by Cindy Myers
Reggie flushed. “I’m not sure you’d like Murphy’s place. I mean, it’s not really fit for a woman like yourself.” He glanced at her gabardine slacks and matching jacket.
“I know my father was a bachelor and probably not much of a housekeeper, but I can clean the place up. It is mine now, right?”
“Yes, it’s yours. And it’s pretty clean. My wife and I emptied out the refrigerator and took out the trash so you wouldn’t have to deal with that.”
“Then what’s the probl—Oh, he didn’t have a girlfriend living there, did he? Or a wife?” The weight of the idea pressed her down in the seat. No one had mentioned anything about this, but her dad had only been sixty. Why shouldn’t he have remarried? Oh God, did she have brothers or sisters running around somewhere?
“No, no, there was no girlfriend. And Murph never remarried after your mother, at least as far as I know.” He nodded. “Yes, I’m sure I asked when we wrote up the will, and he was positive your mother was his only wife and you were his only child.”
Maggie felt weak with relief, but disappointed, too. A half brother or sister might not be such a bad thing. When she was seven, she’d invented an imaginary sister, who slept in bed with her and shared half her chair at the table. The sister listened to all her whispered secrets and finished off the peas Maggie didn’t like. A hollow space in her chest ached at the memory. It would be nice to think she had some remnant of family left in this world, now that both her parents were gone, but apparently her father had been as reluctant to take a second stab at marriage and parenting as her mother.
Which led to the question that had been nagging at her since she’d stepped on the plane to come here. “Reggie, what was my father like?”
“Murph was a great guy.”
Right, as if that told her anything. Did that mean he paid his bills on time and liked the same sports teams as Reggie? “My mother always gave me the impression he came back from Vietnam, well, different. I never knew if that meant he suffered from post-traumatic stress or a drug problem or what.” She went through a phase in high school where she read everything she could about the war and its veterans. She’d learned a lot, but nothing that gave her a clearer picture of her father.
“He didn’t talk about his war experience much,” Reggie said. “He drank too much sometimes, but he didn’t make a real habit of it. He liked his privacy and all, but he wasn’t really a hermit. He had plenty of friends in town. You’ll meet some of them, I’m sure. They’ll want to stop by and pay their respects.” He glanced at her again, a twinkle in his eye. “And they’ll want to get a look at Murph’s girl.”
“Then he wasn’t . . . crazy? Mentally ill, I mean.”
Reggie’s expression sobered. “Jacob Murphy was as sane as you or I,” he said. “Every once in a while he’d get to feeling down—he’d go off into the mountains for a while until he got to feeling better. I guess some people would label that depression, but Murph got through it his own way and didn’t seem the worse for it.”
She felt a surge of relief, accompanied by threatening tears. She blinked rapidly and dug her nails into her palms. “That’s good,” she said. “My mother said there were problems when he first got back from the war. I guess she meant the drinking.”
“So you don’t have any memories of him at all?” Reggie’s voice was gentle.
“No, I was only a few days old when he left.” She cleared her throat. “I was shocked when I got your letter—surprised he remembered me, or knew where to find me.”
“Apparently he’d been in touch with your mother. We found a few letters . . . they’re in a box up at his cabin.”
“I—I didn’t know.” Her voice sounded watery, and she clamped her lips shut, willing herself not to break down. Her mother had talked about Jake a lot in the last weeks of her life, but she’d never mentioned any letters, or even suggested Maggie try to get in touch. Was that because he’d asked her not to?
They were silent for the next few miles, rocketing past pale green fields dotted with wildflowers and clusters of grazing cattle. Then they topped a rise and Reggie pointed toward the horizon. “That’s Mount Winston there. The one that looks kind of like a mastodon tooth, with snow on top.”
Mount Winston jutted from a range of slightly smaller peaks, stark silver and white against a sky so smooth and blue it reminded her of a porcelain plate. “It doesn’t even look real,” she said. “It’s like a movie set or something.”
