twenty-four

The sorrow in Henry Adler’s expression was palpable. “I’m so very sorry,” he said to Lizzy for at least the tenth time that Mary had heard. She was glad for Chris’s presence at her side, as she was still a little shaken up herself.

The show had ended, and the troupe was loading up at the railway station. No one had seen anything of Jason, although Henry had promised to hire men to find him so that he wouldn’t be a further threat to anyone.

“I’ll take him back to England and get our doctor’s advice. Perhaps in time he’ll recover his wits and be sorry for what he did.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mr. Adler,” Lizzy said graciously.

He gave her a sad smile, bowed his head, then left the station to search for his son.

“Our train is leaving shortly,” Alice said, joining their small gathering. Alice and Carson were headed back to their Texas home but had already signed contracts to return for next year.

“I so enjoyed our part of the show, Alice.” Mary gave her a hug. “I’m glad you’ll be with us again next year.”

“I don’t know what else we’d do. A person in our position can scarcely make a lot of money working elsewhere.”

“Carson, Mother is going to be disappointed you aren’t helping with the ranch,” Lizzy said. “I hope you won’t forget us altogether.”

“Hardly. I told Alice we’d be up there by the first of the year, and we will. No matter what jobs her mother finds for me to do in Fort Worth.”

Alice looked heavenward. “Mama always thinks that if she can get Carson ample employment, he won’t want to go back to Montana or the show. Little does she realize how much fun we have on the road.” She hugged Lizzy. “I wish we could be there for the wedding, though. I’ll want to hear all about it when we return.”

Lizzy nodded and looked at Wesley, who was smiling. “I’m sure there will be stories enough for everyone.” She turned back to Alice. “Did Uncle Oliver give you your pay and tickets?”

“He did. Not only that, but Mr. Adler gave each of us a very generous bonus. I think you’ll be surprised—it’ll make a very nice wedding present.” Alice hugged Lizzy again, then looked up at Wes. “I wish you both the best. I hope your wedding is as beautiful as ours was.”

Carson looked at Wes and shrugged. “All I remember of it was that she said I do.”

Everyone laughed as the conductor called the final board of the Texas-bound train.

An hour later, Mary and the others were settled in the Brookstone commons car, waiting to depart. Mary was glad to be done with the season. There had been many more shows this year and far more focus on her, what with the shooting competitions. It would be wonderful to put it all behind her and have a few weeks of rest.

“I’m heading to bed,” Wesley said.

“And you are too,” Lizzy told her uncle. “In fact, I intend to tuck you in myself.”

“I told you I’m feeling just fine.”

“Yes, but I know how upset you are over the entire affair tonight. You should get some extra rest.” Lizzy helped him to his feet. “Come along, or I’ll be forced to have Wes and Phillip carry you.” She stretched up and kissed his cheek.

Oliver grumbled but nevertheless gave her a smile and allowed her to lead him to the adjoining car.

“I’m going to bed as well,” Ella declared. “I’m completely worn out.” She looked at Mary and smiled. “Good night.”

“Good night, Ella,” Mary and Chris replied in unison.

“I’ll be there as soon as I finish cleaning my rifle,” Mary added. She looked down at the weapon and yawned. “In fact, I might just let it wait for morning.”

Once everyone had gone their separate ways, Mary looked at Chris. “How about you? Are you as tired as the rest of us?”

“Not exactly. I only had to stand and face death, remember?”

She laughed, then pulled the blindfold from her pocket and handed it to him. “You weren’t in any danger.”

He held up the cloth and made a noise of surprise. It wasn’t the same cloth Alice had tied around his eyes. In fact, she knew he could see every feature of her face through the thin material.

“Why, you little cheat. You switched out scarves.”

“I did. If it’s any consolation, I hit the metal targets using the other blindfold.”

He smiled. “So were you unsure of yourself or of me?”

Mary laughed. “Neither. I was just getting tired and didn’t want to take a chance.”

“Well, he’s not happy about my babying him,” Lizzy said, coming back into the car, “but he’ll just have to do as his stepmother used to say, and get glad in the same clothes he got mad in.” She kept walking right past them. “I’ll see you both in the morning. Good night.” She didn’t even wait for their reply but exited out the opposite side of the room to the women’s car.

“She’s amazing,” Chris said, shaking his head. “To have gone through all she experienced tonight and still be in such great spirits.”

