She made no comment, just plopped onto the dirt floor in front of him and yanked her shoes off. What was she . . . ? His angel pulled the thick wool socks she wore off her feet and went digging under the blanket for his toes. Before he could react and scramble away from her, she latched on to his right foot, dragged it out, and pushed on the sock. She captured his left just as easily. ’Course he’d stopped trying to get away by then. His brain might be half frozen, but he recognized an unwinnable battle when he saw one.
The warmth of the socks brought a tingle of awareness to his feet that quickly expanded into a searing pain so deep, he wanted to kick her away so she’d stop touching him. But he didn’t. Wouldn’t. Ever.
He’d just encountered the biggest blessing his scrawny list had ever seen. No way was he gonna do anything to hurt her. So he gritted his teeth and sat still while she flopped the horse blanket down over his stinging feet.
“Now for the inside.” She stood and pushed her bare feet back into her boots and disappeared into her stall again. When she emerged, she waddled, carrying a full pail of milk in front of her. He jumped up to help her carry it, taking it from her hands.
“It’s still warm,” she said. “I don’t have a cup, though.”
Malachi’s mouth salivated at the thought of drinking fresh milk. “I don’t need a cup.” He’d just put his mouth directly on the pail and tip it until the creamy goodness slathered his throat. But no. He couldn’t do that. Couldn’t drink like an animal in front of her. Couldn’t defile the milk by putting his mouth all over it.
He glanced around. There. On the workbench. A canning jar half full of nails and tacks and other odds and ends. Malachi rushed to the table, unscrewed the lid, and dumped the contents, careful not to let any fall onto the floor. He wiped the dust off on his still-damp pants and blew out the center. “This’ll do.”
Her nose wrinkled. “But it’s dirty.”
He grinned. “Little dirt never hurt me.”
She smiled in return, and the action almost felled him. Never had he seen anything so beautiful, so good, aimed his direction. Smiles like that were reserved for other people. Deserving people. Never for him.
Clearing his throat, he pushed past her and strode back to the milk pail. He didn’t want to dirty the rest of the milk by dipping the jar in so he set it on the floor and lifted the pail.
“I’ll hold it,” the girl chirped, still grinning as if this were some grand adventure.
Weakened from his ordeal, Mal’s arms shook with the weight of the pail. Some of the milk sloshed over the sides of the jar. His gaze flew to the girl, his chest tight.
“Keep going,” she urged, not angry in the least that he’d spilled milk on her fingers. “Fill it to the top.”
The tightness eased. He followed her instructions, then set the pail down and took the jar from her.
He lifted the glass jar to his lips. His eyes slid closed as the fresh, creamy liquid rolled over his tongue. He savored the sweetness, drinking slowly, deliberately. And when a third was all that remained, he made himself stop and set the jar aside.
“Why aren’t you finishing it? Aunt Bertie always makes me finish my milk before I leave the table.”
Wasn’t it Aunt Henry a minute ago?
Malachi shrugged it off. The aunt’s name didn’t matter. “I’m savin’ it fer later.” He’d learned never to eat everything he found all at once. He never knew how hard it would be to find something the next time. Better to squirrel some away while you had it.
“But we got plenty more.” She tipped her head toward the milk pail.
“That’s yours. Your family’s.”
The girl looked at him strangely, as if she didn’t understand what he’d just said. “The aunts won’t mind.”
Mal shook his head.
“Suit yourself.” His angel glanced around the barn, looking less than fully in charge for the first time since he’d met her. Then she hugged her arms around her waist and tried to hide a shiver.
“You’re cold,” Mal accused with more harshness than he should have, but doggone it, the girl should have told him she was getting cold.
He immediately threw her mittens back at her and stripped out of the coat. “You need to go back to the house, kid. Go sit by the stove or somethin’.”
“I’m not a baby.” But when her lower lip came out in a pout his resolve hardened. She was far too young to be shivering in a cold barn when a warm house was available.
“Scram, kid. I’ll be fine.”
