A Home in Your Heart (Love in the Old West series Book 2) Read online

  Harry twisted the brass knob of the museum door and stepped in. The large display room was void of other visitors again as it had been the day before. She could hear voices coming from the gift shop several rooms over. The wax figure began his booming narration.

  “Good morning, Captain,” she said with a smile to the seated figure. “Mrs. Captain,” she said with a pleasant nod to the female figure in red.

  With a heady anticipation, Harry turned and sought out her sergeant, but no handsome figure in black and dark blue waited for her. Sergeant was gone. Missing! Only the bedroll, canteen and haversack remained. She hurried toward the glass case and pressed her hands against it.

  “Oh, no, where did you go?” Harry muttered. She stepped back to scan the rest of the cases. No, he hadn’t been moved. He was just gone!

  Harry hurried toward the gift shop and waited impatiently while a very slow couple completed their purchase of two T-shirts for their grandchildren.

  “May I help you?” the short older woman behind the small counter said.

  “The displays,” Harry said breathlessly. “One of the figures is missing, a cavalry sergeant. He was there yesterday. Where did he go?”

  The woman looked confused at first but then nodded with a smile when Harry pointed around the corner.

  “Oh, him! Yes, I think they were going to move him to another display and put someone else in there.”

  Like Harry, the clerk referred to the figures as if they were alive.

  “Where is he?” Harry demanded breathlessly. She knew she sounded like a nut, but she figured she would never see these people again anyway.

  “Well, I don’t know. They might be putting him upstairs or maybe across the street in the museum annex. I haven’t been upstairs today.”

  “Is there someone else who does know? A museum director, staff?”

  The woman’s kind smile thinned out a bit. “No, I’m the only one here right now. If you would like to check back later or another day?”

  A couple strolled in, and Harry stepped back. She realized she’d pushed too hard and alienated the woman.

  A Home in Your Heart

  Bess McBride

  A Home in Your Heart

  Copyright 2014 Bess McBride

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the publisher and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Cover Art by Tamra Westberry

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  Contact information: [email protected]

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To all the men and women of the nineteenth century American West, from Cavalry soldiers to Apaches to mail order brides and homesteaders, to those who have gone before us and left us with colorful tales of historic frontier forts and outposts from which I draw my inspiration. Though many of them suffered incredible hardships that I can only wonder at, through their struggles to eke out a living in a wild land or protect their way of life from those who would take away their freedom, they leave a legacy of sacrifice and endurance.

  To the men and women of present day Fort Huachuca and the U.S. Army who sacrifice every day to keep us safe as their ancestors did before them.

  And to my loyal readers and fans. I wouldn’t write these stories if it weren’t for you!

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for purchasing A Home in Your Heart. A Home in Your Heart is Book Two of the Love in the Old West series which began with Caving into You. A Home in Your Heart is not a continuation of Caving into You but a story set in the same era and the same location.

  On an extended winter stay on the historic U.S. Army post of Fort Huachuca (wha-CHOO-kuh) in Southeastern Arizona, I found the area so magical, so steeped in history that I was compelled to write a time travel romance set in the late 1880s during the time of the Apache Wars. On a visit to the fort museum, I found my hero. He is still there on display as of the writing of this book—a wax figure of a Cavalry soldier who stands in a jaunty relaxed pose, tanned face, cobalt blue eyes narrowed against the Arizona sun as he searches for Apaches and bandits. Next to him is the mysterious and enigmatic figure of an Apache scout with his iconic red flannel headband. He too stares off into the desert.

  Couple those two men with the setting of the beautiful Huachuca Mountains, the cottonwood trees that speak to me when the wind blows and the prairie grass that softens the desert landscape, and I felt as if I was in the Old West!

  This is the story of Lieutenant Daniel Thorn, a Cavalry officer whose task it is to pursue renegade Apaches and Mexican bandits, and Harriet (Harry) Ferguson, a modern-day woman without a home who falls in love with the image of a wax figure in a museum.

  Please note that I attempt to use historically accurate terms as I have read them in documents such as “renegade Apaches,” “Indians,” and “Mexican bandits,” which can offend some people. The terms are used for historic authenticity, nothing more.

  While this is a historical time travel romance, all characters and events are fictional with the exception of Fort Huachuca itself and the use of the first commander’s name, Captain Whitside and his wife, Caroline Whitside.

  Thank you for your support over the years, friends and readers. Because of your favorable comments, I continue to strive to write the best stories I can. More romances are on the way! You know I always enjoy hearing from you, so please feel free to contact me at [email protected], through my web site at www.BessMcBride.com, or my blog Will Travel for Romance.

