Teton Sunrise (Teton Romance Trilogy) (2 page)

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She still wasn’t done discussing that she wouldn’t marry Charlie, and by the look on his face, Henry wanted to present her with more bad news.

Henry held her elbow and guided her to one of the wooden chairs at the table in front of the hearth. She allowed him to pull the chair out for her, then sat and folded her hands in her lap. Seconds later, she rested them on top of the table. After Henry was seated across from her, she squared her shoulders and sat up straight.

“So, what else have you to tell me? I’ll listen, but the matter of my marriage to Charlie is still not settled.”

Henry cleared his throat, and shifted his weight in the chair. He stared at his hands resting on the table for a moment, then inhaled a deep breath and met her eyes.

“I sold the farm to him.” He paused,
then
clarified, “To Charlie.”

“You what?”
Evelyn sprang from her seat so quickly, the chair toppled over behind her. She braced her hands on the table and leaned forward. If steam came from her ears, she wouldn’t be surprised. Heat rose up her cheeks as it always did when she was angry.

“This is my home, Henry. This was Ma and Pa’s home. It’s your home. How could you sell it? We’re not destitute.” Tears of anger welled up in her eyes, and her brother’s face blurred.

“And it will remain your home,
Evie
.”

“I will not marry Charles Richardson,” she stated heatedly, and stomped her foot. Her hands fisted in front of her, and she resisting the urge to strike out and hit something.

Henry stood from his chair. “You have no choice,
Evie
. He will be here in the morning to claim his property, and to take you to the church to wed you.” His palm swiped across his forehead.

Evelyn sucked in a deep breath. She stared across the table at her brother as if she was seeing him for the first time. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and a sinking feeling swept over her. This was really happening. Henry’s face showed no hint that he was merely joking with her.

“What about you? What are you going to do, Henry?” she finally
asked,
her voice lifeless. Her gaze dropped to the ground. Henry was her legal guardian. He had every right to choose a husband for her. She never thought her brother would pick the man she would marry, especially not without asking her first. She and Henry had always been close. The fact that he took matters of such importance into his own hands hurt deeply.

Henry stepped around the table, and stood before her. He touched a hand to her shoulder. “I’m sorry,
Evie
,” he said softly. “Perhaps in time you’ll come to understand that I have your best interest in mind. Charlie will be a good husband. He will protect you and take care of you.”

Evelyn ducked around him to avoid his touch. “I wish you would have consulted me on this matter.” She turned on her heel to face him. “Why wouldn’t you allow me to pick my own husband?”

“You haven’t been interested in anyone,
Evie
,” Henry said, moving to the hearth. He stared into the dying flames of the fire. “Every suitor who has come around, you’ve repelled. You’re nineteen years old. It’s time you married.”

Evelyn was about to argue that she had no desire to marry, least of all a man who sparked no desire or warm feelings in her. Before she could speak, Henry turned to her and stared through narrowed eyelids.

“You can’t still be holding on to your childish fantasies about Alex, can you?” he asked.
“After what he did?”
His jaw muscles tightened, his eyes cold.

Evelyn straightened her back.
“Of course not.
How could you think such a thing? I just haven’t found the man I wish to marry.” She glanced away from his perusing eye.

“
Evie
.”
Henry spoke her name slowly. He waited until she made eye contact with him. “Alexander Walker is not the boy you remember. The quiet youth has turned into a savage.” He spoke the words almost viciously. “It’s no surprise, either. Look at his father, and how violent he was. The man killed his own wife. Alex has always had it in him to become just as ruthless, and I’ll wager that the wilderness has made him ten times more so.”

“I have no thoughts or feelings other than hatred and loathing for Alexander Walker, you can rest assured of that.” Evelyn spat his name as if it was poison on her tongue.

“He was my best friend,” Henry said as if to
himself
. He stared at Evelyn, his eyes unfocused. “He was my best friend, and he murdered . . . Ma and Pa in cold blood.” His voice cracked. Evelyn moved quickly across the space that separated her from her brother. She placed a comforting hand on his arm, the tears falling freely down her cheeks.

“I held Pa in my arms while he gasped his last breath,
Evie
.” The horrible memory was clearly written on Henry’s face. “If Charlie hadn’t come along when he did, and shot at the damn bastard while he ran like a coward, Alex might have killed me, too.”

“I know,” Evelyn whispered, and wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist. He held her tightly, a shudder passing through his body. Right now, she couldn’t be mad at him for what he had done. Right now, her brother needed consoling. The death of their parents a month ago had shaken him badly, as it had her. Evelyn was still not completely clear on the events that had transpired that fateful day.

At her mother’s request, Evelyn had stayed the week with an elderly friend of the family whose husband had taken ill. While the woman tended to her husband, Evelyn cooked for her, and took care of basic chores around the house. Charlie had sent a boy with a message for her to come home straight away; that something horrible had happened. She’d found her parents dead, her mother’s throat slashed with a knife, and her brother hovering like a little child over their dead father.

Apparently, Henry had already gone to the fields with the team of mules while his father finished some work in the barn. No one had seen nor heard from Alexander Walker in nearly six years.

At about the same time, Charlie had come to pick up a piece of harness that Evelyn’s father helped him repair. According to Charlie, Alex came charging out of the house and headed straight for him. Luckily, he carried his hunting rifle with him. Raising the rifle, he had shot Alex in the chest, but the shot must not have killed him, for he ran off into the woods, and once again disappeared. The sound of gunshot had alerted Henry, who came back from the fields in time to hear his father’s final gasp for air.

