Life, Love, and Second Chances

by Anderson, Amanda

  Life, Love, and Second Chances

  By

  Amanda Anderson

  Dedicated to those who have loved and lost and had the courage to love again.

  &

  W.F.

  Other Works by this Author

  Full length Novels

  Christina’s Chance

  Mystery Lover

  A Beautifully Normal Life

  In Love With The Wrong Cowboy

  Reclaiming Life

  Too Much Trouble

  Novellas

  Samantha’s Choice

  Redemption of a Soiled Dove

  Taming a Montana Maverick

  One Good Cowboy

  Vengeance

  The Tiger Series

  The Tiger Within (Book 1)

  Highland Tigress (Book 2)

  Captive Tigress (Book 3)

  Stripes (Anthology Containing Books 1-3)

  Freeing the Tiger’s Soul (Book 4)

  Copyright © 2013 by Amanda Anderson

  All rights reserved, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted material is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

  http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/

  This book is a work of fiction and any similarities to persons living or dead, places, incidents are completely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  1

  Adele Scott sat stunned, at her writing desk inside her modest room, in back of the Hotel’s kitchen. Her hands shook as she reread the letter she had just received. She took a deep, shuttering breath as the words sunk in. She had done it. In her hands she held the proof. She had married a man she had never met and knew very little about, by proxy. Now she would have to travel from Atlanta to Texas and begin a life that she was terrified of.

  Her heart squeezed in her chest as she thought of the life she had lived until now. She let her tears fall for the last time for the childhood she had been blessed with until the last six months. She really couldn’t complain about those either though. The owner of the hotel had been a friend of her father’s and when her parents died in the fire that destroyed their home, he had given her a place to sleep and a way to earn her keep without selling herself, but had she done so anyway with this scheme? Hadn’t she actually sold herself to this stranger? No matter that she would now wear the gold band he had sent to her, she did not love him or feel even any fondness toward him. She simply viewed him as a means to an end. Was she wrong in doing so? Others did it every day, but Adele had always dreamed of love, a love so grand and consuming that the wealth of the man would not matter.

  She stood and paced to the cracked mirror that hung on the wall of her room. She knew she should dress for bed, but now she had no reason to rise early and help in the kitchen. She wasn’t truly needed anyway. No, her husband had sent her a tidy sum along with the gold band and had instructed her to purchase a few new garments and begin her journey as soon as possible.

  Her hair was as black as the night outside her window and the pain in her heart. Her eyes that had once sparkled with joy and humor now only sparkled with tears. She was far too slim and pale, to the point of looking ill. To think she had once thought herself too plump for her small stature. She studied her face critically. The deep blue of her eyes seemed the same, only dulled with the pain of loss. Her nose was still the same with its slightly blunt end that was so like her father’s. Her mouth though seemed wider and her lips looked fuller on her thin face. She frowned when she realized that it made her look almost like she was pouting, even when she was not. She looked at her reflection in the silvered glass and wondered where the carefree girl of last summer had gone. She had once been so happy. She had seen a bright future stretched out before her, but now she only had loneliness and her memories.

  Adele closed her eyes as she remembered the little white house she had shared with her parents. It had always been tidy with lace curtains and the smell of fresh baked bread and the undercurrent of the lavender her mother had use to scent her clothes. Her home had always felt warm with welcome and love. It had been a small home with only two bedrooms, not nearly as fine as many homes in the city, but the doors had always been open to friends. She remembered many occasions where the sitting room had been filled and people stood on the porch and in the kitchen. Her mother had so loved to be surrounded by people.

  Adele felt tears scald her face as they ran in little rivers from her eyes. She missed her parents more than she could bear at times, but it had only been six months. With time the pain would dull and she would be able to move past her grief.

  She turned from the mirror to survey her surroundings. The little room wasn’t much, but it was better than the nothing she had on her own. She had never been a proud girl, but this was a hard pill to swallow. Mr. Langston had been kind to offer it to her. Others had done so too of course, but she knew that most of her family’s friends were struggling to feed their families and she hadn’t felt right about being a burden to them. Her father had been a carpenter and his friends, like him had little to offer outside of love and friendship. Mr. Langston offered all he could and she had tried to help out even if he told her it wasn’t necessary to do so. She could not sit around and do nothing after all so she had started helping in the hotel with the linens and the cooking.

  She smiled as she thought of the first time she made apple torts and how much the diners enjoyed them. She had started making them every Tuesday and to her delight business had doubled on those nights. She would miss the easy relationship she had shared with Maud, the main cook and she would miss many in town, but she knew she needed to find a way for herself.

