A Daughter's Quest (2 page)

Constance glanced around the crowded stagecoach, trying not to show her distaste. The trip had been way too long and much too hard. Some of the people who shared the space with her didn’t understand the importance of cleanliness. She could hardly wait to arrive at Browning City, Iowa. When she stepped out of this conveyance, she planned to breathe in a lot of clean, fresh air.

She pressed her hand down the length of dark green gabardine that covered her lap. When Constance had donned the traveling suit in Fort Smith, it had been the most beautiful outfit she had ever owned. She felt sure she didn’t need to be ashamed of the way she looked.

Layers of dust almost obliterated the color of the fabric. Several times she had been given the choice of whether to spend the night at way stations and catch the next coach or continue on this one when the fresh horses were harnessed to it. Because of her eagerness to take care of her final promise to her father, she always chose to go on. Now she regretted it. The driver had told them that the next stop was Browning City, and she would arrive dirty with her traveling clothes completely wilted. Why was she always so impetuous? Mother had often warned her to take longer to make decisions. Why hadn’t Constance listened?

The grizzled man who sat in the opposite corner of the coach leaned his head out the window and looked in the direction they were going before pulling back into the cabin. “I can see the edge of town up ahead. How many of us are stopping here?”

When Constance was the only one who lifted her hand, he smiled at her.

“I’ve got a brother who lives several miles west of Browning City. I’ll be getting off, too.”

Constance glanced out the window in time to see several boys running alongside the vehicle as it began to slow down. A puppy romped around their legs. The houses on her side of the street looked inviting, each wearing a coat of whitewash or paint. None of those unpainted gray cabins such as hers back home in the Ozarks. Some houses had picket fences, while iron railings corralled other yards. This looked like a nice town. Too bad she was only here for one reason.

When the driver stopped the coach in front of the station, Constance noticed two men standing on the boardwalk, eyeing the people in the windows of the coach.

A tall, broad-shouldered man with blond hair long enough to touch his collar turned to his companion. “My anvil is probably in the boot. I’m sure no one wanted to lift it onto the luggage rack on the top.” He stepped off into the street.

The driver opened the door. “This is your stop, Miss. I’ll get your carpetbag down for you.” He stepped up on the front wheel of the coach to reach it.

Constance gathered her reticule and stood up as well as she could in the confines of the coach. She had been sitting so long that her legs felt stiff. She planned on taking a long walk after she checked into a hotel or boardinghouse. Exercise would work the soreness out.

When she reached her foot down for the step, somehow she missed it. She realized that she would land on her face in the dirt. Just what she needed for her entrance into a new town. Constance grabbed onto the handle of the door, but it swung wider, taking her with it. After shutting her eyes, she took a deep breath, preparing for her inglorious landing in the street.

Instead, strong arms lifted her up and away from the coach. Her eyes flew open, and she peered into a handsome face with eyes the color of the sky above.

Without thinking, Hans reached for the woman to stop her from hurting herself. When he lifted her, she felt like a feather in spite of all the layers of skirts that swirled around them. The green hat that matched her clothes was knocked askew and fell over one side of her forehead, almost covering one eye. Her arms clutched him around his neck as she opened her eyes and stared at him.

Everything around them disappeared. When Hans stared into her eyes, they flashed green and brown all at the same time. Golden flecks glistened in the bright sunlight. Fear, surprise, and a questioning look followed each other across her face, leaving her with a vulnerable expression.

Heat suffused his arms and every part of his body that touched her. His stomach began a strange dance that it had never done before, and then it turned over and knotted up. Hans had experienced reactions to young women before, but he had always been able to control them. This felt different—more personal and…somehow strange.

Some of the young woman’s abundant brown hair fell out of the bun she wore low on her neck. Her cheeks turned red, and her rosy lips parted slightly. His mouth went dry, and Hans tried to swallow, never taking his gaze from her face. The most beautiful face he had ever seen.

As Andrew walked past Hans, he leaned close and whispered for his ears alone, “You can put her down now.”

How long had Hans been holding her? He didn’t want to look around because he was afraid of what other people might see on his face. Never had he experienced anything quite this intense. It was uncomfortable, yet special somehow. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this moment.

Hans whirled and carefully made his way to the boardwalk. He gently set the woman on her feet and turned back toward the coach. He needed to get his anvil and hurry to his place of business.

“Thank you.” Her soft words followed him, but he didn’t turn around.

He only hoped she was not staying in town long. He wasn’t ready to confront these strange feelings, and he surely didn’t want to make a fool of himself.

From the warmth she felt in her cheeks, Constance knew they must contain a blush that hadn’t gone away. With her carpetbag sitting at her feet on the boardwalk, she glanced up and down the dusty street. Thankfully, a hotel was on the opposite side, down a ways. After the stage pulled off, she picked up her baggage and started toward the building. She kept her head down and only peeked around, hoping no one noticed what had happened.

