The Promise Bride

by Gina Welborn

  Luci swiveled on the bench to face them, too.

  Emilia rested her arm on the back of the wooden bench, giving them her full attention. “What makes you ask?”

  The mustached gentleman gripped his wife’s hand. “Little things you said. We’ve heard of men sending for brides but with the real intention of conscripting them into”—his gravelly voice lowered—“the sisterhood.”

  A nunnery? Why would—? Emilia gasped as another realization struck. He meant prostitution.

  “What’s the sisterhood?” Luci put in.

  The couple looked from Luci to Emilia. Are you going to tell her or should we? was their unspoken yet obvious question.

  She swallowed, despite the dryness of her throat. “It—uh, I’ll tell you later.”

  “You and your sister looking like you do . . .” The woman squeezed Emilia’s shoulder. “Be careful, dearie.”

  The man withdrew a card from inside his suit coat. He handed it to her. “In case things don’t turn out as you expected,” he said, then tipped his hat.

  Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Roch’s smirk. The couple’s words had affirmed his oft-stated critical opinion of Finn: He’s not going to be what you expect.

  Emilia offered the couple a polite smile. “Thank you for your concern.”

  As the man and his wife moved down the aisle to the opened vestibule door, Emilia looked at the card. She brushed her thumb across the raised print.

  Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Deal

  Deal’s Boardinghouse

  Doubt nibbled at her confidence. What if they were right and Finn wasn’t who he’d claimed to be in his letters? What if he had lured her to Helena? What if—

  No. The way he’d described being the son of a prostitute and told about years spent in an orphanage and running with thieves had been too raw and sincere not to be true. The way he’d answered when she’d asked why he’d placed the mail-order bride advertisement had almost insulted her. Why confess he’d placed the ad because he’d felt God telling him to rescue someone as he’d been rescued? Why say that if he didn’t believe it? On more than one occasion, Finn had written that his overwhelming gratitude to God for his salvation had motivated him to look for any opportunity to extend the same saving hand to others.

  One thing she knew for certain: She could trust Finn Collins. She didn’t need this couple—or anyone—to rescue her from him.

  Seeing nowhere to dispose of the card, Emilia slid it inside her haversack. “Luci, Roch, it’s time to go.”

  She and Luci pulled on their winter coats as they waited for the other passengers wanting to disembark. Luci grabbed the empty food basket. Emilia stepped into the narrow aisle to let Luci go before her. She then checked the bench to see if they’d left anything behind. Finding nothing, she muttered, “Roch, come on,” then followed her sister past the passengers traveling on to Idaho and California. As she glanced over her shoulder, Roch slapped the back of the bench. He jerked on his coat, then collected their three bags from under his seat. Emilia stopped at the vestibule steps, waiting for him to catch up.

  Luci tugged on Emilia’s sleeve.

  “Just a minute.” Emilia watched Roch trudge down the aisle. “Be careful with—”

  A bag hit the back of an empty bench. With a grunt, Roch freed it. He looked like a prisoner on his way to his execution.

  Luci tugged again. “Are you sure he’s not Finn?”

  Emilia looked at her sister as they stood at the top of the steps. “Who?”

  “Mr. Romeo.”

  “Of course not. Why do you ask?”

  “Because he’s walking this way.”

  Roch reached her side at the same moment the man with the badge stopped at the base of the steps, blocking their exit.

  “You Emilia Stanek?” His voice was gruff, and now, as he stood close, she could see the redness in his heavily lashed brown eyes. He didn’t smell of liquor, so perhaps he’d stayed up all night, as Luci had.

  “Ah, yes.” A nervous queasiness grew in her stomach. Where was Finn? She moistened her lips and in a firmer voice said, “Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”

  He climbed two steps, putting them on eye level. He withdrew tickets from his inner coat pocket and a leather coin pouch from his trouser pocket and thrust them at her. “Take these.”

  Emilia drew back, bumping into Roch. He shoved her with his chest, which propelled her into Luci, who then banged into the closed dining car door.

