Always, Ransom (Three Rivers Express Book 1)

by Reina Torres

  Help came in the form of young Matthew Hawkins. The teen seemed to have grown inches even in the few days since she’d seen him last. The legs of his pants were short, and in less than a season they’d be laughable. She knew better than to think that his parents would let him go on much longer with the length being where it was, but before she could even broach the subject, Matthew had guessed where her mind was and tugged at the legs, trying to hide the band of skin between his hem and his socks. “Never you mind lookin’ at my clothes, Del.” He turned his back on her and stared out across the yard. “Ma’s already offered me a couple of pairs of Pa’s castoffs.” He huffed out a breath that was as good of a punctuation mark writ on a paper. “I’d sooner walk about in Anna’s skirts.”

  Delia nearly lost her fight to keep sober in her expression and sadly Matthew knew it.

  Whirling around, he narrowed his gaze at her. “You understand, don’t ya, Del?”

  With a smile, she sighed. “Yes. I do, Matthew.” She held out her hand as she had done numerous times in the last few years, and at first, Matthew moved to take her hand and then he stopped.

  His spine straightened and his lips pressed together into a thin line.

  “Too old to hold my hand, Matthew?”

  He gave her a curt nod. “You should know it, Del,” he assured her. “I’m almost a man full grown and if I’m to take your hand, well, it would mean somethin’ different. You know?”

  Delia lowered her hand with a soft melancholy smile. “I reckon so, Matthew. I’m sad to say I understand it, but I know that you mean what you say.”

  “Better’n my pa.”

  She tsked at him softly. “Your pa and your ma love you more than life, Matthew Hawkins. You’d do yourself a service to remember that.”

  His expression softened. “Yeah, I guess I know that.”

  “But if you’d rather not use your pa’s pants. What if I look in the trunks later tonight after we’ve done our chores. Maybe I have some of James’ pants or Brom’s.”

  That caught his attention. “You think you might?”

  She nodded, sure there was something left behind.

  “Brom’s, you say?”

  Her smile brightened. She’d almost forgotten how much Matthew had seen her eldest brother, Brom, as his hero. “Yes, but chores first, mind you.”

  A whole slew of emotions washed across Matthew’s face, but it settled on resignation and determination. “All right,” he agreed. “Chores and then we’ll see what Brom’s trunk has. I think I could wear his things. He was a man when he left to discover the world and that’s what I’ll be someday, Del. I’ll be a man who walks into a place and people will take notice.”

  She shook her head and resisted the urge to lean forward in a rush and brush a kiss on his cheek like she’d done hundreds of times. He’d hate the childish show of affection now. He’d probably take a step back in his attitude and she’d be stuck with a grumpy boy instead of someone to help her.

  She reached for the list on the table and tore it straight down the center of the paper, then handed it to him. “Here you go, Matthew. Your half.”

  He took the paper and made a show of holding it up to the light coming in from the kitchen window. “Don’t think I can see the words you put on here, Del. I think you should just head on outside and see what needs to be done.”

  Delia pointed at the door and sighed. “Don’t play me, young man.” She looked at the note. “I know you can read that and read it well, for I seem to recall a whole summer of reading and writing lessons that I gave you.”

  “That you tortured me with, you mean?” His words were biting, but she saw a laughing smile in his eyes and he looked so much like his father. Delia would never say so, for it would upset him, but that didn’t make it any less true. “Fine, Del. I’ll do my half of the chores, but I’m hoping there might be one of Brom’s fancy red shirts that you might let me have.”

  Her teeth clenched together, but she tried to hide it with a grin. True enough, she knew for certain that one of Brom’s red shirts with their fancy black buttons was in his things, but Matthew would likely look a little odd without a half dozen alterations. His build was also like his father’s, narrow in form, lanky. Brom and her brothers were broad in their shoulders. Some tall and some short, but all broad from arm to arm. The shirt would swim on Matthew.

  “I will do my best, Matthew. You have my word.”

  He squinted at her as if he worried about her truth. And then, before she could find a reason to be offended by his hesitation, he spit in his palm and held out his hand. “Shake on it.”

  Delia cringed a little, but remembered that without his help, she’d be the one mucking out the stalls, with her hem tucked up into her waistband. Spitting in her palm she clasped his hand and gave it a hearty shake. “Let’s go.”

  Delia was ready to drop. Matthew was young and strong, but even though he protested how ready he was to live a man’s life and work a man’s job, he needed more supervision than anything else and that took time away from her own chores. One night descended after another and halfway through the week, Delia was barely able to get up and out of bed every morning and manage to keep on her feet until it was time to turn in.

  Meanwhile, Matthew seemed to have an endless supply of energy and a ton of questions about all the things they didn’t have time for including the old rusted and broken traps left behind by the man who had lived on the property before her family.

  She was tiring of his incessant requests to explore and felt her temper shortening with each passing hour.

  That was until she fell fast asleep at the kitchen table, most likely during a meal. And she could only assume that because when she woke up, she had some bits of mashed potato pressed between her cheek and her dinner plate. But the room around her was empty except for the discarded dishes on the table. Sitting bolt upright she shook herself and struggled to rouse her mind. “Matthew?”

