The Blushing Bride. Judith Stacy

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      Chapter One

      California, 1886

      Was it too late to run?

      Amanda Pierce eyed the freight wagon and its driver across the street from her hotel, and considered turning tail and heading back to San Francisco. Back to clean sheets. Back to gentlemen of good breeding. Back home.

      She drew in a deep breath and glimpsed her reflection in the cracked mirror in the corner of the hotel lobby. Blue gown, matching hat set in dark curls, kid shoes. She looked completely out of place in this wide-open, raucous little town of Beaumont at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

      Back in San Francisco this had seemed like a good idea, but now…

      Amanda watched her reflection in the mirror and forced herself to square her shoulders and stand a little straighter. True, she wasn’t well-traveled. She wasn’t wise to the ways of the world. But she was twenty-four years old, with enough good sense to accomplish this difficult trip and keep herself safe in the process. Didn’t that count for something? Of course it did.

      Fortified now, Amanda ventured onto the boardwalk, careful to avoid the miners and loggers who passed, men in soiled work clothes with unkempt beards. She eyed the freight wagon from the Kruger Brothers’ Lumber and Milling Company across the street. It was the reason she’d come to Beaumont and spent two days in the hotel, watching for its arrival.

      Now it was here. Amanda pushed her chin a little higher, drawing up her courage. She could do this. She had to.

      That thought carried Amanda across the dirt street, darting between teams of horses and mules, and big rumbling wagons.

      “Excuse me, sir?” she called to the driver as she reached the safety of the boardwalk.

      His back was to her as he oversaw the loading of supplies into the Kruger wagon. A bear of a man, he wore stained buckskins and a slouch hat yanked down over his unruly gray hair.

      Amanda ventured closer. “Sir? Excuse me?”

      He half turned, squinting hard at her. “You talking to me, lady?”

      Up close his face was like cracked leather, dried and hardened by the elements—at least, the portion of his face Amanda could see above his tangled beard.

      “Are you Mr. Harper?” she asked. “Mr. Samuel Harper?”

      His eyes narrowed. “Who wants to know?”

      She gripped her handbag tighter. “I’m Miss Amanda Pierce, from San Francisco.”

      “Yeah, that’s me, all right,” he said, and hitched up his trousers. “’Cept ain’t nobody called me Samuel since last time I was at Sunday services, and I don’t rightly recall just how long ago that was. I go by Shady.”

      Amanda hoped he’d been given that nickname because of an affection for leafy trees and not as a testament to his character.

      “Mr. Harper, I’m seeking—”

      “Call me Shady.”

      Amanda managed a small smile. “Yes, certainly…Shady. As I was saying, I need transportation to the Kruger Brothers’ Lumber and Milling Company, and was told you could provide that.”

      Shady reared back and eyed her up and down. “You want to go up to the camp?”

      “Yes,” Amanda said.

      “Up on the mountain?”

      “Well, yes,” she said.

      “And you want me to take you up there?”

      “I was informed there was no other reliable transportation.” Amanda pulled a dog-eared envelope from her handbag. “Mr. Kruger assured me of your honesty, and instructed me to wait at the hotel until you arrived in town, then ride up to the lumber camp with you.”

      “Yeah, I make a run up and down the mountain every couple of days.” Shady stroked his long, ragged beard. “It was Jason Kruger that sent for you?”

      “Yes,” Amanda said. “He’s expecting me.”

      “You?”

      She drew in a little breath. “Yes, Mr. Harper, I—”

      “Shady.”

      “Shady.” Amanda cleared her throat and pressed the envelope closer toward him. “It’s all right here in his instructions.”

      “And you’re sure it was Jason Kruger that sent for you?” he asked. “’Cause, now, there’s two of them, you know. There’s Jason and there’s Ethan. They’re brothers.”

      Amanda pressed her lips together and waved toward the Kruger Brothers’ Lumber and Milling Company sign painted on the freight wagon in big red letters.

      “Yes, I’m aware they’re brothers.”

      “Now, Jason, he’s the oldest one, but not by much, as I hear tell,” Shady said. “He’s the one what runs things up on the mountain, you know.”

      “I do know that Mr.—Shady,” Amanda said. “I have business with Mr. Kruger. He wrote and asked me to come here.”

      “Business, huh?” Shady shrugged and turned back to the wagon. “Well, okay by me, I reckon. I’ll be pulling out of here pretty quick so as to get back to the camp before dark.”

      “I’ll get my bag from the hotel,” Amanda said.

      Shady turned to her once more. “If’n you’re real sure you want to meet up with Jason Kruger, that is.”

      Amanda’s stomach twisted into a knot as the old man squinted at her, and again she was tempted—very tempted—to head for home.

      “I’m sure,” Amanda said.

      She’d come too far to turn back now.

      “What’s wrong now?”

      Jason Kruger pulled his boots from the corner of his desk and rocked forward in his chair. He’d just finished his supper and didn’t like the intrusion of one of his men into his office at the end of the day.

      The Spartan room wasn’t much to look at with its rough-hewn walls, a couple of desks and cupboards, and a potbellied stove in the corner, but Jason liked the solitude after a hard day’s work. He wanted to look over his new journals, not deal with this man again.

      “What is it, Duncan?” Jason asked. “Spit it out.”

      The thin, wiry man lingering at the door pulled off his hat and twisted СКАЧАТЬ