High Mountain Drifter

by Jillian Hart

  "Iris has a weakness for chocolate," Verbena whispered, as if revealing Iris's deepest secret.

  "It's not a weakness as much as it's a preference." Iris led the way down the hall, teacups chiming faintly in their saucers with her every step. "I could quit anytime I want to. I just don't want to."

  "When she was little, Ma had to hide anything chocolate or Iris would sneak it." Verbena's eyes twinkled. Her bruises had turned a brilliant shade of green, with yellow centers. "In fact, the rest of us would sneak whatever chocolate thing was around at the time and blame it on Iris."

  "Ma never saw through that one," Iris called out as she disappeared through the library doors. "She refused to believe any one of you could possibly be the chocolate thieves."

  "We did try to look very innocent." Verbena's cane clunked speedily along the wood floor.

  "This brings back memories." Aumaleigh was the last to step into the library, surprised at the warmth of the images rising up. Things she hadn't thought about for ages. Those had been warmer times, better times, when she'd been young. "Ely had a sweet tooth. A real chocolate lover."

  "Not our pa?" Verbena's face scrunched up with surprise. She set the plate down next to the tea service. "I don't remember that at all."

  "You were too little." Iris set the tray on the coffee table and moved to the fireplace. "I remember. Back when Ma used to hum while she did the housework. Pa would come home and say, 'I smell chocolate,' and Ma would deny it, laughing while he sniffed around the kitchen until he'd found the baked goods she'd hidden."

  "I can just picture that." Aumaleigh settled onto the edge of a nearby chair, sinking into the soft cushion. That was the Ely she remembered, funny and full of good humor. The big brother from her childhood who'd gently teased her and always stood by her. "Ely used to do the same thing when we were small. I would always save my treats, eat half and save the rest for later. Ely and Eben would gobble theirs down on sight, wolfing it the way boys do."

  "We don't know much about Uncle Eben," Verbena said quietly. "He was the youngest."

  "And the first to leave." The warm glow from the memories faded, leaving her with the truth. The growing bitterness of her mother through the years had soured everything, torn the family apart. "Mother disowned him and forbid us to mention his name again. It wasn't right, but she had things her way or she made everyone pay."

  "That's so sad." Iris perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward to pour the tea. "It was a great sorrow to Pa that he lost touch with Eben and with you."

  "It was a great sorrow to me, too." She tried to smile past the weight of regret that weighed on her. The past could not be re-written, as much as she wanted it to be. But memories, the good ones, could always be held dear. "Your pa and uncle would join forces and come visit me in my room. 'Where is it?' they'd ask. 'Where did you hide it this time?' It was a game, you see, they pretended to search high and low for whatever treat or candy I had, and when they found it they'd pretend to gobble it up. Then give it to me, kissing my cheek. They'd say I was sweeter."

  "That sounds like Pa." Verbena lit up, love in her jeweled blue eyes, as she eased onto the sofa next to her sister. "I can't believe he's been gone so long. I miss him so much."

  "Me, too." Iris bowed her head, quietly handing over a steaming cup and saucer.

  Aumaleigh accepted it, hating that the girls had been alone when the illness hit. They'd struggled with scarlet fever while taking care of each other and their parents at the same time. Ely and Laura had passed away. How devastated the girls must have been. Not to mention the hardship and the medical debts.

  That was another piece of the past she wanted to re-write, because then maybe she would never have let Mother cause her to lose contact with Ely. Maybe then she could have been there for her brother, his dear wife and her young nieces. She blew on the steaming tea to cool it, but it was more of a sigh. At her age, she was accumulating more regrets than anything. That could not be good.

  "If you girls don't mind, I'll take my tea and cupcake upstairs." She stood, careful not to spill the tea, and plucked a rose-decorated cake from the plate. "This is my only day off and as much as I want to visit with you girls, I need to be industrious."

  "Oh, are you going upstairs again?" Iris stirred sugar into her tea. "We could help you go through Grandmother's things."

  "Yeah," Verbena agreed, licking a bit of icing off the edge of the cupcake she'd chosen. "We've been known to be useful, and it's my future room you're cleaning out. So that means I'm obligated to help."

