by Karen Kirst
Myles nodded and propped his good shoulder against the headboard. “I reckon another six months, a year maybe, of Express riding and I should have enough to buy a little land. I’ve already got me a horse.”
Amos shot him a surprised look. “Have you, now?”
“Delsie gave me Moses.”
“Moses?” Amos laughed.
Myles feigned a scowl. “Don’t you start on the name, too.”
“So she gave you a horse, huh?” Something in the other man’s tone had Myles on edge.
“And?” Myles pressed, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest.
Amos gave a nonchalant shrug, his hands still working over his gun. “That’s a rather generous gift.” He paused to throw a meaningful glance at Myles. “Don’t know that I’d let a horse-giving lady with a spine of iron slip away from me that easily.”
Myles sniffed. Delsie wasn’t here anymore, and Amos was still playing matchmaker. “I shouldn’t have to spell out why that’s impossible.”
“No,” Amos said, giving a thoughtful shake of his head. “But you might get closer to having what you want if you start pondering over ways to make it possible.”
With a noncommittal grunt, Myles rested his head back and looked up toward the absent ceiling. Thank goodness it hadn’t rained yet. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought through the scenarios over and over since Delsie had left. But she wouldn’t leave her father to marry a lowly Express rider and Myles didn’t have any way to make more money unless he kept riding.
His chances of winning her, and her father, over were likely to decrease with every passing month, too. Even if he did eventually acquire his horse ranch and made it successful, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t already be married to someone else by then. And he wouldn’t ask her to wait, months or years, for him. It wouldn’t be fair to someone as lovely and remarkable as Delsie.
“Nope.” He dropped his chin and glared at Amos. “Still doesn’t change things. She has to return to her father, who already has someone picked out for her, I might add. And Delsie would sooner be hung than split her family a second time by running off with a poor horse rider.”
Amos’s continued calm in the face of Myles’s impassioned speech irked him. But Myles could at least appreciate his friend’s efforts to see him and Delsie happy and together, however unlikely.
“You ever heard the verse about the Lord working in mysterious ways?”
The question surprised Myles. “I reckon so, yes.”
The older man lifted his gaze to Myles’s, those blue-gray eyes filled with quiet confidence. “I suggest you remember that verse from time to time, Myles Patton. And instead of ruminating about it in your finite way, why not turn the matter over to the Lord?”
Myles twisted his head to peer out the window. Charles would have likely said something similar. And while every part of him balked at the impossibility of he and Delsie finding their way back to each other, he wouldn’t give over to the bitterness and mistrust that had filled his old life. His life before meeting her.
Hope had been awakened inside him, and whatever his fear at believing too much, he couldn’t wrestle the idea from his mind. All right, Lord, he finally prayed in silence. You know I love her. And whether it’s meant to be between us or not… Myles swallowed and brushed at his eyes with his thumb. I turn the outcome over to You.
*
“Oh, Delsie. I’m going to miss you so much.” Lillie hugged her once again, crushing the small hat she’d given Delsie to keep. Along with the dress she wore, a nightgown, an extra change of clothes and enough money to travel home. Lillie and Clay wouldn’t hear of her taking anything less. “I wish you could stay longer.”
Delsie eased back and squeezed her sister’s hands. While they’d enjoyed several hours talking after the wedding yesterday, their time together still felt too brief. “I do, too. But you and Clay are pulling out in a few hours,” she gently reminded. “And I need to return home. To Papa.”
Lillie nodded, though tears still shone in her eyes. “You will write, won’t you?”
“Of course. Once a week, at least.”
“Maybe someday you could even come visit us in Oregon.” She glanced up at Clay with an adoring smile. “It’s going to be beautiful there. Lots of trees, just like back home. But with almost no winter.”
“I will try.”
“Try?” Lillie laughed and kissed Delsie’s cheek. “That doesn’t sound like the girl who stumbled into my wedding yesterday with a sprained ankle and eighteen hundred miles worth of dust and dirt on her clothes.”
