Then it occurred to her that Barrett might think she’d be too much trouble if she were so helpless.
Then it’s time to set them both straight.
She swung her leg back over the side, but reined herself in when a woman and a teenage boy wearing an out-of-control cowlick joined the two men. The stocky youngster had to be Barrett’s son. His coloring, facial structure, and broad shoulders bore a striking resemblance to his father.
The woman scrunched her brow and glanced in Kit’s direction. Then she something that made Cullen laugh.
And what’s so damn funny?
He placed his hands behind his back and perused the small group. Although she couldn’t hear him, she could tell from his audiences’ rapt attention that he was speaking slowly and deliberately to each one. What was he saying? She watched his full lips hoping to pick up a word or two. Where did she get the notion she could trust him to plead her case? He’d been no help at the freight office. Just because he volunteered to assist her now, didn’t mean he had her best interest at heart.
Her foot pounded against the floorboard, rocking the wagon. “Come on. Come on. What’s taking so long?” She fingered the brooch in her pocket and wondered if Elliott knew she was gone yet. Did she make a mistake not including him? If he had come, she wouldn’t be sitting there feeling helpless.
While she was second guessing herself, the powwow concluded and Cullen sauntered back to her wagon with the man and boy in tow. If body language cues remained constant throughout the centuries, then in Cullen’s pointed gaze, she read success. From all appearances, she was on her way to South Pass. She loaded a smile with a spoonful of conjured up confidence, gathered her skirt, and climbed from the wagon.
“Mrs. MacKlenna, this is Mr. Barrett and his son, Adam. We talked about your predicament and worked out an agreement that will satisfy Captain Peters.”
It didn’t matter what the terms were, Kit would agree to anything. Then she remembered the way she’d been treated in the freight office and decided to listen, evaluate, and then make a decision. The terms might be more restrictive than she could live with.
She folded her arms across her chest. “What are they?”
“
A
dam will drive your wagon and take care of your stock for a salary of one hundred dollars. He’s to be paid twenty-five dollars now, twenty-five when we reach Fort Laramie, another twenty-five when we reach South Pass. The balance when we arrive in Oregon City.”
“Sounds—” She gulped back her surprise. Ten times that amount wouldn’t be enough. “—reasonable.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
“You’ll be responsible for your own food,” Cullen continued. “Mrs. Barrett invited you to contribute to their supplies and take meals with them.” He pulled a piece of paper from his vest pocket, pursed his lips, nodded, then shoved the note back into his pocket. “If these terms are suitable, a handshake will seal the deal.”
Barrett squinted his dark brown eyes at her. “Never shook hands with a woman ‘afore.” He removed his hat and threaded the brim through his fingers. Sun-streaked brown hair fell across his forehead. Full eyebrows, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and a square jaw framed a rather nice looking face, except for the sour expression. “My boy will work for you, but if’n he needs discipline, you leave that to me.”
Discipline a strapping young man a head taller? Not likely. “Yes, sir,” she said, in a respectful tone.”
He stuck out his frying-pan-sized hand with blunt-tipped fingers. His tender grip surprised her, and she couldn’t reconcile his touch with his displeased expression.
“I’ll be glad to pay you the entire amount in advance,” she said.
His eyes flickered, and he seemed to consider the offer. “The deal we struck is twenty-five dollars today.”
Cullen clapped Barrett on the shoulder. “Believe my work is done.” He held Kit’s gaze. “If you need anything more, Adam can find me.”
“I’m very grateful for your help.” Looking into his face now, she noticed slight differences between him and her ghost. Maybe it was a trick of the afternoon sun. Maybe not. Cullen had a fuller face and a sexy twinkle in his eyes. Her ghost always had sad eyes, sunken cheeks, and appeared twenty-five pounds leaner.
He tipped his hat and ambled back toward town, whistling Bach again. This time,
Violin Concerto in A Minor
. She knew Classical composures and was curious if his repertoire, like hers, extended into the Renaissance and Baroque eras, too.
Tate pointed his nose to the sky and howled.
A smile flashed across Adam’s face, a wrinkle-free version of his father’s. “Guess your dog don’t favor that kind of music.”
Kit patted Tate’s head. “He’s partial to banjos and guitars.”
