Rina, are adjacent, but our claims are narrow enough that you can cross them quickly. Just beyond live my oldest brother, Drew, and his wife, Catherine. She’s a trained nurse and runs the dispensary. You’d have experienced medical help should Peter need it.”
That was good to know. In Cincinnati and on the journey west, Peter had proved surprisingly resilient, with few of the fevers and ailments that seemed to trouble other babies. But she knew it was only a matter of time before something made him ill.
“There’s also a school with fifteen students,” he continued, stepping closer as if he sensed her resolve weakening. “Rina is the lead teacher. Beth helps sometimes, when she isn’t working her claim, assisting my brother Simon’s wife, Nora, or trying to boss our brothers or Drew’s crew around. Nora watches the little ones while their mothers are working. The eight of them range from a sweet-natured toddler to a six-year-old who’s convinced she’s queen. I’m certain Nora wouldn’t mind including Peter if you had work to do.”
And she’d have a nanny of sorts, it seemed. Still, that voice inside her warned that it was all a trick. Hadn’t she learned by now that anything good in life could be taken from her?
She gazed down into Peter’s dear face. His blue eyes, more gray than hers, gazed back, trusting. He offered her a smile as if to encourage her, and she couldn’t help smiling back.
Whatever happens, Lord, thank You for entrusting me with this precious boy.
And didn’t her son deserve something more than this narrow hotel room, the company of strangers, here today and gone tomorrow? If what John Wallin was offering was even half true, she could provide Peter a safe home and good food, perhaps even friends. Shouldn’t she take the chance, for him?
“I believe Beth said Wallin Landing is about five miles from Seattle,” she told John, who was shifting from foot to foot as if he couldn’t wait to hear her answer. “I’d be willing to move out, see if the area will suit Peter and me.”
His smile showed his relief. “Thank you, Mrs. Tyrrell. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.”
She couldn’t make herself believe that.
* * *
She was coming with him. John wasn’t sure why Dottie’s decision raised his spirits so high, but he couldn’t help whistling a tune as he went to the livery stable to see about hiring a wagon and stabling his horse overnight. She’d been reticent, but who could blame her? She’d already left everything behind to come to Seattle on a promise that had proved false. Why should she believe anything he said?
He’d simply have to show her he was a man who could be trusted.
He brought the wagon around to the hotel, carried her trunk down the stairs and heaved it into the bed. James still joked about the amount of baggage he had been required to move to bring Rina out to Wallin Landing to teach. Dottie’s belongings seemed to amount to much less, especially when she was carrying clothing not only for herself, but also for a baby.
“Is there more?” he asked as she passed him by the front of the wagon.
She glanced back. She’d covered her gown with a navy wool cape that fell to her hips, and it twitched as she moved, drawing his attention to her slender figure.
“Just my valise with Peter’s things.” She held the case in one hand and cradled her son with the other.
An unencumbered female. That would be a novelty. Rina and Catherine had come to Seattle as part of the Mercer Belles. The women had followed Asa Mercer to Washington Territory from the East Coast to work and marry, bringing fine silk and wool gowns with them. Nora had also been a Mercer Belle, but she’d brought fewer clothes. Still, she was a seamstress. Now she sewed herself something new on a fairly regular basis. And Beth had been known for her obsession with fashion, as depicted in Godey’s Lady’s Book, since she was ten.
He took the valise and stowed it behind the bench, where Dottie could reach it if needed, then turned to hand her up. Instead, she offered him the baby.
“If you’d hold Peter a moment?”
John accepted the soft weight. Peter regarded him solemnly, as if considering his character. Meeting the baby’s gaze, John stood a little straighter. He felt the chuckle bubble up inside Peter’s chest before the baby grinned. For some reason, John felt like celebrating.
“He likes you.” Dottie sounded surprised. She had climbed up into the seat by herself and paused now to gaze down at her son. “He doesn’t usually like strangers.”
Neither did his mother, but John decided not to mention that.
“I’m used to babies,” he said. “I guess they know that.”
Dottie dropped her gaze, rearranging her skirts around her on the bench. Then she held open her arms. “I’ll take him now.”
Peter pouted as John gave him back to his mother. John felt the same way. There was something warm, something real, about holding a baby. The soft skin and sweet breath made him feel protective, strong. He’d felt the same way holding his nieces and nephews. Drew and Catherine had three children now, James and Rina three and Simon and Nora two.
Yet there was something different about Peter, with his too-solemn face. Perhaps he touched John’s heart more than his nieces and nephews did because John knew they had two parents to love them. Dottie clearly cared about her son, but unless she remarried, the lad would grow up without a father. John remembered how it had felt to lose Pa, but Drew had stepped into the role. Who would step up to help raise Peter?
John came around, hopped up on the bench and took up the reins. “You won’t regret this,” he promised Dottie before calling to the horses to set off. Her tight smile showed she disagreed with him.
She cuddled the baby as they rolled through the streets, passing other wagons, men on horseback, ladies with baskets on their arms. Seattle had grown in the last few years. The fancy houses on Third Avenue that had once stood at the edge of town were eclipsed by the buildings on Fourth and Fifth. New streets with names like Cherry and Spring stretched east and west as well. They ran right up to the edge of the forest, which quickly wrapped around John and Dottie, narrowing the road and the world to the single rutted lane leading north.
Dottie glanced longingly back at the town that was disappearing behind them.
“More remote than you expected?” he asked.
She nodded, facing front again. “A bit. Do you have trouble with wild animals at Wallin Landing?”
“Not much,” he admitted. “The more people move out our way, the more the animals flee. It’s getting harder to find deer or rabbit near the claims. We may get a fox or weasel after the chickens once in a while, but I haven’t seen a cougar up close in years.”
“Well,” she said, “I suppose that’s good.”
She didn’t sound convinced.
“It’s no Cincinnati,” John acknowledged. “But you must have known that much when you agreed to come.”
“Beth’s letters were quite detailed, but I suppose it wouldn’t have taken much for me to want to be elsewhere. I didn’t like living in Cincinnati. I’m sure Wallin Landing will be fine.”
He’d
