by Etta Foster
“What?” Louise tried to play dumb, inwardly panicking as she tried to think of some way to keep her secret hidden.
But Lorelei was a clever girl, even if she was hardly sixteen.
The girl grinned, skipping over to grab the closest piece of paper on the edge of the bed. Louise grabbed three, but she missed that one. Her heart thudded as she realized it was the letter she had set down only moments ago. The newest note from Richard Hanson.
“That’s mine,” Louise pointed out as her mouth turned dry. “Can-can you please not read it?”
Her sister ignored her as she hopped onto the bed.
Frowning, Louise tugged a letter out from under the girl.
“You have a boy writing to you? It’s a fine name, Richard Hanson,” Lorelei commented mildly. “He sounds handsome.”
Louise flushed. “That’s not yours to read! Give it back, Lorelei.”
As she reached out, her sister put out a hand as well, right in her face. Louise opened her mouth to shriek but realized she didn’t want more attention.
She didn’t want their older sister, Luanne, to hear. And she especially didn’t want her parents to hear.
No one was supposed to know about Richard Hanson.
Not yet, anyways.
“Lorelei! Give it back!” Louise hissed, muffled by her sister’s hand.
Still clutching letters, she waved an arm in a last-ditch desperate attempt. But from the sound of her sister giggling, it was too late.
Then a moment later, Lorelei turned and handed over the letter as she dropped her hand.
Louise caught herself on her elbow awkwardly, both sitting and lying down on the bed. She glared at her sister who beamed back at her.
“Well!” It was a big smile. Much larger than Louise had expected.
It made her heart drop. “Don’t tell anyone. Please!” she whispered as she frantically tried to think of an excuse. Or a lie.
But she wasn’t good at telling them and worse at coming up with them. Louise swallowed. “I didn’t- it’s just- it’s not like I’m going anywhere, so it wouldn’t hurt to not say anything, and-”
Lorelei gasped and scooted closer on the bed.
Grabbing the spilled letters, Louise gathered them and tried shoving them back into the box as Lorelei stared questioningly at her. “You’re not going? But he invited you. Why not?”
Realizing that the pile of letters must be out of order, Louise anxiously pulled them back out and tried to look through them again.
Her nerves were frayed. Not only did her sister now know her secret, but that meant anyone else could come in through the door and learn it as well.
It wasn’t safe anymore. And since someone else knew now, it somehow changed the relationship she had been cultivating.
Louise couldn’t explain it. But it felt different. Richard Hanson felt different. He felt real, in a way she couldn’t ignore it nor deny him.
Her cheeks grew redder and she bit her lip to try and keep it from wobbling. “Of course not, Lorelei. I…. I only… I know I could never-”
Tossing her a furrowed brow and pouty lips, Lorelei interrupted. “Never what? Never be happy? Never find someone who wants to spend his life with you? You started this, whatever this is. You should follow it through.”
Lorelei was a practical girl with a dreamy mind. Things never worked out as simple as that, Louise knew.
Especially in their house.
Keeping her eyes focused on the letters, tracking the dates and putting them in order, Louise swallowed the lump in her throat.
Then she shook her head. “We’ve only been corresponding for a couple of weeks. I- I found him in an ad. You won’t… you won’t tell Father, will you?”
The girl scooted closer, watching the movement of the letters with avid fascination. “Why would I ruin all the fun? Besides, I won’t tell anyone if you tell me everything.”
Then she offered her most cheerful smile. It was also the type of smile that always got her into trouble.
And now, Louise could sense it would get them both into trouble.
But it was too late.
She bit her lip and found herself slowly explaining how she had been stealing pages from the newspaper to read them.
After her father had caught her sneaking his books into her room at night, she was forbidden from even dusting the man’s study room anymore.
So she stole the newspapers, one page at a time. And she read them, savoring the words until one voice in the words caught her eye.
Richard Hanson owned a ranch in Oklahoma with his brother, Jacob. Richard was friendly, hard-working, light-hearted, and looking for someone to join him in the wilderness.
And he had picked her.
A flutter ran through her heart every time she said his name out loud.
By the time she finished telling her story, Louise was biting her lip again to hold back the sheepish grin.
Lorelei clasped her hands up to her chin. “That’s darling!”
“Shh!” Louise winced at her sister’s loud voice. “I told you, no one else should know.”
But that hardly convinced Lorelei.
