Hazel of Heber Valley (Rocky Mountain Romances Book 5)

by Annette Lyon

  Nathan worked hard to not react to the familiarity implied by her use of the man’s Christan name. “Facial hair — growing it, shaving it, whatever — is the easiest way for a man to change his appearance. Coltrane could have easily shaved it off.” He reached over and covered the mustache with a finger. “See? Doesn’t it look more like him now?”

  “Not to me,” she said in a tone that implied, I’m sorry but not really. “Look,” she added, pointing to the text under the word WANTED, “This is a picture of someone named Willie Cochran.” She handed the sheet back without another glance at it.

  “Criminals often use aliases,” Nathan said, taking the piece of newsprint. He tapped the back of his finger on the picture. “People who use aliases often pick them so they’re easy to remember. And that often means an alias with a similarity to a real name. You know, so they don’t mess up.”

  “And you know this how, may I ask?”

  He gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow, hugely relieved that she’d gone from spitfire angry to teasing. “Think about the names,” he said. “Willie Cochran. Wyatt Coltrane. They have the same initials, and the same number of syllables.”

  “Utterly incriminating,” Hazel said dryly. She reached out for the paper one more time, not because she believed a word of it, but because she wanted to disprove Nathan’s claims. She read the full text to herself. “Says this Willie Cochran has a scar on his abdomen. Doesn’t say what it’s from.”

  “Could be from being shot in a duel, or from a knife, or who knows what else.”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow and read more. “He has a purple birthmark on the back of his neck in the shape of a bean. And he’s known for wearing a lot of black” —she glanced— “as if that is anything unusual in these parts. And he tends to move to small, unsuspecting, otherwise innocent towns with little crime.” She lay the newspaper on her lap.

  “You have to admit that Midway fits the last part,” Nathan said, pointing at the paper. “A lot of locals have never left Heber Valley. Some of the old timers who immigrated from Switzerland never left town after they got settled here.”

  She held the paper out to him again. “I suppose I’ll grant you that bit, but the rest...” She sighed. “Can’t you see? You’re concocting stories in your head that aren’t real. You’re letting your jealousy get in the way of rational thinking.”

  “I’m not,” he insisted. “I can see why you’d think so...” He let his voice trail off in lieu of finishing the thought. He was quite sure that Hazel would know precisely what he referred to — his behavior that morning when they’d first met Coltrane.

  Was that really only this morning?

  “If he’s not Willie Cochran,” Nathan said, “we can find out for sure. He won’t have the scar or the birthmark.”

  “And how do you suggest we supposed to check if Wyatt has a scar or birthmark?”

  “Checking his neck shouldn’t be too hard,” Nathan said, though even that would pose more of a challenge than he let on. Depending on where the on the neck the birthmark was located, it might or might not be visible above his collar. It might be at the base of his neck, not be visible to others unless he took off his shirt altogether.

  If the former, how did one casually suggest a man remove his hat and turn about to have his neck — or abdomen — examined? Dr. Crockett himself wouldn’t be able to come up with a believable excuse for that, not if Coltrane was really Cochran. A wanted man on the run would be extra careful about protecting anything that reveal his identity. Seeing either mark might be impossible unless the man happened to drop dead.

  “Nathan.” Hazel put a hand on his forearm with strength and gentleness at once. Her tone sounded serious, which made him look up, distracted from the warmth of her hand.

  He searched her eyes. “What?”

  “Let this go.” She might as well have shot him in the heart.

  “But what if he’s dangerous? What if he’s Cochran? He already tried to push himself on you. What if—”

  “Stop.” This time, Hazel raised her other hand and put it over his mouth.

  Nathan wanted to kiss her fingers, to reach up and take them in his hand, then lean forward and kiss her lips. To have her kiss him back as she had on the one magical night. But if he tried to kiss her now, he’d be no better than Coltrane — Cochran? — forcing his affections upon her. Worse, she’d wanted the other man’s affection and had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want his.

  “You need to let me go,” she continued. Her one hand still rested on his forearm, the other on his mouth. Had the reason been different, he would have enjoyed the contact, but knowing that her touch was intended to silence him and push him away, it only made him ache. “It’s almost as if you don’t want me to be happy.”

  “That’s not true,” Nathan said, mumbling through her fingers.

  She lowered that hand and gave him a look of pity that made him feel like a dying pet. “If you want me to be happy, then let me find happiness in my own way, even if it doesn’t look like what you think it should.”

  Is that what he’d been doing — trying to force her to choose a happiness he felt was right for her, regardless of her actual feelings on the matter? What if he managed to be with her, but she always wondered what if because she chose him out of convenience or obligation? He’d never be able to live with himself.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I want you to be happy. I do, more than anything.” The words, once spoken, burned inside his chest like the greatest truth he’d ever learned. He did want her happiness, more than his own, more than he wanted Peter to stop his constant teasing, more than he wanted to keep his parents’ dairy farm alive.

  More than anything.

  Yes, part of that was why he felt so strongly against Coltrane. But would he have embraced any other man who tried to flirt with Hazel? He thought through the young men who had been born and raised in Heber Valley, who came from good families and were known as good, strapping young men with hearty work ethics and morals.

