The Express Rider's Lady
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The need to cry was growing stronger, the sting of tears forcing Delsie to blink. Had she left behind everything familiar, in order to reach Lillie, only to be turned back now?
“I’m sorry, Miss Radford.” For once his voice held nothing but kindness. “If you’d like, we’ll take it slow heading back to Saint Joe tomorrow.”
“What I’d like is to go to California,” she whispered, but she knew he heard her by the way he glanced at the floor again.
“Good night.” He lifted his gaze to hers and held it for a moment. Though he didn’t say it, Delsie sensed he, too, had experienced the bitter disappointment of having a dream ripped from one’s grasp. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”
She gave a wordless nod and stepped back to shut the door. Alone once more, she sank onto the neatly made bed, her valise still crushed in her arms. She’d never felt such fatigue, such despair. Every muscle in her wearied body seemed to echo Myles’s sentiment, It can’t be done. The first of her tears skidded down her cheeks. In seventeen more days, her sister would be lost to her forever and her promise to their mother would be broken. There was nothing she could do to change either one.
Unable to hold back the sobs any longer, Delsie dropped onto the bed and buried her head in the pillow to muffle the sound. She’d managed this first part of her journey without crying once, despite the new and somewhat terrifying things she’d experienced since leaving her aunt’s house.
Aunt Cissy had assumed Delsie was returning straight to Pennsylvania, after her two-week stay in Saint Louis, and Delsie hadn’t bothered to correct her. She’d been so full of optimism once she’d concocted her plan to go to Lillie, just as she had today when she’d convinced Myles to take her with him. But now... The failure tasted worse than the hardtack she’d stomached earlier.
Twisting onto her side, she stared at the room’s nice furnishings, not so different from the opulence she was accustomed to at home. What sort of room did Lillie live in? Did she enjoy being on her own as she’d claimed to in the letters Delsie had discovered?
Her eyes narrowed in on the book lying on top of the low table beside the bed. Delsie released her bag to the floor and sat up. She pulled the book onto her lap. Her own Bible would’ve weighed her luggage down too much, so she hadn’t brought it, but she was grateful to find one here.
She flipped aimlessly through the pages, wondering where to read, where to find solace. At her aunt’s house, she’d been working her way through Hebrews. Delsie turned there now and located the last place she recalled reading. She began in chapter 10, but her mind was as much on her predicament as it was on the words before her. Until she reached verses thirty-five and thirty-six.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
A feeling of warmth began near her heart and spread all the way to her tired fingers and toes as she reread the two verses. She’d felt that confidence from the moment she’d decided to go to Lillie and at every step up to now. Why should she doubt, then? If God wanted her to be in California before the twenty-second—and everything inside her said He did—then she had to trust and be patient that He would make that possible. That she would receive the promise, the reward, of fulfilling their dying mother’s wishes and reuniting with Lillie before it was too late.
Delsie set the Bible on the bed and stood to pace the room, her arms tucked tight against her. Myles thought it impossible to either procure horses at every station or to travel with their own for so long. But was there a third solution they’d overlooked? One obvious to the Lord?
“Please help me see it, too,” she prayed in a soft voice.
Calculations appeared in her mind’s eye like figures on a chalkboard, the way they always did—the number of miles they had to go, the number of miles a horse could reasonably trot before needing to rest. She dug through her valise to find a pencil and Lillie’s last letter. Using the back of one of the pages, Delsie wrote down the numbers in her head. She began playing with them, organizing them, rearranging them.
And then she saw it—the answer—as plain as day and as clear as the sky had been earlier. So simple and yet so hidden until this moment. A ripple of excitement and gratitude ran through her. Thank You, Lord. One problem solved. Now she only needed a guide and three horses.
She left the paper on her bed and crossed to the window again. The yard sat empty, though light from the open doors of the stable attested to someone’s presence. Weariness had certainly affected her mind when she and Myles had ridden up earlier, but Delsie thought she recalled seeing a number of filled stalls inside the barn. Would the Guittards allow her to purchase three of their horses?
