A new thought came to mind. When Matthew came to bring her food next, she would have to say something to him. But what? Demand some paper so she could write a letter and complain about her conditions? She had no reason to think he would even bring it, let alone post it for her. Claim that she needed to let her family know she’d arrived safely and was happy with her new life? Of course not, he already knew from her letters that she had no family left.
Lucy paced the floor while thinking of a plan, anything that would solve her dilemma. Finally, she struck upon an idea. She would simply tell Matthew that she needed to go into town and buy some necessary items. She might have to be firm with him and insist that he take her, but after all, she was no one’s prisoner and Matthew himself had never made any indication that she wasn’t allowed to go out or make purchases of her own.
When he finally arrived back at the house that evening, she almost lost her resolve. He looked haggard as he approached the cabin, and something about his appearance made her almost regret feeling so mean-spirited before. He was tired-looking and his clothes were dirty, and streaks of muddy soil caked his boots. He’d put in a hard day of work and it showed.
“Thank you for my supper,” Lucy said kindly when he brought a small basket to the door. He only nodded and mumbled some kind of acknowledgment, so she thought to say something more friendly. “You know, if you have something else to put on, I’d be happy to oblige and wash your clothes.”
Matthew looked down at his dirty shirt and pants as though seeing them for the first time. “Washday ain’t ‘til Friday.”
“Of course,” she replied, already feeling defeated by the rebuff. Determined to keep a hopeful thought, Lucy added, “What about mending? Or is there any sewing that needs doing? I can make quilts and pants and work shirts… I can make linens for the house. And Mrs. Mayhew even taught me to knit from wool yarn to make warm clothes for winter. Of course, I would need some supplies to make—”
“Naw, don’t have a need of any of those things,” Matthew replied, cutting her off. It surprised Lucy to near silence.
After all, what would they do when the weather turned and there wasn’t so much as a curtain to keep the chill out from the window? She herself had not brought any warmer clothes, as Mrs. Mayhew had always been kind enough to loan her some warm things when winter came.
“Well, Mr. Miller, I am sorry to be a bother, but I must go to town,” Lucy said firmly, her earlier pleasant demeanor replaced by her irritation. “There are things that I need to purchase, therefore I must go very soon.”
“I’ll fetch ‘em, just tell me what ya need,” he answered without sounding the least bit helpful.
“That will not do. Some of the things I need are… very personal to a lady,” Lucy answered, pinning him back with a pointed stare in hopes of embarrassing him slightly.
Matthew didn’t answer, but he did nod slightly. Lucy could tell he was thinking of some excuse why they couldn’t make the trip. She hadn’t taken charge of children all those years without learning a thing or two about people who tell a fib or make up some story!
Instead of waiting for his reason, Lucy took charge. She spoke sharply and said, “Thank you for understanding. I will be ready to go first thing in the morning. Good night, Mr. Miller.”
With that, she stepped back into the house and closed the door soundly behind her. She dared not peek through the window to see if he was still standing there, but instead she waited with her back against the door. It was several minutes before she heard the heavy clod of his boots walking away from the porch.
The next morning, as promised, Lucy woke up early. She washed as best she could with the pail of water that Matthew kept filled, using yesterday’s blouse as a washrag since she didn’t have so much as a linen to keep clean with. She styled her hair and fetched her mother’s brooch from its special box, intent on showing Matthew how grateful she was for the opportunity to go to town.
Most importantly, she took out the purse Mrs. Alexander had given her and poured its contents on the table, careful not to let a single coin roll away. She knew the worth of each coin from putting the children through their lessons at the times when there had been no teacher, but in her lack of experience in caring for herself, she knew not how much each coin would buy? Would this be enough?
When she finished counting, Lucy realized she had nearly twenty dollars in the small bag, but what did any of that mean? She never knew the cost of the things that Mr. Popwell provided to the school as he’d always sent the bill to the Aid Society for payment. Lucy had known better than to buy too much as it would have resulted in a visit from a scowling, well-dressed matron. She’d often wondered if Mr. Popwell was secretly supplying them with things they needed and not letting on with the Aid Society, but that had been even more reason not to take advantage of his kindness.
So now Lucy faced a new obstacle: how to purchase what she needed while covering the expense. She would not accept any funds from Matthew—not that she even believed he would offer to buy her things—as it would make her beholden to him if she decided to leave. She would simply have to look in the shops and see if there were any items she could afford.
Lucy was somewhat surprised when Matthew knocked on the door a short while later. She opened it, pleased to see that he appeared ready for a long trip and had even put on a fresh change of clothes. It stirred a feeling of hope in her that perhaps this may not turn out to be as bad as it seemed at the moment.
That feeling was short-lived.
“When we get into town, you don’t talk to nobody,” he began sternly. “You get the things you need and then you get on out. I don’t have time to waste all day on lollygagging and playing lookie-loo in the shops.”
