Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [63]
“Is that why you’ve never returned home to see her?”
“Yes. That and my job.”
“She’s alive, then?”
“Yes. What about you? You said you’d not seen your mother, either. Is your mother alive?”
“She is.”
“What about your father?”
He took a deep breath. “He died when I was ten.”
She stopped, her eyes round. “Me too.”
Plenty of emotion that time.
“You were ten?”
“Thirteen. And the farm we’d lived and worked on our entire lives was taken from us because Mama wasn’t allowed to keep it without a husband.”
He nodded. “A hurricane hit our house. The lanterns inside were lit and the house burnt to the ground with my dad inside. So we didn’t have anything, either. We moved four hundred miles to my uncle’s place.”
“Was he a good man?”
“Not as good as my dad.” He tucked her arm back under his, keeping his hand atop it as they turned onto Sycamore, passing house after house.
The more traditional were T- or L-shaped, but the two- and three-story Victorians postured in bright colors and gingerbread trim. All sported large verandas with rocking chairs along the front. The occupants of the chairs called out to Georgie, looking with interest at Luke.
At Market Street, they exchanged homes, picket fences, and sprawling trees for commercial buildings with two-story fronts and awning-covered entrances. Horses, wagons, carts, and carriages jockeyed for position, churning up a constant swirl of dust. He guided Georgie to the side opposite Ottfried’s Millinery, giving the place a wide berth. Still, she never took her eyes from its entrance, noting who was going in and who was coming out.
“Did you have time to eat supper?” he asked.
Her attention remained focused on her nemesis. “Did I tell you Mr. Ottfried’s son is a member of my Junior Audubon Society?”
He lifted his brows. “You didn’t.”
“Well, he is. I think initially, Fritz joined in order to find out where the birds were and how to call them so he could kill them for his father.”
Luke tipped his hat to a man, woman, and two boys dressed in their Sunday best. The man returned Luke’s nod, then opened the door of Winkelmann’s Photography Studio.
“It backfired, though.” Georgie’s eyes dropped to half-mast. Her smile turned smug. “Fritz is my biggest proponent for bird conservation and has tripled the size of our society.”
“What does his father say about that?”
“I don’t know, but ads for his contest and spring collection continue to appear in every edition of the paper.”
Three tiers of beer bottles clinked inside a bottler’s wagon, temporarily blocking the millinery from view and diverting her attention.
“What’s the word on his contest?” he asked.
“It’s not doing too well. My Plumage League has secured a great number of pledges, even though our membership is still quite small.”
“You planning on running him out of town?”
She looked up in surprise. “Goodness, no. We just want him to stop using bird parts.”
Two women exited Schleider Furniture Company, intent on their conversation. Executing the intricate dance of walking without jostling others, Luke pulled Georgie closer to his side, skirting the preoccupied ladies. A few more steps and they reached the ice cream parlor.
Men, women, and children of all ages filled bent-wire tables and chairs, raising their voices to be heard over a player piano’s rendition of “Daisy Bell.” Luke took a deep breath, inhaling a melange of sweet smells. A white marble counter as fancy as any he’d ever seen stretched the entire length of one wall, swivel stools marking its length.
Two men in white coats and a woman in a low-bibbed black apron worked frantically behind the bar. Rows of flavored syrups lined their shelves like hard liquor in a fancy saloon.
Luke immediately spotted Peter Finkel across the room. The farmer’s side part, high forehead, and curled-over ears gave him more the look of an untried boy than a train-robbery suspect. Yet after Necker collected his purse, he’d made two stops on his way home. One was at Finkel’s, the other was at the home of a new telephone customer named Ragston. Luke had pushed