Austin chuckled again from the stage. “I don’t think that’s something worth interrupting the debate over.”
“We’ve got to go out there,” Blaze said as he reached Dane, panting to catch his breath.
“Dane,” Austin said from the stage, “do we have a little discipline problem we need to take care of?”
Dane raised a hand for some time, and Austin’s sigh echoed from the speakers.
“Cheyenne was going to Bertie’s house to get some cheeses Bertie forgot this morning,” Blaze said. “I was watching Ramsay after the races, and I saw him run out to his dad’s boat. I was afraid he’d light out for the ranch, but he picked up Cheyenne. Dane, something’s going to happen. We need to do something now. I mean right now.”
“Any time, boys,” Austin said. “We can’t keep people waiting forever, or they’ll start to leave.”
Dane turned to the stage. “Sorry, Austin, but we have an emergency brewing. We need you to come with us.”
Ramsay sped past Bertie’s dock.
“Uh, Ramsay?” Cheyenne said. “I think you missed it.”
He didn’t respond.
She stood up and nudged his arm. “Ramsay?”
He jerked around and glared at her, his blue eyes fixing on her with sudden, surprising anger.
She took her seat as the boat curved in an arc toward an inlet. What was wrong with him all of a sudden?
“You’re great pals with my buddy Blaze, aren’t you?” he shouted over the whine of the motor. “And Dane Gideon.”
What did that have to do with anything?
Ramsay glanced over his shoulder at her. “Dad doesn’t like it.”
She frowned up at him. “I’m sorry?”
He turned the boat so suddenly they nearly capsized. He steered it into Gulley’s Creek—which fed into the lake east of Bertie’s house.
Cheyenne felt the first flutter of tension. For the first time, she regretted not having a life jacket on. Ramsay hadn’t offered her one, and as a strong swimmer she hadn’t thought the precaution necessary for such a short ride, but if he was going to fool around with the boat…“I think you missed your turn, Ramsay.”
He scowled. “You shouldn’t have come here. Shouldn’t’ve taken Courage, then tricked Dad into giving him to the ranch. You let us come out to your house and take care of that stupid horse, and you played up to Dad and acted all sweet and interested.”
Cheyenne’s breath caught. What was going on here? He sounded crazy. “Ramsay, what are you talking about? You act as if you think I was—”
“You were leading Dad on, but it’s Dane Gideon you’re really trying to—”
“I wasn’t leading your father on.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the lake.
“Now you won’t even go out with Dad, after all he’s done for you.”
She tried to judge the distance between the boat and shore. She couldn’t afford to panic. He was beginning to remind her of a psychotic patient she’d been forced to restrain in the ER last month.
“You don’t know what that’ll do to Dad,” he said.
Cheyenne clenched her hands so tightly she felt the sharp implant of her fingernails into her palms. “I think he’ll get through it.” She forced her voice to portray a calm she didn’t feel.
Ramsay cut the motor and steered the long bass boat around until it faced the lake. He folded his arms across his chest.
They were directly in the middle of the mouth of the creek, trees shielding them on either side. Isolated. Alone. With the motor turned off, all was quiet except for the gentle lapping of the water against the side of the boat.
“Suppose you try to tell me what it is I don’t know.” She trailed her hand in the water, focusing on deep, controlled breaths. “What has you so upset? Why shouldn’t I have come here?”
Ramsay was silent for a moment. She could hear the uneven rhythm of his breathing. “My dad really liked you. He liked you a lot. Last week he asked me what I thought about you and him seeing a lot more of each other.”
“But, Ramsay,” she said gently, “that doesn’t mean I have to see him.”
Ramsay’s unaccustomed scowl deepened. “Why did you have to go make friends with the ranch guys? Why couldn’t you be friends with Dad? Maybe it would’ve worked out then.”
He sounded like a six-year-old. “What would have worked out, Ramsay?”
He glared at the surface of the water, the wispy tendrils of a barely visible line of peach fuzz on his chin emphasizing his youth. “You had to get mixed up in this. Dad didn’t want the boat dock, didn’t want the town to turn into another big, cheap tourist trap like Branson. He never wanted that ranch across the lake, with new strangers coming in all the time. There wouldn’t have been any more…vandalism. We were fine just like we were, and we didn’t need a doctor or—”
“Ramsay, you can’t be saying your father’s been vandalizing everyone because he didn’t want changes to take place.” Yet to Cheyenne’s mind, that was exactly what Ramsay was implying.
