Authors: Jill Marie Landis
M
addie hadn’t wasted time in putting up her hair. It lay loose and wild about her shoulders in a tangled fall. She didn’t care. She’d thrown her clothes in her bag, dressed in the black skirt and white blouse from Baton Rouge, and donned her cape. At the last minute, she grabbed her gay little hat, anchored it with a hat pin, and was ready.
She glanced in the mirror on the way out of her room. Her hat was already askew but she couldn’t take time to right it. Flying down the staircase, she nearly tripped and fell headlong before she caught herself.
Break your neck, Maddie, and you’ll never see him again.
Despite the near accident, she found herself excited and almost happy for the first time in a long, long while. All she had to do was get to the Mercantile before the stage left.
“Are you ready?” Laura was at the bottom of the stairs in a stylish waist-length fitted jacket and a wide-brimmed hat with a sweeping ostrich feather that bounced when she moved.
“Ready.” Maddie studied Laura’s face, searching for a sign that her sister was upset about her decision, but Laura was all smiles.
“I’m truly happy for you,” Laura assured her. “Follow your heart, Maddie.”
If there was nothing else to convince her they were sisters, there
would still be Laura’s uncanny ability to know what was on her mind.
She reached out and gave Laura a quick hug. Then she took a deep breath and tightened her hand on her satchel.
“Let’s go,” Maddie said, heading for the front door.
“This way,” Laura grabbed her arm. “Jesse has the carriage at the back door.”
It took them longer to climb into the carriage and get settled than it did to drive down the street to the Mercantile. Maddie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the stage wasn’t there, but Tom wasn’t waiting out front.
“He’s probably inside,” Laura told her. “I’m sure Harrison is bending his ear.”
Maddie didn’t wait for Jesse to come around and hand her out. She climbed down on her own and Laura tossed down her carpetbag. Jesse tied the carriage horse to the hitching post and was reaching for Laura’s hand when Maddie turned around and nearly bumped into Harrison Barker as he strolled out of the store with a feather duster in hand. He took one look at her bag and his brow crinkled into a frown.
“Thought you were staying on.” He looked over her shoulder and called to Laura, “Heard this young lady is your long-lost sister and that she was going to be stayin’ on.”
Laura stepped onto the boardwalk and let go of Jesse’s hand. Brand’s son stood by in stoic silence, arms folded across his chest, leaning against the carriage.
“She was, but now she’s not. Not that it’s any of your business, Harrison.” Laura stood beside Maddie. “Is Mr. Abbott inside?”
Maddie thought Tom had surely heard them. The fact that he hadn’t come out yet didn’t bode well for her.
Harrison reached up and ran his fingers along the part that divided his hair down the middle and smiled at Maddie.
“I’d be happy to show you around town, at your convenience, of course,” he offered.
Maddie found herself at a loss for words.
Laura didn’t. “Harrison, please. Where is Tom Abbott?”
“Oh, the stage has already come and gone. Can you believe it? Ahead of time.” He addressed Maddie again. “You’ll have to wait for the afternoon stage to come through.”
He’s gone.
Tom’s gone.
Maddie didn’t hear what else Harrison Barker had to say. The stage had come early. The stage that was usually late. And Tom was gone.
Maybe we’re not meant to be together. Maybe it’s best I let him go.
“One thing I know for certain, Maddie Grande. I will always love you.”
It didn’t matter that he’d gone or why he’d left her. What mattered was that he loved her. That he would always love her. No matter what she’d been in the past, no matter that she’d turned him away.
Laura had a hold of her arm and was saying something.
Maddie blinked, suddenly aware Harrison was staring at her. So was Jesse, with his crooked half smile. Laura was watching her, too, expecting her to say something.
“What?” Maddie said.
“I asked what you want to do now,” Laura said.
“I suppose we should go back to your house. I’ll wait there and then take the afternoon stage to Dallas.”
“I hate for you to go all the way to Dallas alone,” Laura said.
Jesse stepped forward, hands on hips.
“Make up your mind, ladies. I ain’t got all day.”
