Chapter 1 - Six Tickets for Seven Children
Maggie pulled six train tickets from the desk drawer and whispered, “Why are there only six?”
Caleb Reed stepped through the doorway and saw the tickets in her hand beside the open walnut document box.
One ticket had a child’s name scratched out twice.
LILY.
Caleb stopped moving.
Maggie knew she had found something he never meant her to see.
For several seconds, nobody in the cabin spoke.
The fire cracked behind the children.
Twelve-year-old Eli stood near the wall with his shoulders stiff. Ruth, eleven, had one arm wrapped protectively around eight-year-old Clara. Ben and Sam had stopped pretending to play checkers near the hearth. Annie held the sleeve of Maggie’s dress.
And little Lily, barely five, clutched a ragged brown bear against her chest.
Maggie looked from the six tickets to the seven children.
Then to Caleb.
“You told me you hired me because you needed somebody to cook,” she said.
Caleb took off his black hat slowly.
“I did.”
“You told me seven children were too much for one man running a ranch.”
“They are.”
“You told me nothing about train tickets.”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
Maggie held them higher.
They were all dated for Friday.
Three days away.
One-way passage from Miles City to St. Paul.
She read the names again.
Eli Reed.
Ruth Reed.
Benjamin Reed.
Clara Reed.
Samuel Reed.
Annie Reed.
No Lily.
Her eyes lifted.
“Where is hers?”
Caleb didn’t answer.
That silence frightened her more than an angry denial would have.
Maggie had arrived at Reed Hollow only seventeen days earlier.
The first thing she had heard was a gunshot.
It had turned out to be Eli firing at a rattlesnake near the chicken yard, but that introduction had told Maggie nearly everything about the place.
Nothing at Reed Hollow happened gently.
Breakfast began before sunrise.
Boots appeared muddy five minutes after she scrubbed the floor.
Someone was always bleeding from a scraped knee.
Someone was always hungry.
Somebody cried every night.
And Caleb Reed carried the expression of a man who expected disaster before breakfast.
Maggie had come because she needed employment.
That was the simple explanation.
The more complicated one was that she needed somewhere far enough from Missouri that people would stop whispering about her.
At thirty-two, unmarried, and with no parents left to protect her reputation, Maggie had discovered how quickly a small town could turn disappointment into judgment.
She had been engaged once.
Thomas Keene had left two weeks before the wedding after learning Maggie intended to use part of her inheritance to help search for her missing younger sister.
Thomas had called it foolishness.
Maggie had called it family.
They had never spoken again.
Her sister Rebecca had vanished eleven years earlier.
No body.
No goodbye.
Only a rumor that she had boarded a westbound train with a man their father despised.
Maggie had spent years wondering whether Rebecca was alive.
Eventually, wondering became too expensive.
Now she stood in a Montana cabin with six tickets in her hand and a little girl named Lily staring at her as though Maggie might disappear too.
Caleb moved closer.
“Maggie, put them down.”
“No.”
The children watched him.
That changed his expression.
He lowered his voice.
“This isn’t something to discuss in front of them.”
Maggie almost laughed.
“You bought tickets for six of them without telling them, and now you’re worried about what they hear?”
“I haven’t bought anything yet.”
“They have dates and seat numbers.”
“I mean nothing has been decided.”
Eli spoke from behind her.
“Pa?”
Caleb looked at his oldest son.
Eli’s face had gone pale.
“Are you sending us away?”
“No.”
“But those are our names.”
“I know.”
“Then where are we going?”
Caleb rubbed one hand over his face.
Maggie saw exhaustion there.
Not guilt.
That confused her.
Caleb Reed was not easy to read, but she had learned small things about him.
He never ate until every child had food.
He repaired Lily’s dollhouse after midnight because she had cried when the roof broke.
He rode twelve miles in rain because Ruth wanted a library book returned on time.
He kept a chair at the end of the table empty.
Nobody ever explained why.
His late wife, Eleanor, had been dead three years.
Maggie had assumed the chair had belonged to her.
Now she wondered what else she had assumed incorrectly.
She separated the tickets.
“Six children,” she said quietly. “Seven living here.”
Caleb’s eyes shifted toward Lily.
It lasted less than a second.
Maggie caught it.
So did Lily.
