The Marriage Barter. Christine Johnson

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      The plaintive cry halted Wyatt in his tracks. A child. Very young. Female. His tracker’s instinct clicked into place. Her hiccups and wordless sobs came from very close, between the church and the unmarked building. These weren’t the ordinary cries of childhood. This girl was terrified.

      He slipped into the narrow alley between buildings, but a pile of empty crates blocked his view.

      “Ma.” Hiccup. “Ma.”

      Wyatt paused before the crates. What was he doing? He didn’t know the first thing about children, and he didn’t know a soul in this town. Where would he take her once he found her?

      He started to back away until a string of unintelligible words came out at a fevered pitch, followed by what sounded like choking. If someone didn’t calm that child down, she’d stop breathing. Seeing as he was the only one nearby, that someone would have to be him.

      He skirted the pile of empty crates, but she wasn’t there. He followed the sobs to the back of the building and a muddy lane where a small, thin child with raven-black pigtails sat in the dirt. He wasn’t much of a judge of children’s ages, but she looked younger than school-age. Maybe three or four. Too young to be wandering around on her own.

      Wyatt hesitated, unsure what to do as she lifted her tear-stained face to take in his considerable height. The sobs stopped. Her blue eyes widened so big they seemed to take over her whole face. One grubby hand went into her mouth, just like...

      Wyatt stared.

      By all the stars in the sky, she looked just like his kid sister, Ava, had at that age. Same pigtails. Same blue eyes. Same need to suck on her fingers.

      The girl examined him with curiosity. She’d probably never seen such a tall man.

      He knelt, his knee protesting. “Howdy, there. My name’s Wyatt. What’s yours?”

      The hand didn’t budge out of her mouth, but those sky-blue eyes continued to stare at him. What lashes! They practically brushed her eyebrows. One day this little girl would break men’s hearts.

      Today he needed to find out why she was crying and where she belonged. “Do you have any scrapes or cuts?”

      She just stared.

      He tried again. “Can you move your legs?” They looked fine, not obviously broken, but he wasn’t a doctor.

      She didn’t budge. Clearly she wasn’t going to answer him. Either she was too scared or too shy.

      “Are you lost?”

      Nothing again.

      This was getting frustrating. “Can’t you nod yes or no?”

      Naturally, she didn’t move her head one inch.

      He rubbed his chin and attempted to ignore his aching knee. He’d try the obvious. “Did you lose your mama?”

      “Mama,” she echoed, somehow getting the word out despite the fingers in her mouth.

      “Great.” Finally, he was getting somewhere. He stood to take the pressure off his knee. “Where did you last see her?”

      She went back to staring silently.

      “Of course she doesn’t know that, Reed,” he chided himself. Some tracker he was if he couldn’t remember that a lost child would be disoriented. Trouble was, he couldn’t quite figure out what to do. Missing children weren’t his specialty. He’d never worked with children until this job. Could this child be one of the orphans? He shook off the idea. She’d called for her mother. This girl had a family. In a town as small as Evans Grove, someone would know where to find her ma or pa.

      He crouched again, ignoring his knee’s protest. “If I pick you up and walk around town, do you think you can point to the last place you saw your mama?”

      The girl answered by sticking out both arms.

      She trusted him.

      The knowledge kicked him in the gut. No one trusted Wyatt Reed. Not since before the war, anyway. If this girl only knew what he’d done. If she’d heard the screams of terror, she wouldn’t trust him now or ever. But she didn’t know who he was or what he’d done. She just trusted him.

      “Get ahold of yourself, Reed.” The girl didn’t know anything about him. She trusted him to get her home, and he’d do it, the same as any paying job.

      His big hands more than encircled her tiny waist. He lifted, and her thin arms wound around his neck. So trusting. This girl would crack his tough veneer if he wasn’t careful.

      He cleared his throat. “Let’s find that mother of yours.”

      And soon. He couldn’t take much more undeserved trust.

      * * *

      Charlotte Miller fingered the paltry selection of ribbons in Gavin’s General Store. The emerald-green one shone against her pale fingers. The lovely ribbon would match her best dress, but she must buy the black. Custom dictated she hide beneath heavy black crepe for the next year or more while mourning the husband she’d never loved.

      Charles Miller had treated her kindly, but all his love had been reserved for his deceased first wife. His marriage to Charlotte had been a business arrangement. She’d needed a husband when her parents died months after they arrived in Evans Grove. He’d needed a housekeeper and cook. Simple and sensible. Yet deep down, she’d hoped their marriage would one day develop the warmth and love that would usher in a large family.

      She sighed. At least he’d agreed to take in one of the orphan girls. If not for Sasha, she would have no one.

      Charlotte cast a glance toward the toys where Sasha and Mrs. Gavin’s granddaughter, Lynette, were playing with the dolls. The two looked so much alike they could have been twins. Each wore their dark hair in pigtails. Today they wore nearly identical dresses in the same shade of blue. The Gavins had stocked a large quantity of that particular fabric, and most of the girls in town sported play dresses in royal blue.

      “I’m so sorry for your loss, dearie,” Mrs. Gavin said as she cut a length of ribbon sufficient to adorn Charlotte’s hastily dyed bonnet. “At least you’re still young.” Mrs. Gavin tried to lift her spirits as she handed Charlotte the ribbon.

      At thirty-one, Charlotte didn’t feel terribly young. After a year or two of mourning, she’d have lost even more childbearing years.

      She dug in her bag for payment, but Mrs. Gavin refused to take her money.

      Unbidden shame rose to Charlotte’s cheeks. “Charles provided for me.” Unlike her parents, he’d left her enough to last three or four years if she was frugal. And she would be. Thirteen years might have passed, but not the memory of the empty cupboards and gnawing hunger following her parents’ deaths. Charles’s proposal had filled her belly if not her heart, and for that she would always be grateful. It had taught her to fight for what she needed. Never again would she let herself become that destitute. Never would she let Sasha endure the pain and humiliation she’d faced. “I can pay.”

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