Chapter 1
Clary Wilson considered her sister over the top of her magazine.
Evelyn stared at her chess pieces with a thoughtful look on her face.
One glance at the board and Clary knew what Evelyn’s next move would be.
She’d finally use her knight, taking her opponent’s unsuspecting pawn.
Any fool could see that. Any fool, that was, except the young man sitting opposite her, watching Evelyn dreamily.
Poor fool.
He had no idea that while he was watching Evelyn, she was putting on a stellar performance for his benefit.
Clary looked back at the article she’d been reading.
She didn’t approve of Evelyn’s idea of entertainment.
How was convincing a suitably pliable gentleman that he should take her to dinner an appropriate means of entertainment?
How many times could Evelyn pull this same trick before it backfired on her?
Should she stop Evelyn before the game went any further? Clary wasn’t sure.
Evelyn’s voice rose abruptly. “Oh, Curtis, you naughty man. Stealing my poor little pawn like that. You should be ashamed.”
Ah, so Curtis wasn’t that much of a fool. At least he was trying to put up a defense.
Clary smiled to herself. Good. Evelyn shouldn’t have it all her own way.
“And now my knight? I’m sure you’re cheating,” Evelyn said in her coyest voice.
“Not at all, my dear,” Curtis replied.
Clary lowered the top of her magazine ever so slightly.
She looked across at Curtis. He was certainly handsome.
She had to hand it to her sister for picking the men with the best looks to play this game with.
He had dark hair and sparkling blue eyes.
An easy smile peeked out from beneath his thin mustache.
Once again, Clary wondered if she should interfere with her sister’s game.
What if kind Curtis took offense to Evelyn using him for a free dinner?
She had been doing so for most of the journey from Indiana to Texas.
As new single men boarded the train and others left, she found herself with a constantly fresh supply of men to charm.
It was a harmless game for the most part.
Both parties were bored and looking for company, so what was the harm in a little game of chess and some dinner later?
Clary didn’t know, but something about it didn’t sit well with her.
Her eye drifted to the window where rain was splattering the glass and leaving clear streaks across it. Where had this storm come from? It seemed to have been waiting for them from the moment they entered Texas.
“That was a bold move,” Curtis said.
Evelyn had snapped up his bishop with her rook.
Was she trying to lose the game? Clary wasn’t sure at this point since Evelyn had left her rook in imminent danger from Curtis’s queen. Perhaps Evelyn was putting too much of her attention on her pout and her eyelash batting to take the chess game seriously.
Oh, what’s the harm? Curtis would most likely want to buy Evelyn dinner anyway, even if she wasn’t laying it on so very thick. She’s like that and always has been.
Was this because of her upbringing? Their father had been alone raising Clary and her sister from when they were eleven and eight years old respectively. Being a stagecoach driver, he had been forced to take them with him when he worked.
Clary, being an excellent shot from a young age, had ridden up front with him most of the time.
Evelyn had then taken to riding in the coach with the passengers.
While Clary was learning to read maps and spot trouble miles away, Evelyn had learned to talk to people.
She had become an expert in getting her way every time.
As Evelyn fell into another long staring match with her chess pieces, Clary’s attention drifted. It was only late afternoon, but the dark clouds outside the window had forced them to light lamps in the dining car early. Clary repositioned her magazine to catch more of the light.
She continued reading for a while until Evelyn finally moved another piece on the board. Ah, it was becoming clear now: Evelyn meant to lose the game to Curtis. A nice little ego boost would secure her a good dinner.
The dark clouds lit up as though someone had set a match to phosphorus, and Clary couldn’t help but glance out of the window. A moment later, a loud crack of thunder roared overhead and the whole dining car of the train seemed to shudder.
Several of the other passengers cried out in alarm and then began to chuckle as they recovered from their fright.
It had been quite a lightning strike, and Clary was glad they were in the train and not trying to traverse the countryside in a stagecoach like her father had driven.
That would have been disastrous. Especially since this storm seemed to be quite a ferocious one, with the wind pelting the rain against the windows as though it had a grudge against them.
Turning her attention back to the table across from her and then to her magazine, Clary found Evelyn clutching at her chest as she giggled and simpered. “My goodness, what a fright that was.”
