by Barbara Goss
Simon and Reverend Hobbs chatted casually, but Simon kept checking his timepiece until Reverend Hobbs finally asked, “What time is Caroline expected?”
“About a half-hour ago," Simon stated, worry lines on his forehead.
“If you’re concerned, we can take my old buggy and meet her on the road.”
Simon jumped at the idea. He nearly collided with Hobbs as they exited the doorway, scurrying out to find his love.
Reverend Hobbs and Simon rode all the way to the Ansell home without spotting Caroline.
“Could she have overslept?” Hobbs asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Simon jumped from the vehicle, ran to the front door, and knocked hard. He stood there impatiently, thinking no one had heard his knock.
He was raising his arm to knock again when Hattie swung the door open.
“Simon! What are you doing here? Where’s Carrie?”
“I came to ask you the same question.” Simon started to panic. “She never showed up at the church.”
“What?” Hattie turned pale. “Then where is she?”
Simon let out his pent-up steam: “I never should have left her! I should have taken her to my hotel last night, to the devil with propriety! ” He pounded the doorjamb. “Hattie, what should we do?”
“I wish Ben were here. He’ll be home soon. Can we check her route again?”
Hattie jumped into the old buggy with Simon and Hobbs. Hattie and Simon wished the aged nag of a horse that pulled the old buggy was able to trot—instead of slug—along the road. They rode the route several times and saw nothing unusual.
By the time they went back to the Ansell’s, Simon was practically frantic. He dismounted the wagon and paced back and forth beside it, rubbing his forehead.
Ben finally rode in, with a questioning look on his face when he saw them all in front of the house. “What's going on?” he yelled from his perch on the wagon.
Hattie ran toward him, yelling, “Carrie’s missing!”
Ben jumped down from the wagon, “Missing? How can that be?”
Hattie and Hobbs filled him in while Simon continued to pace, rubbing his forehead practically raw. At last he stopped dead in his tracks. “Ezra! The guy at the livery! It had to be him!”
“Oh, Simon,” Hattie said sympathetically. “Ezra’s a bit eccentric, but he would never hurt anyone.”
“Carrie said she thought he might be obsessed with her. She said you thought that, too.”
Hattie sighed. “I may have been exaggerating—”
“Did he lie and tell Carrie I was dead?” When Hattie nodded, he continued. “A harmless man, you say? No, he’s the only one who would do something like this. Ben, take me to the livery,” he ordered.
When all four of them reached the livery, it appeared to be closed, and Simon nearly went mad. He jumped from the wagon, and with a running start, slammed his body against the livery door. It cracked, but didn’t open, so he rammed it again. This time it flew wide open.
Once inside, Simon looked around and called, “Ezra! Ezra, get out here!” When no one answered, he searched the livery, frantically, before falling to the floor, resting his back against a wall. He never felt more helpless in his life.
By then, Ben, Hattie, and Hobbs were inside the building with him. They knew, just by looking at Simon, that his search had been futile. They exchanged worried looks, without saying a word.
Simon silently counted to ten, trying to calm himself. He took several deep breaths before addressing Ben. “Where does he live?”
Ben shrugged and looked at Hattie, “Do you know?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. He lives somewhere in the Canemah area. He built a log cabin, not far from the bluff. I heard him bragging about it once.”
“I’ll search his office. He may have written the address down somewhere,” Simon said.
Tossing papers left and right, Simon searched Ezra’s desk, but found nothing to indicate where Ezra lived. He turned a sheet of paper over and turned white at what was written there. “Look at this!” he said, holding the paper up for them to see.
They crowded around him and gasped in unison. On the paper, written in sprawling letters, Ezra had scribbled “Caroline Schaeffer,” at least ten times. At the very bottom, he had written, “Mr. and Mrs. Schaeffer.”
“Shall we pray together?” the minister suggested.
“This is beyond prayer!” Simon turned his back on Hobbs.
“My son,” Hobbs pleaded, “nothing is beyond prayer.”
Simon rubbed his forehead, which appeared red from so much use. “I’m sorry. Yes, let’s pray. He gave me a miracle once…”
Caroline sat on a chair covered in pink ruffles from the seat to the floor, telling herself that Simon will come for her. She wondered where Ezra’s had gone and what his plans were.
The house had grown silent. She didn’t think Ezra would harm her, not if he wanted to marry her, but she had no idea what he’d do next.
She walked to the bedroom door and yelled, “Ezra! You come here right now! I need to talk to you!” And then she waited. Angry now, she wanted to try and reason with him.
Just when she thought he wasn’t going to respond, she heard the key turn in the lock. He opened the door slowly, as if he feared an attack. When he saw she posed no threat, he entered the room, quietly closed the door behind him, and locked it.
“You called? Are you ready to agree to marry me?”