  "Not at all. It's Mother's old stuff up there, things she left behind. That means it's my responsibility." Aumaleigh gave them her best I-mean-it look. She did not want her nieces to be troubled with it or by the past. She'd put it off far too long, it was her job to do. "Besides, you have books to read, judging by the stack on the end table. And a few sewing projects you might want to finish."

  "Not to mention the cupcakes," Verbena chimed in, licking up another dab of frosting.

  "See? Cupcakes are important." She scooted around the chair, heading out of the library while the going was good. It was hard to step out of the warmth of the room and her nieces’ company, harder still to catch a glimpse of the armed men ringing the house, visible through the window. Burton, with rain dripping off his hat, stalwart and strong. As if he didn't intend to let a thing happen to these girls.

  She couldn’t pay him enough for that, for his dedication. Gratitude welled up, smarting her eyes, as she made her way through the home that once had been hers. She'd been desperately unhappy here, obligated to care for her ailing mother through the long decades of her wasting disease. Maureen McPhee had been a hard woman, hardest on those she professed to love. But Aumaleigh had learned a thing or two about love, and it was not selfish. It was not self-serving. It was what you did for others and how you treated them.

  She wished she'd been clear on that when she'd been in her twenties. That was part of her regrets too.

  She found the upstairs room in a state of demolition. While the furniture and the wardrobes had not been touched, Tyler and his construction crew had torn out two of the inner walls, giving glimpses into the adjacent bedroom that was completely gutted. In that farther room, the window cracked from last year's violent storm had been replaced, giving a grand view of the Bluebell valley draped in the ambers, golds and browns of late autumn. Fallow fields shorn to stubble after harvest, tawny meadows full of dried, dead grass, the mud brown of roads and the bare trunks of leafless trees.

  Another season turning, she thought.

  On to Mother's things. She set her tea and dessert on the bedside table. Opened the drawers, relieved to see they were empty. This had been a guest room, for when Mother had this place built, it had to be grand, a statement to her status and importance. Not that she had guests to visit it or family to fill it, so most of these beautiful upstairs bedrooms had been used for storage and things had accumulated over the years.

  When she opened the nearest wardrobe, it was full of stacked papers, tied together with leather bindings. Some old ranch ledgers, she realized as she hauled them out and leafed through them. Expenses, profits, payroll from years ago. She could put that in the burn pile. She thumbed through it, eyeing it briefly, intending to throw it all out without sorting. Wait--one of the papers looked different from the others. An envelope. Curious, she pulled it out.

  It was an old letter, she realized, just carelessly stuffed between the ledger pages. She turned it over and tried to read the envelope but the light was too dim for her eyes. Not even squinting helped. Hmm. She glanced around, making a beeline over to the night table. What she needed was more light. She found a match in the base drawer of a small lamp and lit the wick. Heart pounding, she held the envelope up until the handwriting came into focus.

  Her heart stopped beating. It was handwriting she recognized. Gabriel's writing?

  No, it couldn’t be. Her jaw dropped even as her mind sputtered, not wanting to accept what her o
wn eyes saw. But she couldn’t deny it. It was definitely the bold script she'd once known so well. Shock rolled through her in jarring, violent waves as she stared at an unopened letter from Gabriel, the man she once loved.

  She turned the envelope addressed to her over in her trembling hands. The paper had yellowed with age. Dried rain drops spotted it, as if it had been delivered in inclement weather, but Gabriel's name was scrawled on the back flap. Gabriel Daniels, Gettysburg, PA.

  She frowned. What had he been doing in Pennsylvania? She didn't know, but he'd written. He'd written her. Stunned, her knees gave out and she collapsed on the edge of the bed. Once he'd been her dear, beloved Gabriel. What a sweet thing that had been in her life. She'd loved him with all her heart. Remembering, a tear eked out of the far corner of her eyes, followed by another, slowly trailing down the sides of her face.

