Prologue

Buckingham County, Virginia—1865

Layla Love was used to leaving the seamstress shop at the end of her day’s work with sore fingers from the occasional prick of her needle. Today was no different, but unlike most days, she barely noticed the pain.

All she felt was the envelope in her hand, how unbearably thin and light it was between her fingers. The money inside would be gone before she knew it. And this was the last money she would ever get from that job, because the shop was closing.

Layla no longer had a job. She had no source of income.

It was as if a bottomless pit had opened up beneath her feet. Her stomach dropped and her head spun. She knew she needed to start for home. It was already beginning to get dark outside, and she didn’t want to be out on the road once the sun had set.

But it was difficult to walk through the door for the last time, to put this place behind her once and for all. The rich smell of the cedar floors, the warm handmade quilts they’d draped across their laps in cold months, even the steady squeak of the rocking chair she sat in while she worked . . . She would miss it all. It had been her safe harbor for the last four years, ever since Pa and David had gone off to war. She’d spent her days here, under the watchful eye of Mrs. Varner, working for the money she needed to keep food on the table while the men were away.

And then Mr. Varner had come back from the war—and Pa and David had not.

Now Layla stood beside the chair that had been hers for the last four years, wishing she could stay here. She rested a hand on the back of the chair. It was unthinkable that this place was lost to her, that she would never be coming back. Since the war had begun, the shop had been more of a home than home itself.

“I’m awfully sorry, Layla,” Mrs. Varner said quietly from behind her. “You know how I wish I was able to keep the shop open.”

Layla nodded, turning to face the matronly woman who had been her closest friend over the last four years. Mrs. Varner was plump and kind-eyed, with gray hair that she kept in a neat bun. She had troubles of her own. That was why she was closing the shop. Her husband was home from the war. That was a blessing. But he was badly wounded and would need her to care for him. She would be taking seamstress work out of her home now, but there would be no time to manage a shop.

“It’s all right,” Layla said, trying not to choke on the lump in her throat. She didn’t want Mrs. Varner to see how devastated she was by all this. It was bad enough that she was losing her job. She didn’t want to make her friend feel guilty. None of this was Mrs. Varner’s fault.

“You’ve been such a great help to me over the last four years,” Mrs. Varner said, removing her apron and folding it carefully. She placed it on the seat of her own chair. “And this place has meant everything to me.”

“You shouldn’t apologize,” Layla said firmly, mustering all the strength she had inside herself. “It’s a good thing that Mr. Varner made it home. I thank God for his safe return, even if it does mean the shop has to close now. We all found our way when the war began. Now the world is changing around us once more, and we’ll all find our way through it again. It will be all right.”

The envelope crumpled slightly in her hand, as if to reveal the lie in what she was saying. She wasn’t sure at all that things were going to be all right. This last amount of money felt like such a meager thing to hold on to in her hour of need.

“I’m sure you’ll find another job soon.” Mrs. Varner’s tone was a bit desperate. “And you know I’ll give you a recommendation. Whoever you ask for work, let them know that I thought highly of you, and that I think you’d make a wonderful addition to any workplace. Let them know that they should speak to me to find out more about just how wonderful you are.” She reached out and gripped Layla’s free hand in both of hers. “I’ll do all I can to help make sure that you land on your feet.”

“I know,” Layla assured her, squeezing her hand in return. “These last four years have been made bearable because of you, Mrs. Varner. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me over the past few years.” She offered Mrs. Varner a sincere smile, though it was difficult to maintain the expression through the tears that threatened to creep up on her.

“I wish you could continue to work with me. But caring for John means that I won’t have as much money as I do now to put toward things like this.”

“I understand that. You’re making the right decision,” Layla said firmly. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find another job. Perhaps they’re hiring at the mercantile.” She was all but certain they weren’t. The mercantile was run by Mr. Tamlin, one of the few men who had been unable to go to war thanks to a bad foot. And he had three grown daughters to help him. He didn’t need Layla.

