The Rugged Road to a Bride’s Heart (Preview)

Chapter One

New York City, New York

Spring 1876

“But Livvy, why do we have to go if you don’t want to?”

Olivia glanced away from the window to eye her eleven-year-old sister sitting on the bed, legs swinging. “I’ve told you, Sadie—because I’m engaged to be married to Mister Jacobs and he lives in Texas.”

“But you’ve never even met him!”

Olivia turned back to the window. “I know, but the engagement was arranged by Uncle Harris.”

“But why can’t we live with Uncle Harris?”

“His house is already crowded enough.”

How could she tell her little sister what Uncle Harris had told her, and none too politely at that, that she and her younger sister were not his responsibility? She didn’t even think the stuffy older man even cared much for either of them. 

Yet she also knew that Uncle Harris had his own wife, mother-in-law, and seven children to provide for. For the past five years, since their parents died, she and Sadie had been shuffled from relative to relative. For the past two, they had been living with their maternal grandmother, until she’d passed away merely a month ago, leaving twenty-year-old Olivia and her little sister without hope.

“Why did grandmother have to die?”

Olivia frowned at Sadie. “Grandmother Penelope was very old, Sadie. It was her time.”

“I don’t want to move.”

Olivia held back a sigh and turned back to the window. She didn’t want to move either. She would miss this view from her grandmother’s home on a bluff in Brooklyn Heights. Her bedroom window overlooked south Manhattan, the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge. Three- masted sailing ships, fishing trawlers, and ferry boats navigated the East River far below. The backdrop of beautifully green Battery Park made her smile. She would miss the noise of the dray wagons, the trolleys, the clop of horses and wagons, and the shouts of vendors and newspaper boys. She would even miss the clang and horns of ships as they approached the slips along the north pier.

With a sigh she turned back to the bed, reaching up to clasp the silver heart-shaped locket on its chain around her neck, the heart resting just beneath the notch in her throat. 

She eyed their two carpet bags, trying to tamp down, or if she were lucky, ignore her fear altogether. She reached for a shirtwaist, her hands trembling with the weight of the impending journey and marriage to a man she’d never met, a man thirty years her senior, or so her uncle had told her just yesterday when she’d thought to ask. While she and her sister didn’t have nearly as many clothes as some their age, they still had too much to pack into two carpet bags, but those were the instructions they had been given. Her future husband had assured Uncle Harris that they’d be able to replenish their wardrobes upon arrival in Texas.

Texas. A place a world away. Her entire life now stuffed into a single carpet bag, her sister’s into another.

“But how does Uncle Harris know the man you’re going to marry if he lives all the way in Texas?”

“I’m not sure,” Olivia sighed. “I think I heard him mention once that he knew him when he was younger, that Mister Jacobs used to live in New York City when he was very young. Now Mister Jacobs owns a cattle ranch in Texas.”

Sadie stopped swinging her legs and watched Olivia fold her shirtwaist and then roll it as tightly as she could before placing it into the carpet bag. “Why would Uncle Harris promise you in marriage to a man that you don’t know, that he might not even know very well any longer?”

“We can’t afford to live here anymore, Sadie,” Olivia replied. She tried to hold onto her patience. “Even my job at the textile factory wouldn’t earn me enough money to put a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes on our backs. And we can’t stay here anymore. The bank now owns grandmother’s house, and Uncle Harris doesn’t have any room in his. So let’s just make the best of this, shall we?”

Texas. The word filled her with a sense of dread: a wild place filled with wild people who lived rough out on the frontier. She wasn’t sure which scared her more, marrying Thomas Jacobs, a much older rancher, or living so far away from civilization. 

Sadie’s legs began to swing again, a smile curving her lips as her eyes widened. “We’re going to have an adventure, Livvy, an honest-to-goodness adventure, like those books you read to me at night when I was little!”

Olivia forced a smile as she glanced at her sister. “Yes. An adventure.” 

Personally, Olivia almost felt sick to her stomach. The thought of making this upcoming journey made her feel anxious. She had no idea what to expect and she didn’t like that. She wished she could share Sadie’s outlook, but the thought of marrying an old man who lived on the frontier? No, this was the furthest from what her ideas of her marriage would be like. No courtship, no dances, no walks in the park, no words of love shared between the two of them. She was marrying a stranger and the thought filled her with dread.

