Always and Forever Read online

  Always and Forever

  Unknown

  (2012)

  * * *

  * * *

  BEVERLY JENKINS

  ALWAYS AND FOREVER

  To Ava Williams and Gloria Larkins,

  for their hard work, love, and support.

  I am blessed by their presence in my life.

  And to my eight aunts, for teaching me

  style, wit, and grace.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Wearing the ice blue gown she’d planned to be married…

  Chapter 1

  “You’re going where?” Grace’s elderly aunts shouted in unison, as…

  Chapter 2

  Grace looked out over the sea of women who’d come…

  Chapter 3

  True to his word, he arrived the next morning at…

  Chapter 4

  Grace spent the rest of the week turning over the…

  Chapter 5

  Grace awakened tired and stiff. Thoughts of Jackson Blake had…

  Chapter 6

  That evening after dinner, Jackson called everyone together. As the…

  Chapter 7

  As Garth neared, Loreli asked, “Does anyone know this handsome…

  Chapter 8

  On the morning of June 3, 1884, the women prepared…

  Chapter 9

  On the twentieth day of the journey, the brides spent…

  Chapter 10

  The following evening, Grace tried her best to be cheerful…

  Chapter 11

  Jackson stopped them a few miles away and slid from…

  Chapter 12

  By the first week of August Jackson’s wounds had healed…

  Chapter 13

  Evidently, Grace’s babies didn’t like riding Jim Crow anymore than…

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Romances

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Chicago

  January 1, 1884

  Wearing the ice blue gown she’d planned to be married in within the hour, Grace Atwood stood before the large windows of her late father’s study looking out at the beautiful winter day. Across the room and behind her stood the man she’d planned to marry, handsome Garth Leeds.

  The sun sparkled on the snow like diamonds. Normally, Grace would’ve enjoyed the sight, because she loved winter, but because of her mood it might as well have been pouring rain. Less than twenty minutes ago, Garth had come to beg off. He’d lost his heart to someone else, or so he claimed. Were it not for the many guests waiting downstairs in her parlor, Grace would be giving him the loud verbal thrashing he so rightly deserved.

  Instead, she’d held onto her dignity. Without bothering to mask the frostiness in her voice, she asked bluntly, “Who is she?”

  “Amanda Young,” Garth confessed quietly.

  Grace’s jaw tightened. She’d known the woman in question most of her life. In Chicago’s Black representative society, Amanda Young was known for her dour face, her boring dinner soirées, and of course her fortune, or rather, her papa’s fortune.

  Grace had a fortune, too, albeit a small one left to her upon her own papa’s death a few months ago, but the wealth of the Youngs eclipsed all others. Grace sighed inwardly. Her beloved widowed aunts had warned her Garth might be nothing more than a money seeking cad. Too glib, Aunt Dahlia proclaimed. Too handsome, echoed her sister Tulip, but Grace had been willing to take that chance in hopes that he really did love her for herself. The aunts had been right, it seemed. No decent man would throw his bride over for a bigger catch, but that’s what he’d done, and Grace was both angry and humiliated as a result.

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, Grace turned from the window to look at him. She’d yet to meet a more handsome man. The light-skinned Garth Leeds had wit, charm, and a smile that could make a woman swoon. Even now, in spite of her mood, she found him striking. “So, when will you and Amanda marry?”

  “As soon as the talk dies down.”

  “Talk that will no doubt center on me.”

  He had sense enough not to reply. Grace knew that for the next few months every time she entered a room gossips would whisper behind their hands. There’d be looks of pity and well-intentioned words of consolation and advice. How she’d survive it would be anyone’s guess, but she’d never run from anything in her life, so it was far too late to begin now. At twenty-nine she’d fallen in love like a silly schoolgirl and been made a fool of, and nothing anyone could say or do could alter that fact. “I’ll make the apologies to the guests,” she stated emotionlessly.

  “What about the gifts?”

  Grace paused to turn to him again. She looked him up and down. Surely he didn’t believe they should be kept. “They’ll be returned. I’m certain you’ll want for nothing once you make Amanda your wife.”

  He had the decency to appear embarrassed. “Whatever you think is best.”

  It would’ve been best had you never entered my life, she wanted to shout.

  Haltingly, he said, “Well, I guess I should be going.”

  Silence.

  He tried again. “Good-bye, Grace.”

  She didn’t reply, she couldn’t; instead, she simply stood there at the window until the sound of the door’s soft closing signaled his departure.

  Once alone, she asked herself how she could have been so blind. Grace knew she would never be considered a raving beauty; she had a head full of thick, copper red hair, was unfashionably short statured, and would be thirty years old in a month’s time. Nothing about her would’ve qualified her to be on the arm of a man like Garth, except her bank deposits, which is probably why he chose her in the first place.

  Women like her, watching their youth fade, were susceptible to the grand flatterers of the world because they’d had so little of it in their lives. During Grace’s courting years all her suitors had taken to the hills once they’d discovered she ran her father’s bank and had opinions on everything under the sun. Even as women of all races made occupational strides in unprecedented numbers, the men she encountered socially found her choice of occupation as baffling as her intelligence. Few seemed comfortable being around a woman like the one her papa had raised her to be, and she dearly wished he were alive today so she could be buoyed by his fatherly strength and wisdom.

