Chapter One
As she stoked the stove, looking in at the glowing coals, Addie could almost pretend she was alone. Unable to hear the cacophony of morning mayhem unfolding in the small kitchen behind her, Addie took a moment to herself, breathing in the smell of freshly baked bread and newly cut cedar wafting in through the open door.
It was a short-lived moment of peace. Soon enough, she felt the familiar urgent poke on her shoulder. Taking a breath, she turned around to assess the damage.
All in all, there were four daughters in the Wheaton family. At fifteen, Sarah was the second oldest behind Addie, but far less reliable around the younger girls. Sarah was a dreamer, much happier prancing around the woods than she was trying to force their eight-year-old sister to eat breakfast.
Catherine, the second-youngest of them all, was throwing a tantrum that would be far more fitting coming from the four-year-old Mary, who was happily and pleasantly eating her scrambled eggs at the humble kitchen table in the middle of the room.
The small cabin had served them well over the years, overcrowded through it was. There had been a time when Addie’s father would make grand promises about the house he was going to build, outfitted with staircases going nowhere and more windows than they could count. But those memories were long gone now.
It was impossible to tell what Catherine was so upset about. She was waving her arms around and her wild curls flew in front of her face, preventing Addie from being able to read her lips. At times like these, Addie considered her lack of hearing to be a blessing.
Very aware of how little time she had before she needed to get to work, Addie fixed the problem the only way she knew how. Stepping forward, she threw her arms around her younger sister.
“It’s all right, Catherine,” she whispered into her ear, hoping the words would come out audibly. Addie hadn’t been able to hear herself talk since the age of eleven when she’d come down with a dreadful fever. She’d never stopped using her voice to communicate, but her confidence in how she sounded diminished with every passing year.
Luckily, her calm assurances seemed to soothe Catherine. She stopped waving her arms about, and Addie could feel her submit to the embrace, sobbing. Eventually, the sobbing slowed, and Addie pulled away.
“You feel better now?”
Catherine nodded.
“Good,” Addie said. “Because you’re going to be late for school. Go now, and take an apple if you didn’t eat!”
Again, Catherine nodded dutifully, whatever she was distressed about still a mystery to Addie. Surely, Sarah would explain it all at the end of the day slowly enough for Addie to read her lips. She was a good lip reader, brilliant by many standards, but the confusion of the morning rush was too much to work against.
“Thank you,” Sarah mouthed as she followed Catherine out the door. Addie watched them go with just a small amount of jealousy brewing inside. After losing her hearing, Addie was pulled out of school. She’d done her best to read as much as she could on her own, and her father had gone out of his way to teach her some mathematics, but he’d barely been to school longer than she had.
Sometimes, Sarah would go through her homework with Addie, allowing her to learn about ancient civilizations and the geography of the nation. It was hard to carve out the time, however, considering how late Addie’s days went at the boarding house. By the time she was done with her duties and came home to help with a late dinner, she was exhausted and ready for bed.
“It’s just you and me now,” Addie said to Mary, still happily shoving the last of her eggs into her mouth with her fingers.
All of a sudden, Mrs. Wheaton appeared beside Addie, shoving a mug in front of her, no doubt a silent request to be poured some coffee.
“I’m here, too,” Mrs. Wheaton replied with a tired smile. Addie gave her mother’s shoulders a rub before filling her mug. As much as Addie wished she had more help around the house, she couldn’t ask it of Mrs. Wheaton.
After her husband had been discovered dead in a suspicious accident, Mrs. Wheaton had become inconsolable. Insomnia led to illness, and now there was always something nameless and ruthless ailing her. Addie’s heart ached every time she saw her mother’s tired eyes. She was still too young a woman to be so forlorn and broken.
Mary, at least, still needed a mother with enough energy to play. Addie wasn’t sure what happened once she left to go to work at the boarding house every day, but she had a feeling Mary was doing more to take care of Mrs. Wheaton than the reverse.
Addie and Sarah did what they could to keep the household running smoothly, but it was easier said than done on one salary. Addie was terrified of the day when she might have to ask Sarah to stop going to school and go to work instead. At least one Wheaton girl deserved to graduate.
“Bad sleep?”