“Will we get to ride horses?”

“I don’t know, Sadie, probably.” She thought about it. “It’s not like they have trolleys out there on the plains of Texas.” 

“Are there wild Indians out there?”

She paused in the middle of folding and rolling a skirt. “I think the Indian wars are over and they live on reservations now.”

Sadie was silent for several minutes, only the sound of her shoes rhythmically banging into the iron bed frame and grating on Olivia’s nerves, but she held her temper. Though she was terrified, she didn’t want to dampen Sadie’s excitement. One of them being afraid was enough.

“You think we’ll see a buffalo?” Sadie turned to ask. “I saw a picture of one in a book.”

Olivia stopped what she was doing and moved around the bed to sit down next to her sister. The bed springs squeaked loudly as she settled, placing an arm around Sadie’s shoulders. “I can imagine we’ll see a lot of things that we’ve never seen before.” She glanced down at Sadie’s dark blond hair and tucked a stray strand behind her ear. “It’s going to be very different than the life we’ve lived here in the city.”

“How so?” Sadie asked with a raised eyebrow.

Olivia shrugged. “I can imagine there’s fewer stores, less people, and they’re spread out more. I’ve read that some of those ranches out there are so big that it would take you a day to ride from one end to the other, maybe even two.”

Sadie pursed her lips. “I read one of Travis’s stories the other day—”

Olivia frowned. “You mean one of those dime novels that the boys from school read?”

Sadie nodded. “It was about outlaws and gunfights…” She looked up at Sadie. “Do you think we’ll see outlaws and gunfights?”

Olivia wished that her little sister wasn’t quite so audacious. She had learned, second hand of course, that her  sister’s zest for intrigue, adventure, and her inquisitive nature were among the reasons why Uncle Harris had declined to take them in. 

It wasn’t that Sadie was a troublemaker, far from it. She was just terribly curious about everything around her. Uncle Harris expected little girls to act like little girls, which meant they should be silent if not spoken to. The thought of traveling away from New York City and into the Wild West by train didn’t seem to bother her sister one bit. Olivia wished she felt the same.

“Will we?”

She glanced down. “I certainly hope not.” She gazed somberly at her sister. “I need you to listen to me, Sadie. I know you think that we’re going on a grand adventure, but New York City is a far cry from Selby, Texas.”

“I know it will be different, Livvy, but it won’t be so bad, will it? We’ll still be together, won’t we?”

“Yes, we’ll still be together. I promise.”

Olivia smiled, tucking her sister close and resting her chin atop her head. That was the most important thing, wasn’t it? When Uncle Harris had arranged this marriage, she had insisted that her uncle tell this man she was supposed to marry that she would never leave her younger sister behind and if he wanted to marry her, he would have to take her younger sister in the bargain. Thomas Jacobs had agreed. That was something, wasn’t it? That gave her some indication that the man was a decent sort, didn’t it?

“Then we’ll be going on this grand adventure together.” Sadie paused. “But I still don’t understand one thing.”

“What’s that?” Olivia asked, releasing her sister and turning back to the task of packing.

“Why did you agree to marry Mister Jacobs if you don’t want to? We don’t have to live in Grandma’s house. We can both get a job at the factory. We could live in a tenement—”

“Enough, Sadie,” Olivia broke in gently. “I want more for you than that.” Though she didn’t want to leave the city, she also knew that prospects here were poor for single women her age who carried with them a lack of work experience, let alone a child. 

She tried to force some cheer into her voice. “Why, we’ll have some elbow room out there, and from what I hear, the sky goes on forever, no huge cities and buildings that block the views. It’s not crowded either. I’ve heard that some towns are so small you can walk from one end to the other in just a few minutes. Can you imagine that?”

Sadie grinned. “How big is Selby?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask, but from what Uncle Harris said, it’s southwest of Dallas, which is one of the larger cities in Texas now.” She glanced at her sister. “Do you know that I read in the paper the other day that Dallas lights its streets with gas lamps and they cover their dirt roads, at least in the center of town, with bricks?” 

She tried to remember everything she’d read. “It’s quite a large city, by western standards, I suppose. There’s a river running past the city too, just like here. It’s called the Trinity.”

Sadie frowned. “But we’re not going to live in the city but on a ranch, with horses and cattle and all kinds of animals.”

