Chapter Two

"But who is she?" Audra sat on the sofa with her mother in the Billiard room looking at Jarrod, while thinking about the young woman Nick had had her lead up to the guest room after she'd eaten. "She looks ready to collapse…" had been his exact words just before asking Audra to show their guest to the room she'd be using while she was with them.

Jarrod, who was leaning against the desk, shrugged his shoulders. "I know I have seen her before, but I can't seem to place her. She simply nods or shakes her head when I ask her anything. That is, if she responds at all."

Victoria was as puzzled as the rest of the family for the woman's silence. "But you feel strongly she's afraid of something?" she asked looking at Nick, who had made a comment to the effect that he was sure that she was running from something; he was standing near the window.

"Has to be, why the silence and the look of an animal cornered by a hunter if she's not?" Nick said with his mind still on the young woman. He then shocked himself and everyone else when he said, "She's dressed all wrong to and that hair cut," he rubbed the back of his neck, "It looks as if she cut it herself, and did it in quite the hurry. She's got to be trying to throw someone off her trail."

"What do you mean, she's dressed wrong? I thought you said you didn't know who she was." Audra asked the question, and made the statement, out loud while the rest of the family's eyes asked the same thing. The question only served to further frustrate Nick, who had been racking his brain trying to remember where he'd met the woman before.

"I said I knew her, but I can't place her!" Nick snapped, a bit harder than he meant to, as he slapped his hand down upon the window seal. Due to the fact both his mother and sister jerked slightly backwards as his hand landed upon the window seal, Nick quickly apologized. "I'm sorry. I just hate not knowing who she is when I should and," he looked at Jarrod, "like he said, she's running from something, and I want to know what."

Audra, who had been thinking, said quietly, "I think you're right about the way she's dressed."

Her mother and her brothers' heads all turned to look at her. The expressions on their faces told her each one of them wanted to know why she was making such a statement. After all, she flat out told her brothers she knew she had never laid her eyes on the girl, not even once. "I tried to give her one of the spare dresses I keep in my room. You know, just in case we get a guest who needs one." She looked from her brothers to her mother. "I could tell from the look in her eyes she wanted to take it only she shook her head after a few minutes and held onto her plain dress."

"But you're having Elisha wash the dress she had on." Nick said, talking about their temporary help. "What is she wearing now?"

"Clothes?" Audra didn't resist the smart remark that came to her mind, but she quickly changed it to a serious answer as the look in her mother's eyes went from a questioning expression to one that said 'Really?' "Elisha has that extra dress she keeps here, just in case something happens to the one she's wearing. She let the girl use it. Only like I said, the look in our visitor's eyes said she really wanted the prettier one I showed her."

"She's running from whoever left those bruises on her face." Nick walked away from the window and headed for the billiard room door. "I just know it."

Victoria, afraid of what Nick might do in his frustration, stood up. "Nick, let our guest be. She's not hurting anyone."

Nick turned on his mother, a look of disbelief on his face. "Did I say a thing about throwing her out or threatening her?" The very thought of doing such a thing made his stomach churn. The idea that, perhaps, his mother was thinking along those lines made it turn over even more.

"No, but she's lying down. She might be asleep. Even if she's not, she's tired." Victoria got an exasperated tone of her own in her voice.

"I won't disturb her if she's asleep. If she's not," Nick said as he turned to leave, "she can tell me to leave. I don't care if it's with her voice or by some other means, but she can still be the one to do it." He then exited the room quick enough to make it impossible for any of his family to stop him.

"Maybe Heath will know her once he gets home." Audra broke the uneasy silence that had descended when Nick exited the room. Her blonde haired brother was away on a short cattle drive, one that Nick would have been on had he not been extremely sick the first day of the drive.

"Maybe," Jarrod walked around the desk and sat down in the chair that was always kept behind the piece of furniture. Personally, he hoped either Nick or he would be able to remember where they'd seen their guest, and get her to tell them her story.

~oOo~

"I say good for her!" Thomas Black, a red headed gentleman stood outside his small two bed-room home outside Granite City. The home stood outside the only town he'd known as home talking to one Misti O'Day. The middle aged woman had been worried sick since her boss' daughter had up and disappeared, though she admitted to everyone, except to the young woman's father, that she'd been expecting such a thing for a long time. "He has his noise so far up in the air that it's ridiculous!"

"As much as I may agree," Misti wrung her hands, "how is she going to survive? Don't get me wrong. In spite of what many people might think, she's not a lazy one. Still, she's never had to work…I mean really work, to provide for herself. And, where is there for her to go? Thanks to her father, hardly anyone around here wants anything to do with the family. If only her mother was still alive!"

There was no way Thomas was going to admit to having seen the missing woman climb into the freight wagon. Why should he? He might have been out of the young woman's sight, but that didn't mean he hadn't gotten a pretty good look at her face. Any man who would do such a thing to his own daughter should expect to lose that same child sooner or later. "Go home," Thomas patted her on the back. "Go home and let the law and her father look for her." 'And may they never find her,' he added only to himself.