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No one got off the train except Kathy Sullivan. The stationmaster opened his mouth to speak to her, but stopped and shrugged his shoulders instead. Kathy watched the conductor unload her trunks. The shriek of the whistle announcing the departure of the train echoed through the empty station. The conductor didn’t bother to call “All aboard.” There was no one waiting to board the train.
There was no one in the entire station besides the stationmaster. Kathy could almost believe there was no one in the whole town. Opposite the platform, wild woods stretched as far as the eye could see. And she couldn’t see any other buildings on the other side of the station. She couldn’t hear the usual sounds of horses or voices shouting or wagons rattling that usually accompanied train stations.
The stationmaster disappeared into the station to be seen no more. The conductor swung up into the car, and the train plowed out of the station. The whistle shouted one more time from the curve at the top of the hill. Then the train slithered around the corner of the woods and its chugging voice faded into nothing.
Kathy watched it out of sight. Silence reigned through the station, through the woods, and through the whole world. Was this the end of the line for her? The man she arranged to marry told her he’d meet her at the station, but not a living soul moved.
She stared across the tracks at the woods for another brief moment. Then she turned on her heel and strode off the platform. There was nothing else to do.
But she didn’t make it more than ten steps before she stopped with her mouth gaping open. From the other end of the platform, a crowd of people approached her, laughing and chatting in gay merriment. Children capered around the periphery of the crowd, darting up to adults and engaging them in snatches of conversation before flitting away again.
Two men led the procession with their arms locked around each other’s shoulders. They looked exactly alike in every respect, from their curly brown top knots to their laughing blue eyes. One of them was bigger than the other. Kathy couldn’t see any other difference between them.
The closer they came, the more people flooded onto the platform behind them until the crowd filled the whole platform with living voices and movement. Kathy stared at them. Was this a vision out of her imagination? They couldn’t be here to welcome her. The whole town must be in this train station.
But here was the larger of the two men laughing to the smaller one and smiling at her. “You must be Katherine Sullivan.” He pretended to look around the platform. “You’re the only one who got off the train.” He laughed again and clapped the other man on the shoulder. “No one gets off the train here.” For some reason, he found that fact unbearably funny.
“You must be Luke Ferguson,” she replied.
The larger man clapped the smaller one on the shoulder again. “This is Luke. I’m his brother, Max.” He laughed more uproariously than ever. “I don’t blame him for not telling you about me.”
Kathy exchanged a quick look with Luke. He blushed and suppressed a shy smirk. “He told me he had a brother. I just didn’t know you’d be so....”
“So similar?” Max offered. “That’s what everyone says.”
“Are you twins?” she asked.
“I’m three years older,” Max replied. “And much better looking, too.” He roared with laughter. Luke chuckled and lowered his eyes. “Well, Katherine, here you are.”
“Please, call me Kathy,” she told him. “Everyone does.”
“All right, Kathy,” Max corrected himself. “Here you are. And here we are. We’re here to escort you to the church. That is,” he jostled his brother’s shoulders. “If you’re absolutely certain you want to marry this guy.”
Kathy stiffened. “Do you know of any reason why I shouldn’t?”
“Don’t listen to him, Kathy,” Luke interjected. His voice sounded soft and gentle, but the tone resembled his brother’s in every other way.
“I’m only joking, Kathy,” Max added. “You’ll learn not to pay attention to anything I say. Nobody else does, especially Luke.” He slapped his brother on the back. “Now, are you ready to go?”
“I’m ready to go if you are,” she replied. “I didn’t know you wanted to go straight to the church from the train station.” She glanced toward her trunks. “My wedding dress is in my trunk.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Max told her. “We have the whole thing arranged. We have a house lined up next door to the church where you can go to change your clothes. We’ll go back there for a reception party afterward, so one of the lads will bring your trunks there. That way, you can change back into your regular clothes when you’re ready to leave. How does that sound?”
“That sounds perfect,” Kathy exclaimed. “Thank you.”
“You can thank Annabel. She’s my wife.” He craned his neck to look behind him. “She’s back here somewhere.”
“I’m right here.” A woman called out from somewhere in the crowd. The tide of bodies parted, and a slender blonde woman not much older than Kathy shouldered her way to the front of the throng. She smiled at Kathy. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”
Kathy blushed. “Likewise.”
“Annabel arranged for you to go to Mary Jenner’s house,” Max put in. “It’s the closest to the church, and Mary’s a widow, so all you women can sequester yourselves there and do whatever you do to get ready for a wedding. The boys and I will take Luke and rough him up a little bit, you know. Then you two will meet at the altar all official-like. We have the whole thing planned out.”
“Don’t worry about Max, Kathy,” Annabel added. “We don’t have the rest of your lives planned out, just the wedding part of it. Luke had the idea he was going to sneak off and get married to you all alone. Well, when we found out, we weren’t going to let him get away with that.”
“Max got this parade thing together,” Luke told her. “I just want you to know this wasn’t my idea. I thought you might like something a little more understated and inconspicuous. So I hope none of this makes you uncomfortable.”
“Inconspicuous?” Max shot back. “We’ve been waiting all this time for you to get married. This is the biggest thing to hit this town in years. We weren’t going to let you rob us of the pleasure of watching you tie the knot. Annabel and I weren’t, anyway, and when they heard what was going on, everyone in town wanted to join in, too. So here we are.”