“No, I’m not saying that.” The words were slow and deliberate, the voice deep with animosity.
She watched the changing expressions on his face, as if metamorphosis between malevolent anger and the frightened-hurt feelings of a child struggled for control of his emotions.
“You’re the vandal?” Her voice quavered.
Ramsay leaped to his feet, and the boat leaned precariously to the left.
She couldn’t panic—could not afford to panic! The vandalism, the barn fire, Red. She would not panic. “What about Red?” she whispered.
Ramsay’s face crumpled, and his shoulders slumped. “It had to happen that way. I know that now, but it was the worst…it was so hard…” Tears sprang from his eyes. “I was just taking him home because he was tired.” He caught his breath on a sob. “That’s all.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, as a child would do. “When we passed the island, Red wanted to get out and just sit on the rocks for a few minutes. Blaze always talked about how much Red loved that place. So I thought that would be a good idea. I didn’t realize what was supposed to happen.”
“What do you mean by that, Ramsay? Why was it supposed to happen?”
He frowned at her. “Everything happens because it’s supposed to. Grandma always said Mom died because it was meant to be. So it’s like I was just doing what God meant me to do.” His voice softened, as if he was reverting to a place in his mind when he’d been a child. “All I did was accidentally nudge Red when I was getting out of the boat. You know, we’re not supposed to dock there because the motion of the water can damage the boats against the rocks, but I thought just this one time—”
“And so you accidentally nudged Red, who didn’t really have good balance anyway,” she said gently. “It was an accident.” Which had possibly precipitated his heart attack. It wouldn’t necessarily have taken much, considering the shape Red’s heart had been in.
Ramsay nodded. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. He fell and hit his head, just like Mom.” He covered his face with his hands as the tears flowed more freely. His shoulders shook with his sobs. “I didn’t mean to do it, but now I know it was meant to be.”
Just like Mom? Cheyenne felt physically sick. “I’m sorry, Ramsay. I forgot about your mother.”
“But I did it, don’t you see? It was meant.”
“No, you’re saying it was an accident.”
He shook his head. “I shoved Mom backward, and she fell and hit her head.”
“Ramsay, you were a little boy.”
“No!” He swung toward her, once more angry. “She shouldn’t have been fighting with Dad. She shouldn’t have accused him of doing those things with Dane’s wife. She said awful things to Dad, and made him leave.”
She felt gut-punched by that revelation. Austin with Dane’s wife? Austin Barlow truly was a hypocrite—although Austin had told her, during one of his “visits” to see Courage, that he’d seen the true errors of his ways after his wif
e’s death.
Ramsay’s voice deepened. “She was screaming at him! And he left and I wanted to go after him and she wouldn’t let me and I pushed her hard and she stepped on a spot on the floor and fell and it was meant—don’t you see!” He ground out his words with increasingly angry precision.
“God wouldn’t do that to a little child, Ramsay.”
“What would you know about Him? You never go to church, you never—”
“I do go to church now, but not to one that would teach a little child things like you’re saying. I know God wouldn’t use a little child to kill his mother.”
“It’s what I am, like the death angel on that television show.”
“Ramsay, no, that isn’t—”
“You don’t know! My dad’s spent years of his life trying to keep the spirit of Hideaway as quiet and peaceful as it was before Mom died. He can’t do it by himself, he needs my help.”
“To preserve the whole town the way it was when your mother was alive?” And, possibly, to preserve to himself an image of peace in a world that had suddenly gone dark? Especially if he was showing signs of the emotional trauma he’d endured as a young boy.
“But Ramsay, your father has blamed one of the ranch boys all these years. He blames Dane, and it wasn’t Dane’s fault. God wouldn’t want—”
“That ranch doesn’t belong there, those boys don’t belong. Blaze doesn’t—” He stopped suddenly, and into the silence came the sound of a motor on the lake. A boat. It had a familiar cadence….
Cheyenne stood up and tripped over the spare paddle in the bottom of the boat. She caught herself as the craft wafted sideways, then she waved toward the approaching boat.
“No!” Ramsay grabbed her arm. “You can’t tell anybody!”
