“How long will ya be gone?” Andrew asked.
Malachi’s gaze swung south. “As long as it takes.” He blinked, then turned back to Andrew. “I’ll stop by the boss’s tent before I leave. Let him know where I’m headed. Tell Zachary he’s in charge until I get back.”
Andrew nodded.
Mal reined Ulysses around, but the kid’s voice made him hesitate.
“Who’s Emma, Mr. Shaw? Your sister?”
Mal’s chest constricted. Sister? Some might think of a childhood companion in those terms. He’d never been able to, though.
As he touched his heels to Ulysses’s flanks, the truth spilled from his lips in a quiet whisper. “She’s my angel.”
4
Malachi’s knees bounced restlessly as he stared out the train window, ignoring the scenery blurring past. Emma. He hadn’t seen her in ten years. Would he even recognize her? A dry chuckle escaped beneath his breath. As if he could ever forget even a single aspect of her features. They were etched on his brain as surely as if a branding iron had burned them there.
Of course, they would have changed. Matured. She’d been only thirteen when he’d left, on the cusp of womanhood. She’d be twenty-three now. A woman grown. Probably just as strong-willed and opinionated as ever. More so, even, since she’d been under the aunts’ continued tutelage all this time. A grin tugged on his mouth, but he contained it. Mostly.
Those dark curls of hers wouldn’t bounce along her back anymore when she skipped from place to place. They’d be pinned atop her head or stuffed under a bonnet. She’d be dressed in style, no doubt. Suit coat and long skirts. Maybe even one of those ties that looked like they belonged on a man. Only on her, it would look smart and respectable. Fitting for a career woman. A banker.
He still couldn’t quite believe his little angel was running her own bank, taking after the father she barely remembered. But doggone, he was proud of her. He knew from that first meeting in the barn that Emma Chandler was special. Big heart. Big dreams.
And she’d kept him informed of her progress along the way. She’d written to him every month since he’d left. Newsy letters, nearly as exuberant as the woman herself. She’d kept him up to date with all the goings-on in Gainesville until she left to attend that fancy boarding school back east. Tears of homesickness had stained the first few notes she’d sent him from New York, but then her confidence grew as she fell in love with the world of finance. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be studying such improper subjects, but a little thing like propriety never stopped Emma.
She followed the stock market in the papers, attended lectures on investment strategies, and read nearly every book on finance held in the Astor Library. After graduation, she called in a favor from her late father’s business partner, and sweet-talked him into allowing her to work in his bank as a teller while learning the details of the managerial side of things after hours. Her excitement about this new job had bled through the pages for the first few months, but then the tone of her letters changed.
Her male co-workers belittled her opinions, treated her as if she had no right to work alongside them, accused her of using her father’s name to get on the payroll and her feminine wiles to remain there. After all, they knew she spent indecent amounts of time alone with the boss after hours. Mal had offered to come back to Texas and teach the cretins some manners, but Emma had made him promise to let her handle it. If she was going to survive in a male-dominated occupation, she’d have to learn to fight her own battles. And she had, though not without paying a price.
Her innocent optimism had been tarnished by harsh reality. And it changed her. Her letters grew bitter as she recounted tale after tale of how women were turned down for loans or dismissed as unintelligent when they came in with questions regarding their mortgages or accounts. She’d done her best to educate the women who were willing to listen to her, but more often than not, even the females looked down on her, questioning her morality for working outside the home or, worse, believing the rumors circulating about her and the boss who was old enough to be her father.
Thankfully, she’d gotten out and returned to Texas before irreparable damage had been done. Soon after, she’d met a woman named Victoria Adams, and the two of them had conceived the idea of a women’s colony, taking men completely out of the equation.