Leaving Independence Read Free

circles of it with her finger, then down the rest of the name: “aldwyn.”
    “I like this ’un that goes down.” She meant the Y . “But the B is my favorite. B like in ‘Bonnie.’ My pa’s Irish and called my maw a bonnie lass. That’s how come she named me Bonnie.”
    “A half-breed Piute living in Idaho named Bonnie.” He laughed and ran a hand over his neatly trimmed beard. “You are quite the enigma.”
    “What’s that mean? I don’t have no negra blood in me.”
    He shook his head. “That’s not what it means.”
    When he got up to stir the fire, she opened the pocket flap on the jacket. A worn picture was inside.
    “Who’s this?” Bonnie frowned. “She’s awful pretty.”
    He snatched the picture from her hand. “Leave it alone, will ya? That’s my wife.”
    “Your wife? I thought you said you wasn’t married no more.”
    He looked at the picture, drinking in the neat outline of Abigail’s blond hair and the dark-rimmed eyes he knew to be deep blue. She was a beautiful woman and God knew he’d rather have her than Bonnie reaching across him under a horsehair blanket. But he wasn’t going back to Tennessee. He preferred the freedom of the life he had now.
    He put the picture in his pocket.
    “It’s complicated.”

CHAPTER 2
    Trains leaving Independence
    As they stood in the kitchen, Mimi pointed the rolling pin at Abigail.
    “I know you don’t want to go ask Mr. Walstone for them ready resources, but I’d say it’s time.” She stretched over the table and rolled out the biscuit dough.
    Abigail looked out the window. Her mind was sore from trying to think of alternatives to asking her father for help.
    “I was mighty proud when you married Mr. Robert.”
    Abigail turned back to the table and watched Mimi pat the flattened dough with loving hands. When they were kids, Abigail and Mimi would lay their hands together and marvel at how, on the inside, their hand color was the same—pink and pale.
    “He was the only one of all them suitors who would’ve done for you.”
    “I did not have a lot of suitors, Mimi.”
    “Why you always actin’ like you don’t know how fine you are? When you goin’ to realize people admire you?”
    “Boys came to the house because of—”
    “Your brothers.” Mimi sniffed and reached for the biscuit cutter. “No, they did not. They may’ve acted like that was why, but they did not. And they was almighty disappointed when Mr. Robert showed up and caught your eye, especially that Hadley Wiles. I know you know how love-struck he was.”
    “Let’s not talk about him.” Thoughts of an embittered father and a husband who had left her desperate were bad enough. She didn’t want to think about the former suitor who made her skin crawl, too.
    “Robert Baldwyn was just as foolish over you.”
    “You sure about that?”
    The fissures in Abigail’s heart cracked deeper every time she thought of Major Talbot’s letter, the contents of which she’d finally had a chance to absorb. Captain Baldwyn requested and was granted three weeks’ leave prior to his departure. It surprises me he did not report news of the transfer to you himself.
    Surprised her, too. She’d thought the letters she and Robert had exchanged after his volatile departure had mended their relationship.
    “Don’t you doubt it,” cautioned Mimi, waving the biscuit cutter. “I can’t understand him not coming home, though . . . that ain’t like Mr. Robert.” She slapped the flour off her hands as she reached for the pan. “But that don’t mean he didn’t love you.”
    The word didn’t rolled back and forth in Abigail’s head as she stepped closer to the window and looked out at the spot where the banker had poked at the icy base of the springhouse wall. Her eyes fixated just beyond that spot, on a small headstone.
    Several yellow jonquils had cracked open, front-runners after a few winter crocuses, hinting at the symphony of colors to come. She needed to clear the