She checked her phone and saw two messages. “I’ll call her now.”
“Eat first,” Brett said. “And text me if you need anything. I’m just a couple hours away.”
“Thank you.”
Quietwas her first thought as she helped herself to the hearty stew. No airplane noise from this morning or Cantor-house drama or the pounding of waves. After she talked to Marcia, assuring her that all was well, she texted with Kelsey until the Cantor family jet whisked her friend off to the Maldives.
Even though the outside air was warm, Harper opened her bedroom window and dugLavender Ridgeout of her carry-on, resuming her reading in the lamplight. And as she read, she pretended her mom was right beside her.
While the dialogue was outdated, the descriptions long, she was intrigued by the heroine. A woman about Harper’s age, named Verity Chessington, who faced one hard knock after another as she tried to recover from the loss of her parents.
But Verity was a good girl. Devout in her faith and her hope for mankind. Verity didn’t know it at this stage of the story, but Harper remembered the twist near the end. She was the heiress of a fortune, and her uncle had sent her west so he could claim Verity’s inheritance as his own.
Even though Verity had been tricked into working at a laundry in a small mining town, somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, a man she’d met on the train—the hero—was looking for her. Which was good because another man, a former employee of Verity’s uncle, was also searching the mountain towns. He intended to take her by flattery or force, whichever was most effective, in order to claim her fortune.
A train blew its horn nearby, rattling the tracks, and when it started to rain, Harper closed the window. While Boss Man didn’t join heron the bed, he watched Harper like a prison warden from the window ledge. Rain pounded on the glass and then a roll of thunder, wind shaking the tree limbs outside, dropping branches on the roof. An eerie dance captured in the flash of lightning.
She was definitely not in California anymore.
Harper read Verity’s story until the words started to blur, her eyes rebelling no matter how hard she tried to stay awake. In the dark cloud of her mind, she could almost see the town’s rocky cliffs. Smell the greasy lye soap and burning coal. Hear the whistle of a distant train.
And she could feel the deep tug on her heart when the owner of the local mine took Verity under his wing, protecting her in the sweetest of romances. Unrealistic, maybe, but a girl could dream about a man willing to risk everything for the woman he loved. A man who still believed in romance.
As Harper began to drift off, a new question prodded at her.
If Via Belle were still alive today, what kind of story would she tell?
9:Olivia
OCTOBER 1940
“I don’t like him,” Hattie said as she stood beside Olivia on the front porch, her hands at her sides.
Simon waved goodbye through the open top of his roadster, the polished vehicle rumbling toward the gate. The midnight blue panels blended into the night, but not the chrome bumpers. Those gleamed in the moonlight.
Olivia lowered her hand. “You hardly know him.”
“Three visits with that man is more than enough.”
“More than enough for what?” Olivia asked, aggravated that her aunt refused to give him a chance.
“Enough to assess his character.”
Clearly Simon hadn’t measured up to her aunt’s standards, but even Graham, in those first months of courtship, hadn’t been good enough for her spinster aunt who’d stepped in as a mother to Olivia after Mrs. Belle passed away.
She should expect nothing less now if she decided to accept the attentions of another man, but Simon was merely a friend, enjoying meals and laughter with her whenever his work brought him to Pennsylvania. Which, admittedly, had been often in the past month.
“He’s respectable, Auntie. A pro—”
“A professor. I know.”
“A professor who likes to talk about books.”
Hattie tugged the belt around her housedress tighter. “I am well aware of what that man likes.”
“You make it sound so...juvenile.” Which was fitting, she supposed, because Olivia felt younger than she had in years. A decade even. And why couldn’t a younger man enjoy her company? He hadn’t crossed any lines or made any promises beyond seeing her tomorrow. Then he’d return home to Winfield. “He’s not some charlatan that I plucked off the street.”
“He’s Episcopalian,” Hattie said as if insulted by the thought.
