Chapter 1 - The Woman He Never Ordered
Mara Bell jumped from the moving train and shouted:
“Don’t touch that child!”
Silas Mercer reached the platform and found a bloodstained train ticket crushed beneath her boot.
Three numbers had been written across the back:
“17 — 4 — 9.”
The woman he had come to marry was running from someone.
For several seconds, nobody on the Mercy Hollow platform moved.
Mara still held the stranger’s wrist.
He was a narrow-faced man in a gray traveling coat who had made the mistake of reaching toward the beige sling wrapped around her body. Inside it, little Eli pressed his cheek against Mara’s chest and whimpered.
“Let go,” the stranger said.
Mara tightened her fingers.
“You first.”
“I wasn’t touching the boy.”
“You were about to.”
The man glanced past her.
That was when Mara noticed the giant.
Silas Mercer stood nearly a head taller than every other man on the platform. His shoulders stretched a brown wool coat that looked as if it had been made for somebody smaller. Dark hair touched his collar. A heavy beard framed a face that had probably frightened sensible people into behaving themselves.
Mara had never been particularly sensible.
She released the stranger.
Then she looked Silas up and down.
“You Mercer?”
A murmur moved through the crowd.
Silas glanced at the letter in his hand.
“Mara Bell?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you’re afraid of women.”
Silence swallowed the platform.
Someone coughed.
A boy carrying luggage snorted before his mother slapped a hand over his mouth.
Silas looked at Mara’s bloodstained sleeve.
Then at the baby.
Then back at her face.
“No.”
Mara smiled.
“Good. That’ll save us time.”
The man in gray disappeared into the crowd.
Silas noticed.
Mara noticed him noticing.
Neither mentioned it.
Silas had written to a matrimonial agency in Denver six months earlier. He had requested a practical woman who could tolerate isolation, manage a household, and preferred a quiet life.
The agency had sent him Mara Bell.
At least, that was what the letter claimed.
Nothing about the woman standing before him suggested quiet.
Her dark brown hair had escaped its pins during the journey. A burgundy blouse showed beneath her travel coat. Her blue skirt was dusty at the hem. One sleeve carried a streak of blood.
And there was an infant attached to her.
Silas slowly folded the agency letter.
“You didn’t mention a baby.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“He yours?”
Mara’s expression changed.
Only for an instant.
“No.”
Silas waited.
She offered nothing else.
“Whose blood?”
“Not mine.”
That answer did not improve matters.
Sheriff Amos Pike finally pushed through the spectators.
He was fifty, gray at the temples, and permanently looked disappointed by humanity.
“What happened?”
Mara pointed toward where the gray-coated stranger had vanished.
“That man tried to grab Eli.”
“Who?”
“The man who just walked away while twenty people stood here staring at me.”
Amos looked at Silas.
Silas shrugged.
“First minute I’ve known her.”
“Already feels longer,” Amos muttered.
Mara heard him.
“I get that a lot.”
Amos examined the blood.
“You carrying a weapon?”
“Several.”
Half the platform took one involuntary step backward.
Silas almost smiled.
Almost.
Amos held out his hand.
“Knife.”
Mara produced one from her sleeve.
“Other one.”
She pulled one from her boot.
“Other one.”
A smaller blade appeared from her belt.
Amos stared.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
Silas did smile then.
Mara caught it.
“There. You can do it.”
“Do what?”
“Look human.”
Silas’s smile vanished.
“Wagon’s outside.”
He lifted her trunk.
Mara blinked.
It was a large trunk.
He picked it up with one hand.
“Show-off,” she said.
“I own a ranch.”
“Congratulations.”
“It means I lift things.”
“I know what a ranch is.”
Silas walked away.
Mara followed.
Mercy Hollow watched them go.
By the time they reached Mercer Ranch, Silas had learned six things.
Mara hated silence.
She hated being questioned.
She knew how to reload a revolver while holding a baby.
Eli liked horses.
Mara did not trust anybody behind her.
And every time a rider appeared on the road, her right hand moved toward the knife Amos had eventually returned.
The ranch sat beneath the Rockies, surrounded by timber fencing and log buildings. Snow remained beneath the pines although spring had started softening the valley.
A dark stallion named Lucifer paced the nearest enclosure.
Mara leaned from the wagon.
“Oh, he’s beautiful.”
“He bites.”
“So do I.”
Silas looked straight ahead.
“I believe you.”
She laughed.
It was loud.
Unashamed.
Nothing like the woman he had imagined.
His imagined wife had been calm.
His imagined wife had baked bread.
His imagined wife had never arrived carrying three knives, somebody else’s baby, and another man’s blood.
Silas stopped the wagon beside the house.
“You should know something before we go farther.”
Mara climbed down.
“What?”
“I expected someone different.”
“So did I.”
“You didn’t know what I looked like?”
“I knew you were six foot six, owned three hundred acres, and wrote the most boring letters in Colorado.”
Silas stared at her.
“You kept them.”
“Every one.”
Something about that answer unsettled him more than her knives.
Mara turned toward the house.
