“It’s Lara,” the little boy said. “Lara Cummings.”
“MissCummings, Joseph. Don’t go forgetting your manners,” his mother corrected him.
“Lara is just fine.” Lara stood and brushed the dust from her hands as the horses drew up.
“Then you must call me Isabel.”
“Isabel. That’s a beautiful name, don’t you think so, Joseph?” Lara said, mostly to distract the little boy who was looking at where the blood had already begun to seep through the shawl.
“Nah,” he said, and Lara grinned.
“Hannah told us what happened,” Arlen said as he strode from the wagon, Mr. King at his side while Hannah hung back and held onto the horses’ lines.
Mr. King knelt in the dirt. He tilted his hat to Isabel before asking, “May I?”
She nodded, and Lara watched as Mr. King peered under the edge of the shawl. “Looks to be broken pretty good,” he said as he tightened the cloth again. “But nothing the doc can’t fix up.” He directed those last words to Isabel, and she gave him a wavering smile.
Lara couldn’t imagine the pain the poor woman was in. “How are we getting her into the wagon?”
“Very carefully,” Arlen said.
Lara stood back out of the way with little Joseph, telling him the tale of the time she climbed a tree when she was a child and fell right out onto the ground to distract him from his mother’s grimaces as Mr. King and Arlen lifted her from the ground.
“Was there blood?” the little boy asked, his attention fully on her now.
“Not a drop,” she said. “But I broke my arm. And I got into a world of trouble because I was trying to see over into the neighbor’s fields.”
Joseph’s eyes widened. “Why would you want to do that?”
Lara glanced over toward the wagon, where the men were gently working to lift Isabel into the wagon box. She looked back down at Joseph. “Well, I was certain they were spies.”
“Were they?” He nearly breathed the question out, and Lara smiled. She couldn’t dash his hopes.
“They spoke a language I’d never heard before, had many visitors to their farm late into the night, and never invited anyone over for tea or dinner. What do you think?”
“Oh, they were!” She could almost see the boy’s imagination running wild.
“Lara, can you settle her in while we pull some items from their wagon?” Arlen called.
Lara took Joseph’s hand. “Why don’t you come with me? You can sit by your mama.”
The boy skipped by her side and she lifted him up into the wagon box before climbing in herself. She took off and wound up her own shawl to create a pillow for Isabel’s head, and made sure she was positioned in a way that would cause the least amount of jolting to her injured leg.
“Arlen’s looking for the purse with your money,” Mr. King said when he came back to the wagon. “But I found your jewelry box and this carving.” He handed the items over the side to Lara.
“Thank you,” Isabel said. “My late husband made that little owl for me. We couldn’t bring much with us when we left home, and that’s one of the few things I have left from him.” She paused. “I lost the house and the land to the bank.”
Lara’s heart ached. She gave her the carved wooden owl to hold while she secured the jewelry box and tried to blink away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.
“How is the boy?” Mr. King asked quietly, his eyes moving from Joseph to Lara.
“Fine,” she said. “I told him a story of spies and breaking my arm, and that proved to be quite the distraction.”
Mr. King lifted his eyebrows as he draped his hands over the edge of the wagon box. “Sounds exciting. I think I’d like to hear that story someday.”
Lara bit down on her lip to keep from smiling too broadly as she checked the jewelry box. “I must admit it’s one of my far-too-curious-for-my-own-good scrapes.”
“Then I definitely need to hear about it.”