  Thanks for reading!

  Bess

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Books by Bess McBride

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Fort Huachuca, Arizona, 2014

  Harriet Ferguson jumped back as the seated figure just inside the door started speaking to her. She hadn’t seen him when she entered. Harry’s eyes, narrowed against the bright Arizona sun, adjusted to the darkness inside the museum.

  “Welcome to Fort Huachuca!” the voice boomed. “I’m Captain Samuel Whitside.” He kept talking about himself and the fort but Harry heard little else as she bent near to peer at him—a wax figure of a Cavalry officer sitting on a wooden straight-back chair, a large bushy mustache and thatch of reddish-brown hair his most prominent features. The pale blue-veined hands which rested on his legs seemed frail as those of an old man, but the figure appeared to be in his early forties. A blue-black woolen jacket with bright gold-braided shoulder epaulettes and brass buttons topped royal blue trousers with yellow stripes running down the outer seam. The figure’s feet were encased in well-polished black knee-high boots.

  Over her shoulder, Harry could see a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass-enclosed lighted displays on the opposite end of the room, ostensibly the reason the rest of the room was kept in relative darkness. She turned back to the figure of Captain Whitside. His chair was positioned as if he had just pushed away from an immense oak roll-top desk with myriad letter holders and tiny drawers—the kind of desk any antique dealer would dream of purchasing.

  Flanking a nearby large stone fireplace was another wax figure in period costume—a dark-haired woman dressed in a tomato-red costume of the Victorian era. The gorgeous calico print dress featured a draped layer of material across the lower stomach, and a long-sleeved, high-necked bodice that curved in at the waist. White gloves, a black reticule and a black straw hat featuring ribbons and red berries completed the costume. A placard noted the figure as the captain’s wife, Mrs. Caroline Whitside.

  Harry hardly looked at Mrs. Whitside’s face, so interested was she in the elegant costume. Who wouldn’t want to sashay down the street in a dress like that on the arms of a handsome Cavalry officer—just once? A tingle ran up her spine at
the image.

  Harry turned away from the couple and moved toward the glass cases. The displays seemed to be arranged in historical sequence beginning with a depiction of the original Native Americans in Southeastern Arizona through the arrival of the Apaches. As settlers followed, a “clash of cultures” ensued, and the U.S. Army in the form of the Cavalry arrived and established posts throughout Arizona to protect the interests of the settlers.

  She continued following the displays, pausing before a glass case featuring another Cavalry soldier in uniform, this one a sergeant according to the placard at his feet. She eyed the figure, a handsome face half shaded by a jaunty beige broad-brimmed hat. His uniform was similar to the captain’s, but different in that he wore his thick dark blue woolen shirt tucked inside blue-gray trousers, off-white suspenders and a white webbed belt that served to hold a pistol and ammunition. Dark knee-high boots with spurs completed his sergeant’s uniform. Behind him, the display showed a beige woolen bedroll, canteen and a haversack—the latter two prominently marked with the letters “U.S.”

  The figure was positioned, not straight at attention, but with all of his weight on his left leg while he relaxed his right. His right white-gloved hand rested on his belt.

  Harry returned her attention to his face, unable to pull herself away. Whoever had created the wax figure had done a remarkable job in bringing the subject to life. The sergeant’s complexion was tanned from the Arizona sun. His face was clean-shaven and lean, yet not thin. His chin was firm, his teeth even and white against his skin. Dark hair and sideburns were visible below the brim of his hat. Cobalt blue eyes, the color of his trousers, squinted as if against the sun. He wore a competent, worldly expression, as if one could count on him to take care of anything—military wise.

  Harry stared up at him, completely mesmerized. If she had been in danger, and he told her to do something, she would have—without question. In fact, she rather wished he would come down off the display and tell her what to do with the rest of her life. They could settle onto the sofa in front of the fireplace and she could tell him all her problems. He would know how to fix them, even if he didn’t live in the twenty-first century. After all, they weren’t necessarily twenty-first century problems, were they?

  “How do I get myself out of this, Sergeant?” Harry asked him in a low voice.

  He looked down at her with his dark blue eyes. Empathy seemed to emanate from them.

  “You know the answer, don’t you? If only you could tell me what to do.” She sighed.

  “There you are!” a male voice said.

  Harry swung around. She had told the man now coming in the door that she would marry him, and she didn’t even love him. Why? Why had she said she would marry him?

  “There you are,” Tom Rowan repeated with a smile. He ignored the wax figures near the door and strolled over to drape an arm around her shoulder. The feeling was heavy as always, she maneuvered out from under it. She had already told him once she didn’t like it when he leaned on her, but he had either forgotten or just didn’t care.

