Johanna Lindsey - A Man to Call My Own

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you had a brother."

"Wish I never did, so don't be sorry. We never got along. In fact, it'd be pretty accurate to say we hated each other's guts. Which is why this letter doesn't make a lick of sense."

"That you'd be notified?"

"That he left his girls to me. What the hell did he expect me to do with children at my age?"

"Did he have a choice?"

She frowned. "I suppose not. Guess I am their only living relative now that Mortimer's gone. We had another sister, my twin actually, but she died long ago."

"No relatives on their mother's side?"

"No, she was the last of her line aside from her children." Red continued reading, then said, "Well, hell ... looks like I need to ask yet another favor of you, Chad."

He looked horrified for a moment. "Don't even think it. I'm not even married yet. I ain't raising no—"

"Hold on, now," she interrupted, and chuckled over his mistake. "I just need someone to meet the girls in Galveston and escort them here, not adopt them. Apparently, they started on the journey the same time this letter did, different routes, but the mail isn't always faster. They could have arrived already. I'd go, but I'm afraid this sprained foot of mine will hold me up too much."

"That's a long distance to travel, could take up to a week there and back."

"Yes, but at least a good portion of it can be covered by train, and most of the rest by stage. It's just the last leg of the way that you'd have to rough it. But I'll ask someone else. I keep forgetting that you're lying low."

"No, I'll go," Chad said, slapping his hat against his leg. "Pa's finding me at this late date won't matter much. I'll leave first thing in the morning."

AMANDA AND MARIAN WERE supposed to have waited in Galveston. It was the final destination of the nice couple that Albert Bridges had found to chaper-one them, and they were more than willing to keep the girls with them until Kathleen Dunn arrived to collect them. But Amanda wouldn't hear of it.

She had complained every step of the way so far. Even before they'd left home she'd complained about their rushed departure. But a ship had been leaving the day after the funeral, and Albert had strongly suggested they take it since another wouldn't be available for several weeks. Back on dry land, Amanda should have been somewhat appeased, but no, the crowded port where their ship had docked was her next target for verbal abuse.

Marian had managed to enjoy the sea voyage anyway. It was the first time she'd ever been on a ship, so she found everything about it interesting. The salty air, the damp bedding, the windy and sometimes slippery decks, trying to walk without bumping into things, to get her "sea legs" as one deckhand put it, was all new to her—and the very things that Amanda complained about the most.

It was a wonder that the captain hadn't tossed Amanda overboard. Marian had heard him mumble once to himself about doing just that. And Amanda did have a harrowing moment four days into the journey when she actually did end up dangling from the railing with the sea lapping up the side of the ship. She'd sworn someone had pushed her, which was ridiculous—although, just about everyone on board had probably thought about it more than once.

Amanda's behavior had been no more than what Marian expected. When her sister had said she hated to travel, she hadn't exaggerated. And when Amanda was miserable, she wanted everyone else to be miserable as well. Marian managed to avoid that state of mind, but then she'd learned long ago how to simply "not hear" her sister when she got especially annoying. Their escorts had picked up on that as well, and before the end of the voyage, they'd been nodding and mumbling appropriate phrases, but had simply stopped "listening" to Amanda.

This might have been why they didn't try to stop the girls from setting out on their own. It was more likely, though, that they were just glad to be rid of Amanda.

And it wasn't as if the two of them weren't old enough to travel alone. They also had their maid, Ella Mae, with them. She was several years older than they, and would be considered a proper chaperone in most circles.

Marian did try to talk her sister into waiting for their aunt to arrive. She pointed out that they might pass her en route and not even know it. But Amanda had insisted that Aunt Kathleen probably hadn't even gotten Albert's letter yet, so their waiting around in Galveston was just a waste of time. Of course Marian had known it was pointless to try to dissuade her sister. No one's opinion mattered to Amanda except her own, and she was never wrong. That she was frequendy not right was beside the point.

Several days later they found themselves stranded in a small town nowhere near their intended destination. A number of mishaps and unexpected incidents contributed to that sorry state, but in the end, the fault was still wholly Amanda's. Did she accept the blame? Certainly not. In her mind, everyone else was at fault, never her.

While it was taken for granted in the East that the quickest way to travel was by train, that particular convenience hadn't spread across Texas yet, which is why they had traveled there by ship instead. There was one railroad line in the south of Texas that ran from the coast northwest toward the middle of the state, and a few short branches off of that, but the line ended far short of their final destination. Although they had intended to ride the train to the end of its line, a group of thieves altered that plan.

Marian viewed the train robbery as something she'd tell her grandkids about, if she ever had any. Exciting after the fact, it had been terrifying while it was happening. The train had come to a screeching stop, and before anyone recovered from that, four men had burst into the passenger car shouting and waving their guns. They'd seemed nervous, but maybe that was normal under the circumstances.

Two of the men had passed down the aisle demanding tliat valuables be handed over, while the other two guarded the exits. Marian kept most of her traveling money locked away in her trunks, and carried only small amounts in her purse, so she didn't hesitate to hand it over. Amanda, however, carried all of hers in her purse, so when it was yanked from her side, she screamed angrily and tried to retrieve it.

