Indiana Goes West (Mail Order Brides of Pioneer Town, Book 1) (3 page)

As Indiana moved to his office near the front
door, she saw that his door was closed. A quick glance through the
window revealed that he was at his desk, speaking with a man. She
would have to wait, after all.

Indiana chose a padded leather chair nearby.
She sat, crossing her legs demurely and tapping the envelope on her
raised knee as she waited. After five or so minutes, Wyatt stood
and opened the door, and Indiana got her first good look at the
other man.

It was Mr. Morgan Chase, the man she had met
at dinner. He was as attractive and handsome as ever, his jaw still
impressive and square, his eyes still kind. He shook hands with the
banker once more, and then he turned and his eyes fell on
Indiana.

“Miss White,” he said, smiling broadly and
nodding his head. He held a wide brimmed hat, the sort that cowboys
wore.

“Mr. Chase,” Indiana said, standing quickly
and hurrying forward. She remembered herself just short of leaping
into the young man’s arms, and she stopped in front of him.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I am well, thank you, sir,” she replied,
though now that she was looking into his green eyes, she was more
than fine.

“You have some business, Miss Indiana?” Wyatt
Greenfield interrupted, and for the first time in her life Indiana
was somewhat irritated by him. Not really of course, but she did
not want to stop looking at Mr. Chase.

She turned to look at the banker. “Yes, my
mother wanted me to give you this,” she said, holding out the
envelope. She had no idea of the contents.

“Come in then, please, Miss Indiana, and have
a cup of coffee with me. I need some this morning. I must confess
to oversleeping!”

Indiana smiled at Wyatt. Of course, she would
rather speak with Mr. Chase, but she had no option. She turned to
him. “Mr. Chase, It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Agreed, Miss Indiana,” Morgan said, teasing
her just ever so slightly. “I do hope I might see you again
soon.”

Indiana blushed, but Morgan turned and headed
for the bank entrance. She stepped into Wyatt’s office.

“I’ll get that coffee,” he said, hurrying out
of his office. She waited only for a few minutes. Soon Wyatt was
back, shutting the office door with his hip and setting a steaming
cup of black coffee on his desk in front of Indiana. He moved
around the desk with his own cup, and sat in his well worn
chair.

He reached to the side for a nearby platter
of sugar and cream, and then set it on the desk between himself and
Indiana. She poured cream into her coffee, stirring it with a
silver spoon, her eyes watching the white cream mix with the dark
liquid, like clouds rolling across the night sky.

Wyatt fixed his own cup with plenty of sugar
and took a sip. “Now,” Mr. Greenfield said. “How is your dear
mother?”

“She is fine, thank you,” Indiana lied. Her
mother, of course, was far from fine. As she had not produced sons,
the family’s fortune had been passed to another family of three
boys. They were Indiana’s cousins, and she liked them well enough,
but not enough that she would be forced to marry an unsuitable man
just because he was wealthy.

“And how is your lovely sister, Montana?” the
banker asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“She is well as ever, thank you,” Indiana
said, noting how Wyatt’s face lit up at the mention of her
sister.

Wyatt sipped his coffee. “And you? Everyone
always weeps for the widow, but we mustn’t forget he was your
father.”

Indiana took a moment to think. It was true.
Most callers to the mansion had been so concerned with her mother,
that hardly anyone had spoken to her or her sisters. Leave it to
the kindly banker to set that right. Indiana found the truth and
spoke it. “I’m sad, but I feel all right. I would have liked more
years with my father. He was a great man, but life doesn’t always
go by our wishes, rather by God’s.”

“Wise beyond your years,” Wyatt Greenfield
said with a smile. “I’ve always said that about you, Miss Indiana.
And you are acquainted with Mr. Chase?”

“Yes, he came to dinner recently. His uncle
was a close friend of my father’s.”

“He appears to be a most seemly gentleman,
does he not?” he said slyly.

Indiana could not help but smile. “I fear as
though you want me to confess my love to him,” she said, and this
made Wyatt erupt into laughter.

“Not at all!” he said. “I just see two young
people so keen to speak, I almost felt bad about inviting you into
my office.”

“I almost felt bad because I almost
declined,” Indiana said, and the two laughed again.

