Walker's Wedding

by Lori Copeland

  “Pa ain’t said, but I don’t think he’s ancient.”

  “Do you think he could still sire a child?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I suppose. All he wants is an heir.”

  “Okay, then I’ll do it.”

  The girl sat up straighter. “But how—”

  “This is what we’ll do. You’ll get off at the next stop, hire someone to take you to Rodney, and then it will be up to you and him to go far away for a while to give me sufficient time to marry Mr. McKay. Then you can tell your ma and pa what you’ve done.”

  The girls eyes rounded.

  “It won’t be easy. Are you sure you love Rodney enough to do this?”

  “I love him, all right. I’d save the farm for Ma and Pa ifn’ I could but—”

  “How much do they owe?”

  “Five hunnert dollars.”

  Sarah smiled. “I’ll give you the money to pay off your parents’ farm.” Granted, it is sort of like buying a husband, but...

  “You have that kind of money?”

  Sarah nodded. “I do. Do we have a deal?”

  “You’d also have to lend me enough to hire someone to take me to Rodney. I only have fifty cents.” Lucy slid to the front of her chair, her desperate brown eyes searching Sarah’s. “I have a wedding dress. It’s small but you can have it if you kin wear it.” She looked Sarah up and down. “It’s nothing fancy, but it would look bad if you didn’t show up with one.”

  “I’ll wear it.”

  Lucy stared at Sarah as if sizing up her seriousness. “McKay paid Pa a hunnert dollars for me to come.”

  Sarah smiled, ignoring the strange lurch in her stomach. “He’ll have his bride.”

  Breaking into a grin, Lucy nodded. “Done.”

  Leaning across the table, Sarah shook hands and sealed the bargain. “I’ll go to my seat, get the money, and be back in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Chapter Three

  Wadsy glanced at the foyer clock, frowning. Sarah was usually the first one at the breakfast table, cheeks aglow, eager to start a new day. It was well past sunup, and the girl was still in her room. “Is baby girl gonna stay abed all day?”

  “You can’t run after her every time she has one of her temper tantrums,” Lowell muttered from his place at the head of the table. Lifting his newspaper, he shook it out. “Let her be. She’ll be down when she’s ready.”

  Wadsy cleared away the untouched meal and then busied herself in the kitchen until Will’s resulting scowl sent her off to the parlor. Keeping an eye on the stairway, she dusted, pretending not to listen for the girl’s soft footsteps. By late afternoon the temptation to comfort her charge won out. Armed with some of Will’s fresh-baked biscuits and hot tea, she crept up the back stairs to Sarah’s bedroom door, careful not to let Mr. Livingston hear her.

  She rapped softly. “Honey, open up now. Ain’t no use starvin’ to death over havin’ to go to Brice’s. It won’t be that bad, you’ll see.”

  Sarah’s door remained closed.

  Baby girl was determined to make a body suffer. Wadsy balanced the tray on her hip, rattling the door handle.

  “C’mon, Sarah, open the door. Your mammy wansta talk to you. I got tea.” She cracked the door open to peek inside. The room was dark, the curtains drawn. “Lawsy me, you gonna grow to the mattress, honey chile. Get on out of the bed. Why, it’s almost suppa time.” Nudging the door open, she set the tray down on the floor and slid it through the narrow opening. “I’ll leave it on the floor and you can eat when you’re ready.”

  Silence met her efforts.

  Straightening, Wadsy rose slowly and peeked around the half-open door. Finally entering, she shuffled to the window and pushed the drapes aside, tying them to the walls with braided gold fasteners. The window was open. Surely that child hasn’t climbed out again!

  “Sarah?” She turned around and found the bed empty. “You hidin’ from your mammy?”

  A faint breeze fluffed the bottoms of the heavy satin drapes, throwing a flicker of light across the untouched bed. A quick search of the room revealed nothing but absences. The silver brush was missing, as were Laverne Livingston’s antique ivory brooch, the wooden money box Sarah kept her personal funds in, and the calico dress Wadsy had sewn for Sarah to wear when she wanted to help weed the garden. The hook where the frock usually hung was conspicuously empty. Baby girl wouldn’t leave and take that ol’ rag with her, would she? Wadsy moved to the closet, where Sarah’s fine garments hung. Taffetas, silks—if baby girl has left, why is that calico gone and the others still here?