  He might have written her, but she'd never received this letter. Why had it been stuffed in a ledger? Well, there was only one reason, wasn't there? Mother had hated Gabriel. Aumaleigh blinked, trying to clear her vision but the room kept blurring. She clenched her teeth, angry, realizing what had happened. Mother had deliberately hidden it. Kept it from her. Anger pounded through her, realizing how truly cold-hearted her mother was. The proof was right here in her hands, in the scratchy texture of the aged parchment, her name written in Gabriel's bold hand across the front.

  Written decades after they had parted ways, never to be reunited again.

  Overwhelmed, she flopped back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. She pressed the letter against her chest, over her rapidly beating heart. She couldn't believe he'd written to her, that all those years without him, after he'd broken her heart irreparably, he'd still reached out to her.

  And she'd never known it.

  Another tear slid slowly down the side of her cheek. She rubbed it away with the hem of her sleeve.

  "Aumaleigh?" Verbena's cane tapped into the room. "Are you okay?"

  "Fine." She blinked back any other pesky tears that might be thinking about falling. The last thing she wanted was for the girl to worry. Verbena had enough on her shoulders. "Probably just some dust in my eye. What are you doing up here? You didn't come to help, did you?"

  "I couldn't help myself." Verbena's face scrunched up apologetically, just adorable. Those sweet blue eyes cinched up in a plea. "I tried reading, but I can't concentrate enough these days. When I try to sew or knit, my mind wanders and I mess up my stitches. Then I just have to undo it all."

  "You managed yesterday during the get together you girls had," she pointed out, turning the envelope upside down to hide the address and set it on the table beside the lamp.

  "Well, having everyone over helped a lot. There was so much going on, it was almost impossible not to get caught up in it." Verbena wandered over to the open wardrobe. "It would help me to help you."

  "I understand. You want to keep your mind off what happened with Ernest." How could she argue with that? She pushed off the bed, going to her niece's side. The girl had been terrified, taken from her home, tied up in a cabin and nearly raped. Thank heavens the sheriff and his men found her in time. A hot, protective, motherly rage roared through her, and she had to tamp it down. If she got her hands on Ernest, she'd take that selfishness right out of him if she had to use a snake stick to do it.

  "I need to focus on what really matters." Verbena leaned her cane against the wardrobe door and planted her hands on her slim hips, surveying the mass of jumbled papers. "If Ernest thinks I'm going to live in fear, he's wrong. I am going to live my life, going to go on as if he isn't out there. Well, as much as I can. He can't hurt what matters most. I won't let him."

  "Then I guess you'd better help with the papers." Hard not to love this girl, she thought fondly, turning her attention to the stacks upon stacks. "I'm starting a burn pile and a keep pile. I suspect most of it can be burned."

  "Why did she keep all this stuff?" Verbena chose a big pile and heaved it into her arms.

  "Mother couldn't throw a thing away, and frankly, as her illness progressed there was less time and so much to do, and she needed a lot of care. Some things just got left by the wayside, like clearing out cabinets and sorting through old records."

  "I know she wasn't good to you." Verbena tucked the stack against her, balancing it carefully, and reached for her cane. "Everyone says so. It had to be hard taking care of her. When Ma and Pa were so sick, it was difficult for so many reasons. We didn't want to fail them, we were terrified we'd lose them. I can't imagine how that had to be with a parent like Grandmother."

  "I did my duty." Duty. That's what Mother had called it. A daughter's duty. But then, Mother thought she owned her children like a possession. Unhappy remembering, Aumaleigh shot a glance at the night stand and the letter.

  "We're here to love you now, so we'll try to make up for it." Verbena dumped the stack on the bed where it bounced, sheets of paper spreading across the old log cabin quilt.

  "Well, I intend to love you girls right back." Yes, she was so grateful for her wonderful nieces. She chose a big clump of papers off the top of a tottering pile. "Now that harvest time is over, things are slowing down on the ranch. I'll have more time, as soon as I find Maebry's replacement, that is."

  "She mentioned she was leaving you."

  "She was thoughtful enough to wait until things slowed down. It may be a feat to find a replacement. There isn't a big pool of potential employees here in Bluebell." She chose a clear spot on the bed to unload the papers. Old receipts from the feed store, it looked like. Maybe a hundred of them. "Maybe I'll get lucky and there'll be someone nearby, like over in Deer Springs."