“Business calls,” the banker said, pulling
the folded letter from the envelope and reading it quickly. “Oh
dear.” He was silent for a moment and then he looked up. He set
down the letter and scribbled in a large ledger. When he was
finished, he stood and hurried to his office door. “Please wait for
one moment,” he said before he disappeared. He was gone longer this
time. When he did return, he had a small case with him, a leather
satchel with a flap lid, which was buckled closed.

“Please take this with you,” he said. “I’ve
enclosed a note to your mother. It is a loan.”

Indiana felt tears well in her eyes. “Thank
you,” she said. “You’ve always been kind to us.”

Wyatt waved away her words. “Did you come by
carriage?”

Indiana shook her head. “You know how much I
love my walks.”

“I would prefer you not to walk home alone
carrying this. Come with me,” he said, and he stood once more.

Indiana took the bag and followed Wyatt out
of his office, and then out of the bank entirely. The street was
even busier than it had been when she entered the bank. Wyatt took
her by the elbow so as to keep her close.

“I shall hire a carriage for you,” he said,
and just as his voice trailed off, the ground began to shake. It
was over as soon as it had started, but there was no mistaking it.
It had been a tremor.

“What was that?” Indiana asked. She knew the
answer, of course, but fear made her speak without thinking.

“The ground settling,” Wyatt said. “Nothing
more. Do not be alarmed.”

Yet as Indiana looked around, she saw that
she was not the only one who had been alarmed. A few people had
quickened their pace, their eyes wide, and across the street a
horse was rearing high.

“Ah!” Wyatt said, and Indiana followed his
gaze. Mr. Chase was coming up the street toward them. It was
evident that when he had left the bank, he had gone shopping, for
he carried a wrapped parcel under his arm. His hat was casting the
upper part of his face in deep shadow. Wyatt waved the man
over.

“What may I do for you, sir?” Morgan
asked.

“Miss Indiana here needs to get home, and I’d
prefer someone escort her there,” Wyatt said.

He would have said more, but Morgan held up
his hand. “Say no more,” he said with a smile. “I would be honored
to accompany the lady home.”

And with that, it was settled. Morgan offered
Indiana his arm, and the young woman took it.

Chapter 7

“You must be carrying some sort of cash for
you to need an escort, Miss White?” Morgan asked.

Indiana was taken aback by his frankness of
speech, and specifically, by his frankness about money, but she
also found it refreshing. It just went to show that Morgan was not
like most men, and certainly not like the stuffy ones who moved in
her social circles in San Francisco.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course, now that Father
has died, it’s a loan, I’m afraid.”

“Your father didn’t leave his inheritance to
you?”

Indiana laughed. “I’m not sure where you come
from, Mr. Chase,” she said, “but a man’s wealth is left to men. I’m
a woman, and I’m supposed to be supported by my own husband.”

Morgan smiled down at her. “I didn’t know you
were married, Miss White.”

Indiana frowned. “Believe me, my mother will
see to that soon enough.”

Morgan scratched his chin as they walked. “I
know I’m not in touch with the world you’re accustomed to, but
shouldn’t that be your problem?”

Indiana was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Finding a husband. Why does your mother have
a say in that?”

“She does, I’m afraid,” she said, sighing.
“She needs to make a match for me.”

The two crested a large hill which looked
down over an affluent neighborhood. In the distance Indiana could
see their mansion, large and proud on the slight rise that was Nob
Hill. They started toward the neighborhood.

“I could have gotten us a carriage,” Morgan
said.

Indiana shook her head. “I love to walk.”

“This sure is a tough city for walking,”
Morgan said, “up, down, up, down. I don’t think I’ve stepped on
level ground since I got here. It’s nothing like home.”

“Tell me about your home.” Indiana normally
would not have been so bold, but she found talking with Morgan to
be easy.

“Wyoming is the prettiest land you’ll ever
come across,” Morgan said matter of factly. “We have it all.
Sweeping plains, beautiful lakes. A tree.”

Indiana could not help but smile widely. “A
tree?”

“A tree.”

“As in one?”

“One tree! How many more does a state
need?”

“You are too much, Mr. Chase,” Indiana
managed to say between her chuckles.

