A Proposal for the Unwed Mother
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Lauri Robinson
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Chapter One
Connor McCormick let out a curse and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of one hand before he turned around, needing more pushing power. He grasped ahold of the bumper, braced his legs, and put his back up against his car. A Packard Phaeton, red and black, without a scratch on her. That was about to change if he couldn’t get the damn thing off the tracks before that train whistle got any closer!
The long, low-riding chassis of the four-door sports model had become high centered on the railroad tracks, in the middle of nowhere. There were plenty of places like this in upstate New York, where the farms were miles upon miles apart, nearly cut off from the rest of the world by rutted and narrow gravel roads. That’s why he was here, to bring these people a connection to family, friends and the world via his phone company. He’d already sold lines to three farms, and needed to sell at least a dozen more to make stringing the lines profitable, and he needed his car in order to do that!
He would call about this crossing as soon as possible. Tell the county that the spring rains had washed away most of the gravel, leaving the tracks exposed for any car to get stuck on. People could get killed!
The train blew its horn again. He couldn’t see it coming around the bend, but the ground beneath his feet was vibrating. He dug his heels deep into the gravel, drew in a deep breath that was full of the scents of the white pines and Norway spruce trees blocking his view of the oncoming train and pushed against the car so hard he growled at the exertion.
With a scraping of metal on metal, the car rolled, just an inch, but it was all he needed. Heaving in a fortifying breath, he put everything he had into giving the car another hard push.
More metal-on-metal scraping sounded. So did another grunt, and just as he was about to give in long enough to suck in more air, the car broke loose and rolled over the tracks.
“Yes!” He ran, jumped in the open door, engaged the clutch and hit the ignition. The engine roared to life and he laid his foot on the gas. The tires kicked up gravel as the car shot forward, just as the train horn blared again and the locomotive rounded the curve at full speed, a mere five yards behind him.
The car’s top was down, and Connor kept his foot on the gas pedal to outrun the cloud of dust caused by his tires and the train. Exhilaration filled him. Life was full of challenges, and he thrived on them. Even being high centered on the railroad tracks.
Slapping the wheel, thrilled he’d won against that could-be disaster, he steered, along the winding road that would lead him to more houses where he would convince people they needed a telephone from the Rural Rochester Telephone Company.
The very company he’d started several years ago, and continued to grow each and every year since then.
He loved his life, he loved his automobile, he loved his family and friends, and the list of dolls who were always ready and willing to spend an evening of fun with him, but most of all, he loved his phone company. He’d been enthralled with phones from the time he’d been a small child, and wouldn’t change anything about his life. It was downright perfect.
The sun was shining, the sky bright blue, and whistling a tune, Connor drove the Phaeton along the dirt road, looking for the next driveway, the next farm that he’d convince they needed a phone line, one he’d gladly provide. For pennies on the dollar.
That was the best part. Unlike other companies, his phone lines were affordable, and the profit he made provided him a good living. The larger, more expensive companies had a monopoly on the city markets, had for years, that’s why, right from the get-go, he’d focused on the rural areas.
It had paid off; every year he’d expanded lines, expanded his business, farther outside of Rochester, and his goal this year was to run lines all the way to Syracuse. It was a hundred miles, and there were enough farms along the way that needed phones to make it profitable, even if he just signed up half of the farms. He’d already expanded lines that far in all other directions from Rochester, and was confident in his ability to complete this route.
He’d gotten a later start in searching out new customers than he’d intended, but only by a couple of weeks. It was still April, giving him plenty of time to get people signed up and all the lines run long before the ground froze again next winter. His brother Mick had asked him to hang around Rochester in case their mother needed anything while Mick had gone to Missouri. That still seemed odd to Connor. How Mick had taken it upon himself to travel across the nation to haul home a girl to see her dying father.
He and Mick were twins, but they certainly weren’t two peas in a pod. The two of them were more like corn and beans. Mick being the beans. He was a good guy, but hard to crack. The reason. Because he was the oldest. Older by fifteen minutes, but those fifteen minutes had defined both of their lives. Mick’s role of the oldest meant he had to follow in their father’s footsteps. Their father had been a hard shell, too. It was a McCormick trait, or curse.
Connor had often felt bad because he’d been allowed to spend summers as he’d pleased, play with friends after school, go to parties on weekends when they got older, date girls, while Mick had been expected to work at the family business every summer and on weekends, all in preparation to take over the helm someday.