“As usual,” Mrs. Wheaton replied.
“Can I make you something for breakfast? The girls had eggs, and—”
Mrs. Wheaton shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. Go! You’re going to be late,” she warned.
Addie knew very well this meant her mother wouldn’t eat until she got home again, save for aimless nibbles at the bread she’d baked that morning. There was nothing Addie could do about it, however. If she didn’t get to the boarding house soon, then her pay would be docked, and that was not something she could risk.
The muddy streets of Fairtown, Colorado, greeted Addie as she hustled her way to work. Downtrodden miners streamed past her, headed for a long day underground, while strangers new to town smiled innocently, en route to find their fortune in a California stream.
Mountains lined the horizon, giving Addie something to look at. Ever since she lost her hearing, fewer and fewer people knew what to do with her in Fairtown. Folks who used to stop and ask about her family now kept their distance, unsure of how to communicate with her. Instead, they threw pitying looks in her direction before whispering behind their palms. Some didn’t trust her because of her lip-reading abilities, which they presumed to be too good to be believed.
Sometimes, she let herself think about what her life might have looked like if she’d never lost her hearing. In some ways, she even preferred the solitude and peace the quiet gave her, but the lack of understanding from others made her feel isolated now and then.
Now that she was nineteen, the girls and boys Addie had grown up with were getting married. Some even had children of their own on the way! There’d been a time when Addie had dreamed of falling in love and starting a family, one that was filled with as much joy as hers had been when she was young.
Since then, her dreams had changed. All she hoped for now was a bright future for her sisters and guidance from the Lord. If she could provide for them and make sure they had everything they needed to thrive, then Addie would be happy. Her calling was homebound.
As soon as she felt the thin, tickling fingers around her waist, Addie knew her friend Liza was behind her.
“Good morning to you, too!” Addie said, fighting back her yelps and laughter.
“I just can’t resist sneaking up on you! I’ll never tire of it,” Liza replied, skipping to catch up so Addie could read her lips. “Watch out. My mother’s on a tear today. The good news is that there are seven rooms for us to clean today, so that should take up most of our time, and we’ll barely have to see her.”
As Addie’s best and only friend, Liza did her best to protect her from everyone and everything, including her own mother. Liza’s parents owned the boarding house where Addie worked. In fact, she was the reason Addie had been hired in the first place. Very few other establishments in town were willing to hire a deaf girl.
The cleaning days at the boarding house were the best days. Liza and Addie could disappear and work together, unbothered by customers or nosy bosses. If all the rooms were occupied, however, then the two of them helped out in the kitchen, and even served customers in the meager dining room.
Addie dreaded those days. The kitchen was chaotic, and it was hard to keep up with all the action. When she first started, she frequently brought plates to the wrong tables, invoking terrifying fury from Liza’s mother, Mrs. Jean.
Luckily, Liza had stepped in quickly, and the two of them came up with a system. They worked in tandem, with constant check-ins and smooth communication. Addie had never been taught sign language, but she and Liza managed to develop a rudimentary version of their own, with clear gestures denoting menu items and areas of the restaurant.
Sometimes, Addie and Liza considered growing their language to go beyond work-related terms, but there never seemed to be the time.
“Where are you coming from?” Addie asked. She usually met up with Liza at the boarding house, seeing as that’s where she lived with her parents. Liza often begged to come home with Addie, desperate for the sisterhood she had, but of course, there was no room for yet another daughter in the Wheaton household.
“The post office. My mother’s sleep was interrupted by some carousing customers, so she was too tired to do it herself. I should drop off the letters at the front desk, but you should go in through the back door. Trust me, you want to steer clear of her today,” Liza warned.
Addie believed her. They said a temporary goodbye once they got to the front of the sagging boarding house. Though it had only been built five years earlier, it was already falling apart. After housing hordes of miners and travelers just passing through, the floorboards were beginning to feel untrustworthy, and there were several bullet holes in the walls.
Fairtown Boarding House was far from fancy. For a more genteel experience, the rich folks and mining barons stayed at the Grand Hotel across the way. The customers at the boarding house were often transient, lost souls unable to afford anything more than a hard cot and a harder lump of bread.
