The train ride to Colorado Springs had gone far too quickly, Hannah thought as she stood on the platform of the train depot just outside town. Five years. Five full years had passed since she’d left home. Nothing had changed.
Everything had changed.
She had changed.
The early-morning air slapped her in the nose and stung her throat. Pike’s Peak, purple in color under the soft dawn light, rose high above the land, lifting its mighty face past the clouds as if to say I’m larger than the earth can handle.
The welcoming smell of fresh pine filled her nostrils.
She had returned.
But was she home?
Time would tell.
One thing was certain: Hannah had matured in the last five years. She was twenty-six years old, a fully grown woman with a large amount of money saved. Would it make a difference? Would she be strong enough to face her father as the confident woman she’d become? Or would she fall back into old patterns and turn into the surly, arrogant, young girl with a boulder-size chip on her shoulder?
Reviewing the past with an adult perspective, she now understood her father’s disapproval of her. She’d been a willful child. Hard to handle. But, in her defense, she’d been missing her mother. And with her father choosing to favor Rachel, Hannah had felt abandoned.
Well, she was here now. Prepared to the reveal the truth and ask for her father’s forgiveness.
The rest would be up to him.
Glancing around, she wondered why he wasn’t at the depot. She’d sent a telegraph ahead to warn him of her impending arrival. That small courtesy had been Beau’s suggestion, one Hannah had initially fought. She’d relented because she’d known he’d been right.
As usual.
She looked over at him standing next to Mavis, who was guarding their baggage as though she expected some miscreant to steal their valuables. Hannah could only smile at the silly, adorable picture the old woman made sitting perched on top of the pile of bags. Laced up in Hannah’s fancy boots, Mavis’s feet dangled near the ground without quite reaching the wooden platform.
Hannah’s heart clenched. Mavis was a grown woman, nearing the end of her life, with a childlike joy for living. Hannah loved the old dear as if she’d been her own grandmother.
Beau shifted his stance, drawing Hannah’s attention back to him. She worried for him, more than she probably should. He’d been quiet on the journey from Wyoming to Colorado. Was he mourning the loss of Amelia?
Why did that thought steal her breath?
He turned slightly to consider the mountains. She took the opportunity to study him. She cataloged his handsome features, one by one, starting with the aristocratic sweep of his nose that was so much like his mother’s. And the strong jawline that came straight from his father and proclaimed his O’Toole heritage.
Her heart stumbled at the sight of all that masculine strength of character. For a brief moment she couldn’t gulp in enough air. She couldn’t think. It was just a moment, but her world tilted, her head grew light and she knew. Oh, she knew.
She loved him.
She loved Beauregard O’Toole.
But instead of bringing fear, she felt an inner peace she’d never known before. And then a soft voice whispered from deep within her. Everything will work for the best for both of you, together.
The thought brought some comfort. But they had a long way to go to become a “both of you, together.” For one, Beau wasn’t on board with the “both of you, together” part. But he would be. And she would be.
And, together, they would be—
A hard clearing of a throat jolted her out of her thoughts. “The prodigal daughter returns.”
Hannah froze.
With panic clawing at her throat, she pivoted around to stare at the man who had banished her from his home five years ago.
There was no mistaking this was her father. The harsh features and unyielding expression in his eyes were the same as always.
He still judged her.
After all these years.
Why, Lord? Why?
Numb from too many emotions surging through her blood, she blinked up at him.
He looked older. Thinner. More haggard.
And so very, very sad. She’d never noticed that sadness before. It made him seem more approachable. Yet all the more distant.
“Hello, Father.”
He didn’t acknowledge her greeting, merely cast his gaze around the platform. “Where is your sister?”
“She—”
“What’s happened? What have you done to her? What—”
“Reverend Southerland?” Beau cut him off in midsentence.
Hannah didn’t know where Beau had come from. Or when he had joined them. She hadn’t realized he could move so quickly and without any sound.
Then again, she couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of her pulse rushing in her ears.
“Reverend O’Toole.” Her father’s gaze collided with Beau’s and his eyes sharpened to thin slits. “What, may I ask, are you doing here?”
“I am escorting your daughter, sir.”
Beau held the other man’s gaze, but he didn’t explain any further.
Why not? Hannah wondered.
Her father’s chin rose a mere fraction of an inch, but it was enough to indicate his genuine displeasure. His brow scrunched into a disapproving frown. Hannah was familiar with the look. She’d been on the receiving end far too often.