She tried to reach the paddle at her feet.
He released her and grabbed it before she could get to it. “Stop it! You can’t tell Dad! I can’t let you!” He cast an anxious glance toward the lake, his eyes widening in alarm. “What have I done?” His breathing came in sharp, angry gasps. “You can’t…I can’t let you go home!”
“Ramsay, if you…if something happens to me now, everyone will know. You’re not at the festival, and Bertie knew I was coming to her house to get something for her. Let me—”
“You’ve ruined everything!” he cried. Another sob escaped his throat, tears streaming from his eyes once more. “Don’t you understand? If they know, Dad’ll be ruined. I can’t do that to him.”
“Your father will forgive you. We can get you help. You’re confused, and you’ve suffered more than any child should ever have to suffer. Please, Ramsay, listen to me.”
The sound of the other boat grew louder, and Cheyenne braced herself to scream, jump from the boat, do whatever she had to do to get their attention.
She looked across the water. Dane’s Mystique raced toward them. She raised her arms to wave them over.
“No!” Ramsay shoved her from behind.
She fell sideways, and the boat rocked. She lost her balance and fell into the sleepy green water. Her head cracked against something hard and pain blinded her. A hand caught her arm, and she fought against it. She opened her mouth to scream, and water invaded her throat.
A voice echoed through the darkness, as if it came through a long pipe from far away. Her head pounded, and with each jolt of pain the voices grew louder until they burst over her like the blast of a rifle shot.
She choked and gagged, spitting water.
“She’s awake.” Someone gently turned her onto her side, strong arms holding her. “Cheyenne?”
She opened her eyes, and looked up into the most beautiful pair of green eyes she had ever seen. Dane was dripping wet.
She coughed, and his arms tightened around her.
She tried to speak, but her mind felt as if it were struggling through quicksand. Her body felt numb. She drew another breath, and dry, welcome air entered her lungs to replace the lake water she had coughed out.
“It’s okay, just lie here and breathe for a moment.”
“My head is killing me.”
“You hit it on a submerged tree stump.”
“Ramsay?” she croaked.
“He and his father are in their boat,” Blaze said from behind them. “We’ve got to call the police.”
“He’s okay?”
No reply.
She looked up at Dane.
“Physically, he’s fine, Cheyenne,” he said softly. “But he tried to kill you.”
“Dane pulled you out,” Blaze said.
“He thinks he killed his mother,” she said.
“I know,” Dane said. “Blaze figured some of it out.”
“He thinks he killed Red,” she said.
She heard someone crying in the distance. Ramsay? Austin?
“He needs help,” she said.
“He’s going to get it.” Dane touched her face, a loving caress. “I was afraid we wouldn’t reach you in time.”
“But how did you know?”
“Blaze saw you in Ramsay’s boat. He’d had his suspicions before, noticing Ramsay was gone every time something went wrong in town. I can’t help thinking Austin suspected something, but wasn’t willing to admit his own son might be the culprit.”
Cheyenne couldn’t think past the pounding in her head. Tears stung her eyes. “Poor Ramsay. All that guilt.”
“He’s psychotic,” Blaze muttered. “And dangerous.”
“He’ll be institutionalized,” she said. “At least for some time. He’s sick, Blaze. But there are medications….” She wept for the child who had been wounded all those years ago, and for the father and son whose futures had now been destroyed. “And Austin…”
“He’s got a town of people who will help him get through this,” Dane said. “I’ll be one of them.”
She shook her head, looking up into that kind face. “You don’t have any idea what he’s done, do you?”
He nodded, closing his eyes. “I know,” he whispered. “I think I’ve always known, deep down. But he’s changed his ways, and he’s sincerely tried to be a good father, a good Christian. He has a long way to go, and he can’t do it alone.”
Four months ago Cheyenne would have said Dane sounded naive and gullible. She didn’t feel that way anymore. He sounded hopeful. He had a healing spirit, and it came from a source outside himself.
She wiped the tears from her face and looked up at Dane. “You have a more forgiving spirit than anyone I know. I need to do some forgiving of my own. Mind if I tag along and learn how you do it?”
He brushed a wet strand of hair from her face and touched her lips with his in a brief kiss. “I’ll be right across the lake.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4725-7
HIDEAWAY
Copyright © 2003 by Hannah Alexander
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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