He smiled at her.
Chapter 13
Mr. Tipton sipped his steaming Earl Grey with cream as she told her story. “Patrick demanded I marry Charles before you returned from your trip.”
He set his cup on the saucer. “Mr. Dittmar had no right to place that demand on you.”
“He said I had no other options, but I didn’t want to believe him.” She tugged on the paper ticket still in her hands. “Do I have options?”
“Oh, Lavinia.” He sighed, and for a moment, she feared his answer. He, too, pitied her like Isaac and Cora and the others who had helped her.
He unlocked his briefcase on the chair beside him. “You have a thousand options if you care to take them.”
“What—” She started, her mind spinning. “What do you mean?”
“With Eloise’s passing, Mr. Dittmar will receive a generous monthly allowance from your inheritance, but it is not enough to support his—” Mr. Tipton hesitated as he seemed to search for the right word. “His business endeavors.”
She assessed each of his words. “My inheritance?”
“Of course,” Mr. Tipton said before taking another sip of his tea. “Your stepmother managed the estate after your father’s death, but if she hadn’t died, the estate would have become yours when you turned twenty-one.”
He placed the will on the table, and as she read through it, her heart leapt. The house was hers now along with her father’s business and a substantial portfolio of stocks and bonds. Her father hadn’t neglected her after all.
“Patrick knew about this,” she said, her gaze on the papers.
“Eloise probably told him before she passed.”
Strength swelled within her again as the anger toward her father subsided. “Then he made some sort of deal with Charles.”
“I assume so,” Mr. Tipton replied. “There are plenty of rumors about Charles’s gambling debts as well.”
“They were bartering with me.” She looked up at her father’s friend and solicitor. “Charles would use part of my inheritance to pay back whatever he owes Patrick. Then he could be rid of me.”
“That is precisely what your father was trying to avoid,” he said. “In his will, your father states that if you disappear or lose your life before your stepbrother, all the money in your inheritance—including Patrick’s allowance—will be donated to charity.”
No wonder Patrick didn’t want her to leave Omaha. And why he’d followed her all the way to Aspen.
The whistle of the train blew again as it prepared to leave the station. She quietly tore up her ticket, the pieces falling into her lap, and then reached for her purse at her side. Inside were four pennies, her mother’s ring, and her rock and flint.
Thanks to her father, she had the ability to make fire and now the income to care for herself. But she didn’t want to be alone anymore.
Outside the window, she watched as the train wheels began turning north. She was so grateful that she hadn’t gotten on the train, with or without Patrick.
She would have Mr. Tipton sell the mansion in Omaha and send for Eddie and two other house servants who’d cared well for her. But then she would have to decide where they would live. She couldn’t stay in Aspen if Isaac didn’t love her as she did him.
The table rattled as the train passed them, and then to her left, a man ran across the platform after it, his arms waving as if he could stop the train. Isaac?
Her heart somersaulted, and then it felt as if it might break open.
Mr. Tipton shook his head as Isaac ran past the window. “Looks like that poor fellow missed his train.”
Lavinia’s eyes filled with tears.
Mr. Tipton glanced back at her, studying her face for a moment before he looked back out the window. “Or perhaps, he thinks he might have lost someone.”
Isaac didn’t go back to the mine. Nor did he go home or return to the Kempers’ house. Instead, he wandered the streets of Aspen for an hour, a giant hole seared through his chest.
Had Lavinia left on the train with Patrick? Or had she run away from him like she had Patrick and Charles? He’d wanted to ask her one more time to marry him. Wanted to tell her that he loved her as a man loves his bride. He’d tried to stop her from leaving, but Lavinia was gone.
Maria was right. He’d been an idiot. He should have told Lavinia this morning that he loved her.
After his long walk, Isaac knew he couldn’t stay in Aspen. He ended up back at the train station to purchase a ticket to Little Rock, and it took ten dollars to convince the telegraph operator to give him the address where Lavinia had sent her telegram. In the morning, he would travel to Arkansas and propose the right way.