A woman and two boys approached Barrett. They had remained a short distance away during the negotiations. “Mrs. MacKlenna, this here’s my wife, Sarah, and my other boys, Ben and Clint.”
The woman smiled, crinkling the corners of her light brown eyes. Where Barrett seemed off-putting, Mrs. Barrett seemed as sweet as a breath of spring air, radiating a similar calm spirit as Kit’s mother. A knot formed in her throat, and she twirled the ring on her finger.
“If you’ve a mind to, come sit a spell. We’ll talk.”
“That’d be nice,” Kit said.
Barrett gazed into his wife’s eyes. “While you ladies are visiting, I’ll borrow a buckboard to carry you to the mercantile.” He checked the time on his pocket watch. “I’ll be back in an hour.” He trailed the curve of his index finger down the back of his wife’s hand. The look in her eyes spoke to the love she had for him.
Kit glanced away and tried to swallow the knot growing to obstruction size in her throat. Her father always said a woman in love was like a blooming rose. She’d never bloomed, but then again, she’d never tried. Scars wrapped her heart inside a thorny thicket, and it would take someone with a machete to hack their way through.
Chapter Four
KIT AND SARAH returned to camp from their trip to the mercantile driving Kit’s newly purchased buckboard. After loading the covered wagons with a few pieces of furniture, food, and supplies there’d be no room left for people, and she didn’t want to walk to South Pass or put extra stress on Stormy riding him every day.
A little girl with soft brown curls and big brown eyes chased Tate around a stack of burlap bags. She laughed, the dog barked, and she laughed some more. Kit couldn’t remember the last time she played with him.
“That’s Elizabeth. She’s ten.” Sarah stood on tipped-toes and stretched her neck, searching the adjoining campsites. Then she pointed toward a child walking in their direction. “There’s Frances.” A note of relief sounded in Sarah’s voice. “She just turned eight.”
Frances Barrett is a child?
Kit climbed to the ground and swayed again. Quickly, she grabbed the side of the wagon with one hand then pressed the other against her queasy stomach.
I’m here because of an eight-year-old’s journal.
The possibility existed now that Elliott had been right when he said, “I call it fabricated.” But Kit had wanted to believe in Frances. And now? She honestly didn’t know.
Sarah whispered to Kit. “I fainted with each of mine. Let me fix you some fennel tea to settle your stomach.”
Each of mine.
Kit gasped. “Oh, I’m not pregnant. I just haven’t eaten much in the past few days.”
“You need to eat. Let me—”
“Thank you, but there’s no need.”
Sarah pursed her lips.
“I’ll eat in the hotel dining room tonight.” Kit worked up a smile, but it didn’t relieve the concern written on the woman’s face.
Frances folded to the ground at Kit’s feet like a marionette when the puppeteer sets the crossbar aside. Tabor jumped into her lap, and she giggled when he danced his long tail in her face. “Adam said you’re traveling with us. Will you be my sister like Elizabeth?”
Kit sat beside her on the ground, curious about the child. “I could be a sister or a friend.”
“Do you have brothers?”
“I’m an only child,” Kit said.
Frances placed her warm, tiny fingers on Kit’s hand. “Don’t be sad. One day you’ll have a baby and you won’t be alone ever again.”
What an odd thing for her to say
. Not even a baby would fill the loneliness that swam just below the surface of Kit’s life.
“If we’re going to be sisters, will you help me read the books Adam reads?”
“I’d love to help you.”
A smile touched her pretty, heart-shaped mouth. “Will you help Elizabeth too?”
“We should ask Elizabeth what she wants.”
“She wants the same as me. To be smart and go to university. Do you think girls can go to university?”
Intelligent and intuitive
. “I suspect you have the tenacity to go wherever you want and knock down doors if they won’t let you in.”
A frown crossed Frances’s face. “Then I’ll need Papa’s hammer.”
As a little girl, Kit’s father’s toolbox, full of wooden handles worn smooth and shaped to his grip, fascinated her. Several of the old tools were stored in the wagon with her supplies. “In case he won’t give up his, you can have mine. It was one of my father’s.”
A hint of mischief gleamed in Frances’s eyes, and Kit realized at that moment, the child was capable of anything.
