style="font-size:15px;"> As they walked out the door, the two women in front, Luke grabbed a hunk of bread from Olivia’s sack. He ripped at it with his teeth, like a hungry tiger chewing on flesh. The man was truly an animal.
God, he couldn’t be a friend of Daniel’s.
A quarter moon lit the deserted street and houses. Orange leaves swirled at their feet. Huddling together, the women walked ahead of Luke and his horse. Where were they going? Jenny squeezed Olivia’s trembling arm.
Trains hissed in the railway yard behind the far trees. They were headed in that direction. Good. Jenny breathed faster, gulping down the scents of damp earth and oil. They d be more visible on a train than by horse. Other passengers might come to their aid.
Their captor directed them around some tall pines. A number of railway cars sat in the station. As a result of the derailment, the trains headed south had no place to go. But her father had told her the trains headed north to Wyoming or east to Omaha were still running on time. This brute had obviously timed his departure well, for the Wyoming train was whistling, as if waiting for them.
In the distance, above the rumble of the steam engine and the clatter of baggage being loaded, she heard the conductor call, “Thirty minutes to departure.”
They approached the train from the shadows. Glancing down the line of cars toward the platform, past the trunks and crates of vegetables, Jenny spotted a crowd. Capes and bonnets, walking canes and cowboy hats. Her muscles tightened with hope. Did she recognize any faces? They weren’t in anyone’s line of vision yet, but another fifty yards and she’d yell out to them.
She dodged a puddle. The train hissed and she jumped back in alarm.
A gun dug into Jenny’s back and she was forced to keep walking. So help her, the first chance she got, she’d hold a gun to his head and let him know how it felt.
They passed an open boxcar stamped Union Pacific, and a short, blond man stepped out from the shadows. “Boss?”
Oh, no, thought Jenny, Luke knew him. The lithe stranger, who had a wide, flat nose and muttonchop sideburns, guided Luke’s horse up a makeshift ramp. He glanced at them. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask, Tom, I’ll explain later. I didn’t get to Daniel, but I’ve got his woman and her friend. Forget about the tickets—we’ll have to stay with the horses and women. We’ll split them up. You take this one,” he said, tossing a shocked Olivia into the man’s arms. “The blonde comes with me.”
Panic welled in Jenny’s throat. She staggered back and screamed, as loudly as she could, at precisely the same time as the steam engine blew its whistle.
No one heard her except Luke. Her cries were muffled as he threw her into the car behind his horse. Her gown twisted up around her thighs, and her feathered shawl dropped to the tracks. Luke dove in on top of her, squashing her between the solid wooden floor and his hard muscled body. Her chest felt like it would burst.
Never in all her life had she been so mistreated, had she wished a fellow human being harm.
Before she had time to blink, he rolled off her and slid the rickety door closed behind them. Seized with dread, she watched his lean profile melt into a swirl of blackness.
Good Lord, what would he do next?
In the cool, quiet hours near midnight, Luke stared into the darkness. Now he had to face up to what he’d done.
With a mean-awful pounding in his ribs, he dragged himself to his feet. The railcar bounced and swayed beneath him. The cramp in his calf squeezed tighter and he shook it out. He’d been lying so long in one position, pinning Jenny down so she couldn’t bolt and spook the horses, that his muscles needed release.
Sighing, he sought out her curvy shape on the straw. She wore the jacket he’d given her for the cool night, and she was breathing steady in a deep sleep. Fighting him at first, she’d finally simmered when he threatened to harm her friend. Empty threats, but they’d worked.
Luke’s bay whinnied. Another horse, belonging to another passenger, stirred beside him. Tugging the scarred door open, Luke gazed up at purple sky and twinkling stars. A branch scraped along the train’s side and he ducked his leg to avoid it. Judging by the silhouette of mountains, they were close to the territory border, had maybe even crossed it. By early morning, they’d reach Cheyenne. The next train from Denver was tomorrow, and he expected Daniel to be on it.
Thank God, Maria had told Luke the truth before she’d died. She’d lived in the boardinghouse, accepting the measly dollars Daniel sent her monthly—just enough to keep her mouth shut about the paternity of the boy, to keep her hovering above poverty.
For five years, as Maria worked the lunch hours, she’d kept the boy by her side. Luke had shooed Adam out of the way at every opportunity, never spending more than five minutes with him. Hadn’t he even told Maria to try to keep Adam hidden? That having the boy around wasn’t good for business? Luke burned with shame. After Maria’s death, he’d taken a hard look at himself and realized he’d treated his horse better than he had the kid.
Sure, in the end, when she’d suffered that horrible sore throat from diphtheria, Luke had stepped in, taking Adam to his friends’ ranch to protect the boy from getting sick. But that hadn’t worked so well, either, had it? She’d died so soon, the boy hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. Luke knew what that felt like. A hole that never got filled.
Hadn’t he missed the opportunity to say goodbye to his old man? He’d heard the applause from the hanging, though. He’d been sitting on the bench behind the courthouse beside his brothers, all spiffed up, their mother in her worn-out Sunday dress, begging the judge to release their pa.
Looking back on it now, he knew the hanging was inevitable. Cattle rustling, a shoot-out with the sheriff, one dead deputy… But as a sparkly eyed six-year-old kid, with two optimistic brothers and a frantically hopeful mother, they thought the judge would show leniency.
None of them had said goodbye.
Luke sighed, bone-tired of it all. Daniel’s family had taken him in, saying they could use the extra hand on such a big ranch, with only one child of their own to help. For the first few years, he and Daniel were the best of friends. But as soon as Daniel’s friends—especially the young women—started paying Luke attention, and Luke’s abilities with horses and guns outstripped Daniel’s, a rivalry grew.
Not on Luke’s part. But during Luke’s troubled teen years, marked by petty crimes that followed his mother’s death and his brothers abandoning Cheyenne and Luke as a result—well, Daniel had gloated. The two hadn’t spoken in years, not since Daniel moved to Denver.
What happened to the good person Daniel used to be? Did he deserve another chance? Would marriage to Jenny straighten him out?
She seemed like a good woman. She had guts and stamina. And out here, where men outnumbered women eight to one, the strength of men depended on the strength of their women. Once Jenny married Daniel, she’d be stepmother to Adam. She’d make a good one, too. She’d been kind enough to help Luke, hadn’t she?
And how had he repaid her kindness? He stirred uneasily.
Forcing himself to look at the moving ground outside instead of the captivating woman inside, Luke ran a hand over his bandaged chest and moaned. The whiskey stains had dried. He’d
