Mail Order Mix-Up

“My words exactly, none of them true.”

“I am a widower,” Garrett pointed out.

“All right. One true statement. It’s easy to see why the women expected more. The advertisement specifies a house, not the top floor of a general store with sparse furnishings and cracks so wide that the snow drifts across the floor in the winter.”

Garrett shrugged.

“Then there’s the mention of a handsome inheritance.”

“Ma’s sideboard.”

“It is handsome, and you did inherit it.”

“Eva loved it.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t lock it away in the stockroom with everything else.” Garrett had stripped the place of anything personal. Curtains, pictures and treasured furnishings all went into storage. “You can’t hide from the past.”

Garrett glared at him. “Is that what you’re doing? Trying to push me into marriage when I’m not ready?” He pointed at the scrap of newspaper. “You placed that advertisement.”

Roland shook his head. “I didn’t. That’s what’s so perplexing. No one had any reason to do that, even as a joke. If it had turned up in one of the local newspapers, I could see someone playing a joke on you, but not New York. What man at the mill would even think to send it to New York? Chicago’s closer.”

Garrett still didn’t look convinced. “If you didn’t do it and no one in town did it, then who?”

“It would have to be someone who stood to gain from it. Who would want to see you married?”

“You.”

“Besides me.”

Garrett leaped up and paced to the window.

Roland joined him. “Did you notice Sadie’s expression when Pearl mentioned the advertisement?”

His brother said nothing.

“And how Isaac reacted when you said you weren’t going to remarry? Not just disappointed. He almost looked guilty. Then he asked to be excused.”

Garrett scrubbed his jaw. “They’re too young to understand.”

“Are they? They understand their mama’s dead.”

Garrett flinched.

Roland persisted. “They need a woman in their lives. Especially Sadie.”

Garrett hung his head. “I know, but how can I? There isn’t a day that I don’t think of Eva, but they were so young. Soon they won’t remember their mother. I don’t want that to happen.”

“They won’t forget.” Roland wished he was certain of his words. “You won’t let them.”

His big brother, burly enough to heft logs against the circular saw, trembled. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s start by having a talk with Isaac and Sadie.”

“You really think they did that?”

“They were the only ones who could have snatched it out of the stove.”

Garrett shook his head. “But send it to New York? How and why? Isaac wouldn’t even be able to read it, least of all figure out how to send it to a newspaper. And why New York?”

“Eva was always talking about New York. Remember? How she wanted to go there? She made it sound like the shiniest, brightest city in the world.”

“I would have taken her.”

Roland ignored the jab. If he hadn’t been so certain that the future was in this part of the world, Eva might have stayed with him. Instead, she’d leaped at Garrett’s promise. “The point is that your children sent that fake advertisement to a real newspaper.”

“They wouldn’t know how.”

“Someone must have helped them. I’d guess Mrs. Calloway, since they spend so much time with her and she happens to agree that they need a mother.”

Garrett heaved a sigh. “I still don’t believe it.”

“There’s only one way to find out. Ask.”

Chapter Six (#ulink_8dcad8e6-950a-58ff-a85f-5cf8b90684cb)

Pearl waited beneath a borrowed umbrella for Alfred Farmingham to unlock the door to the schoolhouse. He had arrived at the boardinghouse just as breakfast was served, and Mrs. Calloway had set a place for him at the crowded table. Judging from his corpulent figure, he didn’t miss many meals. He had introduced himself as a councilman from Saugatuck, the town upriver, appointed to show her the school building.

Before breakfast, Amanda had offered to join her, but the moment she’d heard Isaac and Sadie would be spending the day with Mrs. Calloway, she’d changed her mind. Fiona and Louise also declined, apparently having decided overnight to forgive Garrett for his misleading advertisement.

“I’ve asked Roland Decker to find employment for all of you,” Pearl told them.