Chapter 1
He was at it again, the man with the dark hair and eyes. Diane Hart looked up from her book and sighed. That poor woman, she thought, looking at the timid creature who was shrinking in her seat in front of him.
Over the noise in the train car, she couldn’t hear the man’s words, but the tone was enough.
It was harsh, snappy, short little phrases spat out with anger.
Maybe the woman hadn’t said the right thing, or she’d forgotten to get the sugar for his coffee.
Maybe she’d just looked at him in a way he thought was funny.
Who knew what set a man like that off? It was always something and nothing at the same time.
The man stopped droning on, and the woman possibly said the right thing this time because he leaned back in his chair and took a sip from his mug. He looked less angry but still disgruntled.
Diane went back to her book, but despite holding it open, she didn’t start reading again. Her thoughts were elsewhere, and she kept her ears pricked, just in case.
During the long train ride out from Boston to Texas, she had seen many disagreements blooming between passengers.
Perhaps it was the close quarters. There was something about so many people stuck in a cigar-shaped tube of metal, hurtling along so fast that the landscape ran by in a blink.
It was unnatural, she’d heard some say, and that made tempers run hot and compassion and patience run low.
Diane suspected the man with the dark hair and the cruel eyes and mouth always had his temper running hot.
He looked the type, especially when seen opposite the woman he was with.
She was a delicate creature, with fine bones and little to no meat on her at all, seeming to shrink every time he so much as looked at her.
Why does she stay with him?
Diane had asked herself this question many times before and she still didn’t have a good answer.
Over the years it took to first study to be a nurse and then work in hospitals as one, she had seen it all.
The battered women with black eyes and broken bones, who insisted they had fallen down the stairs or walked into doors.
She had seen the bruises and known them for what they were.
At first she tried to reason with them, insisting that they leave the men who were so cruel, but it never came to anything.
The women always felt too trapped, too stuck, and wouldn’t risk striking out on their own.
Life was so hard for a woman on her own in this world, even if things had improved considerably over the last century.
She felt pity well up inside her for the poor girl and said a prayer that she might be able to help her in some way.
“Ha! Ha! I win again!” a voice cried from a table diagonally across from Diane.
An older couple, both graying, were playing cards. The husband, a friendly gentleman named Anders Cartwright, had just won a game against his sweet, talkative wife, Mildred.
Diane had become acquainted with them during the long trip.
The Cartwrights were very sociable and spent most of the journey playing cards in the dining car.
It seemed to be their favorite pastime. Playing cards, drinking, and eating.
Hence the chubby cheeks and the overly ruddy complexion that caused Diane’s palms to itch.
She desperately wanted to take Anders under her wing before his lifestyle got him into trouble.
Diane looked over at them. “Did he cheat again, Mildred?” she asked.
“I most certainly did not!” Anders said jovially. He handed the cards to his wife. “Your turn to shuffle, my dear.”
“Yes, I believe it is,” Mildred said, taking the cards. “Anders is a fine gin rummy player. No need to cheat when the cards like you, is there?”
Anders nodded emphatically and then looked away. Mildred winked at Diane.
Diane had played a few rounds of gin rummy with them, and she knew that of the two, Mildred was a far better player.
She also knew that Mildred sometimes let Anders win because it made him so happy.
Diane wasn’t one to ever let anyone beat her, but she saw it as a sweet gesture by a woman who was still clearly besotted by her husband even after many years of happy marriage.
She prayed God would grant her that same blessing.
“So, are you excited?” Mildred asked as she deftly shuffled the playing cards.
“Excited?” Diane asked, frowning.
“Yes, for tomorrow …” Mildred said, a sly look on her face.
Diane was blank. What’s happening tomorrow?
“My goodness, have you forgotten? We arrive in San Antonio tomorrow,” Mildred said brightly. “You’re going to meet your beau. What’s his name again?”
The penny dropped. Funny how she could have forgotten even for a minute, when most of the time it was all Diane had been thinking about the whole trip. “Oh right, yes … Ethan. His name is Ethan Lewis,” Diane said.
“At least you can remember his name,” Mildred teased.
Diane felt herself blush. “I am quite excited to meet him in person, honest. From his letters, he seems to be a generous, upstanding man.”
