AN INNOCENT MAN

by Margaret Watson

  It was a statement, not a question, and Harley nodded, refusing to meet Connor's eyes. "The old man didn't know anything about your father," he said, nodding in Ralph's direction.

  Sarah looked at her uncle. For the first time, he did look like an old man. Fear and uncertainty lined his face. He looked as if he'd shrunk several inches in the last few minutes.

  Connor's face hardened. "Don't tell me he knew nothing about the heap leaching. I won't buy it."

  "No, he knew about that. Hell, it was his idea. But he made one mistake. He put Junior in charge." He jerked his head in Richard's direction. "And Junior screwed up."

  "He screwed up big-time," Connor said softly. "What happened?"

  "He mixed the cyanide solution wrong. Made it way too strong. When your old man picked it up, some of it slopped on his hands and into his face." Harley stopped and looked at Connor with sympathy. "He dropped dead. It looked just like a heart attack, and that's what we told the doc from Glenwood." He shrugged. "They didn't look any further. There wouldn't be any reason to check for cyanide."

  Sarah could only imagine Connor's pain at hearing his father's death described so callously. A place deep in her heart urged her to go to Connor and comfort him, but she held herself stiffly in place. She needed some comfort herself.

  "So who paid off my mother?" Connor's voice was hard and completely without mercy.

  "Richard did." Harley looked at the whimpering man and contempt flickered in his eyes. "He wanted to be sure she didn't ask any awkward questions."

  Connor fixed Harley with a piercing look. "You sent me that anonymous note, didn't you?"

  Harley shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah," he finally admitted. "My wife works at the bank. It wasn't too tough for her to get the address from Goodman."

  "But she didn't want you to write to me, did she?" he asked softly.

  Harley shifted again, then looked directly at Connor. Sarah saw regret and a glimmer of the old defiance in the foreman's eyes. "No, she didn't. She didn't want the gravy train to stop." He glanced at Ralph. "Mr. Wesley pays me well to keep the heap running smoothly. Thelma was afraid that if you came back to town and figured out what was going on, the money would stop." Shame flickered in his eyes, and he looked away.

  "She was right," Connor said grimly. "As of right now, that heap-leaching operation is shut down." He stared at Harley. "I just have one more question. Why did you write to me? You must have known what would happen if I came back to town, looking for answers."

  "Yeah, I guess I did know." Harley ran his hand over the dark stubble of beard on his chin. "I suppose that's why I wrote to you." He paused, and his gaze rested on Richard. "He was making mistakes, and sooner or later there was going to be another accident like your father's."

  Harley watched Richard for a moment, then looked at Connor. "I knew I'd be blamed for the next one," he said bluntly. "No way was I going to take the rap for his mistakes. I guess I thought that if you came back to town, I'd be off the hook one way or another. Either you'd figure out what was going on, or I'd figure out a way to make you look responsible for any accidents up there on the mountain." He stared at Connor, defiance mixed with shame in his eyes.

  Connor stared back for a while, until suddenly his face relaxed just a bit. "At least you're honest about it, Harrison." His gaze flickered from Ralph to Richard. "I guess you were in a hell of a bind."

  "Yeah," the foreman muttered, not looking at anyone.

  Connor's gaze shifted to Ralph. He stared at him for a long moment, until Ralph looked away. Amazingly, Sarah saw a dull red color mottle his cheeks.

  "I didn't know, MacCormac."

  Connor's face hardened again, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. "You might not have known how my father was killed, but that doesn't lessen your responsibility. That was your heap up there. You put your son in charge, knowing what a screw-up he was. No, you might not have known, but I blame you as much as Richard."

  For the first time Sarah saw fear in her uncle's eyes. "What do you want from me, MacCormac? I can't bring your father back. I already offered you money. What more do you want?"

  "I want the heap cleaned up, Wesley." Connor's voice was a whisper, soft and deadly. "I want every bit of cyanide off that mountain, I want the wall that's diverting the stream torn down, and I want the stream restored to its previous cleanliness." His lips compressed as he stared at the elder Wesley. "I want to see fish in that stream again, and birds living in the trees above it. And I want you to make sure the drinking water for Pine Butte is completely clean and safe."

