He couldn’t make out the woman’s quiet answer, but a boy’s voice floated back to him. “…and then the roof caved in.”
CHAPTER2
Patience woke in the dark, shaking off nightmarish images of her boys being tossed from a wagon into the torrent, only to be gathered up by a stranger with one leg and kind eyes. While her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she allowed her mind to dwell for a few moments on the safe haven his image provided in the midst of the chaos. The tiny window above her head would have admitted little light even if the sun shone, which it most certainly did not. The pounding of rain on the roof sent shivers through her, bringing back the storm and their narrow escape the night before.
The inn had provided a pallet on the floor of the chamber shared by a maid. Warm, dry, and above all free, she felt naught but gratitude for it. She shook off the horrors of the night and dressed quickly, conscious of the Brewsters’ kindness. She planned to seek out the innkeeper’s wife and offer her thanks and her services. It must already be past dawn. She had fallen back to sleep after the maids rose, and she knew well that inn servants were customarily at their post before full light.
But Patience had other duties, and the inn would have to wait. Her lads had been taken to the stables to bunk with the grooms, the gear, and the animals. Given their collective gift for mischief, urgency drove her down the stairs, through the kitchen door, to the stables. Boys need boundaries, structure, and security. God only knew what they’d get up to unsupervised.
She peeked into the loose stall nearest the stairs to the grooms’ quarters where the boys had been told to bed down. Their blankets were rolled and neatly stowed along the side, but they weren’t there, which sent her sprinting across the stableyard to the carriage house with her cloak held above her head with both hands. She needn’t have worried. Soft voices coming from the farthest corner told her what she needed to know. As she approached, she recognized the words. Someone was reading fromThe Family Robinson, the book she’d been reading to the boys before she put them to bed the night before. Before the disaster. Before they fled. Before they escaped catastrophe.
The deep rumbling voice of the reader soothed even Patience, and she paused to listen. Four small boys sat transfixed on a horse blanket on the brick floor near the iron stove that provided heat. Peter stood with his back to the wall, listening as well. Remains of their breakfast were neatly stacked next to the bench on which the reader sat.
Something must have alerted him to her arrival because he stopped reading and rose with a slight inclination of his head. “Good morning, ma’am. I hope you don’t mind me reading to your boys.”
The man from the night before, the one who soothed frightened boys, the one who offered to care for Millie, stood before her, tall, broad shouldered, and respectful. His reassuring strength made her want to curl up with the boys and sit near him.The man from my dreams…
But something seemed off. Close examination showed her the same overlong hair clinging to his collar. The same lanky frame. The same intelligent face and kind eyes. She wrinkled her brow; this man possessed both his feet and no crutch was to be seen. One side of his mouth tilted up, and Patience felt her face burn at the realization she had been staring.
The boys giggled. “Can’t tell, can you,” Stump, ever the impertinent one, said. “Foot’s wood, ain’t it?”
“I beg your pardon, Mister…”
“Newell. Zachary Newell.” The deep voice rumbled through her chest. She longed for him to keep reading just to hear it. He gave another shallow inclination of the head. “Don’t fret yourself ma’am. Boys are always fascinated by missing body parts.”
That statement set the boys off again. “Show her, Sergeant Newell,” Froggy urged. “It’s amazing, Miss Patience.”
“At your ease, men. Ladies don’t take to such display like we do. We best watch our behavior before we embarrass Miss Abney.”
“You know my name.”
“Brewster used it last night. I apologize for making free with it,” he said, though the twinkle in his eye belied any regret for a lapse in manners.
“No, no. Not a problem. Froggy called you Sergeant Newell. Are you one of the military men traveling to the continent?”
“Bless you, no. Merely a coachman for Newell’s Coaching Services. The boys heard the majors call me sergeant last night. Those officers knew me in another life; we served together.” He lifted his left leg and wiggled it. Patience noticed it didn’t bend at the ankle. “This works for most things, but not the King’s army. It was home for Zach Newell after that.”
He didn’t need and wouldn’t welcome sympathy, so she swallowed her instinctive reply and turned her attention to the boys arrayed around the room. “Where is Norb?” she asked.
“He’s with Millie,” Froggy said, more mournful than usual.
“Grieved and fretful, I’m afraid,” Newell cut in before the boys could say more. “Better to show you.”
The dog lay on a pile of straw across the way from the boys behind some boxes. She followed behind him, noticing his graceful gait, with no discernable limp.And you’re gaping at the man like a mooning schoolgirl. Act your age, Patience!
Norb crouched over Millie, making soothing sounds. When Patience approached, he jumped up and threw himself into her arms.
“He’s gone,” Norb wailed. He sobbed into her skirts.
She blinked up at Newell’s sympathetic eyes. “There are only three puppies,” he explained. “That’s all that were in the wagon. One must have fallen over the side.” Lines at the side of his eyes deepened, his kind face expressing concern for the boy as clearly as words might.
Norb pushed himself away, rubbed a fist across his eyes, and glared up at Newell. “No,” he shouted. “No. We must have left him. It were that dark in the barn and Hercules likes to wander. I thought he was in the basket with her, but he must have wandered. We left him behind. We have to go back, Miss Patience. We have to. We can’t leave him there.”
Patience darted a glance up at the man next to her and back to the frantic boy. “Norb, we can’t. You know we can’t. We’re lucky we made it here.”
“But Hercules needs his mama. He’s just now walking around, but he always comes back and he needs her.”
“Weaned?” Newell asked.
