Books by Tracie Peterson

  LOVE ON THE SANTA FE

  Along the Rio Grande

  THE TREASURES OF NOME*

  Forever Hidden

  Endless Mercy

  Ever Constant

  LADIES OF THE LAKE

  Destined for You

  Forever My Own

  Waiting on Love

  WILLAMETTE BRIDES

  Secrets of My Heart

  The Way of Love

  Forever by Your Side

  BROOKSTONE BRIDES

  When You Are Near

  Wherever You Go

  What Comes My Way

  GOLDEN GATE SECRETS

  In Places Hidden

  In Dreams Forgotten

  In Times Gone By

  HEART OF THE FRONTIER

  Treasured Grace

  Beloved Hope

  Cherished Mercy

  THE HEART OF ALASKA*

  In the Shadow of Denali

  Out of the Ashes

  Under the Midnight Sun

  SAPPHIRE BRIDES

  A Treasure Concealed

  A Beauty Refined

  A Love Transformed

  BRIDES OF SEATTLE

  Steadfast Heart

  Refining Fire

  Love Everlasting

  LONE STAR BRIDES

  A Sensible Arrangement

  A Moment in Time

  A Matter of Heart

  LAND OF SHINING WATER

  The Icecutter’s Daughter

  The Quarryman’s Bride

  The Miner’s Lady

  LAND OF THE LONE STAR

  Chasing the Sun

  Touching the Sky

  Taming the Wind

  ****

  All Things Hidden*

  Beyond the Silence*

  House of Secrets

  Serving Up Love**

  *with Kimberley Woodhouse **with Karen Witemeyer, Regina Jennings, and Jen Turano

  For a complete list of Tracie’s books, visit her website www.traciepeterson.com

  © 2022 by Peterson Ink, Inc.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2022

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-3596-8

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by LOOK Design Studio

  Cover photography by Aimee Christenson

  Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

  Dedicated to the men and women of

  the Santa Fe Railway and all of its divisions.

  With special thanks to those members of the

  Horny Toad Division.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Books by Tracie Peterson

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Cover Flaps

  Back Cover

  1

  JULY 1899

  SAN MARCIAL, NEW MEXICO TERRITORY

  Susanna Ragsdale Jenkins stepped off the Santa Fe passenger train and sighed. The breeze outside was only mildly helpful. Inside the stuffy cars of the train, women had actually fainted from the heat. Susanna’s mother had to be revived no fewer than ten times. Of course, that was typical for her overly dramatic mother. Gladys Ragsdale did love attention.

  Susanna looked around as her father assisted Mother from the train. Her brother, Gary, was already hailing a porter for their bags. At eighteen, nothing seemed to deter him. He was energetic and impressionable, as well as foolish and thoughtless. He’d barely made it through school, and as the spoiled and pampered son of wealthy parents, no one really cared. Susanna had watched her parents try to manage him, but Gary had no respect for either of them. All they had taught him was how to live a life of privilege and the expectation that someone, somewhere, would provide the means for his desires. With that no longer the case, Gary had become even more headstrong and impatient. It was one of the reasons Susanna had agreed to accompany her family to New Mexico.

  That, and she saw it as the easiest way to avoid the promise she’d made her dying husband.

  She buried that thought deep as Gary approached.

  “I’m going to see what kind of fun is to be had in this town.” Beneath his stylish straw hat, his golden-brown hair was dripping sweat.

  Susanna fixed him with a stern look and shook her head. “No, you will help Father get Mother settled at the hotel. Then you will make certain our bags are delivered to the hotel.”

  He looked at her for a moment as if trying to decide whether he’d go along with this new order. For a full minute, Susanna wondered if there was going to be trouble, but when Mother cried out and began to crumple to her knees, Gary went to help her.

  What was Uncle Harrison thinking, sending a pair like her parents to manage a hotel in the middle-of-nowhere New Mexico? Susanna was appalled. San Marcial was a railroad town—a headquarters for the Rio Grande Division of the Santa Fe Railway.

  “You have wasted your inheritance by investing in schemes that you were warned against. Time and again you put your family in a state of diminished financial security, always relying on me to straighten out the situation. Well, no more,” Uncle Harrison had said on their last night in Topeka. “I have no choice but to cut you off from further financial support and make you work for a living.”

  Susanna could still hear her mother’s shriek of distaste. “I wasn’t born to be married to a man who has to do physical labor! How embarrassing! Oh, the thought of it is enough to give me apoplexy.”

  “Well, have your fits somewhere besides my hotel sitting room,” Harrison Ragsdale had demanded.

