The Timeless Love Romance Collection

by Dianne Christner

  “Well of course, Lia.” Reverend Summers crossed his arms over his chest, glints of fading light from the windows reflecting his warm smile. “Since it bothers you that much. If Justin will oblige us, that is.”

  Justin scratched his ear, embarrassed and tongue-tied. “I reckon, sir. If it’ll … you know. Help.”

  “Thank you,” Lia said to Justin in a soft voice, shooting him a shy and grateful smile over her plate. “How is your father, anyway? Someone said he wasn’t well these days.”

  Justin searched her eyes, but he saw only innocence glimmering there. Lashes blinking, waiting. Politely folded hands. Mrs. Summers gently touched her arm, and Lia looked up, blank-eyed in surprise. Lips parted.

  Before Justin could reply to Lia’s question, dry-mouthed, Reverend Summers straightened his glasses and leaned forward quickly, making both their heads turn his way. “Lia,” he said in a bold, bright tone, “have I ever told you about the time I pulled an alligator out of Yellowstone Lake?”

  “What?” Lia laughed, letting the curl of hair slide off her finger. “That’s impossible!”

  “Why, no, not at all! Listen.” And the reverend scooted his chair closer, raising his hands, orator-fashion, to begin the story.

  When Justin came scrambling back across the rustling Wyoming grass, a chilly bottle tucked in his hand, Lia hadn’t moved much. She huddled there on fragrant pine straw with her arms around her middle. With her arms like that, he noticed—for the first time—a barely visible row of stitching on the underarm seam of her pretty jacket that showed it had been mended. The material of the elbow was a bit threadbare, and her shoes—rounded toes with a slight heel he’d never seen Lia wear—had worn through the soles, revealing the cardboard patch she’d fitted into the bottom.

  Even her white gloves, tossed carelessly on a clump of grass by her hat, had been mended along the seams multiple times, and a tiny hole showed in the index finger.

  The Depression obviously hadn’t been good to the Summers family.

  Especially without a father.

  Justin swallowed hard and knelt next to Lia, setting down the bottle and popping open his battered tin of soda crackers.

  “Here ya go.” He shook a cracker into her hand, ashamed of his dirty fingernails and calloused hands. “See if it helps any. I called for the doc, but he’s over on the ridge sewing up some idiot who practically whacked his leg off with a machete.” Justin started to spill more lurid details then reminded himself that Lia was a girl. He had a hard time keeping a rein on his tongue after living with two-hundred-plus sweaty, grubby, out-of-work joes.

  Lia nibbled the corner of a cracker without reply, twisting Justin’s CCC bandanna in her free hand and swabbing her chin.

  “I brought you a ginger ale, too. Here.” He knocked the bottle cap against a fence post a couple of times until one fluted edge crumpled, releasing a curl of fizzy steam. He passed the bottle to her, glad he’d had a few cents to plunk down at the PX. Most of the guys went there so often to buy 7UPs, Clark Bars, and Lucky Strike cigarettes that the PX kept a running tab; the guy on duty just now didn’t even know Justin’s name.

  Lia wiped her mouth and took a sip of ginger ale then scrubbed her swollen eyes with the back of her hand. Her gaze cool and almost stiff but at the same time so wounded that Justin wanted to kneel there in the grass and cry.

  Neither spoke, and Justin cleared his throat awkwardly. He flipped the bottle top in his palm, trying to think of anything to say that didn’t bring up raw wounds. “So, you must be about twenty now, huh?”

  “Next month.” Lia wiped her mouth and took another sip.

  Justin scratched his head, squinting at a stand of sparkling aspens before speaking again. “You … uh … been to the Rockies before?”

  “Never.”

  Another long pause. A bee hovered over a scarlet Indian paintbrush bloom, buzzing.

  “You like hiking, then? Or Cynthia does?” Justin tried again.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really been much, and neither has she.” Lia took another hesitant sip and wrapped her arm around her middle, looking so fragile there against the pine fence that Justin’s heart twisted inside his chest.

  She set the bottle down, her eyes meeting his in a brief flash of blue, and then smoothed a strand of windblown hair out of her eyes. Twisting a curl around her finger as she drank.

