“I’m glad, Chris, because it doesn’t matter to me. You aren’t your father. You aren’t your brothers.”
“No, I’m not. But that isn’t all there is to it.”
She put out her hand. “Then tell me everything.”
Chris chose his words carefully. “For years I was convinced that their bad blood tainted us all. Then Wesley helped me see little by little that the blood of Jesus made everything right.” He had longed to explain himself, and now seemed the right time. He covered Mary’s hand with his. “Are you sure you want to hear this now? It isn’t a short story, and you have had quite the evening.”
Her brown eyes narrowed. “I’m just fine, Christopher Williams, and if you think for one second you’re getting out of here without telling me everything, you’re mistaken.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, trying his best to sound like an obedient child. She smiled. “You see, I wasn’t an anticipated addition to my family. My mother was very ill when she gave birth to my brother Raymond, and the doctor told her she’d never have another baby. Twelve years later I came along, and it set the entire family on its ear.”
“How so?”
The train jerked into motion. He let go of Mary’s hand and leaned back in his chair. “My birth weakened my mother’s health, and she wasn’t able to keep up with all the demands my father put on her. They were always fighting. Well . . . he was always fighting. My mother did her best to say nothing and tolerate whatever he said and did.”
“How awful.” Mary’s dark eyes met his. “I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “It was a bleak time. Up until then, my mother had made most of the money for the family. She taught piano lessons and took in laundry. After my birth, she didn’t have the energy to do much at all, so there was never money or food. My father liked to gamble and please himself. My brothers too. They womanized and caused problems for most everybody, usually just taking what they wanted. But my mother believed God would change their hearts and provide for us. She used to tell me that she prayed God would give me a better life. I didn’t think much of God. He seemed just as scary and mean as my earthly father. When my mother was able to sneak us out to go to church, the preacher always talked about the wrath of God.”
“But what about His love?” Mary interrupted. “I mean, my own faith was wrapped up with my grandparents’ beliefs, but at least I knew God was good and wanted good things for us.”
Chris nodded. “My mother said the same thing, but when all you live with is the example of anger and rage, it’s hard to imagine that love.” He shook his head. “Eventually I learned that my father and brothers robbed banks and anything else they thought profitable.
“When I was six, my father’s rage seemed completely out of control. He often beat my mother and me, when he could catch me. My mama hid me if she knew he was coming. He’d tear into her something fierce, demanding she tell him where I was. She took so many beatings for me.” He couldn’t keep the sorrow from his voice. “I didn’t understand how God could just stand by and let it happen. Even my brothers tried to make him stop, but that never boded well. My mother’s health was further compromised by the beatings and a broken heart, and I think she just gave up on life. Before she died, she gave me a little case full of newspaper clippings and told me they were about my grandmother—my father’s mother. She told me if anything ever happened to her, I should try to find my grandmother and she would take care of me. Not long after that, my mother died. She wasn’t even cold in the ground when my father and brothers tried to rob the First National Bank in Baltimore and got caught.
“When the sheriff showed up and found me all alone, he told me I would have to go to the orphan’s home, but I showed him my newspaper clippings, and he sent a message to my grandmother.”
“And she came?”
Chris nodded. “She did. She had no condemnation for the dirty, scrawny grandson she didn’t even know existed until that letter from the sheriff. She was all smiles and joy. She took me in her arms and hugged me close, the way my mama did. I’ll never forget what she said to me.”
“What was it?” Mary was completely caught up in his story.
“‘You will always have a home with me, and wherever you go, you will always be loved.’”
Mary met his gaze with a look of wonder. “What an amazing woman to say that to a child she didn’t even know.”
“Oh, she was amazing. She was everything I could have hoped for. I missed my mother something terrible, especially in that first year. I cried a lot, but Grandmother was never temperamental about it. She encouraged me to tell her the stories I remembered about Mama. She told me not to let go of the memories and even had me write down things Mama said to me and to journal what she looked like. There are no photographs of her. I suppose that’s one of my biggest regrets.”
Tears came to Mary’s eyes. “We had a big photograph of my mother. She died giving birth to my younger sister, Kate. I was just four, and I don’t remember her much.”
“That’s a hard thing for a child, isn’t it?”
Mary nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “It’s the hardest of anything I know. Losing August was terrible, and the pain will be with me for a long time. But not having your mother leaves such a deep wound. Losing your father too. I was just nine when he passed on. My oma and opa were already raising us children because Papa was unable to deal with the pain of losing Mama. He’d gone off and joined Buffalo Bill’s show, and we only saw him once in a while. Never enough.”
The gentle rocking of the train left Chris feeling drowsy and worn, but there was still so much to tell Mary. They continued talking well into the night, with Chris explaining more about the life he’d known in London and then the news about his father and brothers facing death.
“I kept track of them from afar,” he told Mary. “My grandmother wanted to know, and so I just kind of picked up where she left off. When I was old enough to take an interest, she just let me report to her what I found out. I was glad she died before she could learn they had killed someone. I know she was already heartbroken over their criminal records.”
