“You asked why things had changed between us, why I pulled away from you,” he began at last. “I warned you that I’m blunt—I’m ready to tell you, if you’re ready to hear it.”
Trinity blinked. “You’re making me nervous, Mr. Foster. I must have done something horribly offensive, if this is how you’re leading up to it.”
“No, not at all. In fact, quite the opposite.” He stopped walking and turned to face her, his eyes as intense as she’d ever seen them. She was both apprehensive and fascinated. “Miss Scott . . . Trinity . . . you frighten me.”
“I frighten you, and that’s the opposite of being offensive?” She didn’t know what he was trying to say, and she didn’t know how to reply. Humor was her only recourse.
“You frighten me more than I’ve ever been frightened in my life.”
Before she could reply, he reached out and slid his right hand behind her neck, then pulled her in and kissed her. Utterly shocked, she put her hands on his chest to push him away, but found herself grasping his lapels instead, tilting her head back, inviting him to step closer. When he finally released her, he stared into her eyes, and she melted into them.
“Why do I frighten you?” she whispered.
“Because you came into my life like a whirlwind, captured me, and now you’re getting ready to spit me back out again onto the ground. I’ve never felt so vulnerable, so unsure, so desperate for someone to love me.”
“I . . . I make you feel that way?” She couldn’t believe it. She was just herself, no one important or beautiful or influential in any way.
“Oh, yes. And now here I am, kissing another man’s fiancée, getting ready to kiss her again, and knowing I should be shot for it.”
“Kissing her again?”
He answered her by pulling her close, his lips finding hers as though they’d been seeking each other for a lifetime.
“I’m not going to marry Mr. Wells,” she said as soon as he released her. “I wrote him and my father both this morning and told them I deserve better.”
“You told them that? I’m so proud of you.” He stroked her cheek, sending tingles down her arms.
“I did. Mrs. Brody offered me a job here at the hotel, and I plan to accept. I’ll be living more simply than I’m used to, but I’m excited at the thought of being independent and choosing my own path.”
“Hmm.” Raymond’s hand traced one of her curls, then rested on her shoulder. “That might present a problem.”
“Oh?” She thought she’d solved her dilemma perfectly.
“I received a telegram just a short time ago from the doctor in Denver. He’s traveling to Europe and leaving in four days, and if I want him to operate, I must leave immediately. I hate to interrupt your newfound independence and freedom, but I don’t have any time to spare.”
He sank down on one knee and took her hand in his. “Trinity Scott, you amazing, incredible creature, will you marry me? Come with me to Denver. Be by my side during this surgery. Take this broken bird and see if he can learn how to fly again. I will never cage you. I will never ask you to be less than you are. I only ask that I be allowed to love you while you discover who that is.”
Trinity couldn’t speak for a moment, she was so overwhelmed. Even in her most wild imaginings, she had never come up with anything as wonderful as this. “Yes,” she said at last, finally finding her voice. “Oh, yes. But there is one condition. I’ll need you to kiss me like that again. Often.”
He chuckled as he came to his feet. “That’s a condition I can live with.”
Chapter Seven
Ten minutes later, Raymond and Trinity were standing on the steps of the small house next to the church, knocking on the door. It was opened by a beautiful woman with dark hair, who eyed them curiously. “May I help you?”
“We’re looking for the pastor,” Raymond said. “We’d like to get married, and we’re rather in a hurry.”
“Oh? Just how much of a hurry?”
“Our train leaves in twenty minutes.”
“That is a hurry. It’s a good thing you have a buggy.” She chuckled and let them in. “Please take a seat in my husband’s office. He’s planting something or another in the garden, but I’ll find him and send him in.”
Trinity sat next to Raymond in the two chairs in front of the pastor’s desk. She liked this room with its quiet simplicity and its tall bookshelves. She doubted there were any novels to be found in this home, though.
A moment later, a man entered the room, rolling down his shirt sleeves. “I apologize for keeping you waiting. I’m Pastor Osbourne. I understand your train leaves in twenty minutes, and you want to get married?”
“Yes, sir. We realize it’s unusual, but we’d appreciate your help.”
The pastor sat down and looked at them. “You’re both of age?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Neither of you are running from the law?”
“No, sir.”
He nodded. “Very good. Names, please?”
Trinity and Raymond stood in front of the pastor’s desk and clasped hands while he pronounced them husband and wife. She held one small daisy Mrs. Osbourne had run outside to fetch, and while it wasn’t the wedding she’d always envisioned, he was the groom she’d always dreamed of.
As soon as the final words were said, Raymond tossed a few bills on the desk, grabbed Trinity’s hand, and called, “Thank you! Good-bye! Train!” over his shoulder, and they dashed out of the house.
“Wait!”
Mrs. Osbourne came running after them carrying a bundle in a towel. “You can’t have a wedding without cake! Although, I made it, so it’s probably inedible. But still, you have cake!”
Laughing, Trinity took the bundle and followed Raymond out to the buggy.
After urging the horses to trot as quickly as they could back to the hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Foster dashed up the front steps and across the lobby. Raymond took the stairs two at a time to go collect his things, but Trinity paused and came back to the check-in desk, where Mrs. Brody looked startled at their sudden appearance.