Evelyn eased her hold around her brother’s waist. “Without the farm, what are you going to do?” she asked again.

Henry took a step back. He gripped her upper arms. Staring intently into her eyes, his facial muscles hard, he said, “I’m going after the bastard who killed our folks.”

A quiet gasp escaped Evelyn’s throat. Her eyes grew wide with disbelief. “You can’t go after him, Henry. He’ll kill you. You know nothing about the wilderness.”

“He has to be brought to justice,
Evie
,” Henry said, his fingers biting almost painfully into her skin. “I’m going to make him pay for what he did.”

“I can’t lose you, too,” Evelyn pleaded. “Don’t do this, Henry. How will you even find him?”

“I’ve hired some men to take me up the Missouri into what’s known as the Yellowstone country. These men know the wilderness. They’ll help me find him.”

“When?”
Evelyn
asked,
her voice uncharacteristically shaky.

“I leave at first light.”

A sudden feeling of the world spinning and turning upside down came over her. In a matter of a few short minutes, her life was no longer her own, and she had lost everything she still held dear to her heart.

Chapter 2

Evelyn pulled the hat she wore further down onto her head and tucked some loose strands of hair under the cap. She wrapped Henry’s old wool coat tighter around herself, a slight shiver passing down her spine. Inhaling a deep breath, she hoped the fierce pounding of her heart would ease up, even as her apprehension grew. Her breath swirled in front of her as the early morning sun rose higher in the eastern horizon. She glanced at the many boats anchored along the banks of the Missouri River. The docks were already teaming with dozens of men loading and unloading cargo.

Her eyes traveled along the line of flatboats, barges, and longer keelboats until she spotted Henry standing with a rough-looking group of men near the plank of a keelboat. He looked out of place in his wool trousers and jacket, while the others were dressed mostly in buckskins and furs, many of them wearing fur hats. Each one of them appeared to be well armed with rifles and an assortment of weaponry hanging off their belts. Where had Henry found such an objectionable bunch of men to take him into the wilderness? Evelyn absently rubbed her fingers against the palms of her suddenly sweaty hands. She glanced over her shoulder at the path she had just come from. There was still time to turn around.

Squaring her shoulders, Evelyn raised her chin. She was not about to turn back. She had already made up her mind last night about what she was going to do. Having lost her appetite after Henry’s announcement that he planned to pursue Alex, and that he had given her away in marriage to someone she barely tolerated, she’d retired to her room. Tears of despair had rolled freely down her cheeks, followed quickly by tears of anger. A plan had slowly formed in her mind. She would not be left behind. Even if she remained at the farm that had always been her home, it would no longer be her home.

If Henry was going to apprehend Alex, then she wanted to be there to look him in the eyes and demand answers. Why had he killed her parents after everything her ma and pa had done for him while he was growing up? Her mother had tended to the injuries inflicted by his father as best as she knew how, and treated him like a son. Often, he’d spend several days at the farm before returning to his own family. How could he kill the people who had been so kind to him?

Alex has always had it in him to become just as ruthless as his father, and the wilderness has made him ten times more so.
Henry’s words echoed in her mind. If that were so, then how did Henry figure to apprehend him? Henry was a farmer. He could shoot an occasional buck or snare a rabbit when called for, but he was not a killer. One glance at the men who stood with her brother gave her the answer she needed. Perhaps her brother had chosen wisely when he hired the men who now surrounded him. Not only would they protect her brother, they would also hunt down Alex and bring him to justice.

Her lips curved in a quick smile. Henry would be spitting mad when he found out that he couldn’t get rid of her so quickly. She glanced down at the britches she wore. She had spent the better part of the night altering a pair of Henry’s old pants and shirt to fit her slighter form. By wearing men’s clothes, combined with the heavy coat she wore, she hoped to keep her gender disguised at least until they were far enough away from St. Louis, and it would be too late to turn around.

Her ploy had worked before when she was younger. Many years ago she’d donned Henry’s old clothes when her mother forbade her to watch the men castrate calves. Her mother had been adamant that it was not something for a girl to watch. Her disguise had been successful then, so why not now? This would be her only chance to follow her brother. Once she confronted Henry, he would have no choice but to bring her along. Scanning the hustle and bustle of men and horses along the shoreline, her eyes rested on the keelboat that her brother and his companions had just boarded. Now she only needed to figure out a way to get onto that boat without notice.

Slowly, she made her way to the docks, keeping her head down and her hands in her coat pockets as she walked. Amid the multitude of people going about their business, no one seemed to take notice of her. She moved between boxes of cargo, making her way toward her objective. If she could somehow manage to get on board the boat without being seen, she could hide among the freight goods until the vessel was well on its way up the Missouri. Her fingers wrapped around the bread she had rolled in a piece of cloth and stuffed into her coat pocket. At least she would have something to eat later on.

“Hey, boy!”

Evelyn stopped in her tracks. Her heart leapt up into her throat.  Slowly, she looked up to see who had shouted at her so gruffly. She expelled the breath she’d been holding when a young boy scurried past her to stop in front of a burly man wearing a sweat-stained cotton shirt and dirty britches. He looked as though he could lift an ox.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said eagerly.

“Take these here sacks up into that there boat.” He pointed to some burlap bags at his feet, then toward the boat Evelyn wanted to board. He tossed a couple of coins into the child’s open hand. The sacks looked much too big and heavy for the one boy to carry.

“Here, let me help you.” Evelyn quickly stepped up next to the boy, seizing her chance to get on board the boat. She made sure to keep her head down, lest the big burly man noticed her.