The Rails to Love Romance Collection

by Brandmeyer, Diana Lesire; Cabot, Amanda; Carter, Lisa

  Careful, John. Careful.

  Turning his attention back to the road ahead, John clenched his teeth, knowing the feelings exploding in his chest had already rendered the warning blaring in his head futile.

  “He leadeth me, O blessed thought!

  O words with heavenly comfort fraught!

  What-e’re I do, where-e’re I be,

  Still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me.”

  Generally Eve mouthed the words in the hymnals, giving them little or no thought. Today, this one found its way into her consciousness. Did God indeed lead people? She glanced down the pew at the people beside her. John, Clara, and Matthew thought so. Had God led her to this place? If so, to what purpose?

  Those questions hung unanswered in Eve’s mind as the song’s next verse hit home:

  “Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,

  Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,

  By waters still, o’re troubled sea,

  Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.”

  The words deepest gloom brought visions of the aftermath of the train wreck that had deposited her here: screams of pain and grief, Elmer Trowbridge’s amputated limb, Eve’s own anguish over her lost past. Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom. Eden. This place had become her home, her sanctuary, and the Westons had become her family.

  She looked past Clara and Matthew to John. Her angel-man. A beam of morning sun angled through a stained-glass window to light the back of his head, looking for all the world like a halo.

  Eve’s heart throbbed. A desire to possess for herself the peace now resting on his handsome countenance gripped her. When Ginger died, John and Clara had accepted the loss as God’s will, choosing to focus instead on the blessing of Cinnamon’s birth. At the time, their accepting attitude had both frustrated and angered Eve. But now, drinking in the words of the hymn, the notion that a loving, caring God had a larger purpose for all that happened and was leading Eve by the hand through both “scenes of deepest gloom” as well as “where Eden’s bowers bloom” felt comforting.

  “Content, what-ever lot I see,

  Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.”

  Could Eve do that? Did she have the courage to put every part of her life into the hands of an unseen being?

  Like a distant echo, faint words in her own voice formed in her mind: God, help me! While more a sense than a memory, the certainty that she’d once uttered that plea settled in her chest. And God had helped her. He’d sent her beautiful angel-man to rescue her and bring her into a safe, loving home. And yes, the cow Ginger had died, but her daughter lived, promising future milk production for the farm. Also, John and Clara had donated Ginger’s meat to the county poorhouse, helping to feed those who depended on that charity.

  Noticing Eve’s gaze, John smiled, flooding her with warmth.

  Eve’s answering smile blooming on her lips faded as she settled back against the pew. They hadn’t heard another word from Sheriff McCord since their visit to the school over a month ago. Most days Eve lived in the moment, enjoying life on the farm and helping to care for Cinnamon. But often in the predawn darkness, questions about her unknown past gathered around her like an ominous fog, jerking her awake in a breathless terror. Unsettling images would flash, then vanish—angry faces and the word BANK etched in stone. In those moments when she’d sit up in bed trembling and gasping for breath, her desire—no, her need for comfort became tangible. Despite her happy life here in Eden, she couldn’t escape the fact that an uncertain future dangled over her head like the sword of Damocles. At any moment, Sheriff McCord, a Pinkerton agent, or some other lawman could appear with a warrant for her arrest and whisk her off to some dingy jail cell.

  “He leadeth me, He leadeth me,

  By His own hand He leadeth me,

  His faithful follower I would be,

  For by His hand He leadeth me.”

  Eve found herself joining in the refrain with full-throated enthusiasm. John and Clara’s calm assurance of God’s mercy began to make sense, and Eve wanted it. Today, instead of allowing her mind to wander, she listened to the minister’s sermon on the Holy Spirit, which he called the “Comforter.”

  “ ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.… I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.’”

  As the preacher read the words of Jesus from John 14, tears welled up in Eve’s eyes, and a desperate longing screamed from her heart. Peace and comfort. Since waking in that crumpled train car, she’d desired nothing more than a sense of peace and comfort. Whatever lay ahead, she wanted to never again feel lost and alone. Whether her future held the serenity of Eden’s bowers or the deepest gloom of a prison’s horrors, she wanted the assurance of the salvation and comfort Jesus promised.