A shot was fired. Marian couldn't honestly say if the man had missed his mark deliberately, or missed because of nervousness, but the bullet did fire over Amanda's head—just barely. Her scalp probably felt the heat from it because her face was left streaked with gunpowder, it had happened at such close range. But since it briefly put Amanda in shock, which caused her to sit down and shut up, he didn't shoot again and moved on down the aisle to finish his robbing.

The result of that robbery, aside from their depleted funds, was that Amanda flatly refused to travel any farther by train. Not that the train would have taken them much farther, but they disembarked at the next town and took a stage from there instead. The stage, of course, didn't follow the same route as the train. It headed east, though it would resume a northwesterly direction after the next stop.

But it never reached its next stop. The driver, after being harangued by Amanda every few minutes about the bumpy ride, started drinking from a flask of liquor he kept under his seat, got thoroughly drunk, and got himself and his passengers thoroughly lost. For two days he tried without luck to find the road back to his scheduled route.

It was incredible that the coach didn't break down, without a decent road to travel on. It was incredible, too, that the driver didn't just take off without them, he was so furious with himself and Amanda, for driving him to drink. It was the scent of fried chicken that finally led them to a homestead where they got directions to the nearest town.

And that was where they were currendy stranded, because the driver did abandon them at that point, and his coach as well, since he figured he was going to lose his job anyway. He simply unhitched one of the six horses and rode off on it without a single word. Actually, he'd said two words, mumbled them rather while Amanda was shouting at him for an explanation as he prepared to depart. She wouldn't have heard him say, "good riddance," but Marian did.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just a small town he left them in, but a town that was barely populated. Of the fourteen original buildings, only three were still occupied and doing business. It was a case of misguided speculation. The founder of the town had thought the railroad would be passing that way and had hoped to make a small fortune when it did. But the railroad bypassed them, the founder moved on to speculate elsewhere, and the people who had set up businesses there slowly sold them or abandoned them.

The three buildings still open for business were the saloon, which doubled as a general store since the owner happened to be good friends with a supplier so still got a shipment of goods every so often, a bakery that managed to get some grain from a farmer in the area, and a boardinghouse that called itself a hotel and was run by the baker.

It wasn't really surprising that of the few occupants, not one knew how to drive a stagecoach or was willing to try to figure it out. The stage was left parked where it had been abandoned, in front of the hotel. Someone had been kind enough to unhitch the rest of the horses from it, but since there was no food for them in the abandoned stable, they were set loose to feed in a field of overgrown grass behind the town—and wander off if they were so inclined.

That was after Amanda insisted that she could drive the stagecoach to get them out of there. Having had a look at the room in the hotel where they were going to have to stay, and finding it to be the worst lodgings they had encountered yet, Amanda had been absolutely determined to get out of that town immediately, or at least, before they had to sleep in that horrid room.

Marian didn't care for their lodgings either. The sheets on the single bed had holes in them and might have been white once, but were a moldy gray now. There was a round hole in one wall as if someone had sent his fist through it. The rug on the floor was a breeding nest for fleas since an old dog had been living in the room. You could stand there and watch the fleas bouncing around on the rug, waiting for their host to come take his daily nap. And there was no telling what the splotches on the floor had come from.

But no matter how much they hated the idea of staying there, Amanda's alternate plan wasn't worth considering even if she could have gotten the stage to move. She couldn't. She did frustrate herself trying though.

Marian and Ella Mae simply stood on the porch of the hotel and watched. They weren't about to get in that coach with Miss Know-It-All driving it. The few townsfolk had a good laugh watching, too, before they went back into their respective buildings. And Marian and Ella Mae spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning their room so it would be at least somewhat tolerable to sleep in.

They were stranded indeed, and had no idea for how long. No telegraph available there, no stage line, no extra saddles to be had in case they considered riding out on the extra horses, no carriage to rent that they could have handled, and no guide to lead them back toward the railroad anyway.

Amanda, of course, complained about their new circumstances from morning till night. Mentioning that it was exactly such complaining that had gotten them stranded in the first place was pointless. And although Amanda made it sound as if they were never going to see civilization again, Marian was more optimistic, especially after the baker remarked that stagecoaches were too valuable simply to abandon, and someone would come looking for the vehicle to get it back in service.

Marian didn't doubt that their aunt would be looking for them, too, or have someone looking for them. She was probably going to be furious with them for setting out on tlieir own and causing her extra difficulties in finding them. Not a good way to start out with this relative neither of them knew, who was now their guardian.

FOUR DAYS HAD COME and gone in that dismal, soon-to-be ghost town. With only a few old-timers about, or at least, no men that Amanda could possibly get jealous over if they happened to pay Marian any attention, Marian became lax in keeping her spectacles shoved up the bridge of her nose. It was a luxury being able to see clearly all of the time, rather than only when she peered over the rims of the spectacles, or removed them.