by Jane Porter
There was a beat of silence. Trey looked at Shane. “You took it all down.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Shane said.
Another beat of silence followed. Trey drew a slow breath and exhaled even more slowly. “You asked who we’re protecting. It’s our families. It’s our memories. It’s our mom. I shouldn’t tell you this. I shouldn’t. And if it goes into your book I will tear you apart, limb by limb, but Mrs. Douglas wasn’t the first woman assaulted in this valley. My mom was hurt. I don’t know all the details, only that she’d confided in Grace Douglas a little bit. She’d told Mrs. Douglas that someone had hurt her and she was afraid. That’s why she stopped going to the revival. It’s why she didn’t want to leave the house. Brock suspected something had happened, too. He said he found Mom crying, and at first he thought Dad had beat her, but Mom swore it wasn’t Dad but she wouldn’t say who. Brock told us Mom wasn’t well, that she was struggling with something, and so we all took turns keeping an eye on her. We made it a point never to leave her alone.”
“Did you ever share any of this with the investigation?”
Trey shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“If you knew Dad, you wouldn’t ask that.”
“What does that mean?”
“He was hard on her. She was already unhappy. The last thing she needed was him blaming her for one more thing that wasn’t her fault.”
“Did he do that often?”
“Daily.”
Silence fell and as if aware he’d said far too much, Trey started for the door. Shane followed, accompanying him down the front steps, and out onto the dirt and gravel driveway.
“What was she like?” Shane asked as Trey swung the truck door open.
Trey’s brow furrowed. “Who?”
“Your mom.”
For a moment Trey seemed at a loss for words and then he answered gruffly, “Sweet. Sad. So very, very sad.” His voice hardened. He looked away, jaw gritted. “She deserved better than my father,” he added, climbing behind the steering wheel and slamming the door closed.
Trey reversed quickly, effortlessly, and turned the truck around to head out, more familiar with the Sheenan ranch than any of his brothers as he’d been the one to work it, day in and day out, until he’d gone to jail.
Shane knew all this and more. He’d spent more time the past month researching the Sheenans then he had the Douglas story. But every Sheenan discovery just led to more questions. Like just now. The conversation with Trey this morning had been equal parts enlightening and puzzling. But then, Trey himself was enlightening and puzzling.
Even more surprising was how much Shane liked him.
Maybe not every Sheenan was an ass.
All week Jet worried about how to tell Harley she was heading out of town on Friday. When she wasn’t engaged in teaching a lesson, she’d find herself stewing over the situation, knowing she couldn’t just disappear for three days—Harley would be on the phone with the sheriffs and police in record time—but also aware that she couldn’t just tell her older sister that she was heading out of town with Shane. Harley would have the Sheenans hunting them down in record time…
What Jet needed was a good excuse to head out of town, one that wouldn’t put Harley into a panic, but nothing came to her until it crossed her mind she could attend an education workshop somewhere…something that would help her with credits should she plan on pursuing a Class I Professional Certificate. She’d come to Montana on a Class II Standard Certificate for beginning teachers, and the only way one worked up in salary was by experience and units and degrees. Harley wouldn’t question Jet’s desire to attend an education workshop or seminar.
After school Wednesday, Jet sat down at her computer and did a search for workshops and courses in Montana, specifically for the coming weekend, which was the President’s Day weekend. She’d been worried that because it was a legal holiday on Monday there wouldn’t be anything, but the opposite was true. There were quite a few offerings across the state—four in Missoula, one in Billings, two in Bozeman. She studied the offerings for Missoula, and was pleased to see several for elementary age students, including utilizing Montana state parks to teach Montana history. The all-day course would include lesson places for place-based education regarding Montana’s Native American tribes. Lesson plans ranged from social studies to art, reading, and science. Definitely interesting coursework, and useful for Jet since she was still new to Montana.
Jet signed up for the five hour workshop and paid the small fee, and then sent Harley an email with details, so her sister would know where she was this weekend and what Jet would be doing.
Harley immediately replied to the email. “Where are you staying? How are you getting there? Will you be on your own?”
Jet grimaced, not wanting to fib, but at the same time not wanting to share too many details, either, which could just trip her up and trap her later. So she waited to answer, and then just before bed sent a quick text. “Going with a friend. Driving. Not sure where we’re staying yet.”
That seemed to appease Harley as the next day there was no email or text reply.
Chapter Nine
Friday arrived and Shane picked up Jet from her school as she’d decided she’d rather leave her car in the school parking lot than drive all the way home, delaying their departure further.
Marietta sat off Highway 89 and was on the way to the Flathead Lake so it wouldn’t have been much of a delay to stop by Kara’s and pick her up, but Shane knew Jet was more worried about people seeing them leave town together than the actual delay, so he agreed.
They’d been driving for close to forty-five minutes and had left Bozeman well behind when he felt Jet’s gaze rest on him yet again. She seemed to be spending more time looking at him than the scenery outside the car window.
