An Abandoned Baby for the Rancher’s Bride (Preview)

Chapter One

In the nearly three decades of her somewhat extraordinary life, Nell Whitaker had been a hundred different people with a hundred different lives. She’d been to nearly every state and territory, north and south, east and west. She’d known grief and joy, new life, and the bitter endings of dashed hopes. She’d known moments of triumph and moments of tragedy so low that she’d had to plumb the depths of her soul to find the will to go on. She’d never once failed when it came to pushing forward, no matter what had happened in the past. She’d used so many names that she’d sometimes forgotten the sound of her own. She’d fulfilled the childhood promise she’d made to herself, at the expense of the only real family she had left. Nell might not be a federal marshal like her father had been, but she was a Pinkerton. After years, there were times when it still seemed unbelievable to Nell. In all her travels, all her assignments, all her years, she’d seen things so unbelievable that they still troubled her mind and haunted her dreams, but she’d never once found an infant.

Certainly not one so young as the baby Nell held in her arms, and certainly not one stuffed into a dusty, hot storage room at a staging post.

Nell was worn and tired after days of jostling through the vast state of Texas. Unfortunately, the railroad had yet to catch up to most places, though not for want of trying and industry. She’d traveled as far as she could on various lines, but after that, there was nothing but the stage. Days in that bouncing, wretchedly hot contraption had taken a toll, and it was a minor miracle she was even standing. She’d had to get out of the sweltering coach when they’d stopped to change horses, even if the stop was brief, and the Texas sun was even more brutal glaring down on her. Stretching her legs had felt like the greatest thing in the whole world, and Nell planned to use every single moment of their stop to do just that before she had to cram herself back into the stage for the last portion of her journey.

The moment she’d heard the cry, everything in Nell’s body went on full alert. She’d thought the sound was an animal in distress, and her tender heart wouldn’t let her ignore it. The man guarding the post had been appallingly drunk, the whiskey wafting from his breath for all to smell as soon as Nell alighted from the coach. Who knew what manner of living such a foul man did, way out in the middle of nowhere, with very little to hold him accountable?

The small, squat adobe building was about as mean and crude as the man who worked it. There was maybe hope for fresh water for the tired, aching passengers, but if they were hoping for some fare, they were likely destined to go hungry.

As Nell had rounded the back of the building in search of a well or water pump, she’d heard the cries.

She’d followed the sound to a storage room full of dusty tack, old trunks, and broken furniture. She’d expected perhaps a cat, or an unfortunate dog, maybe even a wild animal that had crawled into the building to hide, but she’d never expected to find a little girl.

Nell attempted to rock the red faced child. The baby was wrapped tightly in a tattered black shawl. Nell walked back outside but turned her back from the glaring sun in order to shield the baby. She drew back the ragged wrap, stunned to find a piece of paper with crude lettering.

Keep her safe.

Nell frowned. She’d seen and heard many puzzling things, but never such a strange one as this. She supposed that a destitute woman hiding a child away where it might be found and looked after perhaps wasn’t the strangest thing. As horrible as it was, it certainly was plausible. But the stage post was in the middle of nowhere. The woman would have either had to be on the stage or have ridden up to it. The nearest little settlement must be a good twenty or thirty miles distant.

The baby didn’t care for Nell’s scrutiny. She was a lovely child, with soft little wispy curls of downy chestnut, and huge brown eyes, soft as kid leather, and fringed with thick, dark lashes. Her little face was mottled an angry red, and far from the wail Nell had first heard, the child let out snuffling, pathetic sounds. She could feel the heat of the baby through the thin shawl and homespun, coarse wrappings. When she unwound those, the baby was naked except for a sodden clout.

She squatted and laid the baby on her knees and unwrapped the offending clout. It was soiled in every way. The child had lain her own filth for so long that she’d been scalded by it. Her skin was an angry red that looked worse than most burns Nell had seen caused by open flame.

