A Most Precious Pearl Read online

  They’re cut from different cloths…but their hearts are a perfect fit.

  Migrations of the Heart, Book 2

  Asa Caldwell returned from the Great War with nothing to show for it—as in nothing below his left knee. Forget about the journalism career he loved. His story is over. Done.

  Yet he finds the strength to journey to Winslow, Georgia, to get Ruby Bledsoe Morson’s sister out of trouble. Before he can bring Mags Bledsoe home, though, a spate of mysterious attacks reawakens his investigative instincts.

  During the war, Mags did her duty to God and country by stepping into a management role at the textile mill. Now she’s been shuffled back to the rank and file—and Asa has her hard-earned job. Not only is the infernal man doing everything wrong, her plan for revenge against the mill owner who lynched her childhood sweetheart is farther out of reach than ever.

  As they clash over almost everything, Mags begins to set fire to Asa’s soul, bright enough to dim the memory of the killing fields of France. Enough to give him a new mission in life—to make her feel the same way.

  Warning: Contains a wounded warrior who’s done with fighting…and one feisty woman who makes him snap to attention.

  A Most Precious Pearl

  Piper Huguley

  Dedication

  To all young women who believe themselves to be ugly ducklings. Know that you are a swan in one way or another. Believe in yourself and you will fly.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you so very much to all of my readers who continue to believe in these stories. Please know that your support means a great deal to me.

  I would like to single out two forces in the publishing industry. Latoya Smith, thank you so much for taking me on. Thank you to Jessica Schmeidler, who wanted to. You ladies represent true vision in the publishing romance, where everyone is entitled to their Happily Ever After. Thank you so much for working to this worthwhile end.

  Chapter One

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 1919

  “Get up and walk, Asa!”

  His jaw clenched at the way the crucified Jesus on the brown wooden cross mocked him from across his bedroom.

  How was he supposed to walk with a shot-off leg? Well, part of one anyway.

  Life had no point. Yes, the great Asa Thomas Caldwell, intrepid, far-traveling Negro journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier, could only lay around in his mother’s house—a cripple. That was the story. A sad one. If he had known about all of the pain and humiliation he would have to endure as Negro in The Great War, only to be treated like a criminal and have his leg shot off, he would never have gone to Europe. Not even for the big story.

  Fluffy, white snowflake doilies decorated every surface in the room. His blood splatter would dirty some of them once he did it. His mother’s gnarled brown fingers had shaped and made hundreds of those things.

  His mother had felt such relief weeks ago. The redness in the corners of her brown eyes eased as she came to understand he had sustained an injury that meant he was not dead. Still, she would be mighty unhappy to see his blood on her doilies.

  But he was a dead man—not even walking anyway.

  There was no life this way. No dignity. No story here, folks.

  This was the story. The end. His end. A small frisson of excitement, one he hadn’t felt in weeks tickled his fingers as he touched the gun in his lap. Contraband. So what if he stole it? Since the white officer who shot off his leg didn’t finish the job, he would do it. If he could get through all of the humiliation of The Great War, he could muster the strength to get it over with. He tried to care that his mother would have to find him in here, bleeding onto her clean white sheets, with his iron-rich blood splatter on her snowy white doilies, but he couldn’t live this way anymore. How could anyone who loved him expect him to live a life without dignity?

  He picked up the gun and his hand sagged at the heavy weight of it. He stroked the top part of the pistol, ready to pull the trigger back, but he kept on running his thumb over it, rather than cocking it. Something was staying his hand but he didn’t know what.

  His mother’s footsteps echoed down the hallway. A knock sounded on the door and he scrambled as much as he could. He didn’t want her to see him with the gun, but he couldn’t reach over quickly enough to put it away in the drawer where he kept it. He took up a towel and covered it.

  “Asa? You have a visitor, son.”

  “I don’t want any visitors. I’m resting.”

  Shuffles in the hallway. Who could the visitor be? He moved a little lower down into the covers, taking the posture like he was going to sleep, but he took care of where the gun was on his lap. He didn’t want to do anything stupid, like miss or sustain some other injury like he already had. The door opened, without knocking.

  “Mother,” he made his voice firm to discourage her, but with his mother, stood an ethereal vision. “Sister Ruby, what are you doing here?”

  Ruby stayed his mother’s hand and she came farther into the room, right next to his bedside. It was as if a bright beam of light had entered his heavy mind and imaginings. She was a beautiful cream-colored Negro woman with lots of silky, jet-black hair and lively brown eyes. Her rounded belly, full of her husband’s child, reminded him of the burgeoning promise of life, and seemed to be an impossibility in this dark and hopeless world they lived in. Before the war, Ruby gave him what he thought was admiring glances in the church, but now, she fixed him with a critical piercing gaze. “Wondering what someone like you is doing hiding yourself away from the world like this.”

  He usually thrilled to her soft Southern drawl. However, Ruby was madly and completely in love with her husband, Dr. Adam Morson. The slight crush he had on her would result in nothing. Yet another reason to feel hopeless. No woman would ever want him this way. He turned his face away from her. “You shouldn’t be in a man’s bedroom. You should be at home getting ready for your baby or something.”