  After a few more moments of wallowing, she decided she’d moped long enough. She moved to the door, angrily noting that Garth hadn’t even apologized for the mess he’d made of her life. Determined not to let her heartache be seen, she set her shoulders to go downstairs and inform the guests that there’d be no wedding; she also vowed never to risk her heart again. Ever.

  Chapter 1

  February 1, 1884

  Dear Cousin Grace,

  Greetings from Kansas. I hope my letter finds you well. As you know, I’ve joined the Great Exodus and am now a member of a newly founded colony in southern Kansas. It has not been an easy task, trying to carve out a life in a place where none has existed before, but we’ve done it. We’ve built houses, cleared land, and put in our first crops. Now, many of the unmarried men wish to start families but lack the most necessary element—wives. We’re wondering if you could make inquiries on our behalf as to whether any decent, god-fearing women in Chicago would be willing to travel here and marry.

  I’m writing to you because no one else knows of anyone capable of taking on such a daunting task. Our men are stalwart individuals, most are educated, and many like me are veterans of Mr. Lincoln’s war. Since new men are arriving weekly, by the time this letter reaches you, we will undoubtedly need between thirty and thirty-five women. If you decide to take up our
quest, please reply soon so that the funds you’ll need to finance the journey can be deposited in your accounts. I will also be posting to you sketches and information on each of the men wishing to be a part of this plan in hopes of helping the women choose their mates before they arrive. I dearly hope you can assist us. Hello to the aunts.

  Your cousin,

  Price Prescott

  March 6, 1884

  Dear Cousin Price,

  Your letter did indeed find me well. I’ve decided to accept your unorthodox challenge. Having given the journey much thought, I feel it would be best to travel by wagon. The insidiousness of Jim Crow makes a train trip too perilous. I do not wish to have us all ordered off a train in the middle of the wilds or forced to ride with cattle. Granted, this decision will raise the costs, but I prefer the women reach Kansas City free of terror and with their dignity intact. I’m sure your men will agree. The aunts send their love.

  Your loving cousin,

  Grace Atwood

  April 3, 1884

  “You’re going where?” Grace’s elderly aunts shouted in unison, as they sat in the downstairs parlor of Grace’s modestly appointed home.

  “To Kansas City,” Grace echoed simply. “Cousin Price wants me to find brides for the men in his colony and I’ve agreed to do it.”

  Grace watched her aunts, Tulip and Dahlia, stare first at each other and then back at her. She sought to explain further. “You both know I’m not one to cry over spilled milk, but since Amanda’s and Garth’s wedding, I’ve wanted to get away, and this seems a golden opportunity.”

  Both women nodded sympathetically. They knew of the gossiping and whispering that had been dogging Grace’s every step since Garth’s betrayal and how much pain the whole ugly ordeal had caused her even though she never let it show. Dahlia and Tulip were aunts on Grace’s late mother Vanessa’s side of the family and had come to Chicago last November to help Grace bury her father, Elliot. They’d intended to stay only until she mastered her grief but the visit lengthened, mainly because they found the bustling city of Chicago far livelier than their home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and because they loved their niece as much as they’d loved her mother.

  “Who will run the bank while you’re away?” Tulip asked. She was the shorter, plumper, and elder of the two widowed aunts. Tulip and Dahlia had been named after their mother’s favorite flowers.

  “I believe Mr. Rowe and the others are capable of seeing to things.”

  “You believe,” Dahlia echoed skeptically, looking at Grace over her spectacles. The sisters were complete opposites in temperament. Tulip viewed life optimistically and rarely found fault in anyone or anything. On the other hand, the tall, thin Dahlia tended to be more skeptical and opinionated. Tulip often swore Dahlia should’ve been named Nightshade for her sometimes negative opinions, but Grace thought the two women balanced each other perfectly and loved them both equally. “The bank will do fine without me. I wouldn’t go if I didn’t think so.”

  Grace had complete faith in the abilities of her employees. Head clerk, Lionel Rowe, one of her father’s first hires, had been working at the bank for many years.

  “I’d still worry,” Dahlia stated firmly.

  Tulip’s black eyes sparkled with irritation as she told her sister, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dahl, stop curdling the milk. Elliot wouldn’t’ve willed her the keys had he not had faith in her good sense.”

  Grace decided to interrupt before an argument started. Dahlia, for all her contrary ways, had quite a thin skin and her feelings were hurt easily. The aunts loved each other beyond measure, but that didn’t stop them from sometimes fighting like the siblings they were.

  “Aunt Dahlia, you’re right to be concerned,” Grace offered supportively, “although I’ll be gone for some time, I’m confident everything will go well.”

  Tulip chuckled, “Grace, you make it sound as if you’ll be gone for months. The trains run much faster than they once did. You’ll be in Kansas before you know it.”

