“Actually, he is Spirit the second,” Matt said. “My first horse was also named Spirit, but he was killed. He was such a special horse to me that I like to think that he—or his spirit, at least, is living on. Somehow, I think this horse understands that he is carrying on the name. I know that sounds silly.”

“No, it doesn’t sound silly at all,” Kitty said. “Since I’ve become involved with horses, I’ve learned a lot about them. Horses understand us, not only our words, but our very thoughts. If you named this horse to honor your first, then this one knows exactly what you have done, and believe me, he carries the name proudly.

“I think that is a very nice thing to do,” she added.

“Oh, I believe you all right. It’s like the jump he just made. I don’t think, once he saw the challenge, there is any way I could have held him back,” Matt said.

“Then the two of you seem well matched,” Kitty said. “You are obviously one who is up to a challenge. Otherwise, you would not have responded to my letter.”

“Well, once I read the letter and knew who you were, there was no way I wouldn’t come.”

“I wasn’t sure you would even remember me,” Kitty said.

“How could I forget you, Katherine? You were the prettiest girl there.”

Kitty laughed, her laughter as melodic as wind chimes stirred by the breeze.

“I think you may be doing a bit of flattery there. Especially since everyone knew how taken you were with Tamara,” Kitty teased.

“Ahh, well now Tamara was an older woman, and you know how boys are often intrigued by older women,” Matt replied with a laugh of his own. “As I look back on it now, it’s hard to think of a fourteen-year-old as an older woman. But at the time, that’s exactly what she was.”

“Tamara was the oldest of all the girls then,” Kitty said. “She was sort of the mother hen to the rest of us. Or at least, she was our big sister. I really missed her when she left the home.”

“What happened to you, after you left the home?”

The smile left Kitty’s lips. “Don’t you know?”

“No.”

“Matt, I went the same path as Tamara, and every other girl who left the home. Like all the others, I was sold into prostitution,” Kitty said.

“What do you mean you were sold into prostitution? How can you sell somebody? Isn’t that like slavery?”

“It is exactly like slavery,” Kitty agreed. “But Mumford, and the people he sold us to, had a clever way of getting around it. Mumford charged all the girls for room and board, then he arranged for Madam Crockett to loan us enough money to pay off the fee we owed to Mumford.”

“Madam Crockett?”

“Emily Crockett. She owned what she called a ‘boardinghouse for women’ there in Soda Creek. The boardinghouse was a whore house, and we were bound to Madam Crockett until the loan was paid off. And of course since we also had to make a living out of what were getting, it took quite a while to pay off the debt. Some of the girls never got it paid off.”

“You did.”

“Yes, I did eventually get her paid off, but it took four years. By that time I knew no other profession, so I went into business for myself. That’s what I was doing when Tommy came along,” Kitty admitted. “After his first wife died, Tommy became one of my regular customers. I don’t know how, or why, but, for some reason, Tommy fell in love with me.”

“It’s not that difficult to understand why,” Matt said. “You are a beautiful woman, Katherine. And I don’t mean just your physical beauty.”

“You are just being nice to me, for old times’ sake.”

“No, really, you are a very beautiful woman.”

“I wouldn’t have been, if Tommy hadn’t come along when he did. By now I would be worn and haggard looking—or I would be dead.” She sighed. “So many of the girls who were residents of Mumford’s Home are dead now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I didn’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories.”

“I don’t know if I would call it unpleasant memory, as much as I would call it a simple fact of life,” Kitty said. “And, for me at least, it didn’t turn out all that unpleasant. I wasn’t in love with Tommy, not in the way a young girl dreams of falling in love. He was very good to me, and I did love him in my own way.” Kitty sighed. “But then, I’m not sure that someone like me—someone who has been on the line, can ever actually be ‘in love’ with someone.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Katherine. You have a lot to offer. You’re husband was a very lucky man.”

“Marcus certainly didn’t think so.”

“Yes, Mr. Gilmore told me a little about Marcus Kincaid,” Matt said. “I gather he was not all that pleased with the fact that you married the man who had been married to his mother.”

“I think that is what you would call an understatement,” Kitty replied. “I’m sure he believes that, somehow, I tricked Tommy into marriage, in order to get out of the life, and have all this,” Kitty said. “And I must confess that he is half right. I was anxious to get out of the life, and Tommy seemed like a good way of doing it. I knew Tommy, I knew that he was a very nice man, and I thought it would do no harm. But I swear to you, Matt, I didn’t really know who he was, and I knew nothing about all this until after we were married,” she said, taking in the land with a sweep of her arm. She laughed. “He told me that he didn’t want me to know about it beforehand, because he wanted to be sure that I was marrying him for him, and not for his fortune. Bless his heart, he didn’t know that I would have married him if he had been a stable hand just to get out of that situation.”

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