“I found ya some help,” the stage agent said, reentering the room.
In a matter of minutes, Olivia hired the agent’s acquaintance to drive her and her belongings to her hometown, just fifteen miles from Topeka, and rumored now to be a ghost town.
In a matter of hours, just four, when the outskirts of town came into view, she realized the potential validity of the rumors as the farm wagon bumped to a stop in front of a deserted mercantile. Glancing down Main Street, Olivia felt faint. Nothing, absolutely nothing about this day had gone right.
Businesses had open doors. Open because there was no need to lock empty rooms. Streets once teeming with horses and townspeople now contained blowing dust and more garbage than Olivia had ever seen in one place.
The driver finally asked, “Ma’am, you sure this is where you want to be?”
She’d stopped biting her nails more than two years ago. Today seemed a good time to start again. “Yes. No.”
He nodded as if he understood. “You getting down?”
“No.”
“You wanting me to take you somewheres else?”
“No.”
“Well, ma’am, I’m right confused.”
Confused was not a strong enough word to describe what Olivia felt, but she didn’t dare step off the farm wagon. She might disappear like the town.
“Olivia, pourquoi êtes-vous seul?”
Never had a sound been so appreciated. Olivia hurried down from the wagon, without waiting for the driver’s help, and rushed toward her father’s housekeeper. “Mrs. Baudouin, oh, I’m so glad to see you!”
Adelande Baudouin traversed carefully past the broken furniture, discarded toys, and rotting food that lined the once-crowded street. Born in France, and still threatening to return, Mrs. Baudouin called Kansas home while she saved up enough money for fare. Olivia’s father, John Prescott, claimed Mrs. Baudouin had enough saved to sail to the moon and back—twice. Today she wore her usual dark blue dress and sensible shoes. Even though she seemed to be the last soul in town, her gray hair was pinned in a neat bun. She was a no-nonsense, brisk churchgoer. Olivia’s father claimed when the woman got to heaven, she’d whisk it into order the way she had their household.
Mrs. Baudouin broke form today. Hugs had never been a priority, so when she enveloped Olivia in one, Olivia’s dread intensified.
“Where is Papa?” Olivia croaked.
“Didn’t Mr. Ennis tell you?” Mrs. Baudouin loosened her hold and stepped back.
“No. The only thing I know is that the stage doesn’t stop here anymore and that the factory closed. What happened?”
“Oh, that Jasper Ennis. I do not know what’s gotten into him this last month. He was supposed to send someone for your belongings. I told him my position in town started Monday and I couldn’t stay here any longer. I assumed when I saw you drive into town that you’d come to assist me.”
“Assist with what?” Olivia looked around. “What happened to the town, to the people, to Papa?”
“Shall I unload your trunks, miss?” The driver shifted uncomfortably.
“Leave them loaded,” Mrs. Baudouin directed. “There’s a few more at the big white house at the end of the street.”
“I don’t want my bags to stay loaded,” Olivia began.
“You can’t stay here alone,” Mrs. Baudouin said gently. “The town is gone, and so is your father.” Mrs. Baudouin closed her eyes and moved her mouth in a silent prayer. Finally, she spoke. “Ah, such un temps triste. Olivia, your father left for a meeting in Topeka two months ago. He never returned. The sheriff from Topeka came, but he didn’t find anything. Then Mr. Ennis came. That’s when we discovered what LeRoy Baker had been doing.”
“LeRoy Baker? Mr. Baker? You mean Papa’s bookkeeper?”
“He embezzled everything. It looks like your father might have been involved.”
Olivia didn’t remember much about the next few hours, only that the driver agreed to wait while they gathered her belongings. The look he gave the farm wagon implied he hoped she didn’t have many and that what she did have didn’t weigh much.
Her home, the only one she’d ever known, waited at the end of Main Street. The lawn of the two-story structure was overgrown. The porch lacked its familiar wicker chairs. The swing hanging from the oak in the front yard looked deserted and lonely.