A figure exited the stable. It was Amos. As Delsie watched, the man lifted his arm and whistled, his eyes toward the western sky. Elijah soon appeared and swooped down to settle onto Amos’s arm. She hadn’t seen the bird come to anyone else all day, except Myles. Clearly the creature saw something in both men that others might not.
What was it Myles had said about his friend? Express worker, avid explorer and accomplished harmonica player. Was it possible Amos knew the terrain beyond Nebraska?
Delsie studied the man’s face as he gently ran his finger over the feathers on Elijah’s head. Though she knew next to nothing about him, she instinctively sensed kindness within him, as the hawk obviously did. Just as she’d sensed integrity and honor within Myles, despite all his gruffness and sarcasm. Would the old man agree to join them? Would Myles be willing to split his money from her if Amos came along, too? There was only one way to find out.
Determination welled inside Delsie and she spun away from the window. She quickly did up her collar and arranged her hair in a hasty twist at the nape of her neck. There’d be enough time later on to finish washing and dressing for bed. Right now, she needed to corner Amos and present him with her new plan before Myles came to collect his bird.
She slipped into the hallway, down the stairs and out the front door without encountering anyone. As she stole around the side of the house, her eyes went to the streaks of pink and orange smearing the darkening sky overhead. The same sun was setting over Lillie. Delsie smiled at the thought. The assurance she’d felt earlier while reading once again filled her heart. Tomorrow she’d be back on her way to California and to her sister—she just knew it.
Let the West do its worst, she mused. She had Someone far greater on her side than all the Express riders and horses and hazards from here to the coast.
Chapter Three
Myles pushed his eggs around his plate, his appetite not its usual hearty self. Sleep had eluded him for several hours last night, as it had after Cynthia’s betrayal two months earlier. He kept thinking of Delsie’s soulful eyes filled with disappointment and grief when he’d conveyed the impossibility of her plans. She was clearly disheartened, but she hadn’t raged at him or laid blame at his feet as he might’ve been tempted to do.
Her quiet acceptance of defeat wasn’t the only thing that had kept him awake. He’d had a difficult time erasing the image of her unbound hair and cream-colored skin from his memory, too.
So she’s pretty, Myles thought, scowling at his half-eaten breakfast. Any man would say the same.
Not for the first time since meeting Delsie the day before, he felt some relief at the knowledge that they would be parting company very, very soon. She kept surprising him, acting in ways that contradicted his opinions about rich folk, and he didn’t like it one bit. He liked routine, consistency and taking risks only when he knew for certain what the outcome would be.
Funny that she’d all but admitted to being the same way on the boat yesterday. Except this harebrained scheme of hers clearly meant she’d thrown her normal caution out the window.
“Thank you for the breakfast, Mrs. Guittard.” He stood, hoping she didn’t take offense to him not finishing everything.
The woman smiled. “You’re welcome, Mr. Patton.”
Myles glanced at the kitchen doorway. “Should I let Miss Radford know it’s time to eat?”
“She’s already had her breakfast.”
“Oh.” He’d suspected she would sleep in, especially knowing how sore she’d be today.
“I believe she’s in the stables,” Mrs. Guittard added over her shoulder from where she was working over a pot of something at the stove.
Myles put on his hat and let himself out the back door. Apparently Delsie was as anxious to get back to Saint Joseph as he was. The thought erased some of his guilt over frustrating her plans, however unintentionally.
Good thing he hadn’t let Amos in on her notion to reach California before the twenty-second—the man would have tried to make it work, no matter the foolhardiness of the venture. Amos hated to see a woman in distress. Myles suspected it was the fatherly nature in him, one he hadn’t been able to practice on with his own children. Amos and his wife, who had passed away seven years earlier, had remained childless, despite a strong desire for a family.
The lightening sky overhead promised to be as clear and blue as the day before. The sight brought a whistle to Myles’s lips, a tune he’d heard Amos play plenty of times on the harmonica. Elijah swooped down over the stable roof and landed on his shoulder.
“You get breakfast, boy?” He ran his hand over the bird’s head, his gaze on the western horizon.
