A Family For Carter Jones

“Good night, Carter,” she repeated, her eyes never leaving his.

He dropped her hand in her lap. “I’ll come by tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to wire the district judge in Virginia City about this case.”

Her only response was another nod and the wide gaze of her brown eyes.

He gave a satisfied smile and said, “I’ll see myself out” Then he turned, crossed the kitchen and went out through the front hall. By the time he got to the stoop, he was whistling and thinking to himself that perhaps the gentling of Miss Jennie would not be quite as slow a process as he had feared.

Flapjacks had been their father’s specialty. Or rather, they had been the only item that he ever cooked in his entire life, so it had been customary to make a big fuss whenever he, with great ceremony, donned their mother’s apron and took over the stove. Jennie and Kate had avoided the food for the first few weeks after the deaths, but when the silverheels had asked about flapjacks for breakfast, Jennie had decided she would take over her father’s duties.

She stood over the pan ladling and flipping until there was a platter of the fluffy cakes big enough to feed, as Kate pointed out each time, the entire Seventh Cavalry…or three hungry miners.

“He said he wants to help, but he didn’t say how?” Kate asked her sister as Jennie watched carefully for the first bubbles to rise on the last batch.

“He said he’d get back to us today with more ideas,” Jennie answered carefully. She’d had no choice but to tell her sister about last night’s visit from Carter Jones. The silverheels would have revealed it if she hadn’t mentioned it first. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to discuss the encounter with Kate. It had left her too confused.

“So what did you talk about?”

“I don’t know…just…well, Lyle, for one thing.” That ought to shut her sister up, Jennie thought smugly.

But she was wrong. Kate continued the interrogation. “What about Lyle?”

“Mr. Jones says he’s still smitten with you.”

Kate shrugged. “That’s his problem, I guess. Any man who would be fool enough to carry a torch for a fallen woman deserves to suffer.”

Jennie knew it was unhappiness, not cruelty, behind her sister’s brittle words. “Fallen woman, indeed,” she snorted.

But Kate would not be led away from the subject. “Well, what did you think of the man? You never answered my question about him yesterday.”

What did she think of him? “Think” wasn’t precisely the word she would have chosen. It had not been rational thought that had made her turn into a speechless goose last night when Carter Jones had taken her hand and looked at her with those riveting gray eyes. “I think he was sincere about wanting to help. And, Lord knows, we can use all the friends we can get these days.”

“And he’s a lawyer, which is good. But why does he want to help us?”

What had he said? Something about injustice. Jennie didn’t completely buy it. Carter Jones didn’t strike her as the idealistic type. But she was afraid to offer the only other explanation that seemed logical, because it was a possibility that she didn’t even want to consider. He couldn’t be attracted to her. For one thing, they’d barely met. For another, the last thing either Jennie or her sister needed in their lives was another fast-talking, charming scalawag of a male.

She piled the last three flapjacks on the platter, then put down the turner and wiped her hands on her mother’s apron. “I don’t know. It’s probably a lawyer thing. They’re always trying to see if they can find an angle that no one else has thought of.”

Kate started to pick up the platter, but Jennie pushed her sister’s hands out of the way and lifted it herself. By now Kate had stopped protesting when Jennie took over her share of the work. “Well, it doesn’t sound as if he left a very good impression on you.”

Jennie headed toward the door of the dining room. “Good enough,” she said, keeping her voice light “At least I didn’t yell at him and slam the door in his face like the first time.”

Kate giggled. “Dorie Millard says when you treat men badly it makes them want you more.”

Dr. Millard’s daughter, Dorothy, was notorious for giving advice on romance to anyone who would listen. Jennie would have liked to discount her words as giddy nonsense, but the truth was that Dorie had always had more suitors than any other girl in town.

She hesitated a minute before she said, “Mr. Jones doesn’t want me, Kate. The idea’s absurd.” Then she pushed her way through to where the miners were impatiently awaiting their breakfast.