Olivia shrugged. “That’s what Uncle Harris said. The man I’m going to marry is a cattle rancher and he raises a lot of cattle, so much so that every year he drive some of them up to Oklahoma.”

“Is he rich?”

“I don’t know, Sadie. There’s a lot of things I don’t know.” She moved around the bed. “Now let me get to packing. You go through your things one more time. There’s not enough room in your carpet bag for all that. Pick out one nice dress for Sunday, and a couple of day dresses, underthings, stockings, and—”

“I can bring Knobby, can’t I?”

Olivia glanced up. Knobby. She smiled when she saw Sadie holding the old multi-piece wooden toy their father had carved for Sadie when she was four years old. The toy was a small dog, carved in three pieces that were linked together by small dowels. It used to have wheels under the legs but they’d fallen off a long time ago.

“Of course you can,” Olivia smiled, her heart aching. Their parents had died five years ago in a trolley accident. Sadie had only been six years old and Olivia had just turned fifteen. 

Every day she thought of her parents. Every day that ache of loss surrounded her, as did the sudden burden of responsibility of taking care of her little sister, making sure that they had a roof over their head.

If it hadn’t been for Grandmother Penelope, she didn’t know what might’ve happened to them, didn’t even want to think about it. Now with Penelope gone and no living and increasingly distant relatives willing to take on the two of them, it was up to her. 

Up until they came to live with their grandmother, Olivia had worked in a textile factory. After they moved here, she had found work a few afternoons every week in the kitchen of a neighborhood restaurant, washing dishes. Other than that, she had no work skills. She couldn’t sew, didn’t have a teaching certificate, wasn’t very good with numbers or figures, and so…

And so, we’ll soon be leaving for the wilds of Texas, she thought with a sigh. 

Traveling into the unknown with her little sister who counted on her to keep her safe. Olivia could only hope and pray that everything turned out all right, that her new husband was a decent man who would treat her and her little sister with kindness. Beyond that, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what her future looked like.

“Livvy—”

“No more questions for now, Sadie, please.” She blinked back tears. “Let’s just get packing, all right? We need to be ready to leave as soon as our escort arrives to take us to Texas.”

Sadie stopped tapping her feet and glanced at Olivia. “You mean the man you’re going to be marrying isn’t coming to get you himself?”

“No.” 

The man she was going to be spending the rest of her life with didn’t care enough to come pick her up himself and take her back to his home. She tried not to be hurt or offended. “He’s a busy man, Sadie, running a cattle ranch. He’s sending someone from his ranch to get us, or at least that’s what Uncle Harris told me.” She glanced at the clothes scattered over the bed. “And he’s supposed to arrive any day now, so we’d better be ready.”

“Humph!” Sadie snorted.

Though Olivia didn’t resort to a snort, she felt much the same. In fact, if she had her druthers—

A loud knock on the front door downstairs interrupted her train of thought. 

“Now what?” she grumbled. She certainly hoped it wasn’t someone from the bank to remind her they were supposed to have been out days ago. 

For goodness’ sake! 

More than a little anxious and perturbed, she hurried downstairs, across the small foyer, and flung open the front door—and then simply stared. 

 

Chapter Two

Wesley couldn’t wait to get out of New York City. He’d only arrived a few hours ago, but the moment he’d left Texas, he’d already missed the wide-open prairies and blue skies. He’d had to take a detour into Kansas due to damaged railway lines, which lengthened his travel time to New York City by three days. He was already short on temper and patience.

This city had too many people, too much noise, and too much activity. He wished that Thomas, his boss and mentor, had chosen someone else to come pick up his future bride. Now, here he was, knocking on the door of a narrow house crowded on each side by others, where his boss’s fiancée and her little sister lived. All he knew was that they’d been kicked out by the bank that was taking over their grandmother’s property for back taxes or missed payments or something. He couldn’t remember exactly what Thomas had told him.

When the door opened and he saw the young and pretty woman whose auburn hair had been piled into one of those soft bun-like arrangements, he idly wondered how someone who was being kicked out of a house for unpaid debts could afford a maid. 

Her wide and somewhat alarmed dark blue eyes threatened to pull him into their depths. He blinked, twice, and then noticed delicate features, though her jaw dropped for a second before she recovered. He wasn’t exactly sure about her height, but he stood just over six feet tall and her head barely came to his shoulder.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked in a calm yet wary tone. “Are you from the bank, because if you are, we’re not ready to leave just yet.”

