“…help you off the floor. You must be scared to death.”
She accepted his hand, sliding her fingers across his palm. His skin was warm, calloused, dry.
He sure didn’t feel like an angel.
His strength radiated through her hand, up her arm, and straight into her heart. He pulled her forward and caught her as she stumbled on the step. His hands around her waist lowered her to the ground like she weighed no more than a feather.
Breathless, she stared into his face, and the thought of the last time she’d seen him flashed across her memory. But this was not that man. Something had changed. On the inside.
He was saying something else.
“…think me a fool. I thought Davidson was a highwayman, holding up the stage.”
She stepped back. Of course. Mr. Troudt was simply protecting the stage. The mail. The driver.
Not her. He wouldn’t risk his life for her.
He paused and dropped his gaze a moment before lifting his head and staring into her eyes. “I knew you were onboard.”
“How?”
A smile creased his face. “I didn’t think you’d be so foolhardy as to run off into the night by yourself again.”
She smiled, heat rushing to her cheeks. “No, I learned my lesson the first time.”
“And when Jake said only the stage had been through, I figured you had to be on it.”
“Did you read my note?”
He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t.”
His words touched her heart, thawing any reason she had to hold him at arm’s length any longer. “What a sweet thing to say.”
“I have a confession to make.”
She tipped her head in question. What could this strong, brave man have to confess to her?
The stage driver broke the silence. “Got to get on my way. See y’all in a week or so.” He tipped his hat to Catherine then tossed her bag on the ground at her feet. “Ma’am. It’s been an adventure.”
She nodded. “One I don’t want to repeat any time soon.” She turned to the Pinkerton agent. “I’m sorry you didn’t find the woman you were looking for.”
The Pinkerton agent stared long and hard at Mr. Troudt. “Guess we had a false lead. Happens all the time, ma’am.” He mounted and turned to his men. “Come on, boys. We got a real criminal to find.”
The three turned and rode abreast on the trail away from the way station, back the way they’d come.
Catherine shrugged. “Strange. They stopped the stage, opened the door, took one look at me, and apologized. They were looking for someone, but it wasn’t me.”
Mr. Troudt picked up her bag and hung it from the saddle horn. “That’s another thing I need to tell you.”
“Can it wait until we get to the station? I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.” She patted the pony’s nose. “No offense.”
Mr. Troudt led the horse to a rock, mounted, and then pulled her up behind him. “None taken, I’m sure.”
Catherine pressed into Mr. Troudt’s back, grateful for the solid feel of him in her arms. While this wasn’t how she’d envisioned their first embrace, it would do for now.
Benjamin waited until after the men finished their breakfast before leading Catherine into the great room and seating her at the desk. He took a chair beside her. “I guess I need to start at the beginning.”
She sipped from her second cup of coffee. “I have plenty of time.”
He liked the sight of her there. She looked as though she belonged. And if he could get his words out straight, maybe she would stay.
He’d prayed often enough for that outcome.
He nodded. “The truth is, I need a wife something bad.”
She giggled. “You make it sound like I am applying for a job.”
“I guess you are in some ways.”
“You already told me about all the work I’d have to do.” A slow smile lit up her face. “And your expectations for children.”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t write those letters.”
“Well, you already made that perfectly clear. And the fact you can’t read or write confirms that.”
He sat back. Once again, this woman astounded him. “You knew?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. Then you started listening in when I was teaching the boys. I got to thinking that maybe you were telling me the truth.”
“I was. Well, about most things.”
“Most things?”
“I wasn’t being truthful when I said I didn’t want you here.”
Her cheeks colored. “Oh, that.” She set her cup down and wandered to his desk, picking through the correspondence. “Who do you think wrote the letters?”
“Warton.” The route manager’s name exploded from his lips. “The man hated me. Tried to kill me once.” He stuck out his gimpy leg. “And now double-crossed me.”
Catherine shrugged. “He did a masterful job.”
“That he did.”
She smiled. “But what about my letters to you? I told you of a compromising situation. That my employer was making demands on me that I would not agree to.” At his blank stare, she nodded. “He didn’t read you the letters.”
“No. He didn’t.”
She turned to the desk and sorted through the envelopes and papers. Her hand stilled on one in particular. “What did you say the man’s name was?”
“Warton.” He pulled his chair closer. “Why?”
“He sent you a letter. Which is ludicrous since he knew you couldn’t read.”
“Read it.”
Using a wooden letter opener, Catherine slit the tab on the envelope and pulled out the page. She scanned the first few words. Her mouth formed an O and her free hand went to the base of her neck. “This writing is very similar to my letters. I think you’re correct. He did write to me.”
His good leg jumped with nerves. “What does it say?”
She cleared her throat softly and read, “‘Benjamin, sorry this letter is so short. Hope it makes sense.’”
She looked up. “Shall I go on?”
“Yes.”
The single word hung in the air between them for a long moment. He took in her brown hair, sun kissed in places, tendrils decorating her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes matched the shade of her dress. Her slightly upturned nose in perfect proportion to the rest of her features.
