Page 4 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“I don’t know why I said that.” Nerves made her hands shake. The instant she found Jean Jacques, she’d bring him home and use her own powers of persuasion to convince him to stay and never leave Linda Vista again.
“You know why I won’t go with you. It’s a matter of principle.” Aunt Kibble drew a deep breath. “This is so unlike you. Why won’t you send a representative?”
Juliette didn’t trust a representative to keep her secrets if he discovered the worst. She had her pride after all. Not that she believed for a moment that Jean Jacques had abandoned her.
But just in case.
All things considered, it was better that she found him herself.
Aunt Kibble lifted a handkerchief to her eyes. “It isn’t too late to change your mind,” she said, shooting a glare toward the carriage driver.
“I have to do this,” Juliette insisted.
“You don’t even know where you’re going!”
“I have a general idea.” She’d consulted maps, plotted the route she guessed Jean Jacques had taken. He hadn’t said anything about the Northern Pacific, so she wouldn’t travel by train. He’d mentioned wonderful views of the ocean, so she would stay along the coast. The route was sheer speculation, but it was the best she could do.
“I’m going to miss you so much!” The admission appeared to surprise and annoy Aunt Kibble.
Juliette studied her aunt’s dear face, committing to memory the stubborn jaw, the tiny lines, a sweep of silvery brown hair. Then she clung to Aunt Kibble in a fierce embrace, murmuring good-bye as if this were, indeed, the last time they would see one another.
The driver had to clear his throat a third time before Juliette wiped tears from her eyes and climbed into the carriage.
“This is my duty,” she called, leaning out the window. “I must find him.”
“Oh, Juliette.” Aunt Kibble stood on the bottom porch step, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers and shaking her head as if Juliette had taken leave of her senses.
Juliette waved from the window until the carriage curved out of sight of the house, then she collapsed against the seat back and squeezed her eyes shut. The leave-taking had exhausted her—as did thinking about the journey ahead. Mr. Ralph would drive her to the coast, where she would spend the first night. In the morning, she would take the stage along the coast road to Oregon.
Her heart thudded painfully against her rib cage. Tonight she would sleep among strangers on a bed that others had slept in. She couldn’t have been more apprehensive of what lay ahead if she’d known for a certainty that she traveled to her doom.
Abruptly it occurred to her that she had never really been tested on life’s road. Until Jean Jacques vanished, nothing disastrous had happened in her adult life. All her bumps had been small ones, and she was thankful for that.
For one terrible disloyal moment, she stared down at her hands and burned with resentment that Jean Jacques was putting her to the test. She didn’t want to be in this carriage traveling to heaven knew where. She detested the necessity of speaking to strangers and revealing that her husband had gone missing.
Snapping down the window shade, she leaned back and pressed her fingertips to her temples.
She would find him. It was unthinkable that she would endure this ordeal without being rewarded. And when she was once again in the arms of her husband, she would find the courage to ask if he’d married her only for the money. Then he would look astonished and assure her that he loved her, and that he had never given her inheritance a single thought.
Jean Jacques loved her. It wasn’t the money.
Chapter 2
Peterson’s coast-road stage was late today, so Clara had time to dash upstairs and inspect the rooms. On the floor near the bed in number four she found a lady’s hairpin and tucked it into her pocket. The curtains were not aligned properly in number six, and a pot of ivy was dying for lack of water in room number seven.
Here was proof of the very thing she had feared from the moment she decided to sell the inn. The new owners would run the place into the ground. Mrs. Callison would never have overlooked the hairpin or the curtains or the ivy—no, sir. But the new owners had insisted that Clara dismiss her regular help and hire new employees before they arrived to take possession of the property. They wanted employees whose loyalties were to them, not to Clara or to her late father.
Well, it wasn’t easy to hire good help. Clara had interviewed five applicants before settling on Miss Reeves, who was the best of a bad lot.
If it were up to her—if Miss Reeves had beenheremployee—Clara would have torn into the girl, given her what-for, waved the hairpin under her nose, then dismissed her without a reference. But the new owners expected the inn to be fully staffed when they arrived. So the slatternly Miss Reeves was their problem. That is, if they considered haphazardly cleaned rooms a problem. She had her suspicions about that.
Biting her lip and refusing to feel guilty about selling, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen to make sure dinner would hold until the stage arrived. An inn could offer the most comfortable beds in creation, but if the food was mediocre or served late or less than stove-hot, guests would not return. Repeat business paid the major bills.
“Get out of my kitchen,” Herr Bosch shouted as Clara rushed into a haze of fragrant steam.
“Guten Tagto you, too,” Clara called cheerfully. She dipped a spoon into a simmering meat broth that was almost ready for liver dumplings. “Perfect,” she breathed with a sigh of pleasure.
The new owners weren’t entirely crackbrained. They had kept Herr Hugo Bosch and, at his insistence, his two assistants and the potboy. For tonight’s meal, they prepared Wiener schnitzel, roasted potatoes, and red cabbage slow-cooked with apple slices and caraway seed. The baked bread and strudel hot out of the oven filled the kitchen with the scents of heaven.