For one brief moment, he considered what it would’ve been like to travel farther than he’d ever been, all the way to California. His stepfather used to tell him a place like that, so far west, would have enough room for a horse ranch.
Someday.
Myles turned toward the stables. It was time to return to Saint Joseph and his current life. The longer he stayed with the Pony Express, the more money he’d make—money he could use to purchase that sprawling horse ranch in the future. Now that Cynthia no longer wanted to marry him, the ranch was his only dream and focus. It was the reason he’d considered Delsie’s proposal to take her to California in the first place. But he’d just have to be content with earning the money slow and steady instead.
The whistle returned to his lips as he entered the nearest stable. Inside Delsie stood talking quietly to Amos, but she closed her mouth the moment Myles walked up. She had on a different dress than yesterday, her hair pinned up again beneath her ridiculous flowered hat. He looked past them and spied one, two...three?...saddled horses. His merry tune ended on a sour note. Something was afoot.
“You planning a trip to Saint Joe?” he asked Amos with an attitude of nonchalance, despite the wariness churning inside him. Delsie avoided his gaze.
“Nope,” Amos answered. The glitter in the man’s blue-gray eyes only heightened Myles’s suspicion.
“What’s with the third horse, then?”
“Can’t very well walk to California, can we?”
We? Myles scowled at Delsie’s bent head. Sure enough she’d convinced Amos to go along with her wild scheme, just as he’d feared last night. Well, he’d put a stop to all this nonsense right now. “Miss Radford, we talked about this last night. It can’t be done.”
“But you said if we had our own horses—”
Myles tightened his jaw in exasperation. Had the woman heard the rest of his explanation? “I said even if we had our own horses, it still wouldn’t work. They can’t go fast enough.”
“Not necessarily. I’ve figured out—”
“The supplies you’d need to travel that far will weigh them down. At that slow pace you wouldn’t reach California until—”
“Myles?” Amos said, quietly but firmly.
“What?” he growled. Elijah ruffled his wings as if startled.
“Let the lady finish. She’s come up with a plan that might work.”
Myles took a moment to swallow back his irritation, then through ground teeth he managed to ask, “What do you propose, Miss Radford?”
Delsie glanced between him and Amos and back to him before her chin rose a notch. “I calculated everything out last night.” She lifted her hand and showed him a piece of paper with numbers scrawled all over the back of it. “We can average a hundred miles a day, if we rest the horses for an hour about every fifteen miles. If we start at six in the morning, we could reach one of the Express stations, at that pace, by eight o’clock that evening.”
“And supplies?” he countered, mostly in an attempt to hide how impressed he was with her calculations. Clearly Delsie Radford was more than a pretty face with a sudden penchant for adventure. She’d managed to come up with a fairly logical plan...so far.
“Instead of paying to use the stations’ horses, I’ll pay them for room and board and feed for the animals for the single night we stay there.”
Myles scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his face. He hadn’t bothered to trim his beard this morning in his anticipation of getting Delsie back to Missouri. “What about water or feed for the horses during breaks?”
Delsie slid a glance at Amos. “That’s where Mr....I mean, Amos comes in. He’s familiar with the route. He knows most of the rivers and creeks along the way, as well as the Express stations.”
A sardonic laugh nearly escaped Myles’s lips. She’d clearly thought of everything, the little conspirator. While he’d lain in his bed awake last night, feeling guilty as he’d imagined her heartbroken and weeping in her room upstairs, Delsie had actually been scheming behind his back. And doing a decent job of it as evidenced by her clever equations and her solicitation of Amos’s help as a guide.
“What do you need me for, then?” He crossed his arms over his chest as a feeling he couldn’t quite name settled there, tight and uncomfortable. It reminded him of the taunts he’d experienced as a child at school, about being an orphan, about how Charles wasn’t his real pa. He’d quit going at age ten.
“Because I promised to pay you first...” Myles frowned, ready to argue with her. While the money would be nice, even if he got less than she’d originally offered after she paid the station owners and Amos, he wouldn’t be pitied. “And because you know the most about horses,” she added before he could protest. “Amos told me you worked for years at a livery stable. You know better than either of us when to rest the animals, when to push them. So you see, I need you...”