“Sit down, Ezra.” She pointed to the pink chair, and she sat at the bottom of the ruffled bed.
He sat gingerly down.
“Why in the world would you want to marry someone who doesn’t love you?”
He shrugged. “I will make you love me.”
“Ezra, you can’t make someone love you. If you forced me to marry you, I’d end up hating you. I’d make your life miserable.”
To Caroline’s amazement, Ezra grew teary-eyed.
“But I love you, Caroline.” Tears streamed down his face. “I have since the moment I saw you. I had to find a way to have you. I offered to take you to Portland because I figured if this man of yours hadn’t come for you, then he wasn’t going to.” He blew his nose, and wiped his eyes. “I thought that once you realized that, I’d have a chance. When the hotel manager told me about his accident, I got the idea to tell you he was dead. Now that everyone knows I lied, I can’t face anyone anymore. My only way out is for you to marry me, and then everyone'll forget my lie, and I’ll have my heart’s desire.”
Ezra stood and walked to the tallboy dresser. He pushed it away from the wall to reveal a door that had been wallpapered, making it nearly invisible. He opened the door and brought out an armful of dresses, all of them in different shades of pink.
“I decorated this room for you. My bedroom's attached to this closet, so I can visit you at night.” He threw the clothes on the bed beside Caroline. “And I bought you these.”
Caroline felt goose bumps rising on her arms. She rubbed them, briskly. “I’m sorry, Ezra, but I don’t love you, and I never will. Don’t you see? You cannot fall in love with someone, no matter how good they are to you, if you're already in love with someone else.”
Ezra stared into space and said, “I could kill Simon…”
Caroline felt her heart skip a beat, but she continued calmly, nevertheless. “Yes, you could. But I’d never stop loving him.” She really didn’t think Ezra capable of killing anyone. At least, she hoped he wasn't. “And if you killed the man I love, I’d hate you even more. Maybe I’d end up poisoning your food, or something.”
Ezra snapped out of his daze. “I need to think.” He left the room, locking the door behind him.
“I think we should report this to the city marshal,” Ben suggested. “Since Ezra has a business in town, there may be an address on file for him at the court house.”
Simon slapped Ben on the back. “Excellent suggestion!
"Show me the way to this marshal.”
Simon
told Hattie to return home in the odd chance Caroline had made it back there. He shook hands with Reverend Hobbs and thanked him. “I’ll stop in to see you later and let you know how we made out. Do whatever needs to be done in order to arrange a fast wedding, because when I find Caroline, there'll be no waiting.”
James Lappeus, a tall man with a light brown mustache, agreed to see them. He seemed genuinely concerned. He wrote all the details down, and then asked Simon, “Are you sure she didn’t run off with someone else?”
“Of course I’m sure. She was on her way to meet me at the church to plan our marriage.”
James tapped his fingers on the desk. “Do you know anyone who would want to harm her?”
“Yes!” Ben and Simon said together.
“Ezra Schaeffer, who owns the livery down the street,” Ben added.
“Why?” the marshal asked.
Simon explained, “Because he wanted Caroline for himself. He even lied and told her I was dead!”
Ben said in, “He's become obsessed with her.”
“We went to his livery, but he’s not there. We need to know where his house is. We hope there's a record of it somewhere here,” Simon explained.
“I see. If you’ll wait here, I’ll see what address we have on file for Mr. Schaeffer.” Lappeus left the room.
Simon paced until Lappeus returned with a paper in his hand.
“Mr. Miller, the only address we have for him is at his place of business. The note here says he lived at the rear of the livery.”
“He used to,” Ben said, “but he recently had a house built somewhere. Hattie thinks it’s in Canemah area.”
“We can’t possibly know exactly where he lives, but I’ll issue a bulletin to all the deputies to keep an eye out. Who knows? Maybe one of them'll know where he lives.”
Simon left the marshal’s office, discouraged. “Now what, Ben?”
“Now we ride around Canemah and look for his buggy.”
Caroline paced the floor of her pink prison. She decided pink was no longer her favorite color. She looked under the bed, under the furniture, but could find nothing to help her pry the wooden planks from her window. The fireplace hardware had been removed. She opened drawers, shocked at what she found in the top drawer of the tallboy: several pairs of brand new lacy underwear!
She slammed the drawer shut. She opened the closet and felt around in the dark until she found a metal clothes hanger. She held it up. It was gold in color, metal, thick, and heavy. She opened the window and tried to put the hanger between the boards. The sunlight peeked through several of the pieces of wood, and she started to work on those. When that didn’t work, she pushed one of the boards with the heavy end of the hanger until it moved. She grabbed it with her hands and ripped part of it off.
The last board stuck at the top, where she couldn’t reach. She stretched herself as tall as she could, and pushed on the board with all her might. When it finally moved, it hung from a single, bent nail. She propped herself up on the windowsill in order to get better leverage, and pushed hard until the board flew off.
