Indiana Goes West (Mail Order Brides of Pioneer Town, Book 1) (12 page)

“I’m here!” a voice called from behind her,
and there were so many people on the street she subconsciously
didn’t let it in, figuring it was for someone else. It wasn’t until
a strong hand fell on her shoulder that she turned around.

“I’m here,” Morgan said again, looking into
her eyes.

Indiana didn’t hesitate. She leaped forward,
through the foot that separated them, forcing herself into the
man’s arms, wrapping her own around his neck, and their lips met
and there was nothing else, if only for a moment, beside the two of
them.

“You found me!” she said when they finally
pulled away from one another.

Morgan was covered in gray dust. “I’m never
letting you out of my sight again,” he said tenderly. “All I could
think about was you.” Behind him the city burned, and he was
backlit by orange and red and yellow. Indiana couldn’t take her
eyes from him. “When I was that man’s prisoner, I wondered if that
was the end, and all I thought of was you. I needed to see you
again. When the ground started to shake, and the house came down, I
was in the cellar. And in a way it would have been easy to just let
the ground swallow me up. It wanted to. But I thought of you. I
knew I had to make it, and I had to come to you. I had to ask you
something.”

Indiana looked baffled, but the man before
her was sure of himself. He dropped to one knee, as a grand city
continued to be ruined all around them. “Indiana, I love you more
than words can say. Will you marry me?”

Chapter 21

Indiana’s mouth fell open. It was as if she
were in a dream.

“Yes!” she said.

Without realizing it, Indiana parted her
lips. At once, his mouth was upon hers. Their lips met tenderly.
The tender touch of his lips sent her heart racing, as she returned
his kiss with longing. His warm, soft lips tasted of honeyed
almonds.

It seemed like forever before Morgan pulled
away. “I need you on one of those ferries,” Morgan said. “It’s
going to be a long time until this city is safe. These fires will
burn for days. I’ll go find your mother and your sisters. I’ll help
them. But I can’t do it if I think for just one moment that you’re
in trouble, that you’re not safe. Do you understand?”

Indiana sighed. She did understand, but it
didn’t mean she liked it. Still, she nodded. Above her, the sun was
rising, mixing with the orange light of the burning city. She was
tired. She was in fact exhausted, having been pushed to the limit
of what her body and mind could handle.

“Fine,” she said simply, as she continued to
nod. “Fine. But I don’t want to go on a ferry, not without
you.”

“That’s not good enough for me,” Morgan said,
shaking his head. “I don’t want you to be anywhere near this city.
As your husband to be, allow me to go in and get your family to
safety.”

Indiana knew the longer she argued, the
longer it would be before Morgan and her family were back, safe.
She nodded. She needed to rest, and that was the absolute truth of
the matter. She needed to sit. She needed to sleep.

A police officer approached the pair. “Are
you people all right?” he asked. He was older than either of them,
with dark eyes and a tired look upon his face. Indiana guessed they
all looked tired.

“She’s going to need to be on the next boat
out of here,” Morgan said.

“What about you, sir?” the officer asked.

“I have others I need to find and bring
here.”

“You’re going back in there?” the officer
asked incredulously.

“I am,” Morgan said, nodding. He was
determined, and Indiana loved him for it.

“Suit yourself,” the cop said, and then he
placed a hand on Indiana’s arm. “Are you ready, miss?” he asked
her.

Indiana wanted to tell him no. She wanted to
jump back into Morgan’s arms. She wanted to kiss him again, but she
knew if she did that she would never let him go, and her mother and
sisters would be lost forever. She just nodded at Morgan, and then
turned away with the police officer and walked toward the end of
one long dock.

A ferry boat was sitting there, and
passengers were being loaded into it. The line was long, and the
police officer deposited Indiana at the end of it, and then went
forward to help another officer lift an elderly woman across the
side of the boat. Indiana was still twenty people back from the
ship when the officers announced it was full and stopped more
people getting on. Indiana turned and looked for Morgan, but he was
long gone.

Another ferry was ready as soon as that ferry
pulled away. Indiana boarded this boat. She sat near the bow of the
ship, and watched the city with tired eyes as the boat left the end
of the dock. From even that slight distance, she could see the city
as a whole, instead of individual streets and alleys. And it was
horrifying. Her mind hadn’t stopped thinking of Morgan, but seeing
just how ruined the city was, and how far the fires had spread, she
thought of him anew. She was filled with worry.

The water beneath the boat was black, even in
the morning light, and churning with all the traffic in the bay.
The ferry slid away from San Francisco, and Indiana shifted her
body, keen on keeping the city in sight as long as possible. She
wondered where Morgan was. She wondered what he was doing, and she
wondered how he was going to find her family.

