"It sounds like quite an adventure."
"None of your jests Miss Josie. A woman is safe in her father's home and her husband's. Nowhere else in this godforsaken Indian Territory. This isn't Boston."
I considered the words, not certain why they confused me so much. Maybe because my life was so different. It was intriguing to witness firsthand - yet unsettling as well.
"What if John … Father … doesn't want me here?" I ventured. "Will my appearance upset his health?"
"Nonsense, child. You came back … different, I'll admit, but he has never stopped waiting for you. He will love you as he always has," Nell said. "You leaving broke him. He's a different man, Miss Josie. He won't be angry no more about your fiancé and he won't force you into a new marriage."
Seated in a stranger's house with a woman who thought me someone else brushing my hair, I felt guilty for a moment, like what I was doing - pretending to be someone I wasn't - was somehow wrong. If Carter sent me back here, he had a reason. I didn't think he'd ask me to do something that was bad, yet I couldn't help thinking the people of this house would be sad when I left.
"That's good," I said. As soon as John saw me, he'd know. A nanny might be fooled, but I didn't think a father was going to be convinced a stranger was his daughter, no matter how much I resembled the real Josie.
Nell finished brushing and twisting my hair into an elaborate bun on top of my head before she went to the wardrobe.
I glanced down at my phone and saw a message from Carter.
OMG! Of all the things you could send me pics of, you chose THAT?
It took effort not to laugh. Nell already thought there was something wrong with me for running away. I tucked the phone in a pocket in the gown and gazed around me, amazed at the relative comfort of the room compared to the near squalor of the bedrooms I saw on the tour at Tombstone. John was wealthy - a pleasant surprise I'd thank Carter for later.
My thoughts turned to my mission. How did I find the two men I sought in a world without so much as a phone book, let alone the internet? Did I go door to door until someone recognized the name? Or wait for the brain chips to activate?
Nell knelt in front of me with a pair of leather booties. I lifted my feet one by one and placed them in the boots.