  Two men had offered for her hand, but one had been old enough to be her grandfather and the other barely eighteen. Both had been family friends and she knew they only pitied her. She didn’t want that. No, she wanted to find love. She wanted to have the all-encompassing love that her parents had shared, but when she found the advertisement in the lobby of the hotel for a mail order bride it had felt right. Now however, she was questioning her logic, but there was nothing for it. It was done and she had to learn to deal with it. Her mind swam with uncertainty as she reviewed the situation again. She tried to shake away the tangle of thoughts, but they plagued her.

  She pulled her serviceable navy dress over her head and washed in the tepid water in the pitcher she had fetched earlier. The water had been cool when she had brought it in an hour ago, but the Georgia heat had warmed it far too quickly. She sponged the days sweat from her as best she could, knowing that it would be as bad or worse in the morning. She pulled on her thin muslin nightdress and plopped down on the thin straw tic that served as her mattress.

  Her little room was stifling hot. It only had one small window and she pulled it open only to find the humid air rolling in was hotter than the room already was. She tried not to let the size of the window frighten her. She knew she would fit through it, she had climbed out of it the first night she had been here. She would not be trapped if there was a fire. That is what had happened to her parents. The window in their room had been too high for them to climb through. They had been on in years and had declared Adele to be their miracle since she had been born to them when her mother was almost forty. They had been fifty-nine and sixty-three, still far too young to die.

  She forced the fear and grief away and concentrated on the heat. She wondered if the
weather in Texas would be very different and she thought it couldn’t be worse. Her nightdress already clung to her damp skin where she was starting to sweat. Nothing could be hotter than Atlanta in August.

  She resigned herself to a miserable night and again fell onto her bed, her mind swirling with possibilities and fears. She would begin tomorrow. She would see to her train ticket first. Mr. Davidson, Peter, her new husband had assured her that the train would take her most of the way and that she would need to take the stage only from Austin to the little town near the Lampasas River where he would meet her and take her to the Mineral Springs Ranch where he lived. She knew it would take her several days perhaps more than a couple of weeks to reach her destination, but she hoped it wouldn’t be more than that. She hoped too that her accommodations would be comfortable, but it didn’t really matter. She would sleep in a box car if it would take her to Texas and the new life she had decided on for herself.

  Adele drifted off with thoughts of a handsome husband drifting through her mind. She hadn’t had the courage to ask Peter’s age, but he had sounded like a delightful man. She had written him six letters and he had relied to each with kind words and understanding. He seemed eager for a glimpse of her so she had sent him a miniature of herself in the third letter. He had been thrilled and wrote to her of her beauty.

  She understood why his letters had not been filled with words of love. She respected him for his reserve. He could not love her in such a short time and she could not love him either. She hoped with all that was inside her that their feelings would grow into an all-encompassing love, but her secret fear was that it would not. Only time would tell her for sure.

  2

  Adele rose the next morning with a new sense of purpose. She met with Mr. Langston and explained her situation. He had been unsettled, but had agreed to help her. He took her to the train station and helped her purchase her ticket.

  “Now then Miss Adele, you will leave here in two days on the morning train. You will have your own cabin for the longer stretches so you will be able to rest during the journey and you should have little trouble. You will change trains in Montgomery, Alabama and then again in Shreveport, Louisiana. You will catch the stage in Austin and travel to Mineral Springs where you should be met by Mr. Davidson. If you have any troubles ask an official on the train and they will see to it for you.”

  Adele was overcome. “Thank you for everything you have done for me Mr. Langston. I don’t think I would have been able to survive without you.” She hugged the man that had stood between her and utter ruin and allowed herself to mourn the loss of him. He had been her father’s best friend for most of his life and she thought of him as family.

  He hugged her back. “Felix. You are a young woman and I think it is time you called me Felix.” He smiled down into her frightened face. “You will be fine Adele. You have your father’s spirit and your mother’s beauty, you cannot fail.”

  Adele looked up into his creased face and smiled into his pale blue eyes. “Thank you. I hope you are right.”

  He frowned as if insulted. “I will have you know that I have never been wrong once in my life, but have a care and don’t tell May if you don’t mind.”

  Adele laughed. Felix was a true southern gentleman and he was married to a woman who had been the loveliest in the south in her time. May was a light hearted woman who tended to be gentle with her constant correction of her husband. “I will not let her know what you have said if you promise to write to me, both of you?”

  Moisture sparkled in his eyes. “You are like my own child. I wish I could do more than write to you. I would do anything to help you more.”

  “You have been everything I could hope for.” Adele remembered that Felix and May had once had children and they had died sometime before she had been born, something to do with the war she thought. She could see that letting her go was causing Felix more pain than she would have thought it would. “I am sorry, but I feel that I must go. I feel like my life is there. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  He turned her and led her along the boardwalk back toward the hotel. “I do understand. I felt the same way when I first went to Savannah. I found my May there and I have never regretted it. I think it is good for you to go. Find your own life and leave the grief of this life behind you.”