Thinking of her mother, sisters, and Misty,
made her think of her father. It hadn’t been many months since he
had died, and still, every day, even if she wasn’t keenly aware of
it, her heart hurt for him. He had been a loving, attentive father,
and he was gone. She wondered what he would have done had he been
alive for the earthquake. He would surely have rushed headlong into
danger, wanting only to help others.

Her father had always been a man eager to
help others. He gave away a considerable amount of money each year
to various charities and causes. She had never seen him walk past a
beggar without dropping some amount of money into their tin
cups.

Of course, he had left his money to his only
male family, but that was simply the way the world worked. It was
what he was expected to do, but that didn’t mean Indiana had to
like it. She pushed the thoughts from her mind. She tried to think
of him how he had been, his warm smile, his jovial laugh.

But Indiana was unable to think of her father
without that small taste of bitterness, so she went back to
thinking about Morgan, as the city faded away in a haze of orange
behind her and the boat. At least, she was sure her father would
have liked the man, and would have been excited to hear of her
engagement. Indiana wondered what her mother would say, when Morgan
brought her to Indiana, and she could tell her. She wasn’t sure.
She found herself not really caring.

The ferry swiftly slid out of the bay and
turned, following other ferries a mile or two down the coast, where
they landed in a small port town. The ground was not shaking
there.

People from the city were being put up in
whatever buildings they could. Indiana was placed into a small
group of five women and taken into a home, where the man of the
house welcomed them and told them his wife was making some
breakfast. He said that they were welcome to go to sleep in one of
the two bedrooms in the back of the house, if they didn’t mind
sharing beds with one another.

Indiana headed for a bedroom, along with two
other women. It was the children’s bedroom, and had two small beds
in it. Indiana lay on one bed, the two other women crawled into the
other bed together. They whispered quietly and it occurred to
Indiana that they knew each other. Indiana was alone, and it made
her feel sad all at once.

But then thoughts of the man she loved came
flooding back, and while those thoughts brought worry with them,
they also brought happiness. Indiana was not alone—she realized
that now. And in a time when she had certainly felt rather alone,
with her father’s death and her mother’s insistence she marry a man
she didn’t love, a hideous, evil man, she could have wallowed in
sadness and the feeling of loneliness. But Morgan had come, like a
shining beacon, and he had changed all that.

And somehow, somewhere in Indiana’s heart,
she had the assurance that Morgan would indeed come back to her.
She would marry the man, sometime after he returned. She pictured
him stepping off a boat, her mother and sisters alive and well
because of him, stepping off behind him. He would be even dirtier,
covered in soot and ash. But he was strong, and he loved her, and
that was enough. Her father had told her that love was enough.

As she fell asleep finally, her nightmare
over, safe from the burning city, Indiana thought once more of her
father, and remembered something he had said to her once, when her
mother had been mean to her, and she had asked how he could bear to
put up with her. He hadn’t been mad, and he hadn’t admonished her
for her remark. He had admitted that her mother could be abrasive,
but then he sat her down and spoke words that came flooding back to
her, even though she did not even remember committing them to
memory.

“Love is enough,” he had said. “Love can get
you through anything—worry, even death. Love is enough. Love will
keep you sustained, and keep you moving. If you’re lucky enough to
love someone, like I do, any faults they might have are of no
matter, and it doesn’t matter where they are in the world. They
will always be yours. Love is enough, my dear. Do you understand
that?”

And as Indiana closed her eyes, to open them
only hours later, she smiled. She understood.

* * * The End * * *

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The next book
in the series.

Misty’s True Love (Mail Order Brides of
Pioneer Town, Book 2)

Misty went to live with her elderly aunt
after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but when her aunt dies,
Misty answers a mail order bride advertisement in the local
Matrimonial News. The man is a rancher from Pioneer Town, where
Indiana now lives with her new husband, Morgan.

When Misty arrives in
Pioneer Town, she is shocked but pleased to see that she already
knows the man. The man’s mother is not so happy with her son’s
choice of a former lady’s maid as a bride, as she has already
chosen for him
Rosamund Swire
, a suitable
woman with class and good breeding. He assures Misty he will not
bend to his mother’s will, but when happiness
is almost in her grasp, a devious
plot brings her hopes crashing down around her.

When
Misty is
accused of a wrongdoing, will her betrothed believe she is
innocent, or will his mother’s hopes be realized with his
attentions turning to
Rosamund Swire
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About the
Author.

Ruth Hartzler