Delsie chuckled. How she’d missed Lillie. And now she had to say goodbye all over again. This time, though, she told herself, she would be able to write her sister and receive letters in return. She would make certain their father understood that.
“Time to go, miss,” the stagecoach driver said. “Where’s your luggage?”
She lifted the borrowed valise from Lillie. “This is it.”
The driver’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “Never seen a lady come through with something so small.”
Delsie wanted to tell him she’d learned to travel quite light, and if needed, could skin and cook a rabbit for supper, as well. But she held her tongue.
“Goodbye, Delsie.” Lillie crushed her in another tight hug. “Tell Papa…I love him.”
Surprised, she drew back to search her sister’s face. “Do you mean that, Lillie? Have you forgiven him?”
Her sister released her to clasp Clay’s hand. “It’s me I hope he’s forgiven. I was angry and stubborn. But I understand now the lengths we’ll go to keep those we love safe and happy. Look at what you did, Delsie, for us.”
It was Delsie’s turn to pull Lillie close for one last embrace. She’d been right, all along, in coming. “I love you, Lillie.”
“I love you, too.”
Delsie went up on tiptoe and gave Clay a quick kiss on the cheek. “Welcome to the family.”
“Thank you.” He looked down at her sister and beamed. They would be happy together. A tremor of melancholy passed through her at the thought of not finding that herself.
“Let’s go, miss.” She heeded the driver’s call this time and allowed him to help her into the stagecoach. An older woman and her husband sat on the cushioned seat opposite hers. Delsie leaned out the open window and waved to Lillie and Clay as the stagecoach jerked forward.
“Oh dear, close that window, child,” the woman protested, waving a handkerchief at her. “That dreadful dust will come in.”
Delsie bit back a smile at the thought of how harmless dust truly was and shut the window. She kept the curtain up, though. Now that she was inside the stagecoach, she felt suddenly confined. She longed for the open sky and sun overhead and the chance to ride side by side with Myles again.
Shutting her eyes, she let herself drift through the memories of the past several weeks—meeting Myles that first day, how he’d saved her from the runaway horse and later from the trappers, his care when she’d taken sick with cold, his kiss in the barn, his strong embrace. Each recollection brought vivid sweetness for their time together. Until she recalled the moment she’d told him goodbye. Bitter sadness swept through her then. This time the roll of the wheels was taking her farther and farther from the one she loved.
“Do you think we’ll be set upon by highwaymen or Indians, my dear?” the woman asked her husband in a loud whisper. “I can’t think of anything more horrid.”
Delsie opened her eyes and stared at the passing scenery. Indians or highwayman no longer elicited the same fear in her that they once had. She’d experienced the former and lived to tell the tale. Besides, there were more horrible things to encounter in life than dust or an attack on the stage. Leaving behind the man she loved, forever, now ranked highest in Delsie’s mind.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Lookee there. Patton’s back!” someone yelled as Myles climbed from his saddle and took Moses by the reins. He glanced up at the
sign hung over the Pony Express Stables. Had it really been seven weeks since he’d last stood here, talking to Delsie? It felt more like seven months.
He passed his horse off to one of the stock hands. “Take care of him for a bit, will you? I’ll be back.” Hopefully, with his job still intact.
“Nice-looking horse. Is he yours?” the man asked.
“He is.” The first smile he’d felt in days worked at Myles’s mouth. This was the first of what he hoped would be many of his own horses.
Thinking of Delsie’s gift didn’t come without a price, though. It brought to mind the giver, too. As if Myles needed any more reason to remember her. She might have been physically absent on his and Amos’s long trek home, but every inch of the trail held some tender recollection of her.
He’d come to accept, long before he’d sold his other mount and collected Moses near Salt Lake City, that he missed Delsie, intensely. He missed her smile, her determination, her strength, her beauty, her goodness. The trail held none of the same excitement or interest for him without her alongside him to talk to, or tease or watch over.
