Chapter One
SNEAK PEEK: MAIL-ORDER LADY
She hadn't spoken in two hours.
Robert Balfour had been tracking the silence the way he tracked everything about Clara McKinney—with the part of his mind that had given up pretending it had better things to do.
The last words out of Clara’s mouth hadn’t been for him at all, but for Mrs. Wang—a question about the river. Before that, she’d noted the light glancing off the bluffs. Just small remarks. The sort people made when real feelings loomed to big to be spoken.
Fort Benton materialized out of the dust and the smell of the Missouri—a town built at the farthest point of navigable water, where the river ran too shallow for the big steamboats to go farther.
Everything that needed to go farther had to walk. A place of arrivals and departures. Of people strung between what had been and what might be.
That described the three of them well enough too.
On Front Street, a man lounged against the trading post wall, managing to watch without ever seeming to. Men passed back and forth along the road, sometimes in clusters, sometimes a singular determined stride. Casual commerce. Not anything he needed to worry about for Clara’s safety. Probably.
But somewhere in this town, her mother might be waiting, even now.
"The hotel." Mrs. Wang pointed at the brick building on the left.
He reined in before it, then set the brake. Climbed down. Came around to hand Mrs. Wang out, and then turned to Clara.
She was already looking at him. The glance lasted less than a second—that assessing look she gave people she was trying not to react to—and then she took his offered hand and stepped down from the wagon.
"Thank you." She let go immediately. Then she turned toward the inn with her shoulders set the way they did when she was determined to force brightness into her world, no matter how dreary the outlook presented.
If only he could say something to help her. He’d been trying to do so for the ten days of their journey, but hadn’t accomplished it yet.
"Ready?" he asked instead.
"Yes." She gave a firm nod. "Let's get it over with."
Perhaps her mother’s steamboat hadn’t arrived yet. They’d find out soon.
He picked up the bags and followed the women inside.
The lobby smelled of tobacco and old wood and a faint metallic odor—river water, probably, tracked in on boots and never quite dried. Stairs rose near the front door, beside a hallway leading back to a dining area. The main room held a desk and few chairs where people could gather.
Two men sat near the window, playing cards with the leisure of people who had nowhere else to be. Neither looked up.
The clerk at the desk did. A young man, perhaps twenty, with ink stains on his cuffs. His gaze skipped past Robert to settle on Clara with an interest that made Robert tighten his jaw.
"Good afternoon." Robert stepped forward. "I sent a wire ahead. Balfour."
"Ah, yes." The clerk turned to consult his ledger. "Got your message. Three rooms. That still suit?"
"It will."
The clerk's gaze flicked to Clara, then away. "Sign here, Mr. Balfour."
He signed. Took the keys. Paid for a week, though he had no idea if they’d need to stay that long. Or longer.
"Any steamboats arrive in the past few days?" He kept his tone casual.
The clerk rubbed his jaw. "One came in yesterday morning. The Benton Belle. Another's due tomorrow if the water holds."
Yesterday. Robert kept his expression neutral, though his pulse kicked up. If Mrs. McKinney had boarded that ship as she’d planned, she would be in town now. “Do you have a Mrs. McKinney staying here, by chance?”
"Not to my knowledge, sir." The clerk flipped back a page in the ledger, then another. "No one by that name's checked in this week."
He nodded. It didn't mean she wasn't here—only that she hadn't registered under her own name.
Or mayhap she'd found lodging elsewhere. Fort Benton had boarding houses. Private rooms above the saloons. A dozen places a person with means could stay if she wanted to avoid notice.
"Thank you." He collected the keys and turned back to Clara and Mrs. Wang.
Clara's expression remained bright and pleasant. The same face she'd worn at breakfast when Mrs. Wang had asked if she'd slept well. The same countenance she'd given him yesterday when he'd asked if she needed to stop and rest.
They climbed the stairs. The wood creaked under their feet, and somewhere above them a door opened and closed. The hallway at the top stretched long and dim, with sunlight slanting through a window at the far end.
Room seven. He unlocked it and pushed the door open for Mrs. Wang. She stepped inside, glanced around, then nodded. “Very good.”
