Song of My Heart Read online

  “Faith, I don’t think you’re listening.” Tess pulled her to a stop by a low wood fence.

  Tess Maguire had befriended her the moment she got off the train. In fact, she’d helped Abby get the Harvey Girl position. Abby liked to think they were friends. But real friends wouldn’t keep secrets, would they? Every time Tess called her Faith, Abby thought to correct her. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Faith was her middle name. But still, it wasn’t the truth.

  “Yes, Tess, I do hear you. You think Mr. O’Flagherty is one fine specimen of man and you would be willing to marry him if he asked.” She grinned at her friend.

  Predictably, Tess’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, but no words came out. Abby burst into laughter, and Tess joined her.

  One fine specimen of man was an expression the girls used at work to refer to the wide variety of male customers more intent on wooing them than ordering a meal. While Mr. O’Flagherty hadn’t exactly been wooing her, he had been at the restaurant every day she worked. He always sat in her section, even if he had to wait when other sections had openings. But like her? Abby couldn’t see why, for she’d given him no encouragement.

  “Go on with you. You know I have no intentions of marrying, ever,” Tess sobered long enough to say. “You, on the other hand, have had proposals from the lowliest cowboy clear up to the sheriff. And you know Miss Taylor is just fit to be tied. Sheriff Bellows is the one whose eye she is trying to catch.” They broke into giggles again at the thought of dour-faced Miss Taylor attracting anyone’s notice.

  “She’s probably never even been kissed,” Tess said.

  “It isn’t like you have so much experience in that department, Tess Maguire,” Abby retorted.

  Tess sighed. “I know. Don’t you think about it, though—some man kissing you and making you feel all gooey inside?”

  “Gooey? That doesn’t sound appealing at all.”

  “Say what you want, but someday a man will kiss you and your toes will curl right up.” They both laughed harder at Tess’s prediction.

  “Actually,” Abby said, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, “I’m not going to marry, either. I have grand plans, you know.” She twirled around in a circle, holding her skirt to both sides. It felt good to be carefree, if only for a few minutes.

  “And what grand plans might they be?” Tess asked, eyes wide and curious.

  Abby stopped dancing and came over to the rail fence, crossing her arms upon the top and laying her head sideways. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Oh, of course.” Tess mimicked Abby’s stance.

  “You know the ink and paper I purchase?” At Tess’s nod, she continued. “Well, I am composing.”

  Tess looked confused. “Composing what—a letter? You’ve purchased paper more than once. It must be an extremely long letter.”

  “No, silly. I’m composing a concerto—a musical composition for an orchestra to play. It is my fondest wish to perform professionally with a full symphony.”

  Tess’s voice dropped to a whisper, even though no one came along the dirt road. “Why is this a great, dark secret? I’d always thought ladies of your standing were taught music from a very young age.” Abby hadn’t told Tess everything about her reasons for leaving Boston, but her friend knew some of her background.

  “Aye, up to a point. My mother even hired private tutors for me and I had lessons spilling out my ears. But recently, I found she’d only cultivated my musical ability in hopes it would make me more marketable for a marriage she would arrange.”

  “Oh my, that’s terrible! Why, people quit arranging marriages years ago.” Tess was clearly outraged on Abby’s behalf. “Didn’t they?”

  “Even if they didn’t, everyone’s not suited for marriage. I prefer to think of myself on a concert stage, accepting accolades from huge audiences for my concertos. If there ever is to be a husband, he shall stand docilely off stage, dreamy-eyed over my success and willing to give up his life for me and my accomplishments.” Abby had never spoken her dreams aloud. In doing so, she realized they sounded rather cold-hearted.

  “That sounds, well, a little selfish, if you don’t mind me saying so. What about love?”

  Abby shrugged. “Mary Wollstonecraft wrote that ‘love as an heroic passion, like genius, appears but once in an age’. Be that the case, I doubt seriously that love will find me here in the wilds of Kansas. It would surely appear in a form other than a drunken cowboy.” She giggled, lightening the mood.