If she still refused, he would throw himself back into his work at the Coronado. And as soon as possible, he’d tear that old barn down.
He finally returned home after the sun set. Gideon, his manservant, met him at the door, and as Isaac hung his hat on the rack, he asked Gideon to pack a suitcase for him. But instead of inquiring about the contents of Isaac’s suitcase, Gideon pointed back out the door. “There’s smoke coming from the barn.”
His chest lurched. “What?”
Gideon lifted Isaac’s hat back off the rack. “Someone must be trespassing again.”
He hadn’t dared to look toward the barn when he walked home, but even if he had, clouds covered the stars tonight. He wouldn’t have been able to see smoke.
“Are you certain?” he asked Gideon.
The man nodded. “It started about an hour ago.”
His pulse began to race. Was it possible?
He reached for his hat and tugged it back over his ears. Perhaps it was a vagrant who’d discovered his barn, but perhaps—
“Be careful, sir,” Gideon said as Isaac hurried back out the door.
He rushed across the field of dried grass and stone to the edge of the trees. The smell of wood smoke filtered through the air and light flickered through the cracks in the barn wall.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door. “Lavinia?”
“Come in,” she said with a soft laugh. “It’s your barn.”
He stepped inside, and there she was, standing before the stove dressed in a pale gray dress with pink ribbons and a strand of pearls around her neck. The woman who’d stayed in his barn had been determined but afraid. There was no fear in the woman before him. All he saw was confidence and beauty and a woman who deserved so much more than a marriage to him.
He placed his hand on the doorpost. “I was—” Words eluded him.
She pointed at a pot on the stove. “I thought you might be hungry.”
His eyes focused again, and he glanced around the room. The dust and pieces of hay had been swept from the floor. Their paltry little tree leaned against the wall, and the room smelled like cranberries and seasoning from the stew.
“What are you doing here?” he finally asked.
She shrugged. “I didn’t think anyone was living in the barn.”
“No, of course not, but—”
She laughed again. “I wasn’t sure you would come.”
“I thought you were on that train. To Little Rock.”
“Patrick was on the train.” She crinkled her nose. “I wasn’t going to travel with him.”
He watched her in wonder. “What happened?”
She stood beside him, and he smelled the kiss of rosewater on her skin. He wanted to take her into his arms and never let go again. He wanted to—
“You asked me a question in the hotel,” she whispered.
“Indeed.” He reached out and took her hands. “But I did it all wrong.”
She smiled. “I thought you might want to try it again.”
He pulled her closer to him and looked into the depths of her eyes. “I love you, Lavinia. I don’t care about money or a reward or—”
She put her fingertip on his lips to silence him. “I know.”
He enclosed his hand over her finger and bent down to whisper in her ear. “But I do care ve
ry much about marrying you.”
When he kissed her, the warmth from the fire engulfed them both.
Epilogue
Five Months Later
Outside the barn, a meadowlark’s song joined the melody in Lavinia’s heart. Today she would finally become Isaac’s wife.
After she accepted his proposal, she’d spent another month in Aspen with the Kemper family and then returned to Omaha for the remainder of the winter to put her father’s business and affairs in order. Mr. Tipton would manage most of the estate now, and if she must return to Omaha in the future, she would do so with her husband.
Isaac wouldn’t take any of her inheritance to save the Coronado, but neither he nor his brother-in-law could argue with an official investment. As it turned out, her investment had been a wise decision. The miners found the new vein in three months, and silver seemed to pour out of the Coronado all spring. Isaac and his men had already begun blasting for a new shaft to the south.
“You look beautiful,” Maria said as she straightened the satin in Lavinia’s veil. It was the same veil Lavinia’s mother had worn when she’d married Albert Starr.
Bells chimed outside the barn, and Maria urged her toward the door. She and Isaac had wanted to marry inside the barn, but there wasn’t nearly enough room for the Coronado miners, Isaac’s family, and all those who had traveled from Omaha to attend their wedding.