Reggie chuckled. “It’s real, all right. If there weren’t all the trees in the way, you could see your dad’s place, on the slopes of Mount Garnet.”
“Are there garnets there?”
“I don’t think so. The story is it’s named after a miner’s wife. Though another version says Garnet was a prostitute.” He shrugged. “The truth gets muddied up sometimes.”
Especially when men are involved, she thought, but kept her mouth shut. “Tell me about my dad’s place,” she said. “What did I inherit?”
“There’s thirty-two acres,” Reggie said. “Most of one side of Garnet Mountain. A house and a couple of outbuildings. A Jeep—it’s old, but it still runs good. Oh, and a 2006 Polaris Switchback.”
She blinked. “A what?”
“Snowmobile. Really nice one, too.”
Understanding dawned. “That’s the second of the two vehicles you mentioned in your letter?”
He nodded. “Murph used the Switchback as much as the Jeep in the winter.”
Maggie’s dreams of newfound wealth were melting as fast as ice cream on a hot sidewalk. “Tell me about the house.”
“It’s an old miner’s cabin. Not much to look at on the outside, but Murph fixed it up pretty nice over the years—new roof and windows, insulation and everything. It’s got a good wood stove, so it’s warm in the winter, and up on the side of the mountain like it is, you can’t beat the view. ’Course, it’s not the easiest place to get to, especially in the winter. And there aren’t any neighbors to speak of. You’d probably be more comfortable in town.”
“It’s not winter now,” Maggie said, curiosity building. “Why couldn’t I stay there? Is there electricity? Plumbing?”
“The electricity comes from solar panels on the roof and a generator for backup. There’s a propane stove and refrigerator. Bathroom with a shower and composting toilet Murph put in a few years ago. Said he got tired of digging his way to the outhouse every time it snowed.”
“A composting toi—” She felt a little queasy. If only Barb were here. She’d find something witty or crass to say to lighten the moment. She’d make Maggie feel better about the mansion in the mountains and two sleek vehicles, which had all burned to the ground, replaced by an aging Jeep, a snowmobile, and an off-the-grid miner’s shack with a composting toilet.
“I want to see the place,” she said. “Then I’ll decide.”
“No problem,” Reggie said. “Like I said, the view alone is worth the trek up there, and there’s probably a few things in the house you’ll want to take with you.”
Maybe she’d find some rusty miner’s relic to remember her dad by. She’d come here hoping for treasure, but really, that would be more fitting—some worthless antique to commemorate their non-relationship.
A cluster of buildings came into view. “Welcome to Eureka,” Reggie said. He flipped on his blinker and turned the car off the highway, onto a wide dirt road flanked by wood-front buildings that looked straight out of an old John Wayne western. One weathered wooden front bore the legend: DIRTY SALLY SALOON.
Maggie clamped her mouth shut, not wanting to be caught gaping like some yokel. “How big is Eureka?” she asked. “I mean, what’s the population?”
“Four hundred or so permanent residents, though it can be ten times that many during tourist season.” He pointed a long finger at a weathered two-story building with a false front. “My office is upstairs there. Downstairs is the Last Dollar Cafe. The Laundromat and grocery are one street over, and the library is behind there. If the librarian, Cass
ie Wynock, approves of you, she’ll let you use the library computers to e-mail. If she doesn’t, come by my office and you can use mine.”
“If she approves of me?” Maggie did let her mouth drop open now.
Reggie shrugged. “Cassie’s kind of particular. And she and your dad got in a tussle once over a book he checked out and never turned in.”
“Oh, come on, now. She held a grudge over a late library book?”
“Well, apparently it was kind of a rare book on Eureka’s history, and he kept it checked out for something like five years. He said he just forgot about it, but I suspect he did it because he knew it drove Cassie nuts.”
Maggie sympathized with Cassie. She didn’t have a lot of patience with people who broke rules simply for the sake of breaking them. Then again, she’d spent her life walking carefully inside the lines.
