Thomas leaped down from the lathered, panting Shadow and took the porch steps in two long leaps. The front door banged against the wall as he flung it open. He rushed across the floor to the bedroom—and froze at the doorway.
She was gone.
His feet became alive again. He strode to the bedside, boots thudding on the floorboards, and pulled aside the covers, as if not trusting what his eyes had already told him. The bloodstains on the sheets had dried to form stiff patches, but they were smaller than he’d feared.
“Charlotte,” he bellowed, and hurried back to the parlor.
The coffeepot on the stove was still warm. A rinsed cup stood upside down on the counter. Surely a dying woman wouldn’t pause to make coffee and rinse the cup? Surely if she was bleeding to death, there would be bloodstains on the floor?
Thomas went back to the bedroom, his gaze searching the plank floor. Nothing. No trail of dark drops. He took quick inventory of the contents of the room. Her clothes were gone, the ones she’d arrived in. Her leather bag was gone, too.
He hurried back outside. Shadow stood by the porch steps, waiting patiently. Thomas mounted, rode him to the creek. “Drink, boy,” he said. Every second might count, but a dead horse would not take him far.
When Shadow stopped slurping and blowing and lifted his head, Thomas dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and surged up the slope back toward the cabin. He jumped down one more time and went inside. He filled a canteen with water and bundled up a blanket and tied both to the saddle.
Then he was off on his way. As he crested the hill, he halted Shadow at the top of the ridge and scanned the barren landscape. Which way had she gone?
“Charlotte!”
“Charlotte!”
His frantic cries rippled across the desert. Only the wind replied.
Thomas marshaled his powers of reasoning. He had not seen any sign of Charlotte on his way back from Doc Timmerman’s, and that must mean she had taken the wrong way. Or perhaps she was not aiming for Gold Crossing, but might be wandering through the desert without any aim.
Would her logic be impaired?
Did a woman lose her mind when she lost her baby?
Thomas didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about women, pregnant or otherwise, and now he cursed his lack of experience. For it might make a difference between finding his wife dead and finding her while she was still alive.
“Charlotte!”
“Charlotte!”
On the trail toward Flagstaff he spotted a row of dainty footprints in a soft patch of sand. When he went out that way, he brought back heavy wagonloads, such as the cookstove on his last trip, and the wheel ruts were deep. Perhaps she’d followed them.
Thomas urged Shadow into a canter and headed east, riding to and fro in ever-increasing semicircles, like ripples expanding on the surface of a pond.
“Charlotte!”
“Charlotte!”
His voice grew hoarse. The sun began to sink in the sky. Thomas ignored Shadow’s tired grunts, merely pausing occasionally to rinse the horse’s mouth with a drop of water from his cupped palm.
He ignored the painful rasp in his throat, the sting of grit in his eyes, the ache that throbbed through his muscles. But one thing he couldn’t ignore was the fear that throbbed through him with every beat of his pulse.
“Charlotte.” His croaky call no longer carried far.
He found his wife when the sloping rays of the sun cast long shadows across the desert and lit up the gravel with hues of red and gold. She lay beside a prickly pear covered in pink blooms. Crumpled on the ground, she was curled into a tight ball, the wide hems of her skirts fanned out about her. One of her arms was flung over her head, shielding her downturned face. The green bonnet hung askew on top of her unraveling upsweep.
Thomas slid down from the saddle, crouched beside her. “Charlotte.”
She didn’t move. Gently, he pulled her arm aside to reveal her face. Her skin was burned bright red. Her eyes were shut. Her lips were peeling and crusted with blood. He held the backs of his fingers to her mouth, felt the small puff of warm air.
She was breathing.
Thomas jumped up to his feet and hurried over to his horse. He untied the canteen from the saddle, went back to crouch beside Charlotte and unscrewed the cap. Slipping one arm behind Charlotte’s neck, he cradled her head in the crook of his arm and pressed the spout of the canteen against her mouth. Her eyelids flickered but refused to lift.
