Worth the Wait: A Ladies of Harper's Station Novella

by Karen Witemeyer

  There was more to it, a freedom that resonated in the very core of her soul. Her guilt and secrets had chained her in a dungeon of her own making. A dungeon she’d wrongly believed would keep her safe, when in actuality it held her prisoner.

  But no more. She was out in the sunshine now, and she’d not go back. Freedom meant risking pain and disappointment and confrontations with evil, but it also enabled joy and a richness of life that superseded the mere existence she’d subjected herself to for the last several years. And perhaps, if God were very generous, it might even bring—she laid a hand on Ben’s arm—love.

  “Tori?” Ben’s brows rose, disappearing behind the bandage he wore.

  She tightened her hold and stared intently into his eyes. “We’ll have some details to work out with the logistics of courting in a women’s colony, but if your patience can hold out a little longer, and if you’re still interested . . .” Her lashes dropped. She couldn’t actually say the words. It would be far too forward. Wouldn’t it?

  Thank heavens she was sitting beside a man who had a tendency to ride to her rescue. She only waited a heartbeat before he cleared his throat and twisted to face her, leaving the horses to make their own way.

  “Miss Adams?” He straightened his spine, and addressed her with such a formal tone she felt the need to bite back her smile and heed him with solemnity. Not that it worked. Her grin kept breaking free, even when she used her teeth to hold onto her bottom lip.

  Ben had much more self-control. His face remained inscrutable. Well, except for the delight dancing in his gray eyes. A delight that made her heart race and her stomach flutter.

  “Miss Adams.” He repeated. “Are you giving me permission to call on you?”

  Tori did her best to play along. She gave a prim nod. “I am, sir. As long as your intentions are honorable.”

  Ben dropped the façade, reached between them, and stroked the edge of her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Tori, I plan to honor you all the days of my life.”

  He leaned close and touched his lips to her forehead. A tremor coursed down her neck and over her spine.

  “For better or for worse.”

  He kissed her temple, the tender caress stealing Tori’s breath.

  “For richer, for poorer.”

  He kissed the line of her jaw.

  “In sickness and in health.”

  His lips hovered a bare hairsbreadth away from hers.

  Please, she silently begged. Please.

  He crooked a finger and placed it beneath her chin, then slowly tilted her face to meet his at the right angle.

  “Until death do us part.”

  Finally his mouth met hers, and Tori caught her second glimpse of heaven that day. Warm, tender, and so full of love, her heart throbbed in response.

  Somewhere along the edges of her awareness, she felt the wagon slow to a halt and silently rejoiced. If the horses didn’t need their driver, she could keep his attention a little longer. And, oh, how she enjoyed his attention.

  Tori wrapped her arms around Ben’s neck and lifted herself closer to him, exulting at the feel of his arm circling her waist and his hand flattening against her back. This was where she belonged. In the arms of this man.

  “Mama? Are we home?”

  The sleepy voice jolted Tori. She jerked away from Ben, her cheeks warming even as her determination sparked. Instead of glancing into the wagon bed to address her son, she kept her gaze focused on the man beside her as she gave her answer.

  “Yes, Lewis,” she said, having no idea how far away they were from Harper’s Station and not caring in the slightest. “We’re home.”

  Keep reading for a special excerpt of Heart on the Line by Karen Witemeyer.

  Prologue

  JANUARY 1894

  DENVER, COLORADO

  An icy blast of wind hit Grace Mallory in the face as a customer opened the door to her Western Union office.

  “I’ll be right with you,” she called, closing the ladies’ magazine she’d been reading and pushing to her feet. It had been a slow day, the freezing temperatures no doubt keeping people close to their stoves and hearths.

  The door slammed closed, but it was the click of the lock turning that set her heart thumping.

  “What are you do—?” The words, along with her fear, died away when the customer turned. A pair of familiar brown eyes gazed at her from above the striped blue scarf that covered half the man’s face. “Daddy?”

