Voices in the Wind

One of the comments I make routinely in contest critiques is, "The hero/heroine has no individual voice."
It's so hard to explain what that means. I do remember Randy Ingermanson saying once that if you could take a block of dialogue from one character and give it to another character with no changes, you were failing. A character needs a voice. In dialogue and in his/her thoughs and actions.
I cut this scene from Gingham Mountain because I thought it showed Grant, the hero, and Hannah the heroine sparring in a way that showed their voices.
Note how they suspect each other of bad motives, which are based on bad experiences from their own pasts.
But also note how Grant, a rancher, thinks in terms of Texas metaphores and with Texas slang and Texas drawl. Grant also always, always, always puts the children's needs before his own.
Hannah was raised in Chicago. Her voice is crisper. She speaks more quickly. Her grammar is better. She was raised hard, but she's trying to display proper manners, mainly because she wants to put her past far behind her. And learning proper behavior is part of that. Hannah is also of a meek temperment, none of which she displays in this scene, but later, when she thinks on this, she marvels at how she isn't afraid of Grant. That becomes very important in the course of True Love. She also has secrets and guards what she says.
This starts in Grant's POV and switches to Hannah's in Chapter Three.

Gingham Mountain

Grant needed a few more moments to reassure the boy, but he had to get this nagging woman off his back. “What is it, Hannah?”

"Well, first of all. . .” Her eyes flashed like summer lightning. “It’s Miss Cartwright to you.”

Grant noticed they were very pretty blue eyes. Too bad they were attached to a fuss-budget who seemed bent on freezing him to death or nagging him to death, whichever came last, because he had no doubt, if he froze here, solid in his boots, Hannah would go on snipping at him long after he’d turned to an icicle.

Grant crossed his arms over his chest. He knew it made him look stubborn, which he wasn’t, he was a reasonable man. But the truth was; he was cold. He tried to look casual about it. Charlie hadn’t wanted to take his coat in the first place, it wasn’t right to suffer visibly right in front of the boy.

“All right Miss Cartwright, what awful thing do you want to accuse me of now?”

Hannah seemed fully prepared to launch into a list of his shortcomings.

Grant braced himself for a blizzard of cold, critical words to go with the weather.

Libby tugged on Grant’s arm. He turned to her and waited to see what she wanted to tell him.

All she did was tug and squirm around, doing a little dance Grant had seen thousands of times before.

Bending close to her, he whispered, “There’s an outhouse behind the depot. Let’s go. Then we’ll head on out to the ranch and get you two out of this cold weather.”

Libby nodded frantically and hopped around a bit.

“Come on, Charlie.” Grant swooped Libby up in his arms.

“Now wait just a minute, Mr. Grant.” Hannah jammed her fists onto her waist.

Grant noticed she wasn’t wearing gloves and her teeth were chattering from the cold, just like Libby’s. She was skin and bones, too and her coat was worn paper thin. He had a moment of compassion for the little pest. She didn’t deserve the compassion, but Grant knew she had to be suffering.

Libby looked back at Hannah.

Deciding he was right about Libby and her friendship with Hannah, Grant, spurs clinking, headed for the edge of the platform. He glanced over his shoulder. “It isn’t Mr. Grant. It’s just Grant.”

“Well, what is your last name?” The woman kept nagging even as he left her behind.

Grant wondered who was supposed to come get her. “I don’t have a last name.”

“No last name?” She seemed frozen with shock but Grant considered the possibility that she was actually frozen. The temperature was dropping as fast as the snow.

Grant and the children started down the clattering wooden steps of the train station. “Libby, what’s your last name?”

Libby shrugged, then clung to his shoulders as they bounced down the stairs.

“Charlie, what’s yours?”

“I don’t have one.” Charlie waved good-bye to Hannah.

“Me neither.” Grant glanced back at Hannah as he got to the ground. “It’s just one of the facts of being an orphan often as not. I did finally get adopted when I was almost grown, but after my folks died, I decided I’d live my life without one so I’d never forget what it feels like to need a family.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, Hannah Cartwright. No one can who isn’t an orphan.” He jerked his chin down in a terse nod at Hannah that said good-bye more clearly than words. He disappeared around the corner, leaving her with her mouth hanging open.

Chapter Three
It cut like a razor to be left standing in the bitter January cold wondering what her last name might be.

The wind whipped Hannah, lashing her like Parrish’s belt. She understood exactly what it felt like to be an orphan. And she knew exactly what Libby and Charlie faced now that they’d fallen into Grant’s clutched. Fists clenched, she wanted to scream at the unfairness that forced her and Libby to pretend that they didn’t know each other. They were sisters, of the heart if not the flesh. They belonged together.

Hannah stared into the cruel blizzard winds, fighting tears that would only freeze on her cheeks if she let them fall. Libby—she had to save Libby. She’d never considered the possibility that Libby would be adopted. No family stepped forward to accept a child who wasn’t perfect.
So why had that awful man taken her?

Had Libby limped in front of Grant? Libby had walked off the train, so of course she’d limped. But he hadn’t been here yet. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. Or maybe the work he had in mind for her might be done by a girl with one badly broken foot. Maybe, once he got her home, he’d realize what he’d done and throw her out, maybe this very night in the middle of a blizzard.
Libby had been thrown out before. She’d been around three, living in an alley, fighting the rats for bits of food, when one of the boys who made up Hannah’s rag tag family had found her and brought her home to the abandoned shed they slept in. Hannah and Libby had been sisters for nearly four years now, and Hannah had yet to hear Libby speak a word.

There were no limits to how cruel people could be. Someone had thrown Libby away as if she were trash. The scars on Hannah’s back attested to the lengths to which her own adoptive father had gone to wrest obedience from his daughters. The instant Grant knew Libby wasn’t perfect he’d get rid of her.

Throw her out or keep her for hard labor, starving and beating her. Either was a disaster for frail, little Libby.

She rushed after Grant but she stopped, almost skidding off the slippery station platform. The snow slashed at her face and the wind howled around her as she tried to decide what to do.
Hannah had to stop Grant. But what could she do alone against him? It was more than obvious that he had no intention of letting her stop him. Making off with two more indentured servants put speed in his step.

She thought of how awful he looked, like an outlaw. Long stringy hair, a smell that Hannah thought belonged to an animal not a man, eyes flashing gold at her, like a hungry eagle swooping down to snatch away youngsters and carry them off to his nest. Captivating eyes that sent a shiver through her when she thought of how they shined out of his grimy, whiskered face. The shiver wasn’t exactly fear, thought. It wasn’t normal that she hadn’t feared Grant. Her fearful reaction to men was something she’d been fighting all her life, at least since Parrish.

Her shoulders squared and she lifted her head as she remembered confronting Grant. Never for a moment had she consider cringing or dropping her eyes. Why wouldn’t Grant have that affect on her, when he was so much like Parrish? A feeling of power firmed her jaw. She’d been taking one daring chance after another in the last few years. Maybe she’d finally built herself a backbone.

She couldn’t defeat him physically, but she and Grace had outsmarted Parrish. And Grant struck Hannah as none-too-bright. She’d have to out-think him.

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