life.
She’d waited days for the German wagons. Who knew how long it would be before more settlers passed the post heading north. She couldn’t live out here in the woods forever without someone in the small settlement noticing. She’d been lucky to find this small bend, but several times she’d heard folks watering their horses less than thirty feet away.
Six months ago, when she’d decided to run away from her father’s matchmaking scheme, she thought marrying some nitwit fish merchant twice her age whom she didn’t love would be a fate worse than death. Since she arrived in Texas, she’d reconsidered.
Rainey pulled off the red wig she’d slept in and scratched her head. The hairpiece she’d borrowed from an aging actress on the boat from New Orleans not only hurt her head, she was sure it had fleas. Hurrying to the edge of the stream, she tried her best not to swear at the latest turn of events. As if oversleeping and losing the horse wasn’t enough, now she sensed trouble at the trading post. This was not turning out to be a good day. Not that she would recognize one if it came along.
She might be an “old maid,” as her father called her constantly, but she was not without resources. From the time her parents started running an exclusive girls’ school near Washington, D.C., she’d read. Surely she’d learned something in all those years of books that would help her now.
At thirteen Rainey had taken a teaching position at her father’s school, not because of any great love of teaching, but so she could stay at school and practically live, as she always had, in the library. She’d seen enough of the way her father treated her mother to know she never wanted marriage. She thought he would pay her a rightful wage when she reached sixteen, the legal age to teach. She would save her money before heading out on her own. After all, her aunt May had left home and made it in New Orleans alone. Her letters to Rainey’s mother told of grand adventures and fascinating people. Rainey planned to do the same.
Her father, however, made other plans. On her sixteenth birthday he said she’d have to wait another year to draw a wage, but he did increase her responsibilities. At seventeen he made her head of one of the dorms but again refused her a salary, claiming that she was still a minor and therefore everything she made legally belonged to him. At eighteen her mother died and her father refused to talk to her for months. She allowed him his time. At nineteen the school made enough money for her father to build a grand house for his second wife, but he said she must stay in the dorm because it wouldn’t be proper for her to live with him and his new wife. When she turned twenty, he said she was ungrateful for all he’d done for her.
At twenty-one, when she threatened to quit if he didn’t pay her, he called her a worthless old maid. A week later he handed his plain little bookworm of a daughter over to the middle-aged widower with six children who owned the fish market. The widower didn’t seem to mind, her father had said, that she was worthless and money hungry. They’d both agreed that with a stern hand she would make a passable wife.
Rainey refused to marry and her father refused to listen. He simply said she had no other choice.
Two days before the wedding Rainey took wages for a year of work from her father’s safe and boarded a train to New Orleans.
She fought back tears as memories came back raw as ever. Her father had said she’d never had the spine to disobey him and if she ever tried he’d crush her like a bug. She felt like she’d been waiting for the blow to come since she boarded the train almost two months ago.
Moving along the edge of the water, she tested its depth with a stick as she forced her thoughts back to today’s crisis. Somewhere in her reading she’d learned that the best way to get from one place to another without leaving a trail was to wade along a stream. Problem
She’d waited days for the German wagons. Who knew how long it would be before more settlers passed the post heading north. She couldn’t live out here in the woods forever without someone in the small settlement noticing. She’d been lucky to find this small bend, but several times she’d heard folks watering their horses less than thirty feet away.
Six months ago, when she’d decided to run away from her father’s matchmaking scheme, she thought marrying some nitwit fish merchant twice her age whom she didn’t love would be a fate worse than death. Since she arrived in Texas, she’d reconsidered.
Rainey pulled off the red wig she’d slept in and scratched her head. The hairpiece she’d borrowed from an aging actress on the boat from New Orleans not only hurt her head, she was sure it had fleas. Hurrying to the edge of the stream, she tried her best not to swear at the latest turn of events. As if oversleeping and losing the horse wasn’t enough, now she sensed trouble at the trading post. This was not turning out to be a good day. Not that she would recognize one if it came along.
She might be an “old maid,” as her father called her constantly, but she was not without resources. From the time her parents started running an exclusive girls’ school near Washington, D.C., she’d read. Surely she’d learned something in all those years of books that would help her now.
At thirteen Rainey had taken a teaching position at her father’s school, not because of any great love of teaching, but so she could stay at school and practically live, as she always had, in the library. She’d seen enough of the way her father treated her mother to know she never wanted marriage. She thought he would pay her a rightful wage when she reached sixteen, the legal age to teach. She would save her money before heading out on her own. After all, her aunt May had left home and made it in New Orleans alone. Her letters to Rainey’s mother told of grand adventures and fascinating people. Rainey planned to do the same.
Her father, however, made other plans. On her sixteenth birthday he said she’d have to wait another year to draw a wage, but he did increase her responsibilities. At seventeen he made her head of one of the dorms but again refused her a salary, claiming that she was still a minor and therefore everything she made legally belonged to him. At eighteen her mother died and her father refused to talk to her for months. She allowed him his time. At nineteen the school made enough money for her father to build a grand house for his second wife, but he said she must stay in the dorm because it wouldn’t be proper for her to live with him and his new wife. When she turned twenty, he said she was ungrateful for all he’d done for her.
At twenty-one, when she threatened to quit if he didn’t pay her, he called her a worthless old maid. A week later he handed his plain little bookworm of a daughter over to the middle-aged widower with six children who owned the fish market. The widower didn’t seem to mind, her father had said, that she was worthless and money hungry. They’d both agreed that with a stern hand she would make a passable wife.
Rainey refused to marry and her father refused to listen. He simply said she had no other choice.
Two days before the wedding Rainey took wages for a year of work from her father’s safe and boarded a train to New Orleans.
She fought back tears as memories came back raw as ever. Her father had said she’d never had the spine to disobey him and if she ever tried he’d crush her like a bug. She felt like she’d been waiting for the blow to come since she boarded the train almost two months ago.
Moving along the edge of the water, she tested its depth with a stick as she forced her thoughts back to today’s crisis. Somewhere in her reading she’d learned that the best way to get from one place to another without leaving a trail was to wade along a stream. Problem
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