“Mrs. Brody, I want to thank you so much for everything,” she said, clasping the woman’s hand. “You’ve been so kind, and I was planning to stay here and work for you, but something else happened instead. You see, I just got married, and we’re on our way to Denver right now, and the train leaves in just a couple of minutes.”
Mrs. Brody gave her a double take. “You just got married?”
“Yes. And we were given potentially awful wedding cake by Mrs. Osbourne.” Trinity set it on the counter. “Perhaps you could decide what to do with this.”
Mrs. Brody started to laugh. “All right. Congratulations, I’ll have Tom take your trunks over to the station, and I’ll do away with the cake.”
“Thank you!” Trinity called over her shoulder as she ran up the stairs. She was grateful she hadn’t unpacked much since she’d arrived, as gathering up her things only took her a moment. She considered changing into her traveling suit, but there just wasn’t time, and really, did such conventions actually matter?
When she reached the lobby, she found Raymond there, settling their bills, and her stomach gave a happy leap. He was hers. She was his. It all seemed too amazing to be real.
“Here’s your receipt, and here’s a little something for the road,” Mrs. Brody said, lifting a basket onto the counter. “Our wedding gift to you—I had the cook put together a meal complete with a cake that’s guaranteed not to be awful.”
“Thank you again, Mrs. Brody. I’ll never forget how kind you’ve been.” Trinity gave the woman an impulsive hug, then followed her new husband out the door and across the short lot to the train station, where her trunks had been placed and were ready to be loaded.
“Two tickets to Denver, please,” Raymond said at the window.
The station master raised his eyebrows. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you, son? We’re just about to give the final all aboard.”
“I know, sir,
but we were delayed. You see, we had to take a moment to get married first.”
The man’s eyes flicked back and forth between them. Then a smile broke out across his face. “All right, but only because you’re newlyweds and all.” He waved at one of the workers on the platform, who unlatched the door of the luggage car and began to pile their things inside. “You’d best get on up there now. We’re pulling out as soon as your things are loaded.”
“Thank you so much, sir,” Trinity told him, reaching out to clasp his hand. “You have no idea how much this means to us.”
“Well, I was a young man myself once, and I can remember what it felt like to be in love. Get on with you, now. No sense in standing there chattering with an old man like me.”
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Foster fell into their seats on the train just seconds before it began to move.
“Did we make it?” Trinity asked, holding her arm across her stomach from laughing. She’d never packed so fast, run so fast . . . gotten married so fast . . . in her life.
“We did.” Raymond picked up her other hand and kissed her fingers. “Off to Denver.”
“And then what?” she asked.
“Well, I have surgery, if you recall . . .”
“No.” She laughed. “I just realized I have no idea where you live. Where we’ll live.”
“I suppose that would be a good thing to know.” He grinned. “Kansas City, actually. I had just begun my journey when we met.”
“Do you have a family? Tell me about your home.”
He tucked her arm through his and settled back. “My mother is still living in the family home where I grew up, but my father passed away five years ago. I have two older sisters, Katherina and Patience. I work at a clinic nearby, and I’ve been so busy that I haven’t taken time to find a home of my own yet. That, of course, will change as soon as I’ve recovered from this surgery. What kind of house would you like?”
Trinity had never given much thought to that because she didn’t think she’d be asked for her opinion. Now, as she thought about it, her heart swelled with the possibilities, and she snuggled into the shoulder of this man she’d known for such a short time, but was now the most important person in her life.
***
“And that man is a banker who’s been embezzling from his customers for years,” Raymond continued, nodding at one particularly rotund fellow seated near the end of the car.
“Embezzling? My, that’s rather serious,” Trinity said. “Do you think his wife knows?”
“Her? Absolutely not. She’s so busy attending society functions and fancy balls that she never pays one lick of attention to anything he does. She just spends the money and doesn’t care where it comes from.”
“I see.” Trinity craned her neck to see the passengers on the next bench over. “What about them?”
“Hmmm. He’s a novelist. He’s traveling to California to find inspiration. He wants to be the next Charles Dickens, only in America, you understand.”
“Is he any good, or is it all a vain ambition?”
“He’s a fairly decent storyteller, but his grammar is atrocious.”
They both laughed, and then Raymond sat forward with a gasp, clutching his wrist.
“What’s the matter?” Trinity didn’t know what to do—she hadn’t seen him in pain before, even though he’d told her it was something he dealt with.
“I’m all right,” he said after a moment. “Sometimes, the muscles just clench of their own accord, and it’s a matter of waiting for them to relax again.”
“Is there anything that can be done?”
“Yes,” he said with a strained chuckle. “Getting surgery. It’s a good thing we’re on our way, yes?”
Chapter Eight
They pulled into the Denver train station in the middle of the night. Everyone seemed subdued, half asleep, even the porters who grabbed their baggage for them. “Hotel’s over there,” one of the men said as he set Trinity’s last bag on the platform. “Night.”
“Thank you,” Trinity said, clutching her reticule with both hands. It certainly was dark, and there seemed to be very little movement in the town.
