Eliza planted a kiss on the old man’s cheek then hurried inside. Three steps into the house, she halted as a wave of sadness rushed over her.

Everything was so quiet. Too quiet. The people who made this house a home weren’t here. And they were gone because of her.

She would fix this. Eliza shook off the melancholy and hurried down the hall to Papa’s office, where she went directly to his desk.

The drawers were locked, but she’d long ago learned how to use a hairpin to open them. Sliding out the center drawer, she retrieved Papa’s ledger book and placed it on the desk.

It took only a few minutes to find the information she needed. Less time than that to write it down on a piece of Papa’s writing paper. While she waited for the ink to dry, Eliza stood and walked over to the map of the Chisholm Trail hanging on the wall.

Her heart had been broken on that trail. Completely and forever broken.

Someday she would ride that trail again and make a happy memory. It was the least she could do for Wyatt. Remembering him as she did now, a boy who never did get to grow up to be a man, wasn’t how it ought to be.

They’d looked up at the stars, counted meteorites, and made each other laugh more times than she could count. Eliza pressed her finger to the place on the map where the trail ended for Wyatt. Someday, once she fixed this mess she was in, she would go back and honor him where he lay.

But that was a task for another day. She went back to the desk and blew on the paper to be certain it was dry, then folded the page and tucked it away in her pocket.

Eliza stepped out into the hallway and looked up toward the stairs. Her room was there, as were the rooms where her rambunctious brothers had slept. Poor Justine had been assigned Zeke’s old room, and she claimed it still smelled like old leather and cows most days.

Unlikely, but the thought made Eliza smile at that moment.

She ought to gather some clothes. That idea took her as far as the staircase, where she stalled. Better to pay one of the maids to pack them and send them into town. She couldn’t imagine doing that herself today.

With the beginnings of a plan forming and the information on how to get started in her pocket, Eliza retraced her steps to emerge into the afternoon sun. Red was still sitting in his rocker, and now his eyes were closed. Had he not been snoring, she might have worried.

Instead, she tiptoed across the porch boards and took her seat next to him again. He awakened a few minutes later, shaking his head when he saw her smiling in his direction.

“How long have you been there, Miss Eliza?”

“Long enough to know you snore.”

Red waved away the comment with a sweep of his hand. “Aw, any cowboy in the bunkhouse could tell you that. I reckon you’re wanting to go, so I’ll go fetch what your pa left for you.”

He stood and walked past her into the house and returned with a letter that he handed to her. She smiled and opened it to find a folded piece of writing paper from Papa’s desk containing two lines in his masculine scrawl. One said: “I’ll always love you.” The second line had the address of Central Bank of Austin and the same address she’d just copied out of his ledger.

She hurried out, hugged Red, and returned to the buggy. “Will you promise to come see me in Austin?” she asked him.

“I don’t see why that wouldn’t be all right,” Red said. “You’ll let me know soon as you’re settled where I can find you.”

“I will. I promise.”

Tears threatened as she turned the buggy away from the house. This was just temporary, she told herself. What she’d made wrong could be made right.

It had to be.

Eliza’s first errand after returning the horse and buggy to the livery was to walk over to Central Bank of Austin. “My name is Eliza Gentry,” she told the banker. “My father left a message that I should inquire here, possibly about an account.”

He nodded and went off to check, returning with a frown. “Is there another name?”

She let out a long breath. “Barnhart,” she told him. “Eliza Jane Maribel Barnhart.”

This time the banker offered a smile when he came back to the window. He slid a folded paper toward her.

“This is the current balance, Mrs. Barnhart. The account is only in your name. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Her eyes widened, and tears sprang up when she took in the number on the paper. “You’re certain?”

“Quite,” he said. “Your father was insistent that you be settled and independent. Those were his words. I took care of opening this account myself. There is also a safe deposit box assigned to you should you wish to put your valuables away.”

She smiled. Papa had thought of everything.

Eliza withdrew some cash, returned to the Driskill Hotel, and marched up to the desk to demand a new suite. “Something that does not attach to another room, please. And I am to have the only key, no matter what Mr. Barnhart might tell you. He is not paying for this room. I am.”

Though the desk clerk raised his eyebrows at the request, he dared not argue with the new Mrs. Benjamin Barnhart. Of course, the generous tip she left might have helped too.