  "That's a much bigger town, so probably." Verbena went on, adding her hopes for a future employee. Maybe someone around her age, since it would be nice to have more friends.

  Aumaleigh found her gaze straying to Gabriel's letter again.

  * * *

  Interesting. Zane pushed open the line shack's door, hinges squeaking. It smelled damp from being unheated, held the stale scent of old fear. His stomach fisted knowing what had happened in this place, and what else Ernest had intended to do here. Verbena's sweet face flashed into Zane's mind as he crossed the threshold. Those kind, sapphire blue eyes, the rare beauty of her face, the adorable little curve of her chin. The way she cared about everyone, even him.

  Sure, that got to him, how she'd been concerned there was a chance that Ernest might be able to hurt him--him, an experienced bounty hunter. Well, her worries were unnecessary, but nice.

  Jaw tight, he crossed the rustic cabin, boots knelling, took in the single room, the bare essentials. Stove in the corner, shelves bare but ready for food and pans. A small table shoved up against one wall with four spindly chairs. Bunk beds built at the far end, around a window that looked out on the hillside below. A hunk of rope lay on the floor, fallen, frayed from being cut away. Something dark stained it.

  Verbena's blood, he realized, ribs aching.

  A man like Ernest thought himself so smart, above the law. Above rules. Zane braced his feet, rifle in hand, picturing how it must have been for Ernest. Tucked up here in the trees, you could see anyone coming up either trail as plain as day. He would have felt superior here, safe, found it funny he was hiding on the McPhee property, in plain sight. That of all the places around he could have chosen--other line shacks, abandoned buildings and sheds, stables and barns, Ernest had chosen this. It sent a message.

  Zane shook rainwater off his hat and moseyed over to the window. Had Ernest's plan to kill Verbena worked, then the sisters would have been tortured knowing it had happened so close. That she'd been taken and destroyed and disposed of right under their noses, that they couldn’t have stopped him. Ernest wanted that victory over them. He'd chosen this carefully.

  Which told him something else about the man. Getting a clearer picture, he leaned one shoulder against the wall, peering out the window. The glass steamed from his breath as he took in the lay of the land--the rapid
fall of the hillside, the thick carpet of trees, the snowline a few hundred yards up, and the gleam of lamplight through the manor's windows below.

  You could see right into the library windows and one of the upstairs bedrooms. Zane shook his head, but that didn't stop the crawling sensation along the back of his scalp. Ernest had sat right here and spied on the sisters. Watched them sewing on a dress while sitting on the sofa, the way the strawberry-blond McPhee sister was doing right now. He could see all the way through the large upstairs bedroom, past the large four-poster bed into the hallway where a slant of lamplight shone from somewhere in one of the other bedrooms across the way.

  A perfect place to spy on Verbena and she'd never know it. A chill ran through his veins. Where was he now? That's what Zane needed to find out. Ernest had never gone far, and he never would. Likely he was out there close, at this exact moment noticing the rough looking stranger with three guns.

  "Game on," he said to the man out there undoubtedly watching. "I'm coming for you."

  Chapter Eight

  Late afternoon was one of Verbena's favorite times of the day. Everyone was puttering around the kitchen putting supper in the oven and pondering what else to make (everyone except Daisy, who was still at Beckett's cottage caring for him). The air rang with occasional laughter and happy conversation.

  "That dress you're making is going to be amazing," Rose said as she peeled potatoes at the counter. "I love that shade of blue. You always look so pretty in blue."

  "Not as good as you," Iris said sweetly, slicing carrots from the Rocking M's garden into neat little coins. "You have such golden blond hair, you look like an angel in blue."

  "I'm guessing Wade thinks so too," Magnolia chimed in, filling the potato pot with fresh water. "You two were on an awfully long ride today for a rainy day. That must mean something."

  "Yes, but what?" Rose reached for another potato to peel, trying to hide her blush. "Maybe it means that Wade has a terrible sense of direction and got lost taking me home."