“What?” Wesley frowned. “No, I’m not from the bank—”

“Look, whatever you’re selling, I don’t want or need it.”

The door began to close. He was so startled, his reactions were slower than they should’ve been. He barely got his boot past the threshold to prevent the door from closing. Was this how people behaved in the city? If it was, he wanted nothing to do with any of them.

The door swung halfway open, the woman glaring up at him with an open mouth and flushed cheeks. “How dare—”

“Does Olivia Patterson live here?”

The woman’s frown deepened with suspicion. “Who wants to know?” 

He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, prompting her to take a step back, eyes widening even more as she did so. “I do. Are you always so rude to people who knock on your door?” 

Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “Who are you?” she demanded.

He was tired from the journey, hungry, and not in the mood for this city or this young woman preventing him from doing his job. “I’m here to see Olivia Patterson. Is she in?”

Before the woman could answer, a child appeared behind her and looked up at him in obvious curiosity. She eyed his clothes, from the somewhat worn wide-brimmed hat he held in one hand by his side, to his sun-faded blue shirt and leather vest, worn dungarees and scuffed boots. His saddlebags and a bedroll were slung over his shoulder. The little girl’s eyes grew bigger by the second.

“Are you a cowboy?” the kid asked.

He blinked and glanced at the woman. “Is Olivia Patterson here or not?”

“That’s Livvy,” the kid said, practically shoving herself in front of the woman, forcing the door open a little wider. 

“Sadie—”

“She’s Olivia. My sister. Are you a cowboy?”

He glanced from the girl, who seemed to be somewhere around ten years of age, back to the pretty woman warily eyeing him. This was Olivia Patterson? 

She certainly wasn’t what he expected when Thomas had sent him to pick up his fiancée. While Thomas had told him that the woman he was marrying was younger than him, he’d expected the bride to be at least in her mid-thirties or perhaps early forties. Thomas Jacobs was in his early fifties, though he didn’t look it. The woman standing before him now with that cross expression didn’t look much more than twenty years old. 

He frowned. “You’re Olivia Patterson.”

She lifted her chin. “Yes I am. And you are?”

He didn’t necessarily want to start out on the wrong foot when it came to his boss’s new wife, but couldn’t quite understand why he felt so surprised. She might be rude, but she was surprisingly lovely. She wore a simple, long-sleeved dress with a high collar. A heart-shaped locket dangled around her neck.

He finally remembered his manners. “The name’s Wesley, ma’am. Wesley Morgan. I’m here to escort you to Texas.”

The woman’s eyes, though it seemed impossible, widened even more. “Now? I was told you weren’t expected to arrive until the end of the week!”

He shrugged. “Well, I’m here now.”

“But…” After a moment, she sighed and stepped back. “Come in.”

While the young woman had stepped back, the kid hadn’t. Wesley had to step around her. He frowned down at her. “It’s not polite to stare, you know.”

To his surprise, the child grinned and then glanced over his shoulder at Olivia. “My sister tells me that all the time, but I couldn’t help it. Sorry. I’ve never seen a real live cowboy before.” She took a breath, her eyes glistening with excitement and cheeks flushed. “You don’t smell like horse poo and you don’t have a beard or long hair—”

“Sadie!”

 The child looked at her sister, hands on her hips. “Well, that’s how cowboys are described in the dime novels, though most of them don’t say poo. They say—”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read, kid.”

Again he was surprised when the little girl grinned up at him once more and stuck out her hand, offering a very slight curtsy. “My name’s not kid, Mister Morgan. It’s Sadie. Sadie Patterson. I’m almost eleven years old and that’s my big sister, Olivia, but I mostly call her Livvy. Except when she gets upset with me and then I call her Olivia.”

Wesley wasn’t quite sure what to make of the kid – Sadie – but he gave her hand a quick shake and then turned to face her older sister. “How long will it take you to finish packing?” He tried not to frown. “How many trunks are you gonna bring with you?” 

In his experience, women didn’t travel anywhere without a trunk or two, although heaven only knew why they thought that they needed so many clothes.

“We’re not bringing any trunks, Mister Morgan,” she replied crisply. “Just two carpet bags, as my Uncle Harris instructed. He was told by Mister Jacobs that we weren’t to bring more than a carpetbag for each of us.”