“We’ll see one another very soon,” Mrs. Varner said. “This isn’t the end of our friendship.”

“Of course it isn’t.” Layla inclined her head. Though it had been hard to face leaving, she suddenly found that she wanted to get out of there very badly. She wanted to be on her own so she could let the flood of emotions she was holding back wash over her at last.

“And you’re to come over to my house Sunday night for supper, do you understand?” Mrs. Varner fixed her with a firm gaze and squared her shoulders. “And every Sunday night. I consider you family.”

Layla nodded mutely.

I don’t know if I can. What would I be able to bring?

She couldn’t arrive at the Varners’ empty-handed, though she knew Mrs. Varner would protest and tell her that of course she should. Mrs. Varner wanted to take care of Layla. That much was obvious.

But Layla couldn’t allow that. She wasn’t Mrs. Varner’s responsibility, especially not now that Mrs. Varner had a wounded husband to see to. And Layla hadn’t been raised to rely on the charity of others.

“I’d better be going,” she said softly, easing her hand back from Mrs. Varner’s grip. “I want to get home before nightfall.”

“Of course you do.” Mrs. Varner nodded. “I’ll be by to check on you in a few days.”

Layla turned away before Mrs. Varner could see the tears that were springing up in her eyes. She forced herself to hold her head high as she walked out into the gathering dusk, pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and drawing in a deep breath to steady herself.

I’m on my own.

That wasn’t true, of course. She was never on her own. Not really.

God, be with me. I don’t know if I can face this without someone by my side.

And He was with her. The same surety that always came over her when she prayed was still there. In spite of everything, Layla still wasn’t alone. She never had been. She never would be. That warm weight in her heart let her know that God was watching over her, His hand steadying her on her path. Even when things seemed darkest, as they did tonight, there was a light to guide her way forward.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment as her feet found the familiar path home.

The seamstress shop wasn’t the only one to have closed down in recent days. Buckingham had the empty look of a ghost town. Streets that had bustled with life a few years ago were now all but empty. Storefronts were vacant, falling into disrepair. Many of them had been that way for the last four years, their owners leaving them abandoned when the war had begun.

The mercantile was one of the few exceptions. She stopped before it, running her thumb over the envelope in her hand and thinking of a nice cup of hot chocolate, something to warm her against the chill of fear that was beginning to grow within her. Did she dare to spend the money? How long was this last bit of money going to last?

An advertisement had been posted in the window.

Find A Husband

Go West On The Bride Train

Someone had drawn a picture of a train on the piece of paper, and Layla stopped to admire it.

She’d heard of the Bride Train before, but it was nothing she’d ever considered. It was a last resort for women at risk of spinsterhood, women who had exhausted their options.

Women like me. The thought suddenly came to her.

She flinched away from it as if it had been a physical blow. That wasn’t her. She had a life here. She wasn’t one of those women who left everything behind to seek their fortune with an unknown man out west.

Left what behind, though? What would I be leaving if I were to go?

She stared at her reflection in the mercantile window. The last four years had taken a toll on her, more than she would have expected. When Pa and David had left, she’d been seventeen years old—too young to be on her own, really, though she’d managed with the help of other women of Buckingham who had also been left behind by their men.

But it had been a strange time. Though Pa and David had been exceedingly protective over Layla, she’d begun to notice herself looking less like a girl and more like a woman. She’d begun to daydream about the possibility of suitors coming to call, sitting with her on the porch, trying to win her favor. Pa and David may object at first, but they were sensible men and knew that she’d have to marry eventually. And finding love, starting a family of her own, was what Layla wanted most of all.

Then the war had come, and the men had gone.

They were coming home now, but Layla wasn’t the girl she’d once been. She both looked and felt older than her twenty-one years. Her green eyes no longer sparkled with excitement. Instead, they were dull and sad. Her red hair was no less vibrant, but these days it hung limp and lifeless. Her cheeks had once been rosy, but now they were pale.

Even if there was an abundance of men here in town, who would look twice at me anymore?