“You’re perfectly safe in the train,” Curtis said. He had a nice voice. It was soothing. Clary wondered what he did for a living. She hadn’t overheard that part of the conversation.
“Am I? That lightning looked strong enough to cut through metal,” Evelyn said.
What nonsense, Clary thought.
Just then there was a commotion at the door to the dining car. Two of the cargo handlers who worked on the train ran into the carriage. They stopped and looked around, clearly distressed.
Clary’s heart leaped into her throat.
Please don’t be looking for me. Don’t be looking for me.
The two men, whom she now recognized as Isaac Muller and John Freeman, spotted her and came striding over to the table.
“Miss Wilson,” Isaac said, the freckles on his cheeks standing out brightly against his pale skin. “We need you to come with us.”
“Why?” Clary asked, dropping her magazine onto the table. “What’s wrong?”
“Please, just come with us,” John said. His dark hair was dripping wet. “It’s an emergency,” he added in a lowered voice.
Clary stood up and looked over at her sister. Evelyn was watching her. Any emergency that applied to Clary applied to Evelyn too.
“Oh, Curtis, I simply must go and see what’s happening,” Evelyn said in the same meek little voice she’d been using with him all this time. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Well, let me come and help,” he said kindly.
The last thing Clary needed was someone else getting involved in the business. Buying Evelyn dinner was one thing; getting involved with the coaches was something else entirely.
“Don’t worry, Curtis,” Clary said. “We probably just need to check on our property. She’ll be back before you know it.”
Evelyn smiled at him, and he smiled back. Then Clary took her by the arm, and they hurried from the dining car, following the two baggage men.
The horses and the coaches were vital. They were all she and Evelyn had left of their father’s company. It was their inheritance after his untimely death and meant everything to the sisters.
When they were out of the dining car, Clary asked her questions of John and Isaac. “Is it the horses? Did they get a fright when the thunder boomed so loudly? Are any of them hurt?”
“Um … no,” Isaac said. “It’s the stagecoaches. One of them has come loose.”
“What? But we tied them down,” Clary said, perplexed. “I’ve checked them at every stop. How did this happen?”
Both men shrugged at the same time.
She ground her teeth. Of course this would happen now, in the middle of a terrible storm while they were going at breakneck speed. Just her luck.
“We went to the flatbed, but the rain has made the whole thing terribly slippery,” John said. “We didn’t get further than three or four paces before we were both in danger of slipping right off the edge.”
Clary began to chew on the inside of her cheek. This wasn’t good at all.
“If we tied ropes around our waists and then went out?” Evelyn asked. “Would that work?”
There was a moment of silence as they considered it.
Clary wondered what Thomas would do. He was the man she was moving all the way to Texas to meet.
He had a good head on his shoulders and seemed to be the kind of person one would want to have near at hand in a crisis.
Well, she had a crisis, but he was in his little town of Unity, still more than a day away.
“Let’s not decide anything until we can see what’s going on,” Clary said. Yes, that would be what Thomas would say. She was sure of it. He’d want the facts before making plans.
After walking a while in silence, they finally reached the flatbed. Usually used to transport logs, it wasn’t entirely what Clary would have liked for her stagecoaches, but it was what they had on hand.
The door that led out to the flatbed had a glass window, and Clary and Eve peered through it into the dim light of a stormy afternoon. Through the pouring rain, the forms of the coaches were just dim shadows.
“How do you know one has come loose?” Clary asked. The stagecoaches seemed to be where she had left them earlier when the train stopped for fuel.
“The one at the back shifted out of place,” Isaac said. “We saw it. Maybe it slid back in line again.”
“Or perhaps that wasn’t what you saw?” Evelyn asked. “I’m not pointing fingers or anything, but it’s not easy to see a thing in this rain.”
“We know what we saw,” John said, glaring at her. “Just wait. We’re going to go around a bend soon, and you’ll see.”
Clary was inclined to believe John and Isaac.
In the two weeks since the coaches and horses had been loaded, they had been on watch.
They had helped her to keep the horses watered and fed and to make sure that the coaches were secure.
Clary trusted them. If they said the far one was loose, then loose it was.