An Agent for Evangeline (The Pinkerton Matchmaker Book 47) Read online

  An Agent for Evangeline

  The Pinkerton Matchmaker Book 47

  By

  Patricia PacJac Carroll

  An Agent for Evangeline

  by Patricia PacJac Carroll

  Copyright © Nov 2019

  Published by PacJac Publishing

  ALL rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, (except for inclusion in reviews), disseminated or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or audio, including photocopying, recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system, or the Internet/World Wide Web without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Author Patricia PacJac Carroll Newsletter

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  Cover by Virginia McKevitt

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Evangeline Paxton stared at the man who’d surprised everyone in the lead detective’s office by jumping up and speaking so unexpectedly. Mark Johnson had practically yelled that he was half-crazy in love with her, the emphasis being on crazy. She couldn’t bear to look at his moony eyes any longer and turned away to enter the hotel.

  She sighed all the way down to her toes. Well, she’d done it now. She’d married him.

  “Just temporary.” Archie Gordon, the lead detective in the Pinkerton agency in Denver, had said.

  How temporary is what Evangeline wanted to know? Then again, she needed the job with the Pinkertons. If there’d been any other way, she’d have refused. But she needed the Pinkerton badge, and marriage to Mark Johnson was the only way to get it.

  Mark’s steps signaled he was close behind her.

  Before reaching the hotel clerk, she shut her eyes for a moment, turned, and confronted him. “I want to stay in my own room tonight. Married or not, I hope you’ll honor my wishes.” She looked into his eager hazel eyes, and somewhere in the back of her mind noted that the man was handsome.

  Mark cocked his head. “Temporary and with limitations. I know. You said it often enough at the agency.” He gave her a weak smile. “I won’t force my way on you. I love you, Evangeline.” His eyes were bright and adoring.

  Then he walked to the desk and ordered two rooms from the clerk. By the amused look on the hotel clerk’s face, Evangeline believed the man had been privy to many of Archie’s unplanned marriages before.

  Mark took the two keys and turned to her. “Let’s go.”

  Not wanting to see Mark’s doting face any longer, she again turned away from him and walked toward the stairs. She turned to him, what rooms?”

  “I’ll take room fifteen.” He handed her a key. “You can have room seventeen.”

  She took the key and nodded. “We can talk about the case tomorrow. Archie gave you the folder.” She stumbled against the bottom step to the stairs and almost fell and would have if Mark hadn’t grabbed her arm and held her.

  Evangeline stiffened, regained her balance, and pulled out of his grasp. Nevertheless, she did turn to him and thank him. Briefly, but she owed him that. She quickly navigated the rest of the steps and ran to her room.

  With nervous fingers, she tried to shove the key into the lock.

  Mark’s steady hand took the key from her, unlocked the door, and opened it. “I told you I wouldn’t bother you. When you can love me back, then we’ll stay in the same room. You don’t have to fear me.”

  She swung around to face him. “I am not afraid.”

  Mark grinned and touched her cheek. “I think you are. I think you’re afraid of having feelings for a man.”

  “You don’t know me, Mark Johnson. Not at all.” She braced herself and stood as tall as she could, feeling much like a rabbit before a wolf. “I’m tired. Please, excuse me.” She grabbed the door and swung it hard to close behind her.

  Mark caught the door and held it open. “Sweet dreams, Evangeline, or should I say, Mrs. Johnson. I’ll stop by in the morning and pick you up for breakfast. The train leaves at ten.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be awake and dressed.”

  He looked at her with that lovesick gaze that reminded her of a puppy and jerked the door from his hand.

  She didn’t slam it, but she did shut and lock the door in his face. She leaned her head against the wood and imagined him on the other side, waiting for her to change her mind. Evangeline whispered. “I will not change my mind, Mark Johnson.”

  Tired, yet fueled with worry and fear, she changed into her nightclothes and slipped between the sheets on the bed. Then looked at the window and realized it wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. Still, she didn’t know what else to do. To stay up meant more time with Mark.

  She thought about the case they were on. Mr. Gordon hadn’t gone into great lengths to tell them about it, but she was relieved to know it would be in southern Wyoming and northern Colorado.

  “A gang is working the stage lines between Cheyenne to the west and Laramie to the north.” That’s about all she remembered Archie saying. Why the passengers weren’t taking the train puzzled her. Yet, Mark had explained that the stage serviced smaller towns along the way.

  She laid against the pillow and studied the scar on her arm. How long ago? Ten years? Sam had saved her life that day, and she owed him.

  She’d already seen the ad by the Pinkerton’s when she’d gotten his letter. Her brother’s predicament and the opportune ad gave her the idea. She was smart. How hard could it be to do detective work anyway, but she needed the badge to help her brother.

  Evangeline glanced at the door. She had one chance to convince Mark to help her. She recalled the lovesick looks he’d sent her way the first time they’d met in Archie’s office. It was that look that gave her hope that she could use him.

