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Chasing the Sun

Page 40

by Kaki Warner


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  A PREVIEW OF KAKI WARNER’S NEXT BOOK ...

  HEARTBREAK CREEK

  The first in an exciting new series about four

  unlikely brides who make their way west—and

  find love where they least expect it.

  COMING JULY 2011 FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!

  “NOT AGAIN!”

  Edwina Ladoux frowned at the tall stands of fir and spruce rolling slower and slower past the soot-streaked window at her shoulder. “We just stopped to put water in the tender. Why are we stopping again?”

  She should have been glad, relieved to delay the meeting looming ahead of her. But she was so weary of traveling she could scarcely think.

  Her sister, Prudence, leaned over to peer past her out the window. “Perhaps there’s been a rockslide. Or a tree has fallen across the tracks.” Sitting back, she smoothed the front of her traveling coat.

  Ever neat, Pru was. Sometimes such excessive attention to detail drove the imp in Edwina to do or say something to mess up that perfect order. But not today. Today—if this dratted train kept going—they would reach their destination, and the thought of that filled Edwina with such apprehension her stomach felt like it was stuffed with hot nails. “Maybe it’s another herd of buffalo,” she suggested, just to be saying something rather than allowing her thoughts to dwell on the man waiting for her.

  “I doubt it’s buffalo. They rarely range this far into the mountains. Perhaps a herd of bighorn sheep. They like mountainous terrain.”

  Oh, who cares? Biting back her irritation, Edwina stared stoically out the window. How like her sister to read up on the fauna and flora of the Rocky Mountains that they would soon call home, as if this journey was some grand adventure rather than an act of pure desperation. God.

  Then as suddenly as it had come, Edwina’s anger faded. None of this mess was Pru’s fault. She wasn’t the one who had answered the ad in the Matrimonial News. She hadn’t been the one who had decided to flee their home, their life, everything they’d ever known. In fact, Pru had tried several times to talk her out of it—was still trying. But Edwina had given her word and had signed her name. There was no going back now.

  Besides, if they did, McCready would make good on his threats.

  “Thank you for coming with me, Pru,” she said, still staring out the window so her sister wouldn’t see her tears. “I couldn’t have done

  this without you.”

  Pru’s hand closed over hers and gave a gentle squeeze. “And I couldn’t have stayed without you.”

  Blinking hard, Edwina tipped her head against the cool glass and studied the small canyon below with its fast-moving stream and toppled boulders and deep, dark forests pushing right up to the edge of the churning water. Back home, the bayous and rivers were sluggish and warm and brown, shaded by sycamores, stately cypress, and moss-draped oaks. By now, the redbuds and dogwoods would be blooming and the magnolia buds would be fattening for their annual summer display of fragrant, showy blossoms.

  A sudden, intense swell of homesickness almost choked her.

  Gone. All of it. Forever.

  The clackety-clack of the slowing train wheels gave way to the screech of brakes until, with a final shudder, the train came to a full stop. Passengers twisted in their seats, necks craning as vapor from the smokestack coiled around the windows like lost clouds.

  A few moments later, the door at the front of the passenger coach swung open and the conductor stepped inside. Stopping in the aisle between the two long rows of bench seats, he hooked his thumbs into his vest pockets and rocked back on his heels, lips pursed beneath a bushy, gray mustache that looped around his red-veined cheeks to join equally bushy muttonchop sideburns. He didn’t look happy.

  “There’s a problem, folks,” he began in a weary voice. “Five miles up the tracks, a washout took out the road and damaged the Damnation Creek trestle.”

  The passengers moved restively. “What does that mean?” a voice called out.

  “Means we’ll be stuck for a while.”

  Edwina perked up. A while? How long was “a while”?

  Raising his hands to quiet the angry muttering, the conductor explained. “They’re sending wagons to carry you around the washout to a nearby town. The railroad will put you up there until the trestle is repaired.”

  “How long?” a man called out.

  “A week. Maybe two.”

  Immediately, more voices rose. The conductor had to shout to continue, but Edwina scarcely heard a word. With something akin to giddiness, she turned to Pru. “We’re saved, praise the Lord.”