  Susanna had been invited to the meeting only because her uncle knew she could help keep some sense of order. Having lived her first year of mourning with her in-laws, she had agreed to move with her parents to New Mexico and see them settled at the hotel her uncle had built. But her years living with her husband had helped her forget just how bad her family could be. Now that they were broke, it was bound to be even worse.

  Susanna swept pieces of soot and ash from her black gown. She had already determined that this would be her last day of full mourning. It had been over a year, after all, and she hated black. The constant reminder of what she’d lost—what she would never have again.

  “Where is this supposed hotel?” her mother asked as Father and Gary supported her on either side.

  “Uncle Harrison said it was two blocks from the train. Easy walking.” Susanna motioned for the porter Gary had given up on securing.

  A black man came to her immediately. “Yes, ma’am, how may I help you?”

  “We’re the Ragsdale family, and I need to arrange for the delivery of our luggage. We are staying at the Grand Hotel. It’s new, and my family has come here to open it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We saw it bein’ built. Mighty fine place just over yonder.” He pointed to the northeast. There, clearly visible from the train station, was a large, white-washed two-story building with a huge sign that read Grand Hotel.

  She studied it for a moment, then nodded. It looked just as Uncle Harrison had described. A regal, clean, and very welcoming sight.

  She turned back to the porter and smiled. “Would you arrange for our things?” She reached into her purse, pulled out fifty cents, and handed it to him. “Have the baggageman bring them to the hotel’s front desk, please.”

  He gave her a slight bow. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you.” She left him to manage the situation and caught up with her folks and brother. “The bags are handled and should be delivered shortly. There is the hotel.”

  “I cannot live in a hotel as the wife of a . . . manager,” her mother declared. “The shame is too great.”

  “Mother, we’ve already discussed this in Topeka, on the train, and now upon our arrival. The fact of the matter is that you have no choice. Now, let us at least go and see what the accommodations are like.” Susanna looked at her father. Sweat poured from his head and had already soaked the neckline of his shirt. None of them looked like anything special. Just a bedraggled crew of travelers who had lost their way.

  Susanna led their parade, crossing Railroad Avenue at Zimmerman Street and then walking up to First Street. She raised her parasol for the short walk. The sun was merciless, and she knew she would burn to a crisp otherwise. Her fair skin had always freckled easily, much to her mother’s disgust. A proper lady simply did not have freckles.

  She reached the hotel well ahead of the others and tried the door. It was locked, and Father had both sets of keys. By the time her family joined her, Mother was sobbing softly into her handkerchief, and Gary was itching to take off and explore.

  “I just want to see what’s available. We’re going to need food no matter what.” He started to leave, and Susanna called him back.

  “We’ll eat at the Harvey House once we get settled. Stay here and help when the bags come. We don’t know what to expect. There will be plenty of time to explore later.”

  Gary pulled off his hat, giving an exaggerated sigh. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You aren’t happy unless you’re bossing me around.”

  Susanna ignored him. “Father, the door is locked, and you have the only keys. I suggest you give me one set so that we each have one, since I’m going to be helping you keep the front desk.” She closed her parasol and gave him a smile.

  “Of course. Of course.”

  Father produced the two keys and handed one to her. He didn’t seem to know what to do with the other one. Susanna finally rolled her eyes and opened the door herself.

  The smell of new paint wafted out the door as she walked inside. Everything was pristine and bright, painted in yellow with white trim. She made her way to the front desk. Uncle Harrison had told them they’d find the family living quarters behind it.

  She tried the door to the right and found a closet with supplies and bedding. The door on the left, however, opened onto a living area.

  “Here we are.” She looked around the room. There was ample space for two people, to be certain. Less for the four who had arrived.

  “This will not do,” Mother declared. “There is only one large room that combines everything. We would have to have the cook in here, working in the kitchen, while we tried our best to relax . . . or worse, entertain.”

  “Mother, I do not believe we have the budget either for a cook or to entertain.” Susanna knew this change of financial solvency had wounded her mother dearly. Gladys Ragsdale had always believed herself to be upper society, and the fact that her husband had lost all of their money was something she could not reconcile.

  “You are determined to kill me.” Her mother collapsed onto a cushioned chair. “This isn’t even comfortable, and this town is in the middle of nowhere. It feels like a furnace in here.”

  “I’m sure once we get things organized,” Susanna’s father began, “it will be better. The nights will cool off surprisingly fast. Everyone says so.”

  Mother’s disgruntled huff suggested otherwise. “We don’t even have electricity.”

  “But they are putting it in very soon.”

  “There are two bedrooms in the back,” Gary announced. “They’re very small. Both have two little beds.”