  He grabbed at the scarf with frantic hands as if it were choking him. “Have to send a wire. Now. The rumors are true. All true.”

  “Calm down.” Grace rushed around the counter to help him unwind the scarf and brush the snow off the shoulders of his coat. “What rumors?”

  “The Haversham estate. There’s another heir.” He pushed away her hands and marched up to the counter. “A child by the first wife. A girl.” He pulled his fogged-over spectacles from his eyes and rubbed the lenses clean with the edge of his scarf. “She’s the rightful owner of Haversham House. Not the son.”

  Grace gasped. There’d been talk of another heir ever since Tremont Haversham died three months ago. Whispers. Innuendo. But no name. No proof. Grace had assumed the rumors had been built on wishful thinking by the miners and their families, who blamed Chaucer Haversham for the trials they’d been suffering ever since the bottom fell out of the silver market last summer.

  When his father’s health declined a year ago, Chaucer had taken over running the Silver Serpent mine in Willow Creek only to have it plunge into ruin after President Cleveland repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Whether it was stubborn pride, blind ambition, or even a noble desire to keep his father’s company in operation, Chaucer refused to close the mine. Instead, he demanded longer work hours from his miners with no additional compensation as he switched from mining silver to the more commonplace minerals of lead and zinc. Conditions were said to be deplorable, but with so many out-of-work miners, no one dared complain for fear they’d be replaced by one of their neighbors.

  “Quit your woolgathering, Gracie.” Her father’s impatience spurred her to action.

  Grace dashed back around the counter and grabbed a telegraph blank. Herschel Mallory was a scholar by nature. Quiet. Kind. A bit absentminded. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him so worked up.

  “Who do you want to wire?” she asked, pencil poised.

  “The Pinkertons.”

  Grace hesitated. “But doesn’t Chaucer Haversham have a pair of Pinkertons on his payroll? To keep the miners in line and prevent strikes. Wouldn’t they support his claim, no matter what proof you’ve uncovered?”

  “I want you to wire the Philadelphia office. A Detective Whitmore in particular.”

  She jotted the name on her form, needing no further explanation. Tremont Haversham had grown up in Philadelphia, married his first wife there—a woman of whom his wealthy family did not approve, or at least that was the version of the tale Grace had heard. She died in childbirth. The baby, too, or so it had been believed. Brokenhearted, Tremont Haversham returned to his family and within a year took a second wife, a woman of means and social standing this time. One who knew how to push her husband into a position of power, leadership, and great financial triumph. One who had given him a son.

  “Found your report to Tremont Haversham dated October 12, 1892.” Her father slung his satchel up onto the counter as he dictated his message. The bag thumped against the wooden shelf with the sound of heavy books. “If female still alive, she is rightful heir to Haversham fortune. I have documents to prove her claim. Need to dispatch to you immediately. Please advise. Herschel Mallory.”

  Grace finished scribbling the message then looked up into her father’s frantic eyes. “What did you find, Daddy?”

  As a scholar and professor of literature at the University of Denver, Herschel Mallory had been hired by Chaucer Haversham to catalog his father’s extensive library in the family’s Denver mansion. A mansion Chaucer
had inherited but never visited. From what she’d heard, he avoided Denver altogether, preferring the estate in Boston where his mother maintained a residence.

  Tremont and Caroline Haversham had lived separately for the last decade, Caroline seeing to the raising and education of their son while Tremont oversaw the mining operations. Apparently the situation suited both parties, a state Grace had always considered rather sad. She’d never met Chaucer Haversham, but she couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the boy who had grown up without a father. Her own father meant the world to her—his love and acceptance never in question.

  Her mother had been her mentor, teaching her to pick out the dots and dashes of Morse code as a child in her telegraph office, then guiding her in the ways of womanhood and domestic responsibilities. But when she died two years ago, the shared grief of that loss had bonded Grace and her father as tightly as if the broken halves of their hearts had been melted down, reshaped, and forged into an unbreakable, interlocking design. And it was that closeness that had her senses on full alert when her father fiddled with his satchel strap instead of answering her question.

