An Unexpected Dilemma Bride_Family of Love Series_A Western Romance Story

by Elliee Atkinson

  “I know. But I find your presence comforting and I can see why Laura wants to be around you so much.” Cynthia inched closer to him as she nodded. She leaned in and he leaned back to put more distance between them. He tilted his head and gave her a confused look. She pulled away and dropped her eyes to her lap. “I need to powder my nose. Please excuse me.”

  Joshua nodded, standing up at the same time. “I will be here, Mrs. Whitman.”

  Cynthia stood up. She held the handkerchief to her face as she moved quickly across the room to the door. Joshua watched her.

  Nate passed her as he came in. He stepped to the side and gave her a bow, but she ignored him. She streaked past him and he closed the door behind her, a bewildered look on his face. He spotted Joshua and walked over. “She’s pretty upset, ain’t she?”

  “Her husband just died. He was killed all right. And I don’t think by his own hands. Where is my uncle? I wish he was here to help with this. I think that woman is infatuated with me. She says her husband was the jealous type, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t him who was jealous.”

  “And if he was, she gave him reason to be.”

  “Yes, exactly. We need to go find that journal she was talking about. It might still be in the study. I guess there’s a chance that Cynthia hasn’t gotten rid of it.”

  “You want me to go look?”

  “Do you know where the study is?”

  “Yes, I asked Pam when I was here before what room was what. She gave me a tour.”

  “All right, but you need to hurry, and you need to do it with as much discretion as possible.”

  “Of course, Joshua. Of course.”

  Joshua shook his head. “I’ll just come with you. Cynthia won’t be back for a while. She has a lot of powdering to do.”

  “You sure?”

  Joshua nodded. “I’m sure.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DEAD MEN TELL TALES

  DEAD MEN TELL TALES

  Nate stepped out of the room, looking to the left and then to the right. Joshua was behind him. Instead of heading to the left to find Samuel’s study, Joshua turned to the right and walked across the foyer to the front window. He pushed aside the curtain, which was only half open, and peered out at the sky.

  “Is it raining again?” Nate came up behind him, groaning. “It sure does rain a lot here.”

  “We are in the middle of the rainy season. We need the rain. It’s always been this way. It probably always will.”

  Nate nodded. “I know it.”

  “Our wagon is gone.”

  ”Do you think Laura took it? Why would she do that? She would be leaving us stranded here.”

  Joshua shook his head. “I’m really not sure about that.”

  ”Well, do you know how to get out of here the back way? The way Laura got here? Maybe she left a wagon out back, or at least a horse.

  Joshua shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t been here before. Certainly not out back. Laura’s been coming here for years.”

  “Well, let’s find a lantern and go look for the journal.”

  The two men felt around just inside the door to Samuel’s study. A lantern was sitting on the table and the flint and tinder box were sitting right next to it.

  “This is a nice place,” Nate said quietly. “I am surprised they don’t have gas lamps throughout the house.”

  “Maybe Cynthia wouldn’t allow it. She probably wanted to spend the money on something else. Something frivolous.” Joshua lit the lantern. Nate followed him to the other side of the room. Both looked in astonishment at the open journal on the desk, the crumpled papers still lying where they had been when Laura was in the room last.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t think to get rid of this,” Nate said.

  “Maybe she didn’t even know about it. Maybe it was Samuel who ripped out the entries and balled them up. It’s hard to tell what happened here. One thing is certain though. We are dealing with a smart woman.”

  Nate snorted. “Not smart enough to throw away evidence that she did something wrong.”

  “This is his journal. She’s never mentioned it, so she might not know about it.”

  Nate shook his head. “I don’t know why she’d tell you about it.”

  “I don’t know why she’d tell me anything. I don’t even know that woman. You should have seen her earlier, Nate. It was like she thought that since her husband was dead, she was a free woman and wanted me to know that she wanted to be with me.”

  “She’s seen how you are with Laura. That’s what she wants.”

  Joshua shook his head. “She’s not going to get that from me.” Joshua looked up, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine what she was thinking. Who can know what goes through the mind of a woman? Especially a devious, conniving woman like Cynthia Whitman?

  ”It looks like he was upset when he was writing the last few entries, Nate. Do you see this? Look at the difference between this one and that one. You can see how drunk he was here. His words don’t make sense and we can barely read them. She must have really destroyed this man.”

  “You are a nice man, Joshua. Did you know that?”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked, surprised by the statement.

  “You just have this keen understanding of people. I don’t know a lot of people who have that in them.”

  “Well, thanks, Nate. That’s nice of you to say.”

  “You did say I am very observant. I am. However, I am nowhere near as generous and understanding as you are, sir. I applaud you for that. I find it difficult to understand – or care – what motivates evil people. I just want to find them and put a stop to their wrongdoing.”

  “Well, Samuel wasn’t a criminal. And I don’t know if you could call Cynthia one, if she is really guilty here. She isn’t in control of herself. She must have lost her mind. By the way, you came here to ask my help with something, didn’t you?”

  “I took care of it when we went back to Louisville. It was nothing. I had to talk to someone here in Wickenburg, out on Bennington Trail. The sheriff asked me to check on some kind of theft.”

