Page 98 of His Unforgettable Bride
“Or that’s what she wants you to think. She could be lying. She might be forty.”
It seemed to Jack that a schoolteacher would probably be someone upstanding in the community. Why would she lie? Especially when a lie about her age would be instantly revealed when the two met.
“What’s wrong with her, anyway? Why’d she need to get a husband from a mail-order ad?”
The groom obviously hadn’t considered anything like this, and Jack watched in the reflection as the man tugged at his shirt collar and then swallowed hard. “I’ve jumped into this, haven’t I? Maybe I should’ve thought about it longer than I did.”
Jack lost track of the conversation as he watched the landscape change outside the window. The woods and trees they’d been passing through opened up to a plain where everything was dusted with snow. The Laramie Mountains were visible in the far distance, purple shadows against the gray sky.
“Next stop, Calvin, Wyoming!” The conductor’s voice called out, and then the man himself passed through the train car.
Jack had been all over the West in the past few years. Montana, Nevada, Colorado. He’d never stopped in Calvin. Passed through once and judged it too small.
But that’d been…three years ago? Maybe things had changed.
“Perhaps I should go home.” The groom’s voice sounded clear as a bell, and Jack saw that he’d loosened his tie now. He took off his bowler hat and ran his hand through his hair, clearly agitated.
He’d be an easy mark across the poker table. His tells were as big as a brand on a cow’s hindquarters.
“You don’t want to meet her? What if she’s a great beauty?” Gray Beard said. Was the man toying with the groom? He seemed to be playing devil’s advocate now.
“It’s almost Christmas,” the young groom said.
Christmas.
Jack should find a game. Put aside a few dollars and hole up in a hotel room. Shops would be closed during the holiday. Restaurants too.
Jack didn’t have a home to go back to. No one to celebrate with.
And he liked it that way. The nomadic life he lived suited him just fine.
He decided to stretch his legs. Standing up, he slipped his leather satchel over his head and shoulder. He had to hold on to the seat in front of him with one hand as the train swayed and rocked.
Jack strode through the nearly empty train car, then moved through the door at the end and into the next car over.
This one had a small water closet, its door slightly ajar, and was more crowded, with people in almost every seat. Many had packages around their feet or on their laps. Another sign of Christmas.
The conductor was calling out, and several people stood up in this train car, moving toward the door.
The brakes weren’t screeching yet, but Jack could feel the slowing motion.
Looking down the car, he recognized the head of dark hair beneath a ten-gallon hat, the matching dark-brown mustache. The man was a head taller than most other travelers in the train car, and his lined face showed hard living.
Morris.
Jack turned to go back the way he’d come. He didn’t have any desire to bump into Morris.
But two passengers blocked his way back into the other train car, and the only exit was to slip into the water closet.
Jack latched the door behind him.
He had a revolver at his hip, though he’d only had occasion to use it shooting cans off a branch or fence post. It was mostly for show, to keep other poker players from trying to rob him.
But Morris was a hired gun for the owner of a silver mine back in Colorado. Jack had judged him as unpredictable the last time he’d seen him.
The conductor called out again, his voice sounding just outside the water closet door. He must be returning through the compartment and re-entering the car Jack had left.
“I’m looking for a man named Jack Easton.”
