My Dearest Faith,
After our conversation, I realized I have many wrongs to right. The most pressing of which is the safety of my mother. I do not know whether that letter speaks the truth, but I cannot leave it to chance. Therefore, I am riding out this morning. I will board a train in Cheyenne. I promise to telegraph once I reach New Orleans.
I am deeply sorry for the hurt I have caused you. Pray for me.
Yours,
Beau
Faith blinked at the letter, unable to comprehend the full meaning of the words. He left? For New Orleans? To . . .
She sank onto the settee, her hand trembling as she clutched the letter. He went to ensure his mother had left and wasn’t in danger. Why didn’t he alert the authorities in New Orleans instead?
But deep down, Faith knew why. He felt responsible. If his mother was in the hands of these men, it was his doing. All she could hope was that he involved the police in New Orleans once he arrived, rather than going to find her himself.Ifshe were missing, that was. Perhaps he’d arrive and find she’d boarded a train north, just as she’d said in her letter.
She felt sick at the thought of him potentially arriving into danger, but there was nothing she could do. Not from here. Oh, how she wished he’d spoken to her first. She might not have been able to convince him to wait to see if his mother arrived here in a timely fashion, but she could have at least ensured he didn’t stride into danger with no one to help once he arrived in Louisiana.
But he didn’t confide in her before he’d decided what course of action to take. The page crumpled under Faith’s fingers. She didn’t know what that meant. Was he so determined in his decision that he wanted to avoid any reasoning from her to convince him otherwise? Or did he feel so guilty for keeping the truth from her that he opted to martyr himself to pay for it?
Her stomach clenched at the very thought of the latter. Surely, he’d have plenty of time on the journey south to come to his senses and approach this in a measured way. Wouldn’t he?
She never imagined that her anger at his dishonesty would drive him to do such a thing. Guilt began to creep through her, its long fingers grasping for purchase in an attempt to make her feel as if she shouldn’t have confronted him at all.
No.
She stood indignantly, pushing the guilt away. She oughtn’t feel badly about insisting upon the truth. Honesty was the foundation of a good marriage, and she had every right to expect it of her husband. If he chose to twist those words into something that made him feel as if he should go thrust himself into danger, that was his own doing.
But the anger soon gave way to fear, again, and as she took down telegrams and helped folks send letters, Faith barely kept a lid on her worry. How would she survive until she heard from him again? If he was so determined to do this, she wished she’d had the opportunity to talk to him, if only to tell him how she truly felt about him.
As dusk fell, she retreated to the back porch again and closed her eyes, wishing and praying and hoping. To have happiness in her grasp and to lose it all over again . . .
It was more than she could bear.
When she opened her eyes, a man stood before her.
A man who was decidedly not Beau.
