At First Sight (The Sheriff's Daughters Book 2) Read online

  At First Sight

  The Sheriff’s Daughters

  Karen Sommers

  Copyright © 2018 by Karen Sommers

  All rights reserved.

  Also by Karen Sommers

  Contents

  What Has Gone Before

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Next in the Series

  Also by Karen Sommers

  About the Author

  What Has Gone Before

  Amanda

  Amanda was with the boys… again. She could hear the disapproving voice of the matron in her head. “It isn’t proper. It simply isn’t done.” The words took on a singsong quality, in her head as she bent over the game of marbles that had taken a rather dire turn since the last shot. Her aggie was at stake. She shot. Missed. Sitting back on her heels waiting for Bart to take his turn, she thought that even losing the game was worth it. Or at least better than being over with the girls. Girls wept – constantly. They picked at their threadbare dresses and whispered about lace and silk and fancy dinner parties, things they expected to have someday when they grew up, and then they wept again because they knew the reality as well as anyone did.

  Boys. Boys were different. Boys swung on the wood that made the bunk beds, boys wrestled and tumbled and sometimes fought. They skinned knees and tore pants, and it was all the same to them.

  And they took her aggie with a gap-toothed grin of thanks and a ruffling of her hair and called her one of them.

  Boys were definitely better.

  The problem was, there were fewer and fewer boys at every stop. When the children were hustled out from the dark confines of their train cars and paraded into the blinding sun to stand, even the adults commented on it. “Is that all the boys you have?” and “Well, I was looking for a boy” while strangers looked them over with a critical eye, talking in front of the children as if they didn’t understand what it was all about.

  The thing is, they knew. They’d known it almost from the start. Amanda had heard it from Jasper who heard it from listening in to the grown-ups that they were really being given away to work on farms, in factories, or sometimes if you were lucky - in houses. That whole loving, caring family thing that had sold them on this trip all the way back in New York wasn’t part of the package once they started getting shuffled out onto the train platform. No one said they had to love the children that they adopted. It was whispered that if such a child didn’t get to eat with the family… or at all… who’s concern was that?

  “It’s even worse for girls,” Jasper said to his horrified audience. As often as Amanda was found over playing with the boys, he was found tormenting the girls. He went on and on about houses where girls worked all day and all night and hinted that when they were old enough, they had to work on their backs, though Amanda had only a hazy idea of what that meant and wasn’t sure who to ask for confirmation.

  It was scary out there in the world beyond the train. The children disappearing was oddly frightening where first it had been comforting. Not that Amanda was afraid of hard work. It was the kind of work that she objected to. And if Jasper were even partially correct about the treatment the children would be sure to get, she wasn’t altogether sure she wouldn’t have been better off staying in the city.

  It got so Amanda figured that maybe going back home to New York would be the best solution. She’d already gotten to hate each stop. Now she hid in the train, thinking if no one adopted her, they’d have to take her back to New York. But the idea was a foolish one. They always found her. So instead she tried to hide in her mind, to tell herself that Jasper was a fool, and just made things up to shock them.

  That worked for a while at any rate. While the sun shone, and the train moved ceaselessly onward, she could forget that somewhere out there was a place where she would have to come to a stop. Night was the enemy. With no games or companions to occupy her mind, her own imaginings took her. She lay in her bunk, awake for hours, listening to the girls cry around her, and somewhere along the way decided to be a boy. Because boys didn’t get hurt.

  At least not like that. Not like her mother had been.

  At long last, the train pulled into another stop in Colorado. She didn’t know where, it didn’t matter anyway. No one told the children where they were, or where they were going. She was found again in the boy’s car and shuffled out with the rest. She was one of three, the last girls on the train. She stood where she was unceremoniously dumped between the two other girls and wondered what she’d have to do to convince everyone she was a boy. Trousers for a start. And maybe if she cut her hair…

  Amanda sighed. It was no use. Disgruntled and angry, she studied her companions.

  Linda, she knew. She was a serious child who didn’t cry, nor did she laugh. Linda took care of the smaller ones, a self-appointed matron and the little ones clung to her like little puppies. Linda’s puppies were also vanishing as they were adopted along the route of the orphan train.

  Today, there was only one such little one left. Sarah. Sarah was a thin waif that Amanda hadn’t thought would last this long. Sarah was all bone and knee and had at least three fingers in her mouth at any given time. She clung now to Amanda almost as much as to Linda. Uneasily she put her arm around the girl, not entirely sure what to do or say to help her. She looked at Linda, who shrugged.

  Old women and a few weather-beaten men wandered through the selection, tsking their tongues and lamenting about the thinness, the dirt, the signs of neglect on the children. “Someone should do something,” was a common reaction. No one ever did, though, they just found the child with the least amount of grime and took them home.

