The Stranger's Secrets

by Beth Williamson

  Sarah cleared the lump that had taken up residence in her throat. “I’m sorry, Vic.”

  Vickie nodded, her blond curls bouncing gently with the movement. “I know you are, but you are still leaving, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. There’s nothing in the world going to keep me in Virginia. I need to clean my own slate and write the story I was meant to live.” Sarah picked up her traveling case and the small bag containing the books. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but my mind’s made up. You coming for that drink or not?”

  Uncomfortable with the conversation, Sarah waited while emotions flitted across Vickie’s face. She finally rose and took the small bag from Sarah’s hand. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  For the first time in many, many years, Sarah felt the sting of tears. She blinked them away and blew out the lamp.

  In the wee hours of the night, Sarah returned to her room, the whiskey washing through her veins like an old friend. She hadn’t intended on having more than one drink, but once they’d gotten started, it was difficult to stop.

  She’d miss Vickie, and telling her dear friend that had been too difficult to do. Instead she’d kept drinking until her vision had started to blur. Sarah had managed to say good night and give Vickie a very brief hug, and then she’d stumbled off to her room.

  What was wrong with her? She just couldn’t seem to allow anyone to know she had a heart. A cold bitch is what everyone saw.

  Sarah slid off her clothes and climbed into bed nude only to realize she wasn’t alone. A body lay next to her, a hot, hard body. She should’ve been afraid, but it wasn’t the first time Lorenzo had snuck into her room.

  “Cara mia, I’m sorry, I just had to try one more time.” His accent deepened as he skimmed his hand up her leg.

  She stopped him before he reached anything important. “I’ve told you before, I don’t have sex with my employees. Go back to your own bed.”

  “Ah, but I don’t work for you anymore.”

  Sarah could almost hear him smile in the darkness. Dammit, he was right, of course. She’d given her business interest to her friends, signing away the house and business she’d held on to for so long.

  “Doesn’t matter. Lorenzo, I’m not changing my mind about leaving. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to do this.” No matter what words were falling out of her mouth, her body was responding to his. Lorenzo’s calloused, strong hands kneaded her legs and feet, working their way up to her now-throbbing pussy.

  She didn’t want to be aroused by her friend, but in the inky blackness of the night, in her half-drunk state, her brain finally started working.

  “Get out.”

  “I can feel you heating to my touch. Mmmm, I can even smell you.” He tried to pull her closer.

  Sarah knew she needed to kick Lorenzo out of her bed for both their sakes.

  “Lorenzo, please get out. I will not ruin our friendship by letting you in my bed. Now get out now.” Her voice caught, but it stopped his wandering hands.

  “But I love you, Sarah. Please.” His pleading made her heart ache for him, but she couldn’t—she wouldn’t—do this with him.

  “I love you as a friend, Lorenzo. Nothing more.” Sarah rolled out of bed to her feet. She reached for her chemise. “Now if you don’t leave, I’ll shoot you in the ass.”

  He managed a chuckle, albeit a strangled, painful one. “There will never be another woman like you.”

  Sarah started shaking and it took a huge amount of effort to stand there and be strong. “There are better women than me.”

  Lorenzo slid out of bed with a heavy sigh. He stood and made a big show of pulling his pants on. By the time he was done, Sarah’s courage had reasserted itself. He was trying to manipulate her and it annoyed the hell out of her.

  “Start acting like a man, Lorenzo. I’m too old, too jaded and there is absolutely no future for you and me.” She opened the door and welcomed the cool air from the hallway. Her body was still half aroused and along with her anger had chased away any thought of sleep.

  He shuffled toward the door and stopped to take her hand. When his lips touched her skin, she sighed. Lorenzo was a good man; he deserved a good woman.

  “Good-bye, Lorenzo.”

  He nodded and left her alone. As Sarah watched him walk down the hallway, she let go of the last tie holding her to Virginia.

  Her new life was about to begin.

  Chapter Two

  September 1875, Baltimore, Maryland

  “You’re running away.”