  "That would cost a fortune!"

  Connor smiled thinly. "Exactly. But I suspect you'll find it preferable to jail. Which is your only alternative."

  "I may have bent some of the EPA's regulations, but I won't get thrown into jail for that." Some of Ralph's old bluster was back, awakened, no doubt, by the thought of having to spend some money. Sarah watched him, the tiny glimmer of sympathy she'd felt for the old man quickly disappearing.

  "Not only have you broken the law, Wesley, you've killed a man because of your greed. Most courts tend to frown on that."

  Ralph opened his mouth to argue again, and Connor silenced him with a slash of his hand. "The EPA has already been notified, so don't bother trying to bribe me again. You're caught, Wesley, and there's no way you can squirm out of it this time."

  Connor stepped back and surveyed the three men standing in front of him. "You boys have a lot of work to do. I suggest you get started." Turning on his heel, Connor walked out of the room without a backward glance.

  Sarah looked at Richard, who was leaning against the wall, holding his broken wrist. "You'd better come into the clinic and let me set that for you, Richard." Without waiting for an answer, she followed Connor out of the building.

  He was waiting for her next to the truck. The men unloading the ore cars still watched them furtively, waiting, no doubt, for the explosion from Ralph or Richard. When he saw her walking toward him, Connor got into the driver's side of the truck. She got in and silently handed him the keys.

  Neither of them spoke until they were on the road to town, the mine out of sight behind them. It was over, everything was over, and dread settled in Sarah's chest like a leaden weight. She bit her tongue, willing the words away. She didn't want to ask what came next. She was horribly afraid that she already knew.

  The silence became so thick and tense that she had to say something. Glancing at Connor, she saw him staring grimly at the road in front of him. She licked her lips. "What do we do now?"

  He looked at her, and a grim smile washed over his face. Some of the strain disappeared, and he said, "Now we wait for the EPA to show up on their white horses."

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  «^»

  Sarah tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Of course," she muttered. She couldn't meet his eyes. "I mean, after that."

  "I'm afraid your cousin Richard will be spending some time in jail. As far as the heap-leaching operation, it'll take them a while to assess the situation and figure out exactly what has to be done. When I talked to the EPA yesterday in Glenwood, they told me it could take a year or more to get the heap completely cleaned up."

  Was he being deliberately thickheaded? Or maybe, she thought with a chill, it hadn't even occurred to him that there was anything more important to talk about than the mine. After all, he hadn't thought it necessary to tell her about his life. An icicle pierced her chest as she clung to the armrest.

  "Everyone in Pine Butte is going to be very grateful to you." She forced the words through numb lips and stared out the windshield. Trees and rocks flashed past, the colors blurring and running together. You will not cry, she told herself fiercely.

  "The people of Pine Butte should be damned ashamed of themselves. They let Ralph Wesley bully them for the past twenty-five years, and this is their reward. I hope they've learned a lesson."

  She'd thought his bitterness had disappeared this morning after he'd trea
ted Mary Johnson. Apparently she'd been wrong. She kept her head averted so he couldn't see the tears that threatened to overflow. "I suspect they've learned a lot of lessons in the past couple of weeks," she whispered, the last ember of hope quietly flickering out.

  "I hope so," he grunted, swerving to avoid a pothole in the road. "The people here—" she felt his eyes on her but refused to turn and look at him "—shouldn't have to live in fear of Ralph Wesley."

  There was no time to respond to him. Before the last words were out of his mouth, he turned the truck sharply and they were in back of the clinic again.

  Maybe it was best that their conversation ended when it did, she told herself, getting out of the truck and hurrying for the door. She didn't want to embarrass herself and make Connor uncomfortable by pleading with him to stay, and if she'd stayed in the truck with him for much longer, that's just what would have happened.

  He'd told her all along that he wasn't going to stay. He'd warned her, and she'd gone and fallen in love with him anyway. Now she would just have to pay the piper.

