Amelia Read Online Free PDF

dear."
    "Do wake me before Marie leaves," Amelia pleaded. "I wouldn't want to miss seeing her off."
    "Of course you don't. Sleep well."
    "And you."
    Amelia closed the door of her bedroom and changed into her long, cotton gown. It had a pretty row of pink lace around the high collar and lace at the wrists as well. She took down her long, blond hair and sat before the vanity mirror, combing it with long, lazy strokes.
    She was twenty. As she watched her arm lift and fall, watched the brush pull through the silken skeins of hair, she wondered if she would ever marry and have children, like those of Marie. It would be nice to have a husband. The brush poised in midair, and her brown eyes grew cold and fearful. Or would it?
    What if she chose badly? Her father had seemed so kind and good, and then he had changed. What if Amelia unknowingly chose a man who liked to drink or gamble or had no control over his temper? What if she married a brutal man who thought of her as a piece of property and proceeded to use and abuse her. Marriage now seemed to Amelia like a very real threat, not a promise of happiness. Downplaying her assets kept men from being attracted to her, and she was glad of it. She was certain that she never wanted to marry, even if children would have been a delight. Besides, there was her father to consider. He might yet live a long time. There was no one else to be responsible for him, except perhaps Quinn. But Quinn had to work. That left Amelia. And Hartwell wasn't going to rest in his efforts to get her married to Alan.
    She put the brush down slowly and felt her body grow cold. She really must speak to Quinn when he came home again, she decided. Surely he would come back by the time her father's hunting trip was over.
    She felt her arms break out in goose bumps. Silly, she thought, to worry so. She was a God-fearing woman. She had to believe that she had the hope of a settled, less terrifying life than she had enjoyed so far. She was no coward, even if she had been forced to act like one in her father's best interests.
    Her hand lifted the brush, and she forced it through her long, soft hair once more. You must have courage, she told her reflection. You will be free one day, and Papa will be, too, from the pain that makes a savage of him. If only he would see a doctor. But he would not even admit the need.
    Meanwhile, she thought ruefully, she had a more immediate problem. Marie was leaving. Now Amelia would have only Enid's company for protection against the thorn in her flesh. How would she cope with King without the buffer of other people? It seemed she was trading one rough man for another.
    But Enid would be her buffer, she told, herself. It would be all right.
    Finally, she put down the brush and climbed in between the thick white sheets and covering quilt. It was late March, but the nights were cool here on the fringe of the desert. The cover felt nice.
    She closed her eyes and soon fell asleep.
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    King was already gone when she went to see Marie and the girls off the next morning. She had said more good-byes in two days than in the past two years, she thought as she waved them off at the train station in El Paso.
    It was, she thought, a good thing that Enid had asked old Mr. Singleton down the road for a lift to town that morning and a ride back as well. There had been no explanation or apology for King's absence, and Amelia reasoned that there might be something about it that Enid didn't feel comfortable telling her.
    Mr. Singleton took her arm and Enid's, shaking his head. "Those trains," he complained. "They lay more track and more track. The blessed things set fires, don't you know?"
    "Progress, Mr. Singleton, is to everyone's advantage," Enid chided the old man.
    "Not so, madam," he lamented. "Ah, for the days when the ranges were still wide and a man could be himself without censure."
    "Mr. Singleton saw a gunfight once," Enid whispered to Amelia. "He actually saw John Wesley Hardin shot down by