  Wadsy made a full sweep of the room. Also missing was the monogrammed travel bag that Sarah’s father had bought her when she traveled with him to the opening ceremony for the first California railway station on the line. Land, that child’s excitement before the trip was contagious. She’d laid her best dresses in the trunk at the foot of her bed.

  “Imagine,” the girl had said with a sigh as she twirled around, a green silk evening gown clutched to her chest, flaming hair in wild disarray. “Just imagine all the prospects! Handsome young cowboys with spurs and guns. Dangerous men on fast horses.” Pausing, Sarah had carefully laid the dress with the others. “I know he’s there, Wadsy. He has to be. I couldn’t bear coming home without having met my future husband.”

  “California ain’t Boston, doll. Menfolk out there ain’t seen a woman in years. Dirty, nasty men ain’t gonna touch my baby girl.”

  “Oh, Wadsy, I’ll never get married if the man has to meet your and Papa’s standards. I think it’ll be wildly exciting out West!”

  But, as always, Sarah had returned unbetrothed.

  Wadsy picked up the untouched tray, worried now. Mr. Livingston was gonna be powerful upset when he learned that Sarah was missing. She dreaded telling him that his daughter’s bed wasn’t slept in the night before, partly because of the news itself and partly because she knew she would be reprimanded for taking tea to the pouting girl.

  “Baby girl, you’re gonna get your mammy in a mess of trouble,” she muttered, closing the door behind her. “A whole mess of trouble.”

  Chapter Four

  Lowell started at Wadsy’s knock, his leather chair squeaking. “What is it?” he asked, swiveling to face her. The nanny came in, carrying a tray of biscuits and tea. “Has Sarah come out of her room yet?”

  “No, sir, she ain’t.”

  “Ah…tea. Thank you, Wadsy, but I’m busy.” He turned back to the mound of papers littering the desktop.

  She set the tray on the polished desk and wrung her hands in her apron. “I know you ain’t gonna like this, but…she’s gone.”

  Lowell kept writing. “Who’s gone?”

  “I know I wasn’t suppos’ta go up, but I did, and the window was open and the bed ain’t been slept in all night.”

  Sighing, Lowell looked up. Sarah’s rebellion was hardly newsworthy. The chit sorely tested his patience, but he refused to give in to this recent show of defiance. He shuffled a stack of papers for a moment and then irritably shoved them aside. There were days when he would give his railroad to have Laverne back to deal with their only child.

  “Where is she this time, Wadsy? Should I send Abe over to her cousin Eleanor’s to see if she’s hiding out there?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Do ya think she’da left for good? She was powerful upset.”

  “Certainly not. She’s just out of sorts.” He ran a finger along the inside of his heavily starched collar. “I can’t buy her a proper husband, so I can’t make her happy. She has to settle down and have patience until the right man comes along.”

  He glanced at the nanny, who had been staring at the tray since she’d set it on the table.

  “Give her until evening. If she doesn’t come home by then, we’ll start looking.” He reached for a pencil. “Take the tray when you leave. I’m not hungry.”

  “Sir…you didn’t touch your breakfast this morning. A body got to eat…”


  “Run along, Wadsy. We both have work to do.”

  Picking up the tray, the old woman shuffled toward the doorway. Before she could leave, Lowell spun the chair back to face her.

  “I’ve tried, Wadsy. The good Lord knows I’ve tried.” His face crumpled, bravado slipping. “What more can I do?”

  “You’re a good papa, sir. Baby girl will be home in time for suppa—don’t you fret none.”

  “Yes, you’re right. She’ll come home when she realizes no one loves her like family.”

  “Yes, sir. No one loves her more than us…she know that.”

  Fit to be tied, Lowell paced the study floor. “Two days! My daughter has been missing for two days!” He looked as though he’d aged a good ten years in those two days.

  “’Member your heart, sir.” Abe poured sassafras tea, wiping away a drip with a snow-white cloth before returning the pot to the silver tray.