  “I told Uncle I would pay for a separate hotel room, but he wouldn’t hear of it.” Susanna began taking off her black gloves. “I’m to have room 101.”

  “A room to yourself? How very spoiled.” Her mother’s tone was accusing.

  “I suppose you and I could share one of these bedrooms and Father and Gary the other, but it’s hardly appropriate for Gary and me to share a room at our age.” Susanna wondered what her mother would say to that idea.

  She didn’t have long to wait.

  “This is uncalled for, Herbert. We cannot live this way. I won’t live this way!”

  “And where will you go?” Father asked, finally reaching the end of his patience.

  Everyone looked at Mother, which only increased her discomfort. She burst into tears and made a dash for one of the bedrooms.

  “Oh, look, we have a private bath,” Gary announced, opening the final door.

  “Yes, Uncle Harrison said there would be one,” Susanna replied. She set her purse and gloves aside and began to unpin her hat. With that accomplished, she put it with her other things and went to the windows. “We need to open these and get a bit of air in here. That’s bound to help our moods.”

  The baggageman arrived, and Gary hurried off to help with that. Susanna raised the first window and moved on to the next.

  “Your mother is very upset, and I cannot blame her,” Father said. “She had the best of everything in Topeka.”

  “And perhaps one day she’ll have the best of everything again,” Susanna declared. “For now, however, we must be patient and work hard. She has never had to do that, and it will not come easy to her.”

  Her father shook his head. “I was so sure of that investment. If I hadn’t been, I never would have risked the house and everything else. You must understand. It was a sure thing.”

  Susanna straightened. “What I understand is that it wasn’t a sure thing. Had it been, you wouldn’t have lost everything and be standing here now in San Marcial, New Mexico.”

  “No, that’s for sure. Your mother is right—it is a godforsaken place.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Susanna moved on to the next window as Gary carried in the first three bags. They all belonged to her parents, as would most of the next ten. Mother had crammed as much of their Topeka life into those cases as she could, knowing that everything else would have to be sold to cover their embarrassing losses. Thankfully, Uncle Harrison was handling the sale of their things so that Mother needn’t be completely covered in shame.

  “I should help Gary,” her father said, looking to Susanna as if she might correct him.

  “Yes, I think that would be good, since most of the luggage belongs to you and Mother. You’ll need to give the baggageman a gratuity.”

  Her father grumbled something, but Susanna couldn’t make it out.

  By the time Susanna had all the windows open, Gary and Father had moved all of the bags into the living quarters except the two small bags and large trunk that belonged to Susanna. Those they’d left by the front desk.

  “Should we unpack?” Father asked, seeming confused.

  “No,” Susanna said. “It’s getting late. I think we should gather Mother and go for dinner. Getting some food in our stomachs will help us think more clearly. Then we can decide what to do first.”

  It was easier said than done. Mother wanted no part in leaving the hotel, but at the same time, Susanna knew she was famished. They had enjoyed Harvey House food all along the railroad from Topeka. It had been the one thing with which Mother hadn’t found fault. Each table was elegantly set with fine linen and crystal. The men were made to wear suit jackets in the dining rooms, and the service was that of an elegant restaurant, even in the smallest Kansas town.

  When they finally had Mother on her feet and willing to walk to the Harvey House, Susanna was ready to be done with all of them. Their selfishness and unwillingness to take responsibility for their own actions was more than she could bear. She knew they were more than a little embarrassed at their reduced status, but it was ridiculous to pretend it was all a mistake. Susanna’s father had been mismanaging his inheritance since it had been in his possession. He thought himself something of a grand entrepreneur—a financial baron who was able to turn pennies into dollars, lead into gold. But instead, all Susanna had seen was her father continually making poor choices that his brother had to cover and make good on. Now Uncle Harrison had put a stop to his protection and had given his brother an honest-to-goodness job running a hotel. It was quite the departure.

  Susanna had no idea what had transpired between the brothers in discussion, but she knew her uncle had reached his limit of understanding and sympathy. He had called Susanna to a private meeting, where he talked to her at length about what had happened to her parents. Susanna had been living with her in-laws and knew very little. Her parents were never ones to discuss money.

  News of her family’s crisis, however, was rapidly spreading all over town. Her father had heavily invested in a railroad that turned out to be nothing but paper and the imagination of a conman who was now long gone. Father had given everything and was left with nothing. Even the deed to the house had been sold. Uncle Harrison had tried to advise him, as had others, but Father wouldn’t listen, and perhaps that was the reason her uncle was ready to wash his hands of the entire matter.

 

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