  Whitman Kendrick stared at his mother. “Mother, I’m not running. I’m choosing to start my life over again somewhere else.”

  She turned away and walked toward the window. Her silver bun shone in the lamplight as her tiny form blocked the moonlight. The small house had been her home the last two years since he’d brought her to Maryland. She’d refused until the farm was repossessed by the bank. Then she’d had no choice but to accept her son’s help, which she called charity.

  Bonnie Kendrick was a proud woman, too proud sometimes for her own good. She’d passed on that overabundance of pride to Whit, much as he wanted to deny it.

  “You’re running plain and simple. Don’t tell me any different.” She shook her head. “I thought you were stronger than that, more like your father.”

  After an hour of listening to her, he was past annoyed and on his way to angry. Whitman gritted his teeth. “Don’t bring him into this.”

  “Why not?” She pointed one finger at him. “Whether or not you want to remember him, he was your father.”

  When Whit was twelve years old, his father had died from a mule kick on their farm in New York. The death of Bradford Kendrick had had a profound effect on his young son’s life, which flipped upside down.

  His relationship with his mother had turned into a twisted parody of what it had been. They’d spent the last twenty years or so trying to find a way to talk to each other. This was just another example of failing to find a way.

  “I said don’t bring him into this, Mother.”

  “You used to call me Mama. Do you remember that? Before those people turned you into a cold snob.” Bonnie didn’t believe in mincing words.

  Whitman bit back an angry retort. His mother knew exactly how to get his back up, and she seemed to enjoy doing it. “I grew out of a lot of things, including childish nicknames for you.”

  “Why Kansas City?” She sat down heavily in the chair she’d had since he could remember. It was the one piece of furniture along with her bed they’d taken from the farm. The green chair was as hideous as vomit, but she clung to it as if it held the ghost of her dead husband.

  “I’m traveling to Kansas City and then San Francisco.” He’d explained it a hundred times already. As he ran his hand through his hair, she stared hard at him.

  “Whit, you’re leaving me.” Her voice broke on the last word.

  So did Whitman’s anger. He knelt in front of her and took her small hands in his. “I’m not leaving you. I’m finally starting my own life. Can you understand that? I need to find my place in the world. All I know is it’s not in an army barracks, it’s not on a farm in New York, and it’s not in the boardroom at Kendrick Industries.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

  Whit made one last effort to make her understand. “It’s true. I can’t be happy here, no matter what. I’m not disappearing; I’m moving to someplace new. Maybe one day you’ll want to move there too.”

  She looked as if he’d told her to forget she had ever loved Bradford Kendrick. “Never.”

  “Then that’s your decision. This is mine. I’m going to California, by way of Kansas City.”

  He stood and started walking out of the room before she spoke again.

  “Who’s in Kansas City?”

  Whitman paused, his hand on the door. “My future.”

  On the train platform, Sarah spent her time sitting on the bench and watching other people. There was qu
ite a variety, from well-dressed older women to raggedy children begging for coins. As the sun rose on the horizon, the train at last pulled into the station. The urge to run to the train before it stopped moving nearly overwhelmed her.

  Sarah had spent the last ten years learning how to control her impulses, even if that control slipped now and again. She was proud of the fact she allowed a woman and her children to get on the train ahead of her. What she really wanted to do was push everyone out of the way and get the hell out of Virginia as fast as she could.

  However, Sarah hadn’t been able to run for so long, she doubted she could even manage a fast hobble. As she waited to walk up the steps, her heart did a funny flip as freedom came within reach. She sucked in a breath through her teeth, gritting them against the loss of control that threatened.

  “One, two, three. One, two, three,” she counted slowly under her breath until the woman and her children were safely on the train.

  When her right foot hit the first step, a man appeared from her left who apparently had abandoned all semblance of good manners. The bowler hat–wearing fool tried to push past her, without regard for the fact she was a woman, and a cripple, for all intents and purposes. Yet Sarah had learned a few tricks and the fool never knew what hit him.

