portion of the blanket blew loose, exposing Lena’s dark, curly head. Bending over the buggy, Juliette tucked it back into place.
“I know it’s cold, sweetlings,” she murmured when the blanket heaved and fussing noises emerged from under it. “Almost there.”
Just as she lifted Joe from the buggy, a dozen or more fat snowflakes drifted down. She hurried up the steps with him hugged close to her breast. Once inside, she laid a blanket on the floor and put him on it. Within seconds he began to cry.
“I’m sorry, little love,” she called over her shoulder while she hurried back out to bring in Lena.
Lena cried louder than Joe did when Juliette laid her down beside her cousin.
There was nothing to do but let them cry for a moment, since she could not leave the buggy to fill with snow.
Making quick work of it, she dragged the buggy inside then lit a fire in the stove. She put on a pot of water to heat, since it was far too cold to scrub with anything that was not warm and sudsy.
With a child in each arm, she sat cross-legged on the floor and fed them. The peaceful moment gave her time to look about at the task she had volunteered to do.
Cora was right. Any teacher worth the pay would not consider working in this filth. How long did she have to get it cleaned?
No one knew for sure when the instructor would arrive. Before Christmas was all she’d heard.
“What do you think, Lena?” She gazed down at her daughter and received a milky smile. “If I finish in time, I ought to hang a fir bough over the blackboard.”
Casting a frown at the walls and the smears of grime on them, she was not sure when that would be. There was plenty of firewood stacked outside, so she could stay here until she had to get Warren home and into bed.
The twilight hours were often difficult for him, and Rose should not have to deal with his increasingly odd moods.
“What do you think about some red berries tucked into the garland, Joe?” He kicked his tiny feet.
Within half an hour the room had warmed comfortably and the babies fallen asleep.
She turned her attention to the task at hand. Walls first, then desks and the floor.
The Ladies Service Society ought to have been here to help, but no doubt some of them were intent on leaving Beaumont Spur and no longer cared about the condition of education here.
Well, this was Juliette’s town—her school, in a sense—and she would see to its cleanliness. She could not understand why other folks didn’t care more about the condition of their school or their town. Perhaps it was because the people who had negative things to say spoke the loudest and set the mood for everyone else, giving off an attitude of despair instead of hope.
By the looks of things, she would be here for hours, listening to the snap of the fire, the babies breathing and the swish of the cleaning rag in soapy water.
Plenty of time to make a plan to renovate her hotel.
The trouble was, being in this room—which had not changed since she’d been a student—made her look more at the past than the future.
All of her memories, good and bad, led to one thought.
What had become of Trea Culverson? He was coming home. She knew that, but not a single thing more.
Wherever she glanced in this room she saw him—a boy discounted by the teacher, flirted with by infatuated girls and resented by the other boys—even as they envied him.
And Juliette...she remembered a day...
Looking up from her work, she gazed out the window. Snow drifted softly past, very much like it had that day.
The teacher had sent her students outside to get fresh air even though the weather was bad.
Juliette stood with a circle of girls and boys who considered themselves to be wooing. Juliette believed them to be silly, since no one was of an age for courting.
The room around her faded, giving way to a vivid vision of things past.
Trea stood next to Juliette, all the while holding the hand of his current sweetheart, Nannie Breene. The name Nannie Preen would have suited her better—Juliette remembered thinking that very clearly. She was awfully proud to be holding the hand of the handsome bad boy.
Nannie had looked at Juliette with a sneer so genuine that one would not know they were friends. At least she had always thought they were, but the scorn in her expression took her aback.
“You need a beau,” Nannie had suddenly declared in front of everyone.
Indeed, Juliette was the only girl in the circle without one. And no wonder. She was not like the other girls. She was too tall, quite gangly and she dressed in homemade clothes rather than the fashionable outfits her classmates enjoyed.
“Juliette Moreland, why don’t you just go away?”
Nannie’s words had slashed her to the heart. They were so hurtful and embarrassing, she’d wished the ground would open and she could slip away—never to be seen again.
Her cheeks had burned hotter than any fever.
She’d been certain she could never face anyone again. But then—she could scarce believe it—Trea dropped Nannie’s hand and slipped his arm around Juliette’s shoulder.
“She can stay,” he’d said with a slight squeeze. “I want her to stay.”
A day and a half later, Trea’s attention had shifted from Nannie to another girl.
After all this time, she could not even recall who it was.
In the end, she was glad he’d never chosen to flirt with her. If he had, her life might have turned out very differently because there had been something, a sense of belonging, between them, a feeling that they were meant to be together. At least, that is what her romantic young heart had believed.
A silly fancy, she had come to see as time went on.
In the end, she had married Steven and never regretted it. How could she, with those two precious babies asleep on the blanket? And there was the café that had taught her how to stand on her own. And now? Well—she certainly did not regret the new venture she was taking on. It frightened her, but she would not go back from the choice she made.
Things worked out the way they were supposed to in the end.
Mostly.
* * *
When he got off the train, Trea was hungry. Seemed like half a dozen other folks were, as well.
He’d wait a bit to eat. Maybe head on over to the café he’d just spotted for dinner. The place hadn’t been here when he was a kid but it looked respectable.
Picking up his valises, he tucked one under each arm then scooped up two more, one in each fist. All he had in the world fit in the four small cases. A circumstance that suited him just fine.
Anything he needed he could purchase when he received his first pay. Since his house on the outskirts of town came with furniture, he would not need much.
Glancing about, he was sorry to see the town so ragged. Seemed like no one cared about it anymore. The Beaumont he remembered had been a pretty place.
Blame it if his own father wasn’t responsible for much of the blight. He imagined his pa was even less scrupulous as a saloon owner than he’d been as a teamster.
He had the sad feeling that Pa’d had Trea’s mother in mind when he named one of his saloons The Fickle Dog—probably The Saucy Goose, as well.
Growing up he’d never heard a complimentary thing about his mother. Absence—death, as it was—had not made his father’s heart grow fonder.
In the