“Charlotte. Look at me. Look at me. You need to drink.”
He tipped the canteen to her lips but she was too weak to swallow and the water ran in rivulets down her chin. She tried to turn her head away. A faint moan rose in her throat.
Thomas lowered her back down, poured water into his cupped palm and trickled it over her lips with his fingertips. She made another moaning sound, stronger this time, and her lips parted. Thomas refilled his palm, managed to tip some water into her mouth. She shuddered, a tiny spasm racking her. At first, Thomas thought she was choking, that she would retch and spit out the water, but then her throat rippled in an awkward, labored swallow.
“That’s it,” he said. “A little more.”
He kept trickling water into her mouth. After he had counted ten measures from his cupped palm, Thomas paused to let her rest. For a few moments, Charlotte lay absolutely still, her eyes closed. Then her tongue peeked out and slid over her lips, moistening the cracked skin. Thomas eased his arm around her shoulders and propped her up to a half sitting position, her back resting against the side of his thigh.
“Charlotte?” he said. “Can you hear me?”
“No doctor. No doctor.” Her voice was a faint whisper. Her eyes remained shut. Thomas frowned. How did she know the doctor couldn’t come?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The doc’s up on Desperation Hill. A miner was trapped in a rock fall. He is too badly hurt to move, so someone rode into town to fetch the doc and he is still out there. Gus Junior has gone after him.”
“No doctor. No doctor.”
“Hush.” Thomas stroked the loose curls that fluttered around her face. He adjusted her slipping bonnet to protect her skin from the last rays of the sun. “It’s all right,” he reassured her. “The doc’s wife knows a lot about nursing. I’ll take you into town when you feel up to getting on the horse. Drink a bit more first.”
He held the canteen up to her mouth. She was able to drink properly now, swallowing in greedy gulps. He limited her to a few mouthfuls. She’d been without water for less than a day, so it was unlikely that she would retch, but the canteen was already half empty and he didn’t want to risk a drop of it going to waste.
When he eased the canteen away, Charlotte reclined against his thigh and closed her eyes again. Thomas took the opportunity to survey her condition. One sleeve of her pale gray blouse was torn. The shadow from the green bonnet across her face gave her burned skin a purplish hue. Ignoring propriety, he lifted the hem of her skirts to peer underneath and saw streaks of blood on her petticoats.
Charlotte must have felt his bold inspection, for she emitted a distraught sound. One small hand came alive and flapped away his fumbling fingers with a surprising amount of strength.
Startled, Thomas swept his gaze back to her face. Her eyes were open. He’d never seen such anguish on a woman’s face. Except perhaps once. On his mother’s face, on the day he left his home in Michigan.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There’ll be other babies.”
“No.” She exhaled a sigh that held as much frustration as grief. “No baby.”
He uncapped the canteen and held it to her mouth. “Drink a little more.”
Appearing to overcome her distress, Charlotte gripped the leather-covered canteen with both hands and clung tight when he tried to pull it away. He let her drink. She took deep swallows that rocked her body against the support of his thigh.
When she’d had enough, she slumped down, as if survival instinct had given her enough energy to consume the life-saving water but nothing beyond that. Thomas could see a dazed look enter into her eyes. Her eyelids fluttered down.
“I’ll take you into town. Doc’s wife will know what to do.” He draped the canteen by its strap over his shoulder and eased onto his feet. Bending down to her, he gathered Charlotte in his arms and lifted her up.
He propped her across Shadow’s back, and then he swung up behind her and settled her in his lap and set off toward Gold Crossing. He kept the pace to an easy lope. Speed was less important than not jolting her. She sat sideways in his lap, huddled against his chest. One small fist clung to the front of his shirt.
“Thomas... Thomas,” she muttered.
“I’m here. You’re safe.” He wanted to ask why she had left the cabin, but it could wait. Perhaps the anguish of losing an unborn child muddled a woman’s mind. Pity welled up inside him. Later, he would do his best to console her.
