The Ballad of Hattie Taylo - Susan Andersen Page 0,1

out of harm’s way and back onto the safety of the wooden sidewalk.

Her rescuer, of course, had been Taylor. And the rest of the story was, if not history of national import, then at least grist for the family gossip mill.

Because Elmira Witherspoon had raised her timorous eyes to her rescuer and succumbed to that often-touted-but-rarely-believed-in Love at First Sight. And the phenomenon wrought monumental changes in her heretofore overprotected, uneventful life.

“I must admit I was rather amazed at the girl’s fortitude,” Augusta confessed when recounting the story. “I had always found Elmira to be quite timid. So, for her to suddenly stand firm against the combined condemnation of her entire family and insist on marrying her miner . . . ? Well, it must have taken a good deal of courage. Quite frankly, I’d never have believed she had it in her.”

She suddenly smiled at Jake, and it was a huge, wholehearted beam. “Yet Elmira did precisely that. She stood firm—even when they disinherited her for her temerity.” Her smile fading, Augusta sighed and shook her head. “I hate to admit it, Jacob, but some of the Witherspoons can be quite unyielding.”

“Which probably explains why they refuse to take the kid in now both her parents are dead,” Jake inserted. “At least I hope that’s the reason. It doesn’t say a great deal about their sense of charity, but it’s better than the alternative.”

Augusta regarded her son with exasperation. “Really, dear, must you persist in calling her ‘kid’? It makes her sound like some dreadfully scruffy animal rather than the young girl she is. And what, pray tell, might the alternative be?”

“That they took the trouble to meet her and found her entirely incorrigible after her sojourn in the wilds of wherever she was.” Jake shrugged. “It’s been, what—four years since her mother died? And in that time, she’s lived in the back of beyond, attended only by her old man and some other old coot whose antecedents are likely equally questionable.”

“Jacob, honestly,” his mother remonstrated. “‘Old man’? ‘Coot’? Where do you pick up these vulgarities?”

“Mamie Parker’s place, I suppose,” he promptly replied and hid a smile as he watched his mother and Mirabel pretend outrage.

It was not done for a man to mention the local cathouse in the presence of the gentler sex. Jake, however, was convinced Augusta and Mirabel secretly delighted in being shocked by him. Regardless of the belief that ladies didn’t appreciate being subjected to daring, ribald conversation, it had been his observation that his outrageousness often brought a twinkle to their eyes. They would go to their graves rather than admit it, of course. But diligently as they tried to suppress it, the sparkle was there . . . even as his mother lamented his unforgivable penchant for vulgarity and Mirabel sternly informed him he wasn’t too old to have his ears soundly boxed.

Unlike past transgressions when he’d skated scandalously beyond the boundaries of good taste, however, this particular episode didn’t elicit Augusta’s customary long and imaginative lecture regarding his lack of manners. She immediately returned to the subject of her new ward. “I don’t want to hear another word against my decision, Jacob,” she said with a regal arrogance he rarely heard from her. “The child’s mother was a gentle, well-bred woman—a Witherspoon, my dear—and breeding will tell. Hattie Witherspoon Taylor is coming to live with us, and I expect you to treat her as part of the family.”

She gave him her “I mean business” stare. “The subject is closed.”

Hell, Jake thought now as he paced the station platform, that was fine with him. It wasn’t as if he’d had a serious objection in the first place. His only concern was for his mother. She was hardly old, but neither was she a young woman. He feared rearing a rambunctious youngster would wear her out.

But perhaps it was precisely what Augusta needed. He often suspected his mother was bored—particularly since she’d been emotionally blackmailed into moving to town. He knew damn well she’d been lonely since his father’s death. She undoubtedly looked forward to the prospect of a new challenge. There was, after all, nothing Augusta Murdock liked better than managing other people’s lives. Perhaps she looked upon the advent of a youngster in her life as a God-given opportunity to bend a fresh personality to her formidable will.

The train’s whistle blew a low and mournful note in the distance, and Jake walked to the end of the platform to await its arrival.