That someday hadn’t happened. Their father had died while they’d been seniors in high school, and the family, namely their uncles, had declared Mick wasn’t old enough to run the company.
Mick, being Mick, had found a way to still be active in the business, while continuing his own goal of becoming a police officer. He was now a detective, one of the best, if not the best in Rochester, and Connor couldn’t be happier for his brother. Or more proud of Mick. They both wished their father hadn’t died, but if he hadn’t, Mick’s life would have been a lot different.
Connor’s wouldn’t have been all that different. He’d been able to pursue his dream from day one—that of owning a phone company.
The only thing that would have changed his life was a girl. Jenny Sommers. She’d been the prettiest girl in school, with dark brown hair and big coffee-colored eyes. Hardly a day went by that he didn’t wonder what had happened, where she’d ended up, how she was doing.
He tried not to think about her, but Jenny was always at the back of his mind. Which was why he preferred to think about Mick, or his friends, or the dolls he knew, or his phone company. Anything but Jenny.
It had been seven years, so not thinking about her should be possible.
The mailbox that came into view as he drove around a curve brought his attention back to where it should be. He downshifted and applied the brakes enough to turn into the driveway. Just like they’d lined the curving road, long-needled white pines and big Norway spruce trees, with their huge boughs creating a canopy for shorter vegetation of weeds and shrubbery, were on both sides of the driveway.
No house was in view because the driveway curved to the left and Connor kept his speed low. Prohibition was in full force, and while selling his phone lines, he’d been met by more than one shotgun-wielding homeowner who was diligent in keeping federal agents off their land.
So far, he hadn’t been shot at, and he wanted to keep it that way.
The road widened out after the curve. A large farmhouse, painted red with a green shingled roof, wide shutters and a lengthy front porch, was surrounded by several flower beds, hosting an array of colorful spring flowers like he’d never seen. There were also two large sheds and an older-model truck with a wooden box parked in the shade of two large cedar trees.
Connor didn’t see any movement, other than the clothes flapping in the wind on the clothesline near the far side of the house.
He pulled his car up to where the gravel stopped and the grass started and shut off the engine, while scanning the entire area closely for a shotgun-wielding homeowner.
None came into view, but he still used caution as he opened the door and slowly made his way up to the house. The entire area was clean and orderly. That, along with the clothes hanging off the lines stretched between two poles, told him there was definitely a woman in residence. They often took to the idea of a telephone more quickly than men. Or maybe they were just more likely to fall for his charm. He’d never had an issue of turning it on when the need arose.
With his telephone spiel well memorized, he pulled up a dazzling smile and knocked on the screen door.
A moment later, the house door was opened by a young woman.
“Good afterrrnoooon,” the word stretched out as his breath slowly left him. Stunned and questioning if he was seeing things, he pulled open the screen door. Was his mind playing tricks on him because he’d just been thinking about her, or was it really her? “Jenny?”
The house door slammed shut so fast there wasn’t time to react.
Other than to realize it had been her! Jenny Sommers. He hadn’t seen her in seven years, but even after a hundred years, he’d know her face. She’d looked as shocked as a deer bounding onto a road with oncoming traffic, and had responded just as quickly.
Grasping the doorknob, he tried turning it. “Jenny! Jenny! It’s Connor. Connor McCormick!”
The door was locked.
Locked or not, he kept trying to twist the knob with one hand and he knocked on the door with the other.
Again, and again, until he was pounding on the door as hard as his heart pounded inside his chest. “Jenny! Jenny!”
He’d never admit that his heart had been broken, because he was the fun-loving, always happy, Connor McCormick, but the closest it had ever come had been when Jenny had left town. Vanished without a word. He’d questioned her mother, who had merely said that Jenny had moved away, to live with family. Despite his attempts to find out more, he’d failed.
Failed for months.
Then his father had died, which had been another crushing blow, but life had gone on. Had to. He’d had to go on, without looking back.
He had gone on. For a long time.
He pounded harder on the door.
His heart nearly stopped when he heard a click and felt the knob turn. “Jen...” He paused, stared at the older woman who’d pulled open the door.
“What is it you need?” she asked.