Her eyes flared open. Fever burned in them. Maybe sunstroke.
“There is no baby...never was any baby... This is just the normal flux a woman has every month... No baby...no miscarriage... Don’t let people think...”
Startled, he stared down at her sunburned face. Her eyes closed again. The parched lips moved. “No baby...no miscarriage... Don’t let people think... They’ll laugh at you...for believing... For not being able to tell... Flat stomach...no baby...”
Thomas stiffened in the saddle. He knew little of the world, and even less about women, but it was still insulting to hear it spelled out.
“I’m not...your wife...not Maude Jackson... She died...on the train...I took her ticket...your letter... Ran away... Hide...away from Merlin’s Leap...”
“Who are you?” Thomas asked bluntly.
He knew the answer even before she spoke.
Charlotte Fairfax, Merlin’s Leap, Boston, Massachusetts.
“Charlotte... Fairfax... Don’t tell anyone... Ran away...away from Cousin Gareth...”
So, a small part of her story had to be true. How small a part, he’d have to wait and see. Thomas cradled his wife—not his wife, a stranger called Charlotte Fairfax—in his arms as he made his way to Gold Crossing. By the time they reached the doc’s house, Charlotte was sound asleep. Thomas came up with a story of his own and told his lies to Dottie Timmerman.
Then he went out and slept in the yard of doc’s small frame house.
He wanted to stay with Charlotte, but he knew that he had no right to.
No right to watch her sleep. No right to touch her. No right to kiss her.
For she was not his wife.
He had no wife.
He was alone again.
* * *
Charlotte came awake slowly. She was in a small room, with tiny pink roses on the wallpaper. The acrid scent of carbolic floated in the air. She lay between pristine linen sheets in a narrow bed. She wore a thick cotton nightgown, and she could feel a rag secured in place to trap her monthly flow.
She tried to move. A moan burst from her lips. Every muscle in her body ached. Her legs felt as if they might never support her weight again and the skin on her face felt as if someone had rubbed a sanding block over it.
“Good morning, dear.” It was a female voice, pitched low. Accented, with a sharp, rolling r. Good morrrning.
Charlotte craned to look toward the doorway. A small woman, seventy if she was a day, bustled in, carrying a tray loaded with a teapot and milk jug and sugar bowl, and a pair of china teacups that matched the wallpaper. She wore a frilly pink dress. Her hair, soft and pure white, was arranged in a style that might have been fashionable thirty years ago, with ringlets dangling like icicles by her temples.
“It’s good to see you awake, dear.” She set the tray down on the bedside table, went to the window and pulled the lace curtains open. Bright sunshine streamed into the room.
Charlotte shut her eyes tight, then blinked them open and squinted against the light. It seemed around midday. She must have slept all the way through from last night, when Thomas found her. She counted in her mind. Eighteen hours.
The woman dragged a padded chair over to the bedside and flopped to sit on it. “I thought you might like a drop of tea and a wee chat.” She picked up the teapot and poured. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of giving you a wee tidy-up. A woman likes to be clean at her time of the month.” She gave a forceful nod, as if agreeing with herself, then peered across at Charlotte. “Plump up your pillows, dear, so you can drink your tea. Or would you like me to rearrange them for you?”
“No. I can do it.” Charlotte adjusted the pillows and sat up against them.
“That’s it, dear.” The woman added milk, offered sugar and passed Charlotte the cup on a saucer. “You’ll be right as rain,” the woman went on. “I was worried earlier, when your husband rode in looking for the doctor. I thought he said you were having a miscarriage. Then he brought you in on that blue roan horse of his and put me to rights. He’d said misadventure. Silly me.” The woman chuckled. “People say I talk too much and don’t listen, and I guess they’re right.”
The innocent blue eyes widened. “I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m Dorothy Timmerman. Dottie. The doctor’s wife.” Her head cocked to a mischievous tilt. “I’m fifty percent of the female population of Gold Crossing. That’s counting by numbers. If you count by weight I’m only one-third, for Miss Gladys Hayes is twice the size of me.”
