Her Happy Ever After Read online

  Her Happy Ever After

  Lucy Evanson

  Copyright © 2015 Lucy Evanson. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people or events is entirely coincidental. Locations and brand names are either fictional or used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Note from Lucy

  Also Available

  Chapter 1

  July 20, 1860

  Peshtigo, Wisconsin

  Melanie could feel his stare on her even while she pretended to read. When she lifted her gaze from her book, sure enough, Randall was looking right at her, entirely ignoring the newspaper that was spread open on his lap. His eyes were recessed, almost hidden behind his puffy cheeks, like birdshot pushed into a lump of butter. She smiled thinly and then looked down at her book again, though the words were just a jumbled mess on the page now. There was no way she could concentrate on the story with Randall staring at her like that.

  She looked over to her mother, who was on the opposite sofa. She was engrossed in her needlepoint, leaning close to examine the pattern in the dim light of the lamp and oblivious to the fact that her new husband was staring at her only daughter with a familiarity neither desired nor deserved.

  I’m going to have to talk to her again, Melanie thought. Mama obviously didn’t catch my meaning last time. She couldn’t help letting out a low sigh, though her frustration was still tempered by gratitude for everything that Randall had done for them. The past four years had been tough—much tougher than she had ever expected to go through—and she could still remember the many nights when she had gone to bed hungry. When her father died, he left them a modest sum in savings, a larger sum in debt, and a tiny plot of land that always seemed to produce more weeds than corn. Melanie and her mother had nearly run out of money, food and hope when they met Randall at church, and in the months that followed, Melanie’s mother said more than once that he was heaven-sent.

  It did seem like it, at first. Almost as soon as he began courting Melanie’s mother, their lives changed for the better. Debts were paid. The pantry was stocked. New dresses were delivered, made special for the two of them down at Mrs. Grady’s shop. A pair of hired men just showed up one morning and spent the better part of a day making repairs around the property. It all seemed too good to believe, but at the same time it made sense: a widower who had a thriving business and an empty house, together with a widow, still youthful and pretty, and her daughter. Randall paled in comparison to Melanie’s father—well, truth be told, there really was no comparison—but after such a long stretch of hard luck, she was thankful to have him around.

  Until the wedding, anyway. Once they were all living under one roof, Randall began to look at her in a new way—no longer like a fatherly figure, nor even like a benefactor towards his pitiable charges. No, to Melanie it seemed that he now regarded her like a spider would consider a butterfly that had flown into its web. She tried to think of reasons she might have been misinterpreting him—perhaps it was just the close quarters, or the newness of their relationship—but soon Melanie had to admit that Randall appeared more interested in her than in her mother.

  I could just kick myself, Melanie thought. She tried to think back to what things were like before. Did he look at me like that then too? Did his hand linger too long on mine when we greeted each other? Was I so naive that I missed all of that from the start? It was hard to remember, but easy to believe. She had been so overwhelmed by the food, the fancy clothes, the thought that finally things were going to be better, that she had not seen the evil underneath. It felt like she had taken a big bite of an apple, only to find that it was rotten within.

  “Mama, I need to speak to you.”

  Caroline looked up from her needlework. “What is it, honey?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Melanie could see Randall’s eyebrows raise up, arching high above his reading glasses. “It’s private,” she said. “You know...feminine concerns,” she added, letting her voice drop to a near whisper.

  Randall’s eyes widened slightly and he slunk down in his chair, hiding behind a wall of newspaper. “Perhaps I’ll go out to the kitchen and let you two talk,” he said.

  “No, don’t be silly,” Caroline said. “Stay here and relax. Melanie and I will go upstairs.” She gave her husband a wide smile which he returned with a thin-lipped smirk. He snapped the newspaper as if to smooth the pages, but his gaze never wavered from the women as they went out to the hall.

  Once they arrived in Melanie’s room, the two sat on the edge of the bed and Melanie took her mother’s hand. “Mama, I don’t really know how to say this....”

  “Just let it out,” Caroline said. “There’s nothing to fear when you’re talking to me. Believe me, whatever it is, I’ve been through it myself.”

  Melanie let out a bitter chuckle. “That would surprise me,” she said. “It’s actually about Randall.”

  Caroline’s smile faded away. “What about him?”

  “Well, he’s been looking at me like...well, it’s unpleasant. It’s like he wants—”

  “You’re not going to start with this again, are you?”

  Even in the low light, Melanie could see that her mother’s cheeks had picked up a bit of color. “Mama, I didn’t want to say anything—”

  “Have you forgotten what it was like before he came along?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Did you forget it was so drafty in the old house, you could barely keep a candle lit? Did you forget how we couldn’t even buy you new clothes, and I was fixing things when there was almost nothing but bare thread to stitch together?”

  “I remember.”

  “Did you forget that time we couldn’t afford anything but feed corn, and I spent the day picking out the gnawed bits and mouse droppings?” Caroline asked, her voice cracking with emotion.