Wesley frowned. That didn’t sound like Thomas. Not at all, but he didn’t want to get in a debate with the woman. Though she had spoken softly, he heard the defensive edge to her voice. 

“Well, that’s a nice change of pace,” he mumbled. 

He wasn’t at all sure how this woman’s presence on the ranch would change things on the spread. It all depended on what kind of person she was. He supposed he just had to wait and see. Because he didn’t know her at all, Wesley figured it would be best to give her the benefit of the doubt. 

Still, first impressions count, don’t they? He thought. 

Well, he’d be honest with himself then. She was pretty, he could see that with his own two eyes.  She had spunk. Along with a somewhat standoffish personality. Both of which surprised and displeased him at the same time. 

“How long will it take you to finish packing?”

Her back stiffened and arms crossed over her chest as she lifted her chin. “I suppose we can be finished packing by morning.”

She said they were only bringing two carpet bags, so he didn’t imagine that she had that much to pack, so why it would take the rest of the day, he couldn’t imagine. One thing he did know, however, from past experience, was that women could not be rushed. 

Thomas’s first wife had been like that. The moment she felt rushed she got all flustered and hurt and teary-eyed. Even so, he had liked Margaret. She’d passed on nearly eight years ago, two years after Wesley started working for Thomas Jacobs on the TJ cattle ranch. Jacobs hired him on when he was just thirteen years old. 

Now, thirteen years later, Wesley felt he owed the man. Thomas had taught him everything he knew about life as a rancher, about cattle, and about cattle drives. He owed him everything, including his life, which was the only reason why he hadn’t outright refused to travel to New York City to pick up his new bride.

“Fine, Miss Patterson.” He turned to leave. “I’m gonna go find a place to stay for the night.”

“Why don’t you to stay here?” Sadie said. “There’s plenty of room.”

Again he glanced at the young girl. “Thanks but—”

“You might as well,” Olivia sighed. “There’s an extra room down here off the kitchen. No sense in spending hard earned money on a room when we’ve got one.” 

Wesley didn’t miss the concerned look the woman gave her younger sister, and shook his head. “Thanks for the offer ma’am, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate—”

“Look, Mister… Morgan. I’ll be blunt. You don’t look any more pleased to be here than I am to have you here. But we might as well make the best of it. Go get your things and you can put them in the room off the kitchen. That’s where the maid used to stay.”

It made sense. “All right, thanks.”

Olivia and her sister moved back from the doorway as he stepped inside. 

In the small square foyer, Wesley gestured with open hands, then tipped his chin to the saddle bag and small bedroll slung over his shoulder. “This is what I got.” Olivia stared at him but said nothing, so he quickly moved on. “Before I leave you two alone for the evening to get some sleep, I’ll tell you how things are going to go.”

“You’re going to tell us how things are going to go?” She sounded suspicious and insulted. 

He sighed. “The journey—”

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. She gestured to a doorway to the left. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Please, let’s adjourn to the sitting room.”

Adjourn? 

For the first time Wesley took a quick look around. The house was narrow, with one room on each side of a hallway that ran from the front door to a door in the back. Though it was barely midafternoon, it was dark inside, even with the curtains open. As he stepped inside the sitting room, he noticed a few pieces of outdated and faded furniture. On the wall opposite the door stood a brick fireplace.  Daguerreotypes hung on the walls on either side of the chimney. 

Olivia slumped into an overstuffed, high-backed, and upholstered chair while gesturing for him to sit on the small sofa opposite. He sat on the edge of the seat, feeling awkward. The kid sat on the other side of the sofa, staring at him.

“Anyway, like I was saying, the train will leave the city first thing in the morning. I checked the route.” He eyed them both. “There’s several stops and changes along the way until we get down into Kansas. That’s where we’ll have to take a little detour due to the railway troubles I dealt with on the way here. We’ll have to take a stagecoach the rest of the way.”

“A stagecoach?” Olivia asked.

She looked dismayed. Had he misjudged her? Was she going to complain the entire way about the lack of comforts or amenities? 

He knew that wasn’t fair of him, but at the moment he felt too irritable to hold back. “Yes, a stagecoach, Miss Patterson. You don’t know anything about the frontier, do you? It’s not like we have trolleys and trains that go everywhere.”

