Love Letter Collection (A Timeless Romance Anthology Book 6)

by Karey White

  “Yes, you do. You distracted me last time, so I barely remember it.”

  He chuckled. “Thousands would attest to the fact that you don’t remember it at all. But I promise to make it up to you. I have something for you.”

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  He pulled out a letter and handed it to her. She grinned. “Another one?”

  “I can’t seem to help myself. I start thinking about you, and I reach for a pen.”

  She started to open the letter, eager to read his words.

  “Come here.” His deep tone, the tender look in his eyes, and the slight smile on his handsome face had her momentarily forgetting the letter. She moved into his arms again. As he held her close, he whispered into her hair. “We’re going to have a wonderful life. You know that, right?”

  She breathed him in. “I have to say, I’m pretty much counting on it.”

  Click on the covers to go to the Amazon purchase site:

  DIANE DARCY loves to read and write lighthearted and funny books. She’s a member of the Heart of the West, and RWA. She was a finalist for Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart® Award. She’s written romantic comedies in several different genres: some historical, some contemporary, all lighthearted and fun. She makes her home in Utah with her family and dogs, and is hard at work on her next book.

  You can find her online at www.DianeDarcy.com

  Chapter One

  1867—Omaha

  The call of “Post has arrived” echoed up the stairwell of the boarding house Shannon Ryan called home. Few things set her heart to pounding quicker than those three words. For six months, the post had been her one connection to the man she loved with every inch of herself. She’d not seen his coffee-brown eyes and lopsided smile in half a year. She’d not heard his voice whisper her name as he used to. She’d not had the comfort of his hand in hers nor his arms holding fast to her. She had only the post.

  Bedrooms emptied as the left-behind women like herself rushed down the stairs to the parlor, anxiously hoping for a letter from their husband or sweetheart. America, the land of possibilities, hadn’t lived up to its promise for the Irish. They’d moved farther and farther west, hoping for a job and a place to live, only to find the well of opportunity bone dry. Many of the men had found work building railroads, jobs that didn’t suit the tastes of most Americans, who weren’t yet desperate enough to take their chances with high explosives and deep ravines nor to brave long days of back-breaking labor.

  Mrs. Brooks, the boarding house mistress, read the name on the front of each letter. Some women squealed with excitement at hearing their names. Others simply smiled wide. They clutched their letters to their hearts and waited. Shannon held her breath as the pile of letters grew smaller.

  Please, Patrick. Do not disappoint me again.

  She’d not received anything from him in two weeks. Another happy woman claimed her letter, then another did, until one letter remained.

  Theirs wasn’t a large boarding house. Only one other woman stood empty handed like Shannon did. Though it was hardly a charitable thought, Shannon sincerely hoped the last letter was her own.

  Mrs. Brooks read off the last name: Anna Doyle.

  No letter from Patrick. Again.

  Shannon kept her posture upright and unflinching even as disappointment spread like ice water through every corner of her body. She and Patrick had decided before he left with the rail crew that they would send each other letters, but not every week, so they could save as much of their pay as possible. He meant to find a town somewhere in the West where they could settle down, and then he would send for her. Between the money he would earn laying rail and what she could earn there in Omaha cleaning houses, they would have enough to marry, secure a house, and start a life together.

  The plan was a good one; she still thought so. But she hadn’t at all understood how the silence between them would eat away at her. She hadn’t realized how lonely she would be.

  Mrs. Brooks pulled a folded sheet of parchment from the pocket of her dress. All of the boarders had remained for this moment. The work of building a railroad was dangerous, even deadly at times. The crew bosses sent word of injuries and deaths. No one knew when Mrs. Brooks received these notices, but she always delivered them on the days the post arrived.

  She smoothed out the paper and set it on the end table nearest the door then walked out of the room. The task of telling her boarders who among them no longer had a husband or loved one was distasteful to Mrs. Brooks. She never undertook it personally.