Morgan tipped his hat. “If I may be permitted
to call you Miss Indiana, please just call me Morgan. That’s the
way we do things in Wyoming.”

“Very well, Morgan,” Indiana said, liking the
way his name rolled off her tongue, and at the same time feeling
quite daring for calling him by his Christian name.

“I do love Wyoming,” Morgan went on. “I love
to be out on the ranch, with the horses.”

“I’ve only ever ridden in a carriage,”
Indiana said.

“What about you? Do you like it here?” Morgan
asked.

“I do,” Indiana said. “I like the hills, and
going to the ocean. When it’s night, or dusk, that’s the best, when
the sun is sinking behind the water and everything is orange and
purple and still and beautiful.”

“It sounds nice to hear you say it, but
there’s one thing here I could do without,” Morgan said.

“What’s that?” the girl asked him.

“Those,” the man said, pointing to the
sky.

Indiana followed his gaze. Circling around,
in a group six or so strong, were seagulls. “Well, no one likes the
gulls,” she said.

“I was walking the other day, and just as I
was taking a bite of an apple, one swooped down and plucked the
thing right from my hand.”

Indiana giggled. “That sounds like a
gull.”

By then the couple had made it to the bottom
of the hill, and they were walking past grand homes. When they saw
someone, Indiana would bid them a good morning, and Morgan would
put a finger to the brim of his hat and nod his head a bit. Indiana
thought it was all rather rugged and cowboy-like. She liked it
immensely.

“So you have to tell me about your name,”
Morgan said as they headed up Nob Hill, the neighborhood in San
Francisco which was in fact a hill, five or so blocks wide and
long, and with Indiana’s family mansion in the center of it.
“Indiana is a very pretty name.”

Indiana looked up at the man. “Well, you’d
have to ask my father, and that’s impossible.”

“I am so sorry about your father,” Morgan
said.

They walked on for a while before Morgan
spoke again. “Oh, I thought of one more thing I could do without
here,” Morgan said. “It was the earthquake earlier.”

Indiana laughed. “That wasn’t a quake.”

“It felt like one to me. We don’t get those
in Wyoming.”

“It’s just the ground settling,” Indiana
said.

“I don’t need to live in a place where the
ground hasn’t already settled,” Morgan said, and the two broke into
laughter. Not once on their slow walk had Indiana pulled her arm
from her chaperone’s.

They crested the hill for which Nob Hill was
named, and cut through some side streets until they were standing
before Indiana’s mansion.

“Here you are, safe and sound, with a fortune
tucked under your arm.”

Indiana looked at Morgan. “I doubt very much
that it is a fortune. Thank you for walking with me.”

“I was honored,” Morgan said.

She finally pulled her arm from the crook of
Morgan’s, but he caught her hand and held it to his lips. When he
kissed the back of her hand, she closed her eyes, and her heart
felt as though it had skipped a beat. His lips were rough but soft
somehow at the same time. At that moment, the ground shook
again.

“Whoa!” Morgan said.

And just like before, the tremor was over as
quickly as it had started, and so was the moment between them.
Morgan bowed his head and put a finger to his hat. “Until next time
then,” he said.

When Morgan was out of sight, Indiana turned
and went inside. She found her mother in the parlor, sitting by the
fireplace, though of course no fire was burning. The woman looked
sad, tired, and older than she had looked before Indiana went out
that morning.

“Mr. Greenfield secured a loan,” Indiana
said, handing the leather satchel to her mother.

Her mother nodded. “He is a good man.”

“He is,” Indiana agreed.

“I shall be leaving for lunch. Mrs. Franklin
has invited me out to town,” her mother said.

“That will be nice,” Indiana said, “to be
with a friend.”

“She’s hardly a friend,” Indiana’s mother
snapped. “Just a woman with not enough to do who feels the need to
find a charity each week so she can feel better about herself, and
the lack of excitement and purpose in her life.”

Indiana didn’t know what to say. Instead, she
nodded to her mother and then turned and headed up to her bedroom.
She sat on a chair by the window. She wondered where Morgan was,
out in the city. They had just parted, but still he was almost all
she could think about. But what was the point of falling in love?
Her mother had promised her to Cade, and had made no more mention
of suggesting Morgan as a suitable match.