  “I remember that too.” Melanie’s throat suddenly felt afire. She could still picture her mother at the table, a bucket of corn in front of her, sorting the kernels into a pile for eating and a pile for feeding to their last chicken. The chicken had come out with the best of that deal. Melanie had pretended not to notice as her mother blotted at her eyes with a handkerchief every other minute. That had been among their darkest days.

  “I’m glad you remember.” Caroline stood up abruptly and started toward the door. “Randall saved us,” she added, turning at the door. “You’d do well to remember that too. I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense.”

  Melanie listened as her mother returned to the parlor downstairs. She could hear a murmur from the two of them, then Caroline’s forced laugh, as though nothing were wrong at all.

  Melanie let herself flop backwards. “And when you catch Randall ogling me, you’d do well to remember that I told you so,” she muttered.

  She had no idea what she would do, but she did remember something that her father told her once when she was thirteen or fourteen. They woke up one early spring morning to find that Henry, their old draft horse, had died during the night, which meant that they were about to start the planting season with no way to plow the fields. Some men would have resorted to drinking, or cursing, or both together; Melanie’s father simply came to get her and showed her the carcass.

  She cried uncontrollably for several
minutes. She couldn’t remember a time without Henry, and he was so strong that it seemed impossible that he was gone. Her father stood there with his arm around her shoulders, letting her sob.

  “This is bad, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “You lost a friend, and we all lost a big help around here. It’s a sad day. But I want you to remember something.” He turned to her and wiped her tears away, and she could still remember the feel of his hands, rough but warm, against her cheeks. “For every situation, no matter what it is, there’ll be choices you can make. Some won’t be so good, but some won’t be so bad. You just have to figure out what options you have and go from there.”

  Ever since that day, she had emulated her father, taking things calmly and collecting her thoughts before reacting—or rather, she had tried to emulate him. It turned out to be harder in practice than in theory.

  Options, she thought, then pushed herself up from the bed. She was tempted to just lie there, stewing about her mother’s refusal to listen, but there was no time for self-pity. She closed her door and began to pace, making a path around the oval rug. So what are my options? Mother won’t listen when I try to talk to her, so that just leaves Randall. If she would have caught sight of herself in the dressing table mirror just then, she would have seen her lips pulled sharply back in an unconscious grimace. The idea of talking to him directly, of asking him to stop staring at her every chance he got, was enough to set her stomach churning. It would be humiliating, unpleasant and most likely useless. As her father would have said, it was an option that wasn’t so good.

  I can’t speak to him, and she doesn’t want to hear it. Which means that I’m on my own in this—but then, I pretty much already knew that. She stopped circling the rug and reached for the bedpost to steady herself. There were times when she missed her father so much that it felt like a piece of herself was gone, like something vital had gone missing and she’d been left with only a space inside. I sure wish you were here to help me figure this out, Papa. Of course, if you were here, then none of this would have happened in the first place.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she murmured. “But I can’t stay in this house any longer.” Suddenly, she let out a sharp laugh as the solution popped into her mind. That’s it, she thought. The house. Their old house was just outside town—easy enough to get to, yet far enough away to make chance encounters unlikely. Thanks to Randall’s repairmen, it was even in better shape than it had been in years. That will do nicely, she thought. It might look a bit odd at first, living there all by myself, but that’s something I can worry about later on. Of course, I’ll need money for food. And clothing. And come to think of it, I don’t think we even have any wood cut.

  There was a lot to think about, but it would all have to wait for later. Right now she was exhausted. In fact, almost as soon as she thought of taking refuge in the old house, she realized how very tired she was. It was as if her body was being driven solely by tension, and now that she solved her problem, she needed to recuperate.

  Melanie went to her dressing table and poured a splash of water onto a towel, then wiped her face and hands before she undressed. Even the effort needed to change into her nightgown was almost too much, and she let out more than a few yawns before she climbed into bed. She had nearly extinguished the lamp when she noticed her copy of Love’s Summer Bloom there on the bedspread, right where she’d left it earlier.

  Suddenly she felt a little less sleepy. She was dying to get back to the story of Lord Wellstone and the orphan girl Penny, but her better sense weighed heavily on her. I’ll be able to read all I want tomorrow, she told herself. Tonight I need to get some rest. She set the book on the nightstand and prepared to turn down the lamp. Although if I remember right, I was practically finished with that chapter anyway.

  Her better sense crumbled away as she grabbed the book and pulled it back into bed. In only a second she had found her place and was back on the English country estate, watching along with Penny as Lord Wellstone sought his love match. She needed rest, but sometimes a good book did more for a person, body and mind, than a whole night of slumber.

  ~ ~ ~

  She couldn’t have said how long it was that she was asleep, though the lamp had gone out and her room was lit only by moonlight filtering through the curtains. The night air was cool, her bed was warm, and she was very comfortable; in fact, at first she couldn’t understand why she was suddenly awake. There had been something...something I heard, perhaps?