  Of all fifteen women in the boarding house, only Mary MacGillis could read. She read to her housemates the letters they received, and she had been tasked with reading the fatality report. Twas the only reason Shannon could think of to be grateful she couldn’t read a single word.

  Mary took up the sheet of paper. The parlor turned as quiet as a tomb. Many of the women held one another’s hands, holding their breath. Shannon stood by herself. The women she’d formed friendships with in the early weeks after Patrick’s departure had all moved out, whether because their men had sent for them, had returned because of injuries, or had died. She was so very alone now.

  Mary’s eyes scanned the paper. “The crew’s still in Nebraska, though only just,” she said as she read. “They’ve laid a great deal of track. There’ve been a few injuries and a few deaths.”

  Not a soul moved or breathed or blinked.

  Please not my Patrick. Please. Please.

  Mary looked up at Anna. “Thomas had a burn to one of his arms, but is recovering.”

  Relief chased worry across Anna’s face. Her friends pulled her into their arms, offering support even as they waited for word of their own men.

  Mary silently read on. She always skipped over the reports for men not connected to any of them.

  She met Mary Catherine’s gaze. “John’s broken his arm. He’ll likely be riding back to Omaha with the next post.”

  “He’s lost his position?” Mary Catherine paled, and her hand, still clutching the letter she’d received, dropped protectively to her swelling belly.

  They all knew how things worked with the railroad. So long as a man worked and worked long and hard, he was kept on. An injury that kept him from his work usually meant he lost his job. Mrs. Brooks had an arrangement with the railroad. They paid Mrs. Brooks a stipend for each woman she boarded who had a connection to the rail crew, so Mrs. Brooks only rented to women in that situation. Should a man on the crew lose his position, the woman he’d left behind lost her room.

  “There’s been some deaths,” Mary said. “But none belong to any of us, praise heaven.”

  Several of the women crossed themselves. Relief touched every face. Shannon pressed her open palms together, taking a long, slow breath. Her Patrick was whole and yet living. She could endure another wait for a letter knowing he, at least, hadn’t been taken from her.

  The women queued up, awaiting their turn at having Mary read the loving words sent to them from out on the rail. Mrs. Brooks kept the letters until late in the evening for just that reason, when the women were all in for the night, with no jobs to go to nor chores to be done about the place. The reading took quite some time.

  Shannon slipped from the parlor and quickly climbed the stairs to her room at the very top of the house. Her room was small and poky, with hardly enough space for one bed and a wash stand. But choosing it meant she had a room to her own self, something none of the other women had. She had a place of quiet and refuge where she could sing if she felt the urge, or simply sit and quietly watch the sun set outside her tiny window or weep when her heart was aching.

  She closed her door behind her, shutting out the world. Six months she’d been alone, waiting, hoping, praying. All of her family were back in Boston, working in the same factory they had since fleeing dire poverty in Ireland when she was very little. She’d come west with a group of young people, looking for a future away from the crowded, disease-ridden shanties the Irish calle
d home in the dingy cities of the east. Twas on that journey she’d fallen in love with Patrick, and he with her. But she’d never dreamed she’d be so long alone.

  From under her mattress, she pulled out her bundle of letters. The other women had a far bigger collection, but she cherished the few she had. She sat on the edge of her bed and carefully untied the twine wrapped about her precious pile.

  One by one, she unfolded them, feeling the peace return to her heart. Patrick couldn’t read nor write. Neither could she. The men usually dictated their letters to a foreman or to one of the lucky few amongst them who’d learned the trick of writing out words. Her sweet Patrick wrote to her in his own way. He drew pictures.

  Each of his letters was a series of sketches he’d drawn of the places he’d seen, the animals he’d encountered, the other men on his crew. He had a talent for capturing the feel of a moment, for pulling her into the experience as though she’d been there herself.

  She’d lovingly studied the sketches again and again as the weeks had turned to months. She felt as though she’d experienced the westward journey with him. Someday, when she joined him there, she wouldn’t feel like a stranger, but almost as if she were coming home.

