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Nate sat down. “Then Whit works with what we know. You aren’t expected to solve this from your bed.”
Jesse closed his eye. He could hear Aunt Cleo reading the Psalms after Ma died, her rough voice rising from the chair beside his bed. She had told him God didn’t misplace His children in the dark.
He hadn’t thought of that in years.
“Nate?”
“I’m here.”
“Will you pray?”
The chair shifted closer. Nate rested a hand on Jesse’s uninjured arm.
“Lord, thank You Jesse is awake. Help his body heal, and give him rest tonight. Keep Izzy and Peter safe. Give Whit wisdom to find the men responsible.” Nate paused. “And please keep Bass from doing something foolish before morning.”
Jesse would have laughed if his ribs hadn’t hurt so much.
“Amen,” Nate said.
“Amen.”
Nate’s hand remained on his arm until Jesse’s breathing eased.
Seven days gone. He could not recover them by force. Tonight he knew Peter and Izzy were alive, his family was close, and somebody named Eden Whitcomb might be coming west.
That last thought ought to have kept him awake.
Instead, Jesse slept.
Chapter Four
The stage struck a rut hard enough to fling Eden against the woman beside her.
“Do these drivers ever slow down?” the woman demanded.
“Not for the road,” Eden said, catching her valise before it fell. “I doubt they’ll begin for us.”
Her fellow passenger sniffed and faced the window.
Eden braced a boot against the floor. Beyond the glass, tawny prairie rolled toward a sky so wide it made her Missouri hills seem crowded. She had spent six days traveling west and had slept poorly through most of them. Her back ached. Dust had worked its way into every seam of her dress.
Inside her pocket lay Emily Pickett’s telegram, folded nearly to pieces.
Jesse had awakened. His condition remained uncertain. Eden could still turn back.
She had traveled this far because she wanted to meet the man behind Emily’s letters, even if he could only manage a few words. She meant to see for herself what help was needed before deciding anything else.
The driver shouted to his team. Buildings appeared beyond the dust, and the coach rattled onto a street lined with hitching rails and wooden storefronts.
Flat River.
Eden sat straighter. A mercantile occupied one corner; farther along stood a livery and a whitewashed church. Men paused on the boardwalk as the coach rolled past. She searched the waiting faces for a woman she knew only through letters.
The driver pulled up outside the mercantile. Eden gathered her reticule and waited for driver to unload her valise. When she climbed down, her legs protested the change from being folded inside the coach.
“Miss Whitcomb?”
A tall gentleman in spectacles approached from a wagon parked across the street. A red-haired teenage girl followed close behind him.