An attractive blush stained her cheeks at her words. The image of her long hair and exposed collarbone from last night entered Myles’s mind again. “What I mean is we need you. Me, Amos and my sister.”
Myles blew out his breath and absently rubbed Elijah’s feathers. Did he still want to help her? A good portion of him preferred climbing into the saddle and heading east, never to see Miss Delsie Radford again. But the other part of him, growing more insistent the longer the silence stretched between them, wanted to see if she—if they—could really do this.
Could they reach California in seventeen more days? The challenge, and the chance to earn more money for his future ranch, was as alluring as the woman watching him with those dark blue eyes. Eyes framed with long lashes, above a slightly pink nose. If anything the sunburn only added to her beauty.
Careful, Myles, he warned himself.
He’d fallen for a pretty face once before, only to be spurned. Clever and attractive as Delsie might be, Myles knew all too well the impossibility of their two worlds ever coexisting. It had been that way with Cynthia and it would be no different with any other spoiled rich girl who came along.
“All right, Miss Radford. I’ll send word to Saint Joe that I’ll be gone for a few weeks. But mind you, if I lose my job over this, I’ll hunt you down and demand more money.” He regarded her with a level look. “Got it?”
A slight smile toyed with her mouth. “Yes, Mr. Patton.”
He tugged his hat lower onto his head. “What do you want to do now?”
“Now,” she said, smiling fully, “we ride.”
* * *
If she’d thought she was sore after her first day of riding more than a hundred miles, Delsie knew better now. Nothing could compare to the pain and stiffness of a second day in the saddle. Her limbs felt as heavy as logs and as hard and unyielding as granite. Every rise and fall of the prairie ground seemed to radiate from her mare’s hooves up through her back and all the way to her stiff neck. Sheer determination, coupled with the constant memory of her sister’s tearstained face on the day Lillie had left, kept her from begging Myles and Amos to turn around.
Their pace nearly matched that of yesterday’s, except for the rests that, according to Amos’s fancy pocket watch and Myles’s knowledge of horses, they were taking every hour and a half. Even Amos, riding behind her, didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable, though he had to be in his early fifties. Perhaps by the time they reached her sister, Delsie would be just as seasoned on a horse.
She shifted in the saddle, hoping to find a position that didn’t chafe her legs or add to her pain. Up ahead, Myles remained silent and alert as he had the day before, his bird perched on his shoulder. Delsie had fully expected him to refuse to accompany her any farther, despite her new and improved plan. But then he’d surprised her by agreeing.
Why is he really here? she wondered, not for the first time since they’d set out. Why hadn’t Myles left her and Amos to fend for themselves?
Amos had told her his reasons for coming—the promise of adventure and a soft spot for helping women. She’d found herself telling him more about her sister, and why she had to reach her, than she’d confessed to Myles. Not that she trusted Amos more. But the older man seemed to grasp—and appreciate—her willingness to face whatever obstacles to help Lillie and her family by keeping her promise. It was something she sensed Myles didn’t quite understand. Delsie could still visualize his hardened expression when he’d declared he had no family. The memory filled her with the same measure of sadness his words had on the boat.
Was it this pain and loneliness that made him hide behind a mask of curtness and annoyance? For it surely was a mask. She’d seen a glimpse here and there in the past twenty-four hours of a different man. One who possessed integrity and determination but also kindness and compassion. At other times, though, she could almost believe she’d imagined this different side to Myles. He hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to her since they’d begun riding. If he disliked her company so, why wasn’t he headed straight back to Missouri?
With an amused sniff, she realized her questions had come full circle again.
“The horses need to stop soon,” Myles called over his shoulder.
“Let’s rest by those trees there,” Amos answered.
In the distance Delsie spied a patch of trees alongside the river they’d been riding beside—according to Amos it was called the Little Blue. She sighed with relief at the thought of a rest. Perhaps some walking would ease the continued agony of riding.