  From the middle of the stack, she pulled out her favorite sketch of them all. He’d drawn in such detail a flower, one unlike any she’d seen. It likely grew wild in the vastness of the open West. His sketch was so lifelike, she could almost smell the fragrance, could imagine the softness of its petals and thin leaves in her hands.

  He’d known she would love the flower and had sent her that bit of beauty from across the miles separating them. He hadn’t forgotten her. She took comfort in that and reassurance in her loneliest hours. Someday they would be together again. Someday.

  Chapter Two

  “Look lively, Paddy Doodle,” the foreman called. “You’ve a caller.”

  Patrick had long ago quit objecting to the nickname he’d been given. Protest twas of little use; the name had stuck. He took the drawing he was working on in one hand, along with his sketching pencil, and stood. The familiar-looking man standing at the foreman’s side was far too clean and not nearly tired enough to be a worker. He likely made his living sitting at a desk. Wouldn’t that be lovely? A roof over his head when days were wet or hot or cold, never worrying over explosions and falling rock, no canyons to build bridges across.

  “This here is Patrick O’Malley,” the foreman said to the fancy man of business. “Paddy, this is Mr. Houston from the town of Sydney.”

  Patrick recognized the name right off. He’d given Mr. Houston a drawing of his son quite a few weeks back when they’d laid the rail there.

  “Tis a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Houston. What brings you so far down the line?”

  “You do, actually.”

  That was hard to believe. Mr. Houston was a man of business; that much had been clear early on. Why would a man of means make such an inconvenient journey for the sake of a poor Irishman?

  Mr. Houston chuckled. “I am in earnest,” he said, “though I can tell you are convinced I’ve gone mad.”

  “Not mad, sir. Tis an odd thing, though, to make such effort for someone as unimportant as I am.”

  Mr. Houston kept right on smiling. “It may seem rash, but I assure you I’ve given it a great deal of thought. I had hoped to find you still working for the railroad and to find your hands still intact.”

  “My hands, sir?”

  “I’ve worried that you’d meet with an accident and that your talent would be lost.” He held up the sketch Patrick had done. “You have a rare gift. One, I confess, I hope to capitalize on.”

  “I don’t understand.” What interest could his sketches possibly hold for Mr. Houston?

  “Do you have any other samples of your work?”

  “I do.” He held his pad out.

  The man flipped through Patrick’s sketches, neither commenting nor explaining his curiosity. “These are every bit as good as I expected them to be.” Mr. Houston sounded relieved.

  “I thank you, Mr. Houston. It’s an odd hobby for a rail layer, to be sure.”

  Mr. Houston flipped through them once more, nodding. The foreman’s face was unreadable. Patrick kept a close eye on both of them. If they meant to make off with his sketches, they’d find themselves with something of a fight on their hands. Those sketches were for his Shannon. He’d not let them go easily. He was a full two weeks behind in sending her a picture as it was. There’d been so much to see, and he’d spent days and days trying to get his drawings just right.

  “I mean to start a newspaper in Sidney, the only one in these parts. I’d have distribution all up and down the railroad to the towns springing up,” Mr. Houston said. “I could use a sketch artist on staff to add a visual element to our stories. I’m offering the position to you, if you’re interested.”

  “That’d be depending on the details of the job, Mr. Houston. Tis not only my welfare on the line,” he said. “I’ve a girl in Omaha I mean to marry once I’ve settled someplace. If the salary’ll support her and me both, and if the position is stable enough to send for her, I may be of a mind to accept your offer.”

  “A wise response.” Mr. Houston looked impressed. He turned to the foreman. “Is Mr. O’Malley one of your drinking men? I’ve seen a few too many Irish off these rail gangs to imagine that isn’t a risk.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Houston. O’Malley never takes up with the others in their drinking or carousing. We can’t even talk him into a game of cards. He’s laced as strait as they come.”

