Just West of Heaven

by Maureen Child

  But, as her mother used to say, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. No point in dwelling on what was past. Best now to simply focus on the future she would give the little sister she loved so dearly.

  Smiling now, she pointed out the window. “Take a look,” she said.

  The child grinned and rubbed both hands over her eyes before scooting forward on her seat and peering out the window.

  “Oh,” she whispered, “it’s nice, Sophie...”

  Wincing slightly, she leaned down and reminded the little girl, “Mommy. Remember, honey? You’re going to call me ‘Mommy’ from now on.”

  Jenna glanced at her. “I ‘member, but it’s silly.”

  “I know,” Sophie said, forcing a smile she wasn’t really sure of. “But it’ll be easier if everyone here thinks you’re my little girl.”

  It would be easy to fool everyone, if Jenna could only remember. After all, she supposed it was fairly unusual for two sisters to be so far apart in age.

  “But—”

  “Please, honey.”

  Slowly, the girl nodded, and turned back to look out the window. One small problem solved, Sophie stood up and shook out the fall of her skirt, trying to get as many wrinkles as possible out of the fabric. Then reaching up, she adjusted the tilt of her hat, ran one hand across the rat’s nest that was her hair, and told herself that first impressions weren’t all that important anyway.

  “You and the girl getting off here?” the man behind her asked.

  Sophie shot him a quick look. “Yes, we are.”

  The florid-faced man gave her a quick nod. “Can’t say as I’m sorry any.”

  For heaven’s sake, Sophie thought. Jenna had saved his life. One would think he’d be a little grateful.

  “Still don’t know how that young’un knew I’d choke on a piece of apple, and I got to say, it ain’t natural.”

  Sophie flushed and reached into the overhead shelf to pull down their bags. She’d tried to keep Jenna quiet, but the little girl was just too young to know that people didn’t want to know the future. That they feared anything they couldn’t understand.

  She herself had learned that lesson at too young an age and had been trying ever since to simply be normal. But, she wondered, what was normal? Charles Vinson? This man who should have been grateful that thanks to Jenna’s warning, there had been time to slap him on the back and dislodge the bite of apple stuck in his throat? Or was normal the little girl looking up at her with trusting eyes?

  Setting her bags on the seat, Sophie glared at the big man and said, “It was a simple enough prediction to make. Someone who eats as much and as quickly as yourself must expect to choke on food at one time or another.”

  “Now see here, missy,” he began.

  “Come, Jenna,” she said, ignoring the blustering man, and as she took up her bags in one hand, she reached out with the other to her sister.

  The little girl slipped her hand into Sophie’s, gave the big man a smile and a wave, then scooted out of the seat.

  As they made their way down the narrow aisle, Sophie felt the other passengers staring at them and she knew she and Jenna wouldn’t be missed. The little girl had seen too much, picked up on too many secrets. The woman who drank whiskey in secret. The man who stole money from his employer. The woman whose husband was going to die. The man who set fire to the train’s water closet with a discarded cigar.

  Secrets, she thought. Everyone had secrets. She knew that better than most.

  At the end of the car, Sophie paused and looked back at their fellow travelers. She hoped no one else from their car was getting off in Tanglewood. She didn’t want stories about what Jenna had said and done on the trip rippling through town. They needed a fresh start, with as little gossip as possible. Because every piece of gossip was a potential clue laid down for Charles to follow.

  And Sophie knew Charles would try to find them.

  Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin, tightened her hold on Jenna’s hand, and turned for the doorway. The conductor was already there, waiting for them. Plainly, he was as anxious as the passengers to see her and Jenna leave the train.

  “Mrs. Ryan,” the man said, nodding, yet keeping what he obviously considered a safe distance from her and Jenna. He took the iron steps down to the platform, then reluctantly held up one hand to help her alight He let her go as quickly as possible, then turned to help Jenna.

  The little girl took his hand and stopped, one foot poised in mid-air over the step. Looking up at him, she smiled and said, “Your baby wants to be named James.”

  The man stiffened as though he’d been shot and stared at the girl as though he feared she might sprout wings and fly. “Baby?” he asked. “Uh... my wife and I don’t have children.”

  Sophie groaned tightly and made a grab for her sister. But Jenna wouldn’t be stopped. “Yes you do,” she crowed happily. “He’s in his mommy’s tummy.”

  The conductor straightened up and looked from Jenna to Sophie and back again. “But...” he stammered. “That’s impossible...”

  Tugging at the little girl’s hand, Sophie helped her down from the steps then turned, determined to leave the conductor and this whole train trip firmly behind her. But a hand came down on her arm, and when she turned, expecting to be met with accusing eyes, she looked instead into the conductor’s hopeful expression.

  “Does she mean it?” he whispered, ignoring the interested stares of the passengers staring down at them from the train. “Can she really see what she claims to?”

  A cold, sharp wind swept along the train platform, fluttering the hem of her dress and sending icy fingers up her calves. A rush of steam burst from beneath the train and rose up like a small, private fog, enveloping her, Jenna, and the conductor in a temporary world of white.