“She is. I can’t imagine going through all that.”

“Well, as I recall, they had you too. You are just as amazing to sit here and laugh and joke as if you didn’t nearly lose your life tonight.”

Mary hadn’t really considered the danger to herself. “God took care of us all—that much is evident. When I think of what Jason might have accomplished . . .” She shivered. “I’m so thankful that God spared us.”

“Me too.” Chris loosened his tie and pulled it from around his neck. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Mary smiled. “Not at all. Be comfortable.”

He undid the top couple of shirt buttons. “All right, but just remember you gave your approval.” He shrugged out of his outer coat and then began undoing the buttons on his vest. Mary just watched him.

When Chris shed his vest, he leaned back and gave an exaggerated sigh. “That’s much better.”

“You do look very comfortable.” Mary felt a little awkward now that they were completely alone.

“I am.” He ran a hand through his blond hair. “And I think it’s time we talked.”

“Oh, you finally think that, eh?” She crossed her arms. “I ought to go to bed and show you how infuriating it is to be ignored.”

He gave her his lazy smile. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

She looked down at her cleaning supplies and rifle and then back at Chris. “Fine. I’m not going anywhere.”

He laughed. “Mary, you always manage to surprise me, and when you cornered me on the ship and told me you knew all about my father and brothers . . . well, that was one thing. But then you told me you loved me, and that was something entirely different.”

“It couldn’t have been that much of a surprise. You’d already kissed me twice. You knew I was receptive.”

“Receptive and in love are two different things.”

“All right,” she sighed. “You were surprised.”

“I was in shock, and not because of my father, although that did set me back. I would never in a hundred years have expected you to latch on to that newspaper story. When you showed me, I knew God was telling me that I could no longer hide from the past. But He was also telling me that the past couldn’t hurt me anymore. Not unless I let it.”

“I’m glad, Chris, because it doesn’t matter to me. You aren’t your father. You aren’t your brothers.”

“No, I’m not. But that isn’t all there is to it.”

She put out her hand. “Then tell me everything.”

Chris chose his words carefully. “For years I was convinced that their bad blood tainted us all. Then Wesley helped me see little by little that the blood of Jesus made everything right.” He had longed to explain himself, and now seemed the right time. He covered Mary’s hand with his. “Are you sure you want to hear this now? It isn’t a short story, and you have had quite the evening.”

Her brown eyes narrowed. “I’m just fine, Christopher Williams, and if you think for one second you’re getting out of here without telling me everything, you’re mistaken.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, trying his best to sound like an obedient child. She smiled. “You see, I wasn’t an anticipated addition to my family. My mother was very ill when she gave birth to my brother Raymond, and the doctor told her she’d never have another baby. Twelve years later I came along, and it set the entire family on its ear.”

“How so?”

The train jerked into motion. He let go of Mary’s hand and leaned back in his chair. “My birth weakened my mother’s health, and she wasn’t able to keep up with all the demands my father put on her. They were always fighting. Well . . . he was always fighting. My mother did her best to say nothing and tolerate whatever he said and did.”

“How awful.” Mary’s dark eyes met his. “I’m so sorry.”

He nodded. “It was a bleak time. Up until then, my mother had made most of the money for the family. She taught piano lessons and took in laundry. After my birth, she didn’t have the energy to do much at all, so there was never money or food. My father liked to gamble and please himself. My brothers too. They womanized and caused problems for most everybody, usually just taking what they wanted. But my mother believed God would change their hearts and provide for us. She used to tell me that she prayed God would give me a better life. I didn’t think much of God. He seemed just as scary and mean as my earthly father. When my mother was able to sneak us out to go to church, the preacher always talked about the wrath of God.”

“But what about His love?” Mary interrupted. “I mean, my own faith was wrapped up with my grandparents’ beliefs, but at least I knew God was good and wanted good things for us.”

Chris nodded. “My mother said the same thing, but when all you live with is the example of anger and rage, it’s hard to imagine that love.” He shook his head. “Eventually I learned that my father and brothers robbed banks and anything else they thought profitable.

