He hesitated. “I believe she could earn a better income from it if she didn't—” He pinched his lips together. “Mrs. Carter is known for taking in women who need a safe place to start over.” He looked over at her. “She's been in the business of helping them for a long time.”
Mrs. Carter helped women like Kizzie? Had Nella been one of the women she'd helped? Is that why Nella understood grace so well?
“She uses the top floor of the boardinghouse for those women to have a low-cost place to live, but—”
“Rescuing folks like me doesn't lead to a great deal of profit,” Kizzie finished.
“Not of the financial sort, usually.” He guided the horses to the left and bypassed the main street, the snow becoming less smooth the nearer the town became. “But her interest is in a reward of a much higher nature, I believe.”
Noah spoke like a man who talked to God, who understood. It had never occurred to her how sweet such a shared love could be. And Mrs. Carter kept growing more and more interesting. “It sounds like she may have her priorities in the right place.”
“I believe you're right, Kizzie McAdams.” Noah's lips crooked. “She's as unique as she is magnanimous. I think the two of you are going to get along very well.”
Noah promised to deliver her trunks the next day, since he couldn't get the sleigh close enough to the shop entrance due to the snow, so she carried a few items in her small carry sack to get her and Charlie through until then.
She oughtn't to think about Noah's fine face or eyes. Or the way his smile dimpled. Thoughts like that had gotten her into her current predicament, but Noah Lewis proved the easy sort for daydreaming. Too easy. And his heartbreaking history made him take up even more space in her mind.
She pinched her eyes closed against the pull. No! Noah Lewis wasn't the sort to fancy romantic notions about someone like her. Besides, after Charles refused to marry her for so long, she didn't need to set her sights on matrimony for anyone else in her near future. Clearly, she wasn't the sort a good man wanted to marry, and dreaming about the warmth and welcome of a home of her own would only end in heartache.
She walked toward the direction he'd pointed her. The boardinghouse stood behind the general store, trees framing it to give a more secluded feel from the business of Main Street. A fence hedged in a backyard blanketed with untouched snow. Kizzie rounded the two-story clapboard building to find a front porch the length of the house, complete with two rocking chairs poised at one end.
Welcome.
Kizzie smiled. What a generous, kind woman Mrs. Carter must be to create such a nice spot.
A gunshot came from inside the house, startling Kizzie to a stop at the corner of the porch. Someone yelled, and the sound of glass breaking followed.
What on earth was going on? Kizzie pulled Charlie close, stepping back to somewhat hide herself behind the corner of the building. Another shout shook from the other side of the wall, followed by another shot.
Heaven and earth!
Suddenly, the front door crashed open and out ran a young man, shirtless, trying to button his pants as he nearly fell down the front porch steps.
“That's right, Jake Murphy, you come back into my boardinghouse, and I'll do more than scare you, boy!”
Tagging along behind the voice was a small, gray-and-brown-haired woman wearing an apron over a calico dress. In one hand she held a rifle and with the other she pulled a young woman out onto the porch. “As for you, Molly Edwards, you've lost your last chance.” The younger woman's loose red hair hung around the shoulders of her underclothes, a balled-up dress in her hands. “I don't run a brothel, girl. And you knew the rules about menfolk in your rooms.”
“But I didn't mean to, Mrs. Carter,” the woman cried. “He was such a sweet talker. I couldn't help it.”
“If you don't start taking responsibility for your own stupidity, you ain't never gonna get smarter, girl. And I ain't got the patience or time to try and teach you.”
“Please don't cast me out. I ain't got nowhere to go.”
“You should have thought of that before you let him onto my property with plans to give yourself to him.” The older woman pulled Molly to the porch steps. “Jake Murphy ain't no man for any woman.”
“But he promised me he'd marry me this time.” Molly stumbled to the bottom of the steps with the older woman keeping her by the arm and upright.
“Men will promise a great many things when they're thinking with the wrong part of their bodies.”
“Please, Mrs. Carter. Just one more chance.”
At that moment, as both women reached the bottom of the stairs, the older woman's gaze found Kizzie. She looked from Kizzie's face to Charlie, and she released a loud sigh.
“Well, we got a vacancy for you, Miss, if that's what's brought you here.” The woman released her hold on Molly. “Molly's just leaving.”
“Please, Mrs. Carter,” Molly cried out again.
Kizzie stepped forward, reaching into her pocket for Nella's letter. “Mrs. Carter?”