  She should just leave. Turn and pretend Jenna had said nothing. Pretend the conductor wasn’t now staring at them as though they were a cross between heaven and hell. But she couldn’t. There was too much hope in the man’s eyes.

  “Yes,” she said softly, staring directly into his gaze. “She really sees it.”

  A slow, proud smile creased his face as he went down on one knee in front of Jenna. “My son,” and he said the words with awe, “likes the name James, does he?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, reaching out to pat his cheek. “And he wants to ride the train with you too.”

  That grin of his broadened even further and as he stood up again he looked down at Jenna and said, “Then he will. I promise.”

  The little girl frowned suddenly and said, “But his sister is afraid of the train so don’t make her ride it, all right?”

  “A girl too?” The conductor nearly hooted in delight.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. This was not how their new life was supposed to start. They needed to blend in. To become a part of the town. To slip seamlessly into the life of Tanglewood. Instead, they were beginning to draw an interested crowd.

  “Come on, Jenna,” Sophie said and turned quickly away, drawing her sister after her. Hurrying her steps, she looked back at the conductor still standing where she’d left him, looking as though he’d been struck by lightning.

  And since she wasn’t watching where she was going, she ran smack into a man tall enough and broad enough and strong enough to have passed for a brick wall.

  She bounced off him like a rock skipping on the surface of a still lake, and before she could find her balance again fell to the platform at his feet, pulling Jenna down on top of her. Her dropped bags plopped open, spilling her clothes onto the dirty wood planks. The hem of her skirt was hiked indecently high, and even as she reached down to cover herself, she looked up at him. Her gaze traveled from the toes of his dusty brown boots, up the length of his denim-clad legs and across his broad chest. She noted his square, clean­shaven jaw, a nose that looked as though it had been b
roken more than once, and a pair of pale, ice-blue eyes looking at her from beneath lowered black eyebrows. Too-long dark hair scraped the collar of his long-sleeved white shirt, and when he folded his arms across his chest, Sophie’s throat closed up as her gaze locked on the star pinned to his black vest.

  CHAPTER Two

  Several slow seconds ticked past as Ridge stared down into a pair of the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. Green like spring meadows and soft shadows in lush valleys. Green that was deep enough to stir a man’s soul and cause him to forget his own name. A hard, swift rush of attraction slammed into him as he looked into those eyes even with the flicker of temper and then wariness flashing in them.

  She made quite a picture, sprawled out on the platform. The skirt of her simple blue dress was hiked up to her knees, giving him a good look at a pair of trim ankles and shapely calves, encased in black cotton stockings. With her hands braced on the floor behind her, she pushed herself into a sitting position and shook her head. The movement tilted a silly straw hat dotted with yellow and white daisies sitting precariously atop a wild tangle of red curls that strained against the knot she’d tried to confine them in. A part of Ridge wanted to see those curls hanging long and free and he imagined she’d look something like a red­headed lion.

  A scatter of golden freckles dusted her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and her chin had a defiant tilt to it. Her mouth was wide and generous, even though at the moment it was twisted into a disgusted frown.

  Movement caught his eye and he glanced at the child struggling up from across the woman’s lap. So his green-eyed woman was married, then. A shame, he thought and drew rein on the purely male interest still quickening inside him.

  The little girl looked at him for a long moment, then her green eyes got big and wide and a slow smile creased her features. Apparently the tiny heartbreaker had been blessed with a better nature than her mother.

  “Hello there, darlin’,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Jenna,” she told him, then turned to her mother. But the woman was too busy tugging the hem of her dress down over her legs to notice. “Mama,” the girl said, louder this time. “I know who he is.”

  The woman darted a look at him, then shifted her gaze back to the child. “Of course you do, honey,” she said, nodding at her daughter. “He’s the sheriff, isn’t he? You saw his badge, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “We’ll talk about this later, all right, sweetie?” Then the redhead’s voice cooled and her eyes narrowed as she shot him a dirty look. “You should watch where you’re going.”

  He snorted a choked-off laugh. “You ran into me, remember?”

  Her frown deepened briefly before she said, “Well, it’s certainly rude of you to point that out.” Turning slightly, she rolled to her knees, preparing to get up. “And if you’ll remember, we were both at fault. Though a gentleman would have accepted the entire blame.”

  “Is that right?” he asked, smiling. Strangely enough, he was almost enjoying himself. Which told him it must be time for a visit to one of Cherry’s girls down at the saloon. Obviously, it had been too long since he’d spent any time around a woman if he was finding this one attractive.

  Although he had to give her credit. Most people waited until they’d known him a week or two to argue with him. “Well, then, I guess we don’t have too many gentlemen around here.”

  She shot him a wry glance. “So I noticed.”

  All right, he thought. They could stand here on the platform trading insults all morning, or they could move on and put this little incident behind them. No harm done, after all.

  “Let me help you up,” he said belatedly and reached down to grab the woman’s hand.