  Prudence sighed and shook her head. “A reprieve only. And since when do you praise the Lord?”

  “Since He caused the skies to open and the rains to fall.”

  Ignoring that, Pru leaned forward to attend the conductor’s words.

  But Edwina was feeling too euphoric to heed more than a word or phrase here and there—“hotel ... Heartbreak Creek ... don’t drink the water.” To her ear, it all meant the same thing. A delay. A blessed reprieve. She wouldn’t be meeting her new husband in Heartbreak Creek today as expected.

  Thank you, Lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Not that she wanted to put it off forever. Or could. The signed proxy papers were in her carpetbag, all nice and tidy and legal. And even though she had insisted on a two-month waiting period before actual consummation took place—Lord, how she dreaded going through that again—with every mile she had traveled from the ruins of her home in Louisiana, the more nervous she had become.

  It was madness. Ridiculous. The very idea that Edwina Ladoux, once the reigning belle of Sycamore Parish, should be reduced to marrying a complete stranger—a man who was apparently so hard up he had to advertise for a wife in a newspaper—was ludicrous.

  “Honest, hardworking widower, age thirty-three, seeks sturdy, English-speaking woman to help with mountain ranch and four children. Drinkers, whores, and gamblers need not apply.”

  Such a romantic.

  And one with rather low standards, Edwina thought. Yet she qualified—except for the “sturdy” part, since she had lost so much worry weight over the last months, her once willowy figure now had all the appeal of a flagpole. Nonetheless, she had bravely applied. A month later, a letter had arrived, containing the groom’s terse assessment of his own self, a tiny tintype photograph of an unsmiling, dark-haired man, and a few complimentary words from a traveling circuit judge.

  It was utterly absurd. The whole thing. Yet here she was.

  “At least they’ll be covering the cost of our accommodations in Heartbreak Creek until the tracks are repaired,” Pru muttered, drawing Edwina’s attention again. “So I guess you’ll have your reprieve. Unless, of course, your husband decides to travel the extra distance around the washout to come get us.”

  “Oh, Sister, pray he doesn’t.”

  Pru’s elbow poked her ribs. “Really, Edwina,” she warned in a low voice. “You must stop referring to me as your sister.”

  Edwina almost snorted. Prudence was more than her sister. She was her lifelong best friend, her confidant, the one who gave her courage when everything seemed so bleak. “You are my sister,” she argued, rubbing her bruised side.

  “Half sister. And to call attention to that fact is unseemly and casts your father in a poor light.”

  “Our father.”

  Pru pressed her full lips in a tight line, a clear indication she was losing patience. “Must you be so obstinate? If you’re trying to make a new start, Edwina, why carry old baggage along?”

  “Old baggage?” Edwina gave her a look of haughty disbelief. “Even though you’re twenty-seven and an entire year older than me, Sister, I’ve never considered you ‘baggage.’”

  Waving that aside, Pru went on in the same low voice. “There is no need to bandy it about that your father—”

  “Our father. Who adored your mother. As well he should.” Edwina was growing weary of this en
dless argument. Everyone at Rose Hill had loved Ester, who had taken on the role of Edwina’s mammy as soon as it had become apparent that Pricilla Ladoux was incapable of caring for her own child. If her father had been able, Charles Ladoux would have gladly married Pru’s mother; as it was, he was utterly devoted to her until the night the Yankees had swept through Sycamore Parish, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

  Inadvertently, Edwina’s gaze dropped to the fine, pale web of scars marring the brown skin that showed between the cuff and glove on Pru’s right wrist. Other scars, hidden by the long sleeve of her gray bombazine, stretched up her right arm and halfway across her chest and back. Burn scars, a gift from Edwina’s mother.

  Edwina had scars, too, although other than a few pale stripes across her back and fanny, they were of a more subtle kind, the kind that festered in the soul and left behind invisible wounds of doubt and guilt and distrust.

  “Be that as it may,” Pru went on. “Races don’t mix. It’s against the laws of man and God, and you know it.”

  “Here we go again.” Edwina hid a yawn behind her gloved hand. “If reason fails, bring out the Scriptures.”

  “Edwina!”

