The Stranger's Secrets

by Beth Williamson

  He didn’t want to be attracted to her. She obviously didn’t like Yankees and wasn’t shy about letting him know. Aside from that, she had a big mouth, an even bigger chip on her shoulder, and she was absolutely the wrong woman for him.

  Whit was engaged, for God’s sake. Melissa was waiting for him in Kansas City, ready to start their new life in San Francisco. Yet he was traveling with a woman who knocked him sideways, making him question his sanity.

  What if she was the girl he’d thought about for the last twelve years? What then? He would definitely be the wrong man for her. He hadn’t helped her, hadn’t reported Booker, had done nothing but swallow the right thing to do, instead of doing it.

  Perhaps Sarah was a test for his promise to Melissa, his promise to the future. It would be a very long two weeks if that was the case. He’d need to keep thinking about Melissa’s sweet letters, and the image of what he thought she looked like.

  She was a small-town girl, and the simpleness of her life attracted Whitman. He’d lived in a cauldron of complex drama that wore on his nerves. When he’d lived on the farm in New York, it had been such a happy time in his life before his father died. Melissa represented a return to that life and he wanted to so badly, he could taste it on his tongue.

  Remembering where he was going and why helped tamp down the insane urge to kiss Sarah. It had come over him when he was on his knees in front of her, and it had stayed on his back as they left the hotel. Until they made it to the platform to board the train, Whit could hardly control his thoughts.

  As Sarah was walking up the steps into their compartment, she fell backward into Whit.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  The fact she cursed didn’t surprise Whit in the least. The feel of her in his arms hit him like a brick wall. Her scent, the softness of her curves, even the way her height matched his. All of it made him curse to himself.

  “She pushed me,” Sarah snapped as Whit set her back on her feet. “That bitch pushed me.”

  He didn’t have to ask who since he already knew. Apparently Mavis wasn’t going to go quietly into that good night. She was a vengeful creature who wanted Sarah to suffer for firing her. Any normal, sane person would accept it and move on. She’d gotten a train ticket in payment, and probably cash already, so there was no need to harm Sarah.

  Whit’s overactive protective instincts roared to life. A soldier was sworn to protect the innocent, and even if Sarah couldn’t be qualified as completely innocent, she didn’t deserve to be harassed.

  He helped Sarah to their compartment, then turned to look for Mavis Ledbetter. She deserved an adjustment to her attitude and he was the man to do it, with respect, of course.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Sarah’s voice stopped him in his tracks. She sounded annoyed at him.

  “To find Miss Ledbetter.” He never did like bullies.

  “Sit yourself back down then. I don’t need you to fight my battles, Kendrick.” She arranged her skirt on the seat, shaking off the dust from the walk over.

  “You’ll accept my help on this trip, but not my protection?” He snorted. “What kind of logic is that?”

  She gave him an impatient look. “Whoever said I have to be logical?”

  Whitman tried not to let his now active temper get loose yet again especially so early in the morning. The damn sun hadn’t even risen yet. A commotion out in the passageway distracted him before he could give Sarah a proper retort.

  “I have a ticket for this compartment and I will not allow you to stop me.” Mavis’s screech could be heard two states away.

  A low murmur of a man’s voice responded. Whitman stepped out to discover what was going on, grateful to have the opportunity to give Mavis a lesson in polite behavior.

  A porter stood there shaking his head. A fuming Mavis, with her hands on her hips, tried to push past him.

  “Ma’am, I told you, that ticket is for a seat in the public car up ahead, not the private compartments.” He was a big man with steel gray hair and a square jaw set in stone.

  Mavis stamped her foot. “That is not true. I was in there yesterday.” She spotted Whitman and her gaze narrowed.

  “Having trouble, Miss Ledbetter? You know what they say, what goes around comes around.” Whitman folded his arms across his chest. He ignored the little voice inside reminding him there were stains on his soul, worse than pushing a crippled woman—far worse.