The younger girl hopped off the bed and intertwined her fingers again. She was the romantic of their family. “Why ever not? Just think of it, Louise. It’s the perfect adventure that you’ve been waiting for all your life.
“You always wanted something more. That’s why you read, isn’t it? There’s a world out there. And now you have a chance. A chance at something real!”
Louise clapped the hatbox shut, finally containing all the letters. It was supposed to contain her secret, but now her sister owned that as well.
She could hardly believe it.
For so long, she had been careful. Lorelei wasn’t the type of girl to just let things go, and this could mean trouble.
“Nonsense,” Louise said as she slid the box farther under her bed. “You don’t understand. This was… it was only a dalliance, Lorelei. I don’t think he would really want me there, anyway. Me, little Louise Moreau?”
Before she could reach the door, her sister had the knob. Lorelei was known for her high spirits, but she could also throw a dark look very well.
Their parents had taught their daughters well.
Louise swallowed, glancing away from her sister’s furrowed brow.
“Don’t you say that about yourself,” Lorelei charged. “You’ve had your nose in books long enough now. It’s time you experienced the fairy tale for real.”
“You have your head in the clouds,” Louise argued in return. “Life isn’t a fairy tale.”
The doorknob turned. She opened her mouth again quickly to beg that her secret remain hidden just as her sister had one more thing to say.
“You won’t know,” Lorelei pointed out, “if you never seek it out. Write a letter of acceptance and see how you feel. At least try that before you toss him away. Promise me?”
Louise groaned.
“Or I’ll tell Luanne,” her sister threatened.
“Fine,” Louise shook her head as she pinched her sister’s arm. “But don’t say anything yet. Especially not to our parents. I’ll see to the letter and only send it out if I change my mind.
“I promise,” she added when her younger sister gave her the stern look once more.
Her words were enough to pacify the feisty girl. Lorelei gave her a wink and scampered off.
At last, Louise was alone.
She touched the doorframe, knowing she needed to follow down the hall to return to preparing supper for that evening.
But her eyes turned back towards her bed where the letters lay hidden, and she wondered if her sister could be right.
Chapter 4
“Don’t forget the squash,” Richard called with a grin.
His brother glanced over his shoulder with a scowl, not appreciating the joke.
They had been attempting to grow yellow squash for the last four years with no luck. From testing different seasons
and locations, to dirt, feed, protection, and everything else they could think of, nothing worked.
Nothing, that is, until they’d had three skinny little yellow squash begin to grow in the corner of their little garden.
The three vegetables were nearly ready to pluck when Jacob had forgotten to tie his horse to the stake before stepping inside for a quick drink.
His animal had promptly trodden over to the garden and eaten the squash.
All three of them, and nothing else.
Richard didn’t harbor the animal ill will, nor his brother. Incidents were prone to happen, seeing as no human was perfect.
He knew Jacob hadn’t meant to let his horse wander, and he knew the horse hadn’t deliberately gone after those squash to ruin their hopes of enjoying their homegrown vegetables.
Life was a happy accident. That’s how their parents used to put it.
Yet Jacob had been in a bad mood all that day and apparently jokes were not going to improve the man’s mindset.
Richard shrugged it off as Jacob turned around without another word and headed down the lane.
They didn’t take too many trips to town together lately. It was comforting, though they didn’t say it out loud, to have someone always at home watching over their property.
Both of them had been raised as independent young men when their parents were alive.
As he finished tying his horse to the post before him, Richard could still hear his father’s voice reminding him that someday he’d have to make hard decisions and be in charge of his own life.
It had happened a little sooner than anyone had expected, he knew.
There were things his parents hadn’t had time to teach him or his brother. Small things like fixing a wagon wheel and growing squash and how to talk to pretty ladies.
But they had figured those tasks out. More or less.
Richard chuckled to himself about that.
It was one of the earliest lessons he could remember learning, back when he was helping his father teach Jacob how to first ride a horse. He couldn’t have been more than five, for they had started many things young.
When Jacob fell over from fiddling with the stirrup, Richard had giggled. His little brother had climbed up angrily with his hands in fists and his chubby cheeks all red and dusty before chasing after him to make him stop.
Their father had grabbed the two of them in his arms.
“Life does some crazy things to us,” the man had reminded them gravely. “We all get some hard moments and some happy accidents. They can be the same thing if we let them.”
It had taken Richard a few years to understand what their father had meant.
