A Bride at Last (19 page)

Silas looked at the millinery’s display. “That’s too fancy.”

“She’d like it. Or that one!” He pointed at a more elaborate white hat with long plumes and netting.

Silas cringed and looked at Kate. “We were discussing what to get Myrtle’s family last night. A doll for Frances, a sharpening stone for George, and the two other boys are Anthony’s age so he’ll pick toys for them, but we’re stumped with Myrtle. She’s not much older than Anthony, but I figured a doll was too childish, especially for how mature she acts, but neither of us have any ideas. What would you get a young lady who’s not quite grown up?”

“All girls like pretty things.” Anthony pointed at a pair of silk gloves. “What about those?”

“I don’t think so.” He looked at Kate again, and . . . was he flushing? He rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t look her in the eye. “I already kinda got in trouble by offering her fancy stuff. She thought when I gave her Lucy’s clothes that . . . that meant . . .”

Kate laid a hand on Anthony’s shoulder and tried not to smile at Silas’s fidgeting, considering the uncomfortable scenario he
was insinuating. “Silas is right. If she already has your mother’s things, she’s got enough pretty clothes.”

Anthony scrunched up his lips, then his eyes flit toward something else. “A necklace.”

“Ah . . .” Silas shook his head. “Maybe sewing stuff, so she can fix the dresses she already has?”

“But that’s work.” Anthony shook his head. “She already does enough of that.”

“For some reason, some girls think sewing’s fun.” Kate widened her eyes, and poked out her tongue as if the mere thought was horrendous.

“So you don’t like sewing?” Silas sounded curious.

She dropped the exaggerated expression. “Not really, but one does what one must.”

“She’ll have to fix every one of Lucy’s dresses if she’s going to get any use from them.”

“So you’re going to get her sewing stuff?” Anthony looked as if they’d decided to buy her liver.

At Silas’s nod, Anthony slumped and looked over his shoulder. “Can I go decide on what to get Jeremiah and Noah, then?”

“Sure.” Once he ran off, Silas stroked his beard. “Since I’m getting the others something fun, won’t she be disappointed?”

“From what you tell me of their house, I doubt anything you give them would be a disappointment.”

“Myrtle’s the reason I have Anthony.” Silas’s voice clogged. “If it hadn’t been for her, Richard would’ve gotten his ruling, Anthony might never have returned, and I would’ve left before I received that telegram from Ida.” He stopped to compose himself since his voice had cracked. “It was a terrible two weeks, but I wouldn’t trade the heartache for anything. Myrtle needs more than needles and thread for the gift she preserved for me.”

“You’re right.” She laid a hand on his tense arm. “Anthony is quite the gift.” She prayed Anthony would quickly see how lucky he was to have such a grateful father. Considering Myrtle’s actions hadn’t exactly been legal, if Richard had found Anthony, he’d not be buying the family presents.

“I’m sorry.” Silas squeezed her hand. “Here I am telling you what you already know while planning to take him away from you.”

“Well . . .” What could she say? Though Silas was indeed Anthony’s father and he deserved his son, a bit of her felt cheated that he got to keep him after only knowing him for three weeks, when she’d cared for him and his mother for two years.

And now all she had was two days.

“Who’s that?” Silas dropped her hand, his voice suddenly steady and cold.

“Who’s who?” She looked up and saw Anthony walking toward a man near the toy store. The stranger was leaning nonchalantly against the side of a carriage, stroking his mustache, looking like a
Pinocchio
illustration of one of the cigar-smoking boys luring the puppet to Pleasure Island. “I don’t know him.”

“Anthony!” Silas barked, but the boy must not have heard, because he kept walking.

“Maybe he knows him from the boardinghouse?”

Silas strode toward the carriage. “Anthony?”

This time the man heard Silas and narrowed his eyes. When Silas hollered again, Anthony turned to look, but the man grabbed the boy’s arm and yanked him toward the carriage’s open door.