  “It’s none of your business. Porter, this man is in the same compartment as me. Ask him.” She stuck a finger in the big man’s chest.

  “I don’t have to, ma’am. I can see on your ticket where you are supposed to be. Now if you don’t want to listen to me, you are welcome to disembark now.” He glanced at Whitman and nodded.

  “Tell him!” Mavis shouted. “Tell him I am a passenger in the private compartment.”

  “I am certain you are sitting where you deserve to sit.” Whitman was pleased to see a flush spread across her cheeks.

  “You have no right to judge me, Mr. Kendrick.” She put her nose in the air. “I saw the way you were looking at that whore last night.”

  That was the final straw for Whitman. His temper snapped as he stalked toward her. She must’ve seen something in his face because she yelped, picked up her skirts, and fled.

  “This isn’t the end, Mr. Kendrick,” she called over her shoulder.

  The porter turned a questioning gaze on Whitman. “Do you know her?”

  Whit grimaced. “She was a paid companion who wanted to do nothing to earn her wages.”

  “Looks as if someone changed her ticket.” The porter almost grinned. “I don’t blame that someone at all.”

  “Neither do I.” Whitman walked back to the compartment to ask that someone what she’d done.

  To his surprise, Sarah was reading, looking comfortable and calm, as if Mavis hadn’t shoved her off the train five minutes earlier.

  “What are you doing?” He sat down across from her.

  “Reading a book. It’s a binding with paper and ink formed into letters and words.” Her sarcasm knew no bounds.

  “What did you do to Mavis’s ticket?”

  “Nothing.”

  Whitman gritted his teeth. How could she get under his skin so quickly? “Yesterday she had a ticket for a private compartment. Today it’s a seat in the public car. Explain that.”

  Sarah closed the book and met his gaze. “I didn’t change it. Yesterday I paid the porter extra money to allow her to be in this compartment.”

  He had trouble absorbing what she said. Then it dawned on him that Sarah didn’t trust Mavis from the beginning. “You knew she was going to be trouble?”

  “No, there are only a few people in this world I trust, and none of them are on this train. I paid Mavis to accompany me. How far was up to her. She chose to stay with me for one day.” Sarah shrugged. “She still has a ticket and a week’s pay.”

  Whitman didn’t trust easily either, but he wasn’t nearly as distrustful as Sarah. She assumed the woman she hired to be her companion would leave her.

  “Why did you hire her in the first place?”

  “I needed someone to come with me. She responded to the advertisement and I hired her.” Sarah opened the book again.

  Whitman tried to puzzle out her reasoning but it eluded him. “I still don’t understand why you chose her.”

  Without looking up, Sarah spoke. “She was willing to leave Virginia.”

  Used to a military environment, Whitman didn’t normally question orders; he carried them out. However, he found himself wanting to find out exactly what made Sarah tick. She was obviously crippled and needed assistance to travel. Yet she hired someone whom she assumed would leave her stranded.

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here to help you?”

  A ghost of a smile flitted across her lips. “Believe it or not, I’ve been able to take care of myself for quite a while without anyone’s help.” This time when she looked up, her silver
eyes were hard. “I always expect the worst and I’m usually not disappointed.”

  Her words hit him like blows. He’d said them himself to his mother and his grandfather. Suddenly he knew why he was drawn to Sarah, why he found himself fascinated by her and desperate to know more about her.

  Sarah was a kindred spirit, a person with a hardened heart who viewed the world from behind a guarded wall.

  She was exactly like him.

  Whitman shook off the chill that crept up his spine at the revelation. There were many reasons he should keep his distance from her, not the least of which was his promise to Melissa. Yet he knew his fascination with Miss Sarah Spalding would only grow the more time they spent together.

  His journey toward a new life had just taken a hard left turn and all he could do was hold on for the ride.

