A Light For My Love, page 2
Jake let his gaze wander around the place, recalling the man times he’d sat on the end bar stool when he was a kid, drinking root beer and hiding from the truant officer. No one had thought to search for a youngster in a dockside saloon. Pug hadn’t nagged him much about skipping school. It had been plain that he took for granted Jake would end up a fisherman like his father, Ethan Chastaine.
“Hey, you gob!” Pug snapped at a sailor passed out with his head on the scarred oak. He reached over and shoved the man’s arm until he stirred. “Go sleep it off somewhere else and make some room here.” The sailor dutifully roused himself and staggered to the door.
Pug set two glasses on the bar, then unlocked a cabinet and produced a dark bottle. “This calls for the good stuff.”
Jake chuckled again, taking the vacated space at the counter. He remembered “the good stuff.” On his fifteenth birthday Pug had declared him a man and bought him his first scotch right here. Quinn’s aunt Gert had thrown a fit when she found out about it.
Pug poured them each a hefty measure, then raised his glass to Jake’s. “To bowlegged women.”
“To bowlegged women,” Jake repeated, clinking his glass to Pug’s.
The little man leaned a beefy arm on the counter. “How is it that you’re home after all this time?”
That was a good question, Jake thought. Since the morning he left, he’d wondered if he’d ever see Astoria again. After all, he’d had no reason to come back, even though his memory had turned toward this town nearly every day for the past seven years.
Then, five months ago, in a New Orleans saloon a lot like this one, a small miracle had occurred. And it had changed everything—his status, his future, his possibilities. He’d had to return.
Jake took a big swallow of the smoky, peat-mellowed whiskey. “That big barkentine tied up at Monroe’s?”
Pug nodded. “I saw her. She looks like a real lady.”
“She is,” Jake agreed. He put his elbows on the bar and leaned forward. “But she needs some work, so I brought her to Monroe. Then I’ll be looking for a cargo for her.” Jake smiled with a sense of quiet exaltation. “She came to me thanks to the owner’s folly and a pair of threes.”
Jake almost laughed at the bartender’s amazed expression.
“You mean she’s yours? And you won her in a poker game?”
“She’s mine, all right, Pug. Every inch of her canvas.”
Pug slammed the flat of his hand down on the bar, his face split with an incredulous grin. “Well, I’ll be damned for a one-eyed dog! She’s really yours? What’s her name?”
“The Katherine Kirkland.”
Obviously impressed, Pug straightened his stained white apron and back up to salute him. “So it’s Captain Jake, is it? And a tycoon, too? I’m surprised you’d want to come back to the old Blue Mermaid.”
“Come on, Pug,” Jake mumbled, slightly embarrassed. “I’m not any different. And I’m sure as hell not a tycoon.”
Pug punched him in the shoulder, his smile undimmed. “I’ll bet your old man is proud of you. What did he say?”
Jake looked away and drained his glass. “I haven’t seen him.”
“You probably will while you’re in port. You might even catch him in here—the rheumatism keeps Ethan on shore most of the time now.” Pug poured them both another drink.
Jake sipped this one more slowly. With his stomach empty, that first shot had gone straight to his head. “Things weren’t so good between Pop and me before I left. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know. He didn’t like the company you were keeping, hanging around up at Brody Sullivan’s house, if I recollect.”
Jake took another drink of scotch. “That and some other things.”
Pug glanced at him, then pushed a bar rag down a short length of countertop between them. “He meant well, but you and him were too much alike to keep from butting heads. To him, you being friends with Quinn was bad enough, but wanting to leave Astoria . . .” Pug shook his head, letting the sentence hang unfinished.
Jake wasn’t comfortable with this topic. He and Pop were nothing alike. A familiar pain, a dull anguish he had believed healed long ago, suddenly rose in his chest. His thoughts turned down old paths he’d rather they not take. Especially when he thought of the reason that had driven him to leave Astoria in the first place. The echo of arguments and accusations rang through his memory: Pop’s voice raised in fury, Jake’s own voice shouting back, an image of his father’s set, angry face.