“You traveled with Hannah?”
Beau nodded, but still he kept silent on the particulars.
“Alone?”
Beau lifted a shoulder.
In that moment, Hannah realized this was some sort of standoff between the two men, a masculine battle of wills she didn’t understand.
“You’re not helping matters,” she whispered to Beau. “Tell him the rest.”
Beau kept his gaze locked with her father’s.
“Beau, please.”
He didn’t budge. Not one single inch.
Nor did her father.
Hannah sniffed her impatience at them both.
Did they have to be such...men?
“Father,” she said. “Reverend O’Toole was good enough to accompany both Mavis and me on our journey.”
Her father’s quick eyebrow flick was the only measure of his surprise. “And who might this Mavis be?”
Hannah resisted the urge to tug on her collar and straighten her skirt. She ran her tongue across her teeth and pointed to Mavis, who chose that moment to adjust her chamois strap and shoot out a stream of spit between her front teeth.
Sensing inspection, she looked up and gave them her trademark gap-toothed grin. The gesture was pure Mavis Tierney, with a bit of an imp thrown in for good measure.
“Ah.” Reverend Southerland dismissed Mavis with a grunt and returned his attention to Beau. “I would have expected you to be in Greeley by now, working with the committee on the plans for the new church building.”
Beau’s shoulders relaxed. With a hard blink, he wiped his features of all expression. “I was called to Denver on a personal matter, sir. A family friend was in need.”
“That’s where I met Reverend Southerland,” Hannah said. “In Denver.”
She wanted to say more, but she was jostled by someone walking by, reminding her they weren’t alone on the platform.
When she stumbled, Beau rushed to her aid. He steadied her with one hand on her back and the other on her arm.
Her father frowned at them both, but Beau didn’t release her until she found her balance.
“Where is your sister, Hannah?” His gaze traveled across the platform, then darted back to her. “What have you done with her?”
“That’s why we’re here,” she said. “To tell you of Rachel’s...fate.”
Shock and worry traced a hard line along his forehead. “Is she hurt? Ill?”
His concern was so familiar, so painfully genuine, that it broke Hannah’s heart. Her father had never, never, worried about her like that. “She is well.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hannah sighed. “I know. And that’s my fault. I—”
“So you haven’t changed.”
At the disappointment she heard in her father’s tone, her stomach knotted. She wanted to toss Rachel’s letters at him and run. But Hannah wasn’t that impetuous, angry little girl anymore. She was a woman, a mature woman of independent means. God had brought her to this point in her life to end the lies of the past.
She would not cower now.
“No, Father, in that you’re wrong. I have changed.” She lifted her head and stared Thomas Southerland in the eyes. “In more ways than one.”
But whether the change was for good or evil was all a matter of perspective.
Beau could not stand the pain on Hannah’s face any longer. But he had to show respect to her father, for her sake. Starting an argument now would only hurt her more. He’d already made matters worse with that silent battle of wills of a few moments ago. Yet how could he show respect when all he wanted to do was slam his fist into the other man’s nose?
Didn’t Thomas Southerland see how much pain he was causing his daughter? It was one thing to threaten Beau with his future in Greeley. That was man-to-man. But what sort of parent had such little regard for his own child as to treat her so coldly and with such lack of affection?
“Reverend Southerland,” Beau said, clearing his throat of the resentment he heard in his own tone. “I think we should find another, less populated spot to speak further. I assure you, we will explain everything.” Beau didn’t add that the explanation would not be to the reverend’s satisfaction.
As though yanked out of a trance, Reverend Southerland shook his head and began moving toward Mavis and the baggage.
Mavis stood, winked and then offered her hand. “I’m Mavis. And I say any father of Hannah’s is a friend of mine.”
He gave a noncommittal grunt and completely ignored her outstretched hand.
She sighed, rolled her eyes to heaven and stepped aside so he could lift the largest of the pieces of luggage off the top of the pile.
Beau followed his lead and began hoisting bags, as well.
They were a silent group as they left the train depot and loaded their belongings into the reverend’s smart carriage. It wasn’t until they were in the heart of town and stopping in front of a hotel that Beau realized the good reverend was not going to open his home to any of them.
As healing old wounds went, it was a vile start. For Hannah’s sake, Beau hoped this obvious slight was merely a temporary show of distrust on the reverend’s part and not the start of worse things to come.