Lula Read online

  Baxter came to her chair and offered his hand. “Miss Stout?”

  She looked at it and slowly stood. “You’re injured. I can hardly expect you to help me up.”

  “My ankle is injured, not the rest of me, but I thank you for your consideration. I’m just sorry I can’t offer you an arm.”

  “No need under the circumstances,” she said, then tacked on a smile. She could tell he genuinely felt bad about this, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  “Keep it elevated, son,” Dr. Drake advised. “Whenever you can. I’ll check on you in a few days.”

  Baxter nodded, smiled at Lula, then motioned to the hallway with one crutch. “Let’s go.”

  Once outside on the boardwalk, they headed for the other end of town. “Does it pain you?” Lula asked him.

  “Actually, it’s not bad at all. In fact, I wouldn’t mind getting married right away.”

  Lula watched him hobble along and bit her lower lip. Didn’t he care about the things the doctor mentioned? She thought being carried across the threshold was rather romantic. Maybe Baxter Adams thought it was nonsense. That was something she hadn’t thought about – what if her future husband was a cold fish? And how would she find out? What a terrible fix it would be, to be married to an unaffectionate man –

  “You’re thinking hard about something,” he said.

  Her eyes widened as she returned to the present. “I’m … overwhelmed, that’s all.”

  “I understand. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. You won’t have to lift a finger.”

  “For what?”

  “Our wedding, of course.” He grinned again. “That is why you’re here, remember?”

  She nodded nervously. Maybe he just wanted to get married to … to slake his lustful desires? During the long journey west she tried not to think about the wedding night, but now she supposed she’d have to. Though after Fanny’s description of what would happen, who could stomach such thoughts? She glanced sidelong at him stumbling along on the crutches and forced herself to stay calm. How much slaking of lust could a man do with a twisted ankle?

  She was so caught up in Fanny’s horrific tales of wedding-night tortures that she didn’t realize they’d reached the hotel until Baxter stopped at the end of the boardwalk. He stood and gazed at it, an open invitation for her to do the same. “Wow,” she whispered.

  “Indeed,” he said with a nod. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

  “Magnificent” wasn’t the word she’d use, not compared to the famous hotels of New York, but for a place like Clear Creek it was astounding. It was two stories with beautiful gingerbread-trimmed posts and railings. The building was painted a lovely blue that set off the white paint of the window frames and trim. Lace curtains graced the windows upstairs and down, and a sign between the first and second floors read THE VAN CLEET HOTEL in gold letters. “I had no idea so many people came here.”

  He chuckled. “We don’t get too many, really, but we get some. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause it’s the same thing everyone thinks when they first see the Van Cleet Hotel – what’s a grand place like that doing in a town like this?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “Well …”

  “It was Mr. Van Cleet’s dream project. He’d retired from a big shipping concern in Boston to come west and put it up, and he spared no expense.”

  “The town must be very proud of his accomplishment.”

  “We sure are. Shall we?” He gestured at the building with one crutch.

  She smiled and nodded, then stepped off the boardwalk. She waited a moment while he maneuvered to her side and together they went into the hotel. “Oh my word,” she gasped as she saw the interior. “Oh, Baxter, this is lovely … I mean, Mr. Adams.”

  He rolled his eyes and laughed. “We’re gonna be married, aren’t we? Call me Baxter. I hope you don’t mind my calling you by your Christian name?”

  She smiled shyly, thankful for his consideration. “I don’t mind. There’s no sense in standing on formalities for just two or three days.”

  “Less than that, if I had my druthers,” he said with a smile.

  A shiver of dread went through her. There it was again, his desire to rush things. Oh dear! But what could she do? She was there to marry him, after all.

  “Wonder where Lorcan is,” Baxter said to himself.

  “Who’s Lorcan?”

  “The hotel manager – he and his wife.” Baxter went to the front counter and struck a bell next to a huge ledger book.

  Both of them turned as a pretty girl, looking only a few years younger than Lula, rushed down the wide staircase to the lobby. “Baxter!” she said in delight. “I was wondering when you’d come in!”

