Platform Four: A Legacy Falls Romance Read online

  Thank you for taking the time to read my novella from the Legacy Falls Project.

  All reviews are appreciated.

  If you would like to find out more about the Legacy Falls Project, please join our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1095597557149707/

  The Legacy Fall Project Includes:

  Platform Four by Eden Butler

  Behind My Charade by Skye Turner

  Her Southern Temptation by Trish Leger

  Dear Dixie by JL Baldwin

  Iron Heart by Madison Street

  Beyond the Ghosts by Jody Pardo

  An Unexpected Hero by Diana Marie DuBois

  Home by Morgan Jane

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE CHARITY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Pleasant Street Train Station,

  Legacy Falls, USA

  June, 1943

  Damn that snack trolley and Lenny Briggs for not minding a thing. Least of how he had refastened the tire on the damned thing—or not fastened, as it were. Now the thumping wheels and lurching metal reminded me of a clock with its gears spitting out the backside as the runaway cart, full of the bake goods and snacks I sold, sped ahead of me, moving passengers and train station workers around the steep decline of the platform ramp. The trolley became a wayward disaster careening down, wobbling and discarding every tin of Blue Star potato chips, packets of baked goods, cartons of cigarettes, and worst of all, my precious rations of paper cups as it moved further and further away from me.

  “Sorry!” I shouted, waving a frantic hand to the crowd that took its time moving from the trolley of death. “Out of the way!” That made them dart, and good thing for it, seeing as how the quivering wheel was now nothing more than thin rubber on a metal frame. It could be remounted, proper-like, if the rim wasn’t bent, but as we approached Platform Three, with Nelson Nixon standing directly in the center of the emptying path, I realized I’d be lucky if the damn trolley would survive at all, bent rim or no.

  “What on earth, Miss Mills…” But Nelson didn’t finish his fussing, not with that trolley giving no hint whatsoever that it would slow or topple onto its side, no matter how sternly the conductor stared at it. Most folk withered under Nelson’s glare. Lord knows I did when my whistling went on a little too long for his liking or when I’d asked him for departure times more than twice in a week. Nelson didn’t care one fig for me or my trolley or the passengers who hopped from their cars on the train to buy a pack of Chesterfields or grab a piping hot cup of dark roast coffee. Nelson, in fact, didn’t seem to care about anything other than moving the crowd in an orderly fashion and that his trains departed and arrived at precisely the proper time.

  Nelson Nixon was the meanest conductor among the dozens who worked out of the Pleasant Street station and he was about to be knocked over by my runaway snack trolley.

  “Damn and blast it all!” That earned a few shocked stares as I made a desperate lunge towards the cart, nearly catching the trolley handle as it bore down on Nelson's wide form, his stern scowl transforming into a frown, then a worried, mildly frantic fluster of surprise.

  “Now see here…” but when I shook my head, using my hand again to motion for him to move, then and only then did the damn fool move out of the way.

  The crash, when it came, was loud—a piercing bang and clang of metal and concrete that stood out over the noise of the crowd and the squealing brakes of the stopping trains. Metal screeched against the hard concrete of the platform, the last of the formerly neat and tidy tins of chips clattering against the floor, toward the shiny, polished shoes that Nelson typically wiped clear of smudges only about a dozen times a day. Miraculously, the coffee pot went unscathed. The coffee inside it, quite the opposite, and I scrambled with a fair amount of uncivilized, uncouth, definitely-not-proper-young-lady finesse to scoop up my stacks of paper cups before they fell from the platform and onto the tracks themselves. Precious commodity, particularly during war time, those cups.

  “Stupid, clumsy woman,” Nelson yelled, dusting off his uniform where there was no mess to clear away. That was somewhat understandable, with it being such a smart-looking conductor’s suit, fashioned in deep charcoal wool with fine gray trim, with a gold pocket watch which was the precise hue of the round framed glasses Nelson wore. Every time a woman, handsome or not, stepped in his path, Nelson tipped the leather brim of his hat at her with a gesture too subtle to be considered flirting. But he was still a pillock, no matter how smart his uniform looked. “How often have I said to you, Ada Mills, not to let that wobbly tire go without…”

  “Yes…you’ve said so forever, Nelson Nixon.” A few of the paper cups slipped from my arms and scattered; I had to scramble to keep more of them from littering the concrete at my feet and the mess of my trolley on its side. “I don’t need you telling me what I already know.”

  Nelson was only the boss of the trains and their schedules. Not of the station, not of me, to be sure. He knew that as well, but that didn’t keep him from fussing whenever I did something careless, which in his eyes was far too often. That twitch of his bottom eyelid and the small curl contracting along his top lip told me enough of what Nelson thought of me right then. No need to let him go on.

  “Clean your mess, young lady.” The command was needless, spoken with too much attitude, too much for me to ignore, but my small grunt did nothing to cool Nelson’s temper. “And you make sure the janitor brings a mop to get that coffee up. I won’t have my passengers…”

  “Nixon. Really. I’ll take care of it.”

  “See that you do, young lady.”