She winced. She had nothing to change the poor baby into. No other wrappings, no clothing, no clouts, and worst of all—no way to feed an infant as young as this.

The stage master certainly would be no help. Nell would never turn over an innocent child to a man like that. Horrible images assaulted her. All the times she’d failed. Women. Children. The times she’d arrived too late. Her pa would have told her that it was part of the job. That helping sometimes meant failing. If her pa was haunted by the ghosts of those he’d been unable to save, he’d never mentioned them. He used to sit her on his knee when she was a little girl and tell her all the daring stories of being a marshal. She’d said that she wanted to be just like him, and he’d laughed and laughed. He’d had to explain to her that most girls didn’t become the law.

Apparently, they could become Pinkertons. Her pa would probably have a right old laugh over the irony of it all.

Taking on a child certainly wasn’t in Nell’s plans, but there was nothing else to do. She wrapped the baby back up in the homespun shawl but left the disgusting clout. She cradled the baby in her arms. All wasn’t lost. Ever since Waco, she’d traveled with a woman who had a young baby with her. Maybe four or five months old. Nell had last seen the woman standing outside in the hot sun, pacing about to stretch her legs. Nell’s heart quickened and the stroke of luck. She didn’t have the means to keep a baby alive, but hopefully her fellow passenger would be willing to help.

By the time Nell rounded the adobe building, the baby found her lungs and cried the thin wail of a child too long without food. It sounded very much like an animal in a trap and a shiver tingled up her spine as her heart clenched and her chest ached.

Nell hadn’t spoken much with the other passengers, so she didn’t know anyone’s name. Aside from the woman with the baby, there was only a middle-aged man who slept most of the time despite the horrendous jostling over hard, uneven terrain, and the man’s much younger wife—a reed- thin woman with a pale complexion who repeatedly blew her nose loudly into a handkerchief.

The younger woman, her baby in her arms, looked over at Nell when she heard the cries. A spark of agony lit up the stranger’s pale blue eyes. She was tall and boney in a severe black dress. She bowed forward, stooping with the weight of her life. The severe scrape of her hair into a tight bun might have fooled some, but Nell saw the beauty underneath the woman’s stark appearance. She was clearly grieving, very likely her husband. The shadow of a wedding band stood out stark on the woman’s left hand. Nell had noted it early and figured the woman to be a widow.

“I need your help,” Nell said, speaking plainly.

Beyond the building, the coach sat, waiting for its new horses. The older man and his wife hadn’t bothered to get out. The woman peered through the open door, blinking hawkishly at Nell.

The woman motioned Nell toward the adobe building. Nell hurried after her, balancing the wailing infant and her valise, which was dangling from one hand. She wouldn’t let it out of her sight for a second.

“This is better,” the woman said, though the building wasn’t much of an improvement. At least it was out of the hot sun. “I’m Sarah.” She turned and passed her baby to Nell and at the same time, plucking the infant out of her arms.

Sarah turned to the corner. The building was so crude that it had nothing more than a packed earth floor, a battered desk, and a few ramshackle chairs. A partition on the far end likely separated out a cot that served as the stage master’s living quarters.

The stable behind the building was also adobe, but clearly well maintained, as was the well at the side of the building. Without horses, there was no stage. The animals had far better accommodations than the men.

Nell rocked Sarah’s sleeping baby. On closer inspection, he looked like his mother. He had the same slight curl to his nose. His soft lips pursed in sleep, and his lashes rested on milky white cheeks. He was perfect.

The baby reminded Nell so much of Cal when he was young, that her heart tripped over itself again. Nell would never forget that moment that she’d first held her baby brother. Their mother still clung to life, for a few hours after, but she’d never woken up to be able to hold Cal herself. Nell had been nine years old, and with a father out chasing outlaws and criminals all over Kansas and beyond, she’d become more like a mother to her little brother than an older sister.

Cal was living Nell’s dream. He’d become a marshal, just like their father. Her little brother was all the family Nell had left, and she grieved the time she’d sacrificed with him in order to do this. To try and bring justice to an unorderly world and to help the folks who needed it.