Changing the subject, Jake said, “Can a man still buy a meal in here? I haven’t eaten since daybreak.”
Pug’s face took on the expression of a concerned hen. “Anything you want, we can cook it for you. You want oysters? We got oysters. Steak? Fish? Ham? The food isn’t fancy, but it’s good.”
“A steak would be fine. I haven’t had one in weeks.”
“You got it, and all the trimmings.” Pug turned toward the kitchen door. “Jimmy!” he shouted.
No one appeared.
Pug shouted for his cook again. “Jimmy, damn it!” He turned to Jake. “He’s a nice kid and a good cook. Came from Piraeus by way of a Lisbon steamer. But he hasn’t got much English, and I don’t know any Greek except for swear words.” After a third try, Pug went to the kitchen himself, yelling to Jimmy in his limited Greek.
Jake grinned, recognizing every curse. He’d worked with a few Greek sailors himself. Good old Pug—except for some gray hair he hadn’t changed one bit, and Jake was glad for that.
He nursed his drink while he waited for his dinner, drawing solace from the fuzzy, relaxed comfort the whiskey gave him. That made it easier to push thoughts about Pop to the corner of his mind for the time being.
But the chief cause of their old arguments—well, she was as clear as ever. How would she view him now? If China Sullivan saw him today, captain and owner of his own ship, would she still look down her nose at him? Or would she instead see him for the man he’d become?
Now and then he glanced at the mirror on the back bar, casually watching the people behind him and next to him. He listened, too, to bits of conversation going on around him. It was a habit he’d acquired over the years—never letting down his guard, especially while he was in a waterfront saloon.
After a few moments he became aware of two men to his right. Something about them seemed off kilter. They wore expensive suits. That alone caught his attention. A dive like the Blue Mermaid didn’t attract the upper crust, but that description didn’t fit these two, either. They were a little too rough.
“Well, I’d feel better if Williams was out of the picture. He’s getting to be a goddamned pain in the ass,” the younger of the pair complained. “Every time I turn around, there he is, stirring up a ruckus. Last week he stood outside Maggie Riley’s saloon, handing out leaflets and ranting like a preacher at a revival meeting. He went on and on about the ‘poor sailor’ being a victim of ‘the new slavery.’ He’s like John Brown back from the grave. The Astorian even ran an item about it.”
The other man nodded, holding a match to his cigar. The of the Havana glowed like hot coal. “I didn’t pay him much mind when he started this a couple of years ago. But he’s a persuasive firebrand, and people are beginning to listen to him.” He let out a huff of laughter and a cloud of smoke. “It’s a good thing city hall doesn’t.”
The first man went on. “But up till now he’s always worked alone. Lately I’ve heard a rumor that he has a partner helping him, maybe financing him. We don’t need that.”
“Larry, you worry like an old lady. I’ve heard that rumor too. But at fifty or sixty dollars a head, there are too many people making too much money for that Williams character to be real trouble for business.” The man shrugged. “Anyway, maybe we can find out who his partner is. Who knows—with a couple of double eagles in the right hands, we could teach them both a lesson.”
Jake continued to sip his whiskey, elbows on the bar and shoulders hunched, giving no appearance of eavesdropping. He knew the “business” of these two businessmen. They were crimps, shanghaiers. They took blood money from captains, the fifty or sixty dollars mentioned, to find crewmen for outbound deep-sea vessels. That usually involved getting a man drunk, drugging him, or somehow tricking him aboard a ship. Most captains got their money back by deducting it from the sailor’s pay. Jake saw it as a regrettable but necessary part of sea trade. He knew it was also very profitable for men like those next to him, as well as bartenders, boardinghouse landlords, and brothel owners. Captains who resisted working with the crimps could get the holy hell beaten out of them or find their vessels damaged. The crimps sure wouldn’t let some crusader—or his sidekick—get in their way. It wouldn’t matter how zealous this Williams was. To these people, he was only a fly speck.