  “Well, really, Pru. If it’s true that white and black shouldn’t mix, you would be a drooling, cross-eyed hunchback with an extra ear. Instead, you’re beautiful.” She smiled prettily and batted her eyelashes. “Just like me.”

  Pru snorted. “Except for the hair and nose.”

  “Not as bad as the wart on my elbow,” Edwina chimed in. “And my less-than-ample bosom and—”

  A soft, feminine chuckle interrupted Edwina’s self-deprecation. Glancing past Prudence, she saw the blond woman across the aisle smiling at them. Edwina had seen the smartly dressed young woman several times over the last days, nearly always seated with another young, attractive woman toward the rear of the coach. But today, after the train had stopped in Santa Lucia to fill the tender with water, both women had moved to the vacant bench across the aisle from Pru.

  “Are you truly arguing about which of you is less attractive?” the woman asked, her green eyes dancing with amusement. Beautiful eyes, with a slight upward tilt at the outside corners that might have hinted at wide-eyed innocence if not for the hard knowledge behind the knowing smile. A Northerner, by her accent. Poor thing. No wonder she seemed jaded.

  Before Edwina could respond to the comment, the other woman, seated in the window seat, looked over with a wide smile. Where the blonde had shone a worldly-wise weariness beneath her cool green eyes, this sandy-haired lady seemed without artifice. An ingenuous, dimpled smile complemented intense chocolate-brown eyes that sparkled with such life and intelligence Edwina couldn’t help but smile back. “You are both too beautiful by half,” the woman said in a clipped English accent. “Your bone structure is superb, both of you.”

  Edwina wasn’t sure what to make of that. Usually, any compliments she received—mostly from men—involved her magnolia skin, which always sounded a bit sickly to her—or her glorious hair, which she thought was abysmally average, ranging from mouse brown to light brown, depending on how many lemons were available—and her soulful blue eyes, which were admittedly her best feature and the exact shade of the early-spring forget-me-nots that had bloomed along the garden wall back home.

  How sad that they, and the wall, and all the handsome young men with their pretty compliments were gone forever.

  “Excuse me for intruding.” The blond woman held out a hand encased in a finely sewn white kid glove. “I’m Lucinda Hathaway.”

  “Edwina Ladoux ... Brodie.” Leaning past Pru to take the proffered hand, she noted the gold ear bobs, the fine fabric of the blonde’s traveling cloak, the shiny button-top boots planted protectively against an expensive leather valise stowed under her seat. Even though Edwina had supported herself and Pru as a seamstress—barely—and was skilled at refitting made-over dresses to look stylish, she couldn’t help but feel dowdy in comparison to this pretty woman. “Of the New York Hathaways?” The Kendall sisters had a Yankee cousin named Hathaway.

  An odd look crossed the other woman’s face. She covered it with a smile that brought no warmth to her green eyes. “Perhaps.”

  “Madeline Wallace,” her seatmate chimed in, with a waggle of her fingers in Edwina and Pru’s direction. She wore no gloves, and Edwina could see a thick signet ring on her left hand. “But I prefer Maddie.”

  “You’re married?” Edwina was taken aback by the notion that a married woman would be traveling alone if she didn’t have to. Then realizing how rude that sounded, she quickly added, “I saw your ring.”

  Maddie held up her hand, palm out. She studied the thick gold band for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose I am married, although I haven’t heard from Angus in over three years. Perhaps he’s dead.” She showed a brief flash of distress at that startling announcement, then she let her hand fall back into her lap and smiled. “He’s Scottish,” she clarified, which clarified nothing. “A soldier. I couldn’t bear to stay another day with his family—they have low regard for the English, you know, and little hesitation in showing it—so I left.”

  “Good girl,” Lucinda murmured.

  “Left?” Edwina parroted, shocked by the notion of a woman simply heading off on her own to a foreign country just because she didn’t like living with her husband’s family.

  “I’m an expeditionary photographer,” Maddie said, as if that explained everything, which it didn’t. “A London publisher is paying me to capture the American West from a woman’s perspective. Isn’t that grand?”