“What?” he asked, shooting her a glance.
Her eyes met his. “I don’t know. You tell me what.”
“You’re smiling. A lot.”
She shrugged, still smiling. “I’m excited. This is fun. I’m looking forward to seeing Flathead Lake and visiting places I’ve only heard about. I know we don’t have time to really spend in Butte, but is there any way to do a quick drive through the historic downtown part, just so I can see it for myself?”
“Butte?”
“I’m fascinated by the city. I teach Montana history to my one fourth grader and Butte kind of haunts me. It was once this city of tremendous wealth with the discovery of copper and the dawn of the electrical age and then by the 1950s it was on its way to being a ghost town.”
“It’s not a ghost town. It’s Montana’s fifth largest city, I believe.”
“Yes, but Montana is not densely populated. Montana’s biggest cities would be considered towns by California standards.”
“Don’t let a Montanan hear you say that!”
“No, I know. I’ve learned to be careful, but it’s interesting to note that today Missoula’s population is close to seventy thousand. Bozeman is right around forty thousand. And Butte is maybe thirty-four thousand, but it once was the place to live. It had over a hundred thousand people—some say one hundred and twenty thousand people in 1920—and huge mansions, theaters, and beautiful civic buildings. It even had its own amusement park, with rollercoasters and a lake and stood there until the 1970s, when it was torn down.”
“Columbia Gardens.”
She nodded. “I would have loved to have seen it.” She sounded wistful. She was clearly fascinated by the idea of a mining company tycoon creating an amusement park for the people of Butte in 1899.
William Clark had purchased twenty-one acres at his own expense, and never charged admission. When he died in 1925, his family sold his estate and holdings, including the amusement park, to Anaconda Copper Mining Company and they ran it until 1973 when it closed for good. “I can’t show you the amusement park,” Shane said, “but Clark’s mansion is still there, and some of the other Copper King m
ansions, but in my opinion, Clark’s is the most impressive, and in summer is open as a museum.”
“But only in summer?”
“May through the end of September. But Butte’s West Side is definitely worth a quick detour. It’s easy off the freeway and it sounds like you’d enjoy driving through the neighborhoods with all the Victorians.”
“I would,” she agreed, settling back in her seat, feet out of her shoes and propped on his dash. Her socks were dark brown with pink and orange polka dots. The polka dots and color scheme made him smile. But then, being near her, with her, made him smile. She made him happy. Maybe that was the magic, her magic. She’d found a way to thaw the ice coating his heart. He was beginning to feel, and when he was with her, those feelings were good.
Those feelings gave him hope. Until he remembered the Sheenans and then he went numb again. The past did that to him. He told himself he wanted no part of it, and yet at the same time he was stuck in it.
“So, after Butte,” she said, breaking the silence, “what do we do?”
He told her there weren’t many choices for accommodations this time of year and since none of the motels in Polson seemed like the best fit, he’d booked a cabin in the town of Cherry Lake through the VRBO site which meant they’d each have their own room and space, so he could write if need be, and she could work, too.
“Sounds good.” She hesitated. “But how are you feeling about the trip? This is where you were raised, isn’t it? At least when you were a little boy?”
He should have expected that from her. Jet was smart and always thinking and asking questions and he shouldn’t be surprised she was already analyzing the weekend ahead, but he hadn’t really let himself go there…not yet. His focus had been on the book, and the interview, and getting the information he needed, rather than the fact they’d be driving through the reservation on the way, and that the town of Cherry Lake, had once been part of the reservation.
Years ago Mark, his agent, encouraged him to return to the area. His agent said it’d give Shane closure, and might even be a new beginning if he was able to meet people who knew his late maternal grandmother…maybe meet someone who’d gone to school with his mother, or maybe someone who remembered sitting in his grandmother’s kitchen and telling stories. But Shane had resisted returning, explaining that whatever good memories he’d once had of life on the reservation had been overshadowed by the pain of being taken from his grandmother. He’d been just a preschool boy at the time. Death was a foreign concept.
Even today the idea of returning to the reservation, home of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, filled him with dread, and something else…a quiet horror that made him feel too much like the boy he’d once been. Helpless. Frightened. Lonely.
Perhaps if the social workers had been able to place him with another Native American family…perhaps if they’d been able to keep him on the reservation…
Shane tensed, smashing down the regrets and memories. He was too old to mourn the past. Too old to mourn who he once was. And truthfully, he shouldn’t blame the social workers; they were just doing their job. But as a boy he had blamed them. They were the ones that placed him with the first foster family, the “white” family in Missoula. They’d made him believe this would be a forever family for him, and indeed the first six months had been wonderful, no problems on either side, but when the couple got pregnant he’d been returned to the social services since they were now having a child of their own.
The social worker driving him to the next foster home had scolded him. Maybe if you weren’t so active…maybe if you hadn’t been so demanding…
Shane had fought tears the entire drive.