***

Back at the house, Layla pulled down her cup from the cupboard, the only cup in the house that wasn’t covered with a layer of dust from disuse. She put a pot of water on to boil for tea and lit a fire in the fireplace. As she brewed her tea, she listened to the snap of the wood and the sound of her own breathing.

Over the last four years, she’d grown used to the quiet emptiness of the house. She missed the sound of her father’s booming laugh, of David’s witty comments. She’d always been the most soft-spoken member of her family. But you could get used to anything in four years’ time.

It was only once she’d received the letters informing her that they would never be coming home that silence had begun to seem horrifying.

I can’t stay here, she thought as she prepared her tea. I can’t stay in this tomb of a house forever. It isn’t just that I have no work and no way to support myself. Every hour here is a miserable reminder of everything I’ve lost.

But could I really board a train that would take me to a place I’ve never been before, where I would be completely alone? Could I really risk starting a life with someone I’ve never met before? Someone I know nothing about?

The risk seemed far too great.

As she took her teacup to the little bedroom that had been hers since childhood, walking past the doors that had belonged to her father and David and had stood closed for years, she was struck with a heavy resignation that bordered on relief.

This was her home. She wasn’t going to leave.

She settled on the bed that took up the majority of her space, the only piece of furniture in the room apart from an ancient wardrobe, and stared out the window into the darkness.

Even now, she was going to stay.

***

In the middle of the night, her eyes flew open.

The room was dark and cold. The candle had gone out during the night. Layla had the feeling she always did when she awoke from her dreams in the middle of the night, of being deeply and desperately alone. If she were to scream, there would be no one to hear her, no one to come and help.

She closed her eyes and called upon God, slowing her breathing. Gradually, the sharp, acidic terror left her body, and she was calm. She pulled her quilt up to her neck. It had been patched together for her by the mother she’d never known, in the months before Layla had been born, and when she huddled beneath it now, it was like being embraced. She ran her fingers along the tiny, even stitching between two of the squares, taking comfort from the knowledge—as she had so many times before—that her mother’s fingers had been here. Her mother’s stitching was perfect.

What did I dream?

She rarely remembered her dreams, so at first, she simply took for granted that this one was gone, just like most others. But then, bit by bit, it began to return to her.

She had dreamed of Abraham. His story was one of her favorites from the Bible. She’d always admired the strength and courage it must have taken to answer God’s call, to go forth when he was directed to do so in spite of the uncertainty he must have felt.

And Abraham was rewarded with a new home and a new family, just as God promised.

A chill ran down her spine.

Was the dream trying to tell her something?

What if she, too, were being called to leave her home in search of a new life and a family? What if the advertisement for the Bride Train was something she was meant to follow?

Could that dream have been God’s way of calling to me?

She reached for the Bible that always sat on the table beside her bed and flipped it open to the book of Hebrews, where she read the familiar words aloud.

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out to a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”

Maybe Layla was being called by God to follow a path like Abraham’s. Maybe, just like him, her obedience was being tested.

The thought filled her with a warm certainty, as if God were smiling directly down on her, as if He were saying, Yes. That’s what I want you to do.

Layla had always dreamed of marrying a man she loved. She’d never seen herself marrying a complete stranger.

But she had faith in God.

If this was what He asked of her, Layla would trust that it was for the best.

She would be going west on the Bride Train.

Chapter One

“Oh, Pa,” Layla said softly as she gazed at the photograph in her hand. “I hope I’m not making the wrong decision here.”

It had been a week since she’d made the decision to take the Bride Train. Since then, things had moved quickly. Layla had imagined that it would take months to make the preparations, but she’d been given a seat on the next outbound train and told to prepare herself to be chosen by a man when she arrived.

That was a frightening notion. Every time she thought about the prospect of being chosen, a chill ran down her spine. What if she arrived at the train’s destination and was selected by a cruel, horrid man? Or perhaps worse, what if no one at all wanted her and she was forced to board the train and come right back home?

