Collision of The Heart

  “But I—” Mia blinked.

  More money meant she could leave the Goswells sooner rather than later—just in case . . .

  She retrieved her ticket, then crossed to the telegraph office. Her message was brief.

  NOT RETURNING STOP SENDING TWO ARTICLES STOP

  The secure future she craved from childhood sent flying with that telegram, Mia headed back out the door. More passengers filed into the station.

  “Eastbound train is filled,” the ticket agent shouted.

  “When’s the next train?” several people chorused.

  “Eastbound tonight,” the conductor answered. “Twelve hours.”

  The holiday mood subsided.

  “There’s a little lady here willing to sell hers.” The ticket agent pointed at Mia, who was hovering in the doorway.

  A sea of hopeful faces turned toward Mia. She clutched her handbag more closely, fearing that someone would snatch it with the precious ticket.

  Gold and silver flashed before her eyes, along with shouts of offers to buy. She scanned the crowd to see who most needed the ticket. Her gaze fell on the woman with the infant.

  She shook her head. “I only have the cost of the ticket, nothing extra. But don’t worry about me. The Lord will provide.”

  The sums shoved in Mia’s face tempted her. Those coins signified independence and security for weeks.

  She ducked beneath the arm of a gentleman in a silk hat and walked up to the woman. “Take it, and God bless.”

  The woman’s eyes glowed. “You’re certain? You can get so much more from others.”

  “Keep your coin. Get you and your baby home.”

  “Thank you.” The woman started to cry. “My husband hasn’t seen our baby yet. Bless you. Thank you.”

  Mia gave her a nudge. “Get on that platform before the train arrives.”

  Her heart warm and calm for the first time in eighteen months, Mia watched the woman until she vanished into the station. Then she took a step back out of the throng and into something hard pressed to her spine.

  “Say nothing, and no one’ll get hurt,” a male voice rasped in her ear.

  A chill deeper than the cold air ran through Mia. “What do you want from me?”

  “What do you think? The child.”

  Ayden’s heart raced with anticipation, with apprehension, with exertion from his jog from campus to home in order to see Mia as quickly as possible. But when he reached the house, Rosalie was home alone.

  “She left for the train station over an hour ago,” Rosalie said.

  “The train?” A lump swelled in Ayden’s chest. “She left? I thought . . . I was certain . . .”

  He had just destroyed his future for a lady who still found her career more important than he was.

  Rosalie giggled and kissed his cheek. “Don’t look so woebegone, brother. She didn’t leave Hillsdale. She went there to turn in her ticket. Of course, I did expect her back sooner than this. Maybe she changed her mind.”

  “I’ll change my mind about Lambert if you’re not careful.” Ayden tugged on one of Rosalie’s curls, causing the left side of her coiffure to tumble onto her shoulder.

  “Oh, you.” She gave him a playful slap on his hand, but sobered at once. “Seriously, Ayden, she should have come home by now. She didn’t take her things with her except for her notebook and purse, and if she was just going to turn in her—”

  Her voice died behind him as he slammed out the kitchen door.

  He reached the station in minutes and began searching the crowd for signs of Mia. He found lots of females, mothers, wives, and daughters trying to get passage on one of the trains finally able to get down the tracks to the east and west. There was no sign of Mia.

  After a quarter hour, he managed to reach the ticket counter. “Did you see a pretty young woman come by here?” At the man’s blank look, he clarified, “Chestnut hair. Green eyes. A hood with white fur.”

  “’Bout an hour ago.” The ticket clerk tapped his chin. “She wanted to get a refund for her ticket. I suggested she sell it. Get more money.”

  Ayden’s heart leaped. “Did she?”

  “Nope. She gave it away.”

  She gave away her ticket. She was staying.

  Ayden would have run through the streets singing about what a blessed man he was—if only he knew where Mia had gone.

  “Did you see—”

  “Look, mister, I have a hundred people to get out of here. I can’t keep track of one foolish female.”

  “Of course not. Thank you for your help.”

