Page 3 of However Long the Wait (Sweet Treat Novellas #4)

Wilkington, Lancashire

G rant inspected the last crates of cotton. The quality was acceptable, but they had not received the full shipment. He eyed his shipping foreman.

“We’re short, Cobb.”

Cobb gave a quick nod. “I’ve noted it. Are we to accept the shipment and reduce our payment or leave it in hold until the rest arrives?”

Leaving it in hold would send a stronger message to the supplier, as they’d have to wait for payment, but the factory needed cotton. Without the shipment, production would stall. Curse the suppliers, they knew as much.

“Tally what we did receive,” Grant said. “We’ll not pay for anything that didn’t arrive.”

Cobb’s attention turned fully to the crates once more. He could be relied upon; Grant didn’t employ anyone who couldn’t be.

Grant stepped away from the shipment and paced down the station platform.

A passenger train had arrived on the opposite track.

Wilkington was a busy enough stop that people would soon be swarming about.

He chose a bench against the wall of the ticket office.

He’d wait until the platform was calm again before making his way back to his office.

He needed a moment to think through the situation.

Their supplier had been unreliable of late.

The agreed-upon amounts were not consistently delivered and didn’t always arrive on time.

The prices Grant was paying were lower than any he’d found elsewhere, but it might be time to consider paying more for cotton he could depend on.

His final product required raw material.

He rubbed his forehead and took a few deep breaths.

His mill was profitable. Their fabric was good quality and sought after.

Yet it was a struggle. Nothing had run as smoothly as his uncle had expected it to.

If this factory, a smaller one than the others Uncle owned, proved too much for Grant to manage, he could not hope to be entrusted with anything grander or more significant.

All his hopes of taking over the entirety of the family business would be dashed.

It had seemed quite simple five years earlier. He’d been rather naive, truth be told. He would simply step into this new life with no difficulties or delays. His situation would be stable and enviable. He’d soon enough have a wife, a family, a home of his own.

Five years later, he was still living in rooms above his office at the mill, still trying to prove himself to his uncle.

“Mr. Ambrose, what a pleasure to see you.”

He knew well that voice and hearing it eased some of his doubts. Miss Beaumont was the only daughter of a successful merchant in Wilkington. The Beaumonts had taken a liking to him early on, treating him as the success he hoped to be. Their confidence had more than once bolstered his own.

He rose and offered Miss Beaumont a bow of acknowledgment, then offered another to Mrs. Beaumont, who stood beside her. “What brings you to the station today?”

“We have only just journeyed back from Birmingham,” Mrs. Beaumont said.

“Where your parents live,” he remembered.

Mrs. Beaumont’s pleasure at his recollection of their previous conversations blossomed on her face. “I believe your parents live in Rafton.”

“They do.”

“We passed by there on our way home—a very small station.”

“It is a very small town.” The same aching fondness that always gripped him at the thought of Rafton seized him once more. “But a very dear one.”

Miss Beaumont set her hand lightly on his arm. “If only you had come with us, we might have disembarked and spent a little time there. You could have seen your home again.”

His immediate response was to agree that such a thing would have been ideal, but then, as always happened, his mind and heart retreated from the idea. He could not go back home, not truly. It would not be the same place it once was. Too much had changed.

“Was yours an uneventful journey?” he asked the Beaumont ladies.

Mrs. Beaumont listed the discomforts she’d endured, while her daughter countered those light complaints with a list of pleasurable experiences.

They were enjoyable companions, both for one another and for those fortunate enough to make their acquaintance.

Grant had valued their company from the time Mr. Beaumont first undertook the introductions.

Wilkington had been a far less lonely place from that moment on.

The platform buzzed with activity: travelers boarding the train, those newly arrived searching out their parties or winding their way toward the street beyond.

Grant hadn’t always found the commotion of the station uncomfortable, but that feeling had grown more pronounced over the years.

Neither did he care for the sound of the train whistle, no matter how distant.

It echoed inside him, hollowing him out and rendering him as empty as a bone-dry well.

But trains were necessary, especially to one whose livelihood depended on the goods they delivered. He could endure it.

Again, he felt the delicate weight of Miss Beaumont’s hand on his arm. “You do not care for the train station. I have noticed that before.”

He pulled himself together enough to acknowledge her observation with a brief nod.

“Why is that?” she asked. “It cannot be the crowd, as you walk about your factory and the busy streets of Wilkington without difficulty.”

“It is not the crowd.”

“The train, then?” Mrs. Beaumont guessed. “Some people find them disconcerting.”

He could actually smile at that. “I am not frightened of trains.” He glanced over at Cobb, standing beside the shipping crates, waiting. “When the platform is crowded, I am unable to see to business matters as efficiently as I would prefer.”

“Ah.” Miss Beaumont dipped her head in understanding. “You are a busy man. We know that all too well. And, knowing that, we will not keep you from it.”

“I did not mean to imply—” His words stopped.

A face appeared in the crowd. Briefly. The mere length of a heartbeat. His mind had played this particularly cruel trick on him before, filling in gaps with the grief he tried so hard to forget.

Carina. She was always there, lingering in the background, entering his thoughts when he least expected. How, after the passage of so many years and the pain of feeling them drift apart, did she still have a claim on his affections? Clinging to what was not meant to be was neither wise nor logical.

He forced the imagined sight of her from his thoughts and attempted to recall what he had been saying to his companions. His distraction must have been short-lived, as neither of the Beaumonts appeared to notice.

“Will you join us for dinner this evening?” Mrs. Beaumont asked. This was a familiar invitation, one he had accepted many times before.

“I would be honored.” In the instant before asking what time he ought to arrive at their home, he saw once more his earlier illusion, Carina’s face in the crowd.

The all-too-familiar aberration did not quickly disappear, as it usually did, but turned and walked in the direction of the road.

He could see nothing but the back of the phantom’s dark bonnet.

Wisps of hair in Carina’s same shade of deep brown hung free and visible.

This was a far more complete mirage than those he’d experienced before.

Could it be truly her? No. Surely not. She had no reason to be in Wilkington.

He watched a moment longer. The lady who had, at least upon first glance, borne that once-beloved countenance did not walk with the same bounce in her step and eagerness in her posture that his Carina had.

There was a heaviness, a forced purposefulness that did not fit the lady he’d known.

His mind, as it was too often wont to do when fatigued and overburdened, had conjured up the impossible.

“We will take our evening meal at seven o’clock,” Mrs. Beaumont said. “Send word if you are unable to join us. Otherwise, we will happily see you then.”

He dipped his head in apology. “My thoughts are wandering just now, but I commit myself to better manners and offering my undivided attention tonight—at seven o’clock.”

Mrs. Beaumont’s expression turned utterly maternal, her daughter’s concerned.

He attempted to appear reassuring, but he doubted his success.

Years had passed since the last time he’d struggled so much to put Carina Herrick from his thoughts.

Failing to do so inevitably led to heartache, an emotional indulgence he could ill afford.

“Until tonight,” he said.

They smiled at his poorly executed acceptance and made their way from the station with all the grace he had come to expect from them.

Though Grant returned to his work and his duties, focusing on both for the remainder of the day, the furthest reaches of his mind spun and churned like a waterwheel.

Why had his one-time sweetheart invaded his consciousness now, after all this time?

He was, at long last, building a life for himself.

If he allowed those regrets, those losses to claim a place in his world again, it would all fall apart.