  Ruby raised a hand. “I’m a nurse. You forget, I’ve seen it all. I’m not intimidated by you.”

  Something caused him to turn his head. “What do you want?”

  “I need your help.”

  Help? Sister Ruby? Something inside of him shifted. “I can’t do anything for anyone. My left leg is gone.”

  “Part of your left leg is gone. There is still plenty of work for you to do if you will do it, instead of staying cooped up in here, driving your mother and sisters crazy trying to make you happy.”

  She stepped over to his bed, coming closer, a bright light in her white house dress that barely hid her rounded belly. A glow, maybe generated by her child, fairly radiated off of her. He didn’t need to see her light and wanted no part of it. She reached behind him and pulled out pillows from behind his head, forcing him to shift position and inadvertently, he grabbed at the gun, pulling it out. She kept fluffing and adjusting his pillows. “Sit up.”

  When she finished, she held out a small slim hand for the gun and directed a steel-driven form of her Southern drawl to him, “Give it to me.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll tell your mother. It’s military issue, isn’t it? You could go to jail for having it.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Give it to me. Now.”

  He had a small measure of sympathy for her four-year old son, Solomon. If his mother spoke to him like this when he misbehaved, it was no wonder he was one of the best behaved little children in their church.

  “You shouldn’t be handling a gun. You, you’re going to have a baby.”

  “I’m a country girl. I know all about guns. Give it here.”
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br />   He reluctantly obeyed and Ruby took the gun across the room and put it on a bookshelf. “There. If you want it, you’ll have to get it yourself.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “It’s not fair for you stay up in here, thinking you have the right to take what gifts God has given you and throw them away,” Ruby’s brown eyes turned into inflamed coals. “I need your help. Get up from this bed.” She picked up a carved wooden cane and threw it at his head.

  “Ouch!” He rubbed at the spot where the cane had landed. “You play ball? If so, I hear the Pirates need a pitcher.”

  “Get up and walk.” Her voice was stern, No one had spoken to him like that in weeks. “I need you to go back to my hometown in Winslow, Georgia. My sister is in trouble.”

  He struggled to sit up more, and he was a bit put off because she did not help him. He had to do it for himself. Some caring nurse she was. He did recall that she had been an activist in Georgia, having the nerve to protest lynching and low wages. Practically had been chased out of town for her protests. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “A famous journalist like you can shed light on her case and bring some justice down there. You can also bring her back up here for me so she can help with the baby.”

  “I can barely walk. I’m not some kind of chauffeur. Or nanny.”

  “Start practicing. Take the train down there.”

  “I don’t want to ride the train.”

  Ruby fixed him with those eyes again, then her look softened. “I can’t do it. Adam said he would tie me to the stove.” Her hand went to her belly, a sight full of longing and beauty, and it hurt him to look at her. “I don’t want to lose this baby.”

  A pang tugged at his heart. His mother had written him about two years ago while he had been away about the loss of a child or two that Ruby had endured. “What’s in it for me?”

  “What about doing the right thing? What about having a purpose in life?” Ruby demanded, with the soft maternal gaze gone from her face.

  “If your sister is anything like you, she won’t come with me on my say so.”

  “She’ll come because I need her. I’ve been trying for years to get her to come up here. She’ll do it because I want her to.” Ruby handed him an envelope. “Here is train fare and a letter to her. Her name is Margaret Bledsoe. We call her Mags.” She stepped back from the bed. “You’ll do it, because God wants you to be a man of purpose. There’s something for you to report down there in Winslow, but if you don’t go, you won’t get the story.”

  The confusion entered his voice and made it crack a little. “What story?”

  Ruby turned on her heel. “If I told you now, you wouldn’t go.” Ruby put a hand to her back, rubbing a spot there. “Come on, A.T. Caldwell. I never told you this, but we used to read your pieces at night, looking forward to getting the Pittsburgh Courier with such excitement, wondering what you had done next. You made the race proud. You can do it again.”

  “I can’t go down and ask some strange woman to come to Pittsburgh with me. It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Go to the Winslow cotton mill and get a job there. She’s one of the ones in charge. You’ll see the injustice.” He hated to admit it, but his curiosity was engaged. A Negro woman in charge of the mill? Who was this Mags Bledsoe? Ruby came back to the side of the bed, grasping his hand in her small one. “You aren’t the only one difficult things happened to. Think of Job. I used to think of him. I was shunned when my virtue was stolen to silence me. Be a strong man of God in the face of trial.”

  All he could think of when Job came to mind was someone who was way too long winded. He peered closely at her. Sister Ruby had a story, too, and she had just shed some intriguing light on it. What could he say to this expectant woman grasping at his hand, begging for his help? What was the story? Did she know her request was a deck chair from the Titanic that was his life? Should he grab at it? “Does your sister resemble you?”

  “No.” Ruby grinned and pulled her hand back, with her lovely face softening with love. “She looks even better than me.”