The boy caught the window frame behind the door, and the stranger struggled to pull him in.

Kate’s heart stopped and a rush of cold moved though her
limbs. She forced herself to take in a breath and hollered, “Stop him!”

Silas broke off in a run. Picking up her skirts, Kate ran after him, stumbling around a man Silas dodged.

With a hand clamped over Anthony’s mouth, the mustached stranger yanked the boy’s head backward at a terrible angle. Anthony’s foot hooked under the bottom edge of the buggy, thwarting the man’s attempt to slam the door closed.

The carriage driver yanked on his reins, maneuvering his team around a wagon parked in front of him.

A woman screeched as she tried to jump out of the horses’ way.

Silas outdistanced Kate by a few feet, and with three more strides, he leapt toward the carriage and caught the swinging door.

Gesticulating wildly, Kate screamed at the men in front of them. “Stop that carriage!”

A few pedestrians blinked, but in the time it took for them to figure out where she was pointing, Silas had hooked Anthony around the torso, his other hand gripping the door, and the bottom half of his left leg scraped along the ground as the carriage picked up speed.

She ran faster, reaching for the strap flapping loose at the back of the carriage, angry at her inability to speed up. She growled as the gap grew wider between her outstretched fingers and the strap she’d almost caught.

She raced into the street, waving her arms above her head. “Someone please help! Somebody’s taking my boy!”

One solitary man in the street held out his arms, but the driver kept beating the team, and the brave pedestrian barely jumped out of the way in time.

All of a sudden, Silas and Anthony fell. The door smacked Silas in the back of the head, yet he somehow managed to keep
his body under the boy as they hit dirt. The wheel of the carriage missed Anthony’s flailing hand by a fraction as he and Silas rolled to a stop in the middle of the street.

Kate couldn’t stop fast enough and tumbled over Silas’s outstretched leg. She sailed through the air for a split moment before her palms plowed into the road, scraping her to a stop.

A man’s big hands grasped her upper arms and pulled her upright. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Anthony!” She looked over at the huddle of people beside her and pushed the man away before worming her way through the crowd, her every nerve taut and shaking.

With a relieved rush of air, she threw her arms around Anthony, who was sitting up. “Oh, Anthony!”

“Pa?” The boy widened his eyes, and Kate’s hackles raised. She turned to scan the crowd.

Anthony wrestled his way from her embrace and crawled to the group of men kneeling around a sprawled-out Silas, his head covered in blood.

Her heart seized, and for a second, she couldn’t move.

But Silas groaned and pushed himself up onto an elbow.

“I don’t think you should move, mister.” Some man next to him grasped his shoulder.

Silas caught sight of Anthony and then closed his eyes. “I’m all right.” He winced and pressed a hand to his temple. “That door got me good though.”

Scrambling over on wobbly knees, she joined Anthony kneeling beside him. “I think the man’s right. We should get you onto the sidewalk and have a doctor to look at you.”

“Are you all right?” Thankfully Silas’s eyes weren’t hazy.

“Fine.”

“You’re bloody too.”

She looked down and winced at her palms. “Scraped my hands good, nothing more. No hit to the head like you.”

Anthony hiccupped. His face streaked with dust and tears.

“Did you see me, Anthony?” Silas staggered to stand. “I beat Kate.”

“What?” Kate narrowed her eyes at him. Had he hit his head too hard?

Silas winked at Anthony, though it looked more like a painful wince. “I outran the fastest woman in Missouri. I should earn extra points for that, don’t you think?”

Anthony smiled a little, but then tears started to flow.

Kate reached out for him, but Silas pulled the boy up with the hand he wasn’t pressing against the gash in his brow. “It’s all right.” He tugged him close, and the boy wept. “He didn’t get you.”

“We’ll get him a doctor.” The same man who’d tried to lift her from the road was at her side again. “But if we don’t get out of the street, we’re all going to need one.”