  Ayden left the station. Perhaps she had gone to Genevieve’s or to the boardinghouse or even to the church. She might have gone to the sheriff for information on the child.

  But no, she had tossed that article into the fire.

  Those who knew about her telegrams wouldn’t know that. They might think she had visited the station to pass along or gather more information.

  His guts coiling like a snake ready to spring, Ayden ran to Genevieve’s house. Only the merest hint of smoke puffed from the kitchen chimney, and no one answered his knock. Likewise, the church, for the first time in a week, lay quiet and empty.

  Footfalls slowing, Ayden made his way toward the sheriff’s office. He saw a few acquaintances along the way and asked about Mia. No one had seen her. Mouth dry and temples beginning to throb, Ayden entered the sheriff’s office.

  For once, he was glad to see Fletcher Lambert on duty.

  “How may I help you?” Lambert, now his future brother-in-law, grinned and raised a hand in greeting.

  “Mia is missing.” Ayden grasped the edge of the counter. “She went to the train station to turn in her ticket, and no one has seen her since.”

  “You’re sure.” Lambert leaned forward, his eyes growing dark. “She’s not—”

  “Anywhere unless she’s gotten home in the last quarter hour or so.”

  “Let’s go see.” Lambert stepped into the back office for a moment, then returned, pulling on his overcoat. “Sheriff says I can go with you. All the others are guarding the station.” He lowered his voice though the office was empty. “We sent the child home this morning, but the kidnappers are still at large and aren’t likely to know we no longer have the boy here.”

  The child. The kidnappers. They would surely not bother with Mia. She knew nothing.

  But she had sent those telegrams, and the kidnappers might think she did.

  Ayden and Lambert sprinted for the Goswell house. Halfway there, they met Rosalie racing through the slush, waving a sheet of paper and screaming.

  The gun pressing into her ribs prodding her forward in silence, Mia stumbled through the trees and into an overgrown but still familiar yard. She knew the yard, the back of the house, and the kitchen into which the false railroad worker shoved her.

  Through her own blurred vision and a pall of smoke from a charcoal brazier in the middle of the stone floor, she peered at a table where she had often helped prepare lemonade and sweets to feed hungry college students, the stove where she had set many a pot of coffee to brew. The stove lay cold, and the table served as a bed for a woman with one leg splinted and swathed in bandages. Nothing else in the chamber stayed the same as the last time she had visited Professor and Mrs. Blamey. Black cloth covered the windows instead of frilly gingham. Candles flickered in holders atop the stove and the shelves meant for dishes. The only warmth radiated from the brazier, pitiful at best, little use in a frigid Michigan February.

  Shivering uncontrollably, her mouth dry, Mia fixed her attention on the woman and tried to speak in a voice that gave away nothing of her desire to scream. “You’ve been holed up here all along? We intended to help you.”

  “I crawled out the back of the car the minute I realized you had the Yardley brat.” The woman’s voice was tight. Lines of pain etched her face. “If my leg weren’t broke already, it were broke after I landed on the ground, you interfering—”

  “Enough talking.” The gunm
an closed the door and shoved Mia forward. “Where are the others?”

  “Sleeping in the dining room.” The woman closed her eyes and fumbled a flat green bottle to her lips. The stench of spirits and something else filled the room, along with the smoke. Laudanum. The woman must be in terrible pain.

  Mia hugged her arms over her middle. “Help me, and we can get you proper medical care.”

  “Tabard here has done well enough.” The woman closed her eyes. “Just give us the baby, and we can get all the money we need for all the doctors in the world.”

  “I don’t know where he is.” Mia doubted the woman would believe her any more than had her abductor. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t—” She heard the rising note in her voice and clamped her lips together.

  Tabard nudged her with the gun. “Turn around. Agnes, tie her hands.”

  Shaking, Mia kept her hands tucked beneath her arms.

  “Put your hands behind you.” Tabard shoved the gun harder into Mia’s ribs.