Slipping through the back alley, Addie arrived at the kitchen door. It was already propped open while the cook, Sam Micheals, smoked a pipe and blew the smoke outside, likely ignoring his work.
Sam coughed a bit in surprise when Addie showed up at the door, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave her an overly wide smile and nodded silently, making way for her to pass him. He knew very well she could read lips, but found it easier to say nothing to her at all.
Addie pressed her lips together and returned the smile and nod, having decided long ago that it would only complicate things to say “good morning” out loud. She couldn’t help but feel that it opened her up to ridicule if she didn’t pronounce her words perfectly, though Liza would threaten the very life of anyone who made fun of her.
She could smell the bacon burning behind Sam, making her wonder if he’d lost his sense of smell. Making a small detour, she decided to kindly take the pan off the stove before slipping out of the kitchen and up the back stairs to the first floor of rooms.
Liza was already there by the time she arrived, standing by the servant’s door with a mop bucket, mop, broom, and duster.
“I told my mother you’d already started working, so as to keep her from bothering you. Come on! We’ve got a whole day of cleaning ahead of us,” Liza announced, tucking a loose lock of her shining black hair into her kerchief.
If they worked together, they could clean all the faster. Working too fast, however, was dangerous. They didn’t want to finish too early, lest they get assigned more unwanted tasks. When they finished cleaning one room with time to spare, then they could relax and chat for a bit while Liza kept an ear out for anyone approaching.
“We have ten minutes,” Liza reported when they finished work on the first room. There was a clock in the hallway she would go out to check, carefully timing out how much time they spent in each room.
“If we had longer, I’d lie down,” Addie sighed, sitting down on the freshly made bed. It was twice as big as the bed she shared at home with Sarah and Catherine.
“No! I have to tell you about the new guest who arrived this morning. He might be the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” Liza said, her eyes glimmering.
Over the last two years, Liza had spent every spare second dreaming of her potential husband. Each new man who came through the boarding house was a potential option, though Addie frequently questioned her friend’s taste. There was no discernment in her opinions, merely enthusiasm. She’d been “in love” half a dozen times over the last year, though she’d barely spoken to a quarter of the men she fawned over in private.
“Tell me about him,” Addie replied warily.
“His name is Benjamin. He’s come in from…well, I’m not sure where. Somewhere south. Texas, maybe. I think he’s a rancher?”
“A handsome rancher.”
Liza nodded eagerly. “My mother is sure he isn’t married. Can’t you just imagine living on a ranch? I can see it all now. Stepping out on the porch in the early mornings, watching the sun rise over the mountains in the distance. The herd to the right, doing…whatever herds do. Graze, I suppose.”
Addie laughed. “I’m not sure you’d make a very good rancher’s wife. You can barely toast a piece of bread. It always turns out burned!”
“Toasting bread is hard,” Liza said defensively. “It’s easy to get distracted, and sometimes the flames lick up and burn the bread before you can even…who cares if cooking isn’t my strong suit? I have plenty of other skills to offer a husband.”
“You are a good cleaner.”
“And I’ll be a brilliant mother. I’ll raise a healthy brood of sons to take over the ranch and nurse me in my old age,” Liza decided.
“I have no doubt. Well, it sounds like your plan is flawless. As long as this mysterious rancher isn’t working with the Redwing Gang.”
Liza deflated. “He probably is. I’ve heard they’ve been getting into cattle thieving.”
What, exactly, the Redwing Gang got up to was ambiguous by design. It was impossible to pin any crime on them, though it was common knowledge that they had their fingers in just about every pot in Fairtown.
At her own mention of the gang, Addie’s hand went up to the pendant hanging from a chain around her neck. The heavy silver oval had been the last thing her father had given her before he’d left on a business trip, never to come home again.
Prospecting had been his vocation, though there was little doubt in her mind that Mr. Wheaton had gotten caught up with the Redwing Gang toward the end of his life. Since she couldn’t listen in on her parents’ conversations anymore, she’d had to do a little detective work to figure out that her father had some gambling debts owed to the gang.
Since getting tangled up with the outlaws, life had gotten strange at the Wheaton household. All talk of building a new, bigger home to fit the growing brood stopped. Food became scarce, and Addie had been sent to work at the boarding house. Mr. Wheaton’s moods grew erratic and his whereabouts unpredictable.