  Tess shook her head. “You are far better read than I, for you’re always quoting someone or the other. I assume this Mary person is another of your feminists?”

  Abby nodded, scanning the green pasture beyond the fence. She had only begun to speak of her views recently and still felt somewhat shy espousing her thoughts on the subject of feminism. She certainly wasn’t as outspoken as Susan B. Anthony. She decided to change the subject. “It is truly too fair a day to return to that dreary dormitory.”

  “You know what will happen if we don’t appear at the stroke of six for our supper. Rules are rules.” Tess mimicked Miss Parker, the matron in charge of the Harvey Dormitory for Women. “I have it.” She snapped her fingers. “I know how we can settle whether we’re to marry or not. Let’s see what the daisy has to say.” Tess pushed open a narrow gate, pointing to a pool of flowers sprouting beneath a tall tree. Tess tended to get stuck on a notion and worry it to death before she was done.

  “I don’t know, Tess. This fence was probably made to keep people out. Besides, how is a flower going to foretell our futures?”

  She looked at her friend, with her short brown hair and laughing brown eyes. Tess knew so much about life and she told the most wonderful stories from her childhood. Abby was her senior by six years but some days felt so much younger. Tess knew about the world in a way that Abby’s study of Renaissance poets and world-renowned musicians could never match.

  “Faith, where have you been all your life?” She inched through the opening. “You simply close your eyes and grasp for a bunch of daisies. The number you pick is the number of years left before you marry.”

  Tess hiked up her skirts and ran the distance to the daisies, bent to pick some and, quick as a wink, she was back through the gate, holding open her hand and gasping to catch her breath.

  “There, see? I picked five and a half, if you count this little, smashed one. That’s almost six years—a future so distant as to not even count.”

  “Most certainly. And let’s see, by that time you would be the very old age of twenty-four. Certainly a spinster.”

  “I will not be old,” Tess protested.

  Abby just laughed.

  “Now it’s your turn.”

  “I really don’t think a flower—”

  “Are you afraid of finding out that perhaps Mr. O’Flagherty, right here in Topeka, might end up being more than a whistle-stop?”

  It was a dare, impossible to ignore. “I shall remember this day, Tess Maguire. When I do not marry in however many years your daisies say, I shall find you, wherever you are, and gloat.”

  She strolled across the pasture, head down as she picked her way past the odorous cow chips deposited here and there.

  “Faith!”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” She waved her hand without turning around, afraid of stepping where she most definitely shouldn’t.

  Reaching the tree, Abby surveyed the bed of flowers, trying to find a generous patch before she actually closed her eyes.

  “Oh, Faith, hurry!”

  Ignoring her friend’s repeated shouts, Abby closed her eyes, mentally visualizing the area that overflowed with daisies. What she failed to notice was how close she stood to the tree, and when she bent over, she cracked her head on the rough trunk and went down in a heap.

  “Oh, dear God, save her!”

  Tess’s tearful cries reached her through the ringing in her ears. She lifted a hand, feeling the lump already forming on her forehead. She shouted at Tess to be
quiet. Then she heard a snort.

  She turned in the direction of yet another, much louder snort. Her words stuck in her throat. Off to her left, at a distance too almighty close, stood a gentleman cow of the largest proportions. Abby scrambled to her feet, never taking her eyes off the animal.

  The beast snorted and pawed the earth. Then it lowered its head before taking a step, then another, straight for her.

  Chapter Two

  “Run!” Tess hollered from the other side of the fence.

  “No, don’t run. It will make him charge you.” Another voice, male and somehow familiar, came on the heels of Tess’s command.

  Abby couldn’t stop staring at the beast to see who had come upon them in her finest hour. It didn’t matter, for once she was dead beneath this huge animal’s hooves, embarrassment over being caught in someone’s pasture was a moot point.

  “Very slowly come away from the tree and start walking toward the fence.” The voice was closer this time. Her legs refused to move as the man instructed.

