. Tess was probably the one who survived, all right, and she was in that roomful of rowdies today for the first time. “Wire Miss Wakefield’s fiancé what little information we know for certain. The wagon lost a wheel, and there were two women and some men on board. All but one woman and the driver were swept downstream. The surviving woman has no memory, and the driver doesn’t know who she is.”

  “But if the missing woman was Mademoiselle Wakefield, Mr. Kent should be prepared.”

  Jake sat down behind his desk and focused on the journal sheet. “The message will give him warning that the missing woman could be his fiancée. Don’t forget Burl is still waiting for his bride-to-be to show up. Who knows? Maybe Miss Wakefield decided she didn’t want to get married and skipped out on Wellington-Kent. It’s happened before. She could be anywhere right now for all we know. Or,” Jake snapped the journal closed, “she could have been swept downstream.”

  André shook his head. “I believe it was her, Jake. And now… perhaps she is fish bait.”

  “Well, that’s your guess, but I don’t think we should be sending out news we can’t substantiate.” He glanced up when a lumberjack entered.

  “Trouble at the roll way, Big Say, and something’s going on at the skid way too. It’s gonna take a while.”

  “Be right there.” Jake stood up and reached for his coat. “I’ll probably be out the rest of the day
.”

  André waved him off. “Go, but what will happen now? With Rutherford’s only heir missing, the business could be tied up in legal papers for years.”

  “I suppose it could.” Jake pulled his gloves on. “Can you handle sending the message?”

  “Oui, oui. Go now. You are making my head to pound.”

  12

  Tess pulled on her coat late that afternoon and looked up to find Echo standing in the doorway. Overjoyed to see a friendly face, she beckoned her inside. “Hello!”

  With a shy smile, Echo walked to the front of the schoolroom. “I was on my way home, and I thought we might walk together.”

  Tess sighed. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.” She embraced Echo, and then draped her arm around her friend’s waist while they walked down the row of desks. “You can’t imagine the day I’ve had!”

  “That bad?”

  Tess paused to bank the fire and wrap a heavy woolen scarf around her neck. “Half the children in class should be in jail,” she confided. “Or, at the very least, under lock and key.”

  Her friend flashed an amused grin. “It’s been hard work to keep a teacher.”

  Tess followed Echo outside, closed the door, and then drew her coat tighter around her. The sky was gray and the clouds appeared laden. “It looks like snow again.”

  “Snow has come early this year.”

  Echo’s tone held a note of dislike, as if long winters bothered her. “Don’t you like snow?” Tess asked when they began to walk.

  “No. I’m looking forward to spring,” she confessed. “A time when tiny flowers sprout up through tender shoots of green grass, and the birds sing oh so sweetly in the mornings. The sun is warm on your back, and the world seems so…good.”

  Tess glanced at Echo’s coat. The material was threadbare and frayed, scant protection against the biting cold. The young woman’s teeth chattered when the strong wind buffeted her frail body. Her coat, on the other hand, was thick and warm, and she felt guilty being so snug when Echo was so miserable.