Her lips pursed into a circle of disapproval that left no doubt about how one half of the female population of Gold Crossing felt about the other half. Then a look of eager curiosity chased away the frown and the softly rolling voice resumed its prattle, like a stream that couldn’t stop its flow. “Your husband said you were bitten by some poisonous critter.”
Dottie paused to take a sip of her tea, and Charlotte did the same, hiding her surprise and relief in the china cup. So, her incoherent ramblings had made some sense and Thomas had understood the situation. She was grateful for his quick thinking that had saved them both from embarrassment.
Dottie went on. “He feared it might have been a snake, so he made you lie still. With snakebite it’s best to restrict movement. Then, when he got back home from trying to fetch the doctor, you were incoherent and thrashing about, so he brought you in. We decided it might have been a spider. Whatever it was, you appear to have shaken it off.”
The woman gestured with her cup. “Thomas is sorry he tore your blouse. Your arm was stiff, and he wanted to take a look at the elbow where the critter bit you. The skin is too badly scraped to see any sting marks.”
“I...I think I fell...”
“Doesn’t matter, dear.” A soft hand reached out to pat her arm. “You’ll be right as rain in no time.” Dottie picked up a spoon and stirred, looking a bit awkward. “I must say I was confused when I thought Thomas had said miscarriage...seeing as you’ve only been married such a short while.”
“Two weeks.” Charlotte felt a blush heat her cheeks. Plain talk was needed if she wanted to lay the groundwork for resolving their situation without any dishonor falling upon Thomas. “Mr. Greenwood and I agreed to a trial period. Marriage in name only.”
Dottie gave a huff of dismissal and flapped her hand in the air. “I know all about that. Thomas told me.” She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “He’s sorry it didn’t work out, but he knew from the moment he laid eyes on you that you weren’t cut out for life on a farm. You’re too delicate. I’m glad he sees it, too. It would be a tragedy if he kept you and then had to watch you wilt away from the hard work and childbirth.”
“He...he told you it didn’t...work out?”
Dottie nodded, white icicles quivering. “He said he’ll put you up at the Imperial Hotel while he gets the money together for your passage home.” The soft white hand reached out for yet another kindly pat. “It’s for the best, dear. You’ll learn to accept it and move on with your life.”
Shaking her head in regret, Dottie heaved a sigh that sent the frills and bows on her pink dress fluttering. “Such a good man, he is, Thomas Greenwood. Since the two of you have agreed to annul the marriage, he didn’t think it would be proper for him to sit by your beside. He’s been waiting out in the yard, poor man. Didn’t want to leave you alone until he knew you were going to be all right. He had to go home to milk the cow but he’ll be back soon.”
A knock sounded at the front door. Dottie bounced up. “That will be Gus Junior. He’s come to let me know how soon the doctor expects to be back from Desperation Hill. You finish your tea, dear. I’ll collect the tray later.”
Dottie hurried out of the room. Charlotte heard the front door open. She heard a voice speaking in the awkward adolescent croak that marked the transition from a boy to a man, and then Dottie burst into another stream of talk.
Charlotte’s fingers tightened around the china cup. An annulment. The marriage was probably not valid anyway, considering she had impersonated someone else, but an annulment would avoid any legal problems. She should be relieved. She should be grateful to Thomas Greenwood for having tied up all the loose ends so neatly, but instead an odd sense of disappointment niggled in her belly.
Could she truly have been so wrong? She had thought Thomas would be heartbroken when she left, but it seemed he was completely happy to free her from her marriage vows. He had no intention of fighting to keep her.
Could it be that her lack of expertise with the household chores mattered more to him than the companionship she had felt growing between them? Maybe he wanted to end the marriage, so he could find a different kind of wife.
Someone more capable.
Someone who did not deceive him and tell lies.