  A fat man with spittle shining in his beard pushed through the thin crowd of shoppers and gawkers and looked directly at Amanda. She knew that look, he measured her, finding her wanting. It was the same look she’d gotten for the past month as the train wended through the mountains carrying its desperate cargo. No one wanted her, but in the case of the fat man, Amanda was happy to be discarded so easily. He was smelly and disgusting, and he felt… wrong, as though she already knew his character without hearing him utter a word.

  Why then did he look at Linda, and ask her if she bled? Amanda wasn’t entirely sure what it meant to “work on your back,” but the way Jasper said it, full of ominous overtones and dire warnings, it sounded very frightening and had something to do with the kind of questions this man asked. How she knew, she couldn’t say. It was instinctive, as was the way she grabbed onto Linda the same way Linda grabbed little Sarah now and tucked her behind her skirts.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Jasper being shoved from the line to face a severe-looking man with a tired, angry woman beside him. The man grabbed Jasper’s wrist and hauled him away. So, Jasper had been adopted. Amanda’s heart went with him. She watched, unshed tears blurring his features as he was led away.

  Someone was talking to the disgusting bearded man. She’d missed most of it, but the lech was spluttering and growling. Linda was squeezing Sarah so hard the little girl cried and Linda was shouting that Sarah needed her.

  Amanda stepped closer to Linda, ready to hold her, or the little one, whichever was left behind. Seeing Jasper hauled away… Amanda needed someone to hold onto just then. Everything felt suddenly scary and unsure.

/>   Amanda could barely hear the men argue for the blood pounding in her ears, but the matron was visibly upset. That wasn’t good. When the matron was upset, she took it out on whoever was handy, if one of them were responsible for upsetting her, all of them would feel her wrath.

  The large man, the one that seemed to be in charge and wore a suit and white hat bent over to talk to Linda. “You can’t leave her?” he asked.

  Linda shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “She needs me,” Linda managed to say.

  “And what about her?” He pointed to Amanda. Amanda’s heart stuck in her throat. Linda looked up at her. They didn’t know each other. Amanda never spent time with other girls, and there was no reason for Linda to risk anything for her sake.

  “She needs me too,” Linda said.

  Amanda’s heart wept at that small statement, though she kept it from her face like a boy would.

  He spoke to Linda a bit longer, but Amanda was still lost in that act of… friendship. ‘She needs me too.’ It might even be true.

  “You!” The large man said, pointing to Amanda. She could see him better for him being bent over closer to her. He had a weathered face, but it seemed kind, and he looked like he carried a good joke just hidden away that was too good to share. “Is that shiner you got from protecting her?” he asked, thumbing to Linda.

  “She got that in a fight.” Linda seemed to be the official spokesman of the group. “Some boys were picking on Sarah.”

  Actually, Jasper gave her that black eye by accident. His elbow had connected unexpectedly while they were wrestling. Amanda looked down at her feet. It made her sound noble. It made her wish she had been.

  The man nodded and said, “Come on then, girls.” He ushered them off the platform. Amanda looked for Jasper, but he’d been lost in the crowd.

  “See here!” The matron cried. “It’s not so simple as all that! Papers must be signed! There are regulations and procedures! I shall summon the constabulary!”

  The man stopped, turned around and flipped up his collar. It was the first time Amanda saw a star pinned to a man’s clothes. The effect it had on the matron was startling. Her eyes got real huge, and suddenly she was talking all meek and submissive. Amanda had never seen matron act like that before in her life.

  Someday I want to be a sheriff too.

  They had left the platform and headed into a bustling town when it belatedly occurred to her that she too had just been adopted. Like Jasper. Though she suspected that this adoption was going to be a whole lot better than his.

  Not to mention, she now had two sisters.

  Chapter 1

  “Well, neither do I!” Amanda seethed and set the pot down, somewhat harder than necessary. The burner underneath rattled on the stove.

  “I cannot fathom this!” Sarah huffed and tried in vain to force a lock of hair to remain well tucked within the confines of her bonnet. Which didn’t bode well. If Sarah had any intention of staying to help prepare the meal she would have hung the hat on the hook next to the door as was proper. The girl was very likely planning to bolt. “We cannot suddenly be helpless and… and starve to death because our sister has married and moved off! This is unacceptable!”

  “Well…” Amanda said, throwing her arms in the air. “I don’t know what to tell you. I never learned to cook. Every night it was my turn I put on soup. You know that as well as I.”

  “As I also well know that Father said if he saw another pot of soup he was not going to be accountable for his actions.” Sarah seemed to be edging toward the door. “Perhaps I should—“

  “You should stay right where you are and help me, you coward.”

  Rachel, their new niece, hopped down off the chair she was sitting in and, with a quiet shake of her head, took the pot to the sink. She had to stand on tiptoes to get to the pump, but once the water started to flow, she let it fill about three-quarters full as the two sisters exchanged glances and watched, bemused.

  Rachel wrestled the pot to the stove and set it on the top. She packed the oven with fresh wood and looked at her handiwork and then at the pot. She took out one of the larger pieces and set it back into the pile.

