hadn’t been a goal of hers, yet Ashton Kramer’s letter….
“What do you mean,” she asked, “someone should have met me? Where’s Mr. Kramer?”
The girl let out a long, heavy sigh. Tiny lines of compassion puckered the bit of forehead that stuck out below her red knitted hat. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, ma’am, but Ashton’s dead.”
Constance’s knees buckled. Only the girl’s tight hold kept her upright. “Don’t faint here,” Angel whispered. “They’ll settle on you like a flock of crows.”
Constance forced her leg muscles to work, while a lump of dread as weighty as her trunks swelled inside her stomach. “Dead?”
“Just keep walking, ma’am,” Angel coaxed. “We’ll sit down over in front of Link’s.” She waved a mitten-covered hand. “That’s the general store. See he has two chairs set outside the front door. You can make it, can’t you?”
Her feet grew heavier by the step, but Constance nodded, having barely heard the girl’s words with all the buzzing in her head. How could Ashton Kramer possibly be dead? His letter had said he was a young man, and healthy. Even she wasn’t so desperate she’d travel across the country to wed a dying man.
That little voice in the back of her head—the one she’d grown to loathe over the past months—disagreed. She most certainly was. Matter of fact, she’d been so desperate she’d traveled across the ocean after a dead man. A chair magically appeared beneath her and she fell onto it as her thoughts grew as uncontrollable as wild ivy, going in all directions yet tangling amongst itself until it went nowhere.
Since the moment she’d met Byron Carmichael her life had turned upside down, inside out and backward. And it hadn’t stopped with his death. It just kept getting worse and worse.
“What’s your name?”
The young girl knelt in front of her, looking up with big brown eyes. They were so clear and caring, Constance wondered if the girl was named Angel, or was an angel. She could certainly use one about now. “C-Constance Jennings,” she managed to eke out.
“Don’t worry,” Angel offered, sounding much older than she looked. “I won’t let any of them claim you. You’re safe with me.”
That would be her luck—getting a child angel instead of an adult one who could really help. Not wanting to hurt the girl’s feelings, Constance offered a tiny smile. “Thank you.” If only her mind would clear long enough for a concentrated thought to take hold, perhaps then she could fully comprehend what was happening.
“Angel!” The deep voice was followed by footsteps sounding off the boardwalk. “It’s time to head home.”
“Hey, Pa. I’d like you to meet Constance Jennings,” the girl answered, standing up.
Constance clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. The stiffness of the man’s features were as bitter as the frosty wind, and the scowl covering his face was even more fierce now than when he’d stood next to the wagon, glaring at the commotion.
“Constance, this is my father, Ellis Clayton,” Angel continued.
Tugging the collar of his sheepskin-lined coat up until it almost touched the wide brim of his hat, the man briefly nodded toward Constance—though his eyes never actually landed on her. “Time to go.”
“Pa, Miss Jennings needs to come home with us,” Angel said as calmly as if she’d just said it was cloudy today.
Constance flinched, and again when the frown on Ellis Clayton’s face grew as if a storm built inside him.
“Angel.” The warning tone in his voice was colder than the bitter wind.
“Pa.” Angel held her ground as firmly as someone twice her age. “Look at them.” She pointed toward the men who’d now gathered across the street from where Constance sat. “They’re circling in like a pack of wolves on a fresh kill.”
Constance shuddered, and the groan thickening her throat could no longer be contained.
Ellis Clayton glanced her way before he took his daughter’s arm. “Angel,” he said, his patience clearly spent. “She’s not one of the injured animals you’re always bringing home. You can’t save the world.”
“Maybe not, but I can save her.”
“Excuse me,” Constance started, ready to insist she didn’t need to be saved, but the man’s sideways glare made her lips clamp shut.
“What if it was me, Pa?” Angel continued. “What if I was in a strange town without a familiar face in sight? Wouldn’t you hope some kind stranger would take me in?”
Constance held her breath, both at the thought of such a young girl being on her own and at the bone-chilling wind gusts penetrating her layers of clothing.
“That’s not likely to happen. You’re my daughter and—”
“But what if? We don’t know what the future will bring. It could happen.” Beneath her heavy coat, the girl shrugged. “Somewhere, sometime, it could happen.”
The man rubbed his forehead, then glanced at the group of men and stared for an extended length of time. Constance’s heart throbbed in her stomach. She should say something. Offer some type of solution, but try as she might, she didn’t have one. Angel was very close to the truth. Constance did need a kind stranger. Her final fifty cents had paid for last night’s meal.
A shrill whistle split the air, followed by the crack of a whip. Groaning and creaking, the stage pulled away from the boardwalk. Moments later, dust swirled as the horses picked up speed. The animals appeared excited to leave the tiny town of Cottonwood, Wyoming Territory. For a moment, Constance pictured herself bundled beneath the buffalo robe on the bouncing stage seat. The vision faded along with the wagon, leaving her chest extremely heavy.
“Widow Wagner only has one spare room, Pa, and Reverend Stillman just settled in it. He came to perform the ceremony.”
Constance assumed the girl referenced the wedding between her and Ashton Kramer, which also explained how the reverend had known she was a mail-order bride even though she hadn’t provided the information when he’d climbed into the stage in Fort Laramie.
Time ticked by as Ellis Clayton’s gaze went from the men to the house the reverend had entered, and then landed on her. Though she was frozen stiff from the wind, heat penetrated Constance’s cheeks.
“You’re Ashton’s bride?” he finally asked.
Biting her lip, Constance managed a nod.
He didn’t respond, but Angel did. “She’ll need a decent coat, Pa. What she has on won’t get her halfway to the ranch.”
Constance tugged the gray shawl that had once been Aunt Theresa’s tighter around her shoulders. Bits of snow clung to the knitted yarn. The wind had picked up. It now carried swirling and growing flakes through the air with a stinging force. Once again, the girl was right. Constance had on her warmest dress, a beige wool two-piece, but had been close to freezing during the last leg of her journey, even with the buffalo robe.
Qualms
