The Professor's Heart (Heartsong Presents)
In ten minutes the westbound train would reach the town Euphemia Roper once vowed to never set foot in again.Hillsdale, Michigan, was the town Euphemia—Mia to her friends—had called home longer than anywhere else in her twenty-four years, and she had left with a broken heart. Only opportunity knocking too loudly to be ignored could draw her back. For a week she would research the story that would establish her as a professional lady of letters, while she avoided encounters with the man who'd left her heart in pieces.She twisted on her train seat and rubbed a patch of glass free of frost with her gloved fingers. The action accomplished little beyond making her hand damp through the knitted wool. The lights of Osseo had already dimmed beyond a veil of falling snow. The train gathered speed.So did Euphemia's heart.Muscles twitching in her legs, Euphemia tucked her handbag under one arm and her writing portfolio under the other. Rustling pages, snapping locks and a child asking if they were there yet rose like a wave before a high wind. Euphemia stood, planning to head up the aisle to be near the door before the train stopped so she could be one of the first passengers to disembark. Others preceded her, including a child barely old enough to walk. He paused to grasp the side of her seat."Are you lost?" Euphemia leaned toward the boy.Someone should be frantically in search of the little one."Nana?" His quivering lower lip protruded."Uh-oh. Don't cry. I'll find your mo—"The train whistle blasted its mournful call into the night. Women exclaimed. Euphemia jumped, and the child let out a howl loud enough to wake any passenger still asleep after the whistle blast."You poor baby." Euphemia set her handbag and portfolio on her empty seat and slipped into a crouch before the boy, her skirt billowing around her. "I'll find your momma." She raised her voice. "Is anyone here missing a—"With the cacophony of a hundred metal sheets slamming together, the train shuddered to a halt. The car floor bucked. Baby, Euphemia and luggage tumbled across the aisle. Passengers screamed."We've wrecked," someone shouted.The car rocked on its wheels. More cases fell. More passengers shrieked."We're going to derail.""We're going to die.""Fire!"No more than the usual tendrils of coal smoke filled the car, but passengers stampeded for the door. One wrist throbbing, Euphemia snatched up the child and dove back into her seat. The contents of her handbag crunched under her feet. Her writing case had remained on the seat."Help me." A woman's cries rose above the hubbub of wailing, shouting, shoving passengers. "My leg. I can't walk. I can't move.""Stay here." Euphemia laid the child on the seat. She picked up her writing case before she headed for the back of the car and the crying woman."Where are you?" Euphemia called.Banging, wailing and bellowing drowned out the woman's reply.Euphemia's heart leaped into her throat, pulsing hard enough to choke her. She paused to take a deep, steadying breath. Calm would accomplish more than panic. Enough chaos reigned behind her. She didn't need to add to it.She took a step toward where she thought she heard the woman crying for help. The car tilted. A piece of luggage slammed into her legs. She grabbed for a seatback to steady herself, and pain blazed through her left wrist. Left—something to thank the Lord for. She tucked her writing case beneath her left forearm in order to free her right hand. It was all right, strong, capable of groping in the near total darkness between the seats for the woman who had been sobbing and calling for help or for anyone else unable to ask for assistance. Three seats lay between Euphemia and the end of the railroad car. She checked on, between and under each one."Ma'am?" Euphemia shouted above the ruckus of what seemed like more people than the car, or the entire train, could have carried. "Are you there?"Behind her, a baby wailed. The one she'd found or someone else's. Must get back to him, find his momma or nurse. But first the woman.She reached the last row. Her questing fingers touched a shoulder between the seats and wedged against the rear exit.A hand clasped hers. "You've got to help me.""I'll do what I can." Euphemia stooped to get her arm under the woman. "Can you lean on me?""I think my leg is broke." The fingers gripped Euphe-mia's nearly hard enough to break her bones. "I can't walk. I gotta get out of here.""We all do." Euphemia freed her hand."Don't leave me.""I must go so I can get help." Euphemia took a step back, turned and headed up the aisle, calling, "Any strong men here? There's a woman here who needs to be carried."No response from inside the car. Outside, a few lights bobbed, perhaps a promise of rescue on its way.She paused at her seat. The toddler still lay there. He no longer sobbed or so much as whimpered. Surely such quiet wasn't normal for a child."Anyone missing a baby?" She grimaced at how ridiculous the words sounded when shouted.If someone mislaid her child, she would be doing the asking. Yet no cries of a frantic mother—or anyone else seeking a little boy—rose above the ruckus. That made two people to help—the woman and the baby.Euphemia patted the toddler. "I'll be right back."She started up the aisle. "I need someone to carry a