While he went through the motions of rising, riding, eating and sleeping every day, deep down Myles felt a dull ache that couldn’t be completely ignored. Only in his nightly prayers, a habit he’d taken up on their way back East, did he find some relief from the gnawing inside him.
Setting his jaw, Myles walked to the Express office at the hotel. Express riding had lost some of its luster, too, but he still needed this job. His absence had been twice as long as he’d originally thought. Had they given his job to another eager rider by now?
His gaze wandered over the familiar streets and buildings of Saint Joseph. But Myles no longer found them as appealing as he once had. He missed the wide-openness of the West and the lure of its new possibilities.
As soon as I have the money I need, he vowed, I’m heading back to California.
It would mean being even farther away from Delsie, but maybe then he could find the peace that had eluded him since she’d ridden off the day before her sister’s wedding. Besides, he’d turned all of that over to the Lord, as Amos had suggested. It was in His hands now.
After a rather short stop at the Express office, Myles had to admit his unrealistic hopes for him and Delsie weren’t the only things God was looking out for. His fears over his employment had been unfounded. He still had a job as an Express rider, though his superior did admit to considering giving the job to someone else if Myles hadn’t shown up by the following week.
He offered a silent prayer of gratitude as he retraced his steps back to the stables. He needed to see about boarding Moses for a while, using some of the money he’d got from selling the other horse.
Grateful to find Moses had been brushed and fed, Myles led him on foot to the livery stable. Memories of working with Charles filled his thoughts as the welcome scent of hay and horses permeated his nose. He hadn’t been here in months.
“Myles,” the new owner said, smiling. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to board my horse for at least a month.” He rubbed a hand down Moses’s nose. “Maybe longer.”
The livery owner nodded. “This isn’t an Express horse, is it?”
“No, sir. This horse is mine.”
“Well, we would be more than happy to board him for you.”
After settling the arrangements and paying the man, Myles returned to the stables. Elijah was waiting for him on a corner of the roofline. The bird alighted onto his shoulder as Myles strode up. He wanted to see if any of the other riders had a hankering for something other than boardinghouse fare for dinner. Not that he relished the idea of company, but he’d realized after parting ways with Amos a day and a half earlier that he was tired of living so isolated.
“There’s a lady here to see you,” another rider announced when Myles entered the stables. “Just outside, near the corral.”
“A lady?” Myles threw a glance over his shoulder, though he knew he couldn’t see whoever was waiting for him from here. “Did she give you a name?”
“Nope.”
“All right.” Myles headed back outside, his heart beating faster in his chest. It couldn’t be Delsie, but telling himself so didn’t stop the wild hope from taking root inside him nonetheless. She was likely still traveling back to Pennsylvania. But had she decided to stop and see him? The possibility had him moving faster with anticipation.
He forced a slower pace as he neared the corral, not wanting to appear too eager to whoever waited. Sure enough a woman stood with her back to him, but right away, Myles noticed the coil of hair at her neck wasn’t dark. It was blond. Bitter disappointment scalded his tongue as he swallowed. Whoever the woman might be, he wasn’t going to transport someone else across the country. Delsie would remain his first and only human parcel.
“Can I help you?” he asked as he came to a stop several feet away from the lady. Elijah flew off, leaving him alone.
The woman turned and smiled, but her friendly reaction did nothing to ease the sudden wariness roiling in Myles’s gut.
“Cynthia? What are you doing here?”
“Myles.” She moved with purpose toward him, though her whole demeanor radiated nervousness instead of her usual carefree manner.
He folded his arms and regarded her silently. What did she possibly have to say?
“You look…well.”
“As do you,” he replied evenly. She was still a beauty, but he’d found someone else who exhibited beauty both inside and out. Even if he couldn’t be with Delsie, he would seek someone like her—at least someday.
Cynthia glanced at the ground, her lips pulled into a frown. “I don’t blame you for still being angry, Myles. I’ve had a lot of time to ponder over that night.”