They passed a driveway flanked on either side with stone columns and a large, colorful sign: LIVING WATERS. A tall wooden fence obscured the property from view.
“What’s that?” Maggie asked.
“Hot springs,” Reggie said. He grinned. “Clothing optional, hence the fence. It’s open to the public, if you want to try it out.”
“Um, no thanks.”
“You can wear a suit if you’re shy,” he said. “The water’s real relaxing.”
He spoke with the voice of experience. A sudden image of the stocky lawyer in the altogether flashed through her mind; she quickly banished it. “How much farther to my dad’s place?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes or so,” he said. “From here on out we’ll be driving pretty much straight up.”
She settled back in her seat as they left the last of the town behind. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but clearly there wasn’t much here for her in Eureka. She’d visit her dad’s shack, collect a few mementos, and catch the next plane back to Houston, another chapter in her life closed. She and Barb would have a good laugh about it later. With any luck, Reggie would be able to sell the whole lot for enough money to at least pay for a good vacation.
One far away from the men who insisted on screwing up her life, both past and present.
Chapter 2
“Cassie, do we have any books on reincarnation?”
Cassie Wynock, librarian at the Eureka County Library, looked up in surprise at the shriveled knot of a man who stood before her desk. “Bob, why do you want a book on reincarnation?”
“Danielle told me in another life she used to be an Egyptian slave girl, and it got me thinking, wondering if I had any past lives.”
In another life, Cassie would have been a wealthy woman of consequence—a queen or, at the very least, a prime minister. Certainly not a librarian who spent her days catering to people like Bob Prescott.
Then again, Cassie didn’t believe in nonsense like reincarnation. The only past that shaped a person was the life she’d lived, and the lives of the ancestors before her. Cassie’s forebears had been among the first to arrive in Eureka County and had made their mark all over this land. The very plot where the library now sat had once been Wynock property, as had the school and the bank and just about everything else in town. Most people had forgotten that, but not Cassie.
“The New Age books are over here,” she said, leading Bob to the small section of shelves.
“Thanks, Cassie. Say, did you hear Jake Murphy’s daughter’s coming to town? Supposed to be arriving today.”
Cassie stiffened. “I didn’t know Jake had a daughter.”
“Surprised the heck out of me, too.” Bob studied the shelf. He needed a shave, and the bristles of his beard stood out like salt scattered across his chin. “Now, which one of these books is gonna help me figure out my past lives? Danielle said knowing what we were in the past can help us figure out what we’re supposed to do in this life.”
Bob was seventy if he was a day. If he hadn’t figured out what to do with his life by now, why worry? But Cassie kept her mouth shut and returned to her desk. If he wanted to take life advice from a waitress at the café where he ate breakfast, Cassie wasn’t one to tell him different.
She tried to focus on putting together the next issue of the library newsletter, but her mind kept wandering back to the other bit of news Bob had shared: Jake Murphy had a daughter.
The idea caused a pain behind her eyes. Thinking about Jake always hurt. She’d made such a fool of herself over the man.
Cassie was not a foolish woman. She’d graduated at the top of her class at Eureka High School and had been poised to head to the University of Colorado to major in international studies when her mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Cassie had done the right thing and stayed to nurse her mom while the rest of her classmates, including the boy she’d been dating, went off to college. When her mother died two years later, her father had been a complete wreck, so Cassie had stayed and enrolled in college at Montrose, commuting back and forth between the red brick campus and the Queen Anne home on Fourth Street where she’d grown up.
Montrose didn’t offer international studies, so Cassie had let a counselor talk her into pursuing a degree in library science. She’d planned to transfer to CU in a couple of years and change her major, but that never happened.
Her father died, leaving her the house and not much else. The county had decided to build this library and had offered her the job, so she’d taken it. It wasn’t what she’d planned for her life, but she’d made the best of it, and done a good job. She had no illusions about herself. She knew she was fast becoming a stereotype of the old maid librarian who lived alone with two cats. She’d dated some in her younger years, but the men who asked her out were of a type she secretly disdained—soft and studious, weak in a way that was too much like her father and his father before him. Wynock women had a history of being attracted to men without backbones—the main reason all the land they’d once owned was no longer theirs. Cassie wasn’t going to follow in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps.
