by Zoe Matthews
“They were going to force me to marry Joshua in order to keep the money I am to inherit in the family,” Katrina admitted.
Serena gasped with shock. “Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I could have helped in some way.”
“You did help, by being willing to put your plans on hold and not leave in June. I didn’t feel I should tell anyone. I was so afraid that if the Porter’s heard that you were leaving, they would keep a closer eye on me to prevent me from following.” Katrina could tell Serena was hurt she had not confided in her. She quickly told her the events that had been happening the last few months, being careful to not leave any detail out. When Katrina finished, Serena stared out of the train window for a while as if she needed to think about what Katrina had told her.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me,” Serena finally admitted. “I probably won’t ever understand what it has been like to live in the Porter’s home. I just wish you could have trusted me. I wouldn’t have told anyone.”
“I know you wouldn’t have, but I felt I needed to for your safety, as well as my own.” Katrina hoped she could find the words to help Serena understand.
“Do you really think they can figure out where you are and try to follow us?” Serena questioned.
“I did my best to cover our tracks, but they have a lot of money and many people who could help them. Every time this train stops, I am worried we are going to step off of it and Joshua will be there waiting for me.”
“When it comes right down to it, I don’t think you can be forced to marry someone you don’t want to,” Serena offered her opinion.
“Maybe, or maybe not, but I can’t take that chance. The Porters are very powerful.”
Serena suddenly indicated she was tired and wanted to try to sleep before they arrived. Katrina dropped the subject and let Serena rest, hoping that her friend was not too upset at her. She knew deep in her heart that once Serena thought through everything she had told her, she would understand. Serena rarely stayed mad for long.
Katrina pulled out a book and tried to read, but could not. All she could think about was the mess she left. She hoped that she was not heading into another mess. She hoped the teaching position was really going to work out. She realized she really was placing all her faith in Anna.
I am going to do my best to make this work, Katrina promised herself. I am going to be the best teacher I can be so Luke will not regret offering me this job. I am going to quit thinking about my past and focus on my future.
****
Luke clumsily finished brushing his daughter’s hair. He wished he had sent her over to the main ranch house to ask Anna for help, but Sage had insisted that he do it. She had put on a new dress that Anna had sewn for her. Sage insisted that she look her best for when she met her new teacher.
Luke knew that Sage was very excited that she would finally be able to go to school. Ever since she had heard of Luke’s plans to build a school right on their ranch land a year ago, she had talked about school almost constantly, along with her best friend, Aida. Luke had wanted her to wait another year before going to school, but Sage insisted she was old enough. After all, she was already five years old, she had informed her father very seriously when he had made the suggestion. Luke eventually agreed. After all, wasn’t this why he had the schoolhouse built in the first place? He was just starting to realize his Sage wasn’t a little girl any longer.
“Thanks, Pa,” Sage said with a smile and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Anna said she had a new ribbon for me that matches this dress. I am going to go get it, okay?”
When Luke gave her his permission to leave their little cabin, she ran out, slamming the door behind her. He smiled at her excitement and then quickly washed his face and shaved. He then changed into his best pants and shirt for the trip to town.
The new teacher, Katrina, would be arriving with another woman, Serena, who was to be Paul’s mail-order bride. Both women were Anna’s best friends. Luke knew that all three of them had grown up in an orphanage that was located in New York. When they were each around 12 years of age, they had traveled on an orphan train to a small town in Texas, where they were each taken in by a different family in that town.
Anna was the first to leave, coming a little over a year ago to be a mail-order bride for his younger brother, Alex. Soon after Alex married Anna, Paul had asked her if she knew of anyone who would want to be his bride and she had told him about Serena. At that time, Luke found himself offering to give her other friend, Katrina, the position of teacher when the school was built.
Luke had wanted to build a school on his ranch for quite a while. They lived quite far from the nearest town, Pine Valley. It took about two hours to drive to Pine Valley in a wagon, and so it was not realistic that his daughter travel that far for school every day. Luke and his brothers employed some men who had families of their own. He figured their children also needed schooling, so he decided to build their own school for the children of his ranch hands, his daughter, and any children who might live on other ranches close by.
The building had been completed a few weeks ago, just in time for the new teacher. He had also offered her a small home for her to live in, which was located nearby. When Luke thought of this cabin, he sighed in frustration. He had forgotten to send someone over to clean the cabin out. It had been used in the past for keeping supplies and to sleep in when the men were taking care of the cattle on that part of the ranch. He hoped he would be able to get someone to go out there and make it fairly presentable before they returned from town.
Luke grabbed his cowboy hat and fitted it on his head as he left the cabin. He quickly strode towards the nearby barn and was grateful to see, Red, his best ranch hand and foreman.