“I’m going to marry a man that I’ve never met. He lives in San Antonio.” Sarah’s quiet, unexpected words broke into Nell’s thoughts. “We’ve only exchanged two letters. He needs a wife for his three young children. I’m a widow with a babe of my own.” Sarah inhaled deeply, as though drawing courage with the breath. “I’ve been a widow for ten months. Horse threw my husband and he landed wrong and broke his neck.” She craned her heard over her shoulder to study Nell. “I daresay that this isn’t your child, unless you’ve produced it from that valise.”

“I found her,” Nell said. “In the back storage room. She had a note with her. Someone intentionally left her, and I think she’s been there a good while. I have nothing to care for her. If you could… help me until we reach the next stop, I could see about figuring out finding her a place with good people who will care for her.” They’d reach Fredericksburg by nightfall. Nell’s destination lay just beyond that, but now her journey was significantly complicated by the addition of a baby.

“I’ll help,” Sarah agreed generously. I have clouts and clothing for her. It’s not much, but I can share what I have.”

Gratitude rushed in on Nell, and to her shock, tears sprang to her eyes. She’d had plenty to cry over in the past years, but she’d made sure that she stayed strong. If she let herself break a little, she’d always been afraid that she’d break all the way. “Thank you. I can pay you.”

“No need to thank me.” Sarah turned her attention back to the baby she was feeding. “And there’s certainly no need to pay me. Life is hard. Given in an instant. Taken away just as fast.” Sarah sighed, a sound that was halfway between longing and bitter sadness. “I won’t love this new man. Not even with time. I’ll always love my Simon. Him alone. I’ll love these new children, and that’s all he’s asking. I’m thankful for his protection, I suppose. He seems a good sort. For me, love came once in a lifetime. I’m honored to have had it. It’ll be good, keeping busy. Something to keep my mind off of what I’ve lost.”

Pain pricked around the edges of Nell’s world, blurring her vision again. The whole country had lost a great deal. Not just during the war, but in the hard decade that followed. It had gained something, certainly, but at a great cost. Sarah had the right of it. Life was hard, even just in the day to day living. No man, woman, child, or beast seemed to be spared. Nell hadn’t known, and still didn’t know, a single person whose life hadn’t been touched by loss.

“Does she have a name?” Sarah asked.

“I… didn’t think about that. I suppose she should have one, though picking feels wrong.”

“This is a bad place for a child. Not much survives here, and nothing thrives.” Sarah had obviously noted what Nell had thought about the barren landscape and the little building as well. “You found her in time, though. You’ll see her well off. I’d say that’s mighty hopeful for her.”

“Hope,” Nell whispered. “That’s sweet.” The name indeed sounded right on her tongue. It stirred something inside of her that she hadn’t felt in a good while. Nell mused sadly how much she’d been missing just one small thing to celebrate in her life.

She’d made her work her first priority, and though it was sometimes a regret, it was too late to change her mind.

“We could all use more hope and goodness.” Sarah adjusted her bodice and lifted Hope to her shoulder. She rubbed the tiny back until Hope let out a soft burp. “Not much more than a few months, I’d say. Two or three, but she might have been small. She seems healthy, despite having been abandoned here.”

“I don’t see how it could have happened,” Nell admitted. “Though unfortunately, I do understand the why of it.”

Sarah nodded solemnly. “I’ve seen many a thing I wish I could wash from my eyes and my mind. I’m not yet twenty-two, but I feel as though I’ve lived centuries.”

Those words spoke straight to Nell’s feelings. She kept her true self a secret, so that she was rarely able to connect with another person, even in the smallest ways.

“Yes,” Nell agreed, watching Sarah pace a few steps with Hope, patting her back until the baby slipped into a drowsy, contented sleep. “I sometimes feel ancient too.”

“You’re going to…?” Sarah wasn’t trying to pry, just make conversation.

