Chapter Three
Independence, Montana
Ethan Walker shook his head, as if the movement would force his thoughts into some coherent order.
He was preparing to head west, like everyone else in the wagon train, but he was having trouble focusing on the preparations.
Instead, his thoughts were haunted by a tall, slender woman with deep auburn hair and eyes so green they reminded him of emeralds.
She had been a vision in her silk gown, stately and elegant.
Ethan had thought that she looked like a mayor’s daughter or a socialite from some glamorous place like New York City.
He had thought that she must surely be married already with children of her own, and yet—
Emily was her sister, not her daughter. That shouldn’t have mattered at all, though.
He had a plan, one that he’d thought through carefully for over five years.
He would journey all the way to Oregon with Hannah, where they would begin their life anew without the shadow of their father looming over them both.
Hannah would be free and could become a respectable married woman.
More importantly, she’d be a happy woman, one whose every step wasn’t followed by pitying glances.
There was no room for distractions, especially not wayward thoughts about a woman, regardless of how beautiful she might be.
“Ethan! Join us!” Zachariah Sterling’s cheerful voice cut through the air, driving away the image of Grace Hawthorne’s beautiful face. The man, slight and pale, waved Ethan over to join him and two other men.
Before meeting Grace, Ethan had thought Zachariah was the most out of place of the travelers in their wagon train.
His clothes were a little ragged and worn from use, but clearly of good quality.
Everything else about the man, from his posture to his accent, spoke of East Coast wealth.
He had not provided much of an answer for why he was on the trail when asked, only that he wanted a new life.
Ethan sighed, silently wishing that Zachariah had not called him over. He would have been content to return to the wagon with Hannah and wait there until it was time to leave, but he could find no good reason to refuse the man.
“Has everyone been introduced?” Zachariah asked as Ethan joined them. “No? Ethan, this is Will O’Keefe from Tennessee.” Zachariah indicated a young man with black hair who gave Ethan an awkward smile.
“This is Luke Newman.” That was a middle-aged man with blond hair and brown eyes. He looked as enthusiastic about the conversation as Ethan felt.
“Nice to meet you,” Ethan said.
“And Ethan Walker, of course,” Zachariah told the group. “I have the sense that you are not especially fond of other people, but I thought you might wish to know a few of your companions on the trail. We will be in one another’s company for a long time, after all.”
Ethan grimaced. Even if Zachariah’s assumptions were correct, he did not like being read so easily, much less having his character described in such a way before a crowd of near strangers.
“Agreed,” Will said, rocking back on his heels. “You know, this is my first time outside my hometown. I don’t know what to expect.”
Luke snorted. “Really, boy? And you decided to go all the way to Oregon? What led to that foolishness?”
“I want to find gold,” Will said, looking a little affronted. “I have seven sisters back home to take care of!”
Luke scoffed. “And you think you’ll just find gold like that?” The man snapped his fingers. “Without any problems at all?”
Will crossed his arms. “I might. Lots of men have.”
“Now, let’s not argue,” Zachariah said, raising his hands to urge a truce. “I imagine we’ll all be at one another’s throats by the end of the journey as it is. We don’t want to begin with a quarrel right away.”
Will had the grace to appear sheepish, but Luke looked as if he still wished to argue. Ethan sighed and let his gaze wander to another group of men who were clustered together behind a wagon, laughter rising from their gathering.
Ethan inhaled sharply as he recognized one of the figures.
His half-brother Derek, dark-haired and thin, stood in the crowd with a bottle raised in a toast. Of course, he hadn’t wasted any time in getting both intoxicated and becoming involved with what Ethan felt confident in assuming were the most disreputable men in their group.
Anger built in Ethan’s chest, so much so that he thought he might burst from it.
“Excuse me,” Ethan said to the men around him.
Zachariah opened his mouth, likely to protest, but Ethan stormed away before the man could say another word.
Ethan had planned his escape from Missouri meticulously, which he’d then detailed to Hannah.
She had accepted it well, far better than she had five years prior, and Ethan had thought that would be the end of the matter.
They’d made their preparations to leave, saying farewell to the townsfolk and visiting their mother’s grave one last time.