  Felix led her as far as the mercantile where she bid him farewell and promised to have dinner with him and May that evening. She looked through the cloth offered for her and she figured she could make a dress or perhaps two while she traveled. She chose a light blue cotton material along with yellow floral for the underskirt. She chose small buttons and thought she might cover them with the material. She found pale green ribbon and a length of lace that she thought would look nice. Together they would make a lovely day dress and it would be cooler than the heavier materials.

  She wanted something a bit more refined for the dinner dress she would make. She found dark blue silk and black lace for the overlay. For this she bought shell buttons and black tassels. She could picture herself in her mind’s eye. She would pull her black hair up in an intricate style and her blue eyes would deepen with the dark color of the silk. She would make a pretty picture she knew.

  She bought thread to match each gown and needles. She asked that her purchases be delivered to the hotel and was assured that they would be there by supper time. She paid for her purchases and thanked the woman who had helped her and left the store.

  Next she made her way to the dress maker’s shop to purchase a few dresses that she could wear on the train. The dress maker explained that since she would be taking the train she could wear a dress that would be suitable for a day dress and even and after noon dress too. Since train travel was far better than wagons and coaches she would not need to dress so severely. She was thankful because she felt it would be wasteful to spend money on dresses she would likely never wear again and would only need to alter to be more suitable.

  Adele and the dress maker searched through several styled and finally settled on four dresses that suited her and fit her well. They only needed slight adjustments and the dressmaker assured Adele that she would have the dresses ready by the next afternoon. She told Adele the price, but would not accept payment until the dresses were finished.

  Adele made her way back to the hotel. She was tired and need a rest and something to eat. It was after mid-day and the heat was stifling. She pulled her bonnet to shade her from the blaring sun, but she wanted to take it off and fling it. It was too hot to have her hair all bundled up on her head. She wanted to set it free and let the slight breeze cool her scalp, but she did not. She walked slowly to the hotel and took a small meal of bread and ham in the kitchen. She drank two tall glasses of cool water and made her way to her room.

  There beside her bed she found a lovely old trunk and a note.

  Adele,

  I hope you do not mind if I give this to you. I have no daughter and I know you will use it well. I fear I will do very little traveling and I would feel glad to know it is being put to good use. My mother gave it to me when I traveled to Atlanta for the first time with Felix and now I pass it to you.

  I hope you find the happiness that found.

  May

  Adele’s eyes burned as she opened the lovely trunk and found the insides covered in dark red fabric. Most of her things had burned in the house and she had nothing that had been her mother’s. This was May’s way of trying to fill that empty space and Adele was grateful.

  She began examining her few meager belongings and realized that she would need new stockings and shoes. Then it hit her, she would need new under things and night wear as well. What did married women wear to bed?

  Adele felt her face heat with embarrassment. She would need to speak with May about that tonight, if she could find the courage.

  3

  Adele sat in her seat on the train. She had been traveling for hours and would soon be in Montgomery, Alabama where she would change trains before heading o
n to Selma and from there to Mississippi and Louisiana. She was exhausted, but she knew she would have her own compartment on the train after Selma and she should be able to sleep then. She wondered if she would have to wait very long for the train to take her on to Selma. She realized that she had no idea what she was expected to do. She looked around wide eyed and caught the kind smile of an older woman who was traveling with what had to be her daughter.

  “Hello there Miss. My name is Mrs. Barten. You must excuse me, but you seem a little frightened. Is there something the matter?”

  “Hello. Yes. I just realized that I have no idea what I should do at the next stop.”

  Mrs. Barten smiled at Adele with kind brown eyes. “Well, let us start with your name.”

  “Oh, yes, I am sorry. I am Miss Adele Scott… Well no, I guess I am not that any longer a ’tall. I am Mrs. Davidson, I suppose.”

  “Newly married?”

  “Yes. I am traveling to my husband in Texas and I am not sure what to do.” Adele found herself filled with fear at the prospect of being lost.

  Mrs. Barten offered Adele the seat across from her and Adele carefully stood to accept it. “Well, Mrs. Davidson, it is a pleasure to meet you. This is my daughter Mary.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you Mary and please do call me Adele. I fear if you call me Mrs. Davidson I may not recognize it.” Adele blushed and then was comforted by Mrs. Barten’s kind smile.

  “It does take time to grow accustomed to a new name. We are heading to Austin to visit my sister, so it would be a pleasure to share the journey with you. I have made the trip a few times since the railroad extened the lines. I will help you if you wish.”

  “Oh, thank you! I am to change trains in Montgomery and then again in Selma and I don’t know if it will be a quick trade or if I will need to spend the night in the hotel…”