  “All that is required for you to have the peace of Christ’s salvation and the comfort that comes with that is to step forward today and accept it.”

  At the preacher’s words, tears streamed down Eve’s face. She rose and squeezed past Clara, Matthew, and finally John to make her way down the center aisle.

  Joy and astonishment vied for room in John’s chest as he watched Eve walk to the minister and make her declaration of faith. The scene before him blurred, and he had to clear his throat before he could join in singing the benediction hymn.

  “God bless you, Eve.” The trite but heartfelt comment was all he could manage as he took her hand when a blubbering Aunt Clara finally released her from a smothering hug. Looking into Eve’s beautiful face, her huge blue eyes swimming with happy tears, the temptation to declare his love for her then and there tugged hard at John. A thin strand of reason restrained him. As joyous as her decision to join the family of God was, it didn’t erase the questions about her past.

  The sight of an unsmiling Sid McCord making his way toward them at once alarmed John and validated his sobering thought.

  Chapter Eight

  New Yes, that was the word.

  Closing the kitchen door behind her, Eve looked eastward at the first pink streaks of dawn lightening the morning sky. For the past several days, she’d tried to define the feeling that had come over her since her decision to accept Christ. She felt new. Yes, she’d found the peace, the comfort Christ had promised in His Word. No longer did she wake in the night trembling with fear. Even Sheriff McCord’s news that, though delayed, a Pinkerton agent had been assigned to her case and could arrive any day hadn’t disturbed her serenity. But beyond the sense of calm that had enveloped her, she felt new. Though the facts of her past remained elusive, she’d asked God’s forgiveness for any wrongs she had done in her life.

  “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” The words from 2 Corinthians that John had read last night after supper played again through her mind in his deep, resonant voice.

  John. The warmth flooding through her at the thought of him and the look he had given her when he read those words had nothing to do with the late-August morning. Her heart throbbed with a deep ache. She was new. God had made her new through Christ. Whoever she was before, wherever she’d lived before, now she belonged here in Eden.

  She belonged with John. The bold thought at once surprised and saddened her.

  Eve blinked back tears misting the rosy hue of the morning sky and quickened her steps toward the barn. The Pinkerton agent Sheriff McCord spoke of could arrive today to rip her from this place. Away from John.

  “Dear Lord, don’t let anyone take me away from here.” The final words of her whispered prayer hung for a moment in the heavy morning air as she stepped into the barn. After Cinnamon’s birth, she’d begun helping John with the morning milking to let Matthew’s bruised arm heal and had continued the habit after the boy’s arm was well again. While her claim of wanting to check on Cinnamon was true, she knew it was not the calf but the chance to spend more time with John that enticed her to arise before t
he sun each morning.

  The now-familiar scents of the cows, manure, and straw met her inside the barn’s dark interior. Something shot across her path. Startled, she gasped and stopped short, then giggled at her fright when she recognized one of the barn cats. The smells, sights, and sounds of the morning barn with its shifting shadows, mooing cows, and bleating calves had become both commonplace and comforting.

  “Did Nubbin scare you?” John’s deep voice as he stepped from a stall behind her set her heart pounding.

  “You’d think I’d be used to him by now.” Eve couldn’t stop the nervous giggle that accompanied her light quip and hoped John didn’t detect the breathlessness in her voice.

  His expression softened with his voice. A dim ray of morning light slipped between the building’s weathered wallboards, illuminating his handsome features. “I won’t let them, you know.”

  Eve’s heart hammered harder, and her breath caught in her throat as he stepped nearer. Did he have any idea what his nearness did to her? “W—what? You won’t let them what?”

  He curled warm fingers around her upper arm, sending pleasant tingles from her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. “I won’t let them take you away.” A grin lifted the corner of his mouth, and he glanced away for a second, looking as boyish as a six-foot-tall man could look. “I didn’t mean to hear your prayer, but I don’t want you to worry. You must know I’ll do everything I can to keep you here.”