  “Very good.” Mr. Houston rattled off a quick list of working days and wages then offered the job once more. “Starting immediately,” he added.

  Patrick had learned young to trust his instincts. He took a moment to listen to what his mind and heart were saying. Both gave him no reason for concern. Sidney had grown significantly during the few short weeks the rail crew had been camped there. It was near an Army fort, which helped ensure its safety as well as giving it a greater promise of longevity. Not many places so far from civilization were as sure a thing as that town was.

  “I believe I’ll be accepting your offer.” Patrick held out his hand, and Mr. Houston shook it firmly.

  “Gather your belongings,” Mr. Houston said. “We’ll ride back as soon as you’re ready.”

  Patrick didn’t need prodding. His possessions were few and easily gathered. He packed his gunny sack and reported to Mr. Houston’s buggy in less than ten minutes. Mr. Houston arranged with the foreman to have the wages owed Patrick delivered to the newspaper office in Sidney.

  To Patrick’s surprise, the foreman looked a bit disappointed to see him leave. “Take care of yourself, Paddy Doodle.” Paddy Doodle. Was there ever a man given such a ridiculous name as that?

  “I intend to,” he answered, leaving off his objections.

  Quick as that, Patrick was no longer a rail worker. During the ride back to Sidney, he let that fact sink in.

  “Do you read, O’Malley?” Mr. Houston asked.

  There was no point lying. The truth’d be clear easily enough. “Not a lick, sir. Not even my own name.”

  “Well, never mind that. We’ll have you literate in no time. There’s a school just started up in town, and the teacher holds classes one evening a week for adults.” Mr. Houston drove parallel to the tracks in the opposite direction the crew had built them. “The paper will sponsor your classes, but you’re expected to attend and learn.”

  “I’ll gladly do so, sir. There’s never been any opportunity to learn before.”

  Mr. Houston gave a half smile. “I had a feeling about you, O’Malley. It seems I was right. You are talented, which is good, but you seem to be a hard worker, which is even better. Don’t disappoint me.”

  “I won’t. I swear to you.”

  They were a full two hours riding back to Sidney. Though more than a month had passed since the tracks were laid and the work of laying more had been steady and unceasing, the
crew hadn’t gone any farther than that. Mr. Houston expertly drove his team and buggy through the somewhat bustling streets of Sidney. The town had grown since Patrick had last been there. He’d lived long enough in Boston to be familiar with large, busy cities. This was nothing compared to what he’d known there.

  “You can have a room above the newspaper office,” Mr. Houston said, “until you find a place of your own.”

  “Are places available at a reasonable rent? I’ve not much money to m’ name.”

  “Some land outside the town is available. Stake a claim and register it, and, so long as you meet the requirements over the next years, it’s yours for the taking.”

  “Homesteading?” He’d heard quite a bit about that from others on the rail crew.

  “Precisely. You won’t grow wealthy homesteading around here. But so long as you have a job with the paper, you won’t depend on the land to sustain you.”

  Land of his own in a growing town. A job that’d pay regular and steady. Twas exactly what he’d hoped to find out West.

  Mr. Houston pulled his buggy to a halt in front of a wooden structure on one of the many roads leading back from the train depot. A sign attached likely identified it as the newspaper office.

  Patrick grabbed his sack and slung it over his shoulder. “Have you any idea how long it’d take to get word to Omaha and a passenger from there back to here?”

  “The telegraph is laid this far already,” Mr. Houston answered. “You can have word to Omaha in almost an instant. Traveling from Omaha to here will take but a day.”

  But a day. He’d have his Shannon again. She’d likely need time to give notice to her employer and purchase tickets, as well as gather the things she needed to make the journey. But after that, she’d be with him once more.

  “Settle in tonight. You can send word to your sweetheart in the morning.” Mr. Houston smiled empathetically. “Mrs. Houston will likely be so overcome with adoration at your love story, she’ll be as eager to meet your future bride as you’ll be to see her again.”