  “Ow!” Luci yelled. “Roch, why did you do that?”

  Roch grunted.

  Emilia studied Luci’s face. No tears. She still asked, “Are you hurt?”

  Luci shook her head.

  “Apologize, Roch,” came from the lawman.

  Emilia looked over her shoulder at him. How did he know her brother’s name?

  The man leveled a hard glare on Roch.

  “I’m sorry, Luce,” her brother answered with none of the sullenness he’d exhibited over the past three days.

  The train whistled.

  “Excuse me,” the porter said. “Can you folks make way for boarding passengers?”

  The man pulled out his lapel to show the porter his badge—the badge Emilia couldn’t take her gaze from.

  Sheriff ?

  “Give us a minute.” He turned back to Emilia and again held the tickets and coin purse in front of her face. “Trust me. You need to take these and go back to your seats.”

  Emilia shook her head. “Not until you tell me who you are and what this is all about.”

  “I’m the county sheriff, and you can’t get off this train.”

  “I most certainly can,” she snapped back. “I’m meeting my husband.”

  Tears pooled in his bloodshot eyes. He hunched his shoulder and rubbed his bristled chin against his lapel. After a long moment, he met her gaze, his tears gone and voice hard. “Finn is dead.”

  * * *

  Mac thrust one hand inside his pants pocket and swallowed down the remnants of his humiliating, unchecked grief. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have been so blunt.” No use covering up the truth, though. Finn’s pretty little bride needed a hard dose of reality. She and her siblings needed to go home for their own good. Whoever had killed Finn—his breath hitched at the pain—could still be in town. “These tickets”—he held them under her nose—“will take you to San Francisco. Trade them in at the next stop for ones back to Chicago.”

  “What? What did you say?” Her obtuseness annoyed him. How much clearer could he be? But she stared up at him, her caramel eyes wide, like she was waiting for a reasonable explanation to something so unfathomable. “Did you say Finn is dead? Finn Collins? He can’t be dead. He . . . he sent me a telegram four days ago.”

  He should go easy on her. On all three of them. Their rumpled clothes, the three battered bags clutched in the boy’s hands, the lack of claim tickets for any other luggage, the way Miss Luci gripped an empty basket in one hand and an apple core in the other, the look of perpetual hunger in all three pairs of eyes . . . everything about them should command his pity.

  But Finn’s death was too recent. Mac’s emotions too raw. He shook off the images of finding his friend shot through the heart, his eyes open and mouth agape, and the telegram announcing when to expect the Stanek siblings lying on the kitchen table, the yellow paper stained with bloody fingerprints. Had the telegram been what the killer was after, or was it simply another nuisance like the clothes, canned goods, and bedding tossed about like rubbish?

  Mac didn’t know. The whole scene made no sense, raising question after question with no answers. The only thing he was clear on was keeping this woman from stepping off the train.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s true. You and your family need to go back home.”

  Miss Stanek blinked and took two rapid breaths. “Go back home?”

  Did she have to repeat everything he said?

  Mac rubbed the corner of his lip to keep from scowling and scaring her more. His voice was ha
rsh from lack of sleep, so he swallowed and worked at softening his tone. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She put her hand on top of the black hat barely keeping her head covered. Brown curls hung around her face. The two sisters looked like twins except for Miss Luci’s slightly smaller frame and coffee-brown eyes, as opposed to her elder’s coffee-with-cream eyes. At least Miss Stanek had been honest about how she looked in her letters to Finn.

  I’m small for my age. No one believes I’m twenty-one. Most people think I look more like a fifteen-year-old, and it has caused me more than my fair share of trouble at work. People keep asking to speak to the customer service manager and won’t believe me when I say I’m the manager.

  Mac had read every one of the woman’s letters in the last four hours, searching them for clues and coming up empty. He knew Miss Emilia Stanek and her siblings as well as Finn had.

  And, based on the bloody fingerprints on the letters, so did Finn’s killer.