She hadn’t appreciated the hustle and bustle of the community enough. Only now that it had disappeared did she realize just what she’d had—what she had lost. There were so many things to tell her papa: stories from school, adventures while in Europe, and her worries about boys and algebra and the latest fashions that always seemed to take so long to make it to Prescott.
Where is Papa?
Olivia swallowed. If she were to fall apart now, maybe she’d never gain control.
Mrs. Baudouin took one look at Olivia’s face and said, “Child, I cannot imagine what you’re feeling. I’ve gone over that last day I saw your father, and nothing seemed unusual. I waited all this time in that house expecting him to appear and set things right, but he’s gone. I’m sure Mr. Ennis has some holdings for you, and I’ve secured a position in town. Come to Topeka until you figure out where you want to go.”
“Papa had no family left, and Mama never had any. How can there possibly be a place I want to go? Besides, Papa will be back. I just know it.”
“Then your papa will have to find you in Topeka,” Mrs. Baudouin advised. “Mr. Ennis needs to speak with you. I could just thump that man. He was supposed to meet you at the train and tell you everything.”
“I can’t do this.”
“Child, you have no choice,” Mrs. Baudouin said. “We don’t know where you father is.”
Olivia quickly glanced away. The look on the housekeeper’s face said more than her few words. John Prescott was either guilty of a crime or dead.
April gave way to May while Olivia used the last of her money to pay for a hotel room and mail letters to the sheriffs in distant towns. For all the good it had done, she might as well have saddled a horse and ridden over the plains, shouting John Prescott’s name. She’d considered it, but too late. To survive, one needed money and family. Without her father, she was lost; without money, she was helpless—which is why today she was checking out of the Topeka Hotel she and her father had always stayed at.
There was a time when Olivia considered Topeka exciting, but the last month had changed that thought. She’d never again consider Topeka anything but gloomy. There was also a time when Olivia thought the world and everyone in it were her friends; she no longer thought that. The people she’d contacted about her father all seemed to believe him guilty, except Mrs. Baudouin, who traveled with Olivia to nearby towns to look for John Prescott.
The local sheriff seemed to think nothing was the worthwhile thing to do in the case of Olivia’s father.
Papa always said that when the world changed, one had to change with it. Olivia’s world encompassed a nearly empty purse and an acting-out-of-character lawyer—a lawyer she needed to see one last time before redirecting her life.
Mr. Ennis’s office was a red brick building that managed to look as square and pretentious as the lawyer himself. The bricks were red; Mr. Ennis had red, splotchy cheeks. The door was tall and wide; Mr. Ennis was tall and wide. Instead of a shingle, Mr. Ennis had an engraved sign, which made it and him stand apart from the neighboring businesses. Mr. Ennis had few friends. Olivia had come to this conclusion during the last month while she stayed at the hotel and tried to figure out her holdings.
Clutching the suitcase as it started to slip, Olivia hoped this appointment would go better than her last appointment. That one, just three days ago, had been a disaster. Ennis could only go over the details of a useless will. Useless because until it was “proved” that her father was deceased, nothing could be done. And even if something could be done, she’d been left a home she neither knew how to run nor could afford to keep. One she had no hope of selling. She’d be
en left a business with no stock, no employees, and no reputation. It, too, was not marketable. She’d been left a bank account ravaged by her father’s bookkeeper—and some claimed ravaged by her father.
The suitcase grew heavier as she lugged it into Mr. Ennis’s foyer. She wanted to go over her father’s will one last time before making a life-changing decision. There had to be some way she could obtain enough funds to survive until her father returned. Some way to continue searching for her father since the sheriff claimed he’d done all he could.
Olivia refused to believe she’d done all she could.
In a matter of an hour, she sat across from Mr. Ennis and studied her father’s will while Mr. Ennis rambled about how much he’d admired her father, admired her.
“You have no one else,” Mr. Ennis said loudly.
“What?” Olivia clutched the will as if it were a shield.
“I said you have no one else.”
“So what are my options?”
“Weren’t you listening to me, Olivia?”
“I’m sorry. I guess I was not.”