Lucy nodded, her hopes dashed. She couldn’t know what kind of bitterness dwelled inside of Matthew, but it was also none of her concern. She would do what she set out to do and find a way out of this predicament.
The ride to town didn’t seem to take so long this time, but that could be the urgency with which Matthew seemed to ride. Lucy felt the teeth rattle in her head as she fought to hold onto the saddle, ignoring the urge to cling to Matthew for safety.
Once in town, Matthew climbed down and tied off the horse to a post. Lucy waited only a moment before realizing he wasn’t going to help her down or ask her where she needed to go. She slid down from the saddle and quickly adjusted her skirts before anyone could see her, then followed behind him on the wooden plank walkway that ran in front of a row of buildings.
“I gotta make a stop in here. Don’t come in here, you just wait outside,” Matthew said, finally talking to her. Lucy nodded and moved closer to the building to wait, and Matthew entered the narrow wooden building. There were no windows and the door was fully closed, so Lucy couldn’t even make a guess as to where he was going.
She passed the time by taking in the town, getting her bearings on where she wanted to go. Despite the awkwardness of her present situation and the urgent desire to flee for home, Lucy was still overwhelmed with excitement at the size of the town.
Never had she seen so many people! Her first day had been such a blur of weariness from travel and eagerness to finally meet Matthew that she hardly remembered the town. Now, she had time to look up and down the wide thoroughfare that seemed to cut Tuckerrise in two. She paid better attention to the buildings she’d seen on her arrival, rather enjoying the feeling of so much activity after a lifetime spent in a ghost town. Straining to see up and down the street, she noted the postmaster’s building further down the street and was relieved to see several general stores dotting the opposite side of the main road.
Suddenly, Lucy had the strangest feeling that something was amiss. She couldn’t pinpoint the feeling, but it was similar to times when she’d somehow instinctively known that something was wrong with one of the children. There had been one time when they were outside getting some air and Lucy had simply known that there was a problem in the kitchen; she’d raced back to the
school to find a small blaze on the floor in front of the stove and the tablecloth already burning.
Now, her deeper sense was telling her once again that something wasn’t right. She slowly looked around, aware that the number of people out and about today had thinned noticeably. It was as if most of the crowds of people had moved on or taken shelter somewhere.
“How odd,” Lucy muttered, but her quiet words turned to a scream of surprise when she turned and saw an enormously tall man dressed in the filthiest clothes she’d ever laid eyes on. He was lean and had a head full of shaggy black hair, and he watched her with bottomless black eyes. She held her breath as she realized he’d been standing directly behind her and watching her, but now he looked her up and down, his deeply scarred face stretching into a horrible, suggestive leer.
Before Lucy could register her indignation at being gawked at by someone standing inappropriately close to her, the man reached out a hand as though he intended to grab her arm. A fearful cry of surprise rose up in her chest but seemed to catch in her throat. The look of bitter rage the man wore nearly caused her to collapse.
Suddenly, Matthew spoke from behind her.
“What are you up to?” he demanded of the man, and Lucy was instantly grateful to find that he seemed to be protecting her.
Instead of answering, the man looked first at Matthew then back at Lucy, cast them both a glance of pure evil, then slowly turned and walked away. Only when he’d reached the end of the row of buildings did Lucy dare breathe again.
“Are you… are you all right?” Matthew finally asked.
“Y-yes, I’m… I’m fine,” she managed to reply.
“Then come on. We don’t want nothing to do with the likes of him, and if he’s around these parts then his gang of lowlifes are surely around here, too.”
Reeling from hearing the most words Matthew had ever spoken to her, Lucy numbly followed behind him. They put even more distance between themselves and the man whom Matthew seemed to know, but she couldn’t help but succumb to trembling.
“I got to head in here for a bit,” Matthew finally said, jerking his head towards another small building. “It ain’t somewhere you want to go. Will you be all right out here?”
Lucy was grateful that Matthew seemed to find their altercation to be a serious matter, but she wasn’t happy about being left to fend for herself again. Still, the sooner he could conduct whatever business he needed, the sooner she could send word to Mrs. Mayhew of her plight.
“I’ll be fine,” she finally said. “I’ll wait right here.”
“This won’t take me too long, I’ll be quick.” He left her again, and this time Lucy was more careful to be on her guard. Rather than looking around at the other proprietors’ stores, she stayed close to the wall with her back to it, remaining watchful.
I’ll never come back to this place again if I can only make it out of here alive! She looked around miserably, horrified to see yet another person who’d seemingly taken notice of her. While his gently curling brown hair and finer cut of coat made him nowhere near as frightening in appearance as the last man, she still didn’t feel at ease. In her mind, she was ready to abandon her errand entirely if it meant returning to the safety—and even the boredom and solitude—of the cabin.