She winced when he took her elbow, which must have gotten scraped as well, and hobbled over to the sidewalk with Silas and Anthony as the crowd dispersed.

All three of them sat on a nearby bench, though Anthony had yet to quit crying. Silas caressed the boy’s tousled locks and shushed him as if he’d had years of practice comforting children. “Are you hurt anywhere, buddy?”

The boy shook his head against Silas’s chest and started trying to hold his breath in an attempt to stop his tears.

Silas glanced at her bloody palms. “Did you see Richard?”

Of course. Richard.
She fisted her hands and let out a hissing breath at the pain the action caused. “No. But how could he . . . in front of everybody!”

Silas shook his head. “We’ll need to leave on the next train out.”

So instead of two days, she might have two hours. Despite
the scrapes and bruises, she reached over and gripped Anthony’s hand as tightly as she could.

The hands on the train depot’s clock raced toward six. Silas blew out his breath and dropped their hastily packed bags for the porter to load when the train rolled in. He pressed a hand against the knot on his head and glanced at the train schedule again.

Fifteen minutes and they’d be gone. Safe.

Silas scanned the crowd milling about the depot and walking along the street. After the bad weather they’d had this past week, the town was taking advantage of the sun. More men and women strolled the roads than he’d seen for a month.

No sign of Richard.

He checked a second time, taking a closer look at anyone watching Kate and Anthony, who were sitting on one of two benches on the depot platform. On the other bench an elderly man destroyed a loaf of bread to feed the birds hopping around his feet, but he’d been there before they’d arrived. The gentleman kept looking between Silas and Kate as if wondering why Silas couldn’t keep his eyes off her and the boy. But no one else seemed interested in the heartbreaking embrace of a woman saying good-bye to a beloved boy in the space of an hour after being promised a weekend.

If he could only find Richard, he’d strangle him.

But the man had checked out of the boardinghouse, and Lucky’s owner claimed he hadn’t seen Richard since he’d lost everything in a game yesterday.

When they’d gone to the sheriff, the lawman tried to look as if he believed Richard was behind the attempted kidnapping. But since Silas had no proof Richard had anything to do with
the incident and the boy was safe, the sheriff wasn’t going to do anything about it.

Thankfully his son and his heart were intact, but Kate’s emotions were being obliterated right now. But what could he do? He’d promised her days, but he couldn’t chance Anthony being taken.

Rubbing the bump on the side of his head, Silas tried to tamp down his murderous thoughts.

Had Richard really thought he could get away with kidnapping his son? Had he truly believed Silas had played with Kate’s affections and ought to propose to the woman? All anybody had to do was look at her sitting with her arms encircling Anthony to know her affections were completely wrapped up around the boy—not him.

But why, then, did she keep looking over at him?

What if it were possible for her to move to Kansas? She’d surely do so for Anthony, but the only way that would happen was if . . .

No, a man did not propose to a woman he’d known for barely four weeks because people thought they spent too much time together and someone accused her of looking at him like he was “the doggone moon.”

Of course, he’d asked Lucinda to marry him without even meeting her.

And a month with Kate was long enough to know they’d not have the same problems as he and Lucy.

Why was he thinking about this?

Because he was leaving today.

He could write her letters along with Anthony, but what could he learn in letters that he didn’t already know?

Sure, she might tell him her favorite color or more stories about her family and growing up, but nothing that would negate
what he already knew: She was smart, feisty, a good runner, bent on doing things her way, not exactly submissive, beautiful . . .

Across the way, she chuckled and pulled his son tighter into her embrace, kissing his temple. The boy’s expression was a mixture of love and sorrow.

Had he ever been loved the way she loved Anthony? His son needed to be loved fiercely and unconditionally, and he would certainly try to provide that kind of affection, but she already did so.

The man on the bench looked at him again, one bushy gray eyebrow raised as if asking a question.