“I asked you to marry me. I’ll take care of you the way you are accustomed. It’s what your father would have wanted.”
“But—” Olivia blustered. “But—” Words—indeed, whole sentences—of protest came to mind: I’m not ready; you are twice my age; I do not love you. Battling for equal consideration was her common sense: You’ve always had servants; his money will help look for Papa; love can come later. She spoke none of her thoughts aloud because his offer had done one thing. Up to now, she’d felt alone, but at least she had been feeling something. Mr. Ennis’s proposal was like a knife peeling away the last remnants of her secure childhood and leaving her an empty shell.
“I appreciate your offer, Mr. Ennis, but I decline.” She was surprised at the steadiness of her voice. She should be stuttering, crying, encouraging him to look for money that apparently didn’t exist, and begging him to start looking for her father again.
She stood, and he stood with her. “Olivia, I have a house the size of your father’s. I have a bank account the size of your father’s. Nothing in your world would change except your name.”
“Everything in my world has changed,” she said calmly, “including you.”
Chapter 2
Used ta be, ya could shoot buffalo right from the train window. Yup, I made a lot of money on them beasts. Sure hated it when there weren’t but a few of them left. Ya could eat just about every part of them. Tongue was the best.”
Wayne Gregory looked at the sparse desert scenery and tried to imagine the creatures his talkative seatmate described. Nodding at the man, Wayne bent and took his Bible from the small bag he’d carried on board. During his two years in Auburn, God and Esther were the only things that kept him going.
“And,” continued the man who’d identified himself as Daniel Applegate a good ten hours ago, “I hear some guy up near the canyon has him a buffalo farm.”
With a sigh, Wayne closed his Bible. Delving into the scriptures and listening to his seatmate were incompatible. Glancing around, he pretended a great interest in the other passengers, anything to tune out Mr. Applegate. The man claimed to have held every occupation from railroad engineer to mountain man to shoe salesman. He changed his stories every time the train whistle blew.
Four young ladies were seated near the back of the car. Judging by their looks and the study material in their hands, Wayne guessed they were headed to the same place he was: the El Tovar Restaurant at the Grand Canyon. They would be Harvey Girls; he would be their boss. They were looking forward to adventure; he had nothing to look forward to—except for his daughter’s arrival in two weeks.
“Yup, he’s mixing cows with buffalo. He calls ’em cattalo. I hear they’re good eatin’. If you’re managing that Harvey House, ya might want to add that to your menu.”
“I don’t make the menus. They’re set.”
Now that he’d gotten a response, Mr. Applegate’s ramblings intensified. Wayne continued looking at what he figured were future employees. At his last real job, the law firm of Conn and Williams, he’d been in charge of secretaries, clerks, and students—all men. They were up and coming, modern society—as was New York City, his hometown. If the El Tovar was anything like Dearborn Station, the Harvey House in Illinois he’d trained at, he’d be in charge of more than fifty employees: waitresses, yardmen, and maids—a real mixture of jobs and cultures.
The El Tovar had been open only a year, and Wayne was grateful for the job. He’d left Auburn with four other men. Save for him, none of them knew what tomorrow would bring. None of them cared. None of them knew God. Wayne figured if Job could bounce back after all he lost, then self-pity didn’t belong in Wayne Gregory’s life, either. But he had Esther, eight years old and dependent on her father. And he had God.
“Yup,” Mr. Applegate continued, “Old Fred Harvey had him a good idea. Wish I’d have thought it. ’Course, I wasn’t but a youngster when he put it all in place.”
Fred Harvey was a topic Wayne knew all too well. The five weeks he’d trained in Chicago had been harder than prepping for a court date. Wayne hadn’t even been alive when Fred Harvey opened his first restaurant. And if he had been alive, he wouldn’t have cared except from a customer standpoint. All Wayne’s life he’d known what he wanted to do. He would ape his father. He’d study law, marry, have a family, and die knowing that on Judgment Day he’d hear “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
His father, Matthew Gregory, had simply hung out a shingle and worked for and with the common people. He’d made enough money to provide for his family. Wayne had wanted the same—except going into partnership with Conn and Williams meant he’d make enough money to provide for his family and have a lot left over.
