Cory looked at the address on the front of each envelope. “They’re written to my mother.”
He opened one and pulled out a single page of writing. He read silently, then put it aside, pulled out a second letter and read it through before looking down at Eloise quizzically.
“Who wrote them?”
“Robert.”
Cory’s heart hammered in his throat as he scanned the slanted handwriting:
Dear Shelley,
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written you, but I’ve been thinking of you often. I can’t help wondering if you’re married yet, settling into that life I never could give you. What we had was so short, so fleeting, that I don’t understand why I still see you in my dreams. But I do.
How is our son? He’d be five now, I believe. I see other five-year-old children and it reminds me of him. Of course, I can’t tell Ruth about him, so I sit alone and I’m swarmed by memories of you and wishes for what could have been if I’d only been stronger.
I’m enclosing a small amount of money for our boy. It isn’t much, but I can’t take out more money without my wife noticing. You know how these things are with bitter women. Or maybe you don’t.
Write me, my love. I miss you.
Robert
Had his father really thought about him and sent money? Ruth didn’t sound like the lovely woman his father had been talking about. It was strange to see him describing his wife in this light. He flipped to the next letter.
Dear Shelley,
I was so happy to get your letter. I know it’s been a few months, and I’m sorry for that. You said I’m married and that should count for something, and maybe it does. But I’ll tell you this—a marriage isn’t always as it appears. I wish you could trust me on this.
You asked how I am. I’m frustrated. I’m lonely. I think of you too often, and I know that I’m a terrible father. I have no idea what Cory must think of me. Don’t let him hate me. Even if you hate me just a little, protect me in his eyes. One day, I’ll make it up to him, I swear.
You asked if I might be able to visit you one of these days, and I’m not sure I could make that happen. You know how jealous and controlling my wife is. I couldn’t get away without her nagging me about it, and I don’t dare tell her about you. It’s for your own protection. There is no telling what she’d do.
But enough about her. What about you? Are you seeing anyone? Does anyone else get to whisper sweet nothings into your ear? Don’t tell me if you have someone. It would hurt to hear it, and I’d rather remember you as mine, and not have to face the reality of you moving on with someone else.
I’ll write when I can. I’m enclosing a small amount of money. I’ll send more next time, but maybe you could get something pretty for yourself.
With love,
Robert
Cory realized belatedly that Eloise had been reading over his shoulder, but he didn’t mind. It saved him explanations.
“So they stayed in contact,” Eloise said weakly.
“My dad told me that he had no idea why my mother might have held on to hope that they’d get back together.” Cory heard the growl in his own tone. “He questioned her mental stability. He suggested that perhaps she had some emotional problems to make her react the way she did.”
“How many letters are there?”
“Twenty? Thirty?” He looked down at the bundle in his hands and flipped through the first few. “They seem to be dated every six or eight months, and the ones I’ve read so far seem to be asking her to wait. Not openly, but between the lines.”
“Did he love her, after all?” Eloise asked.
“He claimed to.”
Cory rose to his feet, slapping the bundle against his open palm. He opened another and read it through, his expression grim.
“So this means that your father had been writing love letters to your mother for years. He lied to Ruth for years...” Eloise shook her head slowly.
Cory folded the letter and returned it to the envelope.
“Are you all right?” Eloise asked, putting a hand on his arm.
“I’m fine.” He nodded slowly, capping the anger that simmered in his middle.
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.” Cory kept his voice low. His father was more manipulative than he’d ever imagined, and the realization slapped him in the gut.
“He’s going to face God soon enough,” she said softly. “He doesn’t need our judgment, too.”
Cory looked at the letters in his hand. “Does lying come that easily to him?” He shook his head. “Because I believed him. That’s what gets me. I’m a pretty good judge of people, and when he told me that he had no idea why my mother might have pined for him, I actually believed it.”
Eloise didn’t answer, but compassion swam in those deep green eyes.
“It’s late,” he said gruffly. “I’m going to read the rest of these alone.”
“Okay,” she said, giving a faint nod. “We’ll take your father out in the morning, then?”
He nodded curtly. “Sure. See you then.”
Cory headed out of the library and down the hallway toward his bedroom. So much for restful reading—his emotions were reeling, and he needed some space to sort it out.
What had been happening between his parents all those years?
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, the pickup sped down the highway, power lines looping along beside them. Fields stretched out on either side of the highway, rolling lazily toward the horizon. Grazing cattle dotted the lush green grass, trees springing up around the creeks that watered the land. A cloudless sky domed overhead, washing the landscape in sunlight. The day was beautifully hot, a perfect summer morning, but a heavy feeling enveloped Eloise as she regarded the pastoral scene outside the truck window.
She looked uneasily at her patient in the backseat. Mr. Bessler scowled, and when he sensed her scrutiny, his gaze flickered toward her.
“What?” the old man demanded.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked. “Are you in pain?”
“I’m always in pain. The pills don’t help anymore.”
“I could ask your doctor to raise your dosage—”
“Leave me alone.”