  No one answered her. The room was dead quiet except for the beating of her heart in her chest and rush of blood in her ears. “Matthew?”

  The clocked ticked, the sound echoing in her ears. Looking at the time she wondered where he would be. Too early to be in bed, she moved over to the front door and found it unlocked.

  Opening the front door, Delia stepped outside and looked around the yard. Nothing seemed amiss and yet she couldn’t settle the twisting knots of emotions in her stomach.

  Leaving the table littered with platters and plates, Delia grabbed her coat off of a hook just inside the door and darted outside. She opened her mouth to speak and stopped. She had to moderate her tone to avoid spooking the horses. If something happened, and she couldn’t find Matthew, she knew she wouldn’t be able to calm the horses on her own.

  Drawing the coat over her arms she managed to twist a button near her throat to keep the garment on, and provide her with some warmth.

  Her first thought was that he’d gone to sit with the horses, but two steps in that direction and she’d changed her mind. Matthew was a good hand with horses, unfortunately he saw the work as a necessary evil that occupied his time.

  “Matthew,” she grumbled under her voice. “Where can you be?”

  Stumbling back inside, she reached for the lantern and came up empty. She knew that Matthew had to be outside. There was perhaps another lantern in her father’s room, but there was enough moonlight that she could find her way amongst the corrals and the outer buildings without much trouble. Stepping back outside, she let the door swing closed again.

  Her first stop was the lean-to. A quick peak into the structure made her smile. The horses were all where they should be. No ominous shadows moved back and forth in the enclosure.

  A quick memory managed to keep her from tripping on a rut in the ground, but it was the sudden flicker of light in the darkness that brought her to her full awakened state. The river. All of Matthew’s insistent promises to behave and work twice as hard if she would only let him go down by the river came
flooding back. It seemed that without her watchful eye, her charge had found his way to a little freedom.

  Reaching down to pick up a handful of skirt in each hand, she headed for the river. It would take a good deal of careful looks and hesitant steps, but she could find her way down, and when she had found and grabbed one of Matthew’s earlobes between her fingers, they would use the light from his lantern to find their way back.

  A few steps toward the river and she stumbled over a rock beneath her boot. The sudden stumble made her slow her movements. It wouldn’t do for her to trip over something in the dark and-

  Something fell into her from behind, driving her to her knees. She was startled and stunned, trying to brace her fall with her hands. The small stones mixed in with the dirt bit into her palms and she cried out, only to have something close over her mouth.

  That was when she felt true dread. Her blood felt like ice in her veins, pushing through her arms and legs as if it was crawling away from her situation. She tried to turn her head to see and managed to feel the bite of someone’s fingers in her cheek and along her jaw.

  The mass on top of her shifted slightly. But instead of freeing her, it only forced the rest of the air from her lungs.

  “Stay still!”

  The voice didn’t just hiss in her ear, she felt spittle splash along her skin high on her cheek. She listened, but her lungs, starved for air, tried to expand and she heard him curse just behind her ear.

  “I said stay still!” His fingers curled into her face and tears sprang into her eyes.

  “I am,” she tried to talk but his hand was over her mouth and she couldn’t even hear her own voice, “I can’t breathe.”

  He may have heard her, for he loosened his hold on her jaw and pulled back slightly.

  Delia managed to roll slightly on her back. It was folly, she realized a moment later when he wrenched her face away from him.

  “Don’t look at me. You need to listen.”

  So she squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

  “You’re not going to be hurt, not if you listen.”

  Something trembled through her, a shuddering breath that she pulled in through her nose when she managed to twist her head in his grasp.

  “You tell your father that you want to leave. The two of you need to go somewhere new.”

  Delia knew his next words before he said them.

  “Somewhere far away from here.” He leaned closer and she felt his weight at her back, heard him draw in a long breath, of her. “You do that,” he laughed, his breath hot on the side of her face, “and I won’t have to come back.”

  She nodded, eager to agree to his terms if it meant that he would leave.

  “Unless you want me to come back.” He pressed closer, pushing her smaller form into the ground. The thick barrier of her corset kept the stones in the dirt from biting into her ribs, but nothing protected the soft palms of her hands and the thin layer of skin over her fingers. He shifted against her back and she felt his leg slide over her calf and she froze beneath him. Felt the rasp of an unshaven cheek on her temple. “I don’t want to hurt you and this will all end here if you just pack up your things and tell your father that you want to leave.”

  Delia held still, ever so still, and when he loosened his hold on her mouth, he asked her again.

  “Are you going to?”

  She held utterly still, waiting for him to ask the rest of his question.

  “Are you going to leave?”

  Delia tried to nod, but the hold he had on her had caught her hair.

  “Are you going to leave this station?”

  He pressed against her, harder, heavier, his breath on her face.

  “Well?”

  And no matter how much it hurt to move, she pulled away from him enough to speak through his biting fingers. “Yes. We’ll leave.”

  “Promise?”

  His voice was almost giddy with excitement. And she felt like she was so close to freedom.

