by Drexler, Jan
Several wagons had already departed, following the railroad tracks. Two empty wagons remained, one waiting for the injured girls lying next to the train car.
“Can y’all help me keep track of these two? Deliver them to my office?” The sheriff jerked his thumb toward Fran and Emma.
Fran saw the tension of the moment in the set of the bigger cowboy’s jaw. Even unkempt as he was, the rugged lines of his face showed a stark handsomeness.
Not that she needed to be noticing. She should be worrying about the predicament she’d found herself in. At least she and Emma had made it a far piece from Memphis before she’d been found out.
But was it far enough? It had only been a day since she’d overheard the man on the Lincoln platform. He’d been looking for her and Emma by name, but they’d managed to avoid him and get onto the westbound train without being seen. No doubt he was one of Mr. Underhill’s henchmen, hired to find them.
“These two gals in trouble?” the youngest of the cowboys asked curiously.
“It’s that one,” the matron said, pointing a shaking finger in Fran’s direction. “She pretended to be an underage orphan. She used the resources set aside for those in need and defrauded us.”
Yes. She guessed she had done all that. But it wasn’t as if she had had any other choice.
The sheriff looked a bit skeptical. “Circuit judge is in town today. Let’s see what he says afore we do anything else. You boys take them on for me, all right?”
Fran patted the special inside pocket she’d sewn into the drab frock the orphanage had given her. The crinkle of paper—her baptismal certificate that was her proof of identity—reassured her. She would face what she had to.
Emma’s safety was paramount. Fran squeezed her sister, who looked more than a little worried, and followed the men on foot.
And they still had a chance. If she could locate this Jonas White she’d heard about, perhaps he would help.
“Howdy, miss.”
The two younger men came along either side of Fran and Emma, smiling widely as if they hadn’t just heard the accusation against her.
The closest one was a few years younger than the mountain man, closer to her own age. With smiling brown eyes and brown curls peeking from beneath his hat, he seemed the complete opposite of the gruff cowboy.
The one she was still intensely aware of as he strode several paces ahead, seeming to ignore them.
“Name’s Seb. That’s Edgar.” He nodded toward the blond cowboy.
Edgar. An ordinary name for such an intense, enigmatic man.
“And I’m Matty.” The second younger cowboy tipped his Stetson from Emma’s opposite side. He was blond as well, but she could only see a hint of his curls beneath his hat. His brown eyes sparkled.
And still she felt a pull, some unusual sort of draw from deep in her midsection, toward the first man.
“I’m Fran Morris. My sister, Emma.”
Both cowboys doffed their hats. “Nice to meet ya, ladies.”
She couldn’t help but notice that the unkempt cowboy continued to ignore them.
“You’ll have to forgive our brother.” Matty followed her gaze and nodded to the taller man ahead. “He don’t get off the ranch much and forgets how to talk to women.”
They were brothers?
Beside her, Seb guffawed. She caught a glimpse of Edgar’s profile. Above his beard, his skin had reddened. Was it from the sun? Or could he be embarrassed by his brother’s words?
She glanced away, unsure.
There were mountains in the far distance, but only prairie surrounded them. It was almost frightening in its barrenness. Especially if someone was following them—she imagined one could see a far distance on these plains, and she felt bare and conspicuous out in the open.
“How far is it to Bear Creek?” she asked.
“’Bout a quarter mile.” Seb’s smile was as easy and natural as the rest of him.
Fran sent a reassuring smile to Emma, but her sister remained pale, withdrawn from the conversation. Fearful.
“Do you know how the train derailed? Is that a normal occurrence?” Fran asked, trying to distract herself from worries over her sister.
Emma had remained near silent since they’d left the Girls’ Academy in the dead of night. She’d barely spoken to Fran. How could she prove to Emma that she could keep them safe when the plan she’d hastily concocted was unraveling around them?
Both near cowboys shrugged, but it was Matty who spoke. “Never seen it happen before. Got a glimpse of the broken tracks, but I don’t know for sure what caused it. Could’ve been some kind of sinkhole.”
Ed looked over his shoulder at them. Or perhaps just at his brothers. His gaze seemed to skip right over Fran as if she didn’t exist.
She couldn’t understand it. They’d seemed to share a moment on top of the displaced train. Then the matron had started harping on Fran and she’d known her slight untruth had been discovered, but why would the man turn cold just because of that?
It shouldn’t sting so badly, but it did. Then again, what experience did she have with men? Very little. And that had hardly been positive.
She stared at the back of his head, willing him to turn back around, to acknowledge her.
Which was silly and fanciful.
“Have you lived in Bear Creek long?” she asked Seb, purposefully turning toward him so as to ignore his older brother.
“Our pa’s ranch is out of town a bit, toward the west. Been here since before I can remember, so nearly my whole life. Where you two gals headed?”
“Here, I guess,” she murmured. She highly doubted the matron would agree to let them travel farther west with the other orphans. The best Fran could hope for was that this circuit judge and the sheriff would be sympathetic to her situation and that she could find work in this area.
If she couldn’t, she didn’t know what she and Emma would do. They couldn’t go back to Memphis. That wasn’t an option.
She looked around at the vast empty sky and grassy land. What job opportunities could there be for her here? She’d hoped to secure a position as a teacher or perhaps as a clerk.
But what would she and Emma do if Fran couldn’t get work?
Copyright © 2014 by Lacy Williams
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IMPRINT: Digital Exclusives
ISBN: 9781488717581
TITLE: A MOTHER FOR HIS CHILDREN
First Australian Publication 2014
Copyright © 2014 Jan Drexler
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