And then one day, Derek had shown up at their house and announced that he was leaving Missouri with them. They were family and ought to stick together, or so Derek had said. Ethan had adamantly refused, but Hannah, with her soft, kind heart, had persuaded Ethan to give in.
‘And look what’s happened already,’ Ethan thought sourly.
Derek laughed and stumbled back suddenly.
“Derek!” Ethan snapped.
His half-brother’s head snapped in his direction. “Ethan!” Derek raised his bottle and grinned broadly, clearly unbothered by Ethan’s displeasure. “We were just talking about you!”
“Were you, now?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah!”
Ethan clenched his jaw as he grasped Derek’s arm and pulled him away. His brother stumbled and let out a startled laugh, but he didn’t resist as Ethan all but dragged him away from the other men. Once they were out of hearing range, Ethan dropped Derek’s arm.
“Were you going to ask me to drive your wagon because you’re too drunk to do so?” Ethan asked. “I trust you remember our agreement.”
Derek rolled his eyes and took another swig from the bottle. When Ethan made a swipe for it, Derek grinned and held the bottle out of reach. “Of course I remember that I’ll be driving my own wagon. I haven’t had that much,” Derek laughed.
“It’s the middle of the day,” Ethan snapped. “We are not here to relax, especially not with all the preparations that need to be done.”
“The preparations will get done,” Derek said. “Do you really think Amos would let us leave without everything taken care of?”
“That is not the point!” Ethan argued. “And besides, Amos ain’t perfect. It’s always best to check for yourself.”
Derek sighed. “I’ve already checked my wagon. It’s fine, and I’m ready to go!”
“So you’re getting drunk?”
“I am not drunk,” Derek said. “You’re being ridiculous. I’ve only had a couple sips, and I can tell you from experience that this gin isn’t even particularly strong.”
Ethan didn’t have any way of knowing if that was true or not. He supposed Derek drank with Pa, but it wasn’t like Ethan ever spent time with either of them.
“Of course you aren’t taking this seriously.”
“And you’re taking it too seriously!” Derek shot back.
A few feet away, Ethan saw Hannah leave her seat in the wagon.
He grimaced as his sister approached, knowing she would always take Derek’s side in any argument.
For some unfathomable reason, she liked their younger brother.
When he had asked her about it, Hannah had only given him a soft look and solemnly told him that “Derek is family, and he wants to be with us. How can we deny him that?”
It was a ridiculous reason, and Ethan didn’t believe for one second that there wasn’t something else.
“Hannah!” Derek exclaimed, laughing. “The voice of reason has arrived!”
Hannah’s lips twitched as if she wanted to smile, but she managed to restrain herself.
Ethan dug his nails into his palms. How did Derek manage to make everyone like him?
Didn’t people realize how immature and irresponsible he was?
It was a wonder the young man hadn’t made some truly dreadful mistake and ruined his life already by this point!
“We haven’t even left yet,” Hannah said. “Are the two of you fighting already?”
“You knew how this would go,” Ethan replied flatly.
He met his sister’s gaze, silently reminding her that she had been the one who agreed to let Derek come along with them. Going west was supposed to represent freedom for them, and instead she had thought it was a good idea to bring the worst of Missouri along.
“I did,” Hannah said carefully. “We’re family, though, and families disagree sometimes.”
“All the time,” Ethan grumbled.
Derek only grinned and took another swig of gin. Ethan resisted the impulse to knock the bottle from Derek’s grasp and break it to pieces on the ground.
“You make it sound like we’re always fighting, Ethan. But really, I think all brothers act just like us!” Derek said.
“They do not,” said Ethan.
“They might,” Hannah mused.
Ethan tucked his hands into his pockets. They didn’t fight because they were brothers, they fought because Derek was insufferable.
“Now, it’s almost time to leave,” Hannah said. “I heard Amos mention it. Derek, you should get to your wagon soon. Do drive safely!”
“Of course,” Derek said. “I’ll be very careful. I wouldn’t want to worry my favorite sister, after all.”
My favorite sister. Hannah was not Derek’s sister.
She was his half-sister, and that was not remotely the same.
Even worse that Hannah didn’t seem to mind when Derek called her his sister.
Doubtlessly, Derek hoped to win her over so she could help him out of trouble in the future.
Which she would, of course, because she was kind to a fault.
“Of course not,” Hannah said, patting his shoulder. “We’ll see you when we stop for rest.”