  I wouldn’t want her with any them, either. Though I likely wouldn’t have ended up making any of them bleed if they’d try sparking.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I value our relationship so much, and this strange paranoid behavior I’ve seen in you today worries me. If it doesn’t stop, it could put our friendship in danger. I don’t know what I’d do if—”

  “Stop.” This time it was Nathan who stopped an utterance with his fingers. His rough ones pressed against lips that felt petal soft beneath his touch. He remembered what they’d felt like against his own lips, remembered so well that he often dreamed about kissing her. He pulled his attention from her lips and pushed on. “If you would truly be happier with another man, I will not stand in your way.”

  “But?” she mumbled through his fingers. Oh, even the movement of her lips sent zings up his arm and throughout his body that were equal parts pleasure and pain.

  “But I don’t believe you stopped caring about me that night under the fireworks.” He almost said the night they kissed, but that would have been too hard to vocalize, and it might have been too much for her to hear.

  She didn’t answer, but she lowered her eyes, making her lashes look like small, dark fans on her cheeks, which no longer had any pink in them.

  “I think,” he said, praying he’d choose the right words, “that you were afraid that night. That you worried we’d lose our friendship altogether, and you didn’t want to risk that. You’re saying the very same things today, and I still don’t believe you mean it.”

  Her grip on his forearm had tightened. With emotion? If so, which one? Was she aware that she practically turning his hand purple with her grip? Not that he cared. Taking a huge risk, Nathan reached over with his other hand and brushed back a piece of stray hair. The gesture could be seen as innocent — something a friend would do. Or it could be seen as a tender gesture of a man who loved her.

  She didn’t pull away. In fact, he sensed, oh so l
ightly, that she leaned into his hand. Only for a moment, and then it was gone. But it was enough to spur on his courage.

  “Hazel, I love you. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you. And I think you love me too, but you’re too afraid to admit it.”

  She blinked hard, sending twin tears shining down her cheeks. She did love him!

  He scooted a bit closer, letting the paper drop, abandoned, to the ground. “We could be so happy together, if only—”

  Hazel suddenly reached up and pulled his hand away from her mouth, cutting him off. She shook her head sharply, but she didn’t look directly at him. “No, Nathan, no. Our friendship is already on tenterhooks.” She stood, practically throwing his hands down as she rose. “If you can’t overcome your envy and crazy imaginings of danger where there is none...” She shook her head helplessly. “Don’t do this, Nathan. Please.”

  Without another word, Hazel picked up her skirts and ran past him. He didn’t turn to look where she’d gone. She probably headed for home. But if not, what did it matter? He sat there, unmoving, staring that the trunk of the tree that he’d once dreamed would bear a heart with N+H inside it.

  A horrible image replaced that one in his head: a with W+H.

  Nathan dropped his head into his hands again. Where had he gone wrong?

  And if Hazel ended up with Coltrane, and they carved their initials into that tree, how could he get away with chopping down the dag-blamed tree?

  Chapter Ten

  Hazel went straight to her mother’s door to check on her and, she hoped, to find conversation that would distract her from the day’s events. She peered through the crack in the door only to see her mother’s chest rising and falling with sleep. Hazel quietly headed back to the kitchen.

  Mother needs her rest, she reminded herself as she made some food. With her mother’s ailing joints, sleep was often hard to come by, especially at night. It was good that she was asleep now. But the little girl inside Hazel needed her mother’s comfort and advice.

  I’m not a little girl anymore. She blinked back some threatening tears, determined not to get emotional over a couple of men.

  She spread some butter on a slice of bread and tore a hole right through it with the knife. Hazel looked at the mess on the table, clear evidence that her emotions were getting the better of her and that the parade and picnic and everything else wasn’t just about two men. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t be upset to the point that she was tearing holes in bread instead of buttering them.

  But this was Nathan. The man she’d known as a boy. The boy who’d stood up for her against the others when she’d wanted to play with them. The boy who’d pointed out that she could climb better and run faster — in a dress — than Tommy O’Leary. The boy who always chose her for his baseball team because she could hit the ball harder and more accurately than anyone.

  The man who she used to be able to confide anything to. The man who, yes, at one point had indeed set her heart aflutter. And the man who, she would admit only to herself, had with his kiss one night, turned that flutter into an explosion of something that overwhelmed her senses, made her briefly forget the entire world. Made her want to have him and his kisses forever. But then she’d come back to reality, down from the clouds to the solid earth, where her laced boots had been the whole time. She still remembered the look he gave her after the kiss. She could still feel his love, her passion ... her utter fear.

  If they continued along that path and it didn’t work out, their friendship would be lost forever.

  She grabbed another slice of bread and tried again, making sure to keep her touch light enough to spread the butter and nothing more. Had she done the right thing that night by running away? Had she done the right thing by refusing to consider being with Nathan in that way again? She’d thought so at the time, and had felt vindicated in her actions a year later, when he and Meredith announced their engagement. Then she’d felt guilty only a few months later, when Meredith broke his heart and humiliated him. She could have prevented all of that if she hadn’t rejected him before.