Eloise sighed and turned to face the front again. She was doing her best with the old man, but her feelings had changed when she read those letters. Mr. Bessler didn’t have a short-lived fling and then regret it for the rest of his life; he’d had a fling and then written love letters to his mistress for years after the affair. How could a man claim to love his wife when he was writing those kinds of letters behind her back? For all of her curiosity about the secret to their long marriage, Eloise felt her admiration for Mr. Bessler’s love shrivel. So this was what a lifelong marriage looked like—lies and emotional distances?
Anger simmered inside her, and she pressed it down.
Father, I need Your peace. Calm me. Help me not to take out my anger on a dying old man. Help me not to judge.
“Something’s changed,” Mr. Bessler said.
Eloise turned back. “What do you mean?”
“The two of you. Something’s different.”
Eloise and Cory glanced at each other.
Eloise shook her head. “I don’t think so, Robert.”
“I’m not stupid, I’m dying. Those are two different things.” The old man shook his head irritably. “Now, what’s going on?”
Tension rippled down Cory’s jaw, and he pinned his eyes on the road ahead. For a couple of minutes no one spoke, some tinny banjo music from a country station filling the silence. Then Cory flicked off the radio.
“I found some letters,” he said, his voice low. “Letters you wrote to my mother.”
Mr. B
essler didn’t reply.
“There is a whole stack of them. You wrote her a lot.”
“Not a lot.”
“Thirty-some letters,” Cory retorted. “You told her that you loved her. You said you missed her. You said Ruth was a shrew, controlling, vindictive—”
“Stop it!” Mr. Bessler’s voice rang through the truck. “Never mind what I said about Ruth. It didn’t mean anything.”
“How could it not?” Cory asked, his voice rising. “Robert, you wrote Mom again and again, telling her how miserable you were with your wife!”
“Maybe I did, but how often?” The old man’s voice quavered. “How often? Tell me!”
“About twice a year.”
“Exactly. That was how often Ruth and I would lock horns over some stupid thing. We’d fight and I’d have to apologize. That’s how it works in a marriage—the man comes with cap in hand. Well, I didn’t like it, and I got my revenge: I wrote a letter to my old mistress. Ruth was none the wiser.”
“You made Ruth out to be a monster and claimed to still love my mother. What was Mom supposed to think?”
“They were harmless letters. I complained about my wife and remembered a woman I’d cared about. I never acted on them.”
“Harmless?” Cory answered. “They kept my mother on a string all those years. Every time she might have been ready to move on with her life, she got another letter.” His voice dripped disgust. “You said that my mother must have had emotional problems, but that wasn’t the case at all, was it?”
A semi truck lumbered past, the wake of wind pushing against the pickup. Cory didn’t take his eyes off the road, but his expression remained grim.
Mr. Bessler’s eyes flashed in fury. “Even if I’d promised the moon, why should she have believed me? I never called. I never visited, and all those years, I never once left my wife. I never intended to. Yes, I lied and lied and lied. You can judge me for being a terrible husband if you want. I was a terrible father, too, but you can’t blame it on me when a woman decides to put her life on hold for a few honeyed words. Anyone who believes words over actions needs their head examined.”
Mr. Bessler’s rage was spent and he leaned his head back, breathing deeply from his oxygen mask. Cory stared with flinty directness at the road ahead.
“Is this still your land, boy?” the old man asked after a moment.
“We’re just passing it now,” Cory replied.
“Find me a place to scatter Ruth, then.”
Cory complied, pulling off the highway onto a side road that made the truck rattle and bump as they drove along. At a small bridge, Cory eased the truck to a stop. Far behind them, an odd car or truck would speed past on the highway, but on this particular road, all was deserted.
“My land is that way,” Cory said, gesturing to the right. “But everything over this way belongs to another ranch. Will this do?”
A wooden bridge spanned a babbling creek. Tall trees rose along the banks, the sunlight filtering through the leaves and scattering shadows over the planks of wood. A few round, wet stones rose up in the creek below and water gurgled around them. Beyond the trees that lined the bank, fields rolled out on either side, cloud shadows slinking along the rippling surface of the crops.
“It’ll do fine,” Mr. Bessler pronounced.
Cory lifted out the wheelchair and Eloise settled the old man into it, his wife’s urn in his trembling grasp. She released his brakes and slowly wheeled him onto the bridge.
“Is this spot all right?” she asked.
“Point me that way.” He flicked a hand in the direction of the other rancher’s property. Eloise adjusted his chair and set the brake.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” she said quietly.
Eloise walked back to the truck where Cory waited. A breeze cooled her back and she paused, her gaze roaming over the wide, prairie sky. Wisps of white stretched across the blue, growing misty along the horizon. She leaned against the grill of the truck next to Cory.
“It’s not half so romantic when you know the details, is it?” Cory asked softly.
“It certainly loses something,” she agreed.
“I can’t believe my mom hung her hopes on him.” Cory’s jaw was tense.
