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  She appreciated Patrick’s use of when rather than if. ‘‘I’ll buy her, if they’ll let me.’’

  ‘‘And if they won’t?’’

  Lifting her shoulders, she sighed. ‘‘I don’t know. But I won’t leave her behind. Not again. Every day I live free of that life, I think of that poor child still trapped in it.’’

  She heard a deep exhale. The creak of the swing went silent.

  ‘‘I don’t know quite how to ask this, Annabelle.’’

  She looked over at Patrick in the darkness. His head was bowed, his forearms resting on his thighs. ‘‘You can ask me anything, Patrick. Same for you, Hannah. You both know that.’’

  ‘‘We don’t want to pry, Annabelle.’’ The darkness couldn’t mask the tenderness in Hannah’s voice. ‘‘We just want to try and understand. . . .’’

  ‘‘Understand what?’’ she asked after a long pause.

  Patrick’s words came softly. ‘‘Understand what you’ve been through. You told Hannah and me that you’d spent sixteen years . . . working. . . . I don’t mean any offense by this question, but . . .’’ He paused, as though unable to force out the words.

  ‘‘How could so many years go by without me finding some way to escape?’’ Annabelle said, finishing the question for him.

  ‘‘Did you ever think of just running away? Maybe leaving during the night?’’

  Patrick’s hesitance touched her, as did his naivet. ‘‘First off, I’m afraid there’s little left that would offend me, and I can’t imagine any of it ever coming from either of you two.’’ Annabelle gently rubbed her wrist, feeling the knot on the underside. ‘‘I did run away, lots of times at first. But the beatings got worse each time they brought us back.’’

  ‘‘Got worse?’’ Hannah asked.

  ‘‘The madams I’ve worked for employed men too. There was always one, at least. He made sure the customers stayed in line, that they didn’t get too rough with the girls. He’d break up fights and handle any business the madam might have with the law. He also made sure the girls were ‘safe.’ At least that’s what they called it.’’ Gallagher, Betsy’s man, came to mind. Annabelle shuddered thinking about what he’d done to her and the other girls, making sure they knew their boundaries.

  ‘‘If a girl ever disappeared, the madam would send him to bring her back, on account of what the girl owed. Half of everything we made went to the madam right off the top, and then we also had to pay for room and board and clothes. A girl can’t get credit on her own—none of the merchants would lend to us.’’ She thought of Matthew and how he’d not so delicately made that point the other morning. ‘‘So we had to borrow the money, from the madam.’’

  ‘‘Which always just got you further into debt.’’ Patrick’s voice deepened in understanding.

  ‘‘You’d end up owing her more and more. Sometimes she’d offer to forgive what a girl owed in exchange for signing a new contract. I did that the first couple of times, thinking I could earn my way out.’’ She huffed. ‘‘Never worked. She only worked you harder— longer hours and more customers per night.’’

  ‘‘I had no idea.’’ His voice came out a whisper. ‘‘I’m so sorry.’’

  Hannah’s soft sob in the darkness echoed his apology.

  ‘‘After trying to run away and being brought back so many times, each time a little more broken than the last, some of the girls I knew were just so tired they got out the only way they could. They’d overdose on morphine or laudanum . . . but I never could do that.’’ Not that she hadn’t considered it.

  Fighting an old fear, Annabelle firmed her lips together as Sadie came to mind again. Oh, God, what had happened to that child? Where was she? Annabelle searched the darkened fields to the side of the house. The thick tufts of spring grasses, now calf-high, shone gray in the moonlight spreading out across it. ‘‘I was too afraid.’’ Her laugh came out brittle as a slivered memory skirted beneath the veil separating her old life from the new. ‘‘I felt trapped. I didn’t want to live anymore, but I was even more afraid to die.’’

  ‘‘We’re so sorry, Annabelle,’’ Patrick repeated again, his voice a rough whisper.

  The silence stretched between them.

  She turned and looked back at them. Patrick’s head was bowed—Hannah’s too. He was such a good man, a godly man, as she’d learned to think of him, and he wasn’t completely nai ve to ways different from his. And Hannah was as good as she could imagine a woman being. The three of them hadn’t spoken much about her life in the brothel before, but when they had, she’d always been honest. She wondered now if she’d been too honest in her answers tonight.