  It had to be the Lord’s hand that had given them a case in Wyoming close to the area where Sam was in jail. She held onto the hope that the Lord was going to help her free her brother. He was the only family she had left.

  With a wry grin, she shook her head. “Now, I have Mark. My husband.” With an exasperated sigh, she rubbed the old scar and cringed at the thought of what she’d done. Yet, she owed Sam her life. She had to save him.

  ***

  Mark wasn’t tired. Not enough to go to sleep anyway. He left the hotel and went to the saloon down the street. He still couldn’t believe what he’d done. He’d been dead set against Archie’s idea to marry agents to female partners.

  Then she’d walked into that room, and she was the only thing that mattered to him. It was puzzling. More than puzzling. He couldn’t even tell anyone what about her had drawn him to her. She was pretty, but there were more beautiful women. It certainly wasn’t her personality because before she said a word, he was already in love.

  Mark walked to the Lost Cause Saloon and had to laugh. He could identify with the name. He’d fought for his home state of Texas in the War between the States. That had turned out to be a lost cause. He’d gone home from the war to find the family ranch had fallen into another lost caus
e.

  Mark ordered a beer and stared at the amber drink. He knew of too many ex-soldiers who had drunk themselves into being their own excuse for a lost cause. Mark lost his taste for the beer and instead just stared at it.

  He twisted the glass mug and asked himself why he’d married her, but he knew. He married Evangeline because he loved her. There wasn’t a crack of doubt in his heart or mind. Never had anything so overwhelming and certain overtaken him in such a short time and deliberate way.

  There was no explaining it. He could see the shock on his fellow Pinkerton agents’ faces. On Archie Gordon’s face. Even on Evangeline’s face. Everyone in that room had stared at him in shock, but no one was more shocked than he had been.

  Yet, he was so sure. So, positive that this was the next course for his life that he surprised himself and heard himself say that he wanted to marry Evangeline and be her partner. There was just no explaining it.

  The closest he could come to something similar was that snowy day in Hickory Stick, Colorado. Mark had ridden into the small town, not expecting it to be there. But it was and thriving. He’d wanted a ghost town.

  Ready to drown all the lost causes he’d endured in the saloon, he came upon an old man, Cyrus, and the old preacher had led him to a small grove with a carved bench and told him to sit there and listen.

  Mark had sat but heard nothing. Yet, when he left the area, his heart was alive and his spirit full of hope. God had spoken to him, to his inward parts anyway. Since that day, Mark had been different.

  Today, with Evangeline, it had been similar. For some reason, he loved that woman with all his heart. She didn’t care about him at all. Oh, she’d accepted him and allowed Archie to marry them. Temporarily, Evangeline kept repeating.

  There hadn’t been a thing Mark could do to stop the crazy love that had overtaken him. No matter how hard he tried to tell himself that she wasn’t right for him, once he looked at her, he knew he was hooked like a catfish on a secure line and sharp hook.

  Mark shoved away from the bar, put a coin on the counter, and left the saloon. He walked the street, pacing. Then he found himself staring at the park on Hobbs Street. It used to be one of his favorite spots to go.

  He went inside the park and admired the flowers. For Summer, it was full of all sorts of different kinds and colors. Idly, he thought about how he should thank the people who planted and maintained the park.

  By this time, the full moon was up high, spreading a silvery light about the ground. Mark stopped in front of a rosebush and sniffed the pleasing fragrance. He smiled. That was the kind of day he’d had.

  Unsuspecting, he’d walked into Archie’s office to complain about the idea of having to marry a partner, when he’d turned and looked at her. His mind had stopped working, and his heart had taken over.

  He loved her and wanted nothing more in life than to marry that woman. Mark shook his head. “What a crazy day.” He glanced at his watch.

  He should go to the hotel and his room. Not her room, he’d promised her that. Even though they were married, he’d promised her that he’d not bother her.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Mark was almost to the hotel. In minutes, he had his key out. Then looked and realized it was key seventeen. For a moment, he thought about her. His wife.

  He hadn’t given it back to her. He shoved it in his pocket and took out his key. He’d be next door to her anyway.

  Chapter 2

  Evangeline awoke before the sun but wasn’t actually sure if she’d slept at all. She worried about Sam. Worried about watching the door in case Mark changed his mind. Worried about what in the world she had done by marrying him.

  She knew nothing about Mark Johnson other than he was a Pinkerton agent and now her partner in more ways than one. Not that she intended to find out about him. This was only a temporary solution to her troubles. Once she freed her brother, she’d be done with it. With him.

  A rooster crowed in the distance, urging her to get up. Evangeline did her morning ablutions and dressed. She’d be ready for him. One thing she wanted to bring to the partnership was that he’d never have to wait for her. She’d heard the other agents in the room grumbling about women and how they always had to wait.