She put the coat on and slipped the mittens over her small hands. “What’s your name?” she demanded.
He glared at her then finally relented. “Malachi.”
She smiled again, making him a mite dizzy. “I’m Emma.”
“Good for you,” he groused, still feeling guilty that he’d let her get cold. “Now, scram.”
She did.
And all the light went with her. Leaving Mal alone. In the dark. Where he belonged.
He’d gotten used to the condition. It shouldn’t bother him. Hadn’t bothered him for years, in fact. But it did now. Because now he knew what he’d been missing.
Mal picked up the saddle blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. Then he grabbed his jar and turned to go back to his corner and bury himself in the hay. The sight of the milk pail stopped him. She’d left it behind.
A little thrill coursed through him. Did that mean she’d be back? Or would the milk be left here? Forgotten. Like him. Maybe he should carry it up to the front stoop. To thank her for helping him.
He bent over to grab the handle. The barn door flew open.
“Good news, Malachi!” Emma stood in the doorway, the beam of her smile so bright he nearly had to lift a hand to shade his eyes. “The aunts said I can keep you!”
1
SUMMER 1894
HARPER’S STATION
BAYLOR COUNTY, TEXAS
Emma Chandler yanked the hostile note free of the nail that had tacked it to the church door. She wadded the vile thing in her fist and shoved it into her skirt pocket, though what she truly wanted to do was hurl it into the street, run over it with about fifty horses, spit on it, throw dirt clods at it, and finally set it on fire and watch it wither into a pile of harmless ash that would be erased by the wind.
How dare someone threaten her ladies? The fiend had no right!
“He’s getting bolder.” The stoic voice of her friend cut through Emma’s spiraling temper, reminding her that railing at injustice rarely solved the problem. Coolheaded planning. That’s what they needed.
“Yes, he is.” Emma scanned the countryside for signs of the coward, even though she knew she’d find nothing. She never did. And this was the third note he’d left in a fortnight. Each one in a place that penetrated the colony a little more deeply. “But at least it’s still just words.”
“We’ve no guarantee it will stay that way.” Victoria Adams voiced Emma’s greatest fear. “If words won’t get him what he wants, he will escalate.” Tori’s voice rang with the certainty of one who had experienced such a lesson firsthand. “Let me see the note, Emma.” She held out her palm.
Emma sighed and tugged the wad from her pocket. She dropped it into her friend’s hand, knowing that Tori would recognize at once that an escalation had already occurred.
Victoria uncrumpled the note and scanned the page, a soft echo of the threatening words escaping under her breath as she read.
“Women of Harper’s Station—
Clear out by tonight or I’ll clear you out myself. This is your last warning.”
“We have to call a meeting.” Emma marched down the church steps and began pacing the yard.
Tori followed her down the steps but didn’t pace. She simply leaned against the railing and waited for Emma to circle back around. “What will you tell them?”
The soft question stopped Emma in her tracks. She spun toward her friend. “I won’t leave, Tori. I won’t let a bully drive me away.” She flung ou
t her arm toward the handful of buildings that clustered around the old stagecoach station that had attracted the first permanent settlers to the area twenty years ago. “Harper’s Station is supposed to be a refuge for women escaping this kind of intimidation. We’ve worked too hard building this place up, bringing the women in, giving them a fresh start. I won’t scurry away like some timid little mouse just because some pigheaded man wants to flex his muscles!”
Tori, dear that she was, made no effort to interrupt Emma’s impassioned ranting. She simply held her friend’s gaze and waited patiently for the kettle to stop hissing. Which it did. Eventually. Emma might refuse to sacrifice her principles, but she’d never sacrifice the safety of her ladies. Not for any reason. Not even for the ideal that brought them all together in the first place.
She paced back to where Tori waited at the church steps, releasing her indignation a little bit at a time until her mind cleared of the haze. “I’ll encourage all the mothers with children to follow the sheriff’s advice and move—temporarily—to one of the neighboring towns.” Emma’s shoulders sagged as she met Tori’s gaze. “Including you.” How she hated to send her closest friend, her partner in starting the colony, away. But Tori had a four-year-old son, and if anything happened to Lewis . . . Well, such a thought didn’t bear thinking.