  “Move, Miss O’Brien, now!” Just as the urgent command came, the beast began moving toward her. Not running, exactly, but definitely faster than she would wish.

  Petrified, she inched away from the tree, clutching her skirts in her fists to give her feet room to move. The animal tossed its head as though trying to decide who to run down first—her or her would-be rescuer.

  Abby took several steps before she dared glance over her shoulder to see how far she was from the fence. Why did it appear so much farther than when she’d ventured into the pasture? She turned, catching sight of Mr. O’Flagherty, standing not far from her, stripping off his plaid coat.

  It didn’t say much for Abby’s mental state at the moment to be so overwhelmed by the sight of his white shirt stretched tight over broad shoulders. Even when she was in mortal danger, the sight of him stopped her in her tracks.

  Thundering hooves brought her out of her trance. Mr. O’Flagherty yelled. He held his coat by the sleeves and waved it off to the side, away from her, trying to attract the animal’s attention. Heart in her throat, her breath coming in gasps, she turned and raced for the opening where Tess had pushed the gate wide.

  Everything happened in slow motion. She saw Tess jump up and down, her mouth moving, but no words reached her. Her legs felt leaden and her side hurt as she propelled herself forward. Her heart pounded painfully and her lungs burned. Regret formed half-thoughts in her mind and she hoped something in her belongings would tell Tess where to send her remains.

  “Augh!” What little breath she had was knocked out of her when something struck her from behind. She was thrown rapidly through the gate, strong arms circling her waist.

  The force of their fall rolled them over more than once. Abby came to a stop facedown on a rapidly heaving chest, harsh gasps loud in her ears. When she lifted her gaze, she stared into the clearest, bluest, most perfect eyes she had ever seen. Fringed by short black lashes, the eyes blinked once, then little lines fanned out from the corners.

  Abby’s gaze swept past a nose that looked to have been broken before to wide cheekbones and a mouth tilted in a sensual grin. Even now that the danger had past, her breath caught. She wondered if it had to do so much with fright of the beast in the pasture or the very different type of beast beneath her.

  “I had no idea, Faith O’Brien,” he whispered, his breath fanning her hot cheeks, “that you held such tender feelings toward me.” The lips broke into a wide grin.

  At his comment, Abby realized she was making no effort to get off him. More embarrassing yet, she’d been wondering what those lips would feel like against her own.

  “Oh, dear.” Her face burned with embarrassment while she struggled to wiggle free from the mountain of man she lay upon.

  “Are you all right?” Tess tried to help her up, but it only tangled Abby’s skirts beneath her feet. Before she knew it, all three of them were on the ground, Tess sprawled across Mr. O’Flagherty’s chest and Abby sitting on his lap. Or it would have been his lap had he been sitting rather than prone.

  Another groan escaped, and judging from Mr. O’Flagherty’s face, he was feeling rather uncomfortable. Abby rolled onto her hands and knees, trying very hard to remove herself without touching him more than necessary. She pushed herself upright, looking anywhere but at the man’s long legs, encased in snug-fitting trousers. She had never been in such intimate proximity to a man before, and it was most unnerving.

  Tess had also extracted herself, and Mr. O’Flagherty finally rose to his feet. When embarrassment passed and she glanced his way to express her thanks, she found him staring at her chest.

  “Where did you get that watch?” He reached for the watch she wore on a chain about her neck, and his fingers accidentally brushed her breast.

  Abby screeched and jumped back, grabbing Tess’s arm. She stopped just short of hiding behind her friend. Outraged, she glared at him. “I beg your pardon!”

  Tess stepped in front of her. “I apologize for my friend’s abruptness, sir, but she has had a rather bad experience and needs a moment to recover.” Her words momentarily stopped his advance. He stood, gaping, staring first at Tess and then at her. She knew the exact moment Tess’s words registered.

  “She has had a bad experience?” His words rolled like thunder across the short distance. “What the hell? If she,” he paused to emphasize the word by poking a finger toward Abby, “hadn’t been such a hare-brain being in a pasture with a bull, she wouldn’t have had a bad experience. And neither would I.”

