A Journey of the Heart Collection (9 page)

“It's not your fault.” He shook his head. “I realized it as soon as I cooled down enough to think. I can't blame you for wanting to go on with your life.”

“You are my life. Nothing seemed real with you gone. I-I knew I couldn't be happy, so I thought if everyone else was happy, it would be enough.” She swallowed hard, remembering the hopelessness of her future. “But I dreaded the very thought of marriage.” She looked up at him.

“You're that opposed to marrying?” His dimple flashed.

The pressure in her chest increased. “Not to marrying the right man.”

“And who would that be?” His voice held a teasing lilt she hadn't heard in so long.

“I think you know.” The joy she felt inside almost couldn't be contained. “James Benson left on the
wagon train last May, and his cabin is still empty. We can live there until our place is built on our knoll.”

Rand's smile faded and he looked away. “I can't stay, Sarah. I'm still in the cavalry. I'm heading out West in a couple of days.”

She inhaled and held her breath as his words soaked in. “Not staying here?” She stared at him. “But we've always planned to build on the knoll and help Papa with the farm. He's not well, Rand. I can't go running off out West and leave him. Besides, where else would we go?”

“I'm going West.” He reached out and wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. “Your pa will understand. He came here with your ma and settled just like I want to do. He wasn't content to stay in Philadelphia.”

The very thought filled her with terror. “That was different. He was poor and had no prospects. You have land here, both mine and yours from your pa. Can't you ask to be released so you can heal?” She wanted to grab him and shake some sense into him. “Surely you're not serious about this scheme. We've made too many other plans.”

“It's not different. Once my enlistment's over,
I don't want to take something another man built. There's so much opportunity out West, Sarah. Land for the taking, gold, new businesses.” His dark eyes glowed, and he gripped her shoulders in his big hands. “It will be a great life. Besides, do you really think Wade and I could get along well enough to work together?”

“Rand.” Panic stole her breath. “I couldn't leave Papa. You haven't seen how ill he's been. He seems to go downhill every day. It would kill him for me to leave.”

He frowned. “I saw how poorly he looked. But Sarah, he would understand. He wouldn't want you to stop living because of him. Let's go ask him.” He took her arm and started toward the house, but she pulled away.

“No! I don't want to upset him. I just can't go now. Can't you wait? Just until he doesn't need me? He doesn't have very long. The doctor said maybe a year.”

“I have my orders and a letter to deliver for General Sherman. I have to go.”

She took a deep breath and stepped back from him. “You can't ask me to sacrifice my father.” Tears filled her eyes as she saw Rand's face fall. She
couldn't
leave Papa.

“I understand. I love your father too. Good-bye, Sarah. Have a good life.” He turned and left her standing on the path.

She opened her mouth to call him back, but the words died in her throat. What was the use? She couldn't go and he wouldn't stay. It was as simple as that. He didn't really love her, or he wouldn't ask her to leave Papa. Not as sick as he was. Couldn't Rand see that? She grabbed a flat stone and hurled it toward the water. It skipped seven times and sank. But there was no one left to see.

ONE

S
EPTEMBER
22, 1865

T
he town of Wabash, Indiana, bustled with activity as the horse's hooves clopped along the plank street and up the hill. Rand Campbell reined in the mare pulling the family buckboard and stopped in front of the train depot. The engine shrieked and puffed out a billow of soot that burned his throat as he, Jacob, and Shane climbed down. Now that the time had arrived for his departure, Rand wished he had been able to
stay longer. Leaving his mother and father had been rough. Ma had cried, then pressed his grandma's Bible into his hand before hurrying away, and Pa wouldn't even come out of the barn to say good-bye.

Shane snuffled, and Rand ruffled his brother's blond hair, then hugged him. “I'm counting on you to take care of the family, squirt.” Though at fifteen, the lad was eye level with Rand.

Shane bit his quivering lip and nodded, straightening his shoulders. He trotted around behind the buckboard, heaved the saddle over one shoulder, then led Ranger to the waiting train. Rand's horse would accompany him west.

Rand put his hand in his pocket. His fingers rubbed against a familiar round shape. He'd smuggled it into the prison in his shoe and had spent months sanding off the engraving on the golden eagle coin before chiseling his and Sarah's names into the gold.

His gaze swept the familiar sights of Wabash at the top of the hill. The whitewashed courthouse, the jail to the west of it, and the bustle of Commercial Row just down the steep Wabash Street hill made his heart ache at the thought of leaving. But knowing he'd never see Sarah again hurt the most.