  “Yup, here I am,” Harry said. She moved away from “her sergeant” and turned toward the rest of the displays. The last thing she wanted to do was share her sergeant with Tom, and listen to silly comments about the figure’s uniform or his swaggeringly relaxed posture.

  “Where are you going?” Tom asked.

  “Upstairs. You took so long chatting with your mother outside that I’ve already looked all the displays down here.” She actually hadn’t, of course. She’d wanted to study the display next to the sergeant, that of Apache scouts, but she hadn’t been able to get beyond the Cavalry soldier.

  “Where is she, by the way?” Harry asked.

  “She’s waiting outside. Says she’s seen the museum several times since she retired down here, so she didn’t want to come in.”

  Harry turned back to Tom. “Well, then why did we come here? I don’t want her just sitting outside. That doesn’t seem like much fun.”

  “I thought you wanted to see the museum,” he said. “You like all that historical stuff.” He narrowed his sandy blond eyebrows in confusion.

  “Well, I do, but I could have come on my own. Did you want to see it?”

  Tom shook his head. “Not particularly. Not my thing. Besides, I’m hungry.”

  Harry turned from the stairs. “Well, let’s go then. I’d be miserable if I thought I was dragging one person unwillingly through a museum while another one sat outside and waited for us. I wish your mom would have said something.”

  “She did,” Tom said. He shrugged sheepishly. “Well, she told me anyway. But I told her you wanted to see the museum, so here we are. We were both hoping you wouldn’t take long.”

  Harry chewed on the inner edge of her lower lip. “Well, I’m not. Let’s go.”

  “Oh, good!” Tom said. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door.

  Harry threw a miserable look over her shoulder toward her sergeant and mouthed the words Get me out of this!

  ****

  The next day, Harry returned to the museum—this time without Tom or his mother, who had decided to take in an animated movie at the theater in town. Harry had declined the thrill, stating she wanted to stop by the town’s library. Instead, she had come back to the museum on the fort, her plan all along.

  Tom was clearly a mama’s boy. Harry had suspected so for some time, but she hadn’t been certain until Tom brought her to Sierra Vista, Arizona, to meet his mother. The long-time divorced mother of an only son, Mrs. Rowan clearly doted on her son, and Harry had not missed the seemingly sweet silver-haired woman’s steely-eyed glares behind her son’s back. Harry had not been looking forward to meeting the woman who Tom quoted at every turn, anymore than his mother had apparently been looking forward to meeting Harry.

  Why she had ever agreed to leave the relatively lush green and cool climate of Seattle to visit Tom’s mother in the hot and barren desert of Southeastern Arizona, she would never understand. No, that wasn’t true. She had come because she didn’t want to hurt Tom’s feelings, and, probably more importantly, because she was curious about the woman who had raised him and featured prominently in his conversations. Her job as a clerk in the genealogical section of the Seattle Public Library was not particularly demanding, and she had vacation days to spare.

  Tom had hinted on the airplane down that he wanted to move to Arizona so he could be near his mother who needed him. She was getting old, was alone. Harry’s heart had almost stopped and she had clutched the armrests of the seat—not in fear of the plane’s takeoff—but that Tom had been serious about moving to Arizona and asking Harry to move with him.

  But the visit had, in fact, solidified for her that she would never marry Tom...could never marry him. She could never deal with Tom’s smothering mother who looked well on her way to becoming a long-suffering mother-in-law.

  Neither did Harry think she could live in a region that featured nothing but a muted brown and faded green landscape. Though Washington State held little for her emotionally, it was the only place she had ever known. She had no family. An only child of neglectful parents, she grown up in foster care and had never known the loving—or smothering attentions—of a mother. She had never felt at home anywhere, and could not understand Tom’s ties to his mother and willingness to leave Washington to be near her.

  In what Harry now recognized as a misguided attempt to find herself a family and a home of her own, she had agreed to marry Tom before she really knew him. He wasn’t a bad man, just not the right man for her. A series of flirtations at the laundry room in their shared apartment building had led to the relationship and then the engagement. Although she was already twenty-five, Tom had been her first boyfriend. Life in foster homes hadn’t been conducive to dating. In fact, it hadn’t been allowed.

  Now, how to get out of the engagement? If she told him she couldn’t marry him while they were still visiting with his mother, Mrs. Rowan might likely throw her out of the house. Not that the idea was necessarily a bad thing, but it felt cruel and unnecessary to hurt Tom while he was on vacation. No, she would wait until they returned to Seattle—maybe tell him at the airport when they arrived so he would know she was returning to her own apartment.