by Caroline Lee
“Well.” Ash lifted one dirty hand towards her, and Molly took it immediately. “Things change.”
“Yes, they do, don’t they?” She looked down at the large hand in hers, and remembered when they’d first met. Who would have thought they would journey this far together, that Christmas in Cheyenne when she’d met an angry Indian boy and tried to defend him from his older brother? Who would have guessed that Ash—the largest man she’d ever seen—could be so gentle and loving?
But this dirty hand in hers was the one that touched her so beautifully, that gripped hers when she needed strength, and that had cleaned their newborn children and placed them in her arms. This was the hand that would hold hers until their death, and if she was lucky, would be the last thing she’d touch in this life.
This wasn’t the end of their story. It wasn’t the end of Wendy and Nate’s story, despite the hardships they’d overcome to make it this far. This wasn’t the beginning either. Life was a journey, and the best anyone could hope for was finding love along the way.
Rising to his feet, Ash pulled her up as well. She went happily into his arms. “Mrs. Barker, your sons are trying to kill one another.”
“Oh no,” she said in mock sternness, “When they try to kill each other, they’re your sons.”
He dropped a kiss to her upturned lips, and she felt a burst of contentment. “Fair enough. Should we go rescue them?”
Dear God, she loved this man.
“They’d probably like the chance to wrestle with you for a change.”
He smiled. “Well, then, let’s go make our kids happy.”
They stepped off of the porch, continuing their journey… together.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
On Historical Accuracy
As I mentioned in the historical notes in A Cheyenne Thanksgiving, setting a story in a city requires copious amounts of research. After all, this was a real place at a real time (December, 1883), and we can know what St. Louis was really like then.
Wendy’s world is as accurate as I can make it. Pratte Avenue, Park Street, and Lafayette Square were the realm of wealthy St. Louisans in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Horse-drawn street cars and cabs carried residents across the bustling city to popular gathering places like Tower Grove Park, Forest Park, and Anthony Faust’s Café and Oyster House on Broadway. And of course, no story set in St. Louis would be complete without mention of the Anheuser-Busch brewing empire and the rest of St. Louis’s bustling industrial section.
St. Louis was known for its Fairs, the most famous of which was the World’s Fair in 1904. They fed into the residents’ desire for entertainment and public gathering spaces, and occurred yearly. The Fair Grounds Park became a popular spot, encompassing eighty-three acres of buildings, trails, the country’s largest amphitheater, and a zoological garden. The yearly Fair and Veiled Prophet parade were a big draw, but Charles Green made the racetrack the most popular aspect of the park. It was the start of St. Louis’s love affair with horse racing.
Just as Charles Green was a real person (although his contract with Nate is entirely fictionalized), many of the other secondary characters are real historic figures. While the Mulligans and the Blakelys are constructs, Wendy’s original employer, Mr. Morgan, was real. He was the principal of the first “high” school in St. Louis, and the elocution he hired Wendy to teach really was part of the first-year course of study.
Wendy’s publisher, Mr. Lee, was from the pages of history as well. Laird & Lee Publications was founded in 1883 in Chicago, and was known for its dime novels. I like to imagine that Wendy, as “W. Jones”, was one of their first successful authors. I could have chosen a more famous publisher (Joseph Pulitzer was active in St. Louis at the time), but I couldn’t pass up the chance to boost William Henry Lee’s fame a bit. Lee bought out his partner in 1884, and when he died a very wealthy man in 1914, it was revealed that he was actually a light-skinned black man. This would have made him one of the first black publishers in America.
But my favorite secondary character in A Cheyenne Christmas Homecoming is Nate’s landlady Mrs. Gardner, because of her colorful history. Elizabeth “Big Liz” Lewis Raglin was born in St. Louis in 1832, and was known for her beauty, singing ability, and preference for hard liquor. While traveling with her first husband in Salt Lake City, she met Archibald Gardner, a prominent man in the Mormon community. She divorced her husband and married Archibald, to become his tenth wife (although she “lacked the sterling quality of womanhood possessed by his other wives”, according to his biography). After about twenty five years without children of her own—although she did raise five of his children by another wife—she petitioned for a divorce and headed south with another man. Although some evidence points to her dying soon after, I like to imagine that she ended up back in St. Louis, enjoying her golden years while managing a boarding house. I got a kick out of researching her story, because Archibald Gardner is my children’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, and I’m fascinated by the women who married him.
Finally, I wanted to draw your attention to the train travel in the book. You may remember from A Cheyenne Christmas that Nate followed the railroad to Wyoming, as various lines pushed to link the cities of the American west. Well, sixteen years later they had succeeded, and it was possible to travel from St. Louis to Cheyenne in only a bit over two days. Nate and Wendy take the route via Omaha, with stops in towns all across Nebraska. The Pullman car that they sleep in was one of a fleet that were attached to most of the trains of that era, created and licensed by George Pullman himself. The porters in these cars were almost exclusively black men, and proudly answered to the nickname “George”. It was considered a respectable career in a time where former slaves were struggling to find their place in society.