  ‘‘I’m sorry for what all those men have done to you, Annabelle.’’

  So unexpected was Patrick’s response, the soft compassion in his voice, that she didn’t know what to say. It sounded as though he were offering an apology on behalf of all those men. How many there had been, she couldn’t remember. And didn’t want to. Though she couldn’t erase them from her memory, she could live from this day forward as if she had. And that’s what she determined to do.

  CHAPTER | FOURTEEN

  FRIDAY MORNING MATTHEW ARRIVED at the livery before dawn. His sullen mood only darkened upon discovering he wasn’t the first customer in line. The man already waiting wasn’t familiar to him, but he seemed harmless enough. Matthew glanced up and down the street, thankful that most of the town wasn’t yet stirring and that the short stocky man beside him wasn’t bent on conversation.

  Surprise shone on Jake Sampson’s face as he pushed open the oversized plank-wood doors. ‘‘Why, you’re both up awful early this mornin’.’’ He looked down the darkened street. ‘‘Beatin’ the crowd, eh?’’ He laughed as though he’d told a good one.

  They followed Jake inside.

  ‘‘You here for that wagon, Duncan? It’s ready, and if I might say’’—he winked, offering that crooked smile he so often wore— ‘‘it’s a fine piece of work. I stayed up last night makin’ sure it’s all just like you . . .’’

  As Jake prattled on, Matthew assessed the wagon near the back of the building, then considered the man beside him. Duncan appeared hard-pressed to look directly at Jake, and he was giving the hat in his hands a fairly good workout.

  ‘‘Jake.’’ Duncan interrupted him and shot a look at Matthew before briefly lowering his head. ‘‘I don’t know how to tell you this but . . . I’m not gonna be able to take the wagon. I still need it, mind you, and I plan on doin’ right by you. . . . I just don’t have the cash right now.’’

  The smile slipped from Jake’s face. ‘‘Is it Ellen again?’’

  Duncan nodded, not answering for a moment. He cleared his throat. ‘‘Doc Hadley’s been doin’ all he can, but she’s just not gettin’ much better. And our son’s come down with it too, so works kinda piling up for me.’’ His expression grew earnest. ‘‘But I brought what I could today.’’ He dug into his front pocket. ‘‘Take it as a pledge on my part, that I’ll—’’

  Jake shook his head and waved the money away. ‘‘I’m not gonna do that, Duncan.’’

  The man held out the bills again. ‘‘It’s not much when weighed against what I owe, but I need you to take it. I won’t feel right about things if you don’t.’’

  Matthew watched, wordless, curious to see Jake’s reaction. Jake was right—the wagon was a fine piece of work. Sturdy and solid, built for heavy loads over long miles, and no doubt it bore Sampson’s customary excellence in craftsmanship. However foolish the man might be otherwise. Plus the cost of materials alone must have set him back a fair amount.

  Jake laid a hand on Duncan’s shoulder, and in that moment, Matthew watched a depth of understanding move into Sampson’s expression that he would never have expected possible. ‘‘Duncan, I want you to go back home, get those two dappled mares, and come back and get this wagon. It’s yours. I know you’re good for it, and frankly, it’s better for you ’n me both if you keep that farm goin’.’’ He clapped
the man’s shoulder. ‘‘That way we both come out ahead in the long run.’’

  Duncan finally nodded. ‘‘I don’t know how to thank you, Jake.’’ He held out the money again, his expression insistent.

  Jake took the bills. ‘‘Tell you what. Does your Ellen still have some of them preserves put up?’’

  ‘‘You know she does. She makes the best around.’’

  ‘‘You bring me back a couple of jars of her strawberry and we’ll call it even for now. Deal?’’

  Matthew watched as the two men shook hands, still marveling at the brief transformation in Sampson.

  Once Duncan left, Sampson’s usual crooked grin was back in place. ‘‘You’re here for those grays, right, Taylor? Them’s some fine animals.’’

  Matthew considered the man before him. The old Jake Sampson was back. For now. ‘‘Yes, they’re fine enough.’’ He nodded in the direction Duncan had headed, unwilling to let go of what he’d witnessed. ‘‘That was a nice thing you did just now.’’

