Page 16 of Bride in Blue
“May I get you a cup of tea?” a young woman asked. “You certainly look like you could use one.”
“No thank you. I just needed to find my father and get back to the train station.”
“This is my daughter, Cassandra. I had better follow her wherever she is going.” Her father finished his cup of tea and picked up the remnants of a muffin, wrapping it in his handkerchief.
He handed Cassie her bag and coat and picked up his. “Thank you for a delightful chat,” he said, giving a mock bow to the woman in the shop.
Cassie’s eyes flew open. Her father never acted like this! He was polite, helpful and not grouchy in the least. Cassie even thought that he was standing a little taller!
“Were you able to find us a place to sleep tonight?” he asked, walking in stride with her.
“No. I had a terrible run in and the one place I went didn’t have any rooms available.”
“Never mind, girlie. We’ll find something.”
They walked down to the dry goods store. Cassie noticed the livery behind it. “Do you think the livery would be a good place?”
Her father nodded. They didn’t see anyone, so they snuck through the barn door and moved to the furthest corner of the stable. They sat against the wall hidden by the shadows.
“How did your meeting go?”
“Not well at all,” Cassie sniffled and relayed what occurred in the shop.
Her father laughed when she described knocking over the wire mannequin. “Can’t do anything about it now. We can always get on that train to Oregon in the morning.” Cassie nodded and watched through one of the bay doors as the sun start to set in the sky.
Cassie listened to the sounds of the horses gently neighing in the background. She thought she heard footsteps, but she wasn’t sure.
Her father leaned against the wall and settled in, closing his eyes.That man could sleep anywhere!
The stable was cool, and the temperature dropped as the sun disappeared from view. Cassie saw her father lightly shiver. She looked around, spying a horse blanket hanging over the stall. She reached up to grab the blanket.
Just as her fingers touched the stiff wool fabric, a hand appeared from the dark and grabbed her wrist.
Cassie let out a shriek and everything went black.
Chapter 5
Cassie woke up with a start. She wasn’t in her bed at home and she wasn’t in the stables behind the dry goods store.
Instead, she was sleeping in a strange bed in a strange room. She pulled the sheets up closer to her face and looked around the room. There wasn’t anything familiar apart from her bag in the corner of the room.
How did she get here? And why was she in her night clothes? Who changed her dress?
The sheets felt cool against her skin. She gave a little roll – this wasn’t a straw filled mattress. It was so much softer. The mattress cover wasn’t coarse wool, either. It appeared to be a linen with a cotton covering on top. How peculiar!
She had never seen anyone cover their mattress twice!
The furnishings were very fine, everything was made of stained wood with gold embellishments. Even the dresser had golden pull handles instead of knobs.
She got out of bed, noticing a pair of house shoes on the floor. Sliding her feet in them, she went in search of her clothes. She opened her bag and it was empty.
She quickly started opening the wardrobes and found her coat hanging up in one of them. Breathing a sigh of relief, she opened the dresser and found the rest of her clothes neatly folded and placed in the drawer.
She pulled out a clean poplin blouse and plain blue skirt and quickly changed. She noticed her brush and extra hair pins were laying on top of the dresser.
She brushed her hair until her arm hurt, breaking it into sections. She then twirled the sections before securing them to the top of her head. She was on her last section when she heard a sound coming from outside the window.
It sounded like something was on the roof. Cassie walked over and opened the shade.