Amos drew alongside her and examined his pocket watch. Shaking his head, he grinned. “Look at that. An hour and a half almost to the minute. The man’s got a way with horses.”
Just not with people. She instantly regretted the unkind thought. “How long have you known Mr. Patton, Amos?”
The older man squinted up at the blue sky. “Let’s see, it’s been about seven years now. Right after my wife died, God rest her soul.”
“I’m sorry...about your wife. Did you have any children?”
“No.” A wistful look passed over his weathered face. “Not for wanting, that’s for sure. We hoped and prayed for a family, but we came to realize that God had other plans.” His gaze traveled from her to Myles. “Myles is the closest thing I have to family now. He’s the one who encouraged me to hire on with the Pony Express, despite my being up there in years—as he likes to remind me.” His mouth curved up in a broad smile.
Delsie rubbed at the back of her neck. As soon as they stopped, she’d wet her handkerchief, as Myles had done yesterday, to help prevent a sunburn. The longer she rode, the more she realized the impracticality of her stylish riding hat. Maybe she could trade it somewhere for a wide-brimmed one like the two men wore.
“Has he always been...um...” She searched for the right word.
“Hard-edged?” Amos supplied with a chuckle.
She bit back a smile and nodded.
“No, he hasn’t.” Amos wiped at his brow with his sleeve, then tugged his hat lower. “His folks died when he was real young, but he was raised by a good and godly man—his stepfather, Charles Patton. Myles took his stepfather’s death pretty hard.” He glanced at Delsie. She’d told him last night about her mother dying when she was thirteen. “But things really turned bad for him two months ago when his girl, this rich young lady from Saint Joe, refused to marry him after stringing him along for six years.”
Delsie turned her attention to the man in front of them, riding tall and straight in his saddle. What had the man at the hotel in Saint Joseph said yesterday? Didn’t know you had yourself a new girl, Patton. No wonder Myles had looked ready to pummel him.
Would Flynn feel the same, angry and bitter, if she returned home and told him she couldn’t marry him? She couldn’t picture him acting that way, but then again, did Flynn truly love her as it seemed Myles had this wealthy woman?
Flynn had told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world and would make him the happiest man alive she if agreed to marry him. But was it her that he truly looked forward to having or was it her inheritance? She’d been asking herself that question ever since she’d left Pennsylvania to visit Aunt Cissy in Saint Louis.
Now that Lillie had been struck from their father’s will, Delsie stood to gain a great deal of money. Some she would inherit when she married, the rest she would receive upon her father’s death, and Flynn knew the particulars. Despite her father’s encouragement of the match, the thought that Flynn might be more interested in her wealth than in Delsie herself brought a mixture of unease and confusion to her stomach.
When they reached the trees Amos had indicated, the older man helped Delsie off her mare. She stumbled forward and braced herself against a nearby tree trunk as she waited for her legs to work properly again. Myles led the three horses to the riverbank and let them drink.
“Shall we eat the food Mrs. Guittard gave us?” Delsie asked. She didn’t know if it was time for lunch, but the hunger in her middle could no longer be ignored.
“Fine by me,” Amos said, taking a seat in the shade.
Myles gave a grunt of approval as he looped the horses’ reins around several low-hanging branches. He removed the simple meal of bread, cheese and apples from one of the saddlebags.
Delsie eyed the ground, trying to decide if she preferred sitting or standing at the moment.
“You’re going to get dirty, Miss Radford,” Myles said with a shake of his head, “so you might as well start now.”
“But I wasn’t...” She pressed her lips over her defense and glared at his bent head as he set out the lunch things. The man could truly be insufferable, even if he had good reason to be.
Chin up, she stepped away from the tree and plopped right onto the dirt as unladylike as possible. A cry barreled up her throat as pain shot through her spine, but she swallowed it back when she saw Myles quirk an eyebrow at her. Was that amusement or admiration glittering in his dark eyes?
She accepted the food he handed her, then waited until he and Amos had their portions before she spoke up. “May I say grace?”
Myles leaned back against the tree trunk and scowled in response.
Maybe he needed an explanation. “I’d like to give thanks for the food...and for a safe journey so far.”