His second family was awful, so awful, he cried in secret for his grandmother and then the young couple that had given him up, but gradually the tears dried and he just became angry, growing to hate the young couple for giving him up, hating them for loving their new baby, their biological child, more than they’d cared for him.
It wasn’t until years later that he discovered the young couple hadn’t wanted to give him up, that the young wife had been put on bed rest and was simply physically incapable of caring for him. But by then it was too late to help a little boy who burned with anger, believing himself as undesirable in every way.
Of course he felt pain—and more than a little bit of shame—leasing the Sheenan house. It was a daily reminder he wasn’t wanted. The ghosts of the past didn’t help, either—the father that didn’t want him, the mother who did, but then forgot him, and the little boy that grew up believing he wasn’t worth saving.
And now he was heading back to the place he’d spent his first four years, taking the ghosts with him. His mother, his father…would his grandmother join them?
At least he wasn’t traveling alone. Shane was grateful for Jet’s company. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get her sister’s approval, but she must have because she was here and there had been no threatening calls or unexpected visits from the Sheenans. “So how did you leave it with Harley?” he asked. “What did you tell her about this weekend?”
When she didn’t immediately answer, he shot her a glance. She was looking out the window as if admiring the Tobacco Mountains in the distance, her polka dot covered toes curling against the dash. Her silence made him uneasy. “She does know you’re going out of town, doesn’t she?” he persisted.
Jet hesitated a second too long. “Yes.”
“You didn’t tell her.”
“I did.” She kneaded the hem of her sweater, before confessing. “She thinks I’m in Missoula this weekend. For a teacher training seminar.” She gave him an innocent look. “And I did sign up for one, so it’s not a lie. It’s being given at the high school by the education department.”
“She didn’t think it was odd that you were doing this all by yourself?”
“I told her I’m going with a friend. That we’re carpooling together.”
“And she didn’t ask which friend?”
“I was vague.”
And Harley didn’t press for more info? Shane was sure that meant Harley suspected but she didn’t want to know because she didn’t want to have to deal with Brock and the rest of them. “You are far more devious than I imagined.”
“And you’re not?” She made a soft pffting sound as she rolled her eyes. “You’re the one that’s spent nine months living in the Sheenan homestead without ever once telling them that you’re writing a book about McKenna’s family, and making a million dollars off of it—”
“I’m not doing it for the money,” he interrupted flatly.
“But you are making money. A lot of money.” She held up her hands. “And I’m not attacking you, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking, and reminding you why they are so pissed off at you.”
“And yet here you are.”
She wrapped her hands in her sweater, expression unhappy. “Apparently I like you. Although to be honest, I wish I didn’t. It’d be easier not to. It’d be easier to just let them kick you out of their ranch house and not worry about what happens to you.”
“Ouch.” He teased, dangerously close to laughing. But he didn’t want to laugh, sensing it would just make her more angry with him, so he reached for her hand, and brought her fist to his mouth, and kissed her knuckles, and then again. “You don’t have to worry about me,” he soothed. “No matter what happens, I will be fine.” He hesitated for just a split-second before adding, “And so will you.”
Shane’s mouth was warm against her fingers and yet his words left Jet cold. If he thought he was being helpful, he was wrong.
Her eyes burned and her throat ached. “I hate it when you say that,” she said, trying to tug her hand free. “Why be so pessimistic, unless you already know the way this ends and you just don’t want to tell me?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But I think it is. You’ve said something similar twice. Or you’ve made up your mind and decided
how this plays out. Is that the case?”
He sighed with what sounded like exaggerated patience. “We know how it ends. My lease is up soon and I’ll be back in New York to finish my book. While you’re here until June, teaching on a contract.” His dark gaze swept her. “Your contract could be renewed, or it might not. You’re not sure what’s happening in the future—”
“That’s right. But just because we don’t know what I’ll be doing in June doesn’t mean we know what’s happening with you and me.” She tugged her hand free, tucking her tingling fingers beneath her leg. “Or do we? If so, just tell me.”
She heard the hardness in her voice. It matched the lump in her throat and the ice in her belly. She added even more frostily, “And, as you well know, we have things like Skype and FaceTime and airplanes and all kinds of conveniences that can help bring people together. If they want to be together.”
He said nothing and his silence made her go from cold to hot and she blinked hard to keep tears from forming. She almost hated him just then, and she certainly hated his silence and callousness. She didn’t care that he had grown up in foster care. Didn’t care that he thought of himself as tough and invincible…the classic lone wolf. He’d invited her along this weekend. He’d reached out to her. He’d been the one to make her think there could be more—
“What is happening?” Shane said.
“Harley warned me. She said you were just using me…killing time…maybe even using me to get to the Sheenans—”
“And why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. To get under their skin…provoke them.”
“And that would accomplish…what?”
His incredulous tone made her feel ridiculous and emotional and she didn’t know what was happening…didn’t know why she was having a full melt down…now.