  He’d had enough of adventuring, but he had to do this. To help. His missing leg started to ache again, but he swallowed and refrained from touching it. Fine. He would find out the story and see this Mags woman back to Pittsburgh. Then, he would come back to his room and seek the privacy and quiet he longed for.

  Just her name, Mags, irked him, but he had never shirked his duty of helping women when called on—it was the price he had to pay for being the only boy in the middle of a sea of sisters.

  Winslow, Georgia— three weeks later

  “Turn in your time card. That’s the end of your time as manager.”

  Did Mags’s mouth hang open as she faced her boss, Paul Winslow? Dignity, always dignity. She pushed up on her chin with her hand. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, girl, get your time card so’s you can get paid the last of the management pay. I told you this wasn’t permanent. This is it for you.”

  “May I ask why?” She drew herself up to full height, hoping to feel and show more dignity, but she genuinely wanted to know. It worked. The older white man cowed, as she had hoped. He knew things at the mill had vastly improved since she had been in management.

  “You’re still a fine worker, but you need to get back on the line. We got vets coming back from the war who need a job to support their families.”

  “My job supports my family,” she said, thinking of her mother, father and three younger sisters who counted on her. Because of her work, the younger ones could get more schooling than she and her older sister, Ruby, had. Since she had gotten the management job last year, she had dreams of sending them to a college for Negroes. Maybe they could get jobs as teachers or nurses, anything to avoid them having to work in this mill for this man who had been the source of torture for their family.

  Paul Winslow folded his hands and looked at her. “You all aren’t going to the poor house. Your daddy is doing fine with his farm and pays his taxes on time. He finished putting another room on your house. You don’t need the extra. A man does.”

  Despite the way her mother raised her, she raised her voice. “I don’t think you are being fair, Mr. Winslow, ’specially given how I have made this mill run.”

  “Okay,” Paul Winslow seemed to be defeated and there was a little leap in her heart for a minute. “You don’t have a college degree.”

  Her heart sank. What Negro did? She only knew one, her brother-in-law, and he was a doctor—he wasn’t going to come back to Georgia and work in the mill. “No, sir, but I don’t see how it matters.”

  “It matters, girl, because I say it matters.”

  She shifted in her mill shoes and tried to look downcast, but a fire burned in her belly. Even more mean and ornery since his wife Mary had died last year, he had to be dealt with gently. “Who is it?” she asked, “No one around here has a college degree.”

  “I’m bringing in a new man. One of your people, so’s you all will mind what he says do.” Paul Winslow stepped from behind his desk and opened the door. “Come on in, Mr. Thomas.”

  A tall man with broad shoulders stepped forward. He wore a suit with a tie and a properly stiffened celluloid collar. She had never seen a man, a Negro man, with skin the color of a fine beef gravy. Deep and rich. His hair lay close and curled on his head, and was black. He had a slim moustache. Walking in with a cane, he had a slight affected limp. He looked like a man of leisure, and not a worker. His hands and the nails on them were impeccably groomed. It made her want to stuff her unkempt hands in her apron, where no one could see them. Was Winslow serious?

  “Hello,” the man said in an impossibly deep voice that despite her best efforts, pulled a taunt string deep within her. “Nice to meet you.”

  He held out his smooth non-laboring hand.

  She turned to Paul Winslow. “Th
is man is not someone who can handle the workers. I can tell.”

  “You’re lucky I found someone of your kind to do what is required.”

  The man stepped close to her, his cologne surrounded her. Nice, like spices.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m saying they won’t listen to a man in a suit, no matter his color.”

  “I’ve had enough talk, Mags. You show the man your job and stand down. Or you’ll be fired.” Paul Winslow sat down at his desk and waved her off.

  After watching every move this man made for four years, she knew when she had been dismissed.

  She stuffed her ragged nails into her pockets and stomped away in her heavy boots. “Come on.” She closed the door to Paul Winslow’s office. “Stay out of my way.”

  “Yes, Miss Mags.”

  He loomed over her and she was a little startled. She was the one who was always taller than everyone, and now she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. “I don’t believe I gave you the permission to call me by my first name. Mr. Paul does it because he is Paul Winslow.”

  “I apologize, Miss Bledsoe.” He bowed slightly at the waist and extended his large hand, with his soft palm up. She swept past him, and he smiled a little. “Please lead the way.”

  The nerve of him. She couldn’t help it—something about this man rubbed her the wrong way and she wasn’t going to let him know it. She was in charge of everything, this plant as well as her emotions. She would make sure Mr. Thomas understood the way it was.

  She took too much care in her walk, so he could keep up with her. He still had to make adjustments in his movement to accommodate the fake leg Ruby’s husband had given him a couple of weeks ago. Should he marvel at her kindness or resent her for being kind? Regardless, as she led the way a little ahead of him, beneath her dove gray mill dress and apron, her tall, slender figure was appealingly feminine and rounded. He shook his head. Better focus on what he was down here for. Mags was coming back with him to Pittsburgh because her sister needed her, but that was all. When they got back, he intended she should go with her family and he would go back to his mother’s house and…