“I hung my hopes on Philip. It happens.”
Cory scraped his boot against the gravel. “It’s not that she made a mistake with my father. I can forgive that easily enough. It’s that she never moved on from it.”
Eloise shrugged. “There are no easy answers, are there?”
“Never seem to be.”
The gentle breeze and gurgle of the creek lulled them into a companionable silence. Mr. Bessler hunched in his wheelchair. He stared down at the urn, his white hair shifting in the light breeze.
Eloise could only guess at Cory’s emotions. She reached over and put a hand on his arm, his muscles rippling under her touch. He glanced down at her, his dark eyes meeting hers.
On the bridge, Mr. Bessler pried open the lid to the urn. With a few murmured words that did not carry, he leaned forward and poured the contents over the edge of the bridge. The ashes tumbled over each other, billowing out in a soft breath of gray as they met the puffs of breeze.
“Rest in peace,” Cory murmured.
Just as the ashes fell free of the urn, a gust of wind rose, caught them and whisked them in the other direction. It happened so quickly that Mr. Bessler didn’t seem to notice at first. His expression remained grim and forlorn, but when he saw the direction the ashes moved, his eyes widened in horror.
Eloise stared in mute surprise as the ashes blew straight back to Cory’s property.
“Oh no,” she whispered, but her words were drowned out by the shout of fury that erupted from the frail old man.
He flung down the urn, which bounced twice, clanging against the bridge deck.
Eloise propelled herself forward, afraid he’d hurt himself, but when she arrived at his side, he glared up at her, his lips trembling.
“She does not belong with him.”
“She’s not with Cory,” Eloise replied. “She’s with God.”
“Thirty-five years,” he said, his voice a quivering whisper. “Thirty-five years and I still can’t get it right.”
“Robert, her remains are going back to the earth. Does it matter what side of a property line they fall on?”
“Yes!” The old man glared in the direction her ashes had flown. “And she would have enjoyed that.”
“Why?” Cory’s deep voice broke into their conversation. “Why would she enjoy it?”
“Because like you, Ruth always knew exactly who to blame.” He shook his head dismally. “If she’d known about my affair, she wouldn’t have blamed a child.”
“No one is blaming you right now, Robert,” Eloise said.
“Aren’t you?” His watery eyes moved between Eloise and Cory. “Of course you are.”
He silently accepted the empty urn from Eloise and sank back into his chair. Eloise turned him around and pushed his chair over the wooden bridge, back toward the truck.
Cory remained silent as he walked with them. He pulled open the back door, ready to help lift the old man.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Bessler said, his red-rimmed gaze meeting Cory’s.
“It’s okay.”
“I wasn’t a good man. I tried to make up for it at the end, but I didn’t.”
Cory didn’t answer, emotions battling in his features. He bent to help Eloise lift the old man, but as he did, Mr. Bessler put a knobby hand on his shoulder.
“Your mother should have moved on, and I’m sorry I held her back. I wasn’t worth the sacrifice. She would have made someone a beautiful wife.”
Tears misted Cory’s eyes and he gave a curt nod. The old man seemed satisfied, and they
settled him into the backseat of the truck. Leaning his head back, Mr. Bessler took a deep breath and shut his eyes.
* * *
The moon hung heavily over the fields that night. Cory stood in the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest. Outside, a cricket chirped a lonesome sonata, the sound filtering through the open window above the sink.
My father is a broken man.
Somehow that thought had never occurred to him in all his years of wondering about Robert Bessler. Superhero, CIA, spy, wealthy businessman...but never did Cory imagine his father was in pain. Resentment gave way to pity as he thought about the life his father had led. A lying man probably spent his life looking over his shoulder, waiting to be found out. To never be discovered seemed like a greater punishment in a man’s life—no release from the burden, no relief from the guilt.
A creak on the floorboards roused Cory from his thoughts and he turned to find Eloise standing in the doorway. Her eyes were puffy and she pulled a hand through her hair, tugging the curls away from her face.
Cory nodded. “He’s not doing so well, is he?”
“No.” She sighed. “I need to take him back to Haggerston, to his own bed and house.”
“Okay.” Cory cleared his throat. “Have I made things worse?”
“No.” Eloise shook her head. “He chose to come here, and he deserved an honest discussion as much as anyone else.”
“When do you want to go back?” Cory asked hesitantly.
“Can you drive us in the morning?”
“Sure, if that’s what you want.” As for Cory, he didn’t want to take her back. He wanted to keep her here with him indefinitely, even though he knew that was impossible. If he was going to tell her how he felt, it was now or never. He cleared his throat.
“Eloise, you said before that you felt something for me.”
She dropped her gaze. “It’s not as simple as that.”
“Yeah, for me, too.” He stepped closer. “I know you haven’t been here long, but—” He cast about for the right words. How was he supposed to describe that feeling of coming back to the house, the warmth of the lights and the anticipation of seeing her? “I don’t know how to say this, but it’s been different with you here.”
The Rancher's City Girl Page 17
