Amazing Grace (Hearts At War Book 3) Page 9

  Logan frowned. “I did my research, Mr. Whitaker.” Though, it mainly consisted of calling up his memory of the conversation he had with Mrs. Dobson and asking what kind of expenses would be required to arrange such a union. “The amount I’m offering you is more than fair.”

  “Perhaps. But if you factor in the travel expenses, the new wardrobe, and the generous donation I made to the church, your offer to reimburse me for my marriage contract to Miss Shaw falls short. Considerably short.”

  Logan silently cursed. He was literally offering the man everything he had and still it wasn’t enough.

  “But,” Robert added, “I’m a fair man, Mr. Finley, and you seem to be a man of integrity. I will accept your offer to annul Miss Shaw’s contract. On one condition.”

  Logan tensed. “What?”

  “You sign one of your own and come work for me. There was an unfortunate accident in one of the mines and we lost a few good men. And with this damn cholera outbreak making its way here, I’m losing workers faster than I can replace them. I could really use a man like you.”

  “For what exactly?”

  “Wherever there is a shortage,” Robert said. “You agree to work for me and I will take that as the remaining payment for Miss Shaw’s contract.”

  Logan weighed his options. Staying in Montana had not been his initial plan and he wasn’t familiar with the homesteading laws in this territory. Was he really willing to put his life on hold and place himself in this man’s servitude? Did he really want Gracie that much?

  “For how long?”

  “Six months of servitude is all I need from you to satisfy the annulment.”

  Six months seemed like a long time when he was eager to start making his own fortune with lands of his own. But starting that new life didn’t seem as refreshing and exciting as it once had. Not if he made it there alone…without Gracie.

  Yet, Logan couldn’t guarantee that she would want anything to do with him once he revealed the truth of his past to her. Would she still want him when she found out his family had once owned hers?

  Logan inwardly flinched at the thought, remembering the moment when he had made the connection. It had been the same moment she had touched him for the first time and eased the pain in his hand. He knew he should have said something to her sooner, should have revealed who he was, and try to convince her as to why it no longer mattered. He wasn’t the same man he had been before the war. Things were different—he was different. He should have explained all that to her then.

  He should have also assured her that he was no stranger to hard work, that he could provide for her and had often worked alongside his slaves without ever needing to beat them into submission. Then again, maybe none of that would have made a difference to her. Hell, if he were in her place, he wouldn’t give a shit about a landowner having to work his own land either.

  But if Logan didn’t take this opportunity to free her from this commitment to Whitaker, he would never get the chance to ask Gracie to be his.

  “All right, but on another condition,” Logan said, not entirely oblivious to his own negotiating power over the man’s apparent desperation. “I get three days off a week and I get to set my schedule.”

  Robert was silent for a moment. “That’s quite a proposition, Mr. Finley, but I accept.”

  Gracie couldn’t believe she was free from her marriage contract to Robert Whitaker.

  She’d been prepared to offer whatever excuse she needed to break their contract, with a promise to repay the money he’d already spent on her. But thanks to Logan, there was no need. He had gotten her out of this contract and she was now free.

  Yet she wasn’t. Not really.

  What was it Logan wanted in return for paying her contract?

  They hadn’t spoken since their arrival in Montana. She had kept her distance, still not fully recovered from what she had learned about him. He, in turn, had given her space.

  Gracie now sat on the narrow bed in her rented room above the town’s only tavern. It had been the only place she could afford after the sale of some of her expensive dresses to some of the working women at the neighboring brothel. That money, however, wouldn’t be enough for her to survive on.

  Mr. Whitaker had been gracious enough to offer her lodging in his large home. In exchange, she had offered to work around his home, but he had politely declined.

  “I wouldn’t feel right charging you for lodging, Miss Shaw,” he had said. “And unfortunately, I’m not in the position to pay you wages either. You are, of course, welcomed to stay here as long as you need until you can make other arrangements.”

  The offer had been more than generous, but Gracie hadn’t felt right about accepting his generosity for free lodging. Another part of her also didn’t want to depend on the man she had once been contracted to marry. It was a relief to see that Mr. Whitaker wasn’t a cruel or vindictive man. He would have probably even made a fine husband.

  Just not for her.

  She wasn’t the proper Christian woman she had led herself to believe. She had willingly given herself to another man who was not her husband—a man who had kept others in bondage and had killed in support of the harsh system of slavery. She would have to live with that.

  Gracie blinked away the tears she refused to shed for him. She couldn’t be sure if her heartache was due to his lies, or the fact that she still wanted him despite them.

  Regardless of why, she didn’t have time to indulge in her sorrow or give him another thought. She needed to figure out what she was going to do next in this foreign town. One thing she was certain she needed and that was work.

  A knock came at her door, but before she could call out to the person, the door was pushed open. With a loud gasp, Gracie jumped off the bed.

  “Logan?”

  “Gracie, why isn’t your door locked?” He walked into the small room and shut the door behind him. He stopped in front of her, his eyes probing. “What are you doing here? I’ve been searching all over for you. Why did you leave Whitaker’s place?”