  Her words to him that afternoon rang in her ears. Our friendship is already on tenterhooks.

  Hadn’t it been already, for long time now? Wyatt’s sudden appearance certainly didn’t help matters. Rather, his attention toward Hazel had stirred up the pot that was the inevitable confrontation she and Nathan had been doomed to have. The confrontation they’d just had.

  She finished her mother’s snack, adding strawberry jam on top of the butter, cutting up an apple and putting the pieces in a small bowl, and pouring a glass of milk. None of it distracted her from anything. She was about to make some loud noise to “accidentally” wake her mother when her mother called to her.

  “Hazel, are you home?”

  Relief. She could speak with her mother. “I am,” she called back. “Just finished making you a bite. I’ll bring it right in.” She arranged the dishes on a tray and carried it into the bedroom. She helped her mother sit up and reach the tray, eager for some mother-daughter time and conversation, even if Hazel wouldn’t be getting any advice. And she wouldn’t, of course, not with her mother’s health as it was. Hazel avoided adding worries of any kind to her mother’s burdens. She couldn’t have mentioned this problem anyway; she wasn’t exactly an objective source of advice when it came to Nathan. But she had always been a source of comfort.

  Her mother took a bite of the sandwich and then regarded Hazel. “You look sad.”

  “It’s been a difficult day,” Hazel said vaguely.

  “Did something happen at the parade or the picnic?”

  “They both went well, and your pie was gone first thing.”

  “My pie?” her mother said with a sly smile. “You made it, and you should be proud of the fact that you make excellent pies.”

  Hazel put a hand on her mother’s leg, which was covered by a thin quilt. “I learned from the best.”

  Her mother took a sip of milk and then asked, “What time is the evening dance?”

  “Eight. But I think I’ll stay home.”

  Her mother lowered the glass from her mouth. “What? No. You love dances.”

  “Usually I do,” Hazel said slowly. “But this year, I’m ... tired. Maybe it’s the heat. I’d rather stay home and be with you.”

  After setting the glass back on the tray, her mother put her hand over Hazel’s. “Please go. I don’t want you missing out on the fun of being young woman on account of me. I’ll be fine. Go to the dance. Watch the fireworks. Stay out late.”

  “But—”

  “You spend so much of your time caring for me, and you are such a wonderful daughter to do so without the slightest hint of complaint.”

  Hazel took her mother’s hand between her own. “Caring for you isn’t a burden. It never has been, not one day, not one minute.”

  “And I love you for that.” Her mother’s other hand came up and joined the others so now she was holding Hazel’s between her own as well. “But you are young, and young people need time for fun. For my sake, would you please go to the dance?”

  She’d effectively removed all of Hazel’s possible arguments and added a plea that made refusing impossible. She couldn’t say no, especially when her mother made so few requests as it was. If her mother knew about the awful fistfight, she wouldn’t have asked her to go.

  And Hazel couldn’t bear to tell of it. That put her in a position of obligation to go to the dance, no matter how much she dreaded it.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun had set, and night had fallen by the time Hazel stood on the periphery of the town square, not yet stepping into the dance. As her mother had requested, Hazel wore her best dress — a pretty blue satin — and had put her hair up with a twist, with ringlets on the sides.

  What was she doing here? Who did she hope to dance with tonight? Surely, everyone had heard about the fistfight between Nathan and Wyatt, and how they’d fought over her. After that, no one in their right mind wo
uld dare ask her to dance.

  If by chance Nathan or Wyatt showed up, what would she do? Would she dare to dance with either? She hated being the center of attention, and so far, the day had garnered her plenty of that. Dancing with either man would only draw more attention her way. The very thought unsettled her stomach.

  Mother will expect a report. Hazel had already lied to her mother that day with half-truths and deflections. She could not bear to be dishonest about the dance, too. There was one thing to do: find a way to make the dance enjoyable, and pay attention so she could tell her mother stories about what other couples had done and said. She’d need to dance a few times, but not all night.

  She closed her eyes briefly and took a breath to steady her nerves, then made her feet walk forward into the light created by several lanterns placed around the dancing area and lit it up with a golden glow. It looked almost magical, and couples twirled and whirled together in concert with the rhythm of the band, which had the fiddle, drums, a bass, and a few other sundry instruments.

  The dance was well underway, and no one was staring at her. No one was whispering and pointing. For a moment, she didn’t feel out of place or nervous. The dance seemed larger than in past years, as if residents from other towns had come just for this celebration in Midway. The thought was a happy one; perhaps she would find some young men who hadn’t been here for the picnic and therefore ask her to dance. She looked about the edges of the square, searching for anyone she didn’t know. The shadows made identifying anyone more than a few yards away a little tricky. She decided to walk about the area, meandering in a way that would look casual, to look for someone to dance with.

  “Hazel, there you are.”

  She froze at the sound of the deep voice. Wyatt? She froze, and unsure whether she wanted it to be him. She turned, and sure enough, standing near one of the lanterns, was indeed Wyatt Coltrane. His right eye had swollen half shut, and he wore a bandage on his eyebrow. He must have seen Dr. Crockett.