  Mia put her hands behind her. “You won’t . . . won’t get anywhere like this. I don’t know where Jamie is.”

  “Goswell does.” Agnes began to wind rough hemp around Mia’s wrists.

  Her heart crawled into her throat, threatening to strangle her. “They won’t sacrifice the baby for me. I won’t l-let them.”

  Could she burn through her bonds with the brazier? She risked setting fire to her clothes and blistering her skin, but—

  “We don’t want to harm the baby. We just want money for him.” Tabard handed his gun to Agnes and crouched to tie Mia’s ankles. “But you are worth nothing, so we will harm you.”

  She opened her mouth to dispute his claim of no harm to the baby, but remained silent. If she didn’t say anything, perhaps they wouldn’t gag her.

  “Keep holding her,” Tabard said. “I’m fetching the others.”

  The others meant the other two men and more guns. They trooped into the kitchen and arranged themselves near doors and windows. Mia sat on the floor beneath the table and concentrated on not being sick. She must free herself, must warn the sheriff to warn whoever held the baby.

  Black spots danced before her eyes. Her head filled with mush and muddled thoughts. Must. Get. Away. Must. Warn. Must—

  The two men looking outside leaped back from the window and door. “They’re here,” Tabard announced. “I knew Goswell wouldn’t risk the girl’s life.” He caressed the barrel of his gun, then turned the muzzle on Mia.

  “You were the man on the railway car.” A surge of energy pulsed through her, and she shot out her bound feet, striking him across the ankles.

  Tabard swore and pulled the trigger.

  Mia rolled beneath the table, kicking at the legs, a chair, the brazier. Agnes screamed. The men shouted. Another gun blast roared through the room.

  The inside kitchen door burst open.

  Through a tangle of hair and the rungs of a chair, Mia stared at Ayden Goswell, who had what appeared to be a child in his arms. “You think you can trade my lady for this child,” Ayden shouted, “then take him.” And he threw the child straight at Tabard.

  Tabard dropped his weapon and grabbed for the baby. A second man charged for Ayden, gun raised. Mia kicked a chair into his path. He crashed to the floor, his bullet blasting away plaster from the ceiling.

  Diving beneath the table, Ayden cleared the way for Lambert and two other deputies, guns drawn, to swarm into the kitchen and secure the kidnappers. Two of the men charged for the back door. Lambert brought one down with a shot to his leg. The other tripped over the limp body of the “child” and lost his weapon. Before he could retrieve it, a deputy held him at the muzzle of his weapon.

  Tabard remained motionless, his mouth open, his eyes wide as he stared at the baby head he held in his hands.

  “It’s a doll.” Mia started to giggle. “It’s one of Rosalie’s dolls.”

  “My mother never throws anything away.” Ayden slid out from beneath the table and drew Mia after him. “Let me get you untied.”

  He produced a knife no longer than an index finger but looking as old as ancient Rome and sliced through Mia’s bonds. Then, while the deputies bundled the three criminals and Agnes out of the house, Ayden held Mia close, kissing her brow, her eyes, and, finally, her lips. “I love you, Mia, mi amore. I never stopped. I was a fool to think I could live without you even here. I won’t again. I’ll come to Boston or Philadelphia or Bombay, as long as—”

  “Shh.” She laid a finger over his lips. “No need. I sent a telegram to tell my editor I won’t be coming back.”

  “Mia.” He held her at arm’s length, then released her shoulders to take her hand and draw her into the clean, crisp air of the overgrown garden. “Too smoky in there. I couldn’t see your beautiful eyes. Did you say you aren’t returning to Boston?”

  “I’ll have my things sent to me here.”

  “But what will you do for work?”

  “I can write some articles from here and tutor and teach fencing and . . .” She gave him a coy smile. “Perhaps find a great deal more to occupy my time.”

  Ayden rubbed the back of his neck and took several quick breaths. “Like being my wife? We needn’t stay here. I turned in my letter of resignation so I could go with you.”