“Hey, Red, can you do something for me?” Luke questioned as both men entered the barn.
“Sure boss, what is it?”
“I completely forgot that I need that cabin near the new school to be cleaned out for the school teacher. Can you make sure that gets done sometime today?”
“I was planning on sending Dan out that way. Maybe he can swing by.”
“Good. Just tell him to sweep it up a bit and make sure there are a few supplies. It shouldn’t be too bad. I think a few men used it last winter, didn’t they?”
“Yep, I think so. Consider it done.” Red turned and walked a horse out of its stall and started to saddle it. “You know, my Aida is very excited for school to start. It was all I could to keep her from stowing away on your wagon this morning. She insisted she needed to go and make sure the teacher makes it back here safely.”
“She’s welcome to come,” Luke invited. “Just know it will be after lunch before we are back since Paul is going to get hitched and all.”
Red shook his head. “My wife needs her to help with William today. She wants to work in the garden.”
Luke nodded his head at the decision. “All right then. We will be leaving soon. I am glad we can leave the ranch in your capable hands.”
He half walked and half jogged to the main ranch house. He tried not to smile as he entered the room to mild chaos. Anna was washing the breakfast dishes while Alex and Paul finished up their meal. Sage had the promised ribbon in her hair and she was carrying dishes from the table to the sink, chatting as she went about her favorite subject, the new schoolteacher.
Alex and Paul were busy discussing the coming plans for the cattle drive that Paul would be in charge of. Paul was planning on leaving in a few days, leaving his new bride on the ranch while he was gone. Luke knew he was disappointed that Serena had not arrived sooner in the summer like she had originally planned. Now that she was arriving later with the new schoolteacher, Paul and Serena would marry and only be able to be together for a few days before he needed to leave.
“Hi, Pa,” Sage almost shouted when she saw them. “Can we leave now?”
“Can I eat breakfast first?” Luke asked his daughter, trying not to smile and encourage her excitement.
Sage tilted her head as if seriously thinking about his request. Luke chuckled and accepted the plate of eggs, ham and pancakes from Anna.
“I guess so,” Sage gravely gave her permission. “But can we leave after that?”
“I understand that you are excited, but we need to finish the morning chores. You will need to be patient,” Anna answered for Luke. He nodded his head slightly and gave a look of gratitude to Anna. Sometimes he had a hard time knowing how to deal with so much excitement in his daughter.
Luke quickly ate his breakfast while Anna directed Sage to pick up her wooden blocks that were scattered in the corner of the kitchen by the wood stove. Alex helped Anna finish washing the last of the dishes. Luke listened as Alex made sure Anna still felt good enough to go on the long wagon ride to the nearby town, Pine Valley, where they would be meeting the train. Luke knew Alex was concerned because she was due to give birth in less than a month. He listened as Anna firmly and almost curtly informed her husband she was fine and she wasn’t going to miss seeing her friends or Paul’s and Serena’s wedding for anything. Her comment made Luke remember how testy his late wife, Pamela, had been while she was carrying Sage, although he knew she had been testy for other reasons, too. Luke stood up and gave his empty plate to Anna to be washed and turned to Sage.
“Why don’t you come outside with me?” he asked her as he held his hand out. “Come help me check to make sure the wagons are ready to go.”
Sage tossed the last of the blocks into their box and ran to grab his hand. Outside, Luke could see two wagons that were hitched up to some of their largest horses and were ready to go near the closest barn. They had all agreed they needed two wagons so that after Paul’s wedding, he could drive back with Serena alone and they could take their time, while the others would return to the ranch.
Thirty minutes later, everyone was on their way to pick up Serena and Katrina. Luke drove one wagon with Sage while Alex, Anna and Paul drove in the other one.
For the first little while, Sage chatted in her usual way. She told Luke all about what she thought of the new teacher coming (which Luke had already heard multiple times) and about what she had played with Aida the day before (they played with their dolls and Aida’s brother lost his ball in a field). She wanted to know what the names of the birds were that she saw in the trees as they rode by (a crow, a meadowlark, and a robin). After answering the questions about the flowers she saw, Luke finally suggested she lay down in the back of the wagon bed to look at the clouds and see if she could find any animal pictures in them. Luke knew she was tired since she had not slept very much the night before because she was so excited for the events that were going to happen that day. He was hoping she would take a nap.
His idea worked and soon Sage was sound asleep. He sighed with relief as he continued to drive the wagon, following the wagon the others were in. He started to think about all the changes that had happened in the last few months. A little over a year ago, Alex had brought Anna to the ranch to be a mail-order bride to Luke. His brother had thought it would be a good idea to provide Luke with a bride because he was still struggling with his late wife, Pamela’s death. Luke, of course, did not appreciate the thought. The situation worked out because Alex ended up falling in love with Anna and married her instead. Luke shook his head and thought to himself that Alex really did not know him very well if he actually thought bringing in another woman would replace his wife.