  Baxter was smiling at the girl like a loon. “Howdy, Aideen. Where’s your ma and pa?”

  “Upstairs fixing a cracked windowpane in room 22.” She gave her bright attention to Lula. “Hello, I’m Aideen Brody. I work here.”

  “Lula Stout. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Oh, trust me, the pleasure’s all Baxter’s,” she said with a giggle.

  “Stop it,” Baxter scolded.

  Aideen’s happy smile vanished when she noticed his crutches. “Oh, what happened now?”

  Baxter rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you only if you promise not to laugh.”

  “I promise nothing. What happened?”

  He glanced at Lula with a brace yourself look, then turned back to Aideen. “Fell off the train platform.”

  Aideen’s hands flew to her mouth as she snorted. “You what?”

  “You heard me. Now about my bride’s room?”

  Aideen kept her hand over her mouth as she opened the ledger, only removing it once she found what she was looking for. “Miss Stout, you’re in room 8. Let me get the … the key for you. You fell off the –?” Her composure began to slip again.

  “The key?” Baxter prompted.

  Aideen opened her eyes, now tearing up. Lula began to giggle in response.

  “No, stop!” Baxter said. “If you get Aideen laughing, she’ll never stop!” He grabbed the key Aideen offered, then nodded toward the stairs. “Hurry.”

  Lula obediently followed as Aideen covered her face with her hands and did her best to muffle her screeches. Lula took another look at her, made eye contact when Aideen’s fingers parted and started laughing in earnest.

  Baxter, a few steps ahead, stopped and looked over her shoulder. “You too?”

  Lula put a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, but it’s contagious …”

  Baxter rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Well, I suppose it is rather funny.”

  Lula laughed louder, but now in relief. It was nice to know Baxter Adams was not only good-looking, but could laugh at himself. And after all she’d been through, she could use some amusement.

  Chapter 4

  “Your mother is from England …”

  Baxter ran into a table, knocking over a vase. He released both crutches to catch it before it crashed to the floor, but in doing so put weight on his bad ankle. “Aieeee!”

  “Oh dear!” Lula rushed to his aid, took the vase from him with one hand and retrieved one of his crutches with the other. “Here, you need this.”

  “Yes,” he said gratefully, tucking it under one arm. “It’s obvious now I do.”

  She studied him a moment as if he was daft. “I would think you already knew that.”

  “There’s hoping …”

  She smiled at his joke. “I’m glad to see you still have your sense of humor.”

  “I try.” He took a deep breath and looked around the room. “I’ll have your things brought up. I would do it for you, but …”

  “Think nothing of it. I’m sure if you hadn’t …” Her eyes dropped to his ankle. “Oh dear … where’s your boot?”

  Baxter frowned. “Back at Doc Drake’s, I guess. I’ll get it later. At least it’s warm out.”

  She nodded and took almost as deep a breath as he had. “We
ll, I must say, none of this is what I expected.”

  Baxter’s smile was lopsided. Which matched how he felt. “What were you expecting?”

  She half-laughed as she flung out her arms, then dropped them to her sides. “I wasn’t sure. But now that I’m here, I think I could get used to it.”

  Baxter slowly nodded. The hotel was lovely – anyone could get used to it. But what was she going to do when she saw his place – or rather, his room in his parents’ place? One more thing to add to his growing list of Reasons Why Lula Stout Might Refuse To Marry Me.

  She went to the window and gazed out. “Is that where your father works?”

  He retrieved his other crutch and went over to where she stood. “Yes, that’s our livery and blacksmith’s shop. And beyond that and to the right is the church.”

  She looked and smiled. “It’s so small and quaint!”

  “Yes, but you can fit the whole town in there and then some.”

  She turned to him, blue eyes wide with curiosity. “Tell me about your mother.”

  He cleared his throat. “Oh well, there’s not much to tell. She’s my ma.” He shrugged. “I’d better see to your things – they must still be at the mercantile.”