  Justin stared, opening his mouth and closing it. “You still do that,” he said, his words coming out a hoarse whisper.

  “Do what?” She curled the strand again.

  Justin couldn’t speak for a second. Then made an awkward motion toward his head. “That … that thing with your hair. You used to do that.” He dropped his eyes. “A long time ago.”

  Lia let the piece of hair slip off her finger as if embarrassed, a hint of a smile on her lips. “I was shy, I guess.” She shrugged, smoothing her hair back.

  He looked down in the grass, afraid to meet her gaze. Shy? Around him, even back then? Justin Fairbanks, son of the town drunk—all nerves and chunky build and not knowing how to properly hold a knife and fork?

  “Listen,” he said, trying not to look at the strand of hair Lia had wrapped around her finger, now blowing in a thin, frizzy coil against her cheek. He licked his lips, wondering if he should say it—if he could say it. His mouth felt like pine straw. But it needed to come out. He felt it there inside his breastbone, burning like acid. Begging to be released.

  A milkweed pod floated by on the breeze, which felt suddenly chilly, smelling of sun-warmed fall and damp leaves.

  “About your … your … dad. Your father.” Justin licked his lips, feeling his palms perspire. He dropped the bottle top and fumbled in the grass for it with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry. Real sorry.” He couldn’t finish because his throat choked. Wondering what it might have been like to have kind Reverend Summers as a dad instead of drunken Pop. Those deep eyes and smile lines around his mouth. The gentle way he rested a hand on a head, as if in blessing.

  And then to leave him in a church cemetery, Indian grass and wild violets covering over the raw wound in the ground.

  Justin kept his burning face turned down, praying that Lia would say something. Anything.

  But she didn’t.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bottle freeze at her lips, and her position seemed to stiffen.

  “Where did you say the doctor’s office is?” Lia finally asked, drawing up her knees and reaching for the fence post to stand. Justin blinked back moisture, hoping with all his heart she hadn’t seen his emotion. He rushed to help her up, humiliated and all nerves, and she seemed not to notice.

  “I think I’ll wait for him there.” Her words carried a hint of frost, like the edge of chill on the warm September air.

  Justin nodded miserably then gathered up her gloves and hat and gave them to her. Dropping one glove on the grass in his agony and stooping to dig for it.

  She took them without touching his hand and kept her face turned away as she strode ahead of him toward the doc’s quarters.

  Chapter 5

  Justin stared up at the long, rough planks of the barracks ceiling, which were barely visible in the moonless darkness. The wool army blankets on the Camp Fremont beds scratched like maddening fleas, but they kept Justin warm. Back in Kentucky he’d sometimes awakened with snow from the broken window in the folds of his threadbare quilt.

  “Boy, that kitten is one hot tamale,” whispered Frankie from the next bunk over, shaking Justin’s bed with his foot. “You awake, Fairbanks?”

  Justin kicked Frankie’s leg away as hard as he could.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Frankie flopped over on his side. “So, ya saw her? I looked all over for ya, but you’d split like a big yella banana. Missed everything. Man, what a dish,” he sighed. “Too bad for you. She’s a real peach, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  Justin bristled. He hadn’t seen Lia the past two days and hoped she was okay. But doggone if he was gonna go askin
g around for her after the way she’d stalked off. Not that he blamed her. Not one bit. But it was best if he left her alone. He’d said what he’d needed to say, and nothing remained but empty space.

  Justin had worked as hard as he could, clearing brush and pounding nails for handrails, trying to forget. After evening formation and dinner in the mess hall, he’d taken his high school books over to the school building and studied by lamplight until bedtime. After all, life with Pop and weeks of delinquency hadn’t exactly been conducive to higher learning. Soon as he finished his high school studies, he’d take some college classes for sure—and learn a trade to help his family.

  “A real doll. Yessiree.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Justin asked in irritation. “Lia?”

  Frankie sat halfway up in his bed. “Who?”

  “Lia. Cynthia’s friend.” Justin blinked up at the ceiling again, trying to recall Lia’s crazy story about driving from Bozeman. Wondering if it had really happened or if he’d dreamed the whole thing.

  But the ice in her eyes before she walked away hurt too deeply to forget.