  Next, she grabbed the basket of pea pods and began snapping off the stems. “grab it like this and just break it off,” she said to Sarah and handed her the bowl and the basket. Sarah began snapping the stems, and Rachel turned her attention to Amanda.

  “How old are you?” Amanda asked, still trying to wrap her head around the girl’s calm confidence in the kitchen.

  “Ten,” Rachel answered and handed her a knife. “Scrape the carrots to clean them and then slice them about like this.” She demonstrated, holding a piece up for inspection.

  “I cannot believe that a ten-year-old is teaching us how to cook,” Sarah moaned, pulling her bonnet off and dropping it on the table, then sitting to snap another peapod. Finished vegetables rained down into the bowl, making a soft rhythmic sound.

  “If you really want something to worry about,” Amanda said, “Think about this: When Linda and Tom get back from their honeymoon, Rachel’s going back home, and we have to eat each other’s cooking.”

  The peapod in Sarah’s hand flew from her grasp and soared through the window. Rachel looked at the window, turned to her new aunt and cried out, “Good shooting!” and collapsed into a case of the giggles.

  Amanda nearly cut herself with the knife, she laughed so hard.

  “That’s not funny!” Sarah objected, but the smile on her face destroyed whatever indignity she was suffering.

  “Yeah, it is,” Amanda assured her.

  “It kinda is,” Rachel echoed her, with a grin.

  “Oh, don’t you start.” Sarah reached over and tousled Rachel’s hair. The three of them worked in an amicable silence for a while. “I saw that new lawyer today.”

  Amanda’s knife clattered to the floor. She bent to pick it up and wash it under the pump. “Was he riding?” she asked casually.

  “Honestly! The man is handsome, professional, and wealthy and all you can think of is his horse?” Sarah looked to Rachel for help. The girl only shrugged and continued to cut the fat away from the cut of meat Amanda had purchased for tonight’s stew. Which technically wasn’t soup, so Father would be pleased. Right?

  “It’s a beautiful horse.” Amanda protested, allowing herself to be distracted by her worries over dinner. “And he has it trained so well. Did you see that? When he came to the reception after the wedding? He just let the horse stand, didn’t tie him or anything and he stood there, solid as the day.” She sighed a little, letting the knife rest on the cutting board as she pictured it. Such marvelous training!

  “And his tail is made of spun gold, and there are little rubies that fall from his mouth…” Sarah said half under her breath.

  “I don’t think those were rubies,” Rachel said, shooting a delighted glance Sarah’s way. “I think he was chewing…”

  “It’s an expression, dear.” Sarah interrupted, crossly.

  “It’s sarcasm,” Amanda said, for the sake of clarification. “And just because someone can appreciate good horseflesh doesn’t mean…”

  “You can’t marry a horse!” Sarah said, setting aside the bowl and looking up at her sister with a look that Amanda was coming to know only too well. “Are you going to grow old and alone staring at a horse?”

  “I’m not old, not by a long shot. I have plenty of time and besides… What if I don’t want to marry?”

  Sarah shot to her feet. “AMANDA ADDAMS! You cannot mean that! Admit it, you’re only saying that to vex me!”

  “No.” Amanda sank the point of the knife in a particularly large carrot, leaving the handle quivering in an upright position. “I’m only saying that because it’s true, the fact that it vexes you is just a bonus.”

  “Oh, you really are about the most stubborn thing!” Sarah stomped her foot but was too close to the table. The bowl with the peas spun crazily on the edge of the table. S
arah and Amanda both reached to steady it. They grabbed it from both sides, and the peapods shot from the bowl, erupting like a small green volcano, sending pods raining down onto the kitchen floor.

  In the horrified silence that followed, Rachel said quietly, “Well… at least the bowl didn’t fall.”

  The two sisters dove and began searching for peapods.

  “Just because I am not man crazy, you don’t have the right…”

  “Man crazy? You are horse crazy, and dog crazy, and... and hunting crazy and everything that men do, you’re… “

  “I just want to ride the beast,” Amanda said wistfully, standing up with a handful of migrant peapods. She dropped them into the bowl, and Sarah whisked it away to rinse off in the sink.

  “I can only assume we are still discussing the horse,” Sarah said, this time not under her breath at all.

  “SARAH!” Amanda looked at Rachel who was busily looking from one sister to another, her forehead crinkling as she tried to puzzle out what was so upsetting in that particular statement.

  “It’s nothing dear,” Amanda assured her, though her cheeks still burned red.

  “Well, you have to think about it, Amanda! I mean, Linda is married now,” she blinked and looked at Rachel, “And she’s already got a child. A ten-year-old child. I shall marry too, and soon, but you’re…”

  “What am I??” Amanda set her hands on her hips and glared at her sister.

  Sarah set the peapods down and sighed. “Amanda, you wear trousers and a man’s shirt. You wear a man’s hat.”

  “Lots of women in Colorado do,” Amanda said, arms crossed over her chest. “Can’t ride in a dress, and those frilly hats you wear won’t do a thing to keep the sun out your eyes when you’re out on the range.”