Tori’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going anywhere.” The steel in her tone brooked no argument. “I’m not leaving you to fight this battle on your own. Besides, where would we go? All my funds are tied up in the store. I can’t exactly take the merchandise with me. And if I lose that, I lose everything.”
“I’ll keep an eye on things for you,” Emma offered, but her friend cut her off with a firm shake of her head.
“You have the bank to run. You don’t need the additional worry of tending my shop. I’ll keep a tight leash on Lewis. We’ll be fine.” Tori fisted her hands at her sides, and Emma knew at once that she wouldn’t be swayed.
Victoria never showed emotion beyond the affection of friendship and love toward her son. Nothing else. No fear, anger, surprise—nothing that could possibly give someone an advantage over her. If she was worked up enough to clench her fingers into a fist, her feelings on the matter must be strong, indeed.
“I want to show my son that when you believe in something, you fight for it, even when danger threatens. You don’t hide.”
A world of pain lingered behind that statement, a pain Emma could only imagine. Tori had been fighting since the day she discovered herself pregnant after being attacked by a man esteemed by her entire hometown. Fighting for a place to belong after her father sent her away. Fighting for a way to provide for herself and her child. Fighting the fear that she’d misjudge a man’s character again someday and experience the nightmare all over again.
Emma stepped close to Victoria and took her arm. Only then did Tori unclench her fists and lay one of her hands atop Emma’s.
“We stand together,” Emma vowed.
Tori nodded. “Together.”
Two hours later, just after noon, Emma stood at the front of the church, her back propped against the left side wall, watching her ladies file in. Her heart grew heavy as her gaze skimmed each familiar face. Which ones would leave? Which would stay?
Betty Cooper tromped down the center aisle, her stocky build and no-nonsense stride blazing a trail for the four younger women who followed in her wake. The middle-aged matron oversaw the laying hens that provided a large share of the income that the women of Harper’s Station brought in. She’d been with Emma since the early days. Widowed, no children, but she had one of the biggest hearts Emma had ever encountered. She hid it well behind a gruff manner and an insistence on hard work, but she clucked over the ladies she supervised as if they were her own chicks.
The ladies of the sewing circle, several of whom had children in tow, chatted amongst themselves as they took their usual seats in the middle rows on the right side. They crafted exquisite quilts that fetched top price in Fort Worth. If half of them left, how would the remaining ladies meet their quota? The broker expected fifteen quilts every month, an easy enough order to fill with ten ladies plying their needles every day, but if their number fell to five . . . ?
Grace Mallory came through the door next, her head bent down as usual, her gaze fixed on her feet as she slid onto one of the back pews. The quiet woman had only been in town six months and liked to keep to herself, but thanks to her skill as a Western Union telegrapher, Harper’s Station now had a working telegraph system. The county hadn’t yet granted them a post office, so mail still had to be forwarded from Seymour, but any lady in town could send a telegram for less than a nickel a word. Losing Grace would be a blow, if she chose to leave.
Emma’s attention flitted to the others already gathered. Those who worked the community garden and put up preserves and canned vegetables to sell. The ladies who ran the café. The boardinghouse proprietress. The midwife who served as the town doctor.
And, of course, the aunts.
Henrietta and Alberta Chandler sat on the front row, staunch as ever in their support of her. Aunt Henry’s eyes glowed with a fierce, nearly militant light as she sat stiff as a board, flaunting her bloomers as she always did whenever anything that might possibly relate to women’s suffrage came into play. Aunt Bertie, on the other hand, sported a much softer posture and more feminine garb as she sat next to her older sister. She turned to smile at Emma and gave her a little finger wave of encouragement.