Kate had perked up her head at Jennie’s last words. She’d only been teasing by bringing up Dorie’s proclamation. But the break in her sister’s voice had been unmistakable. And unprecedented. Could it be possible that Jennie was finally feeling what it was to be attracted to a man? Kate smiled, then clasped her hands over her stomach and addressed her unborn child. “What do you think, sugarplum? It sounds to me like we’d better have ourselves a look at this Mr. Carter Jones.”

Jennie tried to tell herself that she was acting no differently than she would on any other day. She and Barnaby cleaned up the breakfast dishes while Kate lay down for her morning rest Then she deliberately made herself put on her gardening dress, the least attractive thing she owned, and went out to weed and pick the vegetables. She refused to admit that she was hurrying through the task so that she could clean up and change her attire. And she picked her second-best day dress, the yellow one with five pink primroses tucked along the bodice. Of course, it was the one she’d been wearing when Jack Foster had told her that the yellow dress and her glossy dark brown hair made her look as pretty as a black-eyed Susan.

If she was jumpier than normal during the day, it was because she hadn’t slept well last night, still nursing her headache and thinking about that blasted court order. It had nothing to do with the fact that every time that broken shutter in front blew open she’d thought it had been footsteps coming up the walk.

In the end it was nearly five before he came. And by then she was more or less convinced that she truly didn’t care if she saw him again. But when she opened the door to see him standing there holding a nosegay of delicate purple flowers complete with a trailing ribbon, she knew that she was in trouble.

“How are you, Mr. Jones?” she managed to say calmly enough. “Come in.”

Carter frowned. “We’d progressed farther than that last night,” he said, handing her the flowers with a slight bow. “You called me Carter, remember?”

Jennie remembered every second of last night’s encounter. But she said, “It was done under duress, I believe.”

Carter laughed. “Turning legal on me, are you?”

“It’s your profession, Counselor.” The banter was making Jennie feel giddy. Growing up, she’d avoided the casual flirtations with the boys in town, preferring the solitude of home with her books or her music. Kate had always been the one who’d drawn the boys’ eyes, and that had been fine with Jennie. After Kate’s disaster with Sean Flaherty, Jennie was even more strongly convinced that men were not a necessary ingredient for happiness. Indeed, they could sometimes be the major obstacle to it.

Which didn’t explain why she was standing in her front doorway, grinning up at Carter Jones as if he were the candy man at the circus. She forced her face into a more sedate expression, took the flowers from him and gestured for him to come in.

“You can finally meet my sister,” she told him over her shoulder. “She’s back in the kitchen shelling some peas for supper.”

Carter touched her arm. His fingers were warm through the soft yellow muslin of her dress. “Would you mind if I spoke to you alone first?” he asked.

His suddenly serious tone made her stop at once. She turned back toward him. “Of course. We’ll go into the parlor.”

Once again they entered under the draped archway, but this time the room was empty. The table the miners had used for their card game was pushed back against the wall and held a vase of freshly cut flowers. Carter pointed across the room to the piano. “Do you play?”

Jennie nodded. “Yes. And Kate sings. We’re kind of a team,” she added with a smile. She sat down in one of the tufted chairs and motioned for Carter to take the settee.

“You and your sister watch out for each other,” he observed.

“Yes. We always have. But now more than ever since our parents are gone. Kate’s all I have.”

Carter’s face was still grave. “This has been difficult for you, then.”

“Losing one’s parents is one of the most difficult things…”

“No, I mean about your sister. Her…ah…problem.”

Jennie was silent for a moment. Finally she said simply, “Yes.”

“Then I hope you won’t think I’m presumptuous when I tell you I’ve been doing some work today on your dilemma.”

“Of course not.” She smiled at him. “I told you yesterday that I was sorry our first meeting was so…abrasive. I appreciate your help. Truly. Both Kate and I do.”

Carter gave a brisk nod. “First I should tell you that it appears that the court’s order on your zoning infraction is perfectly legal.”

Jennie’s smile faltered. “You mean, they have the right to make us stop renting to the silverheels…to the miners.”

Carter nodded. “So I decided we needed another approach.”