Just then he saw Pug coming toward him, a big platter in his hands. Jake’s last thought about Williams was that he’d probably get his name in the newspaper one more time, when the police fished his gray, water-bloated corpse out of the river.
*~*~*
Please be careful with that," China Sullivan appealed. “It—it’s been in my family for a long time.” With no little trepidation, she watched as the two sturdy Jesperson brothers maneuvered her mother's elegant sideboard down the hall toward the front door. She knew that the draymen were more accustomed to loading barrels of flour and lard for Landers Bakery than moving fine furniture. As they passed her, red-faced and sweating from their efforts, she stretched out a light hand to touch the beeswaxed cherry wood one last time.
She followed them as far as the porch, watching anxiously as they ferried the heavy piece down the steps. When it listed sharply to the left, China's breath caught on the lump in her throat.
A muffled but audible curse rose from the general vicinity of the sideboard. “I told you we should have brought Lucas to help!” Rogan Jesperson grunted at his brother.
They righted their burden after a brief, grappling struggle, and continued to the waiting dray. With considerable effort they hoisted it onto the back of the wagon. Their two horses, as sturdy as the brothers, stood like granite sculptures in the traces while the wagon pitched under the weight of the sideboard.
China waited until Rogan covered it with a tarp, and then allowed herself a shaky sigh, feeling her eyes begin to burn. She was being ridiculous, she knew, but telling herself that didn’t seem to help.
The drayman climbed the stairs again to China’s porch, his auburn head a bit of color under the slate gray sky. “Ma'am,” he huffed, “if you'll just sign here—” He held out a receipt book and pencil while dragging his forearm across his wide brow.
China hesitated a moment, then took the pencil into icy fingers. In complying with his request, she signed away one more piece of the life she’d grown up with.
“You'll try to avoid the bigger ruts in the street?” China asked hopefully, scratching her name on the slip.
A look of mild horror crossed Jesperson’s broad face as he took the book back and poked the pencil behind his ear. “Mrs. Landers would have our hides if we damaged this sideboard before she even got it into her house. Don’t you worry, ma’am, we'll give it a real smooth ride.” He handed her the receipt.
China only nodded, afraid that hearing her own increasingly constricted voice would make her break down altogether. This was just business, she kept reminding herself. She had no way to pay her long-delinquent bill at Landers Bakery, and this was the agreement she and Sam Landers had arrived at. In exchange for the cherry sideboard his wife had admired, the debt would be forgiven, and she would even have a credit balance. The fact that Mrs. Landers had first seen the piece as a dinner guest at her parents’ table was something China would have to disregard. Those days of comfort and security were gone forever—she’d so taken for granted that her future held both—and she was in no position to entertain the luxury of embarrassment. There were mouths to feed in this house.
Rogan Jesperson returned to his wagon, and China went back into the house, unwilling and unable to watch them leave. She should be used to this by now, she supposed. But if she was forced to sell or trade away too many more of their furnishings, the family would be sitting on packing crates brought down from the attic.
As she looked down the hall toward the kitchen, she saw the bright rectangles of unfaded wallpaper, ghosts that marked the places where pictures used to hang. And as she saw those, her mind automatically took a right turn into the back parlor and relived the afternoon six months ago when she’d sold the red turkey carpet. She’d half hoped that she’d find money hidden under it when it was rolled up. But there had been nothing beneath except bare hardwood floor.
If only Quinn were here, she pondered, as she did at least once a day. He would have made all the difference. She wouldn’t have been reduced to these penurious circumstances. Or suffered the humiliating experience of having shop owners call at the front door to collect on the bills she’d incurred to support the household. He would have prevented all of this.
But Quinn wasn’t here. And, as always, when she thought of why, Jake Chastaine’s rough good looks rose in her mind's eye to irritate her. Still, she reflected on her way to the kitchen, she’d made a certain peace with herself about the matter. After all, Quinn might someday find his way back to Astoria.
Jake Chastaine? She knew she was rid of him for good.
*~*~*
“You have to say yes. China will be so happy to see you.”
