“Back to your mother—you said she was very supportive and kind. What caused you to leave New York and head West?”
Finally, the next question she’d been hesitant to ask. Sam hadn’t volunteered the information and, again, she hadn’t wanted to pry, but she worried that it would be one of the important things she’d be expected to know.
She turned to face him, giving his arm a slight squeeze of encouragement.
Sam pursed his lips and pulled his hat further down his forehead.
“It wasn’t so much that I wanted to. My brother had left for college and I was working in a—well, I’m not sure how to explain it. I’d told my parents what kind of career I wanted to have. My father didn’t agree.”
“Oh, but your mother did?”
“She did, but my father was most formidable when he made up his mind.”
“I don’t understand. What is it that your father wanted you to do?”
“Meg, do you think maybe we could leave this topic alone? It was a very difficult period, and I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Meg’s heart sunk. How could he not want to share that with her? It seemed to her it would definitely be something she should know about her husband of several years. One look at his face, though, helped her to decide not to press the issue. He gripped the reins so tightly that his knuckles were white, and she felt sadness radiate from him.
“I’m sorry, Sam. So you came West to start that career that your father didn’t want you to have? As a bartender?”
Sam turned to look at Meg, his brows furrowed in confusion. “Bartender? Oh, no, that’s not what I’d intended to do. I tried to get a job at what I loved, but it didn’t work out. I fell into tending bar and worked mostly in the saloons in town.”
“How did you end up at the Occidental, then?”
“I’d become friends with Hank and Tripp, and when the restaurant was ready to open, Tripp and Sadie asked me to come over. So I did.”
Meg now had a little more information, as meager as it was. Her curiosity had been even more piqued by now. How would she ever find out? She couldn’t ask his mother. But the pain radiated from her husband, and she knew it was something she’d need to find out somehow.
She had come to know Sam fairly well, she had thought, from his time at the ranch. He had always been joyful, full of laughter and spontaneity. With this topic, he’d become silent and withdrawn.
She thought it best that the other Sam be the one to greet his mother, so she changed the subject to much lighter things for the remainder of the journey, but the nagging curiosity never left the back of her mind.
“Just another little bit,” Sam said as they neared the stagecoach station.
The weekly stagecoach trips from Benson could sometimes be quite crowded and dusty, and Meg knew Sam had offered to fetch his mother to avoid the stagecoach altogether, and that she had declined, saying, “What kind of adventurer would I be if I can’t make that trip on my own? I’ll be fine. Will meet you in Tombstone.”
“I think it’s rather brave of your mother to travel this distance alone, especially after the loss of your father.”
She kicked herself for bringing up another troubling topic as the frown returned to Sam’s face.
“Yes. Yes, it is. My mother is nothing if not brave.” Could she be brave, if she let his father change his desires?
Meg wondered what type of person she’d meet in minutes as the stagecoach rumbled toward them. She sincerely hoped that his mother would like her—and also that Meg would like Mrs. Allen. She took a deep breath and released it, readying herself for what was to come.
Chapter 17
Meg gasped when Sam said, “There she is,” as a tall, lovely and very elegant woman stepped from the stagecoach, her gloved hands tugging at her smart brown travel coat. Her hat covered what looked to be black hair, fashioned into a chignon at her neck.
Under her breath, Meg said, “She’s beautiful, Sam.”
“Is she?” He looked from his mother to Meg and back to his mother, his face softening as his eyes met his mother’s.
Meg couldn’t help but smile at the warm greeting they gave each other, and her heart tugged as Mrs. Allen wiped away a tear with a delicate linen and lace handkerchief.
She pushed the thought that she must look like a waif in her country clothes and makeshift hair-do—she was still practicing to get it the way Clara had shown her—to the back of her mind as Sam approached, his mother’s arm through his and wearing an ear-to-ear smile.
“Meg, I’d like to introduce you to my mother, Mrs. Allen. Mother, this is my wife, um…”