  Sarah felt like squirming under Whitman’s gaze. He was staring at her as she attempted to read. The key word here was attempted—she couldn’t concentrate on the words. Having him watch her was an intense experience and she had to stop herself from yelling at him to stop. The man was obviously trying to puzzle out why she’d picked Mavis as a companion.

  And perhaps why she hadn’t trusted the woman for a minute. Sarah knew the other woman wouldn’t stay true to her promise and she didn’t disappoint. Whitman might be surprised Sarah would think that far ahead, but she always did. Well, at least for the last ten years anyway.

  Life seemed to enjoy kicking her in the teeth. She’d learned to avoid the blow by expecting the worst or hitting back first. What happened with Whitman was completely unexpected. She didn’t have time to duck.

  After she’d been nearly killed by the Yankee soldier, Sarah had clawed her way back to life. Despite her mother’s pitiful care, the lack of medicine and food, she’d survived what would have been fatal for most people.

  There were too many struggles since then to recount, not that she’d want to. Lean times were the standard for folks in the South following the war. For many, the war didn’t end after the surrender. They were the most dangerous of all.

  The very reason Sarah opened up her home as a boardinghouse was for protection in numbers. Women alone were easy pickings. It was how she found Vickie so long ago, at the mercy of some ex-soldier who found raping women more pleasurable than treating them like human beings.

  Sarah was as tough as nails, inside and out. Except, it seemed, when it came to one Yankee named Whitman Kendrick. He made her nervous, jittery, and aroused all at once. If she was smart, she’d find a way to get him out of her compartment.

  Yet she hadn’t, and somewhere deep inside, she knew she wouldn’t. And that bothered her more than anything.

  Whitman made her remember what it was like to be out of control, something she definitely didn’t want. She was helpless to stop it.

  He sat there watching her as the countryside flew past the windows. She tried to concentrate on the book but gave up when she read the same page eight times. Then she tried to take a nap, but even with her eyes closed, she could feel his gaze on her.

  She reached her breaking point after an hour.

  Sarah threw her arms up and gave up the battle trying to ignore him. “What is so interesting about me that you feel the urge to stare at me?”

  Whitman started as if her voice had jolted him out of a trance. At first he looked surprised and his mouth dropped open. He adjusted his jacket and sat up straighter.

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  Sarah barked out a laugh. “Damn right you were staring at me. Don’t bother trying to deny it.”

  His surprise widened at her words.

  “No ladies you know let loose and cuss? Well, too damn bad, because cussing is allowed in this compartment, like it or not.” She pointed at him, ignoring the slight tremor in her hand. “Are you going to stop staring at me?”

  Whitman opened his mouth to answer, then, instead of speaking, started laughing. Gut-busting, knee-slapping laughing. Sarah couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d stripped himself naked and run from the train.

  She expected him to act like a normal person, but he didn’t. Then again, she didn’t either. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons she was drawn to him.

  “What’s so funny?”

  When Whitman smiled at her, Sarah could have sworn the train jumped the tracks beneath her. She trembled at the impact. It was a beautiful, wide grin that lit up his entire face, hitting her with the fact that Whit was more than handsome—he was breathtakingly gorgeous.

  “You are. I’ve never met someone who could surprise me, confound me, and keep me on my toes. You, Sarah Spalding, are amazing.”

  His words washed over her like a warm waterfall on a cool day. Not many compliments had been thrown her way for a long time, certainly not from a handsome man. She tried to capture the moment, hold it as if it were a precious gem to put in her pocket and take out to admire again and again. Sarah didn’t believe herself to be a ninny or a scatterbrained fool. Men told women anything they wanted, which didn’t always mean the truth.

  However, the sincerity in Whitman’s eyes, and her own instincts, made her want to believe him.

  “Do you want some breakfast?” He pointed to the basket beside him on the seat. “Since I figured you didn’t have time to eat before we left the hotel, I had the waitress pack some food.”

  This time it was Sarah’s turn to struggle for something to say. He was handsome, kind, and charming. Shit, Whitman was nearly perfect. She could fall in love with him.