Jennie leaned against the back of the chair. Something about Carter’s businesslike manner was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. He seemed different than he had in the dim kitchen light last night when he’d taken hold of her hand. Now he seemed more lawyerlike, more like the overbearing males who’d dealt with her case when she’d gone to the district court to give her side on the zoning issue. “Another approach?” she asked warily.

“I talked to the members of the town council.”

Jennie’s shoulders sagged against the back of the chair. “You mean you talked with Henrietta Billingsley. Because Henry Billingsley runs the council and Henrietta runs him.”

“Yes, Mrs. Billingsley was involved in our discussions.”

“I’ll bet she was.”

“But I think we were able to come to an agreement that will satisfy everyone.”

“Now that would surprise me very much.”

Carter smiled at her, but his smile didn’t make her insides do the same flip-flops that it had the previous evening. “They’re willing to give you an exemption to the zoning ordinance to rent rooms here to a maximum of four boarders.”

Jennie’s eyes widened. “They are?”

“Yes.”

“I can hardly believe it.”

“I think you’d be surprised to find that many people in town have a lot of sympathy for you and your sister. They know that it’s not your fault that you lost your parents and were left in less than desirable financial circumstances.”

Jennie gave another disbelieving nod. “So we can keep on just as is?”

“Well, not exactly. It seems that the objection is not so much to the boarders as to the presence of…the…ah…”

“My sister,” Jennie supplied, her voice suddenly hard.

Carter nodded kindly. “There’s an asylum in Carson City where she can stay until such time as she is sufficiently recovered and the adoption of the child is arranged—”

Jennie was on her feet before he could finish. “An asylum!”

Carter rose from the settee more slowly. “It’s a home, really. A home for girls in trouble like your sister.”

Jennie literally sputtered with fury. When she could shape the words into speech she leaned close to Carter and said, “The only trouble my sister has is meddling busybodies like you who can’t leave decent people alone to live out their lives.”

“I’m trying to work out a settlement that will—”

Jennie reached to grab Carter’s hat from where he had laid it beside him on the settee and she went up on tiptoe to jam it onto his head, taking care to crush the brim in the process. Then she picked up the delicate nosegay from the table and stabbed it into his chest. “You can just take your settlement and your damn flowers and get out of here. My sister is waiting for me to help her fix dinner in our kitchen in our house, the house where she’s going to have her baby and raise him or her to be a more caring, tolerant person who will be worth more than every hypocritical member of the town council put together.”

Carter made a halfhearted attempt to straighten his hat with one hand while he held on to the mangled flowers with the other. Jennie finished her speech and, without giving him a chance to reply, whirled on her heel and stalked out of the room. As she disappeared under the doorway drapery, she fired back over her shoulder, “You may see yourself out, Mr. Jones.”

Chapter Three

If Carter had any intention of soothing his feelings by forgetting the existence of Jennie Sheridan, he was doomed to be disappointed. For the next three days, as he awaited the ruling he’d sent for, a constant stream of visitors paraded through his office arguing the pros and cons of the sisters’ case. Even the three shaggy miners who were boarding at Sheridan House put in an appearance, shuffling and looking ill at ease among books and papers instead of their accustomed tools and rocks.

Just about the only person who didn’t show up was the one person he secretly kept hoping to see each time the creaky office door announced a new arrival. The person who’d unceremoniously thrown him out of her house at their last encounter.

This morning the advocate for the Sheridans was once again Dr. Millard, who had finally been called in to consult on Kate’s condition.

“Something’s got to be settled in this matter. And I mean, immediately,” the doctor said, his expression unusually serious.

“Unfortunately, courts don’t seem to be too good at getting things done anywhere near immediately.” Carter frowned at the number of pencils scattered around his desk and began to replace them in their appropriate trough.

“They’d better make an exception this time. The health of a young woman might depend on it.”

“Kate Sheridan’s not doing well?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the condition of my patients, Carter. You’re a lawyer—you know that. But I’ll tell you that I’m making a professional recommendation that the Sheridans not be subjected to any more anxiety.”