Other than her long brown hair braided and hanging over one shoulder, the woman was built as close to a man as he’d ever seen. She looked about as friendly as a shotgun-wielding landowner, too.
Connor shifted to look over her shoulder. “The other woman, the one who opened the door a moment ago—”
“I am the homeowner.” The woman’s green eyes narrowed as her pointed chin stuck out a bit farther. “State your business.”
There was no one behind the woman, nothing to see except a living room. “I’m with the Rural Rochester Telephone Company and...” Connor’s thoughts stalled. Whether it was the unfriendliness of the woman, or knowing that Jenny was in that house, his often used and well-known spiel escaped him.
“I don’t have a telephone,” the woman said.
“I know, I’m here to uh—” He shook his head. It was no use trying. His mind couldn’t focus on phones. “The other woman, the one who first opened the door, her name is Jenny, isn’t it?”
“Good day.” Stepping back, she swung the door.
Connor stuck his foot in before the door slammed shut. “A telephone line will be run past your property in the near future and I can offer you—”
“No, thank you.”
“Having a telephone installed could—”
“I said, no thank you, now kindly remove your foot or I will use Old Bess.” While speaking, she reached over and picked up a double-barrel shotgun that must have a permanent spot next to the front door.
Connor had no doubt the woman would use it. Stout and stern, she’d probably used the gun before—on man and beast. He pulled his foot away from the door, but held it open with one hand long enough to say, “Would you please tell Jenny that I’ve always hoped to see her again.”
The woman provided no response, other than to shut the door.
Connor stepped back and closed the screen door, his mind racing. He’d never understood why Jenny had left, and certainly didn’t understand why she wouldn’t see him now.
He wasn’t going to give up this time. Not by a long shot. She owed him an explanation for leaving town without a word, and he was going to get it.
The curtain next to the door fluttered, and he saw the older woman peering out of it, directly at him.
With a tip of his flat-brimmed leather newsboy hat, he pivoted and walked down the steps. He kept walking, straight to his car and climbed in it. After starting the car, he backed up and then drove away, down the tree-lined driveway. The entire time, he kept seeing Jenny’s face. Determination to have answers grew inside him, and by the time he arrived at the mailbox, he’d started a countdown of when he’d see her again and get those answers.
Holding her breath and both hands over her pounding heart, Jenny Sommers watched from behind the curtain of the upstairs window as Connor drove away. Connor McCormick.
The Connor McCormick.
Good Lord, but he was as handsome as she remembered. He might be a bit taller, a bit broader at the shoulders, but the rest of him... A tiny groan rumbled in her throat. From the top of that leather hat covering his brown hair to the very soles of his feet inside shiny black shoes, he was the perfect specimen of the male species. Always had been.
Her eyes stung as his black-and-red car completely disappeared around the curve in the driveway. Despite all she’d gone through since leaving Rochester seven years ago, barely a day had gone by when she hadn’t thought of him.
Some days she even blamed him for how her life had turned out, even though he had no idea what had happened after he’d lied to her.
Or did he?
Was that why he’d shown up here today?
No. He couldn’t know. Most likely didn’t care. Their romance—if it could be called that—had been short lived; he probably didn’t even remember it. He’d been the one to end it. She’d been the one to let it break her heart.
She was older now. Wiser. Stronger. A heavy sigh left her lungs as she turned away from the window.
Gretchen stood in the open doorway.
As tall as some men, and nearly as broad shouldered, Gretchen Olsen had saved her life, and Emily’s, almost seven years ago, and had saved her again today, because in the moment she’d seen Connor, she hadn’t been as strong as she needed to be.
“He’ll be back,” Gretchen said, leaning a shoulder covered in a red-and-black flannel shirt against the door frame.
Red and black, the same as Connor’s car.
Stop it! Jenny told herself. If only she could! She’d tried so hard to forget Connor. For years. Now, the forgetting would have to start all over again, and would be even harder.
“As sure as the sun will come up tomorrow,” Gretchen said, “he’ll be back.”
Pushing down a wave of hope that did nothing but make her angry, Jenny asked, “Did he say so?”
“He told me to tell you that he’d always hoped to see you again,” Gretchen answered.
Jenny took two steps, but her legs didn’t want to cooperate. They were trembling again. Like the rest of her. She eased herself onto the bed and focused on ignoring the little joyous leap her heart had taken at Gretchen’s words.