Caroline jumped through the now open window to the ground below.
Simon and Ben rode back and forth across the Canemah area, hoping Hattie’s information had been accurate. They drove down paths and rutted back roads, but none of the houses had a buggy like Ezra’s in the yard.
“Simon, I don’t know where else to look,” Ben said.
“We can’t give up,” Simon insisted. “Look! Here’s a road we haven't tried yet.”
“I think that was the first one we drove down. Look, there's the same laundry on the clothes line.”
“Keep going straight, then,” Simon urged. “We keep turning down these side paths when maybe he lives on the main road.”
“If we go too much further we’ll be out of the Canemah area.” Ben squinted as he looked into the distance. “Do you see something in the road up ahead?”
Simon shielded his eyes as the sun glared down on them from the horizon. “It looks like a woman, running.”
They rode a little closer and Simon yelled, “It’s my Carrie! Stop the wagon!” Simon jumped down, even before the wagon had come to a complete stop. Despite his limp, he managed to run toward Caroline.
Once Caroline had hit the ground from the window, she ran like the wind. She took the direction they’d come from earlier that day. She knew it would be a distance, but she had to try. If she heard a vehicle coming behind her, she’d duck into the woods until she was sure it wasn’t Ezra.
She ran, then walked, and then ran some more. Then she saw a wagon coming down the road. It wasn’t a buggy, so she continued running toward it. Whoever it was would surely help her.
When the wagon drew closer a man with a slight limp got out and started running in her direction. Caroline smiled. Her heart pounded as she ran to meet him.
They stood in the center of the road, embracing. “I knew you’d come for me, Simon,” she said, crying against his chest.
Simon didn’t speak, but he squeezed her as hard as he could without hurting her.
“Simon?” she asked, pulling herself free. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving.
“Are you praying?” she asked.
“I’m saying my thanks,” he said, and grabbed her to him once again. “I’m never going to let you go again. Come—we’re going to see Hobbs right away!”
By then Ben had caught up to them. “Carrie, thank God.”
“Ben, take us to the church, right now.”
“What about Ezra?”
Simon stopped, and rubbed his forehead again. “No. I can’t deal with him right now. I’m not going to let go of Carrie, ever again. ”
“Okay, ” Ben said. “We know where he lives, so we can send the marshal after him later, but we can’t go to church without stopping for Hattie first.”
Ben dropped Simon and Caroline off at his house, then continued on toward town to inform the marshal where he could find Ezra, and that he’d been holding Caroline captive.
Simon and Caroline finally stood before the altar, and a smiling Reverend Hobbs. Hattie, Ben, and the children stood off to the side. The ritual was a blur to Simon. He wanted to get to the kissing and pronouncing part. He slid the gold band on her finger as Reverend Hobbs pronounced them man and wife.
“You may kiss the bride,” Reverend Hobbs announced.
Simon kissed Caroline, long and hard until Hobbs cleared his throat.
Simon and Caroline parted with a laugh.
“Now,” Simon announced to Caroline, “I’m never letting you out of my sight, ever again!”
Epilogue
Ezra Schaeffer was never found. Marshal Lappeus thought he must have left when he realized Caroline had escaped. The missing buggy and his closed bank account were also hints.
Simon and Caroline enjoyed a weeklong honeymoon at the hotel in Oregon City. They didn’t leave the room once, and when they finally emerged, it was with sparkling eyes and broad smiles.
The Wilson homestead served to house them fairly comfortably, until Simon was able to build a new house a half-mile from Hattie and Ben. Simon bought a building in town, and he and Ben started a lumber mill.
Caroline couldn’t imagine ever being happier--until a baby daughter was born to them a year later. Simon, immediately mesmerized by the little pink bundle of joy, suggested they name her Elenora—Nora for short—after the mother who'd died giving birth to Caroline. Nora became the light of their lives until Daniel came along, and Peter, Mary-Kate, and Anna after that.
The End
Other books by Barbara Goss:
Forbidden Legacy Silent Love
Captured Heart The Final Vow
Stolen Heritage The Kissing Bridge
Dangerous Illusions Drawn from Darkness
The Romantic Ruse Shadow of Shame
Shadow of Deceit Shadow of Regret
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http://barbaragossbooks.com/ Website
Temptation by Moonlight: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZM5AO0E
Drawn from Darkness: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X32A7GY
Captured Heart: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SQAUU9M
The Romantic Ruse: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0157TE6F8
Silent Love: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U3881BE
Dangerous Illusions: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TMYVA72
Stolen Heritage: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T8QJKUS
The Final Vow: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UXQO3Q8
Forbidden Legacy: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SENBQB2
The Kissing Bridge: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W5YACOI
NEW: Shadow of Shame: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DR8929G
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