With a sinking feeling, Charlotte accepted the facts.
It appeared her husband was eager to be rid of her.
* * *
A tumult of feelings fought within Thomas as he alighted outside the doc’s house and tied Shadow to the hitching rail by the porch. Of all the confused emotions relief ruled the strongest. Charlotte would be all right. Right behind the relief, eagerness to see her burned like a flame through him, but the bitter sting of anger overshadowed his pleasure.
He tried to brush aside the resentment.
He had suspected all along that she might leave him. Even if she had been who she said she was—even if she had been the woman who signed a contract to be his wife—he had feared from the moment he first saw her that she would be too delicate for the life he could offer her.
But that had not stopped him from hoping. Hoping she would prove him wrong. Had not stopped him from wanting. Wanting the marriage to last and be complete. Now he rejected those hopes and wants as nothing but foolish dreams.
So, considering he had predicted Charlotte would abandon him before the month was out, what difference it did make that she had never intended to stay? Thomas probed around in his mind and decided it made a lot of difference.
He’d been deceived. Tricked. Taken advantage of. Made into a fool.
That’s why he was so angry with her. A man who had in good faith put his heart and guts into an attempt to make something work did not like finding out that the enterprise had been doomed from the start.
His boots beat a short cadence against the floor as he followed the doctor’s wife into the small room where he had carried Charlotte last night. Roses on the wallpaper. Lace curtains in the window. He thought of the rough log walls and uncovered windows of his cabin.
It had not been enough.
He had not been enough.
Charlotte was sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows. She looked much better now. No longer exhausted or anguished. Her skin was still pink but it had not blistered, and her lips were on the mend, shiny with a protective layer of grease.
Dottie walked out with a quiet comment. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
She did not close the door after her. Thomas shifted on his feet and spoke in a low voice, the first words that sprang into his turbulent mind. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up this morning. I had to go and milk the cow. It’s painful for the animal if you let the milk build up in the udders for too long.”
Charlotte twisted the edge of the blanket in her nervous fingers. “You don’t need to apologize...” She took a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. “Dottie said you told her we were getting an annulment.”
Thomas clasped his hat in his hands. Why prolong the agony of loss? Why torture his battered heart with a futile hope? Why keep the dream alive, just to see it die again in the end? Charlotte had never been suited to be his wife. He’d known it from the moment he first met her at the Imperial Hotel, but he had closed his eyes to the truth.
“Seems the right thing to do,” he said gruffly.
“You seem to be in a hurry to get it done.”
He let his gaze slide over her features. Such delicate beauty. He should have accepted right from the start that she was out of his reach, as far as the distant surface of the moon. He should have put her back on the train instead of marrying her.
“Why postpone?” he said.
“You are angry at me...”
The accusation in her voice cracked his hard-won control. “Don’t you think I have a right to be angry?” he said through gritted teeth. “You took everything. My money, my care, my affection. You used me. Nothing was safe from you. Not even my dignity.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you...”
“You managed it well enough.”
“Please,” she said. “Let me explain.” She gestured toward the padded chair by the window.
Thomas hesitated, turning his hat in his hands.
“Please,” she said again.
He sighed, pulled up the chair and sat down on it. Despite everything, when he rode back home in the morning to milk the cow, he had taken the time to wash and shave, and to change into clean clothes. Even now, it mattered to him what she thought of him, and he could not deny her the opportunity to say what she wanted. And, if he was honest to himself, part of him was curious to hear her explanations.
“Close the door,” Charlotte said, in that firm voice she sometimes used.
Thomas glanced back at the open doorway. It was not proper, but he was too wrought up to care. He got to his feet, shut the door quietly and sat down again. He let his gaze drift over her once more. The thought that had been stewing at the back of his mind burst into the forefront of his consciousness.
Night after night, he’d slept beside her. What if he had claimed his husbandly rights? What if he had bedded her? Where would they stand now? Would she be forced to stay with him? Or would she leave anyway? Would he feel less empty inside if he had taken something from her, the way she had taken something from him?