  “What kind of theft?”

  “Cargo theft, straight from the dock in New York. A ship called the Frigate Blue. Carrying some treasured pieces from a museum in Rome to New York. Several pieces went missing. I’ve tracked their whereabouts to Wickenburg.”

  Joshua stared at him. “Someone here in Wickenburg has missing museum pieces? Surely you jest.”

  “Not at all. No, they aren’t here in Wickenburg anymore. They were out by Dry Gulch for a time, then out on Bennington Mountain. I think they were headed away from Louisville for a reason. Boss was getting too close.”

  Joshua shook his head. “I am impressed. Devastated that something like that could be passing through a small town like Wickenburg, but it makes sense that they would do that. Smaller towns – harder to track down people.”

  Nate snorted. “I’m not impressed by it at all. I should have found those pieces for the sheriff. I let him down.”

  “Well, I’m glad to have you here and I hope that this thing we’re involved in didn’t hinder you from finding what you were looking for.”

  ”Nah. I’ll just have to keep looking.”

  “I’ll help you look when we’re done with this, okay? It will be our next adventure.”

  “That would be good, Joshua, but you probably won’t want to do that.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  Nate grinned. “Because I’m gonna be traveling, trying to find them. You won’t want to do that.”

  “I love to travel. I wouldn’t mind.”

  “And leave the lovely Laura here alone? I don’t think so, Joshua. You know you’re going to want to stay with her.”

  Joshua’s cheeks turned pink. “I…” He didn’t know what to say, so he closed his mouth and said nothing, looking back down at the pages in front of him. “Look here. The last entry was four days ago. He said he’s suspicious of Cynt
hia. He said he thinks that she killed James.”

  “Well, that’s proof right there that she lied when she said he confessed to it. And it also means he probably didn’t kill himself.”

  “I never thought he did. I knew there was more to it. I wanted to talk to Uncle Adam, but… I guess he’s busy today.”

  “I’m sure he’ll get in touch with you.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  Joshua flipped the pages, turning them over in his hands. “I think we should go find Uncle Adam. Maybe we should even get the sheriff. And we’ve probably been gone for a while now. If Cynthia comes back and finds us gone, she’ll know we’ve been prowling around the house.”

  “Well, she’s the one who insisted you come and help. If she didn’t want your help, she shouldn’t have called on you.”

  “Like I said, I’m confused about that. I wonder if she thought calling me in would confuse the situation. Maybe she thinks I’m too stupid to figure it out and that’s why she’d rather have me working on this than Adam. She thinks I’ll go along with a suicide.”

  “Maybe that’s why she was flirting so openly with you. She thinks she can seduce you into believing what she wants.”

  Joshua snorted. “Well, that’s not going to work.”

  “He says here that she denied the affair, but what woman wouldn’t. He also wonders why she would conduct an affair in the first place. He writes that there had never been a problem with their intimacy and that she knew he would give his all to her if she asked. But she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t want him. She rebuffs him. That can’t be good for a man’s ego.”

  “It isn’t. A woman should never take away a man’s pride. It leaves him with very little to work with.”

  Nate looked at him. “That’s very profound. Where did you hear that?”

  “Believe it or not, it was something my ma used to say. She was always very kind to my pa. She would tell him when he was making a mistake, but she always supported him and helped him work through any consequences of a bad decision. My pa was a good man and taught me to be a good man. I don’t know what kind of man he would have been if Ma wasn’t so good to him all the time.”

  “Must have been nice growing up in a home where your parents loved each other. My pa died when I was young and my ma never wanted to marry again. She was so lonely. She’s still lonely, poor woman.”

  Joshua shook his head. “These papers don’t make Samuel out to be a rage filled maniac at all.” He folded the small stack in his hand and pushed them into the inside pocket of his vest.

  “Come on. Let’s get back out there before she notices we’re looking around. If she says anything, I’ll tell her that’s what she wanted me here for and if she doesn’t like it, I can leave. Then we can leave when she gets mad about it.”

  Nate chuckled. “We need to think like a woman to figure out Cynthia, Joshua. And I don’t think I’m capable of that.”

  “That’s where Laura comes in. We’ll see what she thinks. Don’t forget, she saw this journal first. She’s the one who told me about it. I know she has to have an opinion. She wanted me to see the journal so we could put our heads together. I think this is irrefutable proof though. He proves her a liar with his own written words. I think it will be enough for the sheriff and probably the judge, too. After reading this journal, Laura made up her mind that Cynthia was responsible. She suspected Mr. Whitman first, but the journal changed her mind.”

  “I wish she had told you sooner. We might have been able to figure it out before…”

  “That’s what Laura said, too. We can’t worry about what might have happened. We’ve got to go on from here.”

  They were at the door to the study, murmuring back and forth in low voices.

  “So she would be looking for proof of what she suspected. The journal was good proof, but not enough for her. She may not have seen some of Samuel’s more recent entries.”

  “I believe that is true.” Joshua nodded.

  Nate nodded, too. “All right, I can accept that. But it will be a long walk back to the house.”