As she took her first steps, some of the people standing around followed her with their stares. Even when she was in school, Constance hadn’t liked being the center of attention. Her feelings of discomfort welled up and almost overwhelmed her. She wished she had never come so far from home and familiar things. If only her father hadn’t asked her to make that promise. She couldn’t break a deathbed promise, could she?

When she once again glanced around, the other people on the street were going about their own business as if they had forgotten her. Maybe her inglorious descent from the stage wouldn’t haunt her for long.

The tall, handsome blond man who had rescued her strode down the street carrying a heavy anvil as if it didn’t weigh much. When he had caught her as she exited the stagecoach, she felt the strength of those bulging muscles. The blacksmith in the mountain community near her home was an old man.

Even though he was strong, he never could have had a physique like this smithy.

Constance started down into the street, almost missing the wooden step…again. She had to forget that man and pay attention to what she was doing. With as much aplomb as she could manage, she swept toward the hotel. She didn’t want anyone to know how out of her element she felt.

Thankfully, the clerk at the hotel didn’t seem to know what had happened. Her embarrassment had been on the other side of the coach from this building. He probably hadn’t seen her descent and the aftermath, and apparently word of the event hadn’t reached him.

“Are you alone, or is someone traveling with you?” The man peered up over his glasses as he handed her a pen and inkwell.

Constance dipped the nib into the black liquid, then proceeded to write her name on the register. “I’m alone.” She opened her reticule and glanced up. “How much is the room?”

After he told her, she pulled out enough money to pay for a week, careful not to let anyone see how much she had left. Traveling alone was frightening enough without giving someone a reason to rob her.

Her room was on the second floor of the hotel, facing the street. She unpacked her carpetbag and placed the items in the chest of drawers beside the door. The pitcher on the washstand contained fresh water, so she was able to take care of her toilette.

Even though it was not quite evening, the strain of the journey pulled Constance toward the inviting bed. She laid down and closed her eyes, expecting to fall asleep immediately. However, her thoughts returned to the incident in the street. When she had missed the step, fear shot through her like an arrow, lancing the carefully constructed wall around her heart.

As the memory assailed her, Constance once again felt that strong arms were lifting her. She had never been so close to any man except her father…and he hadn’t carried her in his arms since she was a small child. She didn’t understand the flurry of emotions that scattered through her. Nothing settled them until her gaze connected with the man’s beautiful blue eyes.

Could she call a man’s eyes beautiful? Well, no matter. His were. And his expression held a special kindness that Constance wasn’t ready to analyze. She hoped she would never see him again. At the same time, she hoped she would. Confusion ruled her thoughts, and she fell asleep dreaming about a tall blond man.

Morning sunlight pulled Constance from a deep sleep. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. Not in the mountain cabin on a mattress tick filled with corn shucks. When she turned over, nothing rustled, and the softness of the featherbed caressed her body in comfort. After she opened her eyes and looked around the room, which seemed luxurious to her, a loud rumble from her stomach reminded her how long it had been since her last meager meal. While she hurried to dress, the fragrance of bacon and biscuits from somewhere below teased her senses.

When Constance reached the dining room on the first floor of the hotel, the room was almost empty. She wasn’t used to sleeping this late. While she stood poised in the wide doorway between the hotel lobby and the restaurant, a grandmotherly woman swathed in a large apron came through the door from what had to be the kitchen.

“Well, come on in if you’re hungry.” The woman’s smile lit her eyes with laughter. “You’ve come to the right place.” She ushered Constance to an empty table by one of the front windows. “Would you like bacon, eggs, and biscuits or flapjacks?”

“What are flapjacks?” Constance couldn’t help looking puzzled.

“Some people call them pancakes or griddle cakes. I like to make them with buckwheat, and we have real maple syrup, not just cane syrup.”

“That sounds good.” Once again, Constance’s stomach made a loud protest.

“I’ll be right back.” The woman bustled through the door and returned immediately with a mug and a pot of coffee. “Would you like a cup?”

While she sipped the hot beverage, Constance studied the street outside the window. Browning City was larger and busier than the small town near the home place. People on horseback, in wagons and buggies, and walking on the boardwalks all seemed to have a purpose. Constance had a hard time imagining all she had seen in her journey. Even though she had read about these things in the books that filled the school library, to see them for herself made her feel almost giddy. To think, she probably never would have ventured as far as Fort Smith if her father hadn’t extracted the promise from her. How was she ever going to find Jim Mitchell?

Constance didn’t look forward to trying to get information about the man. People might get the wrong idea if she were too obvious with her questions. While she ate the wonderful flapjacks and bacon the waitress brought her, she devised a plan. She would make her way unobtrusively through the town, listening to conversations, trying to hear something about Jim Mitchell or his family. She didn’t want anyone else to know about the gold before Mr. Mitchell had a chance to give it back on his own. That way, he might not get into trouble with the law.