  The back door of the clinic banged behind her as she hurried in, not looking to see if Connor was following her. There were probably at least a dozen people waiting for her in the front of the clinic. Maybe if she kept busy, she wouldn't think about Connor packing his things in the bedroom just around the corner from her.

  The waiting room was, indeed, full, and she stopped in the doorway and drew a deep breath. Connor came up behind her. He didn't make a sound but she knew he was there. Straightening her back, she stepped into the room and walked over to the desk.

  "I'm back, Josie. Go ahead and put the first person in an exam room."

  Josie nodded her head toward one corner. "The sheriff's been waiting for you and Mr. MacCormac. You'd better talk to him first."

  Sarah spun around and saw Tom Johnson sitting on the edge of one of their hard plastic chairs. Fear spilled over her and she sucked in a breath.

  "What's wrong?" she cried. "What happened?"

  Tom rose from the chair and walked toward her. His face was gray and set in stone. "I need to talk to you, Sarah, and MacCormac, too. Can we go into one of the exam rooms?"

  Sarah glanced at Connor. He looked sick with worry as he watched Tom Johnson walk to the first room. He followed her into the room and closed the door quietly.

  "Is Mary all right?" he asked as soon as the door was shut.

  Tom nodded jerkily. "Mary's fine. I talked to her on the phone from Glenwood just a little while ago. Her blood pressure has come down a little and the doctor said it should keep coming down. The baby's fine, too." He looked at Connor, and a strange look passed over his face, shame, regret and sorrow all rolled into one. "He said you did a great job."

  "Then what are you doing here?" Sarah asked sharply. "Why didn't you go to Glenwood with Mary?"

  "I couldn't. I had to make sure everything was set with Mary's mom and the kids first." His gaze slid away from her as he added, "And I couldn't leave without talking to MacCormac."

  "What is it, Sheriff?" Connor's voice sounded wary.

  Tom took a deep breath and turned to face Connor. "I couldn't leave town without straightening something out. Especially since you might not be here when Mary and I come home." He took another breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I know you weren't the father of Barb Wesley's baby. I was."

  "What?" Sarah gasped. "How could you be? You didn't even live here then."

  "I was on the police force in Meeker. We met at a party there."

  Sarah looked at Connor. His face had frozen in a mask of anger. Pain flickered deep in his eyes.

  "I thought you looked familiar. I must have seen you with her." His voice hardened, sounding implacable and unforgiving. "You were the one who abandoned her to die by herself, then."

  "I didn't mean for that to happen," Tom said softly, and Sarah saw ancient sorrow in his eyes. "She went into labor early. If her pregnancy had gone full term, I would have been divorced and with her." He turned away, but not before Sarah saw the regret in his eyes. "Maybe she still would have died, but at least I would have been with her."

  Connor looked at Tom with contempt. "Let me get this straight. You were married, but you got a teenage girl pregnant and then abandoned her to endure her pregnancy alone. And you say you didn't mean to."

  "I couldn't do anything about it," Tom cried, his voice filled with wrenching anguish. "I was already in the middle of a divorce when we met. I knew if my wife found out about Barb and me she would never let the divorce go through. I thought the best thing for us was for me to stay away from Barb until the divorce was final. I was going to marry her the next day."

  In spite of herself, Sarah could sympathize with his predicament. Tom must have suffered over that decision every day of his life. There was one thing, though, that she couldn't forgive him for. "Why did you let everyone, including me, go on thinking that Connor was the father of Barb's baby after you got your divorce? Surely then you could have told me."

  Tom's face turned a dull red and he looked at the floor. "MacCormac was gone, and nobody ever heard from him. I figured he wasn't ever coming back. By the time I moved here and met Mary, it was ancient history. I didn't figure there was any reason to bring it up."

  "You stand for justice, Tom," Sarah cried passionately. "How could you put on that badge every day, knowing what you had done to someone's reputation?"