Then she saw the well.
A huge wooden frame stood over it, supporting a pulley and heavy bucket.
Silas noticed the look in her eyes.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking something.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t.”
Mara smiled sweetly.
Ten minutes later, Silas was waist-deep inside the well repairing a cracked brace while Mara stood above him holding the rope.
Eli remained securely wrapped against her side.
“Lower the bucket,” Silas called.
Mara lowered it.
“Slowly.”
“I know.”
“You’re dropping it too fast.”
“You asked for help.”
“I asked for quiet help.”
Mara stopped.
Silas realized his mistake.
He looked up.
She was smiling.
“What?”
“You really did ask for a quiet wife.”
“That’s what the agency said.”
“Peaceful too?”
“Yes.”
“Obedient?”
“I never said obedient.”
“Smart man.”
“Mara.”
“Yes?”
“Give me the bucket.”
She pulled the rope.
The bucket rose.
Silas frowned.
“Mara.”
She pulled harder.
The bucket reached the top.
Then swung.
“Mara Bell.”
Her grin widened.
“Welcome to marriage.”
She released the rope.
The bucket tipped.
Freezing water crashed over Silas.
He came up sputtering.
Mara raised one fist and laughed so loudly Lucifer reared behind the fence.
Silas grabbed the rim.
Water poured through his beard.
“Woman!”
“Still not afraid of me?”
“Are you always like this?”
“You wanted a wife.”
“I wanted peace!”
She leaned toward him.
“Then you ordered the wrong woman.”
For one dangerous second they stared at each other.
Then Silas laughed.
Not politely.
Not reluctantly.
He laughed until his shoulders shook.
Mara’s expression softened.
That was the first moment she wondered whether marrying him might not be the worst decision she had ever made.
It lasted perhaps twenty seconds.
Then Eli started crying.
Mara immediately became serious.
She adjusted the sling.
Silas climbed from the well.
“Hungry?”
“Probably.”
“You know children?”
“A little.”
“That means no.”
“It means I had four younger sisters.”
Mara stopped.
“You have family?”
“Had.”
The word closed something behind his eyes.
She understood closed doors.
She had several of her own.
That evening, Silas cooked.
Badly.
Mara ate the beans anyway.
Eli slept in a basket beside the stove.
Silas sat opposite her at the rough kitchen table.
Between them lay the marriage agreement.
The ceremony was supposed to happen Saturday.
Three days away.
Silas tapped the paper.
“You can leave.”
Mara looked up.
“I just arrived.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“If somebody followed you here, tell me now.”
Her fork stopped.
“You saw him.”
“Gray coat.”
Mara said nothing.
“He reached for the child.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Silas leaned back.
“That was a lie.”
“Probably.”
“I won’t marry a lie.”
Mara’s eyes sharpened.
“Then don’t.”
The room went quiet.
Eli breathed softly near the stove.
Silas studied her.
“Is the boy in danger?”
Mara looked at the sleeping child.
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Am I?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
Silas nodded.
“Better.”
“What?”
“Truth.”
Mara pushed away from the table.
“You want truth? Fine. Eli’s mother was my sister.”
Silas waited.
“She died six weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You didn’t kill her.”
That sentence landed hard.
Silas’s face changed.
Mara immediately regretted saying it.
But she continued.
“My sister worked for a freight company in Denver. She discovered something she wasn’t supposed to discover. Then she died.”
“What?”
“The doctor called it fever.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“No.”
“And the boy?”
“She made me promise to take him.”
“Those numbers on your ticket?”
Mara froze.
Silas placed the bloodstained ticket on the table.
She had not realized he picked it up.
“Where did you get that?”
“Platform.”
She snatched it.
“Seventeen. Four. Nine,” he said. “What are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your sister wrote them?”
Mara folded the ticket.
“Yes.”
“Meaning?”
“I said I don’t know.”
This time he believed her.
A knock sounded at the front door.
Both of them went still.
Silas looked toward the clock.
Almost midnight.
Nobody came to Mercer Ranch at midnight.
He stood.
Mara reached beneath her skirt and drew the revolver she had neglected to mention to Sheriff Pike.
Silas looked at it.
“Several?”
“I said several.”
The knock came again.
Three slow strikes.
Silas took his rifle from above the mantel.
“Stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Mara.”
“You haven’t known me long enough to give orders.”
“I know that already.”
They crossed the dark front room together.
Silas opened the door.
Nobody stood outside.
Only snow.
Only moonlight.
Then Mara saw something hanging from the porch rail.
A strip of white cloth.
She stepped forward.
“No.”
Silas caught her arm.
“What?”
Mara stared.
The cloth had belonged to her sister.
She knew because she had embroidered the tiny blue flowers herself.
Something heavy hung inside it.
Silas untied the bundle.
A brass key fell into his palm.
Stamped into the metal were three numbers.
Then a voice came from the darkness beyond the barn.
“Mara Bell.”
She raised her gun.
May you like
A shadow moved behind the stable door.
And the man in the gray coat stepped into the moonlight holding another child.