Pa smiled up at her from the photograph. She could almost hear his deep, booming laugh, could almost see the way his bushy beard would quiver when she did something he found amusing. How she wished he were here to advise her or even to wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything would be all right!

But then, I suppose if Pa was here, I wouldn’t be going west at all.

She put the photograph in her bag and reached for the photograph of David. Unlike her father, he wasn’t smiling. He’d never liked having his photograph taken and had only suffered through it because their father had insisted on it. Somewhere, there was a photograph of a young Layla, too, but she hadn’t bothered trying to find that one. She was more than happy to leave it behind.

She placed David’s photograph carefully in her bag as well. Then she folded a beige dress and laid it on top of both of them to ensure that the frames wouldn’t break during her travels. “At least you two will be with me in this strange new place,” she whispered, grief choking her.

In a very real way, it did feel as if she were leaving them behind. It was difficult and painful to be in this house, where their absence was a constant weight on her. But this was the place they’d been a family, and now she was leaving it behind her forever.

She folded her mother’s quilt and tucked it into the bag. Then, on the very top, she placed her sewing bag. There was no telling whether she would have any use for it once the train reached Idaho, but she couldn’t possibly leave it behind. It meant too much to her. The bag had belonged to her mother once upon a time. According to Pa, her mother had been a gifted seamstress, just like Layla herself, and Layla felt close to her every time she used this bag. She had no photographs of her mother. There had been a few, but Pa and David had taken them off to war with them, and they hadn’t made it back.

She closed her eyes, breathing in the familiar pine scent of her bedroom, in the house her father had built, for the last time. As she did, she could almost hear her father’s voice, and she let a memory of one of the last times she’d seen him carry her away.

You look more and more like your mother every day, Layla.

She had turned to see him standing in her bedroom doorway, taking in the sight of her dressed in one of her mother’s handmade dresses. It was a simple, everyday frock, but like everything Layla’s mother had made, it was special. There was intricate embroidery on the bodice that made it unique.

I’ve always looked forward to the day I would be old enough to wear these things. Layla had shimmied where she stood so the hem of the skirt would swish about her ankles. It’s still a little big for me. Can you tell?

You’ll have to take the hem up a bit, but once you’ve done that, I think it’ll be a very good fit, her father had said. You should wear it to church on Sunday. He’d stepped further into the room and walked a slow circle around her, taking her in.

Do you think it’s nice enough for that? Layla had turned to look at herself in the mirror.

Her father had beamed at her. You’ve never looked more beautiful, he’d assured her. It’ll be perfect. You look just like your mother did on the day I met her, and you know that was at church.

When you were just a few years older than I am now, Layla had recited. She’d heard the tale so many times that she could have been the one to tell it to him. He’d seen her mother sitting a few rows ahead of him at church and had been so enchanted by the sight of her that he’d lingered after the service and asked her to come for a walk with him. One walk had turned into a weekly tradition, and eventually they’d fallen in love. It was a beautiful story, and every time she sat in church now, Layla couldn’t help imagining that perhaps her future husband was behind her, noticing her, ready to begin their story.

But that wasn’t the way things were going to happen for Layla. She had to accept that now. It gave her a leaden feeling in the pit of her stomach to have to let go of that daydream, to accept that there had never been anything real in it. Instead of being noticed by a handsome man who would win her heart, she would board a train and become the wife of whoever selected her.

Like cattle at market. There was nothing romantic about it. How would she tell this tale to her children one day?

***

“All aboard!” the man on the platform called.

Layla gripped her handbag as tightly as she could, watching as the porters tossed the larger luggage into the compartment underneath the train. Her suitcase had already gone in. It was too late to turn back now, too late to do anything but board the train and meet her destiny.

But it was frightening. Now that she was standing here, she ached to go back to the relative comfort of her home. The train was large and unfamiliar, and when she got off, she would be somewhere unrecognizable.

She turned her back to the train and gazed at the Blue Ridge Mountains off in the distance. They were a hazy blue silhouette on the horizon, barely distinguishable, but they had been there all her life. They anchored her in a way nothing else did. Now she was giving them up, never to see them again.