He'd come home after his internment in Andersonville Prison to find his fiancée engaged to Ben Croftner. When things were sorted out and Ben's lies were exposed, Rand had hoped Sarah would go west with him, but she'd put her family above him. He'd taken that hurt and used it to build a wall around his heart.

He fingered the love token. What good would it do in his pocket? He'd never give it to anyone else because he'd never feel like this about anyone else. That kind of love was dead for him.

He pulled out the token and thrust it into Jacob's hand. “Give this to Sarah, Jake. Tell her I'm sorry it didn't work out and I hope she has a happy life.”

Jacob's fingers closed around the token. “You make it sound like there's no hope for the two of you.”

“There isn't. I wish it weren't so, but I doubt I'll see Sarah again.” Rand hefted the haversack over his shoulder and picked up the hamper of food, then his satchel.

“All aboard!”

He was a cavalry man, and this was what he wanted—a life he made for himself, beholden to no one. After one last look at his brothers, he raced toward the plodding train and jumped up the steep
steps. He caught one last glimpse of Jacob, standing with one arm upraised, his other arm around their younger brother, Shane. Rand waved until the buckboard with the two figures beside it was no longer in view, then took a deep breath and limped to a vacant seat. His great adventure was about to begin.

Sarah Montgomery sat on a rock along the banks of the Wabash River and listened to the train whistle blow as the engine left the station. The sun on this fine September day warmed her face. A robin, its red breast a bright flash of color, fluttered by to land on a nearby gooseberry bush. The bird swooped down to grab a worm. The rhythm of life went on even though her heart felt dead in her chest. She was only nineteen, but right now she felt like ninety.

How did she go on after losing Rand and then finding him again, only to watch him leave her without a thought? Time stretched in front of her, a lifetime spent without the man she'd loved since she was a girl. A vision of his dark hair and eyes resided in her heart and always would.

She picked up the book she'd brought with her,
A Christmas Carol
. The novel absorbed her until the sun moved lower in the sky. She closed it and glanced around to make sure she had all her belongings before going back to the house to start dinner.

“Sarah?”

She looked up to see Jacob, Rand's younger brother, approaching with a tentative smile. “He's gone?”

Jacob, dressed in his blue cavalry uniform, took off his wide-brimmed hat and turned it in his hands. “I'm sorry, Sarah. How you doing?”

Though her eyes burned, she was past tears. “I'll be fine.” She tipped up her chin. “I have Papa and Joel to care for.” She studied the compassion in Jacob's brown eyes. “D-Did he say anything about me?”

Jacob nodded and stepped closer. He pulled his hand from his pocket, and something metallic winked in the sunlight. “He asked me to give you this.”

She rose from her perch on a rock and reached out to take it from him. Her fingers rubbed over the gold metal. “A love token.” She choked out the words as she stared at the words engraved in the metal.
Rand and Sarah.

“He worked on this in prison.”

Her fingers traced the engraving. “Did he say anything about me joining him?”

Jacob's eyes held sympathy as he shook his head. “No, he didn't, Sarah. I'm sorry. H-He said to tell you he was sorry it didn't work out and he hoped you'd have a happy life.”

The pain crushed in on her again. The good-bye was final, just like the one that loomed with her father. Her fingers closed around the coin, and the edges bit into her palm. “Thank you, Jacob. I'll treasure it.”

Kansas City was a sprawling assortment of wooden shops and storefronts. The streets teemed with horses and cattle, buggies and buckboards. And people. Everywhere, people hurried across the muddy streets and crowded the uneven boardwalks. Rand felt invigorated by the hustle and bustle, despite the smell of manure and the distant lowing of cattle from the stockyards.

A broad-shouldered man shouting orders to his cowboys pushed past Rand with a brief tip of his hat. Rand stared after him. His stint in the cavalry would
give him the opportunity to find his own spread. Someday he'd bring his own cattle to a stockyard like this one.

Across from the depot was the Holladay Stagecoach station, and he walked across the street and stood in line behind another soldier. “Heading to Fort Leavenworth, then on to Fort Laramie too?”

The other man turned with a grin on his open, friendly face. “Sure am. Been on leave and kinda hate to go back. You new?”

“Lieutenant Rand Campbell.” He thrust out a soot-streaked hand.