Luke inadvertently started to think about Pamela. He remembered how he met her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, with her jet-black hair and dark eyes. She had come to visit some of her relatives on a nearby ranch for the summer and they met at a barn raising and dance. It was love at first sight for Luke. It took him a few months, but he was finally able to convince Pamela to agree to marry him and stay in Montana.
After the marriage, things went well for a while. He did his best to keep her happy since he knew she had given up a lot to marry him. She had come from a very influential family back east and had grown up with a lot of privileges. None of the smaller cabins had been built at that time and she hated living in the main ranch house with his brothers. Luke could understand that and immediately had their little cabin built so they could have some privacy.
Luke soon learned that nothing he did would keep Pamela happy. She constantly talked about wanting to move back east to be near her family. She hated the ranch, the cold winters, the dusty summers. Luke was not about to move and leave the ranch his father had given his life for. Ranching was all he knew. Even becoming pregnant with Sage did not change things. When Sage was born, he had hoped Pamela would settle down now that she was a mother, but Pamela was even more determined to return back east. She gave only the bare minimum of care to Sage.
Then one morning, when Sage was about three years old, Pamela had woken up with a bad pain in her lower stomach. At first, Luke had ignored her complaints since she was always complaining about some ailment to get out of doing any work, but by lunchtime that day, Luke realized the pain was real and had sent a ranch hand to Pine Valley for the doctor. By the time the doctor had arrived later that afternoon, it was too late. Pamela had died just an hour before. Once the doctor had heard of the symptoms, he had suspected her appendix had burst. There was nothing the doctor could have done.
After the initial shock of Pamela dying, Luke started to realize that although he had loved her when he married her, those feelings had slowly faded about the time Sage had been born. He had seen that Pamela had not cared about their daughter. After Sage’s arrival, he had continued to care about Pamela, mainly because she was the mother of their daughter. If she had not died, he knew he probably would have agreed to take her back east for a long visit.
About six months after her death, he decided to go through her belongings and send some of her things to her family back east. He wanted to keep some of Pamela’s things for Sage and maybe give the rest of her things to the reverend in town, who in turn could give the items to people who might need them.
After he went through most of her things, dividing her belongings into two piles to keep and to give away, he found a small wooden box. Inside, he discovered a stack of letters with a rose-colored ribbon tied around them. Thinking that they were letters from her family back east, he almost set the letters aside, but for some reason he decided to read the top letter. What he found changed his entire thinking of the female species and especially his late wife.
Evidently, Pamela had been writing another man for over a year before she died. Luke knew she had been receiving and sending letters quite often, but he attributed them to be letters from her family back east. He remembered how upset she was when she could not mail a letter because of the winter months. As he read the letters, he found out that she was actually planning on leaving him. She was going to take Sage and head back east to be with this man.
At first, Luke was shocked at what he was reading, but those feelings passed quickly, and extreme anger replaced them. Before he knew it, he found himself building a large fire out by the barn with the idea to burn the letters, but he ended up burning everything of Pamela’s. Even as he thought about these events now, he did not regret what he did. In a way, it was symbolic to him, burning away those years of his life. Eventually, he was able to admit to himself that he did not regret marrying Pamela because, if he hadn’t, he would not have Sage, and she was the best thing that happened to him.
CHAPTER 6
When they arrived in town, Luke made arrangements to park the wagons beside the blacksmith’s shop until after the wedding had taken place.
They made it to the train station just in time because about five minutes later the train pulled into the station. Anna walked up onto the platform holding Sage’s hand, showing excitement as people started to leave the train. A few moments later two women stepped off the train and Anna moved as quickly as her condition would let her towards them.
Luke watched the reunion between the three women and his eye
instantly went to the woman Anna was hugging. She was beautiful in her brown traveling dress. She had blond curly hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He turned away abruptly and wished he could just head back to the ranch by himself. The last thing he wanted was to be around a beautiful woman. He hoped this woman would be the one Paul was to marry.
“Come meet my friends,” Anna said as she gestured to the three brothers to come close to her. Luke reluctantly turned around for the introductions.
“This is Serena and Katrina,” Anna introduced her friends as she pointed to them. Then she pulled Alex close to her. “This is my husband, Alex, and his two brothers, Luke and Paul.”
Luke’s heart jumped a bit when he realized the woman with the blond hair was Katrina, the new schoolteacher.
****
Katrina stepped off the train behind Serena and watched as Anna walked up to them, holding a little girl’s hand. She noticed that her friend was expecting and it did not look like she had much longer before the baby was going to be born.