  When I didn’t answer the grumpy man shook his head, tugging down on the hem of his uniform jacket. He didn’t bother to offer me a hand of help and neither did the crowd around me, instead stepping over the mess of spilled coffee and around me as I ineffectually tried drying the floor with a sodden dish towel.

  The Pleasant Street train station was a fine, elaborate structure, built just twenty years before when the horses and carriage stations had given way to the tracks. The City Council had hopes that by modernizing Legacy Falls, they would ensure a boon in economic growth, and for the most part, they had been right.

  Since that first day when Mayor Wilkins cut the scarlet ribbon and welcomed the patrons to the brand new station, someone in my family had kept the travelers fed and supplied with Chesterfields, keeping us afloat when our family apple orchard produced meager fruit. Gran Mills had manned the first snack trolley and over the next twenty years my mother, my aunt Julia and then me had added tins of Blue Star potato chips to the inventory, as well as homemade biscuits and cookies which we kept warm with a portable Coleman stove, along with an aluminum coffee pot full of roast coffee.

  Folks loved our snacks. Most days, our coffee and all the goodies were bought and ingested by two in the afternoon. At least, they loved it now, while they could. Sugar had been the first food rationed and there weren’t enough stamps in my coupon book to waste on customers no matter how well my apple tarts sold. Corn syrup was a pathetic replacement, still, the customers didn’t seem to notice or at least didn't say anything, but it meant cutting down and cutting back on what we could offer. If the rumors were to be believed, coffee was the next item to be r
ationed, which made that sticky mess on the platform floor a little more difficult to take.

  Still, most days my snacks sold like hotcakes. But now those neatly organized, appealing looking packages lay scattered across Platform Four, and no one seemed to give one fig about the mess I'd made now that Nelson was gone. No one, in fact, paid much attention to me at all as I turned the trolley to rights and pushed the heavy thing out of the way of the crowd.

  There was a war on, and most people that crowded in the train station weren't there for fun and excitement. They were there to say their goodbyes to loved ones, and working hard to convince themselves those goodbyes would not be forever. A small ache in my belly smarted as I remembered being here just four months ago, saying my own goodbye to my cousin Mattie, trying to convince myself that goodbye would not be forever. Cousin Mattie was a smart fella, had been ever since we had been kids, growing up together. He was strong and clever. He’d not get himself killed, no matter where they shipped him off to. I believed it with all my heart, or at least I told myself so.

  I shook myself, focused once again on the mess the careening trolley had made. The disarray didn’t matter to me, really. I’d handle the mess myself, and was even daydreaming about leaving the day behind me and going home. But as I stretched my arm to pick up the dozens of packs of Chesterfields scattered around the platform, I noticed a pair of shiny Army boots standing right in front of me. When the man wearing those boots knelt down, making quick work of helping pick up my mess, all thoughts of leaving flew right from my mind.

  I’d never seen such a man. Not in Legacy Falls, not even on the coast when weekend getaways with my mother brought us to Myrtle Beach where adventurous men kept themselves upright on planks of thin wood as they surfed above the waves. Those men were fine creatures to be sure—bodies broad, shoulders wide, stomachs flat, all athletic and fit and getting the sort of attention that I reckoned came easy to them.

  But the soldier squatting in front of me, hands teeming with packs of Chesterfields, was no bare-chested man with skin bronzed from the sun or hair dampened from the surf. His hair was dark, but his skin was pale, and those eyes...

  “These yours, love?”

  He waved a pack of cigarettes at me, mouth twitching into a half smile so that I barely noticed his deep Irish accent or much else but the faint mix of rosemary and cedar coming off his skin and hair. That smile stretched further as I took the packs of cigarettes from his offered hand, only managing to blink at him like my words had gotten stuck somewhere between my throat and the thick twist of muscle that was supposed to be my tongue.

  “The quiet sort, are you then?”

  Again, I seemed capable of only a blink, this time with the briefest addition of a nod that pulled that half smile into something wider, more brilliant.

  He was impossibly good looking and it struck me as somehow unfair for such a face to be wasted on a man who’d surely wreck it with inattention. The stranger had broad cheekbones that were high, stretched across the expanse of his face, and a straight, narrow nose. There was no scruff of a beard on his face, but then there wouldn’t be, not while he wore that Army uniform. His eyes were blue, very blue, but not deep like the waves that curled over the white sand in Myrtle Beach; they were clearer, softer, like the ice that caps the tips of Lake Foster when the first winter frost turns the whole of Legacy Falls into a frigid tundra.

  The subtle shift of his cough brought my attention away from those eyes and back to the cigarettes he held. As I took them from him, I pulled the thin apron tied around my waist up to hold the packs in a bundle against my stomach as I stood and turned to face my trolley.

  “Bit of an accident you’ve had, is it then? Is anything mangled beyond on the fixing?”

  “No.” I willed the tremble from my hands when the soldier stood next to me, examining the cart. “The wheel has been threatening to fall off for a good while now and the boy who said he’d fix it was in a rush to do some fishing this morning rather than doing a good job with my cart.” Small flecks fell from the apron when I dusted away the bits of dirt and debris left from my trolley as it toppled over. There was no real damage on the surface of the cart except that now-mangled tire. The strange soldier knelt down, twisting the wheel back and forth before looking up at me.

