"...And then he said I was passable." Liza laughed, though she hadn't found the insult amusing last night. Someone so conceited deserved to be laughed at.
Obviously, the attraction she’d felt for Rob Darcy had been one-sided. She'd told Janie all of it last night in the privacy of their tiny bedroom above the shop, whispering so Lydia and Kitty wouldn't hear from their bed wedged just across.
Now, morning sunlight streamed through the front windows of Papa's store. Liza bent over Papa's accounts ledger, wishing Mama would take the younger girls upstairs and leave her in peace. Attempting to decipher Papa's scribbled handwriting made her head hurt enough.
And she wanted to get Janie alone to talk about Nathan Bingley.
"It's too bad,” Kitty lamented. “We heard the Darcy ranch is as big as half of Converse County." She fiddled with the sleeve of her dress, ignoring the boots behind the counter that needed to be re-shelved.
"Land and cattle aren't everything," Liza chided. "Imagine waking up to a bear like him every morning."
Her sisters pealed with laughter, and their merriment was worth the slight humiliation she’d suffered last night.
In the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. It wasn't as if she was likely to see him again. Maybe in passing, or as a customer in the shop. She was determined to forget about it, forget about him.
Concentrate on Janie, who'd come out of her bashful shell last night. Now Janie leaned her chin on one hand, absentmindedly ticking a pencil against the countertop, lost in her own thoughts.
"Mr. Bingley is so handsome," Lydia said slyly. "Don't you think, Janie?"
Janie straightened, cutting her eyes low.
"He danced with Janie more than anyone else," Mama reminded no one in particular. It was the fifth time she'd said as much this morning.
Before Liza could divert the conversation, a small boy banged into the store.
"Gotsa note for ya here, Miss Janie," he said, waving a folded paper above his head.
"Who is it from?" Kitty demanded.
"I want to see it," Lydia called out, dancing out from behind the counter.
"Girls," Mama admonished as she reached for the boy who now appeared overwhelmed and frozen where he stood.
Before any of the three of them could as much as get a finger on the missive, Janie had whirled between a saddle display and a shelf full of boots and snatched it from the boy's fingers. She pressed a penny into his hand. "Thank you."
"Who sent the note?" Mama asked the boy.
He shrugged, looking over his shoulder like he wanted badly to escape. "Someone out at the Parrott place. My pa was there earlier delivering some feed, and the note got sent back with him."
Mama gasped, giving him an opening. He ran for the door.
Janie unfolded the note, quickly scanning its contents.
"From Mr. Bingley?" Mama demanded before Janie could possibly have had time to read it.
The two younger girls looked on, wide-eyed. While Mama's speculation and outlandish expectations were one thing, this was real.
Liza's stomach tightened with nerves on her sister's behalf.
"It's from Mindy," Janie finally murmured to the expectant room, eyes still on the paper. "She wants me to come for tea this afternoon."
"Tea?" Liza mouthed.
Mama hooted and Kitty and Lydia giggled.
"Her brother won't be present."
The room went silent at Janie's pronouncement.
"What do you mean?" Mama trilled, voice going high—a sure sign of distress.
"It only says he'll be busy with the ranch," Janie murmured. She tucked the note into the pocket of her dress.
"I didn't know you'd spoken to Miss Bingley last night," Liza put in, hoping to distract Janie from their mother's irrational frustration.
"Yes, a bit in between dances. She seemed friendly enough."
Liza couldn't agree. She'd thought Miss Bingley standoffish, and not just because she’d laughed at Rob Darcy's passable comment. But Janie always wanted to think the best of people, so Liza held her tongue.
"Mama, may I take the buggy?"
Their mother looked up from where she'd been staring out the front window, as if Janie's question surprised her.
"No. No, I don't think so. You can go on horseback."
"What? Mama, no." Liza touched Mama's arm. Janie could handle a buggy, but she wasn't terribly comfortable in the saddle.
"If Janie wants to go badly enough, she may go on horseback. Lydia, why don't you run down to the livery and have Will saddle up our mare?"
Janie had gone pale, but her mouth had firmed with determination. Liza knew that look. Her sister would go to the Parrott spread for dinner with Miss Bingley regardless of her own discomfort. But what was the point of Mama's insistence that she ride and not take the buggy?
"Liza, come help me dress," Janie said, grasping her arm with a tug toward the stairs behind the store.
Liza allowed one more look to her mother, hoping to convey her disapproval. Behind Mama, out the window, the sky above the Laramie Mountains had grown gray.
Buckles shifted nervously, and Janie clutched the saddle knob with both hands, the reins slipping in her gloved fingers. The ground was so very far away.
She must keep control.
She'd borrowed one of Liza's split riding skirts. The material felt heavy against her legs, pressing her limbs into the animal.
She hated riding.
Perhaps she should have insisted she be allowed to take the two-seated buggy. Or perhaps she should have used some of her meager allowance to rent a wagon from the livery.
Anything but this.
She should learn to be more assertive. Were there lessons for that sort of thing?
Clouds hung low on the horizon, and the air was oppressive and moist. Where was the crossing? She remembered the bridge. She’d been nervous the last time Papa had driven the family wagon across the rickety structure. This weather wasn't helping her nerves. The sooner she reached the Parrott's old ranch, the better.
Even if Nathan Bingley wouldn't be there.
She hadn't expected the way he'd made her feel last night. For two years, she'd kept a careful distance from men who wanted to come calling.
Until Nathan.
He'd swept away her fears, her innate shyness, without even trying. Made something indefinable roll through her entire body, like the rumbling thunder that was rolling through the sky now—
She'd lived on the Wyoming plain long enough to fear flash floods and rogue lightning strikes. She needed to reach the Parrott place, and thinking about Nathan Bingley was only a distraction.
Where was that bridge? There—
She urged Buckles forward, and the horse carefully picked the first steps over the rickety wooden structure. She didn't like the look of the water beneath them, boiling up, the color of brown clay. A tree limb floated past, and she swallowed hard.
"It's—it's all right," she said softly to the horse.
The town council had spoken of rebuilding the bridge, but most of the time the creek was placid and low and it was easy enough to cross on horseback or even on foot.
Not so today.
She held her breath as the horse's weight caused the bridge to shift and creak.
Perhaps this errand was foolishness after all. With Mama's maneuvers, it could appear Janie was chasing the handsome rancher-to-be.
And after the accusations Albert and his mother had leveled at her, she couldn't afford—
Her roiling thoughts were broken as one of the support beams gave way and the bridge wobbled like it was made of children’s blocks.
For one prolonged moment, she was suspended in mid-air, atop the horse, her heart beating frantically as she sought a way to escape the inevitable.
And then the bridge crumbled.
She lurched to the side, trying to extricate herself from the horse.
She tumbled into the water without even time to take a breath.
Water closed over her head, so icy that it stole her breath.
The heavy split skirts tangled around her legs, their sodden weight making it impossible to kick. Her boots were filled with water.
Darkness surrounded her, the swirling current forcing her to contort in directions she couldn't fathom.
Her head broke the surface, and she gasped a desperate breath through her hair, which had fallen out of its pins and clung to her head like slimy, muddy tentacles.
Where was the horse? It might be her only chance to escape the floodwaters.
She pried her eyes open only to see a tangled mass of roots ahead, so close that she was flung against them.
She reached out, trying to grasp hold of anything that might save her.
The current pulled and yanked like a monster bent on its prize, but she caught hold of a branch.
Her arm wrenched, and she cried out as pain blinded her, sent stars over her vision.
She lost her grip on the branch. The weight of her skirts pulled her under.
Everything went black.