The prospect of Mr. Bittles gloating at her failure was palpable, and that night Annabelle lay sleepless in the bed she shared with Elaine, staring at the ceiling of the darkened apartment. At times like this, it was hard to remember how happy they’d once been. If their father had ever wanted sons instead of daughters, he never gave a hint of it as he taught his daughters the art of farming on the Kansas plains. For Annabelle, the most beautiful sight on earth was endless fields of golden wheat as thunderheads gathered above in an awesome display of God’s grandeur. But the rains didn’t always come, and years of drought had put their farm on the verge of failure.
Roy Larkin had risked everything to send both his daughters to college. Elaine was two years older, but they left for the Kansas State Agricultural College the same year so they could share expenses. Their father mortgaged a hundred acres to pay for it, even though their penny-pinching mother disapproved. After college, Elaine returned to the farm while Annabelle stayed to work in a laboratory that was developing new strains of drought-resistant wheat. She even sent some to her father to test on patches of their farm, but so far they’d had only middling success.
Then Annabelle got clobbered with a case of the flu so bad that the doctor feared for her life. Elaine came to nurse her but ultimately caught the terrible illness too. It hadn’t been the flu but a dangerous case of viral meningitis. They both survived, but Elaine’s vision started failing almost immediately, and within a month she was blind.
Robbed of her eyesight and ability to make any useful contribution at the farm, Elaine sank into crippling depression. Over time she learned to read braille to occupy her mind, but braille books were shockingly expensive and hard to find. It was their father’s insatiable quest to find more braille books that led to the discovery that the Library of Congress had an educational program for the blind.
The entire focus of Elaine’s world shifted toward a new and exciting possibility in Washington. The chance to volunteer at the world’s grandest library was a shining talisman in Elaine’s dark world, and Annabelle agreed to take her to Washington. One of the professors she worked for at the college knew Dr. Norwood, and a temporary position was found for Annabelle at the Smithsonian. It was rare for a woman to land a professional position, so she was especially grateful for the six-month appointment.
But unless she could find a permanent income, they could not afford to stay. There was no possibility of help from home. She had to find a way to make it work on her own.
Elaine rolled over on the mattress beside her. “I think you should go see the greenhouses,” she said in a soft whisper.
Annabelle shot bolt upright. It was so unexpected that she couldn’t be certain she’d heard right. “You want me to go?”
Elaine sighed. “I don’twantyou to go, but you should. And I need to learn how to be on my own for a while.”
It was obviously true, but what a blessing that Elaine had arrived at the conclusion without Annabelle having to press it.
“We’ll give the Hillenbrands a key so they can get in if there is an emergency,” Annabelle said.
Elaine nodded, but it was clear she was terrified. Annabelle couldn’t begin to imagine the fear her sister was willing to endure, and it intensified her determination to succeed.
Five
Annabelle arrived at the boat depot at the appointed time despite hauling an oversized portfolio, an overnight bag, and a heavy box of equipment. Heavy in her skirt pocket was the horseshoe Elaine had given her for luck. So far that horseshoe had brought them both safely here from Kansas, and Annabelle prayed it would continue to serve them well.
Mr. Delacroix’s letter had instructed her to go to boat slip twelve at the Potomac River dock, where someone named Luke would take her by sailboat to the rural Delacroix property. Her boots clicked on dry wooden planking, and the slosh of water on the pilings smelled musty and strange. So many people! Sailors lugged heavy packs, and travelers carried small cases. Huge mechanical cranes lowered cargo onto ships. She paused to watch and nearly jumped out of her skin when a sea gull swooped and hovered over her handbag, apparently sensing the warm muffin she’d been too nervous to eat for breakfast.
No one was waiting for her at the designated boat slip. She set the heavy equipment box on the dock with athud, wondering what on earth she was to do now.
“Miss Larkin?”
She startled, for the voice came from under the dock. Shehunkered down to look beneath the planks and spotted a handsome man sprawled in a boat tied to the pilings. The dock was so high above the water that she hadn’t noticed him down there.
“Are you Luke?”
He sprang to his feet and seemed limber as a monkey as he climbed a rope ladder to the dock. “I’m Luke,” he confirmed with a grin. “Rumor has it my brother has opened his greenhouses to you. I’m not quite sure I believe it, because Gray guards them like he’s got the Holy Grail inside. He doesn’t even letmein.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said in a wry tone. “Only he and the groundskeeper have keys. He seems to believe the populace is drooling with eagerness to get inside his precious greenhouses.”
She cocked a brow at him. “I’m prepared to travel quite a distance for it.”
“Then you and Gray can wallow in your botanical paradise,” he said with a grin. “Come on, let’s climb aboard so we can be on our way.”
“Am I supposed to get down into that boat the same way you got up here?”
Luke seemed surprised. “My brother told me you were brave, that you had spunk. Not the sort to quake in fear at a five-foot rope ladder.”
She laughed and gamely collected her skirts, turned around, and lowered herself down the ladder and onto the wobbling boat. She managed to get on board without embarrassing herself, even though transferring her bags and the equipment box was awkward.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked once she was seated on a wooden bench opposite Luke.
He grabbed a rope and began hoisting a sail. The canvas billowed out, and the boat started moving with surprising speed. “You sit there like Cleopatra while I sail us to Windover Landing.”
As the dock slid into the distance, Luke explained how Windover Landing had once been a grand plantation estate owned by the Delacroix family for generations. “The house burned down during the war, but we still owned the land, so that’s where my father built the greenhouses and went back into business.”
