Hidden Truths (8 page)

The stranger lowered her gaze. "I was too embarrassed
to have my picture taken," she said. "I know men don't find me all
that appealing, so a friend allowed me to send her picture instead."

Amy slid her gaze over her, judging her honesty – and her
appeal – then she looked away.

"I know it's vain," the young woman said.
"But I hope you won't judge me for it."

"None of my business," Amy said. She didn't plan
on having much to do with Phin's bride. Easy to do, since she would be busy
with the ranch. "All right, then let's go. I'll take you to the ranch. My
family will take care of you until Phin returns." She kept her movements
gentle but firm, as if dealing with a young horse, and again reached for the
carpetbag.

Finally, the tight muscles in the woman's hands relaxed, yet
she still didn't hand over her baggage.

"Do you have any other bags?" Amy asked.

A flush stained the young woman's pale skin. "No, just
this one."

As far as Amy was concerned, there was no shame in being
poor. At least she wouldn't have to drag half a dozen suitcases, bags, and
hatboxes to the buckboard and could get back to the ranch sooner.

The ranch and Mama
. No doubt Mama would have
something interesting to say about Amy's skirt and the mare.

*  *  *

Gray patches of mist drifted up from the river and mingled
with the never-ending drizzle. In the half-light of the fading day, grassland
stretched out in front of Rika like the sea beyond Boston Harbor, the wind
rippling through the blades. The tang of pine and leather hung in the air.

Rika pushed her sodden bonnet out of her eyes and threw a
glance at Amy Hamilton, who sat next to her on the buckboard. Unlike Rika, she
didn't seem to notice the gloomy weather.

Rika glanced at the sinewy hands holding the reins.

What a strange, unusual woman.
Amy Hamilton was
unlike anyone she'd ever met in Boston. After the mindless routine in the
cotton mill, at least life out west promised to be interesting.

The brown horse in front of the wagon walked steadily, its
head bopping up and down as it pulled them through a valley dotted with trees
and bushes Rika didn't know. A creek gurgled alongside them, and the horse's
harness jangled with every step. Behind them, the gray horse splashed through
the mud. It had whinnied and struggled against the rope at first but had then
gotten used to being tied to the wagon.

It's so quiet
.
After the constant noise in the
city and the clatter of the looms in the cotton mill, Oregon's silence made
Rika wish Amy would fill it with idle chatter. Amy didn't. Rika looked at her
silent companion, and when their gazes met, both glanced away.

Did she believe the lie about the tintype?
Rika bit
her lip until a coppery taste filled her mouth. She should have thought of
that. Since Phineas sent his picture to Jo, of course Jo had to send one back.
Rika had assumed Jo would rather use her money to see a doctor than waste it on
getting her picture taken. She vowed to be more careful in the future. "A
man in town said Phineas would be gone for two months. Surely he was
joking?"

Amy flicked her gaze from the road to Rika. "No. Two
months. Might be three. He sends his apologies."

"But..." Rika reached into her coat pocket and
pulled out the rumpled bundle of letters. "He said that he'd whisk me away
to church the moment I stepped foot off the stagecoach, and now he's not even
here to greet me." How serious could Phineas Sharpe be about his promise
to marry her if he sent this strange young woman to fetch her?

"It couldn't be helped." Green fire sparked in
Amy's eyes. "My father needed him to drive a herd of geldings to Fort
Boise. Out here, making sure the ranch survives is more important than getting
married on time."

Not to Rika. To her, getting married meant survival. "I
understand," she said stiffly.

Amy fell silent.

Rika was left to her own thoughts. Thinking wasn't what she
wanted to do. She wanted to let go of the past with all that it held, but her
future was unsure and stolen from a dead woman.

The wagon crested one last hill. Below them, sheds and barns
lay scattered around a two-story main house. Tall pines and spruce flanked the
large veranda, and Rika imagined them providing ample shade in the summer and
lending shelter from the rain in winter. Paddocks spread out from both sides of
the house, leading to a large, circular corral. Rika couldn't see what lay on
the other side of the house, but from somewhere, an herb garden saturated the
air with the scent of sage and mint.