Lucy thought to turn her back and hope that he didn’t notice her any further, or at the very least that he got the idea she didn’t wish to speak with him, but it was not to be. In the glass window of this second store, she saw his warped figure reflected back at her.
And he was coming her way.
Chapter Sixteen
“It can’t be,” Matthew whispered to himself as he watched the young lady who stood alone across the way. He’d started out from the ranch as soon as the chores were done, hoping to inquire about the missing guest. It had been four days and there had been no word from Miss Jones, but that didn’t stop him from looking each day.
Now, as he climbed down from his wagon slowly, he couldn’t take his eyes off this woman as he drew closer. “But she seems so familiar! She’s just as I imagined her to be, I’d know her anywhere!”
In an instant, Matthew crossed the wide road that ran the length of Tuckerrise’s main street and approached the young lady. She was just as her letters had described her: blond curls piled atop her head, small in stature and size, smartly dressed but in humble attire, not the showy threads of women who wasted their savings on fashion. Most of all, she wore a look of kindness that she hadn’t so much as described as he’d imagined from reading about her.
More so than her apt appearance, Matthew noted the look of frightened confusion on her face. Surely this woman had only arrived in Tuckerrise a short time ago. She seemed like a fawn who’d lost its mother, both unnerved and pained by her solitary place in the town.
Determined to speak to her, Matthew approached hesitantly. Risking offense, he called out softly, “Miss Jones?”
The young woman startled immediately and turned to look at him, her eyes nearly wide with fright. While it was obvious that he’d been correct in her name, she seemed terrified that someone might know her.
“Miss Jones,” he repeated, “it’s me. I’m Matthew Miller.”
He waited for a response, but rather than happiness or even a hint of recognition, she seemed as though she might faint. Her smooth, pale face became clouded with confusion, and Matthew thought to repeat himself but she shook her head.
“I don’t… I don’t understand. Who are you?” she asked in the most angelic voice Matthew had ever heard.
Seeing her confusion and obvious distress, he came no closer. “I’m Matthew Miller. Are you not Miss Lucy Jones, recently of Shortcrag? I’ve been writing to you, I placed an advertisement and you answered.”
She seemed to be panicked at his revelation, so Matthew said nothing. He waited, and finally she spoke. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’m here right now with Matthew Miller, he’s… he’s in the store there. He… he fetched me from the coach four days ago.”
“But how can that be?” Matthew asked, feeling the dread well up inside him. “I’m Matthew Miller, I own a cattle ranch just beyond that rise in the distance. I was delayed in meeting you at the coach by a serious injury, but I’ve been looking for you ever since I learned from the station master that you’d arrived!”
Matthew paused, knowing that the desperation in his tone didn’t endear him to her or fill her with a sense of trust. He cleared his throat and said, “I can tell you the contents of my letters, if that will help. Let’s see, I believe I sent four, or was it five letters? I have a ranch, my mother lives there with me. What else… I have five hundred acres? Several thousand head of cattle? Is any of this familiar to you?”
Lucy looked relieved for a moment and Matthew nearly believed she was convinced. Her hands fidgeted at her throat nervously, and a new idea came to him.
“That’s the brooch! It’s the one I asked you to wear so I would recognize you!” he said, trying to keep calm. “It was your mother’s, and it’s the only belonging you have left of your family. Everything else is gone, you grew up at that school…”
Tears poured slowly from Lucy’s eyes and Matthew was filled with a sudden surge of rage. Whomever had taken his place and told her his name would pay dearly for any harm he’d brought to the girl!
A door behind the lady opened and a familiar face stepped out. She obviously knew the man and had been waiting for him. Upon seeing Matthew, the man froze, a look of terror covering his expression.
“Frank!” Matthew said, pointing a finger at the man he well knew. “What in the devil is going on here!”
“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean,” the man stammered. Lucy looked between the two men silently, apparently unable to piece together what was happening.
“I’ll see you hanged!” Matthew shouted, and the man turned on his boot heel and ran in the opposite direction.
Lucy looked as though she might call after him, but she stopped. She looked at the ne
w Matthew who still stood nearby, but he had no explanation for her.
Suddenly, a shot rang out. People shouted and screamed and began running in different directions. Lucy looked horror-stricken as the man she thought she knew fell to the dirt, blood already pouring from a wound in the back of his head.
“No, don’t look!” Matthew said, gripping her arms and turning her away, shielding her from the horrific sight.
“What’s happening?” she cried, but Matthew only shook his head.
“I don’t know, but I aim to find out. The sheriff is already heading this way, just stay put. Please, will you do that? Will you stay right here and wait for me?” he begged.
Lucy nodded, and Matthew left her there. He turned to look back at her as he approached the sheriff, striding towards the place where a man lay dead on the ground.
A Love Defying The Odds (Historical Western Romance) Page 13