The aunts had raised Emma since she was eight—Aunt Henry instilling in her the passion to stand against injustice, and Aunt Bertie teaching her to lead with her heart. They had been the ones to help her dream up the idea of a women’s colony, a place run by women to benefit women. A sanctuary for those needing to escape, and a place of opportunity for those looking to better themselves.
Two years ago, when Emma came into her inheritance at age twenty-one, she’d heard about a small town of abandoned buildings being sold for pennies on the dollar. Residents had abandoned the old stagecoach town when the railroad came through nearby Seymour. The aunts had combined their funds with hers in an investment pool, and they’d purchased the land. Thanks to a few well-placed ads in area newspapers that first year and what some would call their growing notoriety since then, the colony boasted nearly fifty members—if one counted the children—women surviving and thriving by supporting one another.
And now some bullheaded, hateful man threatened to destroy all they had built. Emma clenched her jaw. Not on my watch.
As the women found their seats, Emma sought a last-minute dose of heavenly wisdom. You can see what I cannot, Lord. You know what is best. Please don’t let me advise these ladies poorly. Guide us in such a way that we might triumph over our enemy.
“Emma?” Victoria touched her arm. The gentle understanding in the contact soothed and reassured her. “We’re ready to begin.”
Emma nodded and gave her friend a small smile. Then she straightened away from the wall, tugged on the edge of her tailored navy blue suit coat, the one she always wore when she wanted to project an aura of authority, and stepped up to the small pulpit the circuit preacher would use on Sunday to deliver his sermon. If they still had a town come Sunday.
The room instantly fell quiet.
Emma cleared her throat. “Thank you, ladies, for coming on such short notice. We have a matter of great urgency to discuss.”
She glanced at the familiar faces, some visibly nervous, others curious, a few accusing, as if this current dilemma were somehow her fault. Emma immediately diverted her gaze back to her aunts. Henry nodded to her, her eyes blazing with confidence in her niece. Bertie just smiled, but the gesture was so obviously heartfelt and sincere that Emma couldn’t help but be buoyed.
“I’m sure by now, word has reached most of you that a third note was found this morning. I’m afraid the author of said note has increased his demands. He has instituted a deadline, demanding we all leave by tonight.”
A l
oud murmur swept the room as the women turned to each other with their questions.
“Ladies, please.” Emma raised her voice to be heard. “I will be happy to answer all your questions in just a moment. But first, I want to make it clear that you are under no compulsion to stay. Everyone must decide for herself what is in her best interest. And know that I will support your decision no matter what it might be.
“Having said that, I think it imperative to confess to you that we still have no idea who this man is or why he wishes us to leave. Miss Adams and I visited with the sheriff after we received the first note. He did a search of the immediate area but found nothing suspicious. We wired him again today, just as we did after we found the second note. Due to the cattle rustling that continues to plague the ranchers in the southern parts of Baylor County, he is unable to lend us his protection. He reiterated his recommendation that we pack up and leave. That we remove ourselves from the threat and take up residence in Seymour or Wichita Falls or return home to our families.”
“But I have no family,” one lady shouted out from the back of the room. “That’s why I came here.”
“There’s nothin’ for me in Seymour,” another called. “I done looked already. Without the egg money I earn workin’ at Miss Betty’s farm, I won’t be able to feed my young’uns.”
A chorus of panicked agreement rose, filling the room with desperation.
A lady in a brown dress shot to her feet. Flora Johnson, one of the newer women, who worked the garden. She’d shown up two weeks ago with a black eye and a midsection riddled with bruises. “You told us we’d be safe here.” She crossed her arms over her rib cage. “Now you tell us we’re on our own? That the sheriff won’t even be bothered to lift a finger?” She glanced around to the crowd, all of whom had fallen silent. “I don’t know about the rest of ya, but I’ve seen what happens when a woman tries to keep a man from gettin’ what he wants. It ain’t pretty. If I had someplace to go, I’d be packin’ up right now.” She turned back to the front, uncrossed her arms, and pointed an accusing finger at Emma. “You can’t keep us safe, Miss Chandler. No one can.”