Come Spring (6 page)

Alice leaned forward to listen as the man strode over to the black-uniformed conductor. The wind, luckily, was blowing in the right direction. It carried his words to her ears.

“I’m Buck Scott, and I’m lookin’ for a blond woman from Boston that’s supposed to be on this train.”

Alice nearly reeled into the young German couple who was standing beside her. Instead, she tried to catch her breath, grabbed the handrail behind her, and scrambled aboard the train without another moment’s hesitation. Inside the door, she paused long enough to let her racing heart slow a bit and, with her face averted from the scene outside, continued to listen.

The conductor was rocking back and forth from the balls of his feet to his heels. His head didn’t quite reach the bigger man’s collarbone. “Boston?” The conductor looked him up and down. “I just can’t say. Can you describe her any better? Besides,” he said, suddenly possessive of his passenger, “what is it you want with this woman anyway?”

The man reached inside his dirty buckskin jacket and then, much to Alice Soams’s dismay, withdrew a well-worn envelope. She knew without seeing it clearly that it was one of her letters to him.

“I have a letter here that says she’ll be my wife. I paid for her fare, first class,” he added, “and this is the train she said she’d be on. I went into Cheyenne to meet her, but when they told me you were stalled out here, I came straightaway to collect her because a big storm’s comin’ in,” the big man explained carefully.

The crowd seemed to inch closer to him with every word. The men were watching him warily, while the women stared in awe. Some of them watched with tears glistening in their eyes when they heard his gallant reason for finding the stalled train before a snow storm kept him and his fiancée apart.

“Her name’s Alice Soams,” Buck Scott added to reassure the conductor.

Straightening, the portly conductor finally smiled. “Never wanted to be one to stand in the way of cupid’s arrows,” he said. “Right this way.” With a grand flourish, he waved Buck toward the first-class car. “I believe the blond lady you’re looking for is waiting for you right in here.”

Alice did not wait to hear more, because one look at Buck Scott told her all she needed to know—she could no more marry the crudely outfitted, wild-haired mountain man than she could fly. Without hesitation she thanked her lucky stars that she had told Buck Scott that she was an attractive, statuesque blonde. As she hurried down the aisle, she discreetly drew the man’s letter from her pocket. Then, when she passed the young blonde whose attention was centered on her writing, Alice stealthily dropped Buck Scott’s last letter to her on the seat beside the other girl’s valise.

Before the conductor led Buck Scott up the stairs and over the threshold of the sleeper, Alice Soams had disappeared into the next car.

February 3, 1892. Although a stalled train isn’t much to celebrate, at least I have finally encountered some sort of adventure during this otherwise uneventful journey west. The unscheduled stop has afforded me time to walk around outside. The scenery is breathtaking, the sky seems to stretch endlessly in every direction. The wind is freezing. It carries with it a particularly lonely moaning sound, but the sun is shining. It sets all the snow-covered land asparkle. I can hardly wait to reach Cheye —

A loud noise in the doorway caused Annika to pause and look up. The conductor was heading down the aisle toward her, his face wreathed in smiles. He looked very much like a man who could not wait to shout “Surprise!” A large man moved up the aisle behind him, a man Annika had not seen previously on board the train. Although the conductor blocked some of her view of the stranger, she could still see his head and shoulders. He embodied everything she had ever read about the “Wild West” in the periodicals, from his untamed hair and beard to his buckskin clothing. He was even taller than Kase, and there weren’t many men larger than her brother. Annika watched with undisguised curiosity as the giant followed the conductor down the aisle.

A line of passengers walked in behind the two, some of the braver ones managing to squeeze past the conductor and his companion and slide into the seats they had previously occupied. Everyone was quiet; a hush of expectation hovered in the air. She wondered what was going on.

Annika was speechless when the conductor stopped beside her seat and motioned the huge man forward. “Here she is, safe and sound,” the conductor said. “Your blonde from Boston.”

Annika blinked once, looked from the conductor to the other man, and said, “What?”

“Your fiancé heard we were stalled and rode all the way out here to get you, miss.”