B
y the time Tom realized he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, Glory was miles behind him. Alone in the stagecoach, he was reminded of the journey with Maddie beside him. He missed her nearness, her smile, her touch. It was one thing to leave her behind thinking that it would be easier than seeing her every day,
but it didn’t take long for him to decide he’d rather be with her than without her.
He tried to stand up and pound on the roof to get the driver’s attention, but the wheels hit a pothole and he was knocked back onto his seat. He pulled off his boot, tightened one hand around the window frame, and started banging the boot heel on the roof.
He heard the crack of the driver’s whip and the coach picked up steam. The wheels kicked up dust and rocks as the stage bounced along the only road across the middle of nowhere.
Tom plopped back down and shoved his boot on, then took off his hat. He grabbed hold of one of the swaying handles dangling overhead, stuck his head and shoulders out of the open window as far as he dared, and started whistling and shouting to the driver and the guard.
The bouncing jarred his teeth as he hung half in and half out of the window. He’d given another sharp whistle, hoping he wasn’t wasting his breath, when the guard’s face suddenly appeared above him.
Tom shouted, “Stop!”
The guard pulled back and disappeared but a few seconds later the driver reined in the team and they gradually rolled to a stop. The driver climbed down as Tom opened the door and stepped out of the coach. He winced, his ribs bruised from the jarring they’d taken in the window frame. It took a minute to regain his balance once he was on steady ground.
The driver, his white moustache stained red-brown, spat a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt and eyeballed Tom with a hard squint.
“This better be good,” he said.
“I changed my mind. I want to go back,” Tom told him. “I’ll pay extra.”
The man threw back his head and guffawed. “I’m ahead of schedule for the first time in years and you wanna go back? Are you plumb crazy?”
Crazy in love,
Tom thought.
Crazy for taking no for an answer. Crazy for thinking I can live without Maddie.
“No, sir,” he said with a smile. “For the first time in a long time I’m pretty sure I’m not crazy.”
“Well, I’m not going back, not for all the tea in China. Best I can do is let you out right here.”
Tom looked around. He was miles from nowhere. The plain undulated into valleys sliced by creeks and washes, over hillsides covered with last summer’s dried grass. There was no sign of any cattle, no ranch houses, no humans. Nothing but miles and miles of land that stretched far and away in every direction.
But he was on a main road. Surely someone would be coming along sooner than later.
“You armed?” The driver looked him up and down skeptically. Tom wasn’t dressed like a westerner. He looked more like a city slicker in his matching coat and trousers than a man able to handle danger.
“I’m from New Orleans,” he assured the weathered driver. “I don’t go anyplace without a sidearm, a Bowie knife,
and
a derringer.”
“Well …” The driver spat again. “That settles that. I won’t feel too bad about leaving you alone out here. You sure?”
“I’ll stay.” He’d made up his mind before he had taken off his boot.
“Could be a long wait.” The driver grabbed hold of the side handle and climbed aboard again. “Could be you’ll sit here till another stage comes along.”
“When’s that?”
“Could be this afternoon. Could be tomorrow.”
Tom sighed. He never came by anything of worth easily. Maddie was worth however long it took to get back to her. “I’ll walk and hope sooner or later I get a ride back to town.”
The guard, cradling a rifle across his arm, leaned over to Tom’s side of the road again and shook his head. “Consider yourself lucky
the renegade Comanche ain’t stirred up any trouble in these parts for a few months now.”
“What
renegade Comanche?”
Before the man could answer, the driver cracked his whip, whistled to his team, and the coach was off in a thunder of hooves and the rumble of wheels.
When the dust settled, Tom pulled off his hat and wiped his face with the back of his coat sleeve. Then he picked up his bag and started walking to Glory.
I
’m so sorry, Laura. I never meant for you to be on this wild-goose chase.” Seated on the edge of the backseat of the elegant carriage, Maddie clung to the seat in front of her. Jesse’s hands were sure on the reins as he pushed the mare to a near breakneck speed. It had been his idea to try to catch the stage.
“We’re on a mission in the name of love,” Laura assured her before she turned to the young man beside her and nudged his shoulder. “Jesse, slow down,” she told him. “I want to reunite Maddie with Tom in one piece, not at her funeral.”