After he was discovered dead, the local sheriff did what he could to get to the bottom of it, but in the end, his death was ruled an accident. Addie developed a healthy skepticism because of the ruling, and she started to wonder if the sheriff was under the thumb of the Redwing Gang as well.
As time went on, Addie did her best to forget about what had happened to her father, choosing to remember the good times with him instead. There was no way she would be able to figure out what had happened to him, and it was killing her to hold onto the anger. Still, in her weaker moments, she would hold onto that pendant and mull over her various theories.
“Cattle thieving? It’s a long way to come from Texas just to help the Redwing Gang steal a few cows. I’m sure your rancher is pure of heart and a man of God,” Addie assured her friend, choosing to err on the side of positivity. As much as she feared the loneliness that would come with Liza’s inevitable marriage, she still wanted the best for her friend.
“Well, I don’t know if he’s pure of heart, but I’m certainly hoping he’s sticking around long enough for me to find out. I think our time’s up. Let’s move on to the next room. Then, we can plan a way for me to run into this rancher tomorrow,” Liza said with an excited shrug of her shoulders.
Together, they forced themselves off the bed, collected their supplies and growing pile of dirty linens, and started work on the next guest room. It was a mess, with food scraps littering the sheets and spilled ale making the floor sticky.
Sometimes, Addie and Liza found useful bits and pieces left behind and forgotten by guests that weren’t quite worth returning for. Watch bands and belt buckles, or even the occasional coins. Mrs. Jean, Liza’s mother, always demanded they turn anything in that they found, but Liza had long ago assured Addie that she could keep anything she found.
There was nothing worth keeping in this particular filthy room. The guests had likely been staying there for some time, explaining the mess. Addie and Liza got through it together, with not a spare second to gossip anymore.
The other rooms they had to clean were barely any better, but Addie always preferred the days when she and Liza could work together. She considered them numbered days because if and when Liza got married, she probably wouldn’t be working at the boarding house anymore. She’d be charged with caring for her husband’s home, and once children came, she’d spend most of her time raising them.
For Addie, of course, there was no end in sight to her time at the boarding house. Sometimes, she fantasized about her younger sister, Sarah, winning the heart of some wealthy rail baron or oil magnate. Then, and only then, would they be able to escape their circumstances. Maybe Sarah’s new husband would let them all live with them in his mansion, and Addie could finally learn sign language and meet other people like her.
Of course, she wasn’t holding her breath for this eventuality. It was simply fun to dream of from time to time. The thoughts stayed firmly in her own mind, however, as she didn’t want to burden Sarah with such expectations. As long as all her sisters were happy, then Addie would be, too, even if her future was nothing more than a greyer version of her current life.
“Two Hearts in Silence” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!
For the longest time, Addie thought love and marriage weren’t for her. After losing her hearing and grieving the death of her father shortly after, Addie put any thoughts of romance out of her mind. Instead, she focused on where she was most needed: at home, taking care of her family. However, when the handsome, polite-yet-rugged, Elijah strolls into the boarding house where Addie works as a maid, she starts to wonder if perhaps there’s love in her future after all…
Will this man be trustworthy of her timid hopes for love?
On top of his good looks, the mysterious Elijah even speaks sign language. He strikes up a friendship with Addie that could become something more, but they both hold back from admitting their feelings. In reality, Elijah isn’t who he claims to be… He is on a mission to dig up evidence damning enough to lock up every single member of the treacherous Redwing gang. And according to rumors Addie is in possession of the evidence in question…
Suspicions that there’s more to Elijah than he’s letting on have been raised…
Elijah and Addie keep each other safe, and even though Elijah knows Addie likely won’t forgive him once she finds out his secret, now that the gang is after them, they might discover that an act of betrayal is not always as it seems. Even if Addie can find a road to forgiveness in her heart, will the Redwing gang let her live to ride off into the sunset?
“Two Hearts in Silence” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
Hello my dears, I hope you were intrigued by the preview of this lovely story and can’t wait for the rest of it! I will be waiting for your thoughts here! Thank you! 🥰