  Now she was more than scared—she was terrified. What she wanted to do was throw the basket and Whitman off the train. Instead, she retreated back into her shell.

  “No, I’m not hungry. Thank you anyway.” Her traitorous stomach took that moment to yowl like a coyote.

  Whitman cocked one dark eyebrow. “All right, then, if you do get hungry, I’ll set the basket next to you.”

  It tortured her. The basket sat there innocently enough, the smell of biscuits and possibly bacon wafting toward her. Self-control was hard to maintain under the onslaught of such culinary delights.

  Yet Sarah didn’t want Whitman to feel as though he was taking care of her. She would accept his help in leaving the train, and maybe getting to the hotel. But no more carrying her up the stairs and damn sure no more food.

  And certainly no more kissing.

  The thought trapped in her head, Sarah stopped herself before she reached for a biscuit.

  Kissing?

  Who’d been kissing whom? She hadn’t done any touching other than to hang on while the man carried her. There had been no kissing whatsoever.

  Whether or not she’d dreamed of kissing him was another story. One she refused to even crack the cover of.

  With a yowling stomach and a firm will, Sarah opened her book and tried to ignore the handsome, charming, considerate Yankee across from her.

  Whitman dreamed of Sarah. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep but the lull of the train grew too much and he nodded off. It had been a rough night of thinking way too much, so it wasn’t any wonder he lost the battle with wakefulness.

  She was standing on a hill, without a cane, near a huge tree whose arms spread at least thirty feet wide. The grass below her feet sparkled like emeralds in the bright sunshine while the whisper of the leaves spoke to the breeze caressing them.

  The day was warm, but not overly so. He wore no jacket, just a white shirt and trousers, as he walked up the hill toward her. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so content.

  Sarah’s hair was unbound and fluttered in the light wind. The sun made the wavy brown locks shimmer with reds and golds, like a living work of art. It was, however, her smile that captivated him.

  She’d been picking the petals from a perfect white daisy as he approached her. When she spotted him, her face lit up with a smile to rival the bright sunshine.

  Whitman knew the smile was for him alone and his heart slammed against his ribs. She was beautiful, like a Madonna on t
he hill awaiting him.

  “Whitman.” Her mouth moved but no sound came out. “Darling.”

  Darling?

  He tried to speak but found his mouth didn’t function. It felt heavy as if it were full of lead. The more he tried to talk the harder it became. She frowned and reached toward him, as clouds filled the sky, blocking out the sun.

  The perfect day began to turn gray before his eyes. He tried to grab her hands, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get close enough to touch her.

  Fear coated his tongue as the breeze turned into a whipping wind, making her white dress billow behind her. Her hair tangled in the branches as she was pushed backward by the force of the wind. She again called his name soundlessly and Whitman tried one last time to reach her.

  That’s when the entire tree, along with Sarah, disappeared in front of his eyes. She was sucked into the mouth of a tornado, her mouth open in a silent scream.

  “Sarah, no!” he shouted as he rose to his feet and reached for the wall of the train compartment.

  Whitman glanced down into Sarah’s very amused face. The book she was reading was forgotten as a grin crept around the corners of her mouth.

  “No, what?”

  He sat back down quickly, embarrassment washing over him. What the hell had happened? He’d fallen asleep and had the most vivid dream of his life.

  And Sarah had been the star.

  “I, uh, thought I saw a spider.” The excuse felt as stupid as he did.

  She nodded. “I appreciate your willingness to throw yourself in the path of the wicked spider to save me.”

  This time her sarcasm wasn’t funny. His emotions were still swaying back and forth like a pendulum. His temper, which he’d tried to keep on a leash, let loose.

  “You don’t always have to be such a bitch.”

  Now she looked more than surprised—she looked hurt. Whitman immediately felt bad for snapping at her, but there was nothing he could do to change it. Sarah had a way of reminding him of what it meant to be a soldier. A life he intended on leaving behind in the East.