“Why didn’t your father go to England with her when she remarried? Was he already a grown man?”
“By the time Grandmother and her husband left for England, my father was eighteen and married with a son, my brother Luke. The War Between the States had started, and he went to do his part—not because of any patriotism he felt, but for what he could get out of it. He was in trouble from the start for pilfering items off the dead.”
“That must have been hard on your grandmother. Was he her only child?”
“Not exactly. There were three others, but they died young. So in a way, he was her only one. I remember her heartbreak when she talked about him. She had such hopes for him, but when his father died, he was only twelve, and it wounded him deeply. It’s something I feel I can understand. I’m sure you can.”
“Yes. And it affects each person differently. I had a friend who lost his father in an accident working for the railroad. He was never the same after that. He went the same way your father did.”
“When my father was fifteen, my grandmother remarried. I remember her telling me that she hoped her new husband would be a comfort to my father, but it was the complete opposite of that. He wanted nothing to do with his stepfather and ran away. He wasn’t heard from for well over a year, and by the time they knew where he’d gone, he was already in with bad company and had no interest in rejoining his family.”
They fell silent. Chris felt drained from telling his story, but also lighter than he’d felt in years.
Mary got up and went to the sofa. She patted the cushion. “This is much more comfortable.”
Chris joined her. “Are you planning to work your charms on me?”
Laughing, Mary slipped her hand in his. “Would I have to work very hard?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”
For several long moments all they did
was stare into each other’s eyes. Chris had never known the emotions he was experiencing. He had never allowed himself to feel this strongly for fear of where it might lead.
“I’ve never been in love before, Mary,” he said. “I never wanted to risk it. I feared I would turn out like my father and brothers. After all, they were my blood kin, and even though my grandmother was too, my father was, well, closer in that line. I remember hearing sermons about the sins of the fathers revisited on the children, and I was certain that was God’s punishment to me. I knew I could never put that burden on someone else, and I was determined not to give my heart to anyone.”
“My situation was entirely different,” Mary countered, “but up until now, I’ve never been in love either. I grew up with everyone expecting me to marry Owen Douglas.”
“Your sister’s husband?”
“Yes. Owen and I were close friends, and everyone assumed we’d fall in love and marry. I do love him, but only as a brother. We were supposed to marry last year around this time, but then August died, and it made everything so clear. I couldn’t marry Owen. It wasn’t fair to him. I could never love him as a wife. It was only after releasing him that I learned my sister was in love with him and had been for some time. Funny how we almost miss blessings because we’re trying to force things to go our own way or the way someone else intended.”
“Yes.” He reached up and ran his finger down her cheek.
Mary simply held his gaze for a few moments, then pressed the conversation forward. “How did your grandmother die?”
“Old age. She once told me she hoped to outlive Queen Victoria. She didn’t. She died in 1897, shortly after I graduated from Oxford. I think she was just waiting for me to finish my schooling. She knew I wanted to write and encouraged me to return to the States and learn how to be an American. So after I laid her to rest beside my step-grandfather, I did just that.
“When I came to America, I traveled around for a while and saw everything I could. I found so much of it fascinating and kept all sorts of journals about what I saw and who I spoke with. Then one day when I was in New York, I learned about a magazine that wanted to focus on unusual places and people in America. It was just getting organized, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I put together a portfolio of information and pictures from my travels and went to the owner-editor. I told him I wanted to write for his magazine. He asked me what experience I had, and I spread out that portfolio on his desk.” Chris chuckled. “I think he was more than a little surprised.”
“And did he hire you on the spot?” Mary asked, her eyes twinkling in delight.
“He did, and that portfolio became a good part of his first six editions.”
“And what about your father and brothers? How did you find out they were sentenced to die?”
Chris frowned. “I had a detective agency sending me reports. When they escaped from prison and killed those guards, I knew that if they were ever caught, it would be the end of their lives. I suppose I reconciled myself to that truth because when I heard they had been recaptured, I concluded my dealings with the detective agency.
“You know,” he continued, “I never wanted to see them again. I suppose a part of me was afraid of what I’d find. I didn’t want revenge, though. I knew it wouldn’t bring my mother back. I didn’t even really want answers for why my father had taken that path in life. After all, it was his choice.” He shook his head. “The truth was . . . I never wanted anything from him or my brothers, but I went to see them because I thought they might need something from me.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Chris met her gaze. “Maybe forgiveness. Maybe understanding. Compassion.”
“Could you have honestly given that to them?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. They never asked for it, so I never had to consider it. All they had to offer was hatred and bitterness, and I’d already had a gut full of that in my first six years.”
“Did you . . . did you watch them die?”
He swallowed hard and pushed aside the memory that was forever etched in his brain. “I did. I don’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t pleasant, and—”
She put her hand in his. “You don’t ever have to talk about it unless you want to. The past isn’t really what I want to talk about anyway. I’m more interested in the future. You said you’d never fallen in love before. I want to know what you meant by that.”
