Trail of Chances- Trail's End

by Merry Farmer

  It was torture to watch the ship slowly heave into action and begin to sail away. Something that moved that slowly should be easy to catch, but not while they were on land and without a vessel to pursue. Josephine concentrated on getting the last of the terrified, weeping children free.

  As soon as the last one was unbound—a little girl who threw her arms around Pete and burst into wailing—Josephine pivoted to search for Freddy and Muriel. They crouched a little to the side, arms around Luke. Luke had found a canteen and was sipping slowly. As soon as he noticed Josephine coming toward them, he leapt to his feet and rushed over to hug her.

  Josephine yelped as Luke lifted her off her feet. Then she began to weep. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my dear boy.” She hugged Luke for all he was worth. As soon as he let her go, she twisted to hug Freddy and Muriel in turn, then both of them together. “Can you forgive a stupid old woman for her mistakes?” Not waiting for an answer, she went on with. “I love you all so much. All of you. Never doubt that. You’re my own sweet children, and I should never have let you go.”

  Without warning, she was seized by a heavy thump that nearly knocked the wind out of her. It took a second to come to her senses enough to realize Pete had joined them, throwing his arms around their entire group. He didn’t say a word, only squeezed them all together, his body shaking with relief, and, so Josephine thought, tears.

  “Don’t ever leave us,” Muriel cried, burying her face in Josephine’s skirt. “Don’t ever leave us again.”

  “I won’t, my dear heart,” Josephine promised. “We won’t. Not ever again.”

  “Luke! Freddy! Muriel!”

  Their group embrace was broken up by Libby’s shout from further up the beach. They broke apart in time to see her running toward them, arms outstretched. Josephine stepped back enough for Libby to crash into them, joining the hug, the family.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” Libby blubbered, tears streaming down her face. “You have no idea how worried I was. I was terrified. The deputies that stayed behind went to arrest Mrs. Fielding. She wasn’t at her house, and neither were any of the neighbors. They called for lawmen to come in from Portland. The entire town was in an uproar, and then they found the lot of them, hiding in a barn half a mile up the Columbia River.”

  “It’s all right.” Josephine shifted to close her arms completely around Libby. “As long as they were caught and can be brought to justice, it’s all right.”

  “Mr. Evans, Ma’am,” the sheriff called off to the side. Their group split apart long enough to turn to him. “We’d better get all the children off the beach and out of the sun.”

  “Yes, of course.” Josephine took a breath, shook sand off of her skirt, then turned to see where she was needed.

  She almost stepped away when Freddy reached out and grabbed her hand. “Don’t leave us,” he pleaded.

  The fear…no, the attempt at bravery in the face of everything the boy had been through, broke Josephine’s heart. She whirled back to him, sweeping him in her arms. “I promise I will never leave you, my darling, not ever again.”

  “You won’t put us in another orphanage?” Luke asked, his voice still gruff from the gag.

  Pete circled an arm around his shoulder. “No, sir. Josephine and I have decided to get married.”

  “Finally,” Libby exclaimed, then burst into tears.

  “Really?” Muriel asked, her tired, red-rimmed eyes disbelieving.

  “Yes,” Josephine said. “And you’d better believe that we plan to adopt the lot of you officially as soon as we do.”

  A half-second of stunned silence followed, then all six of them burst into ecstatic cheers. Another round of hugs followed.

  “I know you don’t need to be adopted officially, since you’re about to be married,” Josephine told Libby. “But I hope you’ll consider yourself just as much a part of the family, now and always.”

  “I will, I will.”

  “And you too,” Freddy told Josephine and Pete, almost scolding in his intensity. “You’re are ma and pa now, and you’re not allowed to ever forget it.”

  “We won’t,” Pete said, then bent down to lift Freddy into his arms. “You can bet we won’t.”

  “How could we?” Josephine added, brimming over with happy tears. “As far as I’m concerned, we were meant to be a family from the start, and we’ll stay a family forever. Even if it took a long journey for us to figure that out.” She hugged Muriel and stepped closer to Pete to kiss him soundly. “Now that we’re together, not a thing on this earth could push us apart.”