  Mac leaned deeper into the vestibule, determined to hide the trio from anyone else looking for them, and held out the tickets again. “Trust me. You need to take them.” They’d cost him a pretty penny. Money he’d been saving to get his mother out of Helena, though the last time he’d broached the subject she’d told him—in brash, vulgar terms—to mind his own business instead of hers.

  Roch shook his head, as if to say, I knew this whole thing was a dumb idea.

  Miss Luci started to reach for the tickets, her fingers trembling.

  “No!” Miss Stanek pulled her sister tight, trapping her arm from reaching any higher. “We are staying. We are not changing plans again. Especially when I have no idea if this man is even telling me the truth.”

  This man?

  Mac gritted his teeth. How dare she question him! She was the one who’d written a lonely bachelor, convinced him to marry her, and preyed on his orphaned past to convince him to let her drag two siblings into a slapdash marriage. Mac had warned Finn not to send for a mail-order bride. People could say whatever they wanted in letters. Didn’t make it true.

  Same way people could live a lie right in front of you.

  Take Finn, for example. He’d never said a word about continuing to court a bride. Mac discovered that little tidbit after plucking Miss Stanek’s letters out of the piles of rubbish cluttering Finn’s cabin, putting them in date order, and reading every last one of them for clues. Had Finn’s murderer tossed the letters out of frustration or because he’d found what he needed and wanted to make it harder for others to figure out? Was he here waiting for the Stanek family?

  Mac gripped the vestibule handrails, arched his back, and scanned the thinning crowd on the platform. He’d gotten to the station almost an hour early to watch for suspicious people or activity. He’d seen nothing then and he saw nothing now.

  I need clues!

  If he could find something—anything—solid to follow, maybe the churning in his gut would ease up. From the moment Isaak Gunderson slammed through the office door yesterday morning and shouted “Finn’s dead!” Mac hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t slept.

  Who would kill his friend? Was Finn the innocent victim of random violence? Mac wanted to believe that, but he’d been a lawman too long to ignore how Finn suddenly had enough money to buy alfalfa seed and livestock when he’d been flat broke a month before. And why did he have greasepaint and a bandanna in his kitchen cupboard?

  Finn had been a horse thief at one time. Years ago. He’d made a clean break, even tracked folks down to repay them for their losses. So why would he keep the tools of his thieving trade so close at hand? What was he hiding? Other than a mail-order bride! They’d discussed it and decided it was a dumb idea.

  What had changed Finn’s mind?

  Everything about his murder felt . . . off. Like a clock that ticked and tocked in separate rhythms.

  “Sheriff ?” The porter interrupted from behind. “These people need to get out of the way so others can board.”

  Mac returned his attention to Miss Stanek. How was she reacting to him being called sheriff? She continued to glare at him, eyebrows pinched, like he’d asked for her virtue instead of her cooperation. He leaned backward to demand another minute, but he was so tired he stumbled down the steps and onto the platform. The Stanek trio descended before he could right himself.

  The porter, his neck veins pulsing and skin mottled red, stepped behind the Staneks, preventing them from reboard-ing. As the porter helped passengers into the vestibule, Mac thought about ways to make an arrest. None were viable, of course, but it didn’t stop him from imagining slapping handcuffs over the man’s pudgy wrists and hauling him to jail.

  Miss Stanek tilted her chin up at him. “Could you direct me to Mr. Hale Adams, please?”

  “No.” Recalled to the immediate threat, Mac pointed his finger at the chit’s nose. “Stay here.” He turned on his heel and headed for the ticket office. The next train heading east was in six hours, and the Staneks were going to be on it even if he had to lock them in a jail cell between now and then.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  Mac whirled around. Instead of doing as she was told, Miss Stanek had followed him across the platform. “I told you to stay put.”

  “And I asked if I was under arrest.”

  The jut of her chin and militant gleam in her eye exasperated what was left of Mac’s patience. “Not yet, but I can arrange it.”

  Behind her, the brother crossed his arms and smirked.

