This is hardly a suitable topic for conversation, and nothing she wished to share when she had paid this visit in the hope of spending a bit more time with her sister, who had been splitting her days between the ranch and her husband’s home since their wedding.
Knowing that one’s sisters would someday marry and move into homes of their own, would one day fill their time with husbands and families, was one thing.
Living through it was another matter entirely.
She missed Phoebe. She even missed Molly to a degree, and they still shared a house. It wasn’t the same. Not now, now that she had a husband, someone with whom she now shared her most intimate thoughts. Thoughts which had once been shared with her sisters.
“No, no, we will not speak of such things today. This is supposed to be a pleasant visit.”
Phoebe’s frown deepened. “Now I know you are avoiding something because you refuse to offer a straight answer. Do not flatter yourself by believing for a minute that you have me fooled. Now, what is it?”
“You have far too much on your mind at present,” Rachel protested.
“Never so much that I cannot see when my sister is in need. And never so much that I would not have time to do everything I could to help, if possible,” she added as an afterthought.
Rachel shifted in her chair, suddenly uncomfortable. This was not the direction in which she had expected the conversation to turn. Then again, how did she expect to conceal her fatigue from one of the few people who had seen her nearly every single day of her life? She supposed that were the tables turned, she would have put Phoebe under the same scrutiny.
“I have not been sleeping well as of late, and that is a fact.”
“Again? I thought you had put that behind you. You told me so. You said your sleep had improved tremendously.” Phoebe leaned in, her familiar eyes narrowing scrutiny of her sister. “Is it the same dream as before?”
How Rachel wished she could say no. How she wished it were anything other than that dream, not just a dream, but a memory replaying itself again and again.
Phoebe had no way of knowing the reality in which the dream was based. Not when Rachel had neglected to speak of what she had seen just before she and her sisters had embarked for the train station back in Baltimore. Not when only she knew of the Tall Man.
That was how she thought of him. Tall Man was the name she had given him when it became clear there was no forgetting the figure, half-hidden by shadow in the narrow alley between their home and the one sitting beside it. A figure who had stood and watched them climb into the coach designated to carry them to the station.
Only she had seen him. Anyone else would have spoken of him immediately. Cate might have screamed. Holly might have marched straight up to him and demanded he tell her his business there. Phoebe might have insisted they avoid noticing him, reminding all in the coach that he was not a threat. Not when they were on their way to a new life.
No, only Rachel had seen him. Only she remembered him.
Only she knew in some deep, instinctive part of herself that he’d come for some devious purpose. How else could one explain away his menacing stance, his insistence at remaining half hidden?
The fist which had been clenched at his waist?
She had not seen his face. Never in any one of the many dreams she’d dreamt was his face ever clear. Why would it be? When she had never seen it the first place?
Somehow, that was the most unsettling part of all. He had no face. He might have been anyone.
Anyone who had come to their home with the intention of harming them.
Of harming her.
Why she believed he had come specifically for her, she could not say. Something about the way he had not flinched further into the shadow when she looked at him, perhaps. About the way he remained in place, as if challenging her to give him away.
As if he’d expected her to know him.
But she did not know any men. None of her sisters did, not really. Molly worked with men, so had Holly on occasion. Rachel had made many acquaintances at the telegraph office, she had worked for over a year prior to the move to Carson City. None of them could be considered anything more than that. No serious suitors, a truth which had plagued all of them.
Who might he have been? And why would he want to hurt her?
The fact that she had put so many miles between them did little to ease her mind, as evidenced by the continuing presence of her dream.
If she did not know who he was, or why he had come to menace her, what was to stop another such man from menacing her here?
There was no need for Rachel to confirm her sister's suspicions.
Phoebe patted her hand, the gold band she now wore as a token of her marital vows gleaming in the light through the window. “There’s nothing for any of us to fear,” she said with a cheerful tone. “All is well. You have nothing to worry about. Lewis keeps you safe on the ranch, Rance keeps me safe here. None of us are in any danger, none of us need ever fear losing our place in the world. We are all provided for.”
Rachel knew this. While learning to live on a ranch, far away from the bustling city and all of its many wonders, had never exactly thrilled her, the uncertainty which had plagued their days since the death of their mother and the realization that her family’s fortune was much less than it had once been was a thing of the past. Once the year was up, she would be part owner of the ranch and would never need to fear again.
Nor would she ever need convince herself that a dull, cheerless man whose looks hardly thrilled her was marriage material simply because he could provide a comfortable lifestyle. This was the sort of man her mother would have wanted for her, for all of them. Someone to keep them comfortable, someone to provide stability, and a father for their children.
She had a great deal more freedom than she ever could have imagined for herself.
Now, she need only forget what she had left behind in those last heart-stopping moments before the coach had rolled away.
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A Sheriff’s Fugitive Bride!
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Copyright © 2018 by Blythe Carver
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