  Eve’s heart throbbed, and unexpected tears sprang to her eyes and slipped down her face. “Dear John.” She lifted her wet face to him and cupped his bristly jaw in her hand. “I know you’ll do what you can, but—”

  “Eve.” His voice turned husky. He slid his arms around her waist and drew her against him. For one long moment, their gazes held, and she felt as if she were sinking into the depths of his hazel eyes. As if in a dream, she watched his dark lashes sweep down to kiss his cheeks the instant before his lips kissed hers.

  For one heart-stopping moment, time stood still. There was no barn, no cows, no world, only Eve and her angel-man floating in a sweet sphere oblivious to any earthly intrusion. Then Eve felt a subtle shift, deep in her being. In that moment, the planets aligned, and she slipped into the niche in the universe carved explicitly for her. All doubt evaporated like the morning fog beneath the rising sun. This is where she belonged: here in the arms of her angel-man.

  Too soon he lifted his lips from hers, shattering the spell that had bound them together, while still holding her in the circle of his arms.

  Eve slammed back to earth with a jolt. Garish reason crashed over her like an icy ocean wave, demolishing the beautiful dream that had enveloped her. As much as both she and John might want it, they couldn’t begin to contemplate a future together until they learned her identity. She pushed away from him and fought fresh tears. “There’s no sense in it, John. You don’t know who I am. What if I’m the fugitive embezzler the Pinkertons are after?”

  A smile strolled across his well-shaped lips, and he gathered her back into his arms. “I may not know the name you were born with, or where and how you lived before you came here, but I know who you are. I know your heart and your soul. You are Eve, and your spirit is as beautiful as your face.” His smile quirked into a grin. “I used to be a policeman, remember? I know a thing or two about criminals. If you were a criminal, even if you didn’t know it, your instinct would have been to run, not to stay here.”

  Eve’s heart crumpled. She loved him even more for trying to convince her, or maybe both of them, of her innocence. For now, it was enough to know that John cared for her and wanted her to stay here in Eden. John trusted in God, and now, so did she. If God meant for her to stay here in Eden with John, God would allow that to happen. But if she had committed acts that would require her to pay restitution and snatch her awayfrom him, at least she now had the assurance that Christ would walk with her through whatever unpleasantness lay ahead.

  Hoping to lighten the mood, she smiled and took his hand. “I couldn’t run away if I wanted to. I don’t have any money.” She turned and began towing him toward Cinnamon’s stall. “Come on. I want to say good morning to Cinnamon and brush her coat before I get started milking. I need to keep her looking her best for the fair competition.”

  John stared at the farm’s ledger book lying open on the kitchen table, but his mind refused to register the figures on the lined pages. In the two weeks since he and Eve had shared that kiss in the barn, he’d struggled to focus his thoughts on anything other than the woman he loved. Yes, he loved her. That acknowledgement at once thrilled and frustrated him. Since that morning, she’d allowed no other opportunity for such a private moment between them, avoiding any situation where they might be alone together. She’d stopped volunteering to help with the morning milking and now waited to tend to Cinnamon while John and Matthew were busy filling the milk cans and moving them to the springhouse.

  Giving up on the ledger, John leaned back in the kitchen chair, expelled a breath of frustration, and shoved his fingers through his hair. Most maddening was knowing that Eve cared for him, too. Despite her increasingly distant attitude toward him, he’d caught her in unguarded moments gazing at him with a look so tender his heart seized. But she’d made it clear: until they learned her identity, she refused to allow their relationship to grow, and despite multiple inquiries, Sid McCord had received no further word on when the Pinkerton agent assigned to Eve’s case might arrive.

  “John, have you been in my butter-and-egg money?” Across the kitchen, Aunt Clara frowned into the blue speckled crock where she kept the money from her weekly sale of eggs and butter.