“Well, I for one would love to meet him,” Mildred said, undisguised hope in her voice.
“Where is he based? Is it in San Antonio? He might be able to point us in the right direction for a spot to put up a new hotel,” Anders said. “That’s why we’re headed out that way.”
“Ethan lives in a little mining town a couple of hours from San Antonio. They’re trying to get the railway to build a track out to them, but he says he might be an old man before that actually happens.”
Anders wore an incredulous grin as he absentmindedly rubbed his breastbone. “Ah, bureaucracy! So much red tape to jump through to get the simplest things done.”
“It seems so,” Diane agreed. She smiled. “I’m going to work in a clinic there. Ethan has organized it all for me already. He’s very thoughtful and thorough.”
“I think you two will be a good match,” Mildred said warmly, crinkling her nose as she smiled.
The angry man’s voice was rising again, interrupting the conversation. Diane’s attention turned to him. This time Anders also turned in his seat and glared in the man’s direction.
“Please, Charlie!” the blonde woman cried. “I’ll do better!”
“Keep your voice down, Sarah!” Charlie snapped at her.
Not that you’re keeping yours down. Diane sucked on her teeth, trying to keep herself from saying or doing something to him.
When she was younger and studying nursing, she had a roommate in the boarding house she stayed in.
Tilly Lee was also studying, but with a Chinese herbalist. He was her mother’s second cousin or something like that.
Anyway, Tilly and Diane had taken to swapping notes in the evenings when they would both sit with their books, trying to cram information into their minds.
Tilly had been learning a lot about something called pressure points, places on the body where firm pressure could influence the functioning of various organs.
At first Diane had considered it a load of manure, but when Tilly started demonstrating, Diane quickly changed her tune.
Tilly had cured her of a headache many times by massaging the skin between her thumb and forefinger, and Diane was hooked.
The thing about the points was that they could also be used to hurt someone. Knowing where to grab someone could cut off the blood to the brain and leave nothing more than a small bruise on the skin.
Diane would never use her knowledge like that, of course, but she found the temptation hard to resist when dealing with an abusive ruffian like Charlie.
There was a violent shove from Charlie and a jerked movement on Sarah’s part.
The mug Charlie had been sipping from tipped over, and the remains of the coffee sloshed over the table and dribbled onto his lap.
He shot up and, in one fluid movement, swore at Sarah and then backhanded her across the face.
It happened so quickly that no one was prepared. No one but Anders.
He rose from his seat, strode the short distance to Charlie, and grabbed him by the shirt. Anders was about thirty years Charlie’s senior and a good hundred pounds heavier. It looked effortless the way he slammed Charlie against the side of the train and held him there.
Other men in the car rose to their feet as well, although a moment or two later. Two of them were in their twenties, and they formed up behind Anders like bodyguards, their hands bunched into fists. It seemed that Charlie had made himself a whole mess of enemies in one stupid move.
Diane was glad of the collective support for Sarah, but she wished that one of the younger men had reached Charlie first. There was a vein on the side of Anders’s neck that had begun to throb, and it was worrying her.
Coupled with how very red in the face he was and how hard he was breathing ... It just wasn’t good.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Charlie protested, trying to break Anders’s hold on him.
“How dare you, sir?” Anders demanded. “How dare you raise your hand to a lady?”
“A lady?” Charlie asked and burst out laughing. “She ain’t no lady. What business is it of yours anyhow? She’s my woman, and I can do what I like.”
“Not true,” Mildred said, walking over to him. “Women have rights these days. Isn’t that true, Mr. Wilkinson?”
A newspaper farther down the car rustled and a man of around the same age as Anders looked over the top of it.
He raised his brows, shook his head, and said, “That is, in fact, correct. She has rights and, depending on the circumstances, she can sue you.” The newspaper was flicked and returned to its former position hiding his face.
Mildred glared at Charlie. “There you have it, sir. She has rights, and you can’t touch her.”
“Is that true?” Sarah asked in a very small voice, looking up from where she’d been huddled in her seat.
“It is,” Mildred said reassuringly. “Mr. Wilkinson is our lawyer. He mostly does property law, but he knows what he’s talking about.”