  She whipped her cane around to smack him in the shin with a resounding crack, then hooked it around behind his knee and yanked. The obnoxious fool landed on his pinstriped, well-padded ass while Sarah made her way onto the train, a smirk in place of the grimace she normally wore.

  “If you’re fixin’ to sleep you’d best change your mind.”

  Sarah opened one eye to see Mavis Ledbetter grinning at her. She nearly regretted the impulse to pay the woman to be her companion to Colorado. God help both of them if the woman didn’t let her sleep off a hangover.

  “Why is that, Miss Ledbetter?” Sarah’s voice was rusty from exhaustion and too many drinks of whiskey.

  “There’s another passenger comin’ and he’s a big ’un.” Mavis pointed one bony finger toward the front of the car. She cackled.

  “There’s plenty of room beside you.” Sarah felt sleep tugging at her and she didn’t want to resist.

  “Oh no, he cain’t sit there. It wouldn’t be right.” Mavis fussed with her traveling bag, perched on the seat beside her. The four-seat compartment would be their temporary home from Virginia to Kansas City. Sarah had settled in comfortably while they waited for the train to leave the station.

  Now it appeared a stranger would join them, disrupting Sarah’s much needed nap.

  “Why wouldn’t it be right to sit near you, but it’s okay to sit by me?” Sarah pushed up her bunched-up coat after it slipped from beneath her head.

  “Well, I’m a respectable spinster and you’re, well, there ain’t nobody in town that didn’t know about you and your gentlemen callers at the boardinghouse, Miss Spalding.” Mavis clearly had no idea how to be diplomatic when she spoke. “I mean, we all done what we had to during the war, but you kept it up for ten years. Likely ain’t a man in twelve counties that don’t know you and your business.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and willed away the curse that threatened to appear as a result of the old woman’s accusations. “I am a businesswoman, Miss Ledbetter, not a whore.”

  “Six of one and half a dozen of the other.” Mavis shrugged. “I ain’t judging you, just saying the good Lord didn’t see fit to give me a man, so I’m as pure as I was the day I entered the world.”

  Sarah clenched her fists together and counted to ten.

  “Good morning, ladies.” The stranger’s voice was deep enough to make Sarah’s bones vibrate.

  She pretended to be asleep so she wouldn’t have to respond. After Mavis’s speech about how unpure Sarah was, well, she had no desire to even see a man much less talk to one.

  “Mornin’, sir.” Mavis sounded as sweet as honey, which made Sarah want to snort. She held it back through force of will, but it was a near thing.

  “I believe I have a seat in this compartment.”

  The first thing she noticed was the accent. He was a Yankee through and through, a kind of flat nasal tone permeating every syllable. Now she was glad she hadn’t spoken to him. Just hearing a Yankee speak made her break out in a cold sweat.

  One thing Sarah couldn’t stand to be around almost as much as carpetbaggers was Yankees.

  She could almost feel him looking her over, judging the clothing she wore with its scalloped edges, the fashionable hat covering her eyes, and the fancy shoes on her feet. Sarah didn’t care much for what he thought. She liked the way she looked, so he could go to hell if he didn’t like it.

  “You can sit next to Miss Spalding. She don’t mind.” Mavis was ever so helpful. Sarah wanted to kick her bony ass off the train.

  The man sat down. A whiff of bay rum, man, and something else wafted past Sarah’s nose. Good smells she had to force herself to ignore. She still didn’t open her eyes, unwilling to give in to the curiosity to see just how big the man was or perhaps how handsome he was. Men weren’t high on her list of priorities anyway—most of them were dumber than stumps. Especially one from the wrong half of the country.

  As the train finally pulled out of the station, Sarah settled back in the wooden seat and forced herself to keep her hands still. She needed to think of a way to ignore the Yankee who’d settled in her compartment.

  Whitman Kendrick didn’t know what to make of the woman beside him. She was tall, a bit thin, with outlandish clothes, and she was taking up more than half the seat. Whit wasn’t a small man, so half was barely enough to keep him from falling on his ass.