  “If you’re talkin’ about that skinny dame, no thanks. She’s as shapely as an empty potato sack and kinda sad-lookin’ eyes. But Cynthia. Cynthiaaaa!” Frankie let out his breath like a dying man and flopped back down on the bed. “She’s eighteen like me, but I told her I was twenty. You shoulda got a peek at ’er. That hair! That … that … angel face! She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Frankie shook a finger in the air for emphasis. “I tell you what I’m gonna do.” He pushed himself up on one elbow.

  “You’re gonna shut your trap, that’s what,” snapped Justin, not in the mood for Frankie White’s love laments. “And besides, you said all that nonsense about the last five dames you saw. Including the farmer’s wife.”

  “Aw, knock it off, goon. You ain’t even heard what I’m gonna do.” He settled his cheek on his palm, raising his voice over Ernie’s sputtering snores. “Lucky for me, Bruno Hodges got himself all whacked to pieces with a machete so bad Doc had to practically stitch his leg back on. So who’s gonna take ’em on their hike over to Fremont Lake instead? After all, this is Yellowstone.” Frankie leaned forward. “And her uncle’s a real famous photographer. He spent a whole day down at the falls takin’ pictures.”

  “Whose uncle, Lia’s?”

  “No, dimwit!” Frankie socked him with his pillow, making Justin see starry spots. “Cynthia. Do you need me to write it down for ya? Forget about that other gal.” He plopped the pillow down. “Anyhow, I’m gonna impress the socks off Cynthia’s uncle. He’ll never believe what I found up in the mountains.”

  “What, another crummy bird’s nest?” Justin growled. He held back his fist from knocking Frankie White in the nose. If he lobbed that pillow at him again, he’d do it, too.

  “Naw. Way better.” Frankie’s voice fell to a whisper. “You ever heard of the Thoen Stone?”

  “The what?”

  “The Thoen Stone. A message scribbled on a rock—somethin’ about Ezra Kind and gold from the Black Hills and Indians hunting him. Some guys in South Dakota found the message back in the 1800s.”

  “What’s this got to do with you?” Justin’s hair prickled, not liking where Frankie’s blabbering was going.

  “Everything. I found a letter.” He scooted closer, his eyes so wide and earnest in the dark that Justin’s heart skipped a beat. “In an old jar. Down in a bunch of rocks along the riverbed at the start of that trail we were cuttin’ last week.”

  “You shouldn’ta kept anything, Frankie. You shoulda turned it in to Lieutenant.”

  Frankie ignored him. “The letter’s written by a Jeremiah Wilde, tellin’ his cousin how the Sioux Indians killed a fella named Kirby Crowder—and took all his gold. He thinks it’s the same gold that belonged to Ezra Kind, ’cause nobody ever found it—and because of the legends and stuff. Somethin’ like two hundred pounds of nuggets. Do you believe it?”

  “Not for a second.”

  “It’s dated July 1893, and the paper’s falling apart.”

  “Liar.”

  Frankie hesitated, and the bed creaked as he leaned forward. “Jeremiah Wilde said he thinks it’s up on Gallatin ridge,” he whispered. “Near that field full of bellflowers. Is my luck good or what? I made a copy of the map, and I’m gonna ask Cynthia’s uncle about it. He’ll know if it’s real, won’t he?”

  Justin shoved him away. “Go away, Frankie. I’m going to sleep.”

  “Not me. I’m gonna lay here and dream about Cynthia. Think she’ll date me if I find the gold? Say, why don’t you come with us on our hike? You can … I dunno. Carry my canteen or something. Imitate bird calls.” He chortled to himself, plopping down on the pillow and looping his arms under his head. “Too bad you’re helpin’ out the Green River crew tomorrow, eh, Fairbanks? And on a Saturday! Haulin’ logs or some such nonsense? Ah well. Your loss.”

  “You leadin’ a group? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.” Justin reached over to shove Ernie and stop the snoring.

  “Well, say hi to Mr. Tour Guide. I’m now the official Yellowstone expert in residence. At least that’s what I told Mr. Parker, Cynthia’s uncle. What I don’t know, I’ll make up. Simple. And he won’t care when I dig two hundred pounds of gold out of a cave somewhere.”

  “That’s park property. You’d never get away with it.”

  “They don’t have to know a thing.”