“I’m not angry, not anymore.” Myles lowered his arms to his sides. The words seemed to echo through him and he recognized their truth. When had he forgiven Cynthia? Somewhere along the trail with Delsie, he thought wryly.
Hope lit Cynthia’s green eyes. “Oh, good. Because things haven’t been the same without you.” She sidled up next to him and put her gloved hand on his arm. “I’ve missed you. The captain has become such a bore.”
Her touch did nothing to him. He felt no regret or bitterness but no thrilling joy, either. “That’s too bad, Cynthia.” He gently extracted his arm from her clutch. “I hope you find someone who truly makes you happy, someone who you’ll make happy, too.”
Her brow knit together in a familiar look of confusion. “Whatever do you mean, Myles? I came here today to tell you that I’m sorry for the way things ended. I want you back.”
He couldn’t help a laugh. “And don’t I get a say in this?”
“Well, yes, of course. But I assumed you’d be a little happier to see me, to know I’ve missed you…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened. “You’ve met someone else, haven’t you?”
He wouldn’t tell her all about Delsie or how his feelings for the woman before him had paled to mere infatuation when compared to what he felt for Delsie. “There is someone,” he stated simply.
Cynthia drew herself up as though truly offended. “Aha. I knew it. Does she care for you as much as I do? Can she give you a sizable fortune, like I can?”
Her mouth curved up into another smile, but this one struck Myles as more calculating than anything else. “Father and I reached a little negotiation a few weeks back. Because I’m of age now, he agreed to give me a share of my inheritance. A large portion, to use for whatever, or whomever, I wish. You wouldn’t have to ride these smelly horses anymore. You could have your ranch, Myles. Right now.”
So that was how she thought she could ensnare him. She was cleverer than he may have given her credit for in the past. But while the thought of having his ranch much sooner than he’d planned sounded attractive, it wasn’t worth a lifetime as Cynthia’s husband. Accepting her offer wouldn’t be fair, to either of them.
“Look, Cynthia, I’ll always appr
eciate your friendship.” And he meant it. Her presence in his life had stoked within him the desire to push himself, to achieve more than he might have thought possible. “But there isn’t anything more between us. I’m sorry.”
She looked momentarily stunned, as if she couldn’t fathom anyone refusing her—and maybe she couldn’t. Her reaction was short-lived, though. With a lift of her chin, she shot him a haughty look. “I suppose it is your loss, then. Goodbye, Myles. This time it’s final.”
“Goodbye, Cynthia. I wish you all the best.” He clasped her hand between his, hoping she sensed his sincerity.
“I intend to have the best,” she said with an overconfident laugh as she pulled her hand back. “Adieu.” She sauntered away, a handkerchief pressed to her nose.
He blew out his breath, then whistled for Elijah. The bird appeared a few moments later and landed on his shoulder. “What’d you fly off for?”
Elijah cocked his head.
“It’s safe now,” Myles said, chuckling. Ironically his earlier melancholy had faded during his encounter with Cynthia.
What if he hadn’t met Delsie all those weeks ago? He likely would have accepted Cynthia’s offer today. A shudder ran through him at the thought. Neither of them would have been truly happy.
It was one more thing to be grateful for regarding his time with Delsie. Being with her had changed him and what he’d once thought he wanted. If nothing else, he’d try to be content with that.
*
Taking a deep breath, Delsie entered the house. “Papa? I’m home.” She unpinned her traveling hat and hung it on the hall tree, her gaze sweeping the beautifully carved banister and gas-lit chandelier overhead. She was home. And yet, standing here among the opulence, she felt as if she were a guest herself. Nothing around her had changed, but she had.
“Delsie!” Her father strode forward and embraced her tightly, bringing a rush of happiness to her. Whatever his faults, she’d missed him. “You are home at last. How was the journey?”
She stepped back, hoping he wouldn’t yet notice her fading brown skin or the healing blisters beneath her gloves. “Long,” she answered truthfully. Riding on the back of the horse at express speed had felt infinitely faster than the tiring ride in a jostling stagecoach that she’d endured the past several weeks.