  “Heart, my foot.” Lowell drew on his stogie and puffs of blue smoke hazed the room. “She’ll be the death of me yet.”

  Abe fanned cigar smoke away from his nostrils. “Yes, sir.”

  Pausing before the window, Lowell watched the falling rain, his shoulders slumped with weariness. “Where is she, Abe? If anything has happened to her, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Setting a steaming cup on the desk, Abe said quietly, “You know the child’s tendency to worry a soul to death afore she decides to come home, Mr. Livingston. She’ll be back when she’s ready and not a minute sooner. There no use frettin’ yourself sick.”

  “But two days. Two days and not a word. Are you certain you’ve checked with all of her friends? Is she with that giggly Liddy Snow? I wouldn’t put it past those girls to try and pull the wool over my eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Abe fussed with the cream pitcher and sugar bowl. “Done checked with her, the Montgomery girl, sir, and everybody else Sarah knows. Ain’t no one seen her in the past few days, but I feel in my bones she just fine, sir. Try to drink a little of this tea. Gettin’ wore out ain’t gonna help nothin.’”

  Lowell drew on the cigar, waving Abe’s efforts aside. He couldn’t eat or drink with Sarah running around the countryside doing who knew what. Had she followed that German fellow she’d talked about the week before? He searched for a name but came up empty handed. Or had she gone off with that dockworker again? After a while the candidates blurred together, a seemingly endless stream of handsome young swains who hadn’t given a thought to marriage, only to what they could get from Sarah’s innocence.

  “The spring cotillion…Wadsy’s been sewing her dress for months. If she misses that cotillion…”

  “No, she surely won’t miss the cotillion, sir. But if she do, that just means she ain’t got all her meanness out yet.”

  “If she’s not back in time for that ball next week, Abe, I’m calling in Pinkerton and his detectives.”

  Abe glanced away. “Yes, sir. You did that the last time.”

  “And they found her, didn’t they? Had to go all the way to Philly to do it, but, by gum, they found her, selling flowers on a street corner like a regular hoyden. Her mama would sit up in her grave and shout if she knew that.”

  “Yes, sir. Miss Laverne shorely would.”

  Smoke boiled around the portly figure. “Never saw the like—You said the dockworker she was about to run off with hadn’t seen her?”

  “Dat’s what he say, Mr. Livingston, sir. Say he hasn’t laid an eye on her since the mornin’ afore she disappeared.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Yes, sir. He tell me he had no idea she was your daughter or else he wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Touched her!”

  “No sir, he did not touch her, he say that fore sure. Jest meant he wouldn’t have had fanciful thoughts about her.”

  Turning away from the window, Lowell snubbed out his cigar. “You’re right. All this worrying and not eating is making me sick. Have Will fry me up a couple of fatback sandwiches, and I’ll have some of those creamed potatoes too.”

  “But the doctor done said—”

  “Don’t remind me of the doctor! I know what the doctor says. He wants me to starve to death, that’s what he wants. Go on, now, Abe, and tell Will to not be stingy with the butter on those sandwiches.”

  “Yes, sir. Slather on the butter. Be buildin’ a pine box tomorrow,” the old servant grumbled, turning around to leave.

  When the door had closed, Lowell reached for a picture that sat on his desk. He felt the tension ease from his face. “Ah, Laverne, what am I going to do? We’ve sired an outlaw. I do my best, but Sarah’s stubborn streak would put yours to shame. It doesn’t matter what I do or say or buy for her. Our daughter is intent on ruining her life.”

  Memories flooded him as he traced the outline of the ornate silver frame, softly chuckling to himself. Sarah and her mama were two peas in a pod. Laverne had the same red hair, fiery spirit, and ornery zest for life. Many a time Lowell had thrown his young, sassy wife over his shoulder and carried her around the house, singing “Amazing Grace” at the top of his lungs until her temper cooled. They would have a good laugh, and then she’d look at him with Sarah’s wide, trusting eyes and all would be well. One time Laverne had sat up three nights in a row nursing a sickly newborn kitten—she wouldn’t hear of giving up on the runt of the litter. No one had been more surprised than Lowell when the weak little animal made it. Laverne had named the kitten Pertinacity before exhaustion overtook her and she collapsed in Lowell’s arms. He’d carried her and the cat to bed, where they had both slept twenty-four hours through.