woman. Please."Someone grabbed her arm. "Can you help me, young lady?" The voice and the hand shook."Of course. Hold on to my arm." Euphemia continued toward the exit."Can someone help me with these children?" A woman yelled, voice breaking."I can't find my cane." The voice cracked from the throat of a man who sounded ancient."I'll return to help you shortly," Euphemia assured the supplicants.She must get her current charge off of the train, help those she could and find help for those she couldn't. She must work fast. Too much smoke filled the air now, and that stench of hot metal twisted her insides like one of those new pretzel rolls. Judging from the smell, the train was on fire."I said it would burn." The voice rose to a shriek. "Out. We gotta get out of here."Passengers began to push and shove. The hubbub grew deafening, no voice loud enough to rise above another."Quiet, all of you." Deep and authoritative, a man's voice penetrated the chaos. "We will get you off one at a time, and it will be faster if you stay calm."Euphemia's knees buckled. Breath snagged in her throat. Spots danced before her eyes.She knew that voice. Not so long ago, her ears strained to hear it calling her name, murmuring he loved her. Now, the last thing she wanted was to push forward with the rest of the passengers and meet him face-to-face.She freed her arm from the older lady's hold and tapped the shoulder of a man in front of her. "Will you please help this lady? I need to assist others."Euphemia placed the elderly lady's fingers in his and then slipped past her to the woman with the children."Stay here for a few more minutes," she said. "It's too crowded up there right now.""But the train's on fire." The woman sobbed as loudly as her offspring. "We'll burn alive.""No, no. The fire is a long way off." Euphemia smiled to make her assurance more convincing.* * *A dozen cars lay between the engine boiler and theirs. With the wetness of the snow, the fire shouldn't spread quickly. Wind might carry sparks, though, and then—She tugged a woolly cap more snuggly around the younger child's ears. "I'll be back in a minute to help get your children up to the door. A m-man is there helping people down."She swung away. Pulling on this boy's cap reminded her of the toddler. She must look to his safety. And the woman with the broken leg still needed aid.The old man caught hold of her coat sleeve. "My cane. I can't find my cane. You said you'd help me find my cane.""I did, yes." She found it amid a pile of small parcels wedged beneath a seat across the aisle, yanked it free and handed it to the gentleman. "Will you be all right from here? I have a baby to look after and a woman with a broken leg."She didn't wait for the man to answer. The toddler had begun to wail.She reached him and patted his back. "I'm here, baby. We'll find your mother. She's got to be here somewhere."Once again she felt around on the dirty and rather wet floor, gathering up what objects she encountered and shoving them into her handbag. If they proved not to be hers, she would seek to locate the owners later."All right, then." She shoved a bottle of scent, miraculously unbroken, into the bag. "Off to find your momma.""Nana." The baby snuffled."Nana." Euphemia tried to lift the boy. She couldn't do it with one arm. And she wouldn't leave her writing case.She set it down and picked up the toddler with both arms. Her left wrist protested. Hissing a gasp of pain through her teeth, she gathered up her case and headed for the front of the car, calling over her shoulder, "I'm going for help now, ma'am."No one answered. That wasn't a good sign.Euphemia quickened her steps. In front of her, the crowd surged forward."One at a time." Ayden's voice boomed above the other voices, more like a preacher's than a professor's, as full and rich as summer cream.Euphemia closed her eyes. If only her ears could close, she could pretend he wasn't there not a score of feet away, their encounter inevitable."Just jump, ma'am. I'll catch you, and if I don't, the snow's as soft as a featherbed." He laughed as though this were some new game.His light tone worked. The passengers calmed. They stopped shoving one another and lined up for their turn like obedient schoolchildren. Consequently, the line moved more quickly. Four seats, three seats, then only two seats lay between Euphemia and the doorway. With each step, her stomach knotted more tightly. Her heart beat as though threatening to pound its way out of her ribs. She should have prayed she could avoid Ayden. She should have dyed her hair and pretended to be someone else. She should have—"Next?" Ayden directed.Euphemia opened her eyes. She was next, or rather the child was next.She hastened to the doorway. "Take this child. I'll return." She spoke in breathless accents."You need to stay with your child, ma'am," Ayden said.He didn't recognize her—yet.She leaned down. "Take him. He's heavy.""Ma'am, you can't—"Squirming now, the toddler slipped from Euphemia's one-armed hold. Ayden caught him and shot an annoyed glance Euphemia's way. Light from a lantern hanging from the side of the car shone on his face, etched every strong, chiseled bone like a sculptor's tool. A knitted hat covered most of his thick, dark hair. His deep blue eyes widened. His mouth gaped."Mia?" He barely whispered