So why face the man—and her family’s expectations—when she could head straight to the train station?
Had she planned it all along? Because this morning before she'd ridden to town, she'd stuffed the roll of cash saved from egg money and the races she'd won from the Bear Creek boys into her saddlebag. It was plenty for a train ticket to Sioux City.
She hadn't told her family. But it would be easy enough to go back inside and let Maxwell know what she was doing. Her Pa might even guess after Adam's news yesterday.
What was the right thing to do?
It was noon,and the sun was high overhead by the time Adam rode in to the White homestead. His errand had taken him longer than he'd planned.
Jonas and Edgar stood in the yard near the corral when he reined in his horse. One of them had been riding. A horse still in its saddle stood behind them, not yet in the corral. It was sweat-soaked as if it'd been ridden hard.
He was struck again by the fact that Jonas wasn't much older than the sons he'd adopted. What would possess a man to open his home and his heart like Jonas had? It couldn't have been easy, raising so many kids, and likely all of them wounded by the past they'd survived.
Was Breanna wounded as well?
Adam greeted the men with a nod as he swung his leg over his horse's back. He was careful not to jostle the bundle clutched against his midsection, not after the trouble he'd gone to this morning to find it.
Jonas's frown was a change from yesterday, when Adam had been greeted with congeniality. And Edgar looked downright murderous.
"Breanna's not here," Jonas said.
She wasn't?
Sudden dread knotted Adam's gut. "I haven't seen her."
The men shared a look.
"She went to the cowboy race. In Iowa." Edgar's voice was as hard as the look he was pinning Adam with. Clearly, he thought Adam was to blame for this development.
Iowa.
Adam's heart banged against his sternum. "You sure?"
Edgar nodded, expression unchanging. "She rode into town this morning and made a telephone call at my brother's house. Then she told his wife where she was heading."
She was really gone.
The bundle he was holding wriggled, and then a sharp claw bit the sensitive skin of his stomach. He jumped and pulled the bundle away.
Edgar's suspicion seemed to double. "What you got there?"
He sighed. "A gift. It was meant to be for Breanna. For Emma."
Jonas's frown sharpened when Adam lifted the fold of fabric—what had once been one of his shirts, now shredded from tiny claws—and the kitten's gray head popped into view. The thing let out a meow, but Adam knew better than to ease up from the firm hold he had on it. He'd learned his lesson trying to mount up with it the first time.
"Emma?" There was something in the undertone of Jonas's voice that Adam couldn't read. But he had nothing to hide.
"You'll have to forgive me,” Adam said. “There were so many introductions yesterday." He shrugged, feeling sheepish. He couldn't have guessed which one was Edgar's young daughter. "Too many names to keep track of. Breanna was pretty upset last night about Emma's kitten."
Edgar crossed his arms over his chest. "Emma is my wife's younger sister. She's recently moved to Denver with their brother Daniel. Frannie's been missing her something fierce."
Emma wasn't even here, on the homestead? Then Breanna had been upset on Fran's behalf. She'd shown her sensitive heart because she knew what the kitten meant to the other woman.
Jonas considered Adam. "Breanna told you she was upset?"
"No." Of course not. She'd held back. Everything until—
"You the reason she ran off?" Edgar hadn't relented from his suspicion, though Jonas had seemed to soften just the slightest bit.