The little girl’s lower lip trembled.
“Papa?”
Caleb immediately crouched.
“Come here.”
Lily hesitated before moving toward him.
He took her gently by the shoulders.
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Am I bad?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t I get a ticket?”
Maggie’s heart clenched.
Caleb closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, he looked directly at Maggie.
“Because she isn’t supposed to go.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Maggie lowered the tickets.
“Supposed to stay here?”
Caleb stood.
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
He didn’t answer.
“With you?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The older children began talking at once.
“You can’t send us—”
“I’m staying too—”
“Why does Lily get to stay?”
“Is something wrong with the ranch?”
Caleb raised his voice only enough to stop them.
“Nobody is leaving tonight.”
The room went quiet again.
“Eli, take the others outside.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me.”
“Soon.”
Eli stared at his father with an anger that looked too old for twelve.
But he obeyed.
He gathered the younger children.
Lily didn’t want to leave Caleb.
He bent and whispered something to her.
Finally, she walked out holding Annie’s hand.
The door closed.
Maggie and Caleb were alone.
She placed the tickets on his desk.
“I’ve been in this house seventeen days.”
“I know.”
“I cook for your children. I wash their clothes. I hear Sam talking in his sleep. I know Ruth hates carrots and Clara hides books under her mattress when she’s supposed to be sleeping.”
Caleb almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
Maggie continued.
“I’m not asking because I’m curious. I’m asking because somebody in this house is afraid.”
Caleb looked toward the window.
“You should pack your things.”
Maggie stared.
“What?”
“I’ll pay you through the month.”
“Why?”
“You need to leave Reed Hollow.”
“No.”
His head turned sharply.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
“There are things happening here that don’t concern you.”
“Seven frightened children concern me.”
“They’re my responsibility.”
“Then act like it.”
That hit him.
His face hardened.
For one dangerous second she thought he would order her out.
Instead, he walked to the open desk drawer.
He reached inside.
Maggie expected him to take the tickets.
He removed a small brass key.
Then he unlocked the bottom compartment of the walnut box.
Maggie watched.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
Some tied with faded blue ribbon.
A photograph lay on top.
Caleb covered it before she could see clearly.
“You want the truth?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I didn’t ask to like it.”
His eyes remained on hers.
“There is a man named Everett Shaw.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“He owns land south of here,” Caleb continued. “Or claims he does. He has money. Men. Friends in the territorial offices.”
“What does that have to do with the children?”
“He’s coming.”
“For what?”
Caleb looked toward the door through which Lily had just left.
“For her.”
Maggie felt cold.
“Why?”
Caleb said nothing.
“Caleb.”
His fingers tightened around the photograph.
Maggie reached for it.
He caught her wrist.
Not painfully.
But firmly.
“Don’t.”
She looked down at his hand, then back at him.
“Let go.”
He did.
Maggie picked up the photograph.
A young woman stood outside a railway station.
Dark hair.
Fine features.
A familiar crooked smile.
Maggie stopped breathing.
The room tilted.
“No.”
Caleb said nothing.
Her fingers began trembling.
The woman in the picture was older than the girl Maggie remembered.
Thinner.
Tired.
But there was no possibility of mistake.
“Where did you get this?”
Caleb’s voice was barely audible.
“She gave it to my wife.”
Maggie looked at him.
“My sister?”
“Yes.”
The photograph slipped slightly between her fingers.
Rebecca.
Alive long enough to reach Montana.
Alive long enough to know Caleb Reed.
Maggie turned the picture over.
Writing covered the back.
Most had faded.
But one line remained clear.
If anything happens to me, protect Lily.
Maggie stared at the name.
Slowly, she looked toward the door.
Toward the yard where the youngest child was playing.
Her mouth went dry.
“No.”
Caleb didn’t move.
Maggie’s eyes filled.
“Who is Lily?”
Before Caleb could answer, a horse came thundering into the yard.
Eli shouted.
Caleb crossed to the window.
His entire body went rigid.
A rider had stopped at the gate.
Black coat.
Gray horse.
Silver-handled cane strapped beside the saddle.
Caleb whispered one name.
“Everett.”
The rider looked straight toward the cabin.
Then he raised one gloved hand.
He was holding another photograph.
May you like
This one was of Lily.
And he had come to take her.
