Wishes Read online

  “You!” Louisa said.

  Jace looked up at the three young women and was puzzled to see them looking at him in horror.

  “How could you dare show your face in the town?” Charlene said, teeth clenched. “After what you did to Nellie!”

  “Is Nellie all right?” Jace asked, rising.

  “As if you cared,” Louisa hissed.

  Mae had not said a word, but suddenly she whipped out her hand and slapped Jace across his cheek. “I will not have your child,” she said, pushing past him. Louisa and Charlene, after snatching their packages from him, followed her.

  Jace put his hand to his cheek and stared after the women. “What in the world is going on?” he said aloud.

  After that encounter he slowed his pace and began to notice the unpleasant looks he was receiving from nearly everyone he passed. He was beginning to feel like the villain in a melodrama.

  Three blocks from Nellie’s house he saw Miss Emily.

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have the nerve to return,” Miss Emily said. “I guess you heard that Nellie’s, shall we say, dilemma was a false alarm, so perhaps you figured it was safe to return, but I doubt very much if Charles will give you the freight company now.”

  She started to walk past him, but he caught her arm.

  “Would you please tell me what’s going on?”

  Miss Emily looked down her hawklike nose at his hand on her arm, and Jace dropped his hand. “Is no woman safe from you?”

  “Safe?”

  Miss Emily started to walk away, and Jace’s temper got the best of him.

  “What the hell is going on?” he bellowed.

  Miss Emily was disgusted by his language, and she was furious with him for hurting Nellie, but something in his tone made her halt and turn back. “Where have you been since the Harvest Ball?” she spat at him.

  “Home in Warbrooke, Maine. I sold everything I owned there so I could come back and marry Nellie and live here in Chandler.”

  Miss Emily stood blinking at him. “Why didn’t you tell Nellie?” she whispered.

  Jace was sure everyone in this town was crazy. “Tell her? I’ve been writing to her since I left.” He pulled the packet of letters from inside his coat pocket, pink and yellow silk ribbons dangling from them. “Here are her letters to me, and”—he pulled a little box from his trouser pocket and opened it to reveal a ring with a big yellow diamond set in gold—“this is the engagement ring I plan to give to Nellie. It’s been in my family for years. Think she’ll like it?”

  Miss Emily was trying to recover herself. A man whose family had a ring like that probably didn’t need a small business like Grayson Freight. “Oh, my goodness, what in the world is going on? Do you have engagement rings for the other young ladies of this town?”

  Now Jace was sure the people were crazy. “No,” he said patiently. He hadn’t thought Miss Emily was senile, but he thought so now. “I only marry one woman at a time. Perhaps you have me confused with Bluebeard. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He tipped his hat and turned away.

  “Mr. Montgomery!” Miss Emily called, halting him. “You and I must talk.”

  “We’ll talk later, I promise. Right now I want to see Nellie.”

  Miss Emily firmly clasped her arm to his. “You and I have to talk first. Before you see Nellie. I think there are some things you need to know.” When he opened his mouth to protest, Miss Emily continued, “I’m not sure Nellie will see you.”

  “See me? But Nellie has agreed to marry me.” He held up the letters.

  “I don’t believe Nellie wrote those letters. Nellie believes, as does the whole town, that you jilted her.”

  For a moment Jace couldn’t speak. He glanced down the street toward Nellie’s house. “Perhaps we should talk,” he said softly.

  It was an hour later that Jace left Miss Emily’s house, and he was in a rage, a towering, furious rage.

  “You’ll never guess who I saw today,” Johnny Bowen said to Terel. He was walking her home from her shopping expedition, carrying her packages.

  “Who?” Terel asked, not really caring. She knew that Johnny was just walking her home in hopes of getting a glimpse of Nellie. Since the Harvest Ball, and especially since Nellie had lost weight, it seemed that every man in Chandler wanted to court her. As Miss Emily had laughingly said one day, “Nellie has everything: beauty, brains, a sweet temper, a rich father, and she can cook. She is every man’s dream.” And it seemed as though Miss Emily was right, because men seemed to swarm around Nellie. Not that Nellie paid any attention to them, but the more she ignored them, the more they tried to get her attention. Terel could no longer go anywhere or have anyone to her house for all the questions about Nellie.

  “I saw that man, Jace Montgomery.”

  Terel stopped in her tracks. “You saw him? When? Where?”

  “Here in Chandler, about an hour ago. He and Miss Emily were talking. Actually, it looked almost as if they were having a quarrel, but I was across the street and couldn’t hear what they were saying. He didn’t look too happy.”

  Terel quite suddenly didn’t feel very well; in fact, she felt quite frightened. She put her hand to her forehead and swooned against Johnny.

  “Terel, are you all right?”

  “I’m ill,” she whispered. “Take me inside.”

  “Sure.” He put his arm around her shoulders and started to help her walk.

  “Carry me, you fool,” she hissed.

  “Oh, sure.” Johnny bent and picked her up. “You’re heavier than you look.” Struggling, he got her up the stairs, across the porch to the front door, then had to balance her on one knee to open the door. He was sweating, and his back was straining. “On the sofa?” he asked, his voice high with effort.

  “Upstairs, you idiot, and call Nellie.”

  Johnny leaned against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell and panted. “Nellie,” he said, little more than a whisper.

  “She’ll never hear you if you don’t speak up.”

  “Nellie!” Johnny yelled.

  “Again.”

  “Nellie!” His voice lowered. “Terel, what did you eat for breakfast? Rocks?”

  She heard Nellie coming. “Get me upstairs, and slowly.”

  “That’s the only way I can move.” Groaning, Johnny started up the stairs, his arms and back aching.

  “Terel?” Nellie said. “Oh, Terel, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, just a little dizzy spell. It’s probably just my heart.”

  “Put her in here.” Nellie directed Johnny to Terel’s bed. “Go get Dr. Westfield. Tell him to come at once. Tell him it’s the utmost emergency!”

  It was at that moment that the front door slammed open and the whole house jarred. “Nellie!” Jace Montgomery bellowed. “Where are you?”

  All the blood drained from Nellie’s face as she stood up straight.

  “Nellie.” Terel grabbed her sister’s arm. “Oh, my dear Nellie, it’s him, and I’m too sick to help you face him. I will do what I can to help you. Johnny, send him away.”

  Johnny looked horrified. “The man is twice as big as me.”

  Downstairs they could hear Jace going from room to room.

  “I must go to him,” Nellie said softly.

  “No, don’t leave me. Please, please, Nellie, don’t leave me. You say you care for my comfort, so will you leave me when I might be dying?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Swear you won’t leave me. Swear it.”

  “I will not leave you,” Nellie whispered. “I do not believe I can.”

  The three of them stood silently as they heard Jace thunder up the stairs, and then he was at the doorway. He was more handsome than Nellie remembered: bigger, more alive.

  The anger on his face softened when he saw Nellie, and in spite of what she knew to be true about him, she stepped toward him, but Terel clamped down her hold on Nellie’s arm. “Don’t leave me,” Terel whispered.

  “What