Forget Me Not (The Heart's Spring) Read Free Page A

short, certain nod. “Yes. I have to know…” She shrugged. How could she go on without meeting that piece of her past, that piece of her parents, herself? Jacob had answers. And she had to have them.
    ***
    With Elizabeth’s nod, David’s path was set. Or perhaps it was when she had said she’d been wandering aimlessly around in the canyon, desperate to come to terms with the news of her brother. Or maybe it was that sense of familiarity that wouldn’t quit nagging at his soul.
    He clasped his hands together and worked his jaw. “Where?”
    “Where what?”
    “Where is your brother?” He waited, sensing a journey.
    “Virginia City. In Nevada.”
    The bed creaked as she shifted, and the sound spurred his mind into a race. Virginia City, site of the Bonanza strike. A mining town hundreds of miles away. But didn’t the Overland Route—the transcontinental railroad—go right through there? He remembered the route from the older newspapers Frank kept around and read to him.
    He got to his feet and paced, finally kneeling down next to the fireplace and stoking the flames. Was this girl determined enough to try to get to Virginia City on her own? She would get herself killed if she continued to wander around in the mountains alone.
    But what if she ended up going home and getting her mother’s help? Maybe the woman was for Elizabeth like Frank had been for him. Maybe she would understand.
    And maybe she wouldn’t. Not all parents cared. Not all families went to great lengths—or any lengths at all—to make sure every member was counted. Remembered.
    He shoved the poker against the fireplace as he stood. Elizabeth startled, her expression wide-eyed and anxious.
    “I’ll take you.” His announcement was punctuated by the thump of a log shifting in the fire.
    Her frown seemed to pull her eyebrows down. “What?”
    “Tomorrow. If the storm’s died down, we’ll leave for Virginia City.”
    She twisted the quilt in her hands, obviously pondering his statement. With pursed lips, she cocked her head. “Why?”
    He shrugged his shoulders and shifted his weight, his heart also shifting from a feeling of rightness to one of disquiet. The fire within burned brighter and snapped louder in response. He had to find out who this girl was. He had to reunite her with her family. He had to get out of this cabin.
    “Well?”
    She jumped up and pulled the quilt back again, glancing at him as she did so. “If you’re really willing, then yes, you can take me. I’ll repay you someday. I promise.”
    Before he could wave her words away, she added, “But promise me we won’t go through Golden.” She crawled into the bed and yawned.
    The transcontinental railroad went through Wyoming Territory. Cheyenne, to be exact. They could meet the railroad there and travel straight through to Reno, not far from Virginia City. So they’d travel the Rockies north a ways. Maybe not the easiest plan, but it would give him time. For what, he wasn’t sure. To get used to the thought of leaving these mountains? Or to come to terms with these new feelings that were melting his common sense along with the walls that usually blocked out the past?
    After he checked the stove and tossed the blackened flapjacks out the door for the raccoons, he returned to the fireplace to find Elizabeth’s eyes were still open, but barely. She was waiting.
    “We’ll skip Golden,” he finally agreed. She gave him the satisfied smile of a little girl who had been told she’d get to ride a horse the next day. And she would. He smiled softly at the thought and watched as her eyes drifted shut.
    With stiff limbs, he climbed into his bedroll for the second time that night. As he fell asleep, change permeated his dreams like the smell of rising bread, growing into a mass that might consume him and alter previous ideas and plans, or blow them away entirely, like a passing cloud on the horizon.

Chapter 2
    Elizabeth woke to the sight of an empty cabin, and fear