But he had learned that when he ran a nail through his side after falling off a ladder at ten, and he learned that when he bought his first horse who wasn’t as broken in as he’d been informed.
Life was made of happy little accidents, and he was just fine with it.
Jacob, on the other hand, struggled.
But there was only so much Richard could do about his brother’s attitude. Though, he supposed, he could probably tease the young man a little less.
He was still grinning to himself, rubbing his hands together as he walked down the road to the post office.
Mr. Darnell beamed when he walked through the door. “You have impeccable timing, young man.”
Richard’s heart skipped a beat. “I have a letter?”
The man chuckled as he invited him over with a nod. “You certainly do. Come in here for a moment, Richard. The wind is picking up out there.”
Nodding, he tugged off his hat and noticed it was damp from the earlier rain. “I can smell the moisture in the air. We’ll have snow within days, I’m thinking. Are you and your wife going to fare all right this winter?”
Mr. Darnell waved a hand in the air. “Rose and I will be just fine. You know how we old folks can be.”
“That’s why I asked,” Richard chuckled. He watched the man carefully as he reached the counter, frowning slightly as he noticed a limp. “Is your knee acting up again?”
The man gave him a fatherly frown as he grabbed an envelope from off a shelf. “It’s acting up, sure. But that doesn’t mean a thing. My knee always buckles in the cold. I’ve lived a long time and I’ll live a little longer with it.”
“You had better,” Richard nodded in concern. “But that’s not going to stop me from talking to a few friends to make sure you two are safe during any bad weather.
“Anything could happen,” he added before the man could protest. “I just want to make sure the two of you keep safe and warm. Do you have enough firewood?”
“I do,” Mr. Darnell assured him. “We haven’t even touched the bundle you brought over last month. But thank you for your concern. Now, do you want your letter, or do you want to keep parenting me?”
The man’s small huff made Richard grin. It took all his strength not to at least chuckle.
There were a few older folks in town who had settled the land before he had ever been born. And they were all the same: proud, headstrong, and too stubborn to believe they would ever be any weaker than they were in their prime.
Not that he would call any one of them weak. They had some of the biggest hearts and souls he had ever known.
Yet it didn’t keep him from worrying about their limps and aches and pains.
There was only so much that he could do for them, and he wanted to make sure he did all he could.
So he put on the humble expression Mr. Darnell was looking for and nodded.
He stretched out his hand and said, “Yes, sir, I would very much like that letter of mine.”
“Good,” Mr. Darnell gave a hard nod. “No need to worry about us here. We’re just fine. Now enjoy that letter of yours and I expect to see you again soon to send your response.”
Richard winked before opening the door to leave. “Thank you, Mr. Darnell. Stay warm.”
He was still smiling as he made his way back to his horse, grinning at the older man’s stubborn ways.
It made him wonder for a moment if he would ever act like that. Old age still felt a lifetime away, but he was getting older every day.
His thirties weren’t far away and out west, every year was a milestone.
It wasn’t an easy place to live.
And he heard from people who traveled in and out of Oklahoma. They spoke of lands with gold and lands with all sorts of wild animals. They talked about oceans and mountains.
There was a world all around them just waiting to be explored.
The world was certainly a glorious place. No matter where one went, there was a lot to see and embrace.
And Richard liked that. Especially his own yard. That ranch was a world of its own.
His parents had worked their hardest to build it up, having bought it as newlyweds off a couple who had nothing else and needed to move back east for their health.
His father had talked about that story a lot, how they had an obligation not just to themselves but to that couple as well to make the ranch succeed.
And for future generations as well, Richard thought.
Richard’s stomach clenched as he slowed down his stroll to glance down at the letter he carried in both hands.
It always brought such a rush to see his name scrawled out like that. After spending weeks of writing to the woman, he could recognize Miss Louise Moreau’s handwriting in a heartbeat.
Not wanting to be discourteous, he had hardly glanced at it while speaking to the postmaster. Then he didn’t want to ruin the joy of reading a letter while he walked, so he wanted to make it back to his horse before opening it.
Besides, he was much more nervous about this particular letter than all the rest.
He could feel it in his arms, a tingle in his fingers. It danced on his head and spine to a jig as he worked up the courage to open it.
Maybe she said no. Maybe she said yes.
Though Richard tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter
whatever she had decided to do, he already knew what he was hoping for.
He just worried that he wasn’t going to be that lucky.
He took a deep breath and paced around the horse and the wagon for a couple of minutes as he thought about it.