“My what?”

“Fiancé.” The conductor nodded.

The big man stepped as far forward as the small space in the aisle would allow. “I’m Buck Scott, ma’am.” He smiled and pulled off his hat, then nodded as if the name should mean something to her.

Annika watched him warily, but still wasn’t too concerned about the mistake. He was obviously nervous. If he squeezed his hat any tighter in his big hands, she thought it would disintegrate. His tanned cheeks pinkened above his beard.

She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then shook her head. Finally, she said to the conductor, “I don’t know what either of you are talking about.”

“It’s me, ma’am, Buck Scott. The man who sent you the money for the ticket?” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ragged envelope and held it up in front of her face. “This is your letter to me, Miss Soams. Your promise to marry me.”

“That’s right, Miss Soams,” the conductor added.

Annika looked down, slowly and carefully blotted her pen, corked the ink bottle, and then set them inside her writing box along with her journal. She closed the hinged lid and set the box down beside her on the seat. She smoothed out her skirt and pulled her cloak tightly about her. Then, as regally as a queen, she drew herself up and said directly to the obviously insane person named Buck Scott, “I am not Alice Soams and I have no idea who you are, sir.”

The low murmur of whispers ran through the car.

The conductor frowned. “Are you sure, miss?” he asked.

“What do you mean
am I sure
? Of course I’m sure. I’ve never seen this man before in my life and furthermore, my name is not Alice Soams.”

The conductor looked confused.

Buck Scott looked angry. He reached past the conductor and picked up an envelope that lay on the seat beside Annika’s valise.

“Then what’s this?” Buck demanded in a tone laced with sarcasm.

“How should I know?” Annika fired back.

“It’s a letter from me, addressed to you, and it just happens to be lying here next to your bag.”

The murmurs of the other passengers were no longer hushed, but excited. Annika tried to ignore them as she concentrated on what this man was trying to tell her.

“Let me see if I understand you correctly. You supposedly wrote me that letter, my name is Alice Soams, and you are harboring some delusion that I am going to marry you?”

“That’s right. But it’s not a delusion.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, then she burst out laughing.

Buck’s fist closed around the letter.

The conductor turned beet red.

Everyone around them stopped whispering.

Annika noticed the deadly silence and stopped laughing. She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled up at the two men. “Very entertaining, gentlemen. I can’t wait to write home about this.”

The conductor turned to Buck for help.

Buck nodded toward the door. “Leave.”

The conductor left.

Buck hunkered down in the aisle alongside the blonde. His heart was pounding like a buffalo stampede. She was more beautiful than he could have ever hoped. Her eyes were round as a full moon and as blue as the clearest mountain lake he’d ever seen. The sight of her buttercup-yellow hair, thick and waving, made his hand itch to touch it. Still, as exquisite as she was, she did not give the appearance of a pale hothouse flower. Her skin was sun-kissed gold, the color of clover honey. Her eyes, surrounded by a thick circlet of dark lashes, had a slight tilt to their outer corners. High cheekbones gave her an exotic, aristocratic air.

Afraid he’d embarrass himself by reaching out to touch her just to see if she was real, Buck kept his hands balled into fists around both letters, his to Alice and hers to him, and his hat brim. Aware that all eyes were on them, he lowered his voice and leaned closer so that only she could hear him. Once he was face-to-face with her, he immediately regretted his move. He was assailed by the mingled scents of heady soap and rose water.

“Miss Soams, I know damn well why you claim you don’t know me.” His blue eyes darkened as he struggled to find the right words. “I know that I’m not what you expected.” He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “I meant to clean up a bit before we met, but I ran out of time.”

He hated having to apologize for his appearance in front of the others, but if he was going to hurry her up and get her out of her seat and off the train so that they could head back to Blue Creek in time, he knew he had to do some fast talking. He glanced out of the window behind her. Thankfully there was not a cloud in sight.

“A bargain is a bargain and I kept my end of it. I mailed you money for your ticket and here you are. Now”—he looked at her valise and writing box—“if this is all you have, I’ll carry them for you so we can get on our way.”