  From the hall, there was the creak of a floorboard, and she instantly felt chilled in spite of the thick comforter. Her room was at the end of the hall, and there was no reason that anybody would be outside her door. Unless somebody wants to come in, she thought. It’s not like Mama to come to me in the middle of the night...which only leaves Randall.

  Melanie hurled herself out of bed and ran barefoot to her door, throwing the slim deadbolt into place just as she heard the familiar soft squeak of the doorknob. The door gave slightly before the bolt caught against its carriage, and then there was a terrible pause. Melanie stood there with her fingertips on the wood, barefoot and heart pounding, only inches away from her intruder.

  “Who’s there?”

  Nobody spoke, though the door eased back slightly and there was the sound of feet shuffling.

  “I know it’s you, Randall. What do you want?”

  Randall had a tic that she noticed early on: before he spoke, he frequently cleared his throat with an odd staccato noise, like the cluck-cluck-cluck of a hen scratching around in the dirt. It made him sound unsure, childish and more than a little silly, although it wasn’t amusing her very much at the moment.

  “I just wanted to check on you,” he said.

  “There’s no need for that. I’m fine. Goodnight,” she said. There was no response. She listened closely, but there was no shuffling step on the carpet nor creaking floor. Randall hadn’t moved.

  “I said goodnight,” she repeated.

  Cluck. “You know, these last few months have been wonderful. Having you here in my home has been a blessing. A real blessing.”

  “That’s nice of you to say. Now, it’s very late—”

  “You want to hear something funny? Until you all were living here, I never really noticed what a beautiful young woman you were turning out to be.”

  “Well...I guess I take after my mother. You know, your wife.”

  “Caroline is a beautiful woman, no doubt about it,” he said. Cluck-cluck-cluck. “But you know, I can’t help but think that she must have been even more beautiful when she was younger. Like you are now.” The deadbolt clicked in its carriage as the door pushed forward slightly, like it was being tested.

  Well, I really didn’t want to do this, but I guess there’s no way around it. “Randall, I think that kind of talk is inappropriate. And the staring at me all the time has got to stop. It’s not right.”

  “Staring at you? Whatever do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. You look at me like...well, it’s improper.”

  “Improper?” His voice rose a bit, as though he were amazed that she would use that word about him. “Let me tell you what’s improper. Improper is when you show ingratitude toward your savior, or when you ignore the man whose home you’re living in.”

  “Randall, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” Melanie said. “But what you’re doing is wrong.”

  “You’re in my house now,” he said. “By law and tradition, I’m your new father. And as my new daughter, you have responsibilities. These are duties given by God and nature.”

  “I’m a grown woman. I’m not your daughter. And you’re sure as hell not my father.”

  “You’ll watch your tongue in my house,” he hissed. His voice had changed in an instant, almost as if Melanie’s language were the most offensive part of the entire exchange. “You will speak in a godly manner while you live under this roof.”

  She was sorely tempted to blurt out that this wouldn’t be a pr
oblem come morning—as well as throwing in a few more words spoken in an ungodly manner—but she instead took a deep breath and fought her impulses. No reason to make him angrier right now, she thought. I just want him to go away, and goading him on won’t accomplish that. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Was there anything else?”

  “Just one more thing,” he said. The throat-clearing was gone now, as though he were sure about what he was saying. “I don’t like locked doors in my home. The next time I come to you, you will let me in. You’ll have duties to perform.”

  It felt like the blood racing through her veins turned to ice water in an instant, and she felt goose pimples form on her arms. She had tried not to think about just what was behind his constant stares these last several weeks. She had tried not to imagine what sort of thoughts must have been swirling around in his head when he looked at her. Now, however, she was forced to think about it all too clearly. There was only one duty that he could want from her, and now that things were clear, she felt like a fist of ice had closed around her heart.

  “I’m telling my mother,” she said, hoping that her voice sounded less shaky than it seemed to her, and reaching out to reassure herself that the door was locked. The brass deadbolt was shiny in the gloom. The bar was thin, not much thicker than a shoelace, and the carriage was secured only by two tiny screws. The lock was made for privacy, not to keep out a man who was intent upon getting in. It would serve tonight, but she could easily imagine the whole thing flying apart if Randall were to put his considerable weight behind it.

  “You go do that. Go tell her,” he murmured, and then laughed softly. His chuckle sent a fresh chill down her spine. “She doesn’t want to hear it,” he said. “I think we both know that.”

  There was the sound of shuffling feet. Melanie put her ear to the door and listened closely; it was only then that she realized how shallow and loud her breathing had become. She forced herself to take a deep breath and held it, then listened again. There was the soft creak of one floorboard or another, and then she finally heard the familiar click of Randall’s bedroom door closing.