  Gracie shook her head, torn between raging at him for not being the man she had believed him to be, and cursing him for making it hard for her to hate him because of it. Had their night together in Nebraska meant anything to him, or had he taken her out of some warped sense of superiority?

  “You lied to me.” She hadn’t meant to blurt out the words, but they came out and she couldn’t pull them back. It didn’t matter why. What mattered was that he had lied, and she had done the unthinkable…

  She had fallen in love with him.

  Her heart twisted at the realization, and she turned away from him, her stomach knotting. She wouldn’t deny how she felt any longer. But that didn’t mean she could forgive him or overlook the kind of man he really was.

  “I’m sorry if you think I went behind your back, Gracie. I probably should have told you about my talk with Whitaker, but I didn’t want you to worry if he turned out to be difficult about it. Luckily, he was reasonable about everything, and we finalized our deal today.”

  Gracie turned to face him again, trying to control the conflicting emotions coursing through her. “Logan, I don’t care about Mr. Whitaker or the contract. I want to know why you lied to me about who you were and the fact that you were a slave owner.”

  His expression hardened. “Who told you that?”

  “Does it matter? It’s true, isn’t it? You owned the Flynn plantation in Maryland.”

  “Yes.” The quiet admission hung between them and her heart sank further. “But I never harmed or mistreated my slaves, Gracie.”

  She scoffed. “That doesn’t change anything. There’s no such thing as a benevolent slaver, Logan. That kind of brutal institution wasn’t designed for compassion.”

  He glanced away from her, his face drawn. It was clear he was ashamed of his past, but faced with the magnitude of his deception, Gracie couldn’t find it in her to forgive him. Suddenly, she blurted out the question that had plagued her since they
’d left Nebraska.

  “You knew about me before we…before we made it to Nebraska. Why did you take my—”

  “I didn’t take anything,” he bit out. “Last I recall, you wanted me as much as I wanted you. Now that it’s done, I want to make it right.” He reached for her, but she moved back. The muscles in his jaw flexed, but he didn’t grab for her again. “Damn it, Gracie, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t take advantage of you.”

  “No, you didn’t, but you tricked me into falling—” She swallowed. “Into believing you were an honest man.”

  “I am.” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Or I’m trying to be, if you let me.”

  “How?”

  “Marry me.”

  Gracie stared at him, stunned by his casually spoken request. Did he think she could just forgive who he was, or what he’d done? That she could profess before God to willingly become his wife? She had already dishonored all that her family had sacrificed for her by giving herself to him. She wouldn’t do it again by legally binding herself to him.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Gracie winced at the frustration in his voice. “Because I don’t know you.”

  “You didn’t know Whitaker and that didn’t stop you.”

  “That was different. You claim to care about me, but how do I know that? How could I trust you or lie beside you and not think of those you had held in bondage? I could never forgive that of myself. I could never forgive you.”

  His frown was fierce and he cursed. “What do you want from me? To apologize for having slaves? I didn’t write the laws, Gracie. Slavery is—was a way of life, and I was only sustaining my home and my father’s legacy.”

  She bristled in that moment, taking exception to the irritation in his tone as she tried to quell her own rising anger. “If you’re trying to justify your way of life to me, Logan, you can save yourself the trouble. Keeping people against their will, telling them how much or how little they can eat, controlling every aspect of their lives is…is repulsive. My father’s back was literally torn apart sustaining your father’s legacy. If that’s the way of life you were fighting for, then I feel sorry for you because that is no way to live.”

  A weighty silence fell between them. His jaw was like granite, but there was a pallor on his face that was unexpected, and concern almost made her go to him. But instead, she turned her back to him and held her pain at bay.

  “I could never marry you, Logan. Now, please just go.”

  Chapter Ten

  Logan ached all over.

  He didn’t know what pained him the most—his arms, back, or eyes. After two weeks of working in the mines, his muscles burned from the constant blasting and removal of rock and his eyes were irritated from the grit in the air. Though he had resigned himself to the fact that this would be his life for the next six months, he had hoped his body would soon become accustom to the grueling, dangerous work.

  It hadn’t.

  Logan grunted as he tossed a large rock into the wheel barrel and bent down for another. His movements were mechanical as he focused on his task. He shouldn’t be surprised by his fatigue. Since he’d arrived in Montana, he hadn’t taken a day off. He couldn’t afford to. Not with everything finally falling into place for him. But he knew if he continued like this, he would undoubtedly collapse under the strain and he couldn’t afford to get himself killed either.

  Not when he had his future—and Gracie—to think about.

  Though his schedule kept him from returning to the tavern, his thoughts were always on her. He hated how he had left things between them. He should have said more, should have told her how he felt about her, but he wasn’t foolish enough to believe any of that would have made a difference. She was hurt and angry and the best thing for him to do was to give her the space she needed. He could only hope that when the time came, he would be able to convince her of how much she meant to him.

  The steam whistle sounded in the distance, indicating the end of the work shift. Logan straightened and wiped the sweat from his brow. He realized the call came earlier than usual and his brows drew together in confusion.

