The Texan's Dream Read Online Free Page B

to walk on her tiptoes to keep from drawing attention.
    The widow’s house was little more than a shack, but Kara noticed it was neat. While the boy built up a fire in the grate, the widow snuggled her two children into the new blankets, and Kara stacked the food along the bare shelves.
    “Thank you,” Widow Adams whispered. “If you’re ever back from Texas, stop by. I promise I’ll find a way to repay you. I’ll never forget you.”
    “It’s not necessary to repay anything.” Kara smiled, feeling warmer inside than any new coat could ever make her. “It’s enough to know that I have a friend if I return. There’s something terribly lonely about leaving a place with no one to notice you’re gone. I think it would be like walking in the sand and not leaving a footprint.”
    “You now have a friend,” the widow promised. “I’m Mary Ann Adams and I’ll give you my address. You can write me when you’re settled. Just use this address with an ‘in the back’ note on the envelope. The postman will bring it around.”
    Kara felt herself about to cry as she accepted the scrap of paper. “You’ve already paid me back.” She thought of how she’d write when she got to Texas. Everyone there would know that she had a friend and wasn’t all alone.
    “I promise I’ll write and if I send a letter along to my father, will you post it from here?”
    “Of course.” Mary Ann looked like she might question the strange request, but didn’t.
    Kara added, “I don’t want anyone back home to know where I am, unless, of course, my fiance, Devin O’Toole, shows up.” She wondered what would be the odds on that. A man who couldn’t make it to the train station probably wasn’t going to come this far for her.
    Mary Ann nodded. “Any favor I can do, I’ll do gladly.”
    A few moments later, they hugged and Kara walked out with the boy from the mercantile. While she tried to figure out how she was going to make her remaining money stretch to buy what she needed, the boy whispered as he walked beside her, “That was mighty nice, what you did back there, miss, buying all that food and saying you’d write.”
    “Thanks,” she answered, only half-listening.
    “But, how do you figure that little woman is going to cook all that food, being I used the last of her coal to stir up the fire?”
    Kara forced herself to keep walking as his words sank in. She could do without new undergarments. After all, no one saw them. They’d probably be no more comfortable than her noisy new shoes. If they squeaked any louder, she’d have to take up whistling to block the sound.
    She stopped walking. “Can you buy coal this late?”
    “Yes,” the boy answered. “But two buckets will cost you a quarter.” When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll deliver it free every week for a few months if you’ll trust me with the money ahead of time.”
    “We’ll both deliver a few loads. Then with your weekly deliveries they’ll have enough to last the winter.” The ledger book would fit in her suitcase now that she’d decided to leave out the raincoat and the needless new undergarments. And the book didn’t need a leather pouch just so she could look professional. Who would be looking at her anyway? Extra paper was a waste. It would probably only ruin on the trip.
    An hour later, her new shoes hurt so much she no longer cared that they made noise. Kara and the boy found a place to buy coal and hauled it for blocks in tin buckets. Her plaid skirt was more gray than plaid, and the fine wool coat Jonathan Catlin had loaned her looked like it had been dyed to match.
    The widow thanked them several times and wanted them to join her for supper, but Kara had to get back to the mercantile. She must buy what she could and return to the hotel. Jonathan Catlin had asked her to join him for dinner. It was already long past time. Surely he’d understand that she’d been shopping.
    As they rounded the alley to the street, a huge woman leaned out her first-story window. “That was mighty nice of you folks to buy the