HOURS LATER, KIT entered the Noland House dining room wearing a green silk taffeta dress with a deep neckline and white lace under-sleeves. Tan ribbons edged the matching jacket. Her mother had created the gown for the previous year’s Old Kentucky Farm Days Annual Gala. Kit and Scott had danced the quadrille under a canopy of stars until an emergency called him to the hospital. The next time they’d danced had been during the party on New Year’s Eve. She shivered as thoughts of the crash and the drunk driver who killed her parents and her friend punched through her fragile protective wall, leaving her edgy and on the verge of a panic attack.
Wearing the dress tonight added to the eerie sensation that she was crawling across a bridge spanning two worlds. The quicker she got to the other end, to South Pass, the quicker she could go home and attempt to rebuild her life—an alien thought.
The maitre d’hôtel seated her in the busy dining room’s front corner between a drafty window, and a fire blazing up the chimney. She looked about. From her vantage point, she could see most of the diners in the room and the crowded sidewalk outside. He handed her a menu and lit the candle in the center of the table. After a quick glance at the Bill of Fare, she decided to pass on the pig head, buffalo tongue, boned chicken a-la-happy-family, and settled for roasted venison and a bottle of Mumm’s Cabinet Champagne.
With a glass of wine and dinner on the way, she opened her journal to jot down a few notes and rein in her distressed thoughts. Instead, she drew caricatures of the people she’d met.
An hour later with an empty plate, a full stomach, and another glass of wine, she returned to her drawing of Cullen, draping him in a Montgomery plaid.
“Did you enjoy your supper?”
She jerked her head back, settling her gaze on a distinguished-looking man standing beside the table. Amusement played across his face. “Mr. Montgomery?” She blinked once then twice. Then finding a measure of composure, closed her journal, hiding the caricature that exaggerated his shoulder-length hair and scruffy beard. The drawing no longer seemed apropos since he’d obviously been to the barber. Not only was his hair shorter, but the sexy, three-day-whiskers were gone as well as the flannel shirt and work trousers. A black, double-breasted frock coat and gray wool trousers hugged his body as if the tailor had stitched the garments on him.
How will he ever get them off?
Her eyes remained fixed on him, and she scrambled for words. After a beat or two of silence, she pointed to the empty chair on the other side of the table. “Would you care to join me for a glass of wine?”
He studied her for a moment. Had she committed a
faux pas?
When he gave her an approving smile, she relaxed a smidgeon.
“I’d be pleased.” He eased his long, muscular frame into the chair and signaled the waiter. “Mrs. MacKlenna has offered to share a glass of wine.”
The scent of bay rum wafted across the table and settled in her lungs. The smell would later wrap her in thoughts of the man and his doppelganger. “I didn’t realize you were in the dining room.”
He glanced across the room. “From where you’re sitting, you would only have seen my back. I didn’t notice you until I got up to leave.”
The waiter set a glass on the table and poured. Cullen picked up the crystal stemware and leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. He sipped, rolled the wine in his mouth, swallowed, and saluted her with the glass. “My compliments.” The wine appeared golden in the candle’s flickering flame. “The Barretts are fine folks. You’ll get on well.”
She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “I can’t thank you enough for the introduction.”
“I’ve known for some time they needed help. Your coming to town was providential.”
Another liar’s blush spread warmth across her face, and she glanced away. When she turned back, she found him watching her intently. “I’ll have to find a way to repay you.”
He scrunched his brows in mock thought and lifted his glass. “This is repayment.”
A
young waiter cleared their table. When he turned to leave, he accidently bumped into a tall, redheaded army captain. Cullen jumped up in time to steady the waiter’s tray. The soldier brushed his jacket as if he’d been shot at and wasn’t sure whether or not he had been injured.
“Quick action, Montgomery.”
“I’d hate to see your uniform sullied by the remains of Mrs. MacKlenna’s lemon pie.” A smile ticked at the corner of Cullen’s lip.
The soldier relaxed his rigid stance and said in a lighter tone, “It appears I survived unscathed.”
Cullen stepped aside, and Kit saw the captain’s sharp, angular face. Piercing dark eyes rested on her, sending an involuntary shiver to her fingers, causing her glass to shake and spilling wine onto the white tablecloth. The pieces of her father’s chess set were Civil War officers, and she’d studied history while playing the game. The carved features on one of the wooden pieces matched the face of man standing before her.