  Justin could almost see Frankie puff up his chest with pride, even in the dark. “Lieutenant gave me permission, so long as we stay on the lake trail,” Frankie rattled on. “Said I needed an activity to exercise dependability—whatever that’s supposed to mean. Don’t matter to me so long as I get to be with Cynthia.”

  “Oh brother,” Justin muttered.

  Frankie’s voice trailed off in a disgustingly soft sort of way. “She’s never seen snow. Can you believe it? Grew up in Florida. I wish I could show her some.”

  “You’re an idiot. They’d never make it past the first ridge.”

  “Yeah well, a fella can dream, right?”

  “Sure. Right into a lightning storm. I can see it now. The weather around here changes in a minute, and what are you gonna do if you cross a moose or a bear? You’d wet your pants like you did last time.”

  “Real funny, Fairbanks.” Frankie’s voice hardened. “What are you, some kinda worrywart? Everything’s gonna be great. Anyhow, Lieutenant said Charlie Pryde’s supposed to come, too, since he’s got some know-how with plants and stuff, but Charlie hates it here. Once we get outta Lieutenant’s sight, he can take off and do whatever he wants, and I’ll find that gold myself. You’ll see.” He stretched and let out a long yawn. “I’ll handle things swell.”

  “You. Handle things swell.” Justin massaged his closed eyes in disgust. “Those girls don’t have a lick of hiking experience, Frankie. Better go easy on ’em. I know Lia wasn’t feeling so hot when she got here.”

  “Well, she doesn’t have to go then. Whatever. I’m just doin’ this to score some marks with the lieutenant of course.” Frankie’s words held a smirk. “I gotta make up for all my demerits. Only person who’s got more than me is Charlie, and he’s probably gonna skip this ol’ camp and hitch a ride back to New York. He’s homesick somethin’ terrible like the rest of us.”

  “Speak for yourself. I think this place is swell. And if your record’s that bad, Frankie, you oughtta volunteer to help me at the spike camp tomorrow instead of fooling around with some gal and her folks you don’t even know.” Justin snorted and smooshed his pillow into a thick roll. “You and your ridiculous notions. Letters in a jar? Gold? I don’t know how you get any work done at all, always lookin’ for stuff.”

  “I don’t, really.”

  Slacker. Justin shook his head and turned on his side away from Frankie. “Now shut up and let me get some sleep, or I’ll shut you up.”

  Frankie lay still awhile, quiet, until Justin tho
ught he’d fallen asleep. Then a muffled whisper. “She was looking for ya. That skinny gal.”

  Justin’s arms and legs tensed, and his fingers clenched the wool blanket tighter. “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno. Seemed like she was tryin’ to find ya these past couple days, but you was hidin’ out in a cave or somethin’. Who knows? Maybe she’s sweet on ya.” Frankie yawned. “But that Cynthia’s somethin’ else. She wears Emeraude perfume! Did you know that? It’s pure heaven.”

  “What do you know about heaven?” Justin growled, his teeth gritted at Frankie’s “sweet on ya” comment. “You don’t even go to chapel, although you oughtta. I bet you five bucks somebody back home is prayin’ for ya to pick up a Bible and get a lick of sense in that empty head of yours, but you’ve been blowin’ ’em off for years, thinkin’ you can handle things on your own. Well, you’re a fool, Frankie. Life’s a lot tougher than it looks.”

  He swallowed hard, thinking of Lia. Tracing the scar on his forehead with his fingers. “Don’t wait so long like I did. It’ll take me a lifetime to clean up my mess, if I ever can.”

  Frankie rattled on, not appearing to hear. “Cynthia smells like rose petals. And … and … orange peels.” He waved his arms in the air and let his breath expire dramatically. “I’m in love, Fairbanks! Slap me. Am I dreaming?”

  “Oh, I’ll slap you all right. With pleasure.”

  And Frankie yelped to get out of the way.

  Chapter 6

  Justin had just speared a bite of flavorless hotcake in the noisy mess hall when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped, nearly knocking over his coffee. Bad coffee, thick as tar and nearly too bitter to swallow.

  When he turned around, there stood Lia Summers in a close-fitting yellow hat, patiently clearing her throat and hands folded neatly in front of her.