  She wanted to answer ‘yes’ and see if he’d leave, but when she opened her mouth, she couldn’t. She knew it would be a lie. That was something she could do to save her life, she reckoned, but just the thought of packing up her life one more time and leaving, well, it just didn’t sit well with her.

  “Promise?” His hand grabbed her hair and pulled back. “I asked you if you promised!”

  A noise, a flicker of light from the slope nearing the trees, startled them both. She heard the man behind her curse, his grip on her hair loosening.

  And then she saw the warm oily glow of the lantern swinging closer to her. “No.” Reaching up a hand, the only one she could pull out from under her body, she covered his hand with hers and raked her fingernails over his skin.

  The curse that bit from his lips wasn’t something she’d heard before, but she didn’t ponder any further, trying to roll out from under him, but the man hesitated. He wasn’t about to let her go until he heard a shout from just over the hill.

  That was when he shoved away and ran off into the night, his voice filled with hateful epithets and chilling promises.

  She meant to run after him for a moment. She wanted to try to see his face.

  Then she meant to run for the house. She was afraid to turn her back to him.

  And finally she meant to stand strong when Matthew Hawkins found her shaking and on her knees. Instead, he found her scraping under the nails of one hand with the nails of the other and a determined anger in her eyes.

  “What happened? Del?” She could hear the naked fear in Matthew’s voice. “What did he do to you?”

  She didn’t remember much that happened after that. She knew that Matthew helped her back to the house, helped her clean the grit out of her palms, and gave her enough wet cloths to drown her in his mother’s claw-footed tub.

  But she didn’t hear what he said to her. She couldn’t remember a single word beyond the constant echoes of the man’s voice in her head. He wanted her gone. He wanted her father gone.

  He’d made it absolutely clear that he didn’t mind hurting her to get what he wanted, but what he didn’t know was that she wanted something to. And she was going to get it, no matter what he said. Because she was tired of losing the things that she held dear in the world.

  No. Delia Burroughs was going to hold on to something, for herself.

  Chapter 11

  When Frank Burroughs and Ransom arrived back at the station, they arrived to a rather subdued situation. Matthew was leaning on the corral, his ankles crossed and his expression sullen. Just a foot away, his saddle bags hung full on the back of his mount. The young grey pony was the only one who seemed happy for the additional company, tossing his head and trumpeting at the new arrivals.

  Riding up to the hitching post, Ransom swung down from his saddle and noticed that as Matthew walked up to take the reins of his mount, the younger man didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Ready to go Matthew?”

  The jangle of the tack drowned out the soft hiss of Matthew’s voice. “What mount did you want?”

  “Jackson needs to go back with me.”

  With that comment, Matthew was off, his eyes directed straight before him.

  Frank was down on the ground by then, a hand still tight around the pommel of the saddle. “This is why,” he groaned to no one in particular, “I run a station and don’t put my backside in the saddle every day.”

  Ransom looked over at the cabin and then back at his partner for the last week, and now a man he considered a friend. And that friend was looking back at him with quite a bit of humor. “What, Ransom,” he chuckled, “tired of my old face?”

  “No, sir,” even as the words pushed from his lips, they both laughed, “just eager to see Delia.”

  Frank nodded. “Well, she is prettier than I am.”

  Ransom’s mouth dropped open in shock. He had no idea how to answer the older man.

  Frank enjoyed the look, choosing to cuff the younger man on his shoulder. “I’m going to enj
oy spending more time with you, son. But you’ll have to acquire a bit of humor. You’re much too easy to confound.”

  The cabin door swung open and banged against the wall and Delia came out of doors in a rush, her hair held back in her prim bun, but a smile on her face. She reached her father first, wrapping her arms around him in a big hug. “Papa, welcome home.”

  Over the time that they had been gone, Ransom had learned many things about Frank Burroughs. He learned more about his pain and his suffering, but he also learned how much he loved his children, especially his daughter. He’d let his grief and his weakness for drink, damage his relationship with his children, but now, as Ransom watched the two, he saw how much Frank truly meant to change his ways.

  Ransom watched the older man nearly turn to mush before him. The hard lines of Frank’s face softened and his wizened eyes watered as he looked into Delia’s face. He set his hands on her cheeks and drew her face close enough until he pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks, making her laugh. “Papa, stop!”

  And instead of listening to her, Frank wrapped his arms around his daughter and seemed like he was preparing to lift her bodily from the ground. Her voice burst from her lips in a startled yelp of sound.

  “Papa, careful!”

  He set her down and staggered back, a hand to his waist. “Goodness, Del. What have you been eating while we were gone?”

  Her laughter changed to shocked disbelief. “Papa!” Delia’s tone was a little sharp, but there was a wealth of laughter behind her tone. “Really now?”

  Frank waved off her concern. “You don’t hear Ransom complain about you, hmm? Seems he likes the way you look.”

  Delia turned to look at him and Ransom smiled at her, nodding. Her father was definitely speaking the truth in that moment. “You’re lovely, Delia.”

  A blush began to rise on her cheeks. “Ransom, I-”

  “We better take Ransom into Laramie as soon as we can.”