Just outside the diner, a petite woman wearing a long brown coat slipped on a patch of ice. Jack ran the last few steps and grabbed hold of her arm, preventing her from falling. Her packages tumbled into the snow.
“Thank you,” she said, breathlessly, and Jack could see she wasn’t a woman at all. Only a girl of somewhere about fifteen.
He nodded and set about picking up her packages, placing them back into her arms one-by-one. The top package had torn, and a bit of blue fabric stuck out from inside the wrapping.
“You’re very kind, thank you,” she said again.
“You’re welcome. Be careful getting home.” He tipped his hat and continued on to the livery. But the image of that blue fabric stayed with him. The girl was likely bringing it home to make some sort of clothing. When he’d left home this morning, Celia had set up in the parlor in front of the fireplace, a neat little stack of mending she’d picked up from a few ladies in town at her feet. She planned to spend most of her day stitching to earn money—for him.
First her calf, and now her time. The conflicted feelings Jack had pressed down as he’d ridden into town returned. Celia was the epitome of selflessness, more than happy to work to help him erase the debts that sat uneasily on his conscience. No matter how many times he told himself they weren’t truly “debts,” the fact remained that he’d convinced a lot of people to part with a lot of money based on words he’d said.
Perhaps he should have spent more time looking into the feasibility of the business ideas he’d had. Or maybe he ought to have partnered with people who knew more than he did. But he hadn’t, and he’d had to leave New York like a thief in the night. And no matter that everything he’d done was perfectly legitimate, that strange, heavy sort of guilt sat in the corner of his mind. He’d been successful all that time in New York at ignoring it, plunging ahead with the next big idea. But out here . . . with so much time and space to think as he mended fences and cleaned the plow and patched leaks in the barn roof, it was impossible to ignore.
He’d come here for a clean start, and he couldn’t get that without fixing the mistakes he’d made in the past. He only wished it didn’t have to involve Celia.
Jack crossed the road and stepped around a stack of crates on the sidewalk in front of the livery as the chill air bit at his face. If he were a better man, he’d find a way to do it alone. Celia deserved a man who could do that. Sometimes, he thought she’d be better off with someone who hadn’t arrived saddled with so much baggage. A man who knew farming and had nothing from his past to worry at his mind.
No, it would get him nowhere thinking like that. Celia had chosen him. He certainly hadn’t coerced her into marrying him. Although, if he were honest, he knew he’d painted a rather rosy picture of himself in his letter. She didn’t know he’d left behind a string of unhappy investors back home.
Jack stood outside the livery trying to pull his thoughts together. Feeling badly about himself like this would get him nowhere. If Celia wanted to help, he’d need to let her. But meanwhile, he’d work to earn it. If she was going to work hard to help him, the least he could do was work even harder.
Chapter Eighteen
Christmas passed in a hurry. Jack had cut down a tree, which Celia decorated with pretty folded paper ornaments. She made a fine Christmas dinner to which they’d invited Faith, they drove through the snow to attend services on Christmas Day, and she’d presented Jack with a shirt she’d made him. So long as he never looked too closely at her uneven stitches, it was a good gift. In turn, he led her to the barn for her gift—two hens and a rooster. Celia had squealed with delight before throwing her arms around Jack. He promised more chickens as soon as funds would allow, but Celia didn’t mind. She’d missed her little flock and was thrilled to have the start of another one.
Jack had also mailed money to two more men in New York. He’d made a list of all the men and the amounts they’d invested, and Celia kept it pinned under the sugar jar in the kitchen. At first, she’d been horrified at the amounts. How could men part so easily with so much money? How did they have so much to begin with? It seemed an insurmountable task, repaying all of them. But Jack had organized the list from the smallest amount to the largest, and had decided to pay the first few in bits and pieces.
And so Celia had kept up with mending and had even started taking in laundry here and there, helping some of the town’s wealthier, busy women who were grateful to hand her the responsibility. For his part, Jack had been busy in the barn. He’d said he had an idea to earn some more money but wanted to see if it was possible before he shared it with her. Celia wanted so badly to sneak out and peek,