And her mouth. Pink lips in a petite bow shape. Like a Cheshire cat, a tiny smile lifted the corners.
When he raised his gaze from her mouth, his neck filled with heat. Had she read his mind? He certainly hoped not. “Go on.”
She returned her attention to the letter. “‘I did you wrong with what I thought was a practical joke. Only you got hurt. I’m sorry for that.’” Her brow drew down, and her mouth lost its shape. At that moment, he hated Warton more for the negative impact of the man’s words on this woman than the injuries he himself had sustained. But something important was coming in the letter. “Keep reading.”
She drew a breath then continued. “‘At first, I felt guilty, so I helped you all I could. But then I found out I’m dying and I knew I wouldn’t be around to read and write for you. I did the advertisement because I figured if you got a wife, you wouldn’t need me. And I wrote sweet words to convince her to come to you.’”
Heat rushed to Benjamin’s face at the implication of the words. The man had taken pity on him—wanted to get rid of him. Pay off his debt. What must Catherine think of him? So pathetic he needed lies to attract a woman?
He struggled to his feet and shuffled toward the door, the pain in his leg shooting up to the top of his head as he stepped carelessly on his twisted foot.
“Wait. There’s more.”
He paused, unable to face the woman he’d lost his heart to in recent days. The woman whose presence filled his soul and chased away the shadows. “I’m sure there is.”
She rustled the paper. “‘Doc says I have but one week, and I need to make my peace with God. By the time you get
this letter, I’ll be gone. I wanted what was best for you. To have a wife and family seemed best. If I was wrong, please forgive me. I recommended you for my job as route manager, and the Pony Express has promoted you. Your job starts in St. Joe the first of next month, and your pay will be thrice what it is now, along with a five-room house and stabling allowance.’”
Warton was dead? The man was taller than life, with a laugh that filled a room. Legs straight and true. Not a fault in him.
But apparently, even he felt the need to make things right with God.
Benjamin turned. “Well, there you have it. The truth. I can’t read or write. The man who wrote those letters is dead.”
She stood and crossed the room. “Warton wrote those letters, but everything he said was true about you. And until I came here, I wasn’t certain that what I felt was love. But now I know it is.”
He held her hands in his. “How can you say that after how I’ve treated you?”
“How can God say He loves us after how we treat Him?”
“What about the other men? And that packet I saw you trying to give John John?”
She dropped her gaze, but he wouldn’t release her hands. “There haven’t been any other men. Jake cornered me and I refused him. Twice. John John was returning some property Maggie had taken. Which I’ll still need to do, of course.”
He pulled her close, her heart pounding against his chest, echoing his own. “Will you do me the extreme honor of becoming my wife?”
“On one condition.”
He held her at arm’s length. He would agree to practically anything to have this woman as his own. “Name it.”
“That you let me teach you to read and write.”
He pulled her against him again and chuckled. “Done.”
Two weeks later…
The sun couldn’t outshine Catherine’s joy.
This was her wedding day.
She walked across the yard to the cottonwood tree where she’d first seen Benjamin, where she’d hidden the day she escaped on the stage, and where she would now speak her vows. Her gown fluttered at her ankles. Not white or fancy, but it was the best dress she owned. She’d twined some field flowers into her hair, and she carried a small posy.
The circuit preacher, Benjamin, Jake, Tom Clark and his wife, and even John John and Dakota waited for her, but she had eyes only for her intended.
He’d found a dark jacket and pants, a string tie, and a white shirt somewhere. He certainly was handsome, standing straight and tall as she approached.
They’d worked hard on his reading and writing over the past couple of weeks, and despite how important the ceremony was, the best part would come after.
He would sign his name on their marriage certificate.
She stood beside Benjamin, and the preacher began. Conscious only of her groom’s elbow touching hers, sending currents of electricity up her arm, time seemed to stand still. Could everybody else hear her heart, too? The pounding was so loud that it seemed to echo off the clouds and bounce back to her.
“…now proclaim you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Judging from Benjamin’s smile, he was only too happy to do just that. His lips covered hers, gently, filled with the promise of what was to come later that night. Just when she thought she’d run out of air, he pulled away and winked at her.
They returned to the station house and completed the paperwork. Benjamin signed first, with a great flourish and bold strokes. Catherine’s diminutive signature sat next to his.
She sighed. God was so good. Without Him, she would never have come to this place. Without Him, she surely never would have stayed. And without Him, she and Benjamin wouldn’t have been able to accept each other’s shortcomings.
She placed her hand on Benjamin’s chest, near his heart. “May my heart always echo yours.”
“Come, my love, let’s start our new life together.”
They climbed into the buggy and headed for Hanover for their honeymoon of three days. Not long enough, but they had their whole lives ahead of them to make up the difference.
Donna Schlachter lives in Colorado, where the Wild West still rules. She travels extensively for research, choosing her locations based on local stories told by local people. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Sisters in Crime, and facilitates a local critique group. One of her favorite activities is planning her next road trip with hubby Patrick along as chauffeur and photographer. Donna has published twelve books under her own name and that of her alter ego, Leeann Betts, and she has ghostwritten five books. You can follow her at www.HiStoryThruTheAges.wordpress.com and on Facebook at www.fb.me/DonnaSchlachterAuthor or Twitter at www.Twitter.com/DonnaSchlachter.