  “Listen up, men,” the shift boss shouted from the top of the platform. “There’s been an accident inside one of the mines and we believe we’ve lost a man. We’re ending the shift early today so we can account for everyone.”

  Logan dropped the last of the rocks into the pile and headed to the line to be counted. This made it the second accident and possibly the third death since he’d started working at the mine. Every day he was reminded how fragile and limited life was—and how unpredictable.

  Before he had laid eyes on Gracie Shaw, he had only himself to think about and only himself to answer to. He had been in pursuit of a life that made sense to him, where finding work and a piece of land to build a home on had been his primary focus. Yet, since he had boarded that train in New York, his life had been nothing but a series of ironies and this one wasn’t lost on him. He was now in another man’s servitude, with little time for himself or his own aspirations, and his future hinged on the decision of one woman.

  Yet, if he had to do it again, he would.

  The thought of a life without Gracie made the future home he had envisioned for himself seem…empty. He had made the sacrifice to stay in Montana and work for Whitaker not because his family had once owned hers, but because he loved her beyond measure. He still did. She may hate him now, but he hoped that he could soon convince her to see beyond his past and give him a chance to be the kind of man she deserved.

  After the count, Logan made his way to the tent lodge he shared with two brothers from Ohio and a young Irish immigrant. The space wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was a place to lay his head for now. To his surprise, he found the brothers lounging inside.

  “There you are, Finley,” Mick, the youngest of the two, said from his sleeping mat. “Benny and I are going over to the Thorny Rose for some drink and much needed female company. Care to join us?”

  Logan shook his head. “Not tonight, but thanks for the offer.”

  Benny scoffed then dunked a small rag into their only wash basin. He wiped at his face and neck, a wide grin stretched across his lips. “I told you he wouldn’t come, Micky. He’s saving himself for someone.”

  Mick straightened from his mat and snickered. “You’re not saving yourself for marriage, are you, Finley? No respectable woman wants a man fumbling around her skirts on her wedding night.”

  “You don’t know any respectable women, Micky,” Benny interjected. “Besides, that’s not what’s important. What’s important, Finley, is not getting yourself backed up. If you know what I mean.”

  “That’s right,” Mick agreed with a smirk. “Back home, we have a name for men like you. We call them handy men.”

  Mick made a lewd gesture with his fist and the brothers laughed. Logan ignored their jeers and reached for his hat, too tired and irritated to trade insults with the other men.

  “You boys enjoy your evening,” Logan called out over his shoulder before leaving the tent.

  He made his way out of the campsite, thinking about all the reasons why he should turn back. For one, he was filthy and in desperate need of a wash and shave. He was also beyond weary and had no words to articulate his thoughts and feelings.

  Yet, none of that mattered.

  All he could think about was a pair of warm, dark eyes and a sweet smile. Too much time had already passed and he needed to see her.

  As Logan’s determined strides carried him toward the tavern, he prayed that the right words would come to him, because in that moment, nothing else mattered than telling her what was in his heart.

  Damn him.

  It had been two weeks now and she had resigned herself to the fact that he had left Montana. Left without even saying goodbye.

  Gracie shook her head at herself. She knew full well how unreasonably she was behaving, but she was angry nonetheless that he was now gone.
For good. And could she blame him? She had all but told him, in so many words, to go to hell. Now that he was gone, she was wasting valuable energy pining for him.

  With a small sigh, she carried the empty tankards back to the bar. The crowd was steadily growing in the tavern, and she needed to quickly clear the tables and make room for the newcomers. She had been lucky to get the job as a barmaid, and especially lucky that Mr. Mercer, her former fiancé’s business partner, was part owner. Evidently she had won his respect by making the trip personally to tell his friend she wouldn’t marry him. In turn Mr. Mercer had used his connections to get her work. The pay was shoddy, but she had a room upstairs and Mr. Mercer’s influence around the growing town kept the other men from harassing her.

  Though she was grateful for the work, she hated working at a tavern. The stench of alcohol and tobacco made her stomach lurch and served as a constant reminder of a past she wanted badly to forget. The tips were also not coming fast enough for her liking, and she was desperate for the money. She had started singing at the tavern on her nights off and the tips from that had helped some. The sooner she could make more, the sooner she would have enough saved to pay for her passage back to New York.

  As the crowd grew, Gracie’s movements became more mechanical. Two weeks serving drinks and food had given her a routine that allowed her to move without thinking until she fell into her bed at night from exhaustion. Sometimes she would reread her old letters from home just to keep from thinking of Logan, only to fall into a deep slumber and dream of him.

  Suddenly, Gracie felt the unmistakable sensation of someone watching her. She lifted her eyes from the table she was wiping and made eye contact with familiar amber brown ones.

  Logan.

  His gaze held hers and her stomach fluttered as she stared back at his tired, scruffy face. He sat alone at the far end of the tavern, and she hadn’t realized how much she craved to see a familiar face until that moment.

  Or how much she had craved to see him.

  Her heart thudded in her chest, but she took her time making her way to him. When she finally did, she could see just how weary and filthy he was. Not only was his beard overgrown, his hair now curled around his collar, and there were dark smudges on his face.