“When I was six, my father’s rage seemed completely out of control. He often beat my mother and me, when he could catch me. My mama hid me if she knew he was coming. He’d tear into her something fierce, demanding she tell him where I was. She took so many beatings for me.” He couldn’t keep the sorrow from his voice. “I didn’t understand how God could just stand by and let it happen. Even my brothers tried to make him stop, but that never boded well. My mother’s health was further compromised by the beatings and a broken heart, and I think she just gave up on life. Before she died, she gave me a little case full of newspaper clippings and told me they were about my grandmother—my father’s mother. She told me if anything ever happened to her, I should try to find my grandmother and she would take care of me. Not long after that, my mother died. She wasn’t even cold in the ground when my father and brothers tried to rob the First National Bank in Baltimore and got caught.

“When the sheriff showed up and found me all alone, he told me I would have to go to the orphan’s home, but I showed him my newspaper clippings, and he sent a message to my grandmother.”

“And she came?”

Chris nodded. “She did. She had no condemnation for the dirty, scrawny grandson she didn’t even know existed until that letter from the sheriff. She was all smiles and joy. She took me in her arms and hugged me close, the way my mama did. I’ll never forget what she said to me.”

“What was it?” Mary was completely caught up in his story.

“‘You will always have a home with me, and wherever you go, you will always be loved.’”

Mary met his gaze with a look of wonder. “What an amazing woman to say that to a child she didn’t even know.”

“Oh, she was amazing. She was everything I could have hoped for. I missed my mother something terrible, especially in that first year. I cried a lot, but Grandmother was never temperamental about it. She encouraged me to tell her the stories I remembered about Mama. She told me not to let go of the memories and even had me write down things Mama said to me and to journal what she looked like. There are no photographs of her. I suppose that’s one of my biggest regrets.”

Tears came to Mary’s eyes. “We had a big photograph of my mother. She died giving birth to my younger sister, Kate. I was just four, and I don’t remember her much.”

“That’s a hard thing for a child, isn’t it?”

Mary nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “It’s the hardest of anything I know. Losing August was terrible, and the pain will be with me for a long time. But not having your mother leaves such a deep wound. Losing your father too. I was just nine when he passed on. My oma and opa were already raising us children because Papa was unable to deal with the pain of losing Mama. He’d gone off and joined Buffalo Bill’s show, and we only saw him once in a while. Never enough.”

The gentle rocking of the train left Chris feeling drowsy and worn, but there was still so much to tell Mary. They continued talking well into the night, with Chris explaining more about the life he’d known in London and then the news about his father and brothers facing death.

“I kept track of them from afar,” he told Mary. “My grandmother wanted to know, and so I just kind of picked up where she left off. When I was old enough to take an interest, she just let me report to her what I found out. I was glad she died before she could learn they had killed someone. I know she was already heartbroken over their criminal records.”

“Why didn’t your father go to England with her when she remarried? Was he already a grown man?”

“By the time Grandmother and her husband left for England, my father was eighteen and married with a son, my brother Luke. The War Between the States had started, and he went to do his part—not because of any patriotism he felt, but for what he could get out of it. He was in trouble from the start for pilfering items off the dead.”

“That must have been hard on your grandmother. Was he her only child?”

“Not exactly. There were three others, but they died young. So in a way, he was her only one. I remember her heartbreak when she talked about him. She had such hopes for him, but when his father died, he was only twelve, and it wounded him deeply. It’s something I feel I can understand. I’m sure you can.”

“Yes. And it affects each person differently. I had a friend who lost his father in an accident working for the railroad. He was never the same after that. He went the same way your father did.”

“When my father was fifteen, my grandmother remarried. I remember her telling me that she hoped her new husband would be a comfort to my father, but it was the complete opposite of that. He wanted nothing to do with his stepfather and ran away. He wasn’t heard from for well over a year, and by the time they knew where he’d gone, he was already in with bad company and had no interest in rejoining his family.”

They fell silent. Chris felt drained from telling his story, but also lighter than he’d felt in years.

Mary got up and went to the sofa. She patted the cushion. “This is much more comfortable.”

Chris joined her. “Are you planning to work your charms on me?”

Laughing, Mary slipped her hand in his. “Would I have to work very hard?”

He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

For several long moments all they did was stare into each other’s eyes. Chris had never known the emotions he was experiencing. He had never allowed himself to feel this strongly for fear of where it might lead.

“I’ve never been in love before, Mary,” he said. “I never wanted to risk it. I feared I would turn out like my father and brothers. After all, they were my blood kin, and even though my grandmother was too, my father was, well, closer in that line. I remember hearing sermons about the sins of the fathers revisited on the children, and I was certain that was God’s punishment to me. I knew I could never put that burden on someone else, and I was determined not to give my heart to anyone.”

