by Dee Davis
Patrick felt her confusion and pain as if it was happening right there on the porch. He smoothed the soft curls hanging over her shoulder, his hand aching to touch more than just her hair. But she had a husband, he reminded himself fiercely and dropped his hand to his side.
"At first I wasn't sure I should tell him. I mean, I was a whore. And well, I knew it was his baby, but there wasn't a dad-gummed thing I could do to prove it. But finally, I decided I had to." She tipped up her head to look at him. "It was the right thing to do."
He nodded, too full of conflicting emotions to string together any words.
"Well, he was so proud you'd have thought he was the only man to ever make a baby. Started talking about how we had to get married and give our child a home. A home. Can you imagine me with a real home? After all the things I'd done?" She managed to sound outraged and wistful all at the same time.
He whispered 'yes,' but didn't think she heard him.
"At first I said no. I mean I couldn't very well go and marry him. It would have spoiled his reputation. But he just laughed and said he hadn't any reputation to spoil. And he told me he loved me more than he'd ever loved any living thing. Well, I couldn't resist that long. So we got married. And me with a belly already swelling.
"We took a room in town and lived like fancy folks. But the money soon ran low and he said he'd have to go off and find us some more. I wanted to go back to work. Women do it all the time, but he wouldn't hear of it. I guess in his mind he'd made me respectable and he didn't want me to go and mess it up.
"The night before he left, he gave me this locket. Said it was a reminder that we belonged together. And that he'd be back to get me just as soon as he could." She ran her hand along the filigreed chain. "He fastened it around my neck and kissed me." She ran a finger across her lips, so lost in memory that Patrick doubted she'd even realized she'd done it.
"I remember his exact words. 'Loralee darlin',' he said, 'this locket is forever. It's a symbol of my promise to you. No matter what happens, it will keep you safe. Always.' And then he kissed me again. And then he was gone." She exhaled a breath, her eyes still fixed on the deepening shadows of the yard.
"Three months later Mary was born. The girls helped me, gave me a place to stay. And we waited, Mary and I. He wrote every week. Always promising that we'd be together, that we'd be a family. His last letter said he'd struck it rich and that he'd wire us the money to meet him. I waited and waited. I never heard from him again."
"What happened?"
"I never knew. But I know in my heart that he's dead." She said it with finality.
"Oh God, Loralee, I'm sorry."
She patted his shoulder, as if he were the one who needed comforting. "It's all right. It was a while ago. I've had time to make my peace with it."
"What happened to Mary?"
Her face tightened. "We tried to make it on our own for a while, but no one wants a woman with a child. So I moved on." She opened her mouth to continue and then closed it as if deciding to skip over part of the story. Patrick wondered what she wasn't telling him.
"I wound up here and found a place in the cribs and went back to whoring, but the cribs weren't any place for a little girl. Mary was two and I didn't want her to have the same kind of life I did. So I swallowed my pride and wrote to my sister."
"Faye?"
"Yup. She'd done real well for herself. Married a preacher man. I figured it was the best possible kind of home for Mary. So I sent her to Virginia."
"Have you seen her?"
"No. Folks write for me sometimes, but I don't want her to be ashamed of her mama. So I've tried to let her go. I know my sister is telling folks Mary's hers. She can't have children of her own."
A tear slipped down the crevice between her nose and cheek. Patrick reached out to wipe it away. "Loralee, anyone would be proud to have you for a mother."
She gave him a watery smile. "Well, I made my try for a better life, but I guess I just wasn't meant to be anything but a whore. And I can't say that my life has been all that bad. I mean I had a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter. Most folks never even have that much. Maybe I was just being greedy to want more." She ducked her head.
Patrick tipped her head up with a finger, his eyes searching hers. "You're being no such thing. Everybody has a right to find their own way, Loralee, no matter what happens to them. And I can't believe your husband would want you to quit living just because he's gone."
He wasn't certain if he was saying the words for her or for himself. But either way, he knew they were true.
And living was just what they were going to do.