Later, when Ben got wind of the fact she’d not only moved to another suite but gone out to the ranch and sent a maid back with all her clothes, he pounded on her door and demanded to be let in.

“I’ll just go down and get a key,” he threatened.

“Go ahead, but you won’t be successful. And you wouldn’t want me to make a scene on the day before our wedding announcement appears in the Statesman, would you, dear?” Eliza asked sweetly from the safety of the other side of the locked door. “How would it look to the voters?”

Ben went away, but he came back a short time later. “You are requiring an apology,” he said, his voice sounding sincere. “I can either give it through the door or come inside.”

“Through the door, please,” she told him.

“All right. I apologize.”

“For what?”

She heard muffled cursing. “Eliza, just please open the door so I can do this without an audience. We have things to discuss. I’ve bought us a house.”

Not close to an apology. She considered telling him that, then decided to just let it go.

The last thing she wanted was to see Ben Barnhart again, but if her plan was to work, she had to. “Slip the address under the door. I’ll meet you there tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

More cursing. “I don’t have anything to write with.”

Eliza went to the table and retrieved pen and paper, then slid them under the door. A minute later, the pen came rolling back. The paper slid into the room right after it.

June 29

The next morning at promptly nine o’clock, she arrived in front of a two-story home bricked in limestone with porches wrapping around to the left on both floors and a turret spanning three stories on the right. Ben was waiting for her at the door.

“Well?” he said with more enthusiasm than she’d expected. “What do you think?”

She turned to look to her left, focusing on the capitol building nearby. “It’s lovely.”

“Come in and see what it looks like.”

Eliza returned her attention to Ben. “I’m sure it’s fine. Ben, I need to take a trip. I will be gone a week at most.”

“Running home to Mama and Papa?” he asked, his voice a sneer.

“No. I tried that. It didn’t work.”

Was that relief she saw on his face? “Then where are you going?”

“Ben,” she said slowly, “you worry about your new house and your campaign, but don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“I have my campaign to think of, Eliza.”

“Where I am going will not affect your campaign. I’ll be back in a week.” She turned and walked to the train station.

June 30
Galveston, Texas

The next morning, Eliza awoke in the grand Tremont House hotel on Galveston Island. From her fourth-floor room she could see above the buildings of the city known as the Wall Street of the South all the way to the sparkling Gulf of Mexico.

Eliza took breakfast in her room, then left to find the address that Papa had wanted to make sure she had. The address she’d already looked up herself.

Even at this early hour, the morning was already warm. The salt-scented air felt nice as she struck out. The concierge had explained the best route to take—Twenty-Fifth Street then cross at Avenue O and continue down Twenty-Seventh—and she stuck to it. Less than ten minutes later, she stood in front of her destination.

The home of the John Brady Detective Agency was a lovely one-story cottage with a white picket fence all around and pink roses climbing a trellis that arched over the front gate. A porch wrapped around the front and disappeared along one side. Floor-to-ceiling windows flanked both sides of the front door, their dark green shutters held open against the sea breeze.

Numbers posted on the gate declared this to be the correct address, yet Eliza paused, her hand on the latch, to look for a sign that this might indeed be the home of the Brady Detective Agency.

There was none. No indication at all that this was anything other than a tidy cottage on a tidy street in a lovely seaside town.

For the first time since she had walked away from Ben’s new home—she could never consider it her home—she felt nervous. What if this wasn’t the right address? What if the agency had moved?

Worse, what if John Brady wouldn’t help her?

Eliza turned on her heels and began to retrace her steps to the hotel. A few blocks away, she passed a lovely church just as the bells rang, announcing services were beginning.

Hurrying inside, she took a seat in the back pew and listened to a sermon based on 1 John 3 about living as God’s much-loved children. She left feeling not only uplifted but also secure in the knowledge that her current troubles had not escaped the Lord’s notice.

Eliza stood for a few more minutes debating whether to move forward or go back to the hotel and take a nap. Yes, perhaps a nap would help. She’d slept poorly on the train and had only enjoyed a few hours of fitful rest last night at the Tremont House.

She would try again tomorrow to approach John Brady’s house with her troubles. After all, Ben wasn’t expecting her to return for a week. And while getting John Brady involved would likely make things worse, doing nothing was not an option.