Jesse snorted but drew back on the reins a bit. The carriage crested a rise. Maddie strained forward, squinting against the sun.
“Is that the stage in the distance?” she asked.
“Looks like it.” Laura leaned forward and hung on tight to the front of the carriage. The stagecoach was almost too far away to make out what it was.
Jesse said, “I never thought we’d really overtake ‘em.”
The stage disappeared in seconds. As they sped up again, Laura still had a death grip on the carriage. Maddie’s hat was slipping toward her right ear. Jesse was the only one smiling.
“I … think … we … should turn around.” Maddie’s teeth rattled as they jolted along. “I can telegraph ahead … and reach … Tom in Dallas.”
Tom was a man of order and routine. He would no doubt stay at the same hotel where they’d lodged on the way. He’d be easy enough to find—if he wanted to be found. He had no reason to hide from her.
“Will you look at that?” Jesse squinted at the road ahead and then shook his head in disbelief.
“What is it?” Laura was holding her handkerchief over her nose, fighting dust.
What now?
Maddie wondered.
“Looks like somebody in the road,” Jesse said.
Maddie leaned forward between them and scrunched up her eyes. Sure enough, there was a lone figure silhouetted in the middle of the road. A man, by the looks of his hat and trousers.
Laura reached back and grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“It’s him, Maddie! I just know it’s Tom.”
“What’s he doing out here?” Jesse wanted to know. “That fool is just lucky we came along.”
Within a few more yards they were close enough to see that it was Tom. Maddie couldn’t imagine what he was doing alone in the middle of nowhere, but she didn’t care. She reminded herself to breathe as they quickly closed the distance.
When they were a few yards away, Tom waved his hat over his head, signaling them to stop.
Laura touched Jesse’s sleeve. “Stop back here, Jesse. Let’s give them some privacy.”
Maddie started to climb out of the carriage even before it rolled to a full stop. She caught the hem of her petticoat on the wheel, and once she hit the ground, she gave it a hard tug and heard the rip of tearing fabric.
She turned toward Tom, took one step, and then with no control over her legs, she started running. She ran until she was close enough to launch herself at him and threw her arms around his neck. He lifted her up and twirled her around and around before
he set her on her feet and planted kisses on her cheeks, her lashes, and along her temple.
She cupped his face and claimed his lips in a kiss that went on until, breathless, she pulled away. “What are you doing out here?”
“I hope the same thing you are,” he said. “I was on my way back.”
“You were walking back to Glory?”
“Honey, I was going to crawl back to Glory if I had to.” He took hold of her shoulders, held her at arm’s length, and said, “Maddie, this time I’m not walking away.”
“This time I’m not going to ask you to.” She stared back into fathomless eyes that no longer hid his feelings. She saw all the love she’d been afraid to claim there. “I’ll never lie to you again, either.”
“Will you marry me?”
She could feel the tension in his hands, as if he was braced for a refusal.
“Yes.” She answered without hesitation. “Come what may, I’ll marry you, Tom Abbott.”
When he pulled her close and kissed her under the endless Texas sky, she lost herself until the soft, slow plod of hoofbeats and the creak of carriage wheels brought her back to reality. Tom pulled away first but kept his arm around her waist. Maddie felt herself blushing with embarrassment when she looked up and saw Laura and Jesse watching from the carriage.
“Are you two about ready to go home?” Laura was all smiles.
Maddie looked to Tom.
“We’re ready,” he said.
“Then grab your bag,” Laura told him. “I can’t waste any more time out here. I’ve got a wedding to plan.”
S
omewhere in the darkness where the land met the midnight sky, a lone coyote howled at a milk-white sliver of Texas moon. Nestled in the quilt again, with one foot tucked beneath her on the porch swing, Maddie wondered how close the scavengers would come to Glory. There was another howl, this one farther away.
She relaxed and had just set the swing in motion again when the front door opened and Tom stepped out onto the porch of her sister’s fine home.
“I had a feeling I’d find you out here.” He walked over and sat beside her. “Are you all right? No nightmares?”
When he draped his arm across her shoulder, Maddie leaned against him and smiled, truly content.