  She reached out and covered his fidgeting gloved hand with her bare one. “Tell me, Daddy. What did you find?”

  “Proof, Gracie.” His gaze met hers, and the mix of dread and determination that confronted her set her stomach to cramping. “Proof that Haversham’s first child didn’t die with her mother. Proof that Haversham tried to find her. Proof that the odd wording of his will makes his daughter an heiress and his son simply a business owner.”

  “You found this proof in the library at Haversham House?”

  Her father nodded.

  “But if the documents are Mr. Haversham’s property, what can you possibly do about it?”

  He dropped his gaze.

  “Daddy?”

  He jerked his hand away from her touch and paced away from the counter. “The documents were Tremont Haversham’s property, and he’s dead. And if Chaucer’s not the true heir of the Denver mansion and its contents, then the documents don’t really belong to him, do they?”

  The knots in Grace’s stomach twisted. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself about. I just borrowed a couple books from the collection. Chaucer plans to sell them off anyway. It’s what he did with the art. Had an appraiser come in a week after his father’s funeral, then sold the finer pieces at auction by month’s end. He has no respect for his father beyond the price to be fetched from his belongings.” Herschel paced back toward the counter. “The books I took were ordinary editions. Nothing of monetary value. He won’t miss them.”

  Suddenly, the full satchel on her counter held a whole new significance. “You can’t just take them!”

  Her father’s face hardened. “I can’t stand by while an injustice is perpetrated, either. Tremont Haversham had a daughter, one stolen from him. One he desperately tried to find before his death. One, I believe, he loved very much.” His eyes softened as he looked at Grace. “I know what it is to have a daughter. And if anything ever separated her from me, I’d move heaven and earth to get her back.”

  Moisture gathered behind Grace’s eyes.

  “She needs to know her father loved her, Gracie. To have something to remember him by.” He paused, then patted the leather satchel. “There were letters, too. Love letters between Tremont and his first wife. Chaucer would burn them if he knew of their existence. I can’t let that happen. The daughter deserves a chance to know her parents.”

  Grace stared down at the telegraph blank and nibbled her lower lip.

  “Send the wire, Gracie,” her father urged, his voice gentle.

  She met his gaze a final time. The love in his eyes melted away the last slivers of icy indecision. She nodded, sat down at the key, and started tapping.

  Two days later they waited in a rented, second-floor hotel room across from the café where her father was scheduled to meet the agent Detective Whitmore had sent to gather the documents.

  Grace had expected her father to invite the Pinkerton to their home, but Herschel Mallory had grown increasingly anxious ever since a footman from Haversham House paid a call the evening after she’d sent the initial wire to Philadelphia. She’d recognized the distinctive carriage pulling away when she arrived home after work.

  Her father had insisted the servant had simply been checking up on him after his hasty departure that afternoon, but Grace feared it had been more than that. What if someone had noticed the missing books? Would they report her father to the marshal? Would they inform their master? How far would a man like Chaucer Haversham go to protect his inheritance?

  “Are you sure we can’t just turn the documents over to the marshal?” Grace clutched her father’s suit coat to her chest, the coat she was supposed to be helping him into.

  Her father shook his head and glanced over his shoulder at her. “As far as the local law is concerned, the books are Chaucer’s property. They have no obligation to investigate whatever may have been found inside. They’d simply return the items, and Chaucer would destroy them. I’ll only give them to Detective Whitmore or the man who carries his recommendation. No one else can be trusted.” He attempted to smile at her, but the sad twisting of his lips did nothing to reassure her. “Come, Gracie. Help me on with my coat.”

  Grace obeyed, loosening her grip and sliding the wool sleeves of the slightly rumpled suit jacket over his arms and up onto his shoulders. She stepped around him and tugged on his lapels until the coat hung evenly on his slender frame, then smoothed the fabric with her palms so the lapels lay flat against his chest.