You can’t stay here for the scenery, she reminded herself firmly. There will be mountains out west, too. Different mountains, but still mountains.

She gritted her teeth and turned her back on her beloved Blue Ridge Mountains, forcing herself not to look back. She couldn’t look back. If she did, she may never summon the strength to turn away again.

Gripping her skirts with one hand, jaw clenched, she marched over to the train and allowed herself to be helped up the steps and into the cabin.

Once she was inside, it was easier. It was as if she’d already left home behind. She walked down the aisle of the train between rows and rows of passengers. All women, of course. They all looked as if they’d made an effort, in dresses that were clean and tidy, but these were women like herself. They’d fallen on hard times and didn’t have the money to spend on beautiful clothing, so they were in simple dresses, plain and patched. Layla’s own brown dress was one of the nicest on the train, probably because of her ability to make her own clothes as handily as she did.

She’d known it would be all women, but seeing it still took her by surprise. Layla had never been in a place so dominated by women before. Even once the war had started and most of the men in town had been called to serve, there had been older men. There had been boys. But here, it was all women.

They’re all looking for husbands out west.

It made sense, of course. There were so few men of the right age to marry. So many had been lost to the war. Going west was the most practical choice. But it had been such a difficult decision for Layla to make. Had these other women come to the idea easily?

She found an empty seat and dropped into it. Her shoulders hunched around her ears. She took a deep breath and forced herself to detach her tongue from the roof of her mouth, to relax the muscles of her face. She knew from bitter experience that if she couldn’t manage to let go of some of this tension, she would suffer from a terrible headache.

“Good morning,” said a bright voice.

Layla turned to see a woman a few years younger than herself with bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

Little more than a girl, really.

Her heart ached. She herself felt very young, sitting on this train about to be whisked away from everything she’d ever known. But this girl was practically a child.

“Good morning,” she managed.

The girl beamed and pivoted in her seat so she was facing Layla. She was small, a full head shorter than Layla sitting down, and she had a narrow, heart-shaped face and shiny dark hair worn in two braids. “My name is Winnie,” she said with a toothy grin. “Winnie Harrison. It’s nice to meet you. I was hoping I’d have someone to talk to on the journey, but nobody sat beside me for the longest time.”

Layla inclined her head. It was good to be seated beside a chatterbox, she decided. Winnie made it impossible for her to sink into the brooding melancholy in her own mind. She was too effervescent, and her bubbly nature lifted Layla up, too.

“I’m glad to meet you, too,” she told Winnie. “I’m Layla Love.”

“Oh, that’s a pretty name!” Winnie clasped her hands together. “And so perfect since we’re on this train in hopes of finding love. I guess I’ve found it already!” She laughed at her own joke.

Despite herself, Layla laughed, too. “I’m surprised to see someone so young here. Are you all on your own?”

“Yes,” Winnie said matter-of-factly. “But I was on my own anyway. I lost my family in the war, you see.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Layla murmured, her heart aching for the girl. “I lost my family in the war, too.”

“We can be one another’s family,” Winnie said, reaching out and taking Layla’s hand. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

Layla tensed. Family had always meant Pa and David. That wasn’t a title that could belong to anybody else.

But it’s going to have to. That’s why God sent me here—to find a new family for myself. To find someone I could be family to. Maybe that starts with Winnie. Heaven knows she could use someone to care about her.

With that thought, Layla relaxed. She found within herself something she hadn’t expected: a desire to love someone new. It was warm and easy. It had been such a very long time since she had experienced either warmth or ease.

She smiled at Winnie. “Of course we can be sisters,” she agreed. “After all, we’re heading off into a new life together, aren’t we?”

Winnie bounced up and down in her seat. “I’m so glad I’m going to have someone I know when we get there,” she said. “I have to admit I’ve been nervous about what it’s going to be like. I never thought I would take the Bride Train.”

“No,” Layla agreed. “Neither did I. I only decided to leave a week ago.”

“What made you decide to go?”