The carefully tended home seemed like something right out of
a fairy tale.
Jo would have loved it.

When the buckboard rattled into the ranch yard, a large dog
charged up the path, growling and barking.

Rika pulled her skirt tighter around her legs, protecting
them just in case the dog tried to bite.

"Quit making such a ruckus, Hunter," Amy said.

The dog fell silent.

When Amy stopped the buckboard, the door of the main house
swung open and a woman stepped onto the veranda.

Rika blinked, then glanced back and forth between Amy and
the woman. With her flaming red hair and her slender yet sturdy build, the
woman looked like Amy's twin. When she came closer, a few lines around her
mouth and eyes revealed her to be an older version of Amy.

Her mother?

Amy jumped down from the wagon seat and rounded the
buckboard. She extended her hand to help Rika down, and after a moment's
hesitation, Rika laid her hand into the calloused palm and climbed down to look
at her new home.

*  *  *

A grin sneaked onto Nora's face when she watched Amy help
the young woman off the high wagon seat. The gesture reminded her of Luke, who
had taught their daughters well, just by giving a good example.

"You must be Johanna." Nora directed a smile at
the slim woman next to Amy. "I'm Nora Hamilton. Welcome to —" Then
her gaze fell onto Amy's dress, and her mouth snapped shut.

Mud clung to the hem of the dress and painted an ugly
pattern over the once clean bodice. The skirt and petticoat hung in ripped
tatters, and Amy's hair looked as if a flock of birds had tried to build a nest
in it.

Nora hurried down the veranda steps. "Amy! Are you all
right? What happened?"

"I'm fine." Amy folded her hands in front of her
body, belatedly trying to hide the large rip in her skirt.

Nora eyed the gray horse tied to the buckboard. "What's
that?"

"She's a mare, Mama," Amy answered.

"I can see that. What is the mare doing here? She's not
yours, is she?" Nora looked at Johanna, who was politely pretending not to
listen in on their conversation.

"No," Johanna said.

"I bought her," Amy said, her gaze fixed on the
horse.

"Your father just left, risking his life to sell
horses, and you go and buy another one?" Nora shook her head.
Leave it
to Amy to come home with a horse when she's been sent out to fetch Phin's
betrothed.
"Where did you get the money anyway?" While Amy had
grown up not wanting for anything, she didn't have much spending money in her
pocket.

"Um." Amy stared at her mud-crusted boots.
"Phin gave it to me."

"Phin?" Their foreman would have given Amy the
shirt off his back and vice versa, but with his new bride coming to live with
him, he didn't have that kind of money to give away. Nora stared as realization
dawned. "You took the money he gave you for his betrothed?"

Sodden locks fell into Amy's eyes. She didn't meet Nora's
gaze. "I'm sorry. I know it wasn't my money to spend. I'll pay it all back
somehow." Her head came up, and her eyes glowed. "But I couldn't
stand there and watch them torment the mare. I just couldn't."

Will she ever be this passionate about someone or
something other than horses?
Nora hoped that one day, her daughters would
be as happy as she was in her marriage.

"Half a dozen men threw her down. They would have
bucked her until she died or had her spirit broken," Amy said.
"Buying her was the only way to save her."

Nora sighed. A small smile replaced her frown. Luke would
have rescued the mare too, no matter the damage to her clothes, her body, or
her finances. Sometimes, it was unsettling how much Amy was like Luke.

Ignoring the rain, Nora walked around the buckboard. She
reached out to touch the mare's flank but then retreated when she noticed the
rope burns and bleeding scratches covering the gray coat. She knew Amy hadn't
caused the marks. Someone had tried to break the mare.

In their early years in Oregon, the neighbors had made fun
of Luke's gentle horse taming methods. They said if Luke continued to mollycoddle
their horses, they would turn out spoiled and unpredictable. Now, years later,
every rancher and farmer in the area wanted to own one of the well-trained
Hamilton horses.

"You meant well," Nora said. "But taking
money that's not yours isn't what your father and I taught you. The money
belongs to Johanna. Phin wanted her to buy something to make her feel
comfortable — maybe a set of dishes or linen or a new dress."