“My situation was entirely different,” Mary countered, “but up until now, I’ve never been in love either. I grew up with everyone expecting me to marry Owen Douglas.”

“Your sister’s husband?”

“Yes. Owen and I were close friends, and everyone assumed we’d fall in love and marry. I do love him, but only as a brother. We were supposed to marry last year around this time, but then August died, and it made everything so clear. I couldn’t marry Owen. It wasn’t fair to him. I could never love him as a wife. It was only after releasing him that I learned my sister was in love with him and had been for some time. Funny how we almost miss blessings because we’re trying to force things to go our own way or the way someone else intended.”

“Yes.” He reached up and ran his finger down her cheek.

Mary simply held his gaze for a few moments, then pressed the conversation forward. “How did your grandmother die?”

“Old age. She once told me she hoped to outlive Queen Victoria. She didn’t. She died in 1897, shortly after I graduated from Oxford. I think she was just waiting for me to finish my schooling. She knew I wanted to write and encouraged me to return to the States and learn how to be an American. So after I laid her to rest beside my step-grandfather, I did just that.

“When I came to America, I traveled around for a while and saw everything I could. I found so much of it fascinating and kept all sorts of journals about what I saw and who I spoke with. Then one day when I was in New York, I learned about a magazine that wanted to focus on unusual places and people in America. It was just getting organized, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I put together a portfolio of information and pictures from my travels and went to the owner-editor. I told him I wanted to write for his magazine. He asked me what experience I had, and I spread out that portfolio on his desk.” Chris chuckled. “I think he was more than a little surprised.”

“And did he hire you on the spot?” Mary asked, her eyes twinkling in delight.

“He did, and that portfolio became a good part of his first six editions.”

“And what about your father and brothers? How did you find out they were sentenced to die?”

Chris frowned. “I had a detective agency sending me reports. When they escaped from prison and killed those guards, I knew that if they were ever caught, it would be the end of their lives. I suppose I reconciled myself to that truth because when I heard they had been recaptured, I concluded my dealings with the detective agency.

“You know,” he continued, “I never wanted to see them again. I suppose a part of me was afraid of what I’d find. I didn’t want revenge, though. I knew it wouldn’t bring my mother back. I didn’t even really want answers for why my father had taken that path in life. After all, it was his choice.” He shook his head. “The truth was . . . I never wanted anything from him or my brothers, but I went to see them because I thought they might need something from me.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Chris met her gaze. “Maybe forgiveness. Maybe understanding. Compassion.”

“Could you have honestly given that to them?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. They never asked for it, so I never had to consider it. All they had to offer was hatred and bitterness, and I’d already had a gut full of that in my first six years.”

“Did you . . . did you watch them die?”

He swallowed hard and pushed aside the memory that was forever etched in his brain. “I did. I don’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t pleasant, and—”

She put her hand in his. “You don’t ever have to talk about it unless you want to. The past isn’t really what I want to talk about anyway. I’m more interested in the future. You said you’d never fallen in love before. I want to know what you meant by that.”

A deep sense of relief washed over him, and he gave her a smile. “I meant that before falling in love with you, I’d never fallen in love with anyone else. I do love you, Mary. I can admit that now, although it’s still very new to me and I’m not sure where it will lead us.”

She shrugged. “There’s time to figure that out.”

He put his arm around her to pull her close. “May I kiss you, Mary Reichert?”

“You’ve done so twice before and not once have you asked.” She smiled. “Why now?”

He put his fingers under her chin. “It just seems the right thing to do. Maybe because now that I belong to God, I better understand the honor and respect I owe you.”

She sobered and nodded. “Then yes. Yes, you may kiss me.”

He pressed his lips to hers and savored the sweetness as she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. Images of the past disappeared into a vapor. Gone was the burden it had put on his heart.

“You know,” he whispered, pulling away, “if not for Wes helping me find my way to God, and God in turn giving me strength to face the past and consider the future . . . I think I would have run away like my father did.”

Mary shook her head. “Then I would have just had to come after you. You see, shooting isn’t the only thing I’m good at. I’m a fairly decent tracker as well.”

He saw the teasing gleam in her eye and laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Just keep me in your heart, Christopher Williams. That will be good enough.”