  Jake shrugged it off. ‘‘Weren’t no more than other people have done for me when I needed it.’’ Jake held his gaze for a second. ‘‘You ever been down on your luck, Taylor?’’

  The question, coupled with Sampson’s close scrutiny, jolted him.

  ‘‘I have,’’ Jake continued, heading back toward the grays. He motioned for Matthew to follow. ‘‘Been down on my luck, I mean. It’s a hard thing for a man not to be able to make it on his own, but when he’s got a family to take care of . . .’’ He shook his head. ‘‘Not bein’ able to protect the ones you love can just about do a man in. That, and losin’ his dignity.’’

  Sampson paused by a stall. ‘‘A man’s gotta know that his word is worth somethin’. When he gets up in the mornin’, he may see someone in the mirror that ain’t done real well by the world’s yardstick, but he’ll be able to hold his head high if he knows he’s done what he could and that he kept his word.’’ He patted the pocket that held Duncan’s meager payment. ‘‘Take away a man’s dignity, and you take away the very thing he needs to keep pushin’ ahead in this world.’’

  Matthew nodded, unable to think of a response to such unexpected counsel while also grappling with the disturbing feeling that Jake Sampson knew the truth about him. But that was impossible. The old man hadn’t had time enough to go through that whole stack of parchments yesterday . . . had he?

  In silence, they worked together to harness the grays. Matthew paid Sampson what he owed and climbed up to the buckboard. ‘‘Thanks again for doing this so quickly for me.’’

  ‘‘That’s my job. Take care of yourself, Taylor. And pick up some of that gold out there in California for me, ya hear?’’

  Matthew managed a smile. Wasting no time, he headed to the mercantile, where he pulled the wagon around to the back and loaded the supplies. Shortly past eight o’clock, he arrived back at the Carlsons’, his suspicions about Sampson knowing his secret having lessened considerably. He breathed easier knowing he wouldn’t have to make another trip into town before leaving tomorrow morning.

  Then he saw it. The note tacked to the barn door.

  Without reading it, he knew who it was from. She was starting early today. Shaking his head, he climbed down from the wagon and strode past the note into the barn.

  He spent the next hour unloading crates of additional supplies and other items from the wagon. He carried them into the barn, then sorted them into stacks so he could inventory and repack them for the long journey. Hefting a fifty-pound sack of flour from his shoulder to the workbench—a request Miss Grayson left on a note last night, her fourth note in the past two days—he heard the back door to the house slam shut.

  Stepping into the shadows of the barn, he watched her as she crossed the yard to the clothes hanging on the line. Annabelle looked in the direction of the barn, and he wondered if he only imagined the quick shake of her head. Then he glanced at the note still posted on the doorframe and smiled.

  One more reason to get on the trail—where he would be in charge.

  He walked to the well out back and sent the bucket plunging into the darkness. Listening for the splash, he waited a few seconds, then hauled the bucket up. After drinking his fill, he poured the rest over his face and neck. The morning air was crisp and customarily dry, so he’d barely broken a sweat, but the water still felt good against his skin.

  He needed to get out of this town. No—revise that—he needed to repay his debt. But realizing that wasn’t possible anytime soon, the former option was the only one available to him.

  Back inside the barn, he tossed a quick look over his shoulder at the house and scanned the yard. Empty. He hesitated, then withdrew the pieces of folded parchment from the bottom of his saddlebag. He sat down on a stool, pulled the bottom page out, and moved it to the top.

  It still didn’t seem real to him, sitting here, staring at his own likeness. His face was thinner now and shaven of the beard depicted in the drawing. But the name printed in bold capital letters across the top made the crude depiction of his features needless.

  He ran a forefinger across his Christian name, the name given to him by his mother, and was glad she wasn’t alive to see this. He’d said something similar to Johnny in anger the last time he’d seen him, and that comment loomed in the background of his thoughts, but Matthew stuffed the memory back down, unwilling to deal with it at the moment.

  He had only one personal recollection of his mother, and it wasn’t even a memory, really. He couldn’t remember the exact color of her eyes or how she had fashioned her hair, or what she used to wear. But tucked away in his memory of her was the scent of dew-laden honeysuckle and sunshine. That’s all he had left. Laura McCutchens Taylor died when he was only four, so he’d had to depend on Johnny to fill in the holes in his memory, creating pictures of her in Matthew’s young mind that he still clung to as a grown man.