  “You think this is funny, young man?” Mac took one step, grabbed the boy by his collar, and pulled him close. “Finn Collins is”—his stomach flipped upside down and grief clawed his throat—“was my friend. My good friend. Do you understand me?”

  The boy’s eyes stretched wide and shifted to his sister.

  Assuming the woman would make some sort of protest, Mac pointed his left finger in her direction. “Stay out of this.” He waited until Roch’s attention returned to him. Mac lowered his brows at the boy. “I need to get your sisters out of this town for their own safety. I assume you aren’t keen on finding them dead on the floor some morning despite whatever differences of opinion you might have.”

  Roch’s eyes were about to fall out of their sockets. “Yes, sir. I mean, no. Sir.”

  “Then stay here and watch over them while I get your train tickets exchanged.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mac let go of Roch’s collar. He swung his gaze to Miss Stanek and her little sister. “Don’t move. Don’t talk to anyone. Do you hear me?”

  Miss Luci bounced her head up and down, but Miss Stanek glared. “You have no authority to—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t.” Mac spun around and left.

  As soon as he marched across the threshold into the train depot, he looked to the right. The door to the telegraph office stood wide open, a line of people waiting for Yancey Palmer to clack out messages for them. He marked Keep Yancey from discovering Miss Stanek’s arrival off his invisible list. Because she’d stood in as the proxy bride—another shocking discovery—Yancey would no doubt know about Miss Stanek’s arrival and want to meet her.

  One thing at a time.

  Get the Staneks out of town first, then explain to Yancey why it was necessary and why she needed to keep it secret.

  He rubbed his cheek, the bristles scratching into his palm sniping at him that Miss Stanek might have reason to doubt he was the county sheriff. Helena’s leaders had advertised far and wide that the city had more millionaires per capita than any other in the world—an exaggeration designed to help make Helena the state capital once Montana was admitted to the union—which meant a sheriff was expected to live up to the reputation.

  Though he despised the deception, Mac straightened the badge on his lapel and the one on his pinstriped vest. A sheriff needed to look respectable and trustworthy whether his town was a mere watering hole or the finest city on earth. Without respect, people would disobey his authority, and that would lead to all kinds of tr
ouble.

  He got in the back of the short line waiting for the train ticketing agent. A few odd looks came his way. Too bad he couldn’t fix his bloodshot eyes and stubbled cheeks as easily as his badges.

  Madame Lestraude emerged from the telegraph office. As was her custom, she wore some shade of red. The color papered the walls of her parlor house, draped its windows, and identified her girls. Men who saw them around town knew by the wine-colored bows tied above small, cameo brooches which brothel to frequent if they wanted a night with one of the beauties. Most men couldn’t afford it. Those who could were treated to a luxurious illusion of romance and, sometimes, a quick exit. Prostitution had become a criminal misdemeanor a little over a year before. All the madams in town changed their business practices to hide the true purpose of their newly renamed music halls, luxury hotels, or vaudeville theaters, but they were thin disguises.

  Unfortunately, the punishment for a misdemeanor was nothing more than a fine, and judging by Madame Lestraude’s new, fashionable velvet dress trimmed with satin, one she could afford to pay.

  She passed Mac, tipping her regal head to acknowledge his presence. Not one of her dyed blond curls fell out of place. He dipped his chin. She continued on without the smallest acknowledgment to show she was past her anger at him over the interview in the Daily Independent endorsing the law criminalizing prostitution.

  “Next.”

  The line in front of him had disappeared. The ticket agent behind the barred window beckoned Mac forward with a swirling wrist.

  Before stepping up to exchange the tickets from the morning westbound train to the evening eastbound one, Mac checked to see that Miss Stanek and her siblings were obeying his instructions to stay put and not talk to anyone. So far, so good, although judging by the pointing fingers and red faces, they were having a rousing argument among themselves. He turned his attention to the ticket agent. He should have gotten Hale or another friend to make the exchange. Buying and then returning tickets in the same hour was too memorable.