  Connor looked at her and raised his hand, as if to touch her shoulder. After a moment he let it drop. Jamming his hands into his pockets, he sighed. "He's right, Sarah. It's ancient history. It wouldn't have made any difference if people knew the truth. They've thought of me one way for the past twelve years, and it's going to take more than Tom confessing to make them change their opinions."

  "It would be a start." She turned on him fiercely. "People here don't want to think badly of you, Connor. They just haven't had any reason not to. You left town at eighteen, with everyone thinking you'd gotten Barb pregnant and then abandoned her. Let them see the real you. Let than know what you've become." Her voice softened. "The people in Pine Butte want to forgive you and admit they were wrong. But in order to do that, you have to forgive them first."

  Connor's head jerked in her direction. "I have to forgive them?"

  "Yes, you do," she answered softly. "You have to forgive them for the way they treated you when you were a child, and for not believing you when Barb accused you of being the father of her baby. You have to let go of your anger. You can't let what happened here twelve years ago poison your life anymore."

  "It doesn't even affect my life anymore, let alone poison it," he said harshly.

  "I think you're wrong. You said you loved Barb. Have you ever loved anyone since?"

  She watched as he flinched, his face turning even harder and colder, and she nodded, feeling her heart slowly beginning to crumble. "I didn't think so. You'll never be able to love anyone unless you forgive the people here for what they did and put it behind you."

  "Now you're a psychiatrist, too?" Connor snarled at her. "My life is just fine the way it is. I don't need any small-town do-gooder nurse telling me what to do to have a fulfilling life."

  "I'm going to tell everyone in Pine Butte the truth, MacCormac," Tom interrupted. "That's why I stayed here rather than going to Glenwood Springs with Mary. I wanted you to know that it may have taken twelve years, but I'm going to put the record straight."

  Tom's words fell into the charged silence as Connor and Sarah stared at each other. A painful hand squeezed Sarah's heart, breaking it into smaller bits. She told herself that Connor was hurting and that's why he said such cruel things. She even told herself she believed it. But inside, she felt herself withering as she acknowledged that there wasn't any way Connor was going to stay in Pine Butte. And even if she could leave, Connor had demonstrated just how important she was to him. She wasn't about to beg for love from a man who didn't trust her enough to tell her about himself.

  She saw Connor
wrench his gaze away from her and look at Tom again. "You go ahead and do whatever you like. It doesn't affect me in any way."

  Tom's eyes slid from Connor to Sarah. "Somehow I thought that maybe you were going to stay here in Pine Butte. We can sure use a good doctor."

  "I said from day one that I wasn't staying. And I meant it."

  "It doesn't matter. Whether you go or stay, I'm going to make sure that everyone in town knows the truth."

  Connor shrugged. "If you want to play the martyr, that's okay with me. Just don't think it'll make me change my mind."

  "I'm not trying to change your mind, MacCormac. I just want to do the right thing. It's taken me far too long already." Without another word, Tom turned and walked out the door.

  Connor turned to Sarah, but she couldn't meet his eyes. Her throat was thick and full of tears. She would not beg him to change his mind, she told herself, looking everywhere but at him. Some things had to be given freely. And so far, he hadn't given her much of himself.

  "I can't stay, Sarah." His voice pleaded with her to understand and agree. "This town took things from me that I can never get back. If I stayed here, I would constantly be reliving my past. I can't do that."

  "Isn't it time to put the past behind you?" she asked gently. "Forgiving isn't as hard as you think it is."

  He paused, then said in a low voice, "If I could do it at all, it would be for you, Sarah." He looked at her with haunted, pain-filled eyes.

  "It has to be for yourself, Connor." The fist tightened around her heart.

  "Sarah, come with me. Please." His voice thickened and he took a step toward her.

  Slowly she shook her head. "I can't do that. You know I have to stay. I can't leave the people I love without medical care."

  He stared at her, pain and anguish in his eyes. If he raised his hand or took a step toward her, she would be lost. She'd cling to him and beg shamelessly for him to stay.

  But he stood rooted to the floor, hands clenched into fists at his sides, until he finally closed his eyes.