“Sweetie, is everything all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m still on the train. We’re passing through the Rockies now.”
“The Rocky Mountains,” her mother said, awed that any daughter of hers had managed to wander so far from home. Then she fell into a fit of coughing.
“Mom? Are you all right?”
“It’s the new meds. I swear they’re worse than the old ones.”
Autumn held the phone tight to her ear. “The doctor said they’d take a few days to kick in, Mom.”
“Yeah, and the longer I take to die, the richer those doctors and drug companies get.”
“Don’t say that, Mom.”
Her mother was coughing again.
“I’m sorry, honey. I know I have to be positive.”
The signal began to cut out.
“Mom?” Autumn said, a touch of desperation straying into her voice. “Mom?” She wasn’t ready to let go. “Mom, I love you.”
It was too late. The call had dropped.
They’d warned her when she got on the train there would be no signal in the mountains. She wondered if that included her destination, the isolated town of Destiny, Montana, population two hundred according to the Wiki page.
They were scheduled to arrive just after midnight. She looked at her watch. It was six thirty, time for dinner. She looked at the itinerary she’d been given with her ticket. There would be no more stops before Destiny.
No stops. No towns.
She didn’t dare think what the wilderness would be like when she was six hours deeper into it.
She gathered her things, a book of poetry, an old iPod with a cracked screen, her notebook and pen, an almost empty Coke bottle, and put them in her knapsack.
She didn’t think she was the last passenger still on the train, but she was close to it.
She made her way to the back of the carriage and pulled open the metal door. The noise and cold air rushed around her as she passed to the next car, steadying herself against the shaking walls.
The dining car was completely empty and she let out a small sigh. She’d been hoping for the comfort of other people. She took a seat at one of the tables. It was comfortable in an old-fashioned way, with a white table cloth and a metal lamp screwed to the table.
There was a menu card and she looked it over. Three options.
A slim man in a black and white waiter’s uniform came over.
“Quiet tonight,” Autumn said.
“Always is after Fairfax. This last stretch of the line is a loss-maker for the company.”
“Why do they still operate it?”
“State legislation. This area would be too remote to survive without train service.”
“Nice they do it,” Autumn said.
The man nodded. He was a little older than Autumn, skinny, with a hint of dark stubble on his cheeks.
“I take it you’re here to eat?” he said.
“I’ll have the roast beef.”
“Horse radish?”
“Yes please.”
The man nodded and wrote something on his notepad.
“You want something to drink with that?”
“What have you got?”
“Red wine, white wine, beer, liquor.”
Autumn smiled, flattered. “I’m only nineteen,” she said.
The waiter smirked and looked up and down the empty car conspiratorially. “I won’t say anything if you don’t.”
Autumn looked at him gratefully. After the long and lonely journey, it felt so good to be having an actual conversation with someone.
“How much does a glass of wine cost?” she said, very aware she had all of forty dollars in her pocket and no bank cards of any kind to pick up the slack.
“Don’t worry about it,” the waiter said. “You look like a fun girl. I’m sure we’ll find a way for you to pay me back.”
Autumn didn’t know what to say to that so she nodded mutely.
He left with the order and she thought about what he’d said. Pay him back.
Her mother had told her a million times to be careful, to look after herself, to remember who she was.
The only problem with that advice was that it assumed Autumn knew who she was.
She looked back in the direction the waiter had gone. Pay him back.
She took a twenty from her pocket, half her money, and put it flat on the table. Then she rose, picked up her knapsack, and made her way back to her seat.
She was hungry, but she wasn’t that hungry.
CHAPTER 2
GRADY
Grady Cole pulled into a gas station with an attached diner and killed the engine. It was snowing, it was dark, his baby was crying. A hot meal and a tank of gas seemed about as good an idea as he was likely to have.
“Come on, baby,” he said as he unbuckled the carseat.
Or rather, as he tried to unbuckle it. The damn thing was more complicated than it looked.
He’d picked it up that morning at a shopping mall, roughly thirty minutes after filing the last of the paperwork that gave him custody of his daughter. A month ago, he’d have laughed out loud if someone said he’d be the owner of a carseat, let alone a child to put in it. Now he had both, a little girl with bright blue eyes, dressed in a hospital issued white onesie, and a four hundred dollar carseat that looked complicated enough to take her to the moon and back without injury.
He finally got it open and picked up the crying child, tucking her inside his jacket next to the warmth of his chest.
Careful to keep her shielded from the icy wind, he hurried into the gas station.
There was a kid behind the counter and Grady threw him his car keys.
“Fill that up for me, would you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And I’ll take this map too,” he said, grabbing one from the rack by the counter. “I’ll be in the diner in the meantime.”
The kid nodded.
Grady proceeded to the diner and took a booth as far from the door as possible.
