Page 95 of A Forgotten Heart
Elsie picked up her skirts and rushed up the steps to the platform.
“Elsie!”
Glancing up, Elsie found Arnold leaning out the window of the second to last car. He waved, then motioned toward the door.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Elsie hurried to meet him.
Arnold met her at the door to the car, leaning down. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”
The conductor shouted from behind her. “All aboard!”
Elsie opened her sweaty palm and held out the ring. “I’m sorry, Arnold. I can’t marry you.”
Arnold looked resigned. “So, that’s it, then?”
Elsie hoped Arnold could read the apology in her eyes. “It is.”
He closed his hand around the ring. The peace she’d been waiting for, hoping for, flooded her core.
Bending down, he kissed her cheek. “I wish you the best. You’ll make that rancher very happy.”
If Nick forgave her. If she wasn’t too late.
Her mouth tipped into a smile. “He’s not a rancher. He’s a teacher.”
The train jolted, the engine steam hissing in the air. Elsie stepped away as Arnold backed into the car.
He waved. “Good luck.”
A final blast of the whistle rang in Elsie’s ears as the train chugged forward.
She turned, determined to meet Merritt, then find Rebekah and a way back to the ranch. She’d only taken one step when anarm snaked around her torso from behind and a hand clamped over her mouth.
Elsie struggled, but the big, strong man held fast, looming over her.
The platform had already begun to clear, and no one seemed to notice as he dragged her into the shadows on the far end.
Where was he taking her? The platform ended?—
He threw himself back, dragging her along with him off the edge of the platform. Elsie plummeted into darkness.
Chapter 19
Evening shadows were growing long over the streets as Nick rode into Calvin. Urgency pulsed through him to speak to Elsie. To apologize. To tell her he’d been a fool.
And, hopefully, not make a bigger fool of himself when he asked her to choose him over the man with the fancy suit and silver ring.
It was getting colder. The slushy mud beneath his horse’s hooves was already beginning to freeze.
He was heading to Merritt’s to ask for Elsie’s whereabouts, but a familiar figure caught his eye near the train platform
The train whistle shrilled as he approached.
Steam from the engine billowed into the air over the platform.
“Everything quiet, Merritt?” he asked. He’d heard Danna still hadn’t captured Quade.
Merritt studied him. “Is all well at the ranch? I wasn’t expecting you in town.”