  “No. Is there some missing?” Pushing the chair back with a screech, John got up and walked to the cabinet beside the sink where his aunt stood peering into the container.

  “All of it. Ten whole dollars.” A mixture of surprise and dismay played over her wrinkled features.

  “Are you sure you didn’t spend it on the material you bought to make those new dresses you and Eve plan to wear to the fair tomorrow?” John leaned in to look into the crock.

  “No.” Aunt Clara’s frown deepened as she continued to gaze into the empty vessel, as if by doing so, she could make the missing money appear. “I was careful to keep this back so Eve and I would have a little spending money for the fair.”

  “Have you asked Matthew, or… Eve?” John struggled to make his lips form her name even as his mind raced toward possibilities he didn’t want to explore.

  “No, I just now found it gone.” Aunt Clara replaced the crock on the cabinet shelf. The sadness in her eyes and in the deepening lines around her pursed mouth sparked a quick anger in John.

  He patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Aunt Clara. I’ll find out what happened to your money and get it back for you.” John headed for the kitchen door, intent on questioning Matthew and Eve, when Aunt Clara’s voice stopped him.

  “Matthew’s off making those milk deliveries to Fortville and Pendleton, so you won’t be able to ask him about it until sometime this afternoon, though I can’t imagine him doing such a thing.”

  That Aunt Clara didn’t mention Eve fueled John’s growing suspicions. Eve’s parting words after their kiss two weeks ago echoed in his head. I couldn’t run away if I wanted to. I don’t have any money. Ten dollars would buy a standard coach ticket to New York. “Where’s Eve?”

  “In the barn tendin’ to Cinnamon, I think.” Aunt Clara’s voice sounded strained as she turned to the sink and began busying herself folding towels and rearranging sundries.

  Striding to the barn, John dreaded having to question Eve about the missing money and grappled with how best to word his inquiry. Worse, he dreaded her reaction. Would she get angry, or cry, or look him in the eye and lie? His heart hammering, he walked to Cinnamon’s stall, bracing himself for the encounter ahead. When he finally reached the calf’s enclosure, his heart sank. Except for the little red heifer, the stall was empty.

  Chapter Nine />
  The sights, sounds, and smells of the Indiana State Fair bombarded Eve’s senses. Crowds of milling people covered the fairgrounds like ants on a morsel of discarded food. A cacophony of voices and animal sounds, as well as a mixture of discordant clanging noises and the lilting notes of a distant calliope assailed her ears. The smells of frying foods, popcorn, and livestock somehow mingled together to form a surprisingly pleasant aroma. For the first time since yesterday’s strange occurrences, she felt the tension in her body melt away.

  When she and Matthew returned from making the milk deliveries to Fortville and Pendleton, Eve had noticed an odd quietness in John’s and Clara’s demeanors. At first she thought that perhaps the two were miffed that she had accompanied Matthew without letting them know she was going, but when she apologized for doing so, they assured her they didn’t mind and even thanked her for helping Matthew. The reason for their strained moods became clearer when, after supper, Clara asked if anyone had borrowed the ten dollars from the crock where she kept her butter-and-egg money. When no one answered, Clara had walked to the kitchen cabinet and taken down the crock. Then, looking into the vessel, her eyes had popped big as silver dollars. Stammering, she’d gazed into the crock as if seeing something astounding. “W–why, it’s back.” Taking out one of the bills, she’d fingered the money as if to assure herself it was real before replacing it. She’d returned the crock to the shelf and said no more about it.

  As John interlocked one arm with Eve and the other with Clara, helping to shepherd them through the throng of fairgoers, Eve wished she could read his thoughts. Did he think she had taken Clara’s money, then changed her mind and returned it when no one was around? Did Clara think so as well? The thought saddened her.

  John stopped in front of a large white structure marked Fine Arts Building and slipped his arms from hers and Clara’s. He glanced at the basket on Clara’s free arm. “You ladies go on in and register those jams while Matthew and I get Cinnamon off the railcar and take her to the cattle barn.”