  “Baxter.” She touched his arm. “Don’t you want to stay for a bit, rest your ankle?”

  “No.” He saw her eyes widen and thought he’d better clarify. “I, I mean, I need to take care of business for you. I’m sure there are things in your trunk you want.” He turned to go.

  “Baxter …”

  He stopped. He was being rude. The least he could do was make a slower exit. He turned to face her. “When I come back, why don’t we have tea in the dining room?”

  “There’s a dining room here?”

  “Yes, a big one. The tea and scones are excellent. As are the cookies.”

  She smiled in delight, and for the first time he noticed she had a little dimple on her right cheek. “How wonderful. I didn’t have much to eat at the doctor’s – I was too nervous.” She wrung her hands in front of her. “I guess I still am.”

  Baxter’s heart softened toward her. The poor thing was probably plumb tuckered out as well as hungry. “Land sakes, why didn’t you say so? You must be half-starved.” He took her hand. “Come with me.” He pulled her toward the door, realized he couldn’t hold it and work the crutches at the same time and let go.

  Thankfully she figured it out too and chose to follow him out, then down the hall and the stairs to the ground floor, through the lobby to the hotel dining room. Several tables were filled with folks having lunch, including his uncle Levi and cousin Asher. Baxter stopped dead in his tracks. Great – more people capable of telling stories that could make his future bride balk at marrying him.

  “Baxter!” Asher waved them over. “Come join us!”

  Baxter glanced between Lula and his cousin. Asher was a dashing fellow with dark hair and clean, sharp features like his father Levi. He’d married Baxter’s mother’s sister Fina. Asher didn’t inherit his mother’s looks. He resembled his father. But he did get her creative and adventurous spirit. There’d been talk around town of Asher going to Boston to take a management position at the Van Cleet Shipping Company.

  Ironically, the Van Cleets were one of the families in town not related to the Cookes, and thus Baxter, in some fashion. But Cyrus Van Cleet was a special man. He was also now a very old one, and had willed his shipping business to the Cooke family, so Baxter kind of had a stake in it. Hmmm … would that make her want to stay? Though he didn’t want Lula to marry him just because he might come into money one day.

  Baxter chewed his bottom lip. Better to stick with the more pressing problem: how to get her away from his uncle and cousin.

  “So here she is, nu?” Uncle Levi said with a smile, his words betraying his Jewish roots. “Today is full of surprises.”

  Baxter’s eyebrows shot up. “Surprises?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Asher said as he smiled at Lula. “Sam’s home from Oxford.”

  “Oxford?” Lula said excitedly.

  Baxter wanted to clobber him with one of his crutches.

  “Yes, he just finished school there,” Uncle Levi volunteered. “In case Baxter hasn’t mentioned yet, Clear Creek has a very strong British influence.”

  “Half the town, at least,” Asher said with a laugh. “Isn’t that right, Bax?”

  Baxter gave him something between a smile and a grimace. Okay, so maybe the British population of Clear Creek wasn’t a deterrent, but some of Clear Creek’s more colorful characters could be. And what if someone told Lula the family stories? He almost choked thinking about it.

  “Are you all right, Bax?” Asher asked, exchanging a quick look with his father. “We, ah, heard about your little accident.”

  Baxter sighed in resignation and glanced over his shoulder. Aideen waved to him from behind the front counter in the lobby. This time he did grimace. It was only a matter of time before it would be all over town. “Yeah, I did.”

  Uncle Levi took note of his bandaged ankle. “What did Doc do? Why is it bandaged?”

  “Why is it bandaged?” Lula said in shock. “Isn’t it obvious? The poor man twisted it, or so the doctor said.”

  Levi and Asher exchanged a quick look, then glanced at Baxter, who raised his eyebrows just a hair. They turned back to her. “Ah yes, of course,” his uncle said. “I must have heard wrong. Aideen was rather excited when she told us.”

  “One would think she was there when it happened,” Asher added archly.