He kept the child inside his jacket like a baby kangaroo in a pouch. She seemed happy to be there.
She wasn’t crying at least.
He made a face at her and she looked into his eyes in a way he’d never known possible.
He was a father.
He put the map on the table and pulled some papers from his jacket pocket. They had the look and feel of important government documents. They’d been given to him by child services along with the baby and Grady clutched them like they were the only thing between her and certain death.
One was a birth certificate.
He looked at his name, clear for all the world to see in the box marked Father.
The baby was already six months old, but for Grady she hadn’t existed until two days ago when he got the call from the authorities.
He looked over more of the details and noted grimly that the mother’s time of death was four minutes before Destiny’s time of birth.
He shook his head but refused to think of Ravenna. Her decisions had led to her death and it was only by the Grace of God she hadn’t taken Destiny to the grave with her.
“You’re in my hands now, aren’t you?” he cooed.
He offered her his finger and she reached toward it, giving him the world’s tiniest high five.
“You hungry? Because I sure am.”
Child Services had given him a bottle of formula and he’d fed it to the child periodically throughout the day. Now he read over the feeding instructions in more detail. They said at six months she’d be able to eat a little pureed fruit or vegetable. Not much though.
He sighed and looked into her face.
He was out of his depth, but God was she beautiful.
A waitress came over.
“What have we got here?” she said.
Grady opened his jacket and let her see the baby’s face.
“Well, isn’t that just the most adorable little thing.”
Grady nodd
ed.
“You don’t happen to sell baby formula do you?”
“I’ll see what I can find,” she said. “I’m sure there’s something in the store.”
“We’d appreciate that.”
“And for daddy?”
Grady looked up. Daddy. That’s what he was now. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to that.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee and the chili.”
“Coming right up.”
He continued to read through the papers. In theory, they contained all the information a man would need to keep a six-month-old alive and healthy and he folded them carefully before putting them back in his pocket.
Then he opened the map and spread it in front of him on the table, flattening it out with his free hand. It was enormous, bigger than the table.
He looked over it, searching for the remotest, most peaceful spot he could find. Grady had family ties in California, but he wasn’t in the emotional or mental state to go back there. He wanted a fresh place, a clean slate, somewhere to start a new life with his daughter.
His eyes fell on a tiny dot in the farthest, most remote part of the Rockies, a single windy road and a lone rail line leading up to it, Destiny, Montana.
“Well, if that ain’t a sign,” he said to the child.
The waitress returned and put a cup of coffee in front of him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“We’ve got formula in the store but we don’t have any bottles.”
“I’ve got a bottle in the car,” he said.
He handed Destiny to the waitress and went out to the car for the bottle. He also grabbed a blanket he’d bought when he bought the carseat.
When he got back inside, the waitress was cooing and Destiny was laughing.
“Thanks,” Grady said.
The waitress looked him up and down as she handed back the baby.
“You two make an odd couple,” she said.
Grady knew how he looked. He had tattoos on his arms, stubble on his face, and fire in his eyes. Domestic wasn’t a word anyone would ever use to describe him.
“It’s my first day on the job.”
“Really?”
“Three days ago I didn’t even know this little one existed.”
“And now you’re daddy?”
Grady nodded. He knew the waitress wanted to ask about the mother, but she didn’t say anything so he didn’t offer the information.
He sat down and the waitress took the bottle.
“I’ll run this through the washer,” she said.
Grady played with the baby, fed her the formula, and wolfed down his own meal with a hunger that surprised even himself. Afterward he went to the counter to settle up.
“You have a good appetite,” the waitress said.
“It’s been a big day.”
“I’ll bet.”
She handed him the bill and he gave her the money, including an extra twenty.
“What’s that for?”
“For helping with the formula.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Grady shook his head. “I insist.”
She looked at him. He knew what she was thinking. He knew that look. She wanted to know if he was single.
She leaned forward on the counter, giving him a nice view of her ample cleavage. Grady felt his cock twitch in his pants.
She wasn’t bad looking either. In her early thirties, same as him. Pretty smile. Nice breasts under her apron. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to go home with her, feel some warmth against his skin.
But he couldn’t do it. He’d been burned too badly, too recently, to be in any mood for romance.
“Well, thanks again,” he said, and went to the gas station counter in the next room.
He paid the kid for the gas and the map and got his keys.
“You know the way to Destiny?” he said.
The kid seemed surprised.
“That ain’t an easy road,” he said.
“Is it paved?”
“Mostly, but it will be covered in snow, maybe even snow drifts.”
Grady nodded. “Give me a set of those snow chains too then.”
CHAPTER 3
AUTUMN
Autumn woke just as the train was coming to a stop. She looked at her watch. It was one thirty in the morning. An hour late.