Spending half his time on a dispute over a minor zoning infraction was not what Carter had envisioned when he’d taken the district attorney position. He’d been hoping for some kind of high-profile trial of the century that would have put him in the political spotlight for the entire state. Part of him wished the whole thing would go away. Another part of him wished he could yet come up with a solution that would make him a hero to the stubborn but lovely Jennie.

“I’ll send another wire to the court,” he told the doctor. “And in the meantime I could see the Sheridans and tell them that no one will be closing them down until we’ve heard on the appeal. Do you think that would help?”

Dr. Millard nodded. “It’s just not healthy for Kate to be sitting over there waiting for the sheriff to appear any moment. She needs total peace and rest.”

“A house full of men doesn’t seem too peaceful to me,” Carter observed.

“Jennie’s handling things. She won’t even let Kate make the beds anymore. Jennie does the cleaning, cooking, fetching water and cares for Kate, as well.”

Carter made no comment. He’d seen Jennie handling things. Himself, for one. But he’d also seen her turn shy and tongue-tied as a schoolgirl that night he’d taken her hand and asked her to call him Carter. Which was the real Jennie? he wondered. He wasn’t likely to find out if his last-ditch appeal on her case came back rejected, as he was almost certain it would.

Dr. Millard stood, pushing heavily on the arms of the chair. “Old bones don’t want to work some days,” he muttered. Then he looked across the desk at Carter, his eyes as piercing and sharp as any man half his age. “Go talk to them, my boy. Make up a story, if you have to. I’d wager it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve stretched the truth to tell a pretty girl what she wants to hear.”

Dr. Millard softened his accusation with a wink, and Carter grinned as he answered, “You’d win that bet, Doctor.”

He waited until the doctor had slowly made his way down the office stairs, then reached for his hat. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face Jennie Sheridan yet, but he would send that wire. At the very least, it would get him out from behind this desk.

Throughout his childhood Carter had watched the comings and goings of Philadelphia mainline society from hidden corners in laundry rooms and butler’s pantries. He’d not merely watched, he’d studied them until he could imitate the haughtiest Pennington or the most tiresome Witherspoon.

He’d learned early to keep out of their way, to allow no opportunities for the rich young offspring of the people his mother worked for to taunt him for his lack of a name. But it had been a lesson learned in heartache. His mother, Maude, had usually been too tired from her days of scrubbing floors and polishing mahogany staircases to lend comfort to the small boy who had, after all, been the result of an entirely improper upstairs-downstairs liaison that had been the one mistake in her circumspect life.

So Carter was left on his own to watch and plan. His blood was every bit as blue as these elegant men and women who passed him by each day as if he were no more than one of the marble statues currently in vogue. His father had given him the heritage, but not the name. Nor would he ever have the chance to do so. According to Maude Jones, Carter’s father had been sent off in disgrace on a grand tour of Europe after impregnating the family servant and had died in a carriage accident in Italy.

Sometimes Carter used to spin fantasies about what would have happened if his father had returned from that trip. He would have visited Maude in the tiny apartment she’d been forced to take to await the birth. There he’d have seen his son and would have been so full of fatherly pride that he would have resisted his entire family and taken Maude to wife. And Carter would be living in one of the fine stone mansions instead of lurking there in shadows, waiting for his mother to finish her endless toil.

Walking slowly down the main street of Vermillion toward the telegraph office, he wondered what had triggered his sudden reverie into the past. It had been months since he’d indulged in those memories. Months, too, since he’d written to his benefactor, a Mr. Arthur Trenton, one of his mother’s employers who had finally noticed the boy in the shadows and had seen fit to send the abnormally bright child first to prep school and then to Harvard.

Before his mother’s death, Carter had spun fantasies of Mr. Trenton falling in love with Maude and marrying her, which would finally give Carter the name he craved. But, of course, by then Maude was no longer the pretty English immigrant fresh off the boat. Years of labor had roughened her skin and dulled her bright eyes. Arthur Trenton never so much as glanced her way.