Father would have figured out the partners were skimming off the top. Father would have figured it out before the partners skipped town and left him to answer for their sins.
The four young ladies—a blond, a redhead, and two brunettes—wouldn’t know their boss had gone from feast to famine; wouldn’t know he was a Harvey House manager only because his college roommate had been a Harvey cousin; wouldn’t know he hated the very idea of being what amounted to an innkeeper. But he’d do it because he no longer had the heart to practice law, and he owed his daughter the example of a father who took care of his own.
The redhead laughed, and most of the men in the car watched appreciatively. Even his seatmate took notice. “They employees of yours?”
“I assume so.”
The old man, who asked to be called Daniel, nodded. “Fred Harvey stipulated his girls be attractive, and whoever hired this lot was right on the mark.”
Wayne had to agree. The two brunettes looked to be sisters. They were animated and rosy-cheeked—farm-bred, he figured. The redhead had quite a presence. She seemed to be keeping the other three in line. The blond was the only mystery. She bit a nail while staring out the window and fidgeted in a way that made him know she wanted to run. Like him, though, she nodded every once in a while to give the illusion she was listening. Even from a distance he could see the unhappiness in her eyes.
“Everyone has a story,” his seatmate said.
Hours later, Wayne rubbed sleep from his eyes and stared past a gathering of Native Americans selling their wares beside the train station. Up a small incline sat the rustic four-story log-and-boulder building that would be home for who knew how many years. Hope spiraled in his chest as he waited for the passengers in front of him to board the touring car that would take them from the train depot to the magnificent hotel. Unlike the Harvey House in Chicago, the El Tovar was not a bustling restaurant that catered to a hurried crowd. No doubt guests were inside enjoying a leisurely breakfast while the staff saw to their whims and readied for lunch. Travelers often stayed for weeks at the Grand Canyon.
The newcomers who exited the touring car fit mostly into three categories. Some were here on a day trip from Williams and m
ight want breakfast, but even more likely carried their own and would prefer to get an early start on one of the trails—either on foot or by mule. Others would check in to the hotel first and decide on a meal later. The final few were employees of either Fred Harvey or the Santa Fe Railroad.
A dark-haired woman, dressed in the Harvey black-and-white uniform, her hair upswept in a neat bun, stood at the front door. “You must be Mr. Gregory. I’ll take a moment to seat our guests, and then I’ll alert Mr. Niles that you are here.”
Wayne knew about Albert Niles. For the next three months, Wayne would work alongside the experienced Mr. Niles during the canyon’s busy season.
“Good to see you, Mr. Gregory. I have been looking forward to having help.” A dark-haired man with a full mustache and deep voice stepped out onto the porch. Niles was much younger than Wayne expected and looked as though he’d be as comfortable in buckskin as he was in his black suit.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Wayne said.
A few minutes later, the tour began. First, Niles introduced Wayne to the hotel’s manager, Charley Brant. He, along with Niles, had been at the El Tovar from day one. Charley’s wife, Niles explained, took a keen interest in the Harvey Girls and often had the girls help with charity events. Wayne continued to follow Niles through the gift shop, several art galleries, the dining room—truthfully more rooms than Wayne could begin to remember. The El Tovar, with its Swiss chalet architecture, was the most luxurious hotel between the Rocky Mountains and San Francisco. As they went in and out of rooms, Niles addressed every employee by name.
The breakfast rush was ending as Niles led Wayne back into the El Tovar’s lobby. The Harvey Girls hustled to attention. The four girls from the train hurried in, followed by the woman who had first greeted Wayne. She stood beside Mr. Niles.
“Ah, Mary, perfect timing as always.” Niles turned to Wayne. “This is Mary O’Dell, our head waitress. As fine an assistant as you could hope for.” Turning back to Mary, he asked, “Are these the new girls?”
The Timeless Love Romance Collection Page 8