  “We must first speak to Cynthia.”

  “What do you want to ask her?”

  “I want to ask her if she fought with Samuel and what it was about exactly.”

  “We should be very careful, Joshua. We know she’s a liar. That’s about all we know.”

  Joshua shook his head. “It’s not the journal that concerns her, Nate. It must be something else.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she didn’t clean up. If she and Samuel argued over the journal and that he suspected she was responsible for the death of Mr. Youngblood, she would have gotten rid of the book and the evidence. Would she have left it here if she knew about it?”

  Nate thought about what he was saying. “I suppose she might not have known about the journal. However, I think she did. There could have been something else that was making him suspicious. Either way, we need to go find Adam. He knows these people. He’s the one who should be talking to Cynthia.”

  “She wouldn’t talk to him last night. I don’t know why she’d want to talk to him now.”

  “Well, let’s get out of here. She’s got to be back from the powder room by now. She’s gonna ask us where we’ve been.”

  “And I’m going to ask her about that fight.”

  “All you have to do is act like you’re interested in her. I bet she’d tell you anything you want to know. Probably even confess.”

  Joshua sighed. He never escaped his reputation. “You’re probably right. But I hate to do that. I really do. It makes me feel…”

  “Cheap?” Nate supplied. Joshua gave him a narrow look.

  “I reckon you could say that. I’m more than just my looks, you know.”

  Nate laughed. “Well, I sure know that. But I know it because I’m a man and I’m not trying to marry you any time in the next century.”

  “I don’t want to use seduction to get answers to this problem, Nate.”

  Nate shrugged. “You might not have a choice, my friend. If you want the truth from that lady, you’re going to have to fool her into it. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I wish she was infatuated with Adam.”

  Nate snorted. “So Alice could smack her down? That would be a sight to see.”

  “It certainly would.”

  They quietly left the room, falling silent as they walked back to the living room. They didn’t hear anyone in the house. Not even the servants were making any sounds.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  LAURA FACES OFF WITH CYNTHIA

  LAURA FACES OFF WITH CYNTHIA

  Laura’s eyes opened and she immediately remembered what had happened. She felt the wagon bouncing underneath her, but she was alone inside it. She was leaning over on the bench seat. There was a cloth binding her wrists behind her and her ankles together. Another was pushed into her mouth, and another wrapped around it so she couldn’t spit it out.

  Her head was pounding. She closed her eyes firmly, trying to clear her mind. Cynthia had rushed at her, brandishing a fireplace poker. She’d reacted immediately, dropping the letters and the bottle to lift her arms and defend herself. She’d dropped to her knees and grabbed a large book off a table next to her. She brought it up and used it like a shield, protecting herself from the blows of the poker in Cynthia’s hands.

  In her rage, Cynthia was much stronger than she would normally have been. Laura, still on her knees, wasn’t expecting it when Cynthia tossed the poker to the side, grabbed the book from Laura’s hands and tossed that to the side as well. Seconds later, Cynthia had grabbed Laura by the hair, twisting her fingers through the long strands and pulling hard so that Laura lifted up from her knees and came hurtling toward Cynthia.

  Laura started to scream out for Joshua, but Cynthia slapped her face, silencing her. With one swift movement, Cynthia placed her hands on Laura’s chest and shoved her backwards. Laura lost her footing and the side of her head smac
ked the corner of the desk as she went down.

  That’s when everything had gone black.

  The memory passed through Laura’s mind as her mind cleared. Her heart was pounding in fear. She couldn’t feel it with her hands, but she knew there was blood in her hair. The fall must have opened her head, she realized. The roof flap was laid back and she could see Cynthia in the driver’s seat of the wagon, which had to have been going much faster than was safe.

  Laura tried to scream, but it was completely muffled by the gag in her mouth. Panic was threatening to flood through her. Tears rose to her eyes. She realized that they were in the wagon Joshua had borrowed from Adam. That meant Joshua and Nate would think she had left and when they realized she was missing, she and Cynthia would be long gone.

  But where was she taking her? And why didn’t she just poison her right then?

  For now, Laura’s questions would go unanswered. She was hurtling toward her possible demise, destination unknown.

  Laura tried to pray. She tried to keep her fear at bay. Joshua would come for her. He would find her. But would he really? How would he possibly know where to look?

  She desperately fought her tears. She didn’t want to be weak. Now she needed to be strong. She needed to fight back. She didn’t want Cynthia to win. She’d done nothing wrong.

  Joshua, she thought. Where are you? I need you now. God, please help me. Joshua needs to find me. I need his help. God, please lead him to me. Find me. Don’t let her kill me.

  Cynthia’s voice ripped through her mind when she spoke from the bench seat. “What are you doing down there?” She cackled, reminding Laura of the witches in children’s stories. “Daydreaming? Are you wishing your handsome Joshua would come and rescue you?”

  Laura’s eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed.

  Cynthia laughed loudly again. “You were in such reverie; you didn’t notice when I stopped the wagon. He can’t come and rescue you, Laura.” Cynthia said her name in a voice that was dripping with hatred. “He will not find you. By the time anyone finds you, they will not be able to help you.”