Of the books in The Sweet Cheyenne Quartet, this one required the most difficult research. There is a wealth of information out there about the St. Louis of 1883, and I sifted through most of it. It was worth it, though, to capture the anticipation of the Christmas season in such an exciting time and place. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing about it.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at Annie’s Christmas romance!
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From Where They Belong: A Sweet Cheyenne Christmas Story
New York City, December 1890
The big luggage cart very nearly ran her over.
She might have been gawking a bit, but that was to be expected; Grand Central Depot was huge. So much bigger than any of the train stations she’d been through to get here, and just incredible compared to Cheyenne’s. Of course, Cheyenne’s station was nothing like the covered platform it used to be, but it still couldn’t rival this masterpiece of height and space and human ingenuity.
And the chaos! There were men in suits—real suits!—and little round hats hurrying back and forth, some with their noses buried in newspapers, and some gesturing animatedly to their companions. She could smell their sweat and taste their cigar smoke all around her. The men who worked for the railroad wore matching dark uniforms, and seemed content to ignore everyone as they waved and pointed and managed to organize the turmoil. There were even women; some unescorted like she was, some with families, and plen
ty with children. The acrid rush of steam from the far end of the Depot told Annie that a train had just whistled, and she could feel the pulse of the machine through her boots.
The Depot was so overwhelming, and no surprise that Annie didn’t see the luggage cart the two porters pushed until it was almost too late. They’d probably been yelling at her to get out of the way, which might have worked had Annie been able to hear them. She couldn’t hear any of the shouts, the whistles, the calls and the humanity that she knew must be loud around her. The noise must’ve been even worse than the chaos, and she was almost glad to be deaf… but she wouldn’t have minded hearing some warning of the approaching luggage cart.
But as it happened, she needn’t have worried. Right as she turned into the path of the lumbering behemoth on wheels, and realized what was about to happen, a hand tightened around her wrist and yanked her out of danger. She smacked into a hard chest, her breath leaving her lungs in one great whoosh as warm arms wrapped around hers to steady her.
Barely a moment of contact, and then her mysterious rescuer stepped back and she saw his smile and knew he wasn’t so mysterious after all. He was the one she was supposed to have been looking for, instead of standing there beside the platform gaping at the sights like the country bumpkin she was. Apparently, he’d found her instead.
“Glad I got to you in time, Miss Murray.” The twinkle in his chocolate-brown eyes told her that his tone had been teasing. She’d lost the ability to hear at age three, after a bout with the German measles, but she’d always been good at understanding someone from their lip movement. Sebastian’s oralism training had taught her to understand the sounds that those lips were making, and to attempt to reproduce them. She’d never heard herself speak, but could feel the sounds behind her ears.
“Hello, Reggie.” The R sound was hard for her, and had driven Wendy nuts trying to explain it. Annie still wasn’t sure if she’d mastered it, but Reggie’s smile told her that it didn’t matter.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She swallowed, assuring herself that she wasn’t lying to him. He was asking if she was okay after her near-miss with the luggage cart, which she was. She didn’t have to confess that his smile made her knees weak—had for years—and that every time she inhaled she got a whiff of his appealing sandalwood scent.
Reggie stepped back, his hands lingering on her upper arms as if unsure that she was capable of standing on her own, and that more than anything made Annie’s back straighten and her chin rise.
She’d just come across most of the country on her own, against her family’s urging. She’d told them that she needed to prove that she could do it, and since she was a grown woman, they finally had to agree. There’d been close calls and misunderstandings along the way, but Annie had navigated her own way through the confusing transfers and negotiations, and by God, she’d made it—alone!—to New York City in one piece.
…Only to be nearly run down by a piece of equipment. Some of the starch went out of her shoulders then, and she ventured a small smile in his direction. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“It was my pleasure.”
He smiled again, and Annie’s breath caught. Oh goodness, he was… he was even handsomer than she remembered, but looked less like his older brother than he had during his last visit to Cheyenne. He was perfectly imperfect.
Reggie Carderock had Sebastian’s dark hair, but it never managed to stay quite as well-coiffed as his brother’s. Even now a lock had fallen across his forehead, and Annie wondered where his hat had gone. His grin pushed all thoughts aside, and she had to stiffen her knees to keep herself upright. There was a little gap between his front two teeth, and between that and the dimple in the opposite cheek from his brother, she thought him much more approachable. Touchable, even, although she’d never admitted that to anyone besides herself, and only then in the darkest part of the night when she only had her dreams for company.
And so her cheeks were burning when he offered her his arm, picked up her valise, and escorted her through the chaos and out into the slush of Vanderbilt Avenue, where a carriage waited. He helped her in, and then went to speak to the driver. Annie settled against the seat—much softer than the one she’d been sitting on for the last days—and watched his profile.
