Promise Me This by Cathy Gohlke Read Free Book Online Page B

Still, her body had shuddered, and he’d held her until she breathed evenly. And then he had walked away.
    Annie had watched the clock tick off its painfully slow minutes, then wished them back. Red-eyed, she’d toyed with her breakfast, excusing herself from Miss Hopkins at last on the pretense of not feeling well.
    I cannot polish woodwork or read novels and pretend nothing is different about this day. I cannot!
    Annie let the window curtain fall into place. She untied her apron and threw it upon her bed, grabbed her wrap, and snuck down the back stairs and out the door.
    Miss Hopkins would scold her, surely, by every right. But Annie would have her way in this one thing. If lucky, she’d not only see Titanic leave port but catch a parting glimpse of Owen.
    Annie reached the docks at last and headed directly toward the four gigantic funnels that towered above Titanic . She dodged a thousand waving handkerchiefs as she wove through laughter, squeals, and cheers that rippled the crowd. Well-wishers of every class and station swarmed the quays to see the magnificent ship set sail. And though she could not see the band, a ragtime tune, cheerful and snappy, charged the event.
    Annie scanned the hundreds of faces lining Titanic ’s decks, desperate to find Owen’s. But he must not see her—she’d never have him believe that she counted his wishes as unimportant.
    She jumped at the ship’s triple whistle blast, signaling its departure. Then ugly shouting cut in—not from passengers or well-wishers, but from what looked to her like a gang of angry crew members. The gangway had been lowered and swung away. But a cluster of rough crewmen, apparently late and stranded on the docks, raised their fists and bellowed to be let onto the ship. Clearly the officer saw them but refused to send the gangway back and let them board. The men continued to rage and curse, some running the length of the dock, though it did them no good.
    One of the stranded men stopped short, gaping at something or someone on board the ship. From where Annie stood, she saw the brute of a man rage purple and thunder with both fists, shouting words she’d never heard in all her life, words that made her insides quiver.
    Her eyes followed the brute’s tirade to a teen who leaned against the railing. Frozen to the spot, he looked for all the world like the dark-haired boy Owen had helped, the one he’d said had run off last night without a word. What was his name? Annie tried to remember. His eyes spread wide and skin wrapped tight round his skull. He stepped sharply back into the throng of passengers. “Tim,” Annie whispered, “what are you doing . . . ?”
    Titanic ’s blue peter flew up the mast; her whistle triple-blasted again; her forward funnels belched steam, as her tugs, belching smoke, made taut their hawsers. Titanic ’s mooring lines fell away, hauled ashore by dockhands, and the liner, intent on her maiden voyage, was pulled slowly, carefully from her berth.
    Annie forgot Tim and pushed along the dock, twisting between elbows and shoulders, between ladies’ hats and feathers, between umbrellas and walking canes, purses and packages, between small children and their parents, frantically searching for a glimpse of Owen. At last she spotted a brown leather cap lifted high in farewell along the railing—a strong arm and a cap that might have been Owen’s.
    In that moment a hundred thousand flowers filled the air, a joyous farewell from the passengers aboard Titanic . But for Annie, the shower of Bealing’s buttonholes and pert nosegays—so many lovingly grown and tended by her brother—beat against her face in a stinging rain, a million petal tears to mingle with her own, flung high and swept into the sea.

No sooner had Michael found refuge in the driver’s seat of a fine new automobile in the hold than a steward spied him and unceremoniously shoved him up the stairwell. “If I find you here again, I’ll throw you to the sharks!