She grabbed her things and headed for the exit. When the doors opened, the icy air shocked her. She clutched herself for warmth and stepped down onto the platform. Wind blew straight from the mountains causing flurries of snow to race down the tracks. She looked up and down the length of the train. She was the only person to get off.
She hurried into the station and shut the door behind her. She was in a small waiting room with a few benches and a pay phone. There was a ticket desk and a snack stand but both were closed.
She rubbed her hands together and breathed on them for warmth.
She’d been told someone would meet her at the station. She went to the front door and looked through the window.
Her first view of Destiny.
It was a single street lined with old-fashioned buildings and lit by streetlights on black iron posts. It looked like something out of a western movie. There were no cars and no people.
She took her phone from her pocket and scrolled through her contacts.
Mr. Hildegard.
She pressed Call but nothing happened. No signal.
She sighed and looked over at the pay phone.
Please work.
She searched her pockets and found three quarters.
She dialed the number and waited apprehensively.
A gruff voice answered.
“Raven’s Nest.”
“Mr. Hildegard?”
“Yes.”
“This is Autumn Lane. I’m at the train station.”
There was a brief pause.
“You’re late.”
“Yes, Sir. Sorry about that. The train just got in.”
“I was there an hour ago but didn’t wait.”
“No, of course not. If you give me directions I can walk to the hotel.”
Autumn shivered at the thought of hauling her knapsack through the blizzard. One thing Destiny had already shown her was that the jacket she’d brought was not going to be up to the job here in the Rockies.
“Three miles,” Mr. Hildegard said, “I don’t think so.”
He hung up and Autumn chose to believe that meant he was on his way. She sat on her knapsack, it was warmer than the bench, and waited.
Fifteen minutes later a very old pickup truck pulled up outside.
Autumn could see two people sitting in the cab but neither made a move to get out. She stood there a moment looking at the truck, at the cloud of exhaust fumes coming out the back, and then the horn honked twice.
She took a deep breath, grabbed her pack, and ran out into the snow.
As she approached the truck, a lady in her sixties climbed out of the passenger side.
“Throw your bag in the back,” she said.
Autumn did as she was told and climbed into the cab. The lady climbed in after her, sandwiching her with the driver.
“I’m Mr. Hildegard,” the driver said.
“But you can call him Master,” the woman said.
“Master?”
“That’s right,” Mr. Hildegard said. “And you’ll call my wife Mistress. You got a problem with that?”
“No, no,” Autumn stammered.
“No what?” the lady said.
“No … Master,” Autumn said, the word sounding strangely foreign in her mouth.
Mr. Hildegard, her new Master, put the truck in drive and pulled out of the station and onto the main street of Destiny. Autumn peered out the window at the stores. They were quaint, something from a bygone age, and she wondered what they sold.
When the stores ended, the road continued through pitch black forest and Autumn was very glad she hadn’t been taken up on
her offer to walk. She had no doubt wolves, bears and all sorts of other monsters inhabited the darkness that enveloped them. In the small patch of light cast by the headlights she saw nothing but snow.
They drove in silence for a few minutes and turned through an iron gate onto a private driveway. That led to a grand building that looked more like an old English manor than a Montana hotel.
“Welcome to Raven’s Nest,” Mrs. Hildegard said.
They got out of the truck. Autumn grabbed her pack and followed the Hildegards up the stone steps that led to the entrance.
Inside was a great hall and Autumn was relieved to see a fire raging in the massive, stone fireplace. Instinctively she was drawn to it but didn’t dare move from the spot by the door where she was standing.
The Hildegards stood in front of her, assessing her in the light for the first time.
“A little scrawny,” Mr. Hildegard said.
His wife nodded. “We’ll whip her into shape,” she said.
She turned to Autumn.
“This is the Grand Hall, where guests arrive and check in.”
Autumn looked around her. The hall was paneled with smooth, dark wood and lined with old paintings, portraits of stern-faced people wearing outfits from the eighteenth century. There was a massive staircase, intricately carved, and all around her were the stuffed heads of deer, caribou, bison, bear, wolf, and every other kind of animal that might be hunted in the surrounding forest.
Autumn realized her mouth was wide open and shut it.
“Now, I don’t intend to give you the grand tour at this hour, but there are a few ground rules I want to make very clear from the beginning.”
“Yes … Mistress.”
Mrs. Hildegard nodded in approval.
“First of all, the reason you’re here is to work. And we expect work. Every day.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“This isn’t a summer camp or a daycare, so get rid of any evil notions you have of being idle here. You will earn your keep, and if you don’t, you’ll be on the first train back to your mother, do you want that?”
Autumn could think of nothing she wanted more, but she didn’t voice that longing.
“No, Mistress,” she said.
“You do as you’re told at all times. You obey me and Mr. Hildegard in everything. The slightest insolence or disobedience will be harshly punished.”
Autumn wondered what that could possibly mean but didn’t ask.
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