  Strange how deeply he could miss his mother’s presence in his life when he couldn’t even remember having known her.

  He moved his finger across the page to his last name. He stared at it, feeling a remnant of the relief—mixed with guilt and resentment— that he’d experienced when first learning his father was finally gone. A son shouldn’t be relieved to hear that his father had died. It wasn’t right. Then again, Haymen Taylor had never been much of a father to either of his sons.

  Matthew took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. The stranger he saw yesterday at the livery was most likely a bounty hunter. It made sense that the men searching for him would choose that route. His debts weren’t exactly of a legal nature, after all. The stranger yesterday hadn’t looked like a Texas Ranger, despite the telling drawl. But he couldn’t be sure.

  He stared at the reward amount. Sobering thing for a man to see his life measured in a sum, and not even a very large sum at that. For just a moment he imagined that his former employer in San Antonio would let him pay the reward money and call it even. But Senor Antonio Sedillos didn’t work on payment plans, and he never negotiated. Matthew had learned that firsthand.

  He bowed his head and heard the thumping of his own heartbeat. Nauseating heat filled his stomach, then quickly subsided, leaving a cold seed of fear in its place. How had he sunk this—

  ‘‘Mornin’, Mr. Taylor.’’

  He nearly jumped out of his skin. ‘‘Lilly . . .’’ Her name came out in a rush. The Carlsons’ daughter stood just inside the barn, her hands behind her back. ‘‘What brings you out here, little one?’’

  He shoved the parchments back inside his bag and cinched the leather tie tight. He needed to burn them, but there’d not been time for that at the livery yesterday morning. And he couldn’t risk leaving anything that might be discovered in the livery forge.

  ‘‘I’m not that little, Mr. Taylor. I’ll be twelve next month.’’

  He smoothed his sweaty palms on his jeans, noting the stubborn tilt of the girl’s chin. ‘‘Oh really? That old?’’ Dressed and ready for school, she rocked back and f
orth from the balls of her feet to her heels.

  She stopped rocking. ‘‘Are you angry at me?’’

  ‘‘No, not at all. Why would you think that?’’ Seems Lilly had inherited her father’s directness as well as her mother’s beauty. ‘‘You look very pretty today, Lilly.’’

  ‘‘Thank you.’’ She beamed at the compliment, fingering her ankle-length skirt. ‘‘Mama says for you to come get some breakfast. She made biscuits and gravy.’’ Her eyes lit as she ran her tongue over her lips. ‘‘We all ate earlier, but I’m keeping your plate warm on the stove.’’

  She fell into step right beside him, and though she did well in compensating, Matthew noticed her slight limp. He wondered if she’d been born with some problem or if it had happened through an accident. He held the back door open for her and heard noises coming from the kitchen. Maybe Annabelle would already have eaten by now; he didn’t welcome another spar with her. He could only hope.

  ‘‘Good morning, Mr. Taylor. Did you see my note?’’

  Sometimes hope was a shallow thing. ‘‘Morning, Mrs. McCutchens.’’ He took a seat at the far end of the table. Lilly deposited a plate before him, all smiles. ‘‘Yes, ma’am. I saw it. Thank you, Lilly,’’ he added in a whisper. It surprised him when she claimed the chair next to his. He took a bite of biscuit smothered in sausage gravy. ‘‘Mmm, you were right, little one. This is delicious.’’

  Lilly’s eyes widened. ‘‘I told you, Mr. Taylor, I’m going to be—’’ ‘‘Twelve years old next month.’’ He nodded. ‘‘That’s right, I remember now. You’re practically all grown up.’’

  She rewarded him with another smile. Sweet kid.

  Matthew felt Annabelle watching him, waiting. He savored another bite, feeling the satisfying effects of having food in his stomach.

  ‘‘And, Mr. Taylor?’’ Annabelle’s voice gained a tone, one he’d heard before.

  He took his time looking up, remembering her parting words two days ago on the porch. ‘‘Kindly remember who’s done the hiring here.’’ He grimaced as he pictured again the smirk she’d worn. Never had a woman spoken to him so bluntly before, and with such challenge. It wasn’t becoming.