  Yes, Laverne had spunk. That was what he’d loved about her.

  Much as he hated to admit it, Sarah came by hers naturally.

  “Ah, Laverne,” he whispered. “I miss you, ol’ gal.” Absently placing a two-fingered kiss on the frame, he strode to the double doors and opened them.

  “Abe! I’m not waiting a minute longer! Get me those Pinkerton detectives. That girl’s gone too far this time!”

  Chapter Five

  Gusty wind greeted Sarah as she stepped from the train at Tall Timbers station. It snatched a lock of red hair from its clip and sent it flying above her head. She tried unsuccessfully to rein it in while holding her skirts. Her gaze skimmed the bustling town.

  The knot in her stomach painfully tightened. She couldn’t do this. Last night she realized that she couldn’t pretend to marry a man—take vows before God and live in sin. She couldn’t perpetrate the fraud. But…she was here, and Walker McKay was expecting a bride.

  The platform teemed with activity—mothers and fathers greeting returning children; sweethearts embracing, caught up in the moment of blissful reunion, unashamed of their public displays of affection. Families bumped against cattle ranchers and farmhands apparently waiting for supply shipments.

  Stepping from the bottom stair onto the ground, she searched the milling crowd, her heart fluttering like a trapped sparrow. Her eyes swept the area for Walker McKay. Lucy couldn’t provide a physical description of the man beyond the possibility of disfigurement from his recent accident. Sarah’s eyes leapt from face to face, trying to match the features she’d formed in her mind—frail, perhaps in a wheelchair. She would just have to tell the truth about her identity and hope that he understood. Her cheeks warmed. What reasonable man would approve of such a silly act?

  A man wearing a gun in a holster slung low and heavy from his belt made his way through the crowd, his eyes searching the platform. His cragged features were ringed in dust, his clothes spattered with—Sarah recoiled—was that horse dung? When his gaze locked on her, he offered a tobacco-stained grin.

  Her worst fears were realized. Lucy’s husband-to-be was grizzled and not the most handsome man around.

  He paused a foot away. He was four inches shorter than she, and as he removed his hat she saw that he was as old as Papa. She closed her eyes. Backing out might be easier than she thought. Lucy ha
d lied. The wench had needed someone to marry this shriveled old pipsqueak so she wouldn’t have to.

  Sarah checked her temper, reminding herself that she had made the choice to switch places. She’d admit what she’d done and be on her way.

  “Miss Lucy Mallory?” The tender excitement in his voice softened his countenance but did nothing to ease Sarah’s disappointment. “Is that you, girl?”

  “Actually…the agency made a mistake. My name is Sarah Livingston. I’m not Lucy Mallory.”

  There. That was easy enough. With the safety of the train and a return trip no more than five quick steps behind her, she didn’t have to admit to anything. But as the days spent traveling to Wyoming territory would certainly have given the detectives ample time to have located Julie’s apartment, traveling to New York now would mean almost certain return to Papa. It didn’t take a crystal ball for her to know that he would banish her to Uncle Brice’s forever. She took a long look at her future and repeated, “Sara Elaine Livingston. I’m not the woman you sent for.”

  “Names don’t matter.” The old man’s smile spread across his worn face, deepening the etched lines. “Yer finally here. And yer even purtier than I’d pictured.” He appeared barely able to contain himself as he replaced his hat and reached for her bag. “This way, ma’am.”

  It took every ounce of resolve for Sarah to drag her feet across the station, past young, handsome men greeting their wives, past young children on the platform who were engrossed with a dead coyote near the tracks. What would her children look like? Rosy images of a perfect home life with a handsome husband and strong, beautiful children whipped off with the hot wind. How Papa and Wadsy would laugh. Even Abe would tease her about this one, but a bargain was binding.

  She berated herself for her foolishness. If she started being picky now, she might as well reconcile herself to being an old maid. He was most likely a very kind soul. Her dream, however bittersweet, was about to be realized and all she could see were flaws—a few missing teeth and some battle scars. A lot more years than she’d anticipated. She studied the man, her heart sinking.