Like hell she will, Jake thought. He eyed Gert Farrell dubiously. He’d just stepped out of A. V. Allen’s store when he’d seen Gert, the woman who’d been more of a mother to him than his own had. After the excitement of reunion, Gert had begun pressing him to come back to the house. Pride prevented him from pointing out that China had banished him from the Sullivan home long ago.
He lifted his voice slightly to be heard over a beer wagon that rumbled past, letting his eyes rest unseeing on the gold-leaf lettering painted on its dark side. “I wouldn't be too sure about that . . . besides, I've got a lot of things I need to take care of and I don't want to be a bother.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” she snorted, not letting him wiggle free of the invitation. “That house got to be so big and empty, we rented out a couple of rooms. You’re family—you wouldn’t be any more bother than our other guests.”
Jake brought his gaze back to her, puzzled. The Sullivan were renting rooms? He supposed that might make things more businesslike if he stayed there. He discarded the idea, shaking his head. “No, it wouldn't be—”
Gert drew herself up slightly and fixed him with a determined look. “You said yourself you hate living in a hotel. You used to like staying with us. You spent enough time there when you were a boy.”
Oh, goddamn it, Jake swore to himself. He felt powerless against her barrage of guilt-provoking arguments. He did hate hotels. He’d spent last night at the Occident, and even though it was a nice place, he’d lain awake, listening to every footfall in the hallway, every key in every lock on the floor. Still, he knew in his bones that it would be a mistake to give in to Gert. He wanted to see China, to talk to her, but not under these circumstances. So he wondered where his next words came from.
“All right, I'll come, but only if you let me pay you.”
Gert glanced behind her at the grocer’s door, then turned back to look at him. Her blue eyes twinkled. “It's a deal.”
*~*~*
“Aunt Gert, is that you?” China called from the kitchen. She cocked her head, her scrub brush halted in mid-stroke as she listened to the sounds of indistinct voices and muffled footsteps in the entry. The clean, damp smell of the wooden flooring drifted up to her nose. “Aunt Gert?”
When she got no answer, China threw the brush in the bucket of soapy water and rose from her knees. She pushed a wet hand at loose curls that straggled from her hairline. Susan Price must have wandered away and left the front door open again. China glanced out the window at the monotonous drizzle falling from a leaden sky. The cold dampness would seep into the house faster than the furnace could keep up. She’d have to make a point of watching Susan more carefully. The poor soul was becoming more absentminded and vague every day.
China was about to step into the hall when her great aunt appeared in the doorway, carrying two plucked chickens.
“Well, there you are,” China said. “I thought I heard someone. Where are the groceries?”
“A. V. Allen’s is sending their delivery boy with them. And you'll never guess what,” Aunt Gert said, carefully making her way to the table on a dry path across the floor.
“What?” China responded warily. “Is Mr. Allen complaining about our bill?” She felt terrible that she'd been able to pay so little on their account. Thus far Mr. Allen had been very kind about letting her charge, though not all of her other creditors were so patient.
“No, no,” Aunt Gert replied, putting the chickens on the table. She pulled off her gloves and removed her hat, revealing snowy hair pulled into a tidy knot. “Maybe that's because I told him we've rented another room.”
“Not yet we haven't. You probably shouldn't have said that.” China wished they could avoid taking in another boarder, but there was no helping it. She couldn’t bring herself to ask for more rent from old Captain Meredith and Mrs. Price. She charged them less than they would have paid anywhere else in town, but their circumstances were even worse than hers.
China began to walk around Aunt Gert, but the older woman blocked her way, her expression triumphant. “But that’s my news, dear. I found another paying guest while I was out. He's in the foyer.”
“Aunt Gert! Without asking me? Without an interview?” China was aghast. She was accustomed to handling all of the family business, including the boarders, and she was very particular. “How could you rent a room to a total stranger you met on the street? We might be murdered in our beds!” She loved her mother’s aunt with all her heart, but Aunt Gert could be as trying as a child.