  However, being a gentleman, Whit couldn’t wake her up simply for his own comfort. He’d have to wait until she woke to politely ask her to move over.

  “My name is Miss Mavis Ledbetter.” The older woman had steel gray hair, a sugary sweet smile, and the most god-awful dull brown outfit. “And you are?”

  “Whitman Kendrick.” He managed a small smile before he looked away, hoping she’d get the hint he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

  “I detect an accent, Mr. Kendrick, that’s not from around these parts.” Obviously Miss Ledbetter wasn’t going to be the quiet companion he wanted. He could at least say the sleeping woman was.

  “No, ma’am. I’m not from Virginia originally.” Whitman wanted to get a book out of his traveling bag. Perhaps if he started reading, she’d stop talking.

  “I can’t quite put my finger on it. Where are you from exactly?” Miss Ledbetter smiled, a wide, toothy grin that didn’t make her any more attractive, unfortunately.

  The woman beside him suddenly spoke from beneath her hat. “For pity’s sake, Mavis. He’s a Yankee. It doesn’t matter where he’s from. Now if you could both keep it down, I’m trying to get some sleep.” She flipped her hat back and frowned at him.

  Whitman’s hard-to-rile anger stirred like a hibernating bear. The silver-eyed she-devil had thick brown, wavy hair shot with reds and golds. Currently her narrow gaze was sharply focused on him.

  “Excuse me.” He used his captain voice, sure to make most men snap to attention within a second. “I hadn’t realized I needed to get permission to speak in a compartment I paid for.”

  The woman sat up abruptly, nearly knocking him on his ass. She had some power behind her regardless of her thin frame. He grabbed hold of the back of the bench and pulled himself back up, knocking his hip into hers.

  “Sarah Spalding, mind your manners. I was just having a polite conversation with Mr. Kendrick. You’ve no call to take the man to task for simply conversing with me.” It appeared Miss Ledbetter would be an ally.

  Sarah Spalding.

  Her name even hissed like a cat, right along with her mouth. Whit took control of his runaway anger and swallowed it like a bitter pill. He couldn’t let this Southern belle ruin his ride to freedom. No sir.

  “Mavis, you are my employee, not my conscience. All I wanted was to get some sleep.” Sarah did sound tired if
not particularly polite.

  “Mrs. Spalding—”

  “That’s Miss,” she corrected.

  Somehow Whit wasn’t surprised she hadn’t snagged herself a husband. She wasn’t exactly friendly.

  “Miss Spalding, I am a passenger on this train, same as you. I plan on treating you with courtesy. I expect the same from you.”

  She snorted, surprising the hell out of him. “You leave me alone and I’ll do the same. That’s all I can promise.”

  His blood zinged through his body, and it was because of a woman who apparently didn’t want him in the compartment. Ironic that the one person to make him feel alive in ten years was the last person he should tangle with. Miss Sarah Spalding was obviously not interested in him and unpredictable. He’d do best to ignore her and focus on the heaven that awaited him.

  Whitman Kendrick was on his way to get married.

  Sarah wanted to shout at the big Yankee, but truth was, he’d been polite. She could’ve shown him the same, but she’d been half awake and still feeling guilty about leaving her friends behind. It embarrassed her to lose control since she’d fought so hard to get her emotions reined in. One word out of the man’s mouth and she’d almost become the raving teenager who’d turned as wild as the fields around their house.

  Those two years were blurry and unpleasant. Sarah did her best to forget all she had had to do to survive. This man, Whitman Kendrick, turned on all her survival instincts. She was hard-pressed not to be completely rude to him. However, she would keep control of herself if it killed her.

  Chapter Three

  The first stop on the two thousand–mile train ride was only two hours from where they began. Mr. Kendrick had fallen asleep, snoring almost louder than the sound of the damn train. She took great pleasure in watching him jerk awake when the train stopped. After all, he’d disturbed her slumber.