She’d met him nine years ago, at the marriage of her dear friend Serena to Sebastian, the oralist schoolteacher who’d come to Cheyenne to teach Annie. Reggie had stood beside his older brother at the altar, and Annie had thought him the most charming man in the whole world. Of course, that was back when she was twelve and he was a layabout who lived on his father’s money. Since then, she’d learned to speak and now divided her time between her horses at the ranch and her obligations in Cheyenne. And he… well, every other year he visited Cheyenne, and she got to know him better. He wasn’t a layabout; he just had different goals than the rest of his family. She watched him talk about medical school and the work he was now doing at the clinic for the workers of New York, and found more and more things to admire about him.
And then his mother had written to Sebastian to offer to sponsor “his little deaf friend” for a season in New York. It was an amazing opportunity, and one that Annie would be foolish to pass up. At least, that’s what Serena had said, and Wendy had agreed. Annie’s sister had spent a few years among the “high society folks”—as she called them—in St. Louis, and thought that it was important for a young woman to see something of the world. In fact, she’d looked a little disappointed that she couldn’t go too, just for the adventure; but she was due to have her baby within the month, and Nate rarely let her out of his sight. Their oldest sister Molly was the one who objected so fervently, but since she also objected to Annie traveling alone, the younger woman assumed it was just Molly being overprotective. But now, having to crane her neck to see the tops of some of the buildings here, Annie was beginning to think that maybe her sister had been right when she’d warned her how different things were in the East.
Reggie climbed in beside her, gave a little smile, and the carriage started with the slightest of lurches. It had been a bit of a relief to see that the “automobile” craze Nate was always talking about wasn’t quite as widespread as she’d feared, and that Reggie’s carriage was pulled by a pair of beautiful matching gray mares. She’d almost stopped to pet them, but then remembered that here, in the city, she couldn’t stop to make friends with random horses. She had to be proper. Well… more proper, at least.
She wanted to know all about the sights they were passing—she’d read about the city on the train—but instead turned towards Reggie expectantly. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. Oh dear. Did he not remember that she could understand his words by watching his lips? It wasn’t easy—had taken years of practice—and Annie had to concentrate, but it was the best way to communicate with people who could hear. They often slurred their words together, and she missed many of them, but was able to get the general gist of their statement. It wasn’t easy, but it worked.
As if knowing that speaking wasn’t her first choice of communication, Reggie reached into the pocket formed between the cushion and the wall, and pulled out a notebook. He’d brought a notebook. He’d thought to bring a notebook?
Reggie Carderock was turning out to be a delightful surprise.
We’re going to my parents’ house now.
His scrawl was as bold and masculine as he was, and made Annie smile to see it. She would always be more comfortable communicating in writing, or sign, and Reggie thinking to bring a notebook made her all warm inside. Of course she had her own notebook—she would never have dreamed of traveling across the country alone without having a ready means of communication—but she loved that he’d thought of it as well. She took the pencil when he offered it.
I look forward to it. And then hesitantly:Will you be there too?
Yes. I’ve never bothered to get my own house, since I’m away so often.
Then he we
nt back and wrote in “at the clinic” after “away” and Annie’s heart squeezed a little. She loved that he was always so intent on the truth, so careful to make sure that he communicated everything properly. It was so different from the way she’d learned to “talk,” when Wendy helped her create a series of signs for various things. The “language” she’d grown up with was far from accurate or specific; she and her family could communicate entire sentences with only a few words. It wasn’t until Wendy taught her to read and write that she learned how to make a complete sentence or to understand the complexities of grammar. But even now, when she used her notebook to communicate, she usually used a sort of short-hand.
Here in New York City, she’d have to remember to be careful what she wrote, what she said. Reggie’s family were the sort who would care.
The trip to his parents’ home took longer than expected. Cheyenne was big, but a person could walk across it still. New York City was… well, it was tremendous, and crowded with people and street cars such that the horses had to pick their way carefully through the slushy streets. Annie spent the time with her nose practically pressed to the window, eager to see the sights and buildings she’d only read about. Reggie had the driver take them up Park Avenue and across Fifty-First, so she could see St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and then up—briefly—through Central Park. Then his heavy scrawl identified the sights of the Theater District and Longacre Square, and even though he mentioned that the area was improving, he refused to let her get out and gawk. Her cheeks grew warm from his teasing, but she didn’t mind.
It was almost evening when they finally arrived at the luxurious Carderock home on Fifth Avenue, and Annie tried to pretend that she wasn’t completely flabbergasted by such elegance. The front entranceway was bedecked in garlands and heavy red bows, and each of the large windows—there were ten that faced the street!—had a beautiful matching wreath hanging from the center. She couldn’t help but compare them to the simpler decorations she and her sisters and brothers-in-law had labored over in their cozy house in the Cheyenne wilderness.