A deep sense of relief washed over him, and he gave her a smile. “I meant that before falling in love with you, I’d never fallen in love with anyone else. I do love you, Mary. I can admit that now, although it’s still very new to me and I’m not sure where it will lead us.”
She shrugged. “There’s time to figure that out.”
He put his arm around her to pull her close. “May I kiss you, Mary Reichert?”
“You’ve done so twice before and not once have you asked.” She smiled. “Why now?”
He put his fingers under her chin. “It just seems the right thing to do. Maybe because now that I belong to God, I better understand the honor and respect I owe you.”
She sobered and nodded. “Then yes. Yes, you may kiss me.”
He pressed his lips to hers and savored the sweetness as she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. Images of the past disappeared into a vapor. Gone was the burden it had put on his heart.
“You know,” he whispered, pulling away, “if not for Wes helping me find my way to God, and God in turn giving me strength to face the past and consider the future . . . I think I would have run away like my father did.”
Mary shook her head. “Then I would have just had to come after you. You see, shooting isn’t the only thing I’m good at. I’m a fairly decent tracker as well.”
He saw the teasing gleam in her eye and laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Just keep me in your heart, Christopher Williams. That will be good enough.”
twenty-five
You may kiss your bride,” the minister instructed Wesley.
He wasted no time taking Lizzy in his arms. Mary watched as he kissed her passionately despite the church setting. When they separated, Lizzy’s face was flushed red, and Wes looked pleased with himself. Mary couldn’t help but giggle.
The newly married couple signed their marriage certificate while their guests gathered out front to toss wheat kernels on them as they exited the church. The wedding attendants made certain everyone had a handful of grain to throw, then waited patiently in the cold November air for the couple to emerge. Mary shivered as she stood as close to Chris as propriety allowed. She had been delighted when he told her that Wes wanted him to be one of his attendants, since Lizzy was having Mary and Ella. Phillip was Wesley’s best man, but as far as Mary was concerned, Chris was the better man.
For three weeks they’d been staying at the Brookstone ranch and getting to know each other better. Soon Chris would return to New York, and Mary would head back to Kansas to spend December and a bit of January with her grandparents. Her sister and Owen were due to have their first child shortly after the New Year, and Mary wanted to be there for that special occasion. But after that, Mary could only wonder what the future would hold.
“Here they come,” Phillip called from the open doorway. He jumped from the steps and took his place below with all of Lizzy and Wes’s friends and family.
“Hip-hip-hooray!” they all cheered and threw their wheat to bless the union.
Wes and Lizzy laughed and made their way down the middle of the gathering. Wes held fast to Lizzy as if he were afraid someone would steal her away. And maybe he had good reason. Chris had mentioned earlier that Phillip was arranging some silliness with the ranch hands to kidnap Wes.
The wedding party made its way down Main Street to the hotel where a grand reception and wedding breakfast awaited them. Mary clung to Christopher’s arm as they walked from the church. She shivered, finding her rose wool suit hardly sufficient against the early winter
temperatures. Unfortunately, she and the others had left their cloaks and coats at the hotel.
Chris put his arm around her. “I’m sorry you’re cold. It’s just a short walk, though, and I will keep you as warm as possible.”
“I’ve waited a long time for this wedding,” Mary said, watching Wes and Lizzy laughing and teasing each other as they hurried toward the hotel. “Lizzy has loved Wes since she was just a girl. It’s funny how people think children don’t know their own mind, don’t understand what’s truly important, but Lizzy always knew she belonged with Wes. The trouble was that Wes didn’t know he belonged with Lizzy.”
“Sometimes we fellas are difficult to get through to.” Chris smiled down at her. “I think your lips are actually turning blue. Maybe I should carry you the rest of the way.”
She laughed. “You can try. But being back at the ranch and not nearly so busy, I think I’ve gained twenty pounds.”
It was his turn to laugh. “Hardly. You are as trim and fit as ever.”
They finally reached the hotel and hurried inside its warmth. Mary sighed in relief. The church ladies had arranged everything. A large room had been laid out with a breakfast buffet. Two old men with guitars and one younger man with a fiddle sat in the corner, softly playing music.
“Wasn’t it a perfect wedding?” Rebecca Brookstone asked as she came forward to greet Mary.
“It was. Lizzy couldn’t have looked any more beautiful. Or happy.”
“Indeed. She’s happier than I’ve ever known her.” Mrs. Brookstone turned to Chris. “It’s certainly been a pleasure having you here with us. I’m sorry you have to leave so soon after the wedding.”
“Yes, well, my editor wants my article about this. He thinks the story of Brookstone’s most famous performer finally marrying will be the perfect conclusion to our featured series.”
“What are you going to do after that?” Mrs. Brookstone asked.
Chris shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I have the luxury of not having to work but the fortune of loving what I do. I think I’m going to write a book.”
Wherever You Go Page 26