Raymond stepped over to the ticket booth and spoke with the station master, then returned. “We can leave our things here and he’ll lock them up for us.”
“Thank goodness. I didn’t see a way to get all this over to the hotel at this time of night.”
Raymond smiled. “You don’t travel light, do you?”
Trinity put a hand on her hip. “I’ll remind you, sir, that I was planning to get married. This is essentially everything I own that you see here before you.”
He took a step forward and slid his arm around her waist. “You did get married. And I’m just teasing.”
She melted at his touch, as usual, and smiled. “I only need this bag for now. The rest can wait.”
The station master helped move their things to the office, and then with one bag each, they made their way over to the hotel. A sleepy-eyed desk clerk came to attention when they walked in, and Raymond arranged for their room. Trinity’s cheeks colored at the thought. One room. For both of them. She was a married woman now, even if the ceremony had only lasted two minutes or so.
They climbed the stairs to their assigned room, and Raymond set his bag on the floor so he could unlock the door. Then he motioned for her to go in with a sweep of his arm. “I’d carry you over the threshold, but I think we’ll save that for after the surgery and when we’re walking into our new home for the first time,” he said.
“I like that idea.” Trinity entered the room and glanced around. It wasn’t as nice as her room at the Brody, but it was neat and tidy, and it would do very well. She set her bag on the chair in the corner and removed her hat, then stepped over to the basin and washed her hands and face. That was the thing she disliked most about train travel—the dust. Well, the dust and train robbers. Train robbers, she definitely disliked.
Raymond shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over the back of the chair, then cleared his throat. “We’ve had quite a day,” he said.
“Yes, we have.”
“And tomorrow . . .” He ran his hand through his hair. “Tomorrow we find out if there’s anything that can be done.”
“What if there’s not?” Trinity asked, placing her hand on his arm. “Do you know what you’ll do?”
“I’ve given some thought to studying the law. It’s always fascinated me, and I have several friends who could mentor me.”
“I think you’d make an excellent lawyer.”
“It’s something I’d enjoy, but I don’t know if I’d ever love it like I do surgery. All we can do is see what happens.” He smiled down into her eyes. “I’m so glad I have you by my side through this. I was nervous about heading in there alone—and then you came long like a blazing ray of sunshine to light my path. We’ll take this a day at a time together—a minute at a time.”
“You certainly came along right when I needed you. And speaking of one minute at a time, I know exactly what we should be doing right this minute.”
“Oh?”
She slid her arms around his neck. “It’s time for another one of those amazing kisses.”
***
Trinity sat with Raymond outside the doctor’s office, wishing there was anything she could do to calm him. He’d been so steady during the robbery and the ensuing surgery, but now, his knee bounced as he sat there, and he couldn’t seem to hold still.
“I wonder if this is how my patients felt before coming in to see me,” he said at last, turning to face Trinity and taking her hand in his. “I’ve honestly never been more nervous in my life.”
“About the procedure itself, or the outcome?” she asked.
“The outcome, mostly. This doctor is extremely competent, and I trust that he’ll do his best for me. I just fear that his best won’t be enough in this case.”
Trinity squeezed his hand. “Whatever happens, we’re going to have a wonderful life.�
��
He smiled, bringing her fingers up to kiss them. “I believe that.”
The door to the doctor’s office opened, and a nurse stepped into the hall. “Dr. Foster, Dr. Tate will see you now.”
“Do you want me to come in or wait?” Trinity asked.
“I’d love your company, but I’m afraid this will be dull for you. Why don’t you walk along the street and visit the shops? Come back in an hour.” He kissed her forehead.
“All right.” She was secretly glad he’d made the suggestion. She wanted to be there for him, but at the same time, she knew she’d understand so very little of what they discussed, and she didn’t want to embarrass him by seeming bored or inattentive. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
He met her eyes, and his lips twitched with a smile. Heat flooded her cheeks as she smiled in return. “All right,” she said again, a little too caught up in his gaze to think clearly.
She stepped out onto the street and pulled the door closed behind her, then made her way to a shop she’d seen on the way in. They had some of the most darling hats on display in the window. She didn’t know what her budget for clothing would be now that she was married, and she supposed that might fluctuate anyway as they determined what Raymond would do for a living, but there certainly wasn’t any harm in looking.
***
“Dr. Tate believes he can repair the wrist, but he won’t know for sure until I’m on the operating table,” Raymond said an hour later as they walked back to their hotel. “I’m to come back at two o’clock and we’ll get started.”
“Two o’clock. That seems so soon,” Trinity said, a bit overwhelmed by how quickly everything was happening.
“It seems soon to you because you’ve only known about it for a few days. I’ve been waiting for a month,” Raymond said with good humor. He paused as they passed by the same store window she’d been admiring earlier. “I think that hat would look rather well on you.”
“I wondered that myself when I saw it.”
He tugged her hand. “Let’s go inside. I’d like to see it on you.”
She followed him in and willingly tried it on, but protested when he said they should buy it. “Let’s wait until after the surgery,” she said. “I don’t want to spend more than we have to right now.”
A Broken Wing (Kansas Crossroads) Page 7