  Epilogue

  O ne last wagon journey. It took one last wagon journey to travel from Denver City to the stretch of property that Howard Haskell owned in the high prairie approaching the Rockies that people referred to as Wyoming. And that journey had taken place after a dizzying series of journeys by ship, train, and stagecoach from Oregon City to San Francisco—where they visited Charlie and Olivia—and finally to Denver City. But at last, Josephine and Pete, Graham and Estelle, and the kids—minus the new Mrs. Libby Simms—reached their new home.

  “That’s not what I was expecting,” Pete spoke for all of them as they pulled their wagons to a stop.

  Ahead, instead of barren ranchland with a few buildings, like they expected to see, was a flurry of construction. The sounds of hammers and saws filled the air. At least three dozen men crawled over the skeletons of more buildings than Josephine could count at first glance. Large buildings, too. These weren’t houses or stables being constructed, these were shops, businesses, a church. Someone was attempting to raise up an entire city out of nothing.

  “Is that…is that friends I see?”

  The shout that wafted across the distance to them was unmistakably Lucy Faraday. Josephine perked up, sitting taller on the wagon bench beside Pete to search for her friend. In the wagon beside her, Estelle did the same. It didn’t take long to spot Lucy. She galloped toward them on the back of a tall, dappled grey, laughing the whole time.

  “I knew you’d come, I knew it,” she continued to shout as she drew near, pulling her horse to a stop between the two wagons. “Oh, I’m so happy you’re here!”

  She leapt down from her horse at the same time as Estelle climbed down from her wagon. The two women met in a fierce hug, Lucy lifting Estelle off her feet. Josephine wasn’t about to be left out of the reunion. She hopped down and skipped right over to wrap her arms around her old friend.

  “Josephine Lewis. It’s so good to see you,” Lucy squealed.

  “That’s Josephine Evans now.” She winked, then peeked up at Pete.

  Lucy yelped with delight and hugged Josephine again. “I always knew the two of you would end up together.”

  “Yeah, well they didn’t,” Freddy sassed from the back of the wagon.

  “Took them forever,” Luke added. He wore a teasing pout, but a fresh sort of happiness glittered in his eyes. All the weight the boy had been carrying on his not-quite-grown shoulders had lifted when the ink had dried on the adoption papers, making them officially Pete and Josephine’s family.

  “You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Lucy rushed on. “Just as soon as I show you my father’s new town.”

  “His new town?” Graham asked.

  “Just you wait.” Lucy winked at him, then climbed back on her horse.

  Estelle and Josephine scrambled back into their wagons and followed Lucy as she led them into the heart of the construction. The smell of sawdust was thick in the air along with late-summer flowers and the crispness of the high prairie.

  “It all started when Emma and Dean Meyers and Katie and Aiden Murphy showed up,” Lucy explained. “That’s when Papa got the idea. He wasn’t content to just build a ranch and make a fortune raising cattle—which he says is going to make this land great. Oh no. Papa had to build a town.”

  They rode further into the hammering and thumping and effort of the construction crew. There, standing in the center of it all in what looked lik
e it would become a crossroads between two wide streets stood a man in a suit who would have looked as much at home in the heart of a great Eastern city as he did in the wilderness. A woman who was probably Pete’s age stood next to him, hands on her hips, surveying the scene.

  “Lucy!” the man called out. “Are these those friends of yours you told me about?”

  “Yes, Papa.” Lucy pulled her horse to a stop, then hopped down and rushed to her father to hug him.

  As soon as she did, her husband, Gideon, stepped out onto the half-finished porches of one of the buildings. He had sawdust in his hair, and his vest was buttoned askew, but in true Gideon form, he didn’t seem to notice. He took one look at Lucy, then his eyes went wide. He rushed to her, saying, “Lucy, what have I told you about riding in your condition?”

  Josephine’s brow shot up to her hairline. “Your condition?” She studied Lucy’s stomach. Sure enough, there was just a hint of roundness there.

  “Oh poo,” the woman standing next to Howard Haskell said with a dismissive wave. She was tall and solidly built with bright grey hair. “Haskell women are as tough as nails. Why, our mother was running and riding and dancing all night when she was carrying both Howard and I.”