  “Everything will work out for the best,” her father said. “You’ll see. The only people who know about this meeting are Detective Whitmore and the Pinkerton agent he assigned to collect the documents.”

  And the telegraph operator who received our message, as well as any others listening in on the line. Grace kept that disquieting thought to herself, though. Telegraph operators signed contracts of confidentiality, after all, vowing only to reveal message contents to intended parties. But operators were human. Susceptible to bribes. Threats.

  As were Pinkertons. She still didn’t like the fact that they had confided in the same agency that had agents working for the Silver Serpent mine. Chaucer Haversham’s pockets were deep. All it would take was the quiet promise of a payday spread by the agents already in his employ to convince someone in the Philadelphia office to pass on any suspicious information.

  But none of that could be helped. Her father was too noble to abandon a quest once begun. He was going to see this through, come what may. So she would see him through.

  “I love you, Daddy.” Grace glanced up from buttoning the top button on his vest. Something on his person was always coming undone. Buttons climbing out of their holes. Watch chains tangling. Scraps of folded papers falling out of his pockets. She forced a smile to her lips. “Be careful.”

  He smiled back, then leaned in and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I will, pet.” He winked at her then stepped over to the chest of drawers near the door to collect his satchel. He lifted the leather strap over his head and fitted the bag against his hip, tucked close to his belly. Then he settled his dark gray fedora on his head and straightened his posture. “Be watching for my signal.”

  Grace nodded. “Forehead, you’ll bring him here. Glasses, I’m to take the box and head for the carriage.”

  Her father grinned. “That’s my girl.” He reached for the door handle and let himself into the hall.

  Grace moved to close the door behind him, but he stuck his head back through the opening and stopped her motion.

  “Whatever happens, Gracie,” he said, “God will see us through.”

  Her throat grew tight.

  “I love you, girl.” His gaze held hers for a heartbeat, then he spun away and marched down the hall.

  “I love you, too, Daddy,” she whispered as she closed the door with a quiet click.

&nb
sp; It would take her father a few minutes to descend the hotel stairs and exit to the street, but Grace rushed to the window anyway, her gaze darting between the street below her and the café window across the way. Pedestrians meandered along the boardwalks, a few dashing between wagons and men on horseback to cross to the other side. The bustling scene matched that of any other Thursday morning, but Grace’s pulse throbbed a ragged rhythm anyway.

  Please watch over him, Lord.

  Even with Herschel Mallory’s determination to turn the documents over to the Pinkertons, he was still approaching this meeting with caution by not taking the actual books with him. His satchel carried old literature tomes from his personal library. The Haversham books rested in a pink and white hatbox pilfered from Grace’s closet, a disguise they’d decided most men would overlook.

  Her father had a table reserved next to the large, plate glass window at the front of the café. If the agent showed adequate proof that he’d been sent by Whitmore, her father would remove his hat and use his handkerchief to wipe his forehead, signaling Grace that all was well. If, on the other hand, the agent roused suspicion, her father would leave his hat in place and instead use his handkerchief to clean the lenses of his glasses. That was the signal for Grace to collect the bags they’d packed that morning along with the all-important hatbox and take the back stairs to the alley, where they’d paid a driver to hold a carriage for them. She was to purchase a ticket to Colorado Springs and wait for her father there.

  A movement outside caught her eye. A man stepped out from under the hotel awning, his fedora as familiar as the gray sack suit covering his shoulders. Daddy. Grace touched her fingers to the chilled window glass, wishing she was there beside him, holding his hand.

  He paused, waiting for a freight wagon to pass by, carefully avoiding the brown, snowy slush that splattered the edge of the boardwalk, then started across the street. At the midway point, a grubby specimen of a young boy dashed directly in front of her father, causing him to pull up short to avoid a collision. His hand instinctively dropped down to protect his satchel from the likely pickpocket, but it wasn’t the satchel he should have guarded.