his pet name for her.Mia, mi amore,he had dubbed her throughout their courtship.A lump rose in her throat. The lantern light blurred, and she spun on her heel. "Others. I need help with others. There's a woman in here with a broken leg.""Whose baby is this?" he shouted after her."I don't know-ow." She choked on the tightness in her throat."Mia."The baby's wails drowned anything else he might have said to her. The crying grew fainter. Ayden must be moving away from the train. Good. She could help the woman with the children. But she couldn't help the woman with the injured leg on her own.She reached the mother and took the hand of one of the children. "I can help you outside now."She led the child to the doorway. "Stay there. I'll lift you down."She glanced down. Without steps or platform, the ground looked a long way away. Without assistance, she was going to fall flat on her face."Mia, wait." Ayden sprinted across the snow-laden ground as though it were flat, dry pavement. "I'll catch you."She'd rather fall flat on her face or stay in the train than have him anywhere near her, but to her right, the front of the train blazed like a bonfire. Heat reached back on every gust of wind. She jumped.Ayden caught her around the waist and held her suspended above the snow. "You're too thin.""And you're rude. Now set me down." She pushed at his chest with her portfolio.He set her down. "Straight ahead. Pa's just arrived with the sleigh. We'll take these people home.""I thought you might.""You can come, too, you know."She shook her head. "Not a good idea. I'm staying at the boardinghouse.""I expect it's already full." He moved past her to lift down the children and their mother.Euphemia didn't move. "I have a reservation.""Did you intend to stop here, ma'am?" Ayden asked the mother."We were going to my parents in Chicago." She sobbed as hard as her two children. "I don't know nobody here.""That's all right. You can stay with us. Mia, will you take one of the children and show this lady to our sleigh? It's about a hundred feet straight ahead with the two lamps on it." He started toward another car."Wait," Euphemia called. "There's another woman in there. She's injured. She says she can't walk." And she'd lost sight of the toddler she'd promised to reunite with his family."I'll get her." Ayden hoisted himself inside the car.Euphemia gave the mother and her children a reassuring smile. "I'll help you all get through this snow to the Goswells' sleigh. You'll be safe there.""I don't know, ma'am." The woman clutched her children to her skirts. "They're strangers.""You can trust them." She grimaced. "Not that you have any reason to trust me."Somehow, that remark seemed to reassure the woman. She released her hold on the taller of the two children, a girl inadequately clothed for the weather. "Can you help her? I've never seen such snow.""I have. It's like walking through a bag of flour," Euphemia said."Cold flour," the girl added through her snuffles.Euphemia took her hand. "Really cold flour. I hope you can walk. You're too grown up for me to carry you.""I'm seven.""Really grown up." Euphemia clutched the child's mit-tened fingers and started toward the twin carriage lamps suspended from a sleigh, no doubt the one she had taken numerous of rides in over the years, tucked up between Ayden and his younger sister, or his mother, or just him…She slammed the door on those memories and trudged forward. She must get these children and their mother to the Goswells' sleigh. She must find that toddler's people. Once she accomplished those tasks, she could find transportation into Hillsdale.Plan made, she continued to tramp through the snow. Her feet felt like the packed-down stuff, heavy, solid, immovable. She didn't want to see Mr. Goswell any more than she wanted to see Ayden again. He had been a father to her, more so than her own, who disappeared intermittently in pursuit of nameless dreams until he disappeared permanently. Her father's last words to her had been,I'll be back.Mr. Goswell's had been,I'm so disappointed in the two of you it hurts.Her response was nothing she was proud to recall, and a fresh wave of guilt stabbed her as he loomed before her, his hair gray rather than mahogany-brown, his eyes as blue, his smile as warm. "Euphemia Roper, what a sight for sore eyes. I knew you'd be back.""I'm not really." She kept her tone neutral. "Ayden sent me over with these people."Mr. Goswell squeezed her shoulder. "Good. You'll stay with us.""No, I—""I have that little one tucked up until we find his family. And who do we have here?""Some passengers who don't have a place to stay in Hillsdale.""Yes, they do—with us." Mr. Goswell crouched to be eye to eye with the children. "Would you like to come to our house for soup and biscuits?"The children stood in silence, turning into little snowmen beneath the tumbling flakes."I—I don't have much money," the mother protested."They won't want money." Euphemia touched the woman's arm. "I know these people. They have lots of room and will feed you until you cry for mercy."Kind, generous, godly,all words to describe the Goswell family. She hadn't wanted to leave them behind, not permanently. She and Ayden were supposed to return to Hillsdale for the holidays, but Ayden chose to stay permanently.Instead of choosing to love her.