  “Oh, Ayden.” Mia lost a battle with tears and rested her head against his broad shoulder, weeping. “I don’t want to go back to Boston. I want to stay here, where I am loved.” She raised her head. “I never stopped loving you either. I didn’t ask for this assignment, but an editor knew I lived here and asked me to write it.” She toyed with the top button on his coat. “What about Charmaine?”

  Ayden’s smile was gentle, a little rueful. “Apparently she left for the East on the first train out of town this morning. She only left Philadelphia because her father would have stopped supporting her if she did not return home.”

  “She always looked sad when Philadelphia came into the conversation.” Mia rubbed her cheek on Ayden’s coat. “What will she do there if she has no money from Finney and no work?”

  “She will do just fine. You see, there seems to be a certain Irish businessman out there she thinks is worth trying to remind he loved her once.”

  “Unless he’s a fool, she’ll succeed.” Hand still shaking, Mia stroked Ayden’s cheek. “But your professorship? If you resigned, how can you stay here?”

  “I don’t know what Charmaine said to her father, but Dr. Finney is”—Ayden shook his head—“subdued this morning. I thought he might cry when I resigned.”

  “He thinks the world of you. That’s obvious.”

  “He said if I change my mind about accepting the position or if you were as brilliant as he thinks you are and decide to stay, I can reapply for the position. And if they decide against me . . .” He shrugged. “I can work with Pa in the hardware store or apply for work elsewhere—if you need to go elsewhere to work. I just want to be with you.”

  “Change your mind about accepting the position?” Mia took half a step back. “You mean they were going to offer you the professorship after all?”

  Ayden inclined his head. “Charmaine told me last night. I wanted to make you an offer of marriage last night, but I needed to be sure you knew I was free first.” He curved his hands around her cheeks and tilted her face up. “I needed you to know that’s how serious I am this time about how much I love you and want you to marry me.” He glanced around him at the garden where he had first proposed on a warm, moonlit night. He smiled. “Will you marry me, Miss Roper? I love you with all my heart.”

  “And I love you with all my heart.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’ll marry you and stay here or go anywhere, as long as I am with you, Professor Goswell.”

  Epilogue

  Hillsdale, Michigan

  August 1857

  In ten more miles, Euphemia Roper Goswell would reach Hillsdale, Michigan, the town she swore she would never leave again. In ten more miles, she would see her husb
and of fourteen months and announce exactly why she would stop journeying to research her articles—both reasons why. That would make him happy during the school year when he could not leave his position as professor of classical studies at the college.

  More restless than the children in the seat on the opposite side of the car from hers, Mia began to gather up her belongings. She wrapped the light shawl around her shoulders against the approaching coolness of an August evening. She hooked her umbrella over her arm and slung her satchel over one shoulder. Last, but definitely not least, she tucked her portfolio under one arm.

  Ayden still didn’t like her carrying the writing case with her everywhere she went. This time, once she showed him the contents, she expected he would be happy she gave the worn leather such tender loving care.

  And when he received the rest of her news, he would be the one providing the tender loving care.

  She grinned at the prospect and gripped the back of the seat ahead of her, ready to stand and rush to the front of the car the instant the engine drew into the station. She wanted to be the first one onto the platform, knowing as she did that Ayden would be there to greet her after her two-week journey back East. She leaned forward as though she alone could compel the engineer to power on more steam and reach their destination faster.

  The train slowed.

  “Oh no.” With memories of the wreck still fresh in her mind, Mia cried out in alarm.

  Others merely grumbled at a delay in their journey. “Cows on the track or something.”

  “Or another train in the way.”

  “If we don’t reach Chicago on time—”

  Mia missed what would happen if the train got off schedule, as she rose to poke her head out the open window. “I don’t see anything in the way.”

  Not that she could see from her car, which was near the rear of the train.

  The train halted with a jolt that sent Mia tumbling onto her seat. Her portfolio and umbrella clattered to the floor. With some difficulty, she bent down to retrieve the objects, and when she straightened, Ayden stood in the aisle beside her.