  But she batted his hand aside and got to her feet under her own steam. She stumbled into him when the toe of her shoe caught the hem of her dress, but when he laid a hand on her arm to steady her, she jumped back as though he’d pulled a gun on her. Eyes wide, she stared at him like a spooked horse in a thunderstorm. One strange woman.

  And a part of him wondered if she was wary of him as a man... or as a sheriff. He’d seen that look in her eyes before. People on the dodge wore that expression. But at first glance she didn’t seem the type to be running from the law. She looked like a decent, respectable type. Of course, what better disguise for a thief than the cloak of respectability?

  “I think you’ve done enough,” she muttered, rubbing the spot on her arm that his hand had touched so briefly. Then turning around, she bent low to scoop up her bag and spilled belongings.

  Well, whatever else was going on with her, she certainly had the temper to go with that red hair. Prickly as all get out, he told himself. And one thing he didn’t need right now was to be dealing with any more cranky women than he absolutely had to. He flicked a casual glance up and down the length of the train, searching the platform for the schoolmarm he was supposed to be meeting. Five or six people stepped off one of the other cars and headed for town, but there was just no sign of a razor-lipped, beady-eyed, mean­looking spinster lady. So much for a new schoolteacher. Well, she could have missed the train, he supposed, and shifted his gaze back to the woman still collecting her spilled clothes.

  Remnants of a chivalrous streak he hadn’t been sure he possessed shot through him and he bent down beside the cantankerous female. After all, he had no real reason to suspect she was anything but what she appeared to be. A good woman. Until he knew different, he’d treat her as such.

  “At least let me give you a hand with that,” Ridge said, reaching for a white cotton petticoat edged in a wide lace border.

  “No, thank you.”

  He reached for it anyway and his fingertips just brushed the fabric when a stray wind shot from under the train, lifted that petticoat and ran with it along the length of the platform.

  He stood up and watched as the delicate material billowed in the breeze like the full sails on a clipper ship.

  “Oh, my stars,” the woman snapped.

  The little girl laughed and her soft giggle floated on the same breeze that was even now taking that slip of lace off toward the open desert.

  “Wait here,” she told her daughter and, after giving him one last, scathing look, pushed past him, running after her petticoat

  Ridge was right behind her, listening to the clatter of her heels on the plank floors and the catcalls and whistles from the crowd. “Lady,” he called out, but she paid no attention.

  “Look at it go,” someone shouted as the wind gusted again, tossing that petticoat into a dip and dance on the air.

  “There you go, lady. Almost got it!”

  “Pretty thing, ain’t it?” someone else asked of no one in particular.

  Damn it. She was putting on a helluva show here, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Images flashed in his mind. Visions of that train starting up, rolling forward, and this crazy redhead falling beneath the steel wheels just because she’d been too stubborn to let him help her gather her things. What had she thought? That he waited on train platforms for the chance to rifle through ladies’ undergarments?

  His gaze narrowed as she jumped, made a grab at the damn thing, and came up short.

  “Whooee!” someone shouted. “You was close that time, for sure!”

  Ridge grumbled and ran faster, outdistancing her in a few easy lopes. Reaching up, he snatched the petticoat from the wind’s grasp, then turned around to face her.

  “Ah hell, Sheriff,” one of the men yelled, “it was just getting good!”

  Shooting a frown at the man, Ridge asked, “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Ben?”

  “Nope,” the man replied with a grin. His friends laughed and Ridge tried to ignore him as the redhead approached.

  Out of breath, cheeks flushed, eyes shining with temper and embarrassment, she glared first at the men slouching against the wall. “You
all should be ashamed of yourselves,” she snapped and had the satisfaction of watching at least one of them duck his head.

  Then she turned back to him, and before he could offer her the damn petticoat, she grabbed at it, and they both heard the fine lawn material tear.

  She smacked his hand and he scowled at her. “Look what you’ve done now,” she muttered thickly, wadding up the petticoat between two clenched hands.

  Her hat was tipped over one eye and she blinked up at him with the other. Some of her hair had worked its way loose and a cloud of red curls lay across her shoulders to tumble down her back. Damn, but she was a sight. When she wasn’t talking. “You tore it,” he said, “I just caught it for you.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You expect to be thanked?” she asked, clearly astonished. “If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened.”

  “I’m beginnin’ to like her,” one of the men said, from his spot along the wall.

  Both of them glared at him and the speaker suddenly felt the need to study the scuffed toes of his boots. Finally, Sophie wadded what was left of her best petticoat into a ball and stuffed it under her arm.

  She reached up, tipped her hat back into place, and blew a stray red curl out of her eyes.

  Blast and damnation. She’d hoped to start off on the right foot here in Deadwood... er, Tanglewood. She’d hoped to make a good first impression and settle into life as quietly and unassumingly as possible.

  Instead, she would probably be the subject of town gossip for weeks. Imagine, she thought with an inward groan, the new schoolteacher treating her audience to the sight of her underwear flying across the train station. And not only that, but she’d fought the sheriff for possession of her petticoat and come off the loser.