Maria opened the door, but before Lavinia left the barn, she fingered the strand around her neck one more time. Her mother’s diamond and ruby necklace. For a moment, she imagined both her parents waiting for her outside, her mother smiling with pride and her father with tears in his eyes. If they were still alive, she was certain both her father and mother would be celebrating this morning.
Instead of her parents, Eddie waited for her in the sunshine, dressed in a formal black coat with tails. Taking a deep breath, she reached for Eddie’s arm, and he escorted her along the path, through the trees.
In the meadow on the other side of the forest, at the base of the snow-laced peaks, hundreds of people waited to celebrate with her and Isaac. When she and Eddie arrived, the crowd forded a narrow path, but in the sea of faces, she saw only one. Isaac was smiling at her from the front, his hand outstretched as if he was afraid she might run away.
When she reached Isaac, she took his hand and gazed up at the fire in his eyes, a steady blaze that held two promises—first to protect the woman who’d once been afraid, and second to love the woman she’d become.
He squeezed her hand gently, and she smiled back at the man she loved with all her heart.
Never again would she run.
A Stagecoach Christmas
by Cathy Liggett
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
PROVERBS 3:6
Chapter 1
Western Missouri
1849
Molly O’Brien gripped the edge of the seat, digging her ragged fingernails into the hardened leather upholstery. Even so, she could barely keep her balance as the stagecoach jerked and jostled mercilessly through the deep grooves of rain-drenched earth.
Surely even the three wise men hadn’t had such a rough ride that first Christmas!
And they certainly hadn’t had to travel in such cramped quarters.
Not that the other passengers were a problem. Charlotte Crandall, accompanied by her lively, gray-haired mother, Miss Vivian, were both nice enough. The retired barrister Mr. Benjamin Cottingham and his six-year-old granddaughter, Melissa, who hugged her doll, Josephine, tightly, were also an amiable pair.
But after hours packed inside the coach together, the air and the surroundings had grown stale. Especially with the endless rain and the thick leather curtains closed over the windows. The curtains may have kept out some of the cold, but they kept the air from stirring, too.
As it was, Molly already felt like she’d been holding her breath forever. Or at least ever since her granny had drawn her last one, leaving her all alone, not knowing where to go or what to do.
Oh, how she missed her granny, the only person who’d truly loved her unconditionally, the best friend she’d ever had. She hated thinking about Christmas without the sweet woman.
But you’d be proud of me, Gran. I’m headed to Huxley for Christmas. I’m starting a new life, like I promised you I would.
That is, if the stagecoach ever got there.
From inside the coach, the steady pace of the horses no longer felt stable or quick like it had when they’d first left St. Claire. Instead, the team seemed as clumsy and labored as a bunch of overworked plow horses. She had no idea what she’d do if their driver, Mr. Daniel Becker, failed to reach their destination. But she couldn’t think like that. She mustn’t!
Loosening her hands from the seat, she reached into the cloth bag on her lap, feeling for the packet of letters bundled together with a piece of twine. She’d been carrying the letters as close to her heart as she could for the past several months. She just had to feel them to calm herself. To be assured that all of her imaginings of the future were real—more than some make-believe conjuring.
As soon as her fingers touched the cool papers, her heart warmed, recalling a handwritten word or two. Instantly, everything inside relaxed. Until Miss Vivian spoke up.
“Why, Molly, what do you have in that bag of yours?” Miss Vivian’s voice crackled. “It has to be something from a fella, the way you blush every time you touch whatever is hiding in there.” Her eyes teased in a friendly way, but Molly looped her arm through the bag’s handle, drawing it closer.
“Mother …” Charlotte clucked. “Just because you’re an incurable romantic doesn’t mean everyone is.”