  It was unbelievable. Edwina couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. It had taken all her courage to travel a thousand miles, much less cross an ocean to an unknown country. How daring. And terrifying. And admirable.

  “And you?” Lucinda inquired, jarring Edwina back to the conversation. “Do you live in this area?”

  Edwina blinked at her, wondering how to answer. “Yes. I mean, I plan to. That is to say, I will. Soon.”

  “She’s traveling to meet her husband,” Pru piped up in an attempt to translate Edwina’s garbled response.

  “How nice.” Lucinda’s voice carried a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

  “Not really,” Edwina said.

  Pru sighed.

  “Oh?”

  The two women across the aisle stared at her with brows raised and expectant expressions, so Edwina felt compelled to explain. “I’ve never met him, you see. We married in a proxy ceremony.”

  A moment of awkward, if not stunned, silence. A pitying look came into Lucinda eyes, but Maddie clapped her hands in delight. “A mail-order bride! How perfect! How utterly Western! You shall be my first subject! Won’t that be delightful?”

  Delightful in a ghoulish, horrifying way, Edwina thought, not sure she wanted her misery captured on tintype for all time.

  THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN THE WAGON TRANSPORTING THE passengers rolled to a muddy stop outside the hotel, Edwina decided that if Heartbreak Creek was an example of divine intervention on her behalf, then God was either extremely angry with her, or He had a macabre sense of humor.

  “Oh, my,” Maddie breathed, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm as she peered over the side rails. “I could take photographs here for a month.”

  “If we live that long,” Lucinda muttered. Clutching her leather valise in one hand, and raising her skirts in the other—much to the glee of three reprobates grinning from the doorway of the Red Eye Saloon next door to the hotel—she gingerly stepped out of the wagon, onto the mounting block, then up onto the boardwalk. With a look of distaste, she dropped her skirts and looked around. “Two weeks. Here. Surely they’re jesting.”

  Edwina climbed up onto the boardwalk beside her, followed by Maddie, then Prudence. Moving aside to make room for the other passengers clambering out of the wagon, the four women studied the town.

  It was a dismal place.

  Situated at the bottom of a steep-sided canyon, the town was a rat’s nest of
unpainted plank-sided buildings, dilapidated tents, sheds, and lean-tos, all sandwiched between a flooded creek and a single muddy dunghill of a street. And the crowning glory, perched on the rocky hillside north of the wretched town, was a sprawling, manyscaffolded edifice that looked more like a monstrous spider poised to strike than a working mine. The entire town had a haphazard, unfinished feel to it, like a collection of random afterthoughts thrown together by a confused mind.

  And yet, Edwina realized, if one looked beyond the eyesore of the mine, and the squalor and taint of decay that seemed to hang in the air like stale wood smoke, there was astounding beauty to be seen. Tall conifers rising a hundred feet. Stark cliffs sheened by cascading waterfalls that wound down the rocky slopes like frothy ribbons. High, white-capped peaks cutting a jagged edge against a cloudless blue sky. It was savage and mysterious, but it was also blessedly free of the ravages of war, and for that reason more than any other, Edwina liked it.

  “I wonder what they mine?” Maddie asked, squinting up at the sprawling hillside monstrosity.

  “Nothing lucrative,” Lucinda murmured, eyeing the ill-kempt, wide-eyed gawkers now spilling out of the saloon to get a better look at the ladies. “This place is one step from being a ghost town.”

  “A ghost town!” Maddie fairly glowed with excitement. “Two weeks won’t be long enough to do this marvelous place justice.”

  Lucinda rolled her eyes.

  Prudence nudged Edwina’s arm and nodded to where the conductor was crossing names off a list as the other passengers filed into the hotel. “Let’s get settled.”

  The Heartbreak Creek Hotel might have been—for a month or two, anyway—a thriving place. But years of neglect had reduced it to a bedraggled, rickety old dowager, barely clinging to the threadbare remnants of its brief glory. Sun-faded drapes, scuffed wainscoting against peeling wallpaper, once-lovely oil sconces now caked with soot and dust. Even the air that met them when they stepped through the open double doors smelled musty, laced with the lingering scents of stale cooking odors, tobacco smoke, and moldy carpets.

 

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