  That wouldn’t be what she was going to be known for. No sir. She sat in the chair by the window and watched the street outside. It was early, so not many were moving. A few horses and riders trotted down the road. One wagon with a family and five children tumbling about in the back.

  Evangeline smiled. She’d always wanted to have a lot of children and had dreamed about the big family she’d have. Maybe because her family had been made up of only her and her brother, Sam. Twins.

  She and her brother had a bond that went beyond what siblings usually have. They knew when one or the other was hurt. That’s how Sam had saved her that day.

  Now, she felt the gnawing pain in her heart that he was in trouble. She’d felt it for some time that he was in deep trouble. That he was full of sorrow and pain. Then she’d received his letter.

  Evangeline glanced out the window in time to see a horse and rider gallop down the street. The rider stopped outside the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Urgency. She felt it even up here in her room.

  She prayed no one was seriously hurt. Prayed that God would protect her and Mark as they solved their case and saved Sam.

  Her thoughts settled on her brother. He had always been so soft-spoken and gentle that she couldn’t imagine how he could be in enough trouble to warrant a hanging. He’d said he was innocent, and she believed him. She’d always trusted her brother.

  She watched the people in the street. The family in the wagon had stopped outside a general store. The father went inside, and the mother was left to corral the children taking the youngest by the arm.

  Even up in her room, Evangeline could hear her yelling at the others as they jumped from the wagon and scattered.

  Two went into the store after their father. Two went toward a park. And the oldest looking boy went toward the saloon to get an eyeful on his way in a hurry to grow up.

  Evangeline wished she could stop them. Her childhood had been a miraculous place. Until she turned eleven.

  She frowned. That was the year her father died. Heart trouble the doctor had said.

  Mother had slipped into a dark place of sorrow and barely knew what was going on in their crumbling world. Sam found a job sweeping out a saloon. Evangeline wondered if that had been the time and place of the beginning of his downfall.

  Looking up she prayed for the young boy as he went into the saloon. Life was fraught with so many traps. With a sigh, she wondered if she’d fallen in one by marrying a man that she didn’t know to help a brother about to be hanged.

  Her thoughts wandered to the past. Evangeline had stayed and helped her mother. Cooked the meals. Washed the clothes. She tried to be mother, father, and sister to her brother. She failed in all three. By the time Sam was fifteen, he was headed for trouble.

  Gone was the soft-spoken, gentle brother she loved so. And too soon, he left. Ran off with some gang of no-goods. He didn’t tell her much, but he did come home and give her and Mother enough money to live on until the next time he came by.

  Then one day, he didn’t come home. The days stretched to weeks, and they turned to months. Mother’s eyes dimmed even more, and too soon, she didn’t know who she was or care. Mother disappeared into herself and soon left this life, leaving Evangeline on her own.

  Alone, Evangeline had gone to work for Jenna’s Dress Shop. Miss Jenna, an elderly seamstress, let Evangeline stay in a room in the back of the shop.

  Tired of dwelling on the past, Evangeline opened the window and breathed in the crisp morning air. Although it was late summer, fall was teasing them with frost and hint of snow in the mountains.

  She heard the children yelling. Then the father came out of the store with the two young ones in tow. He practically threw them in the wagon toward the mother. “Keep them here.”

/>   Evangeline heard the anger and frustration in his voice. Life was not easy. Their clothes were threadbare. The children were skinny and dirty. The mother wore the same face of sorrow that Evangeline had seen on her own mother’s face.

  How she wished she could shower them with enough money to put smiles on their faces and help them out of this difficult time. But she had only enough to support herself in her quest to save Sam. Besides, any extra, she would give to Sam and try to get him to walk the straight and narrow.

  A knock on her door startled her. She’d been so lost in the past and the drama below, she’d forgotten about Mark.

  “Coming.”

  ***

  Mark waited for her. He’d gotten up early and bought some flowers from the store below. They were pretty red and blue with some yellow ones scattered about. He didn’t know what kind they were, but they reminded him of Evangeline.

  Her door opened. She was ready. Before she pasted the guarded look on her face, he saw a flash of sadness. He held out the flowers to her. “I thought of you and bought these for you.”

  She took them and gave him a puzzled look. “We’re leaving today. What I am supposed to do with them?”

  “Enjoy them. Look at the colors and shapes. Smell the fragrance they give out. That’s all.” He smiled at her, then held up the case folder. “Want to go over this in your room, or down at the diner?”

  “The diner.” Her answer had come swift and sure. It was clear, she didn’t want to be alone with him in a room.

  Mark wondered what had happened to her to make her so fearful of men. He’d seen her smile and talk with Marianne at the Pinkerton Agency. But with men, Evangeline shrank into herself and put up a fierce protective wall.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes.” She grabbed a shawl and left the room, being sure to lock the door behind her. “Let’s go.”

  Mark nodded. Why he loved this woman was beyond him. He watched as she marched in front of him to the diner next door. She didn’t even wait or walk beside him. Was he that repulsive to her?