Unease prickled in Nell as it often did, over the things most people took for granted. “I’m not sure now. Fredericksburg is coming up. I think I’ll have to get off, to do right by her.” She motioned to the sleeping baby.

“I can continue on later.” In truth, she had been set to overshoot Fredericksburg by about twenty miles, though it was the whole area that was her destination.

A shout sounded from outside, and the drunken stage master’s slurred words drifted through the adobe walls.

Sarah quickly took back her son and slipped Hope into Nell’s arms. Neither child woke. “I have some clouts and a change of clothes in my valise in the stage. We can change her and dress her there. With any luck, they’ll both sleep for a few hours yet, though I can feed her as often as she needs.”

“It seems to be all she wanted. Thank you again.”

Sarah didn’t ask Nell her name, and Nell didn’t offer it. The less Sarah knew, the better. Maybe Sarah somehow sensed that. Maybe she was just worn out and exhausted and too mired in grief and the need to survive in order to give her son a future, to worry about something as simple as a name.

Sarah changed Hope in the coach after they were underway. Hope woke briefly, but between Nell’s arms and the rocking motion of the coach, she quickly went back to sleep. The poor thing was exhausted. Had she cried herself out in that room? Screamed and wailed? It was a small mercy that the stage master hadn’t heard her, but how had he not? Was the man deaf or just cruel? Did the drink make him that senseless? Nell shuddered to think how careless the man might have been with an infant if he’d found her. He might have felt that Hope was nothing more than annoyance, and taken her out to let the hot, unmerciful sun finish her off.

Nell stewed in her feelings and got lost in her thoughts for hours. It wasn’t a luxury she usually allowed herself, but it was mostly on Hope’s behalf.

Sarah fed Hope when she woke, squawking. The noise of the babies earned them both disdainful looks from the woman with the dripping nose. Nell ignored the woman completely. The husband, unbelievably, slept on and on. If he hadn’t let out a great snore every now and then, Nell might have been worried.

As it was, despite the stuffy coach and the terrible jostling that often rattled Nell’s teeth nearly out of her head, she was oddly at peace. Maybe it was the child sleeping in her arms, so sweet and vulnerable and innocent. She hadn’t been lying about seeing Hope into the right set of arms. She’d make sure that the tiny girl had a better future than the shaky start that saw her abandoned in a storage room.

Nell was making plans, jumping around in her mind, running through every possible scenario as she was used to doing, when shots ripped through the quiet evening.

Nell immediately bent double, shielding Hope. She hit the floor of the coach and tugged at Sarah’s skirts, yanking the woman down with her. Nell shoved Hope into Sarah’s arms, alongside Sarah’s son.

“What’s happening?” Sarah yelped in panic.

“Just stay down here. We’ll be fine,” Nell assured her, summoning calm that she didn’t necessarily feel. Nell used her body as a shield for all three of them, keeping them low.

“Oh good merciful heavens!” The handkerchief woman yelled, smacking her husband awake. “Rutherford! There are bandits out there!”

Nell actually might have sighed at the woman’s hysterics if the situation weren’t so dire. The hard truth was, stages were used to being held up. If their driver didn’t shoot back and let the bandits rifle through their belongings, it would all likely be over in a few minutes. The bandits wanted quick valuables. Nell doubted that Sarah had much at all, and she herself was carrying only a set of false papers and a few changes of clothes. The outlaws were unlikely to find her real identification, sewn into a hidden pocket in her skirts.

“Just stay calm and quiet,” Nell urged Sarah. The babies let out high pitched wails and Sarah whispered to them, but she was shaking. “We’ll be f…” She didn’t get to finish her sentence before there was another shot and a terrible scream from one of the horses.

The coach careened madly, jerking and twisting. Nell could practically see the animal stumble and fall, taking the rest of the horses with it. She tightened her arms around Sarah and the babies, bracing for impact.

When it came, it was a terrible sound that burst through Nell’s head, the world shattering and tearing apart, and then there was nothing at all.