  Lucy didn’t bother to address either Gideon’s or the woman’s statements. “Oh! You haven’t met my aunt Virginia.” She skipped around to stand by the woman’s side. “Aunt Ginny, these are my friends. We made the journey west together. This is Josephine and Pete Evans—Gideon, they finally got married!” she interrupted herself to share the news.

  “Congratulations.” Gideon’s anxious expression softened to a grin, and he shook Pete’s hands.

  “We adopted the Chance children too,” Josephine announced proudly, looping her arms around Freddy on one side and Muriel on the other.

  “I knew you would do that too,” Lucy exclaimed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Getting married and adopting children at your age?” Virginia said, sweeping Josephine with a look from head to toe. Josephine was ready to go on the defensive until Virginia grinned and said, “I like you already.”

  Josephine broke into her own smile. “I do believe the feeling is mutual.”

  “Excellent!” Howard exclaimed. “My dear sister here has been in dire need of a partner in crime. From the looks of you, you’ll fit the bill.”

  Lucy laughed, then added, “Aunt Ginny, Papa, this is Graham and Estelle, and little Tim.”

  “Fantastic.” Howard clapped his hands together. “And what do you think of our new town?”

  “We’ve only just arrived,” Estelle laughed.

  “Yeah, give us a chance to look around first,” Graham followed.

  “I’ll do more than that,” Howard went on. “I’ll give you first pick of the houses and businesses that are under construction. Do you want to be a land surveyor? We’ll have an office for that. Fancy becoming sheriff? That can be arranged. Plan to take up barbering? We’ll need one of those too.”

  “Howard plans to have the whole town up and running like it’s been here for decades by next spring,” Virginia said, crossing her arms.

  “And why not?” Howard rocked back on his heels, patting his stomach. “Haskell, Wyoming will be a shining mecca in the middle of the frontier.”

  “Just as soon as he can convince the railroad to extend a line out this way,” Virginia added.

  “Which they have actually decided to do,” Gideon added as if that were the most amazing thing of all.

  “The railroad is the future of the West,” Howard declared. “It took no small amount of convincing, I can tell you, but once it comes through here, the only thing that will limit us is our imagination.”

  “And you’ll be a part of it all,” Lucy declared. She hugged her father, then shifted to hug Gideon. Gideon smiled, cheeks going pink, then kissed her.

  As far as Josephine was concerned, that was the biggest endorsement Howard Haskell’s crazy project could have. This would be a town of promise and happiness, she could feel it. She hugged Freddy and Muriel, then grinned fondly at Pete. He winked right back at her, a confident smile on his face. He must have known what she had known. After everything they had come through and all the mistakes they had made to get there, they were finally home.

  The trail journeys have ended , but this certainly isn’t the last you can read about your favorite characters! After all, Lucy and Gideon, Graham and Estelle, Olivia and Charlie, and now Josephine and Pete and the kids (not to mention Jarvis and Alice, Dean and Emma, and Aiden and Katie) have all moved to Haskell, Wyoming! Come read about Haskell ten years later in The Brides of Paradise Ranch series! Each book has both a spicy and a sweet version, beginning with His Perfect Bride (spicy) or Corva: The Perfect Bride (sweet). See you soon!

  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer .

  About the Author

  I hope you have enjoyed Trail of Chances: Trail’s End . If you’d like to be the first to learn about when new books come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/RQ-KX And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it! For a complete list of works by Merry Farmer with links, please visit http://wp.me/P5ttjb-14F .

  Merry Farmer is an award-winning novelist who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her two cats, Butterfly and Torpedo. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. Her books have topped the Amazon and iBooks charts and have been named finalists in the prestigious RONE and Rom Com Reader’s Crown awards.

  Click here for a complete list of works by Merry Farmer.

  @merryfarmer20

  merryfarmerauthor

  merryfarmer.net

  merry@merryfarmer.net

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my awesome beta-readers, Sandra Brown and Jolene Stewart, for their suggestions and advice. And a big, big thanks to my editor, Cissie Patterson, for doing an outstanding job, as always, and for leaving hilarious comments throughout the manuscript. Also, a big round of applause for my super assistant, Sara Benedict.

  And a special thank you to the Pioneer Hearts group! Do you love Western Historical Romance? Wanna come play with us? Become a member at https://www.facebook.com/groups/pioneerhearts/

  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer .