dreadful fact brought a sharp pang around his rib; he rubbed it, trying to relieve the pain. What am I going to do about Camie?
Jack Toomey had shined shoes here as long as Ty had worn them. Ty smiled and returned Jack’s friendly good day. The shoeshine man’s dark face creased into a grin. “It’s going to be another scorcher.”
“’Fraid so, Jack.”
“When is it going to realize it’s fall?” As Jack blackened Ty’s shoe, he gave him a long, penetrating look. He lowered his eyes. “Coming home’s not easy. Takes time. Patience.”
Jack seemed to be one of the few who understood Ty’s suffering. The shoeshine man’s sympathetic insight wrapped itself around Ty’s vocal cords. Jack glanced up. Ty could only nod.
Jack’s gaze dropped to Ty’s shoes. “It’ll get better. It wasn’t easy going off to learn how to shoot people and it isn’t easy to put down the rifle and come back.”
Ty managed to grunt. No one said things like this to him. Everyone seemed to overlook how hard it was not to jump at any loud noise, or to walk out in the open without scanning his surroundings for people who wanted to kill him. Ty wondered for a moment what Jack would advise if Ty told him about Camie’s dilemma.
The thought of discussing this private trouble with someone other than family only showed how desperate he was becoming.
Two urchins had come up to a woman on the street begging. She turned from the wagon and stooped down so her face was level with the children’s. Through the moving stream of people on the street, Ty watched the unusual woman. The ragged, grimy children—a little girl who held a younger boy by the hand—nodded. “What’s she up to?” Ty muttered to Jack.
“She don’t look like the kind who would hurt a child,” Jack said, looking over his shoulder again as he continued polishing Ty’s shoe.
The woman started to help the little girl up onto the wagon.
Then it happened.
A towheaded boy of about ten or eleven ran by the woman. He snatched her purse, throwing her off balance. With a shocked outcry, she let go of the girl’s hand and fell to the dirt street. Ty leaped up to go to the lady’s aid. He shoved his way through the crowd. As he reached her and offered her his hand, Hal Hogan, a town policeman, appeared from the other direction. Red-faced, Hogan had his beefy hand clamped on the thief’s shoulder. The boy cursed and struggled to free himself in vain.
Ty helped the lady up. “Are you all right, miss?”
She ignored his question, turning toward the caught thief. She very obviously studied the child’s smudged and angry red face.
Hogan handed her back her purse and said in his gravelly voice, “I usually would have to keep the purse as evidence but since I witnessed the theft that won’t be necessary. Would you tell me how much money you are carrying, miss?”
The young woman hesitated, then said, “I think only around five dollars.” She looked into the thief’s face and asked, “If thee needed money, why didn’t thee just ask me? I would have given thee what I could.”
The boy sneered at her and made a derisive noise.
Hogan shook the boy, growling, “Show respect, you.” His expression and tone became polite as he said to her, “I saw the robbery and can handle this. No need for a lady like you to get involved in such sordid business.” Hogan pulled the brim of his hat and dragged the boy away.
“Please wait!” the woman called after him and moved to pursue Hogan.
“Hey, lady!” the wagon driver demanded. “Are we going now or not? I’ve got other people who are waiting for me to get you delivered and come back to the station.”
Ty had watched all this, his jaw tight from witnessing the theft and her fall. He touched the woman’s sleeve.
She looked into his face, her large blue eyes worried. How could this woman say so much with only her eyes? This near-theft troubled her. Again, Ty nearly offered his protection, but why? The thief had been caught. He tightened his reserve and asked in a cool, polite tone, “May I help you up into the wagon?”
With one last glance in the direction where Hogan and the miscreant had disappeared, she nodded. “If thee would, please.”
Then she gave him a smile that dazzled him. She was a pretty woman—until she smiled. Then she was an extraordinary beauty. Was it merely the high caliber of the smile that made the difference?
After he helped her up onto the buckboard seat, she murmured, “I thank thee.” She was barely seated when the drayman slapped the reins over his team and with a jerk, the horses took off.
The lady waved her thanks once more and over her shoulder sent him another sparkling smile. He found himself smiling in return, his heart lighter.
Dalton watched from the shadowy doorway across the busy road. One problem taken care of. That kid wouldn’t be making trouble for him anymore. But he didn’t like that woman in the gray bonnet. What was she talking to those two little beggars for? He’d been watching them for days, waiting till they were ready. He frowned. No use looking for trouble. As soon as Hogan had appeared and nabbed the kid, the two had disappeared. But they wouldn’t go far and soon they’d be ready for the picking. He smiled. The dishonest life was good.
Felicity turned forward, distinctly unsettled. The two hungry children had been frightened away and the boy arrested. This was not how she had envisioned starting out here. Would she be able to find the little pair again? She sighed. Her eyes threatened to shut of their own accord. Traveling by train for miles and days had whittled her down to nothing. She forced her eyes wide open, stiffened her weary back and folded her hands in her lap.
What she needed was a long hot bath, a good night’s sleep. But those would be hours away. “Just a few more miles to tote the weary load”—her mind sang the old slave lament. But that was deceiving. In spite of her fatigue, uncertainty and hope tugged at her like impatient children. Here in Illinois, her work, the work God had given her to help the children, would begin, not end. She had planned on arriving a month earlier, but her sister Verity had needed help after the delivery of her first son in Virginia. Felicity smiled, thinking of how proud Verity’s husband, Matt, had been of his son.
Then the recent touch of the man’s strong hand on her arm intruded on her thoughts, the sensation lingering. She inhaled deeply. The man who’d leapt to her aid was not one to be taken lightly. And the red welt on his cheek could be nothing but the mark of a saber. A veteran like so many others. And with such sad eyes.
The wagon turned the corner. And there were the little girl and boy. The little girl was waving frantically, jumping up and down. “Lady! Lady!”
Felicity grabbed the reins. “Whoa!” The team halted, stomping, snorting and throwing back their heads. The drayman shouted at her for interfering with his driving. Thrilled to find the two so easily, she ignored him. She reached down with both hands and helped the children up. They crowded around her feet. The children were ragged, very thin, tanned by the sun and had tangled dark hair and solemn eyes.
She turned to the burly, whiskered driver and beamed. “I apologize and promise to make thee no more trouble.”
The