“I beg to differ with you, Daughter. Good or bad, there’s a man in all of our lives somewhere along the way.” Miss Vivian turned her twinkling eyes back to Molly. “Are you holding on to a locket from a fella? Or maybe a love letter from a man who is longing to see that pretty red hair of yours, and—”
Molly’s heart lurched. At first she thought it was from Miss Vivian’s revealing words. But it wasn’t only that. Suddenly the stagecoach swayed violently, tossing all of them to and fro as easily as if they were a basket full of rag dolls.
Cloth bag still looped to her arm, Molly grabbed for the leather strap to the right of her head. At the same time, she instinctively flung her left arm across Melissa’s body, fearing the child’s grandfather wouldn’t be strong enough to keep the small girl from being catapulted off the seat.
Trying to control her flailing feet, she attempted to dig her heels into the flooring and steady herself against the wild motion, but then just as unexpectedly as the horrific flinging and tumbling began, it all stopped. The stagecoach halted. The abrupt jerk hurled each of their bodies up in the air and then sorely back down again. Stricken with shock, they sat catching their breaths, staring at each other in stunned silence.
Molly couldn’t help but think they looked like statues frozen in poses. She was still holding the strap. Mr. Cottingham and Melissa gripped their seats. And the two women embraced each other. All holding on for dear life in case the ruckus started up again. Eerie quiet pricked at her cheeks and the air. They sat listening and waiting for the horses to start up again. But time passed, and only one sound remained: the pummeling of raindrops beating on the roof above their heads.
The air in the stagecoach seemed to diminish as they waited for whatever was wrong outside the coach to be right again. Finally, Molly couldn’t wait any longer. Leaning forward, she steeled herself and grasped the handle of the stagecoach door.
“Miss Molly!” Charlotte gasped. “What are you doing?”
“You’ll get soaked to the bone, young woman,” Miss Vivian warned.
“Surely Mr. Becker has everything under control.” Mr. Cottingham tapped his walking cane authoritatively.
“He very well may,” Molly agreed.
But despite their protests, she pushed at the door, forcing it open again
st the barreling rain. Icy raindrops smacked at her face, the wind blowing her hair from every which way. She tried to tuck her locks into her gray knit hood, at least enough so she could see. She had to know what was happening. Why, her dream was hitched to the stagecoach just like the team of horses was.
Yet as she peered through the raindrops, she wasn’t prepared for the sight that met her eyes.
A man on horseback, only a few yards away, stared back at her.
Though the rain obscured the details of his clothes and horse, one thing stood out plainly. His eyes. Protected by the rim of his dark hat, his eyes shone clearly as he directly met her gaze.
Uneasy, her limbs trembled.
Was he a robber? A thief? Were there more of them out there like him? Her heart pounded wildly at her own frightening thoughts.
“Miss Molly, it’s cold,” Melissa suddenly cried. “Josephine is cold, too!” The girl hugged her doll.
Moved by more than the cold, Molly slammed the stagecoach door shut with a bang. Wide-eyed, she turned to the others.
Chapter 2
Samuel Harden had expected to encounter a whole host of things when he packed up a few belongings, saddled his horse, Tack, and turned his back on his life and ranch.
Things like inclement, unpredictable weather, for example. That sure didn’t come as a surprise. After all, it was Missouri and late December. Bad weather was part of the journey. Something he would manage to overcome on his way west to sunnier and drier places where nothing around him would resemble what he’d left behind.
But coming around the bend in the trail, what he hadn’t expected to come across was a stagecoach. Sitting eerily stopped in the pouring rain.
And what he most especially hadn’t expected was to lay his eyes on her. The woman.
Flinging open the stagecoach door, she’d poked her head out, catching him totally unaware. Locks of her red hair tossed and flashed in the wind, flickering in a sea of grayness like a darting redbird blown off course. And even though he sat a few yards away on Tack’s soaked backside, and even though rain pummeled down in steady streams, causing rivulets of water to spill over the rim of his hat, no way could it blur his vision of her.
The WESTWARD Christmas BRIDES COLLECTION: 9 Historical Romances Answer the Call of the American West Page 20