"I'm sorry," Amy said again, and this time she
looked at Phin's betrothed. "It might take me a while, but I promise to
pay back every penny."

"It's all right." Johanna shrugged it off as if
they were talking about ten cents, not ten dollars. "I already own two
perfectly good dresses, and I don't need much to be content. I don't mind that
you used the money to help the horse. When I was growing up, I always wanted a
horse."

Amy's mouth slackened.

That was a surprise,
Nora thought.

Except for Hannah Garfield, the girls around Baker Prairie
didn't understand or support Amy's passion for horses. Nora's gaze roved over
the young woman.
Maybe she could become Amy's friend.

"You can't have this one," Amy said, sounding like
Luke when she had made up her mind about something.

"Amy." Nora put a warning growl into her voice.
"She's our guest and it's her money."

"Not this horse." Amy squared her shoulders.
"Remember when I tried to ride a yearling when I was little? The result
would be the same. Pairing a green horse with a green rider is a bad idea. I'll
think of something else to pay back the money."

Pride warmed Nora. Her sometimes hotheaded daughter was
taking her responsibility as the ranch's caretaker seriously. "Let's get
out of the rain and make proper introductions inside." She asked one of
their ranch hands to unload the wagon and take care of the horses and then
herded the two younger women into the house.

She watched Johanna take in the short divan, the armchairs,
the china cabinet, and the rolltop desk in one corner of the parlor. What would
a woman from back East think of the home they had built for themselves? Nora
was proud of her home, but the young Boston ladies she had known twenty years
ago would have frowned upon it.

But with her simple dress and no large dowry, Johanna was
clearly not a Boston Brahman but a working-class girl.

Johanna's serious face revealed nothing. The young woman was
hard to figure out. Nora guessed her to be two years older than Amy. In her
dark eyes lurked a caution that was absent from her daughters' gazes.

Nora offered her guest a place near the hearth and watched
her settle into an armchair. The carpetbag never left the young woman's hands.

That could have been me seventeen years ago,
Nora
realized. Before meeting Luke, she had never trusted anyone, maybe with the
exception of Tess Swenson, her only friend back then. Her marriage with Luke
had started out as unconventionally as Phin's arrangement with a mail-order
bride.
One difference, though. I doubt she will discover something so
shocking about her new husband.
Nora hid a grin. Now she could laugh about
it, but seventeen years ago, she had thought her world had come to an end when
she found out her husband was a woman.

"So, you are Johanna Bruggeman," Nora said.
"Phin has told us so much about you."

Johanna's pale face took on an even pastier shade.

Is she nervous about us knowing what she wrote Phin in
his letters?

"Please call me Hendrika," the young woman said.
"In Holland, where my family comes from, we tend to use our middle
names."

Right, she's from Holland.
That explained the exotic
cadence to the familiar Boston accent.

"I'm Nora Hamilton." She gestured toward Amy.
"And I guess you already met my daughter Amy. I hope you won't hold her
appearance against her. I promise she doesn't always look like a scarecrow. And
we'll work something out to give you back your money."

Amy clamped her hands around the backrest of Luke's favorite
armchair.

"It's already forgotten," Hendrika said, and Nora
thought she detected a flash of honesty beneath the polite mask.

"You'll meet Nattie, my other daughter, later. She's visiting
with the neighbors but will be home in time for supper. It'll be just enough
time for you to settle in and wash up."

A nod from Hendrika answered her.

"Amy, I thought she could share your room until she
feels more at home here," Nora said.

Now it was Amy who went pale. "Share my room? Why can't
she stay in Phin's cabin?"

"That cabin needs a good scrubbin' before it's fit for
a woman," Nora said. "And I don't want her to be on her own. I
thought it would be nice if she could stay at the main house until Phin gets
back. You're out on the range for most of the day anyway, so you won't get in
each other's way."

Her suggestion didn't meet with enthusiastic agreement from
either of the young women. Hendrika's grip on her carpetbag tightened until
Nora thought she might break a knuckle. Hendrika looked at Amy. "I'll be
fine in the cabin," she said. "I don't want to be in the way."