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I told you, my parents died four years ago. They drowned when their boat capsized in a storm. They’d only gone out for the day, but the weather changed suddenly.”
“I’m sorry,” Thomas muttered.
But at least your parents loved you while they lived.
“I already explained that my sisters and I were not allowed to live alone. A cousin came to live with us. He is a greedy, selfish man, and he has been trying to force me into marriage. He attacked me, and I knew he’d repeat his unwanted advances until he succeeded in ruining me. That’s why I had to flee. To be safe from him.”
Thomas nodded. He could see how Charlotte had tied snippets of truth into her lies, blending her own situation with that of Miss Jackson.
A pleading look entered her eyes. “I found Miss Jackson dead on the train...she had...I’m sorry, Thomas... She had taken her own life with an overdose of laudanum...I don’t know why she did it. I took your letter and the railroad ticket and pretended to be her. It didn’t feel so very wrong at the time. It seemed as if she was reaching out to me, helping me to find a place of safety. I didn’t know she was a mail-order bride until you came to collect me. I had assumed she had entered into a contract for a teaching position.”
Thomas shook his head. Was there no end to his misfortunes? The woman he’d contracted to marry, the plain woman he had chosen to be his wife because he wanted to save her and the child from ending up destitute, had taken her own life and the life of her unborn child rather than letting him take care of them.
He needed to be alone. He stood, hat in hand, and spoke harshly as his anger and hurt poured into words. “Why didn’t you tell me right at the start? When I first came to collect you, and you discovered you were meant to be my bride, why did you keep pretending? Why didn’t you tell me the truth and ask for my help?”
A guilty expression flickered across her sunburned features. “I wanted to. But you seemed so angry when I suggested breaking the contract. You told me that if I didn’t marry you I had to pay back the cost of my journey. I didn’t have any money, and I was confused and afraid. So I just went along with it. You must believe me. I never meant to hurt you. I thought I’d be able help to you on the farm, during the time I was there.”
“Did you ever consider telling me?”
“Many times...but I...” She looked up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I was happy there, in your secluded valley. And you had made it clear you’d be...a gentleman...allow me a waiting period before consummating the marriage. I didn’t want to tell you, because I knew you’d send me away if you discovered I wasn’t your wife in the eyes of the law. You’d have been too honorable to let me stay with you if there was no real marriage.”
“What about the baby? Surely you understood it would soon become clear there was no child. Would you have told me then? Or would you have pretended you’d lost the child?”
He made an angry gesture at her, taking in her slender shape. “If I had not decided to fetch the doctor, would we still be at home in the cabin, with me rocking you in my arms, pouring my affection out to you, trying to console you because you’d lost the baby you were expecting?”
“I...I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far...”
“No,” Thomas said. “You hadn’t thought further than the end of your pretty little nose.” He tapped his hat against his thigh, propped it on his head and prepared to leave.
“No. Please, Thomas, don’t go. I...I have something to ask.”
Charlotte must have seen the incredulous expression on his face, for she flinched and hunched deeper beneath the covers. Thomas halted, not looking at her but staring at the tiny roses on the wall, his body rigid with tension.
“What more can you ask?” he said gruffly. “What do I have left?”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m not Miss Jackson. Surely it makes no difference now? You can get your annulment, and it will be easier for me to remain safe if I continue to use her name. Cousin Gareth will be looking for me.”
Thomas glared down at her from his height. Then his rigid posture eased and he exhaled a resigned sigh. Was there no end to his willingness to be a fool? “I guess it make no difference now,” he said with reluctance. “I’ll have to find out about an annulment. Maybe Reverend Eldridge can be persuaded to forget he even married us in the first place.”
With that, he walked out. How insignificant, how transient his marriage had been. Like dandelion fluff floating in the wind. They would tear up a piece of paper, ask the reverend to cross out an entry in the church register, and it would be as if the union between them had never been.