Then Jacob Murphy had turned her head completely, and played her for such a fool.
She’d seen him first at Hard Rock Days, an annual celebration of Eureka’s mining heritage. Local men competed in feats of strength like racing, pushing loaded ore carts, and driving spikes in solid rock.
Jake had stepped up to take his turn swinging the hammer, a tall, lean man with coppery hair and beard. He’d stripped off his shirt to reveal rippling muscles—Cassie knew she wasn’t the only woman in the crowd who drew in her breath at the sight. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him as he swung the hammer. One, two, three blows and the spike was in. He accepted the trophy with a crooked grin.
The moment was burned into Cassie’s memory. The sight of him had haunted her dreams for the next few nights. It didn’t matter that he was older than her—fifty-five to her forty-five. He was exactly the kind of man she wanted. The kind who never gave her a second glance.
And then the man himself had stepped into the library and walked right up to her desk with that same crooked smile and asked if she could help him find some books on local history. He’d cast a spell on her, one from which it had taken her months to awaken.
“Cassie, are you gonna help me out here or not?”
Bob’s voice broke into her reverie. She jumped up from the desk and hurried to the front counter. “Did you find the book you wanted?” she asked.
“Nah, found some stuff about other people’s past lives, but I don’t give a damn about any of them. Maybe I’ll ask Danielle what she recommends. In the meantime, I got this instead.” He held up the latest Dan Brown novel.
“Hello, Bob, Cassie.” A tall woman dressed like a gypsy in a patchwork skirt and peasant blouse emerged from the stacks and approached the counter.
“Afternoon, Madam Mayor.” Bob grinned, probably because he knew how much Lucille Theriot hated her title. One more example of how she didn’t take the job seriously, Cassie thought. Look at the way she dressed. She looked more like a bag lady than the
mayor of a small town.
“Lucille, what do you reckon you were in your past life?” Bob asked.
Lucille didn’t even blink at this non sequitur. “I have no idea, Bob. I have enough trouble keeping up in this life without worrying about the last one.”
“But you do believe in it? Reincarnation, I mean.”
“I’m at the age where nothing surprises me.”
Cassie pulled forward the stack of books and began scanning them—Parenting the Adult Child, When Your Adult Children Move Home, Healing Broken Families. She looked up and met Lucille’s gaze with a questioning look.
The mayor flushed. “My daughter is moving in with me for a while.”
What was this, secret offspring week? “I didn’t know you had a daughter,” Cassie said.
“She’s been living in Connecticut with her father since she was a teenager. Now she’s lost her job and wanted a change of scenery, I guess.” Lucille opened and closed the top book on the stack, fidgeting. “She needs my help. It will be a good opportunity for us to get to know each other again. And she has a son, a little boy.”
“I was just telling Cassie I heard Jake Murphy’s daughter is coming to town, too,” Bob said. “You reckon she’s here to stay?”
“I believe she’s coming to look at the property she inherited,” Lucille said. “Reggie’s picking her up at the airport right now.”
Reggie Paxton was the town’s only lawyer, so Cassie guessed he’d handled Jake’s will. “Did you know Jake had a daughter?” she asked Lucille.
The older woman shook her head. “Apparently he and the girl’s mother split years ago and he hadn’t seen his daughter since. But he left her everything in his will, so she’s coming out to take a look.”
“If she needs someone to show her the French Mistress, I can help her out,” Bob offered. “I spent almost as much time up there as Jake.”
“She might not appreciate the fact that you were trespassing,” Lucille said mildly.
“A man shouldn’t let a few obstacles get in the way of a dream,” Bob said, rubbing the side of his face. Cassie remembered Jake had given the old man a black eye once, when he’d caught him in the mine uninvited.