  “I didn’t ask for you to rescue me.”

  “Since you do not have the brains God gave a goose, someone should be watching out for you,” he shot right back.

  He was right, though Abby would die before she admitted it. She should never have been in the pasture in the first place. She watched him slap his hat against his leg then plop it onto his head. His hair drooped over his eyes and he rearranged it with a quick hand.

  “What were you doing on this road?” Abby asked. “Were you following us?”

  “I was only out for an afternoon stroll when I saw you both up ahead and thought to escort you home.”

  “It’s surely a good thing you did,” Tess said.

  “I am sorry,” Abby said. He seemed sincere, so the least she could do was apologize.

  He again stared at her watch before meeting her gaze. “It cost me a good jacket.” Abby was somehow glad the anger had left his voice.

  At his comment, Tess giggled. Both Abby and Mr. O’Flagherty turned to where she pointed. The gentleman cow, now placidly grazing, wore Mr. O’Flagherty’s plaid coat draped across one horn and its shoulders.

  Abby pressed a hand to her lips. Surely it wasn’t funny that the animal had gotten close enough to tear the jacket from Mr. O’Flagherty’s hands.

  “To tell the truth, sir, I would find that no great loss. I believe it suits the animal better than it did you.” Tess’s statement, while true, caused Abby to gasp. One just didn’t insult a gentleman’s taste in clothing.

  Mr. O’Flagherty didn’t take it poorly, for he threw back his head and laughed. The rich, deep sound of it shimmered through Abby clear to her toes.

  “Aye, you are right, young lady, but the loss thereof now prohibits me from walking you both the rest of the way home. I’m sure no gentleman worth his salt appears at the door of the Harvey House dormitory in his shirt sleeves.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Tess exclaimed. “We can’t be late for supper. Good-bye, kind sir, and thank you again for saving my friend’s life.” Tess grabbed her wrist and they ran down the road.

  Abby chanced a look over her shoulder. Mr. O’Flagherty still stood in the middle of the road, hands on hips, staring after them. She could almost feel his gaze piercing her mind, trying to learn her secrets. Please, let him be an ordinary man, she thought. I don’t want to run away again.

  Once they stormed up the steps onto the porch, Tess released Abby’s wrist, and they both stopped
to catch their breath. They dared not enter Miss Parker’s dining room all in a dither.

  “Oh, my, wasn’t that just the most wonderful experience?” Tess giggled. “I told you he liked you. Why else would he have risked his very life to keep that beast away from you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Didn’t you hear him? Anyone would have felt compelled to save an idiotic person such as myself.” Abby shook her head at Tess’s version of the day. She thought about the way the man had stared at her, about the blue of his eyes when she’d been lying on his chest. There was definitely something strange about the redheaded Irishman. “It was most certainly not a wonderful experience.”

  “We shall see,” Tess prophesied, taking her arm and drawing her into the house. “The daisies will tell the tale.”

  Abby had forgotten about the folktale, but at Tess’s words, she slowly uncurled her fingers. Her heart pounded. Only one wilted flower lay in her palm.

  * * *

  She had his brother’s watch.

  Max tore off the crooked wig and peeled off the mustache while he paced the confines of the train car. Although he hadn’t gotten close enough to be certain, it appeared an exact duplicate of the watch he now pulled from his pocket.

  The engraving on the front was of a three-masted schooner named the Majestic, which his grandfather Markham had owned. Max’s mother had been a twin, and on her sixteenth birthday, her father had given her and her sister, his Aunt Elizabeth, watches engraved with the saying “You will always know one another’s heart”.

  Max remembered as a child asking his mother what that meant, but she said only that one day he would understand. When Max and Monty had turned sixteen, their father gave them identical watches, their legacy from a mother who had died three years earlier.

  When they were young boys, Monty and he had shared each other’s pain and joy in ways only twins could. As an adult, he instinctively knew whenever Monty was in trouble. Like now, except this time, Faith O’Brien was somehow involved.