  “The rim isn’t bent so much,” he offered, pulling the green garrison cap from his head. Thick, wavy black hair fell across his forehead just then and I held my fingers together behind my back, surprised by the urge to brush the hair from his eyes.

  “I’ll…” Clearing my throat only doubled up my anxiety, especially when the amused expression on his features returned and the solider stood, watching my mouth as I tried to come up with coherent sentences. “I’ll find a replacement at Joe’s. It’s just a few blocks from the station.”

  “Joe’s?”

  “Yes. The sundries store. Hardware and such.” He moved a step closer and I found my nerve again, lifting my chin to stare at the man until he removed the humor from his face, though it seemed to take effort. He had the softest bend in his Cupid’s bow lips that reminded me of plump berries ready to burst on the tip of my tongue right off the vine. Blinking, I forced myself to focus on his eyes. “Joe will have a tire or maybe something I could fashion at least so the trolley won’t wobble.” It would have to stay where it was, I thought, frowning around the station, realizing that I’d be stuck hawking my wares near Platform Four until I could get the wheel replaced. That platform was the smallest and therefore the least busy. Not exactly the makings of substantial sales.

  “What’s got you fussed?” The soldier’s voice was soft, concerned.

  “Fussed?”

  “Eh, sorry.” He shrugged and the movement had my gaze focused on the wide breadth of his shoulders and the starched lines of his uniform. He moved his head to bring my focus back to his face and I knew by the twinkle in his eye that the man was very well aware of just how handsome he was. “That look,” he nodded at the inadvertent frown on my face. “Something’s got you fussed.”

  “It’s not…” I didn’t know this man, sad to say, and it wasn't right for me to be troubling him with my inconveniences. He was likely off to war, the same as most of the soldiers that came through the station, to fight the good fight. A damn waste of fit men and beautiful faces. “I’m sorry, where are my manners? You helped me gather my mess. Can I offer you…” but as I glanced over my trolley, I realized the only the remotely appetizing items left were the freshly baked biscuits and the bagged chocolate chip cookies I’d baked at dawn. No coffee to keep this man awake. No more sandwiches to fill his belly. “Oh goodness…um…” I grabbed hold of one of the biscuits, still wrapped in wax paper and warm to the touch. “Would you like a biscuit?”

  “Are they a different sort than these?” He nodded to the cookies, reminding me that folk from across the pond called cookies biscuits.

  “No,” I said, offering him the biscuit. “These are…um…scones, I believe you’d call them?”

  A quick nod of thanks and he bit into the flaky, buttery biscuit. Then, much to my pleasure, the man’s closed and he released a happy, contented sound as he downed half the biscuit in an enthusiastic bite. “Bugger me…” He blinked, wiping flakes of dough from the corner of his mouth as I lifted my eyebrows. “Eh, sorry. This is phenomenal.”

  “Well, have another one, then. In fact,” I stopped speaking, reaching into the small basket that held the biscuits, pulling out two more, “have as many as you like. For your trip.”

  “I couldn’t…” but the solider stopped his protest when I waved my hand. “Well, here then,” he said, reaching for his wallet, but then went still when I touched his wrist.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  I spoke lightly, with the smallest hint of a laugh in my voice, but my grip was tighter than I’d meant, a fact the soldier seemed to notice. His skin was warm and smooth under my fingers.

  That touch should have lasted no more than a second, but it resonated with
a humming of energy and excitement that I could not explain, percolating like my strong dark roast between me and a perfect stranger.

  “Please,” I whispered, “I’d like to repay you.” Then suddenly I remembered myself, where I was and all the gossiping folk that tended to converge around the station, and I withdrew my touch from his wrist. “For helping me with my things and for…well…” A quick wave over his uniform and the soldier nodded.

  “Ah. For my services here and now and the ones yet to come, is it?”

  “I…I suppose so. Yes.”

  He smiled, but it was a melancholy gesture. “You’re thinking I’m a brave lad? You’re thinking I’m a true patriot?”

  I was cautious with my words, unsure of how to respond. “I’m thinking it’s strange you wearing that unit patch on your shoulder while speaking with that brogue but yes, I suppose you are a patriot.” His expression transformed into something that reminded me of the way Mama frowned and fussed when I’d keep the kitchen light on too long at night reading, and I had a sudden worry that I had annoyed him.

  “I’m sorry. Am I wrong?”

  He watched me closely, focusing on my features and not the clutter of activity around us—the bustling noise of the crowd or the billowing smoke that thickened the air on the platform.

  “You’re not wrong, love. I am a patriot. It’s just, my country is Ireland, though by birth, I suppose I am a Yank. Born in New York same as my mum, God rest.”

  “Oh.” A nervous fit of fussing came over me and I took to brushing at the back of my neck, tucking stray strands of hair inside the snood I wore. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, meaning it.

  “I was barely four when she passed and my da wasn’t keen on staying in the States with his people being all back in Galway, so we left for home. But then, at eighteen I got it into my head that returning to America would see me clear to a better education, maybe, more…opportunity. Pity, that, when my coming back only landed me the draft.” His face had set in hard lines, his eyes far away.