He’d send Mr. Trenton a wire instead of a letter. That would show him how prosperous Carter was becoming, how important. No time for pen and paper. Just a wire, businesslike and expensive. He’d tell him what an important position he’d obtained—district attorney. It sounded impressive. In a wire there would be no space to provide the exact details of his jurisdiction. He wouldn’t be able to tell the old man that his days consisted mostly of farm disputes and dealing with small-town politics.

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt as he nearly collided head-on with a solid wall of them. Henrietta Billingsley, Margaret Potter and Lucinda Wentworth, coming directly toward him with all sheets to the wind.

“Good morning, ladies,” he acknowledged with a forced smile and a tip of his hat.

“We need to talk with you, Mr. Jones. We were just going to your office,” Mrs. Billingsley said. She planted her substantial form directly in front of him, causing him to abandon any hope of slipping easily around the group to continue on his course.

“Let me guess the topic.”

Like a helpful sergeant at arms, Miss Potter continued, “It’s been four days, Mr. Jones. What’s the delay in dealing with those girls?”

“They still have that house open as if there’s not a thing wrong,” Henrietta added.

Carter waited, looking at Lucinda Wentworth. He was curious to see if she would add her voice, or if her son had convinced her to stay out of the fray. She darted nervous glances at her two friends, her pinched face looking strained, but remained silent.

“There’s been an appeal of the ruling,” Carter said finally. He wasn’t about to add that he himself had engineered the appeal. Not in front of this crew.

Henrietta huffed loudly, her face beginning to color. “We’ve already gone through an appeal. What are they going to do, appeal from now until the day that bastard child pops out for the entire town to see?”

Mrs. Wentworth gasped, then blanched and swayed toward Margaret Potter, who in turn was pushed toward Henrietta. As Carter watched with growing horror, the matrons began to topple like a row of buxom dominoes. In quick succession he threw his upper body to block Mrs. Billingsley’s fall, then reached his long arms around her to ward off the further descent of Miss Potter, who by now was entirely supporting the weight of an apparently unconscious Lucinda.

When Carter was assured that Mrs. Billingsley’s significant bulk would maintain her upright, he stepped around her, lifted Mrs. Wentworth from Margaret Potter’s shoulder and leaned her up against the post that sustained the wooden awning over the Billingsleys’ dry goods store. Her head hit the column with a thud and her eyes fluttered open.

Henrietta had recovered her balance and her voice. “Not another of your swoons, Lucinda. Honestly, you’re such a goose.”

Mrs. Wentworth’s pale cheeks grew pink with indignation. “Any decent person would be liable to swoon at that kind of language. I’m shocked at you, Henrietta.”

“It’s not the language that’s shocking. It’s the situation. To think of that hussy shamelessly flaunting her condition as if she had all the right in the world…”

Mrs. Wentworth appeared to be recovering rapidly, so Carter stepped back. Mrs. Billingsley’s eyes widened and her voice trailed off as she focused over his shoulder. Whether it was Lucinda Wentworth’s suddenly shamefaced expression or the slight hint of fresh lemon scent, he knew without seeing her that the new arrival was Jennie Sheridan.

He whirled around but could find no words of greeting. Her lips were tight, nearly bloodless. Carter watched, fascinated, as her eyes drilled into each of the three older women, then settled on Mrs. Billingsley. Her small chin went up and she said stiffly, “Far from flaunting anything, the hussy you refer to has not left her house for three months, thanks to people like you. Though I don’t recall you thinking she was so shameless when she spent a whole summer taking care of your twins when your mother was dying from consumption.”

She took a step to the side and fixed her gaze on Margaret Potter. “And I can’t remember that you thought Kate was a hussy, Miss Potter, when she stayed after school every day to help you set up the school library.”

She moved over one more step to the edge of the sidewalk. “And, Mrs. Wentworth, Kate was evidently good enough for your precious Lyle to set his cap for her.”

“He never…” Mrs. Wentworth began, but faltered as her two friends sent her withering looks, as though this lapse of discretion in her only son was entirely her fault.

Carter’s neck had grown sticky with sweat, causing his starched collar to prickle. “Ladies, I don’t think we’re going to solve anything…”