  Baxter rolled his eyes. Aideen Brody loved to tell a good story – and if changing a few details made it better, so be it. The girl should be writing for one of those terrible gossip rags they had in big cities. Who knows what she told them? “If you don’t mind, I’d like to make sure Miss Stout …”

  “So that’s her name?” Asher said with a grin. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  Baxter pressed his lips together. And here he’d been worrying about everyone else making a bad impression. “Forgive me. Miss Lula Stout, may I present my uncle Levi Stone and my cousin Asher Stone?”

  “How do you do?” she said politely.

  Baxter turned to her. “Please forgive my lack of manners.”

  “You don’t have to apologize – you’ve had a rough day,” she said with a nod to his ankle.

  “Forgive me anyway. You’re, um, not exactly catching me at my best.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Asher said.

  She smiled and blushed. “I understand. Now, if you gentleman don’t mind, I am famished.”

  Baxter almost sighed in relief. “This way.” He nodded at a nearby table. “I’ll see the two of you later.”

  Uncle Levi smiled and winked at him. “Later, then.”

  Baxter nodded. The man no doubt approved of his bride. Even Asher was smiling, a rarity in itself. Not that his cousin was a sourpuss, just dead serious, always with his nose in a book or jotting down numbers. He was good with them too, one reason he worked with his father at the bank – and was tapped to join Cyrus’s shipping company. But he didn’t show a lot of expression. Sometimes Baxter swore his cousin’s face was broken.

  Reaching a free table, Baxter pulled out a chair for Lula. She smiled in thanks, and once she was seated, he took a chair for himself.

  Just in time too – Sally Upton, the hotel’s cook and waitress, came out of the kitchen and headed straight for their table. “Why, Baxter Adams, just look at you!” She ruffled his hair. “What sort of mischief have you got yourself into?”

  “Er, marriage?”

  Lula giggled. He liked the sound and smiled back.

  “And this lovely creature next to you?” Sally asked.

  “This is Miss Lula Stout, soon to be Mrs. Baxter Adams,” he said proudly. At least he remembered to introduce her this time.

  “Welcome to Clear Creek, honey! I’m Mrs. Upton and I run this place.”

  “She means the dining room,” he said. “This
is her domain.”

  “And don’t you forget it!” Sally ruffled his hair again.

  “Sally!” he scolded playfully, then turned to Lula. “She never lets anyone forget it.”

  “I’ll run this hotel’s kitchen and dining room ‘til the day I die!” Sally announced. “Though at my age, that might not be far off. Now, what can get you?”

  “Miss Stout has just arrived. I’m sure she’d like some lunch.”

  “Of course she would. Coming right up, honey!” Sally spun on her heel and marched back to the kitchen.

  Lula watched her go with a helpless look. “But … she didn’t show me a menu. Or tell me what’s available.”

  “Sally’s been the cook here for over twenty-five years, since the hotel was finished. Mr. Van Cleet lets her make whatever she fancies, and folks around here eat it.”

  Lula gaped at him. “They do?”

  “She’s that good.”

  “My heavens, she must be.”

  “But don’t let Irene Dunnigan hear you say that. She’s just as good if not better at a few dishes. And those two can get competitive.”

  “You call her by her first name too?”

  “Sure. In a small town like this, everyone who isn’t family might as well be. And I grew up eating Sally’s cooking and Irene’s.”

  His future bride put a hand to her chest as if in shock. Surely such familiarity couldn’t be that much of a surprise. Or was she offended? Was he making Clear Creek sound like some backwoods … oh, great, maybe he was.

  She began looking around, like she wanted to change the subject. “My, it certainly is a lovely room. Mr. Van Cleet designed this, I suppose?”

  “I’m not sure if he did it himself or hired somebody. Never thought to ask.” Baxter felt the toes of his exposed foot go numb. He wasn’t making the impression he wanted.

  “I see.”

  “Well … there must be things where you’re from you never asked about.”

  “Of course – a lot of things. But New York is a big city – I couldn’t trouble myself with all that asking.”

  Baxter went rigid. “N-New York City?”