She seemed crestfallen. “I didn’t say I knew much.”

He didn’t like the sudden look of hurt she got in her eyes. He barely restrained himself from rolling his. 

City folks. How she had managed to get herself hitched to his boss he didn’t know and he didn’t care, or so he told himself, no matter how unsettled he felt at the moment. 

She was so young. So…city. She had no idea what she was getting into, did she? Did she even know that her prospective groom was in his fifties? Did she know that the ranch was at least ten miles from the nearest town? Did she even know how to ride a horse? It doesn’t matter, he told himself. She’s just another job.

“Look, Princess, I’m going to—”

“Princess?” Olivia exclaimed. “Did you just call me Princess?”

He continued, unable to stop himself, already too annoyed by his own reaction to her. “Yes. I’m going to warn you ahead of time that it’s going to be a long and rough journey ahead. And it could be dangerous too.” He glanced at Sadie. “Especially for the kid.”

Olivia stiffened again and the little girl’s eyes widened at his rough tone. He wanted to back up, to start over, but it was too late now. Besides, he wasn’t about to allow himself to be swayed by a pretty face. He needed to focus on the task at hand, which was getting the woman and her little sister to his boss. 

Wesley dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a folded timetable he’d picked up from the train station, glancing at it before looking back up. “The train leaves tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

Olivia stared at him for several moments, then glanced down at her sister and back again. “Dangerous how?”

He shrugged. “Accidents, weather, rough roads, outlaws—”

“Will I see an outlaw?”

He glanced down at the kid. “You’d better hope not.”

“But…”

“Kid, those stories you read in the dime novels, they’re just pretend, you know that?” He noted the girl’s confused look. “I’ve seen a few myself, waiting for a shave or something, and I can tell you one thing. From what I hear, whoever wrote those has never been west of the Mississippi.”

“But what about Black-Eyed Bart?”

“Never heard of him.” He turned back to Olivia. “I’m just saying be prepared for a long, bone-jarring, dusty bit of travel.” The longer he eyed these two, the more he was put out. If he didn’t owe Thomas his very life… “Don’t expect any amenities on the way, not even on the train, where, if you’re lucky, you can get a day-old cheese sandwich and an apple for an outrageous fifty cents.”

Olivia stared up at him, eyebrows raised, eyes wide in dismay. She lifted a hand and grasped the locket at the base of her throat. “Why are you telling us this… I mean right now, Mister Morgan.” She frowned. “Are you deliberately trying to scare us?”

He blinked. Well, maybe he was, a little bit, but he didn’t want to sugarcoat anything. She needed to be prepared and so did her sister. Traveling across the country by train wasn’t particularly easy or comfortable. The stagecoach would be even worse. 

“No, Miss Patterson,” he sighed. “I’m trying to prepare you. After the stagecoach, we’ll ride over to the ranch.”

“Ride?” She gaped. “You mean on horseback?”

“Yippee!” Sadie exclaimed.

“But we don’t know how to ride horses,” Olivia said.

“Then I guess you’ll have to have a real fast lesson before we start out on the last part of the journey to your new home.” With that, he glanced down the long hallway. 

A staircase hugging the wall to his right led upstairs. He pointed down the hall. “You sure you want me to stay?” He did have enough money in his pocket to pay for a bed in a cheap hotel or a room at a boarding house or something, if he could find one along any of these crowded, winding streets.

“Yes, you can stay.” She swallowed, glanced at her sister, then back at him. “Are you hungry? There’s some leftover ham and cheese in the icebox in the kitchen, and some bread under a linen towel on the kitchen counter if you want to make yourself a sandwich.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” She looked stunned. Her pulse throbbed in her throat and her fingers nervously twisted the fabric of her skirt, which he noticed for the first time was dark blue.

“Look,” he said, striving for a softer tone. “I don’t mean to be so abrupt, but…”

“What you want is for us to be prepared.” Olivia nodded once. “Yes. I understand.” She turned to her sister and held out her hand. “Come along, Sadie, let’s get back to our packing. We wouldn’t want to keep Mister Morgan waiting on us, would we?”

With that, she swept up the stairs, practically tugging Sadie along after her. The little girl looked over her shoulder, gave him a brief wave and a grin and then they were gone, only the sound of their footsteps moving quickly down the hallway ringing through the house.