  “We aren’t going by train. We’re traveling by wagon.”

  “Wagon?” the aunts shouted in unison again.

  “Wagon.”

  “But why?” Dahlia asked. “Why would you want to subject yourself to such hardship?”

  “Jim Crow,” Grace answered simply.

  “Ah,” they both replied.

  The political gains made by the race after the war were slowly buckling beneath the oppressive weight of the laws and policies implemented by the south’s Redemptionist Democrats. As a result, Jim Crow practices were making it harder and harder for members of the race to do even simple things like travel by train. The country’s Black newspapers were reporting incidents of men and women being set down on the side of the road, or forced to ride in cars usually relegated to stock or freight in response to protests registered by bigoted travelers, conductors, and ticket takers.

  Grace had no intention of putting herself or the other women through such tribulation. Who knew what might become of them if they were asked to leave the train? Being stuck out on the plains, miles away from anywhere, with no one to aid them or protect them against night riders or predators, held little appeal. If they traveled by wagon, they could at least control their own fate.

  Dahlia pointed out sagely, “But Grace, you don’t know anything about outfitting such a journey.”

  “I know, but the brides and I can learn. I’m hoping to hire someone who can be both teacher and guide.”

  “Will you be able to find such a man here in Chicago?” Tulip wanted to know.

  “I’m certainly going to try. I’ve already begun asking around and I’ve a man named Emerson coming tomorrow. Also, Mrs. Ricks, one of the bank’s cleaning women, says a man in her building named Peterson claims to have done this sort of thing before. I’ll be meeting him, too, if Emerson isn’t suitable. Once that’s done I can start canvassing for the brides.”

  Both aunts looked impressed by the explanation.

  “It seems you’ve given this quite a lot of thought,” Dahlia announced, sounding pleased.

  Grace considered that high praise. “I have.”

  “Well, she has my blessings,” Tulip told her sibling.

  Grace smiled at the vote of support and then looked to Dahlia. “Well?”

  Dahlia answered with a merry twinkle in her eye, “Have we ever been able to deny you anything? You know you have mine, too.”

  Pleased by her sister’s response, Tulip reached over and gave her sibling’s hand an affectionate squeeze, then smiled up at Grace and said, “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help. Short of accompanying you, of course. We are both too old to go gallivanting across the country in a wagon.”

  “Amen,” Dahlia chimed in. “But we can do most anything else.”

  A buoyant Grace gave them both a kiss on their smooth but ancient cheeks.

  Grace prepared for bed that night more sure of herself and of her future than anytime since the day Garth Leeds left it to her to inform the guests there’d be no wedding. She also felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she had her cousin Price to thank. Had he not asked for her help, she might never have had the opportunity to escape Chicago so she could clear her head and her heart. The days immediately following her “no wedding” wedding day had been a nightmare. Even though she’d wanted to take to her bed and cry into her pillow, there’d been gifts to return, caterers to pay, and honeymoon arrangements to undo.

  Having to face her guests after Garth’s slinking departure had been the hardest, though. The looks of pity had made her burn with humiliation and it took all she had to stand before them and make her apologies. Although Garth and Amanda had had the bad taste to invite her to the wedding a few weeks later, she’d declined. Word had it that Garth was starting to chafe under Amanda’s very short leash and that the only parts of her fortune he had access to were the parts she doled out to him once a week.

  Grace took a seat at her writing desk and
opened up the packet she’d received from Price a few days ago. Inside were the promised sketches and biographical information on the men. As she’d done upon first receiving them, she studied the faces. They were of myriad ages, sizes, and hues. Some were dark skinned, others light. Some stated a preference for a pretty girl, while others expressed no preference at all, as long as she was god-fearing and clean. A few expressed no interest in a woman with children and Grace found that disappointing, because she knew there were many single women who might be interested in joining the train for the new life it might offer them and their offspring.

  Grace set the sketches aside and wondered how it must be to start a new life in a new place, like the men in Price’s colony. Price and his friends had been part of the Great Exodus of 1879. Beginning in the spring of 1879, thousands of southern Blacks fled the South in response to the death and mayhem brought into their lives by the Redemptionists after the final withdrawal of federal troops after the Civil War. Most went west, to places like Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado.

  The nation’s newspapers dubbed the movement Kansas Fever, and it soon became the largest mass migration of the race the country had ever seen. Politicians of all races denounced the Exodus and its organizers because they were losing constituents. Southern planters cried foul, too, as their source of cheap labor began crossing the Mississippi in droves. At the height of the Exodus there were so many Black folks moving west and so much political clamoring, congressional hearings were convened to make sure there was no conspiracy afoot and that Blacks weren’t being led astray by nefarious individuals, as some politicians and Black leaders claimed.

  The race was content to let Congress debate, but the Exodus continued. Whole congregations from churches in Tennessee and North Carolina added their numbers to the throng of men, women, and families with children seeking hope and a new life on the plains. In fleeing the death and fear being fueled by White Leaguers and kluxers, southern Blacks left the well known for the unknown and never looked back.