Derek gave her a roguish grin and walked away with what appeared to be a deliberately exaggerated swagger, as if he thought himself the center of the world, inherently deserving of everyone’s attention.
“You’re too hard on him,” Hannah scolded Ethan lightly. “Young men are impulsive by nature.”
Ethan snorted. “I don’t recall being so impulsive when I was that age.”
He couldn’t have been, of course, not with a mother and sister depending on him.
“You weren’t,” Hannah said, sounding as though she was choosing her words very carefully. “But that is because our circumstances forced you to be more mature than you were.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes. “You’re only a little older than he is.”
“Girls are raised different,” Hannah said, “and although I didn’t have as many responsibilities as you, I also had to learn to be grown much sooner than any of us would have liked. I know you don’t wish to admit it, but it’s true.”
Ethan sighed. “He is downright reckless, I tell you, and someday that’s going to get him into big trouble. He’s already up to no good, and I told you—”
“He’s trying to make friends and get along with people,” Hannah interrupted. “Those are both normal things that people need.”
“Getting along by drinking gin at midday?” Ethan snapped.
“If he drinks too much, he’ll regret it,” Hannah said. “And he’ll hopefully learn to be more aware of how much he’s drinking in the future. Ethan, it was harmless.”
“It was not harmless! What if he crashes his wagon?” Ethan asked. “What if he hurts himself or the horse? Then, we’ll have to drive him in our wagon, and I only agreed to this with the understanding that we’d be traveling separately.”
“He only drank a little bit,” Hannah said. “I watched him. Besides, he didn’t seem badly drunk to me. Did he to you?”
Ethan shook his head, frustration bubbling up inside him and threatening to spill over at her insistence. He didn’t want to keep arguing with Hannah over Derek, of all people. The man wasn’t worth that much trouble.
“I don’t know why you always want to make excuses for him,” Ethan said, unable to resist protesting a little more. “What good has he ever done you?”
“Why does he have to do me any good?” Hannah asked. “He has been kind to me and wants to be my brother, the same as you.”
Ethan clenched his jaw. Their pa had left them, in part, because of Derek. How could Hannah find it in her heart to try and love him? Even if Derek wasn’t necessarily at fault for that, he was still a reminder of the worst part of their lives.
“Not the same as me,” Ethan said through gritted teeth.
Hannah sighed and crossed her arms. “Ethan, I love you. You know I do. But you can be so…so…unyielding at times! Now I know you’ve never forgiven Pa-”
Ethan did not even call the man Pa anymore. That was a title reserved for an actual father, and that man had not acted as their father for years.
“But it isn’t Derek’s fault that he came into the world the way that he did,” Hannah said. “Aside from Pa, we’re the only family he has, and it makes sense that he wants to know us.”
“But to move with us, Hannah!”
“I understand that. Have you ever considered how hard his life must have been, though?” His sister’s voice softened. “The entire town knew that he was illegitimate, and that could not have been an easy thing to live with.”
She was right about that. The townsfolk had been vicious with their gossip about all of them, and they were the sort of people who cared about societal standards like if a child was born out of wedlock or not. It would have been difficult, indeed.
It was also difficult, however, to care about how challenging Derek’s childhood might have been when Ethan firmly believed his had been so much harder.
Those were the sorts of matters that Ethan used to discuss with Logan, but his friend had died long ago, so now he was left only with his own thoughts.
“He should respect that we want nothing to do with him,” Ethan said.
“That’s not entirely true, though,” Hannah said. “I want him to be part of our family, if that’s what he wants.”
“Because you don’t see that he’s taking advantage of your kindness!”
“Maybe he is,” Hannah said. “But there’s also a chance that he isn’t. Shouldn’t we at least let him try to be one of us before we cast judgement?”
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Hannah smiled sympathetically and patted his shoulder, having to stand on her tiptoes to reach it. “I know, but I’m not going to give up on Derek,” she said. “Now, I am going to wait in the wagon. Think about what I’ve said, please.”
“…will do,” Ethan grumbled.
With a final soft smile, Hannah turned away from him. Ethan realized then that his body was tense all over, so he let his shoulders slump and tried to loosen his too-tight muscles.
This trip, and his plan for freedom, were already going up in flames.