“He’s not Emily’s father,” Gretchen then said, her tone somber.
It hadn’t been a question, yet Jenny shook her head. “No, if Connor McCormick had been Emily’s father...” Her throat plugged as heaviness filled her, making it impossible to speak, to breathe. Jenny loved her daughter with all of her heart. Had since before she’d been born. It didn’t matter who fathered her; she was her daughter.
She considered it a blessing that Donald Forsythe knew nothing about Emily, and if Jenny had her way, he never would. Having Connor find her could change that. Change it as quickly as a hummingbird flaps its wings.
“I haven’t questioned you about her father in six and a half years, and won’t start now, but that young man will be back, and he will question you. I’ll do what I can, but...” Gretchen let her shrug finish her sentence.
Jenny nodded. She’d always feared that someday her past would catch up with her. Blinking hard and fast didn’t help. Hot tears still worked their way forward. She bit her bottom lip, fighting harder to hold the tears at bay, keep them from falling down her cheeks.
The bed sank beside her and Gretchen’s calloused hand took hold of hers. “Who is this young man? This Connor McCormick? Is he one of the McCormicks?”
The McCormick name was well known because of the large family textile business that had been in Rochester for years. “Yes. And the reason I became pregnant,” Jenny replied. As soon as the words were out, regret struck. It wasn’t fair to blame Connor, but somehow, doing so had eased her own guilt of what she’d done. She’d wanted to hurt him that night, as badly as he’d hurt her. Her own foolishness had backfired on her, and she alone had been the one to face the consequences.
“How so?”
Long-ago buried yearnings rose up inside Jenny. “I was young. Stupid. Thought I was in love with him.” Her story was much the same as many of the girls who had lived with Gretchen, and her, over the years. She felt sympathy for them, but only anger for herself. Connor had been dashing, handsome, gallant. Everything that would kick a young girl’s heart out of control. “He was two years older than me and though I’d worshipped him from afar, he hadn’t even known I was alive until the school play. I’d been given the job of painting scenery boards.” She’d begged for the job. Would have done anything to be in the same room as Connor. “His role was Captain Trevor in the play, a dashing charmer who would stop at nothing to win the heart of the female lead. He’d been perfect for the part. Even Mrs. Ellis, the director, had said he was the best actor on the stage, and she never gave out compliments—to anyone. His charm had won her over and literally stole the show.”
“And your heart.”
Jenny couldn’t stop how her heart warmed at the memories. “Yes, completely.” Gretchen already knew so much, there was no reason to not tell her the rest. “Just like nearly every other girl in school. Connor McCormick was the one subject that was guaranteed to come up at every lunch hour, every walk home and every slumber party.” Those carefree days of giggling with friends and secretly gossiping had all disappeared the night she’d been driven to Albany.
Even with pain, disgrace, working its way into her heart, Jenny couldn’t stop a smile from forming as she pushed that night out of her mind and focused on the play again. “During a rehearsal, a dancer lost her footing and stumbled into the scenery board I was painting. The board toppled and paint splattered everywhere. Connor was who helped me off the floor, and everyone claimed the board was ruined, including Mrs. Ellis, but not Connor. He said it wouldn’t take long to fix, and that he knew I could do it. Fix it. He stayed and helped me, and from then on, we were nearly inseparable. All the girls wanted to be me. It was the best month of my life. Then summer arrived, and Connor said he was going to New York City, to work at a phone company there.” Her throat burned. “But he didn’t. He’d only used that as an excuse to break up with me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I saw him two weeks later, and...” She’d accepted what had happened long ago. “And I decided to forget all about him. Another boy asked me out and I went.”
“Emily’s father?”
“Yes.” Jenny stood and thrust the bitterness inside her toward Connor. Toward every memory she had of him. “He won’t be back.”
“He told me he was with the Rural Rochester Telephone Company,” Gretchen said. “That they were running a phone line past our place.”
Jenny’s insides quivered. “He did?” That had been his dream, the reason he’d supposedly been going to New York, to work at a company there, learn all he could so that when he graduated, he could start his own company. Not work for the family business.
“Yes, he did,” Gretchen said.
It was unfortunate how deeply Connor could still affect her, but it was also true. “We don’t need a phone. I’d just as soon pack up Emily and leave than let Connor McCormick set foot in this house.”