When he reached for her valise, Annika grabbed it and hugged it close as if protecting it from his touch. “I’ll thank you
not
to touch my things, Mr. Scott.”

She stared at him now, openly experiencing fear for the first time since this whole nightmare had begun. On close inspection he was not as wild as he appeared, but he was obviously sincere in his intent to force this Alice Soams to keep her end of the bargain. From the desperate way he was watching her, Annika knew that this impending marriage meant a lot to this man. She tried to see beyond the curling, shoulder-length hair, past the dirty buckskins and callused hands. He was still clutching his hat and the two letters, leaning forward so that the entire carload of passengers could not overhear what he had to say.

He was not as old as his stubbled beard and sun-creased skin made him seem. She guessed he wasn’t quite thirty. His eyes were clear and blue, but they were the eyes of a much older man. Old eyes in a young face. Suddenly, Annika felt compelled to explain, without hurting him, that she was not Alice Soams.

“I’m really sorry, Mr. Scott, but I’m afraid there’s been a terrible mistake. I don’t know where that letter came from, I really don’t. I’m not Alice Soams, although I am from Boston...”

He leaned toward her.

Buck reached out and gingerly traced the gold letters embroidered on her cape. “A S.” He arched a brow and shook his head. “Even your cloak gives you away. Am I that repulsive?”

Annika stared down at the long finger pressing against the spot above her heart before she looked him square in the eye. “My name is Annika Storm,” she said slowly.

He stared back, then his gaze moved over her face, her hair, her clothing. Annika could almost see the wheels of his mind at work. When he came to a decision, he abruptly stood. Then, without hesitation, he put the letters in his pocket, shoved on his hat, and then reached down. He grabbed her valise.

“Are you coming, Miss Soams, or do I carry you off this train?”

“If you so much as touch me, I’ll have you arrested.”

“A bargain’s a bargain, Miss Soams.”

“Will you
stop
saying that?”

A man three rows back called out, “A bargain’s a bargain, just like the man says.”

Suddenly everyone else felt compelled to chime in and offer their opinions.

“Stick to your guns, mister!” a drummer in a bowler hat called out.

A young cowhand shouted, “Come on, lady, go with him!”

“Haul her out of here!” advised an old gent.

“She shouldn’t ough’ta have to go if’n she don’t wanna,” a woman yelled from the back.

Annika looked around and spied the conductor hovering near the door. She tried to appeal to him by shouting over the ruckus, “This is ridiculous! If you’ll just wait until we reach Cheyenne, I’m sure my brother can clear up this whole situation. Wait”—she reached for her writing box—“I know I must have something in here with my name on it.”

Before she could open it, Buck leaned down and grabbed the box and shoved it under his arm. “We’ll take this, too.” He grasped Annika by the wrist and jerked her out of the seat.

She tried to pull away, but he was so much bigger that she might just as well have been a dust mote fighting against a tornado. Before she could do more than struggle against his relentless grip, Annika found herself standing before the open doorway of the railroad car. The conductor stood outside watching them with a worried frown of indecision on his round face.

“You can’t just stand there and let him do this!” she called to him.

The conductor looked hopeless as he measured Buck Scott’s stature.

Buck Scott stepped down onto the uneven ground beside the track and then pulled Annika down the steps behind him. “He doesn’t have a thing to say about it, Alice. A deal’s a deal. Everybody knows that. Besides, if you don’t intend to carry out your end of the bargain, then I’ll have you arrested for stealing my money.”

“What money?” she yelled.

He leaned close and said very slowly and distinctly, as if she were an idiot, “The money I sent you for train fare.”

With that, Buck abruptly turned around and began dragging Annika down the line toward his horses. She dug in her heels. He jerked her off them. The conductor, followed by a crowd of passengers, some that had disembarked again just to watch, hurried after them.

When Buck reached his horses and mules, he started to release Annika, then thought better of it. He glanced up at the sky, tried to ignore the harsh wind that had begun to whip around them, and wondered how he was going to tie her valise and writing box to the mules with one hand.

“If I let you go are you going to run off?”