Abundance of the Heart
by Connie Stevens
Dedication:
To Carol Lawrence
Thank you for your love and encouragement. Friends like you are a God-given blessing.
For with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
PSALM 130:7
Chapter One
Tumbleweed Ranch, Nebraska August, 1861
Mercy Winfield scowled at her brother and chafed against the injustice of the stupid regulations. She wished, not for the first time, that she could break the rules and show her brothers she could be anything she wanted. She’d grown up enduring their teasing, but sometimes they carried it too far.
Like this time.
Bowie circled her, scrutinizing her from head to toe. He rubbed his chin. “What do you think, brothers? Should we cut off her hair or stuff it into a hat? Either way, she could pass for a boy.”
Mercy growled before heaving the saddle in her arms at her smart-aleck brother. “Do your own saddlin’.”
He landed on his backside with the saddle in his lap and his eyebrows arched up to his hairline. “Hey!”
She tossed him her fiercest glare and stormed out of the barn, with Bowie’s laughter dogging her steps. Sawyer, the eldest and always the businessman, yelled after her to come back and finish saddling up—they had a schedule to keep, but Mercy pretended not to hear him.
She stalked past the sod barn and corrals to the sanctuary of the prairie grasses that beckoned in the wind. She plunked herself down, the waist-high grass providing some semblance of privacy, and fumed at the way her brothers made light of her heartfelt desire that would never come to pass. Her desires mattered little, not to her brothers, not to God.
Only then did she allow herself the luxury of a tear. But only one. She sniffed and fisted the single tear away, unwilling to allow God to see her cry.
“Mercy?”
Jesse. Her middle brother. Always the tenderhearted one. He never could stand to see her upset.
“Mercy? You out there?”
She sighed. Jesse wouldn’t give up until she answered. “I’m here. Leave me alone.”
A minute later, Jesse batted his way through the thick grass. “Chicken livers, Mercy. Can’t you find an easier place to hide?”
She sent him a withering look. “What would be the point of hidin’ in an easy place?”
He sat beside her. “You know Bowie’s just teasin’, like he always does. Don’t pay him no mind.” He gave her shoulder an awkward pat.
Mercy’s stomach tightened. “I know he’s teasin’, but sometimes he doesn’t know when to quit. None of you understand how much I want to ride for the Pony Express. Ever since I read the first announcement a year and a half ago, I knew it was somethin’ I could do. But I’m not allowed to even try—because I’m a woman.”
Jesse’s gentle smile eased a little of her tension. “But if you weren’t a woman, you wouldn’t be our Mercy, and we’d miss you. At least I know I would.” He propped his wrists on his drawn-up knees. His straw-colored hair flopped in his eyes. “Aw, Mercy, I know how much you wanna be an Express rider. But there ain’t no use in wishin’ for somethin’ that can’t happen. It only makes your heart hurt. An’ I don’t want to see
you hurt—”
Again.
He didn’t voice the word, but it hung silently between them. Sometimes the unspoken words shouted louder than those uttered. She needed no reminding of how quickly Lester Waring had transferred his affections to another girl last year when Mercy refused to give up training horses. Six months ago, Cliff Rutledge had ridiculed her desire to ride for the Express—right before he broke off their engagement.
Jesse nudged her arm. “C’mon. Sawyer’s antsy to leave.” He grinned. “He’s makin’ Bowie stay behind on this trip.”
Mercy loved all three of her brothers, but at the moment, the thought of wisecracking Bowie breaking mustangs until every part of him ached and doing all the barn chores by himself formed a chuckle deep within her. Served him right.
She followed Jesse out of the thick buffalo grass and back to the sod barn where her eldest brother stood, checking the cinch on his buckskin gelding. Bowie was nowhere to be found. Sawyer frowned and squinted at the sun. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”
Mercy hustled to fetch her pinto mare, Daisy. Someone had already saddled her. She suspected Sawyer made Bowie do it, so she felt under the saddle blanket for burrs. Not that she didn’t trust Bowie, but there were some things she wouldn’t put past him.
Six Tumbleweed mustangs—two strings of three—tethered to the fence snorted their impatience. Did they know where they were bound? Did they anticipate the thrill of galloping across the plains, carrying a wiry rider and the US mail? Thanks to her brothers’ skill at breaking the wild mustangs to saddle, and Mercy’s special hand at training them, the Pony Express gladly paid top dollar for horses from the Tumbleweed Ranch.
Mercy adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and swung into the saddle. She secured a string of three mustangs to her saddle horn while Sawyer took the other three. Jesse rode drag to make sure none of the newly trained horses decided to attempt a return to the wild. It was nearly forty miles to the Cold Springs Relay Station where these horses were to be delivered, and Sawyer planned to stop at three other stations to make deals with the station managers for more mustangs. Five days on the trail would ease her anger at Bowie.
The Pony Express Romance Collection Page 44