He crossed the hall to room eight and unlocked it. Pushed the door wide and stepped inside before he let Clara pass.
One window, overlooking the street. A decent latch on the inside. He checked it, then the door itself—solid, with a lock that didn't look recently repaired.
The room was plain but clean. A pitcher and basin on the stand. A bed and a narrow chair. A hook on the back of the door.
Adequate, though not nearly nice enough for a woman like Clara.
He still stood in the middle of the space when Clara appeared in the doorway.
"It looks lovely."
It didn't. It looked like exactly what it was—a frontier hotel room that had seen too many souls pass through without caring about any of them.
But Clara stood in the doorway with that expression on her face, the one that said she would find a gracious word to say about a tent in a rainstorm if she thought it would make someone else feel better.
"The lock is solid." He nodded to the door. "Keep it fastened when you're inside."
"Of course."
He set her bag on the chair. Checked the window latch again. Anything to keep his hands occupied and his mind on practical matters instead of the way she stood there, so beautiful and so perfectly composed. As if her mother weren't somewhere in this town with plans he couldn't yet anticipate.
"Robert."
He turned.
"You don't have to worry quite so much." She spoke softer now, soothing the edge from her words. "I'm not going to fall apart."
How could he answer that?
She wouldn't fall apart—that was the problem.
She'd hold herself together through whatever her mother intended, and she'd do it with that careful grace and lovely smile.
No one would know what it cost her except the people who'd learned to read the small signs.
The way her hands stilled. The precise spacing of her words.
"I know you won't."
She tilted her head. Studied him the way she sometimes did, as if she were trying to solve him like an equation. "Then why do you look like you're preparing for a siege?"
"Because I am." He kept his voice level. "Your mother is likely in this town. She came here with a purpose. Until I know what that purpose is, I'm going to treat every possibility as a threat."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It's thorough."
The corners of her mouth lifted. Not quite a smile, but close enough that his chest tightened. "I'll lock the door. I promise."
He nodded. Then he moved toward the door, because standing in her room was beginning to feel like an intrusion he had no right to. "Don't open it for anyone until I'm back."
The smile touched her voice. "And how will I know it's you?"
"Three knocks, then two."
Was that a chuckle? "All right."
He went to check his own room before he could say anything else.
Mrs. Wang was in the hall when he came back out of his chamber. She'd removed her bonnet and smoothed her hair.
He didn’t hesitate. “I’m taking the wagon to the livery. Stay here. Both of you.” He gave her a glance to be certain she understood. “I’ll be back within the hour.”
She gave a nod, though her tone was dry. "We will not wander off into danger while you're gone."
He took the stairs two at a time and went back out to the wagon.
The street hadn't changed. Same lounger at the trading post. Same afternoon light slanting through the dust. He climbed up, released the brake, and guided the team down the road.
The livery sat two lanes back from the river, close enough that the smell of the Missouri followed him the whole way.
Irish met him at the entrance. A familiar face, though Robert didn’t come to Fort Benton often for the man to recognize him. "Afternoon to you, sir. Looking to stable your team?"
"For the week, possibly longer." Robert climbed down and gathered the reins. "They’ll need grain. It’s been a long journey."
"Will do." The man took the reins and ran a practiced eye over the horses. "These Balfour stock?"
Robert stilled. "You know my family?"
"Know of 'em. Your brother Thomas was through here last fall with a few horses. Fine animals." The man patted the nearest horse's neck. "These have the same look about them."
Of course Thomas had made an impression. He always did.
Robert pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.
"Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Balfour?"
"No. Thank you." After paying the liveryman, he added a little extra, then turned back toward the street.
The walk to the hotel should have cleared his head. But too much pressed in.
The Benton Belle had arrived yesterday. Mrs. McKinney could be anywhere in this town. She could have already spotted them on the street. Could be watching the hotel right now.
He lengthened his stride.
He'd read her letter a dozen times over the past month. The hand was elegant, the sentences carefully measured—the sort of writing that hid effort behind grace. My daughters, she'd called them, which Kate had snorted at.