CHAPTER 16
Michael frantically scanned the bookcase, trying to find some clue as to how to open it. He was supposed to protect her, not lose her through a trick door.
With a hissing swish, the books started to revolve again and Cara stood in front of him, a sheepish expression on her face. "How's that for unusual?"
Michael grabbed her, holding her close. "Don't ever do that to me again. I thought I'd lost you."
She pushed back, her eyes meeting his. "I'm sorry, I had no idea the thing was going to do that. I just lifted the lid on the urn and whoosh, I was revolving."
"How did you get back?" His pulse still hammered in his ears.
"Elementary, my dear Watson, I just put the lid back." She grinned and reached for it again.
He intercepted her arm, taking a firm grasp of her hand. "Hold it. If we're going to do this, we're doing it together." He stepped into the recess with her. "Ready?"
She nodded, looking as if this was a great adventure. Maybe in her world secret passages were a common thing, but in his time they usually spelled trouble. He lifted the lid and the wall groaned and spun slowly, revolving until they were standing in another room.
He moved out of the alcove, dragging Cara with him, the lid still in his hand. The room was small, lit by a narrow window, and in contrast to the rest of the house, it was in shambles. A large map was tacked over a ramshackle desk, littered with files, books and more maps.
Large velvet drapes hung haphazardly across an adjacent wall as if they'd been hung in great haste. He walked over to the map, squinting in the poor light, trying to see what it depicted. A brass bar hung above it and brightly colored stick pins dotted the paper contours of mountains.
Cara reached around him and clicked a knob at the end of the bar. The map was flooded with bright light. Definitely an improvement over kerosene lanterns. Hell, it was even brighter than the new electric lights they'd installed in Silverthread. "Does any of it look familiar?"
She studied the map, biting on her bottom lip, a habit he was beginning to recognize. "Maybe. See these grids?" She pointed at a series of overlapping boxes outlined with different colors.
Each box was marked with a name. Dealers Best. Homespun Dreams. The Big Bonanza. "Mining claims."
She nodded. "And from the looks of the topography, I'd say it's the area just north of Silverthread."
He looked at it, struggling to find something he recognized. Some claims had been marked with a colored pin and others had been crossed out with a large X. He dropped his gaze to the desk. The maps here were older. Some of them dating back to before his time, each of them marked similarly to the one on the wall.
The books were all about lost mines, legend and fact mixed indiscriminately it seemed. And the files were marked with coordinates and held notes on topography, the names of mountains, gulches and streams carefully recorded. "I'd say he's looking for something."
"The Promise."
Her hushed voice came from behind him and he pivoted, startled to realize she'd moved from his side. She had drawn back the velvet curtain and stood transfixed. Light from the window streamed across the little room, illuminating a wall covered with paintings. Cara's paintings of the mine.
And right in the center, surrounded by its companions, hung The Promise.
*****
"They're here." Cara whispe
red, her mind scrambling to make sense out of what was rapidly becoming an insane situation.
"The son of a bitch stole them."
She turned to look at Michael, tears filling her eyes. "At least they're not gone. When I saw the crates burning, I thought…" In two strides he was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her, giving her needed strength. How was she ever going to live without him?
"They're safe, Cara. And we'll get them back, but right now I think we ought to get out of here. I wouldn't like for Nick to find us here in his little hidey-hole."
He started to pull her away, but she placed a hand on his arm, still staring at the paintings. "Wait a minute." There was something here, something more than stolen paintings. She just needed to figure it out. She took a step back her gaze sweeping across the wall of paintings. Next she studied them each in turn, finally ending with The Promise.
There was logic here. She gasped as the light finally clicked on in her brain. "They're in order, Michael. He's put them in order."
She turned to look at him. He was frowning at the paintings, obviously struggling to follow her train of thought.
"I painted them randomly, as the light changed or the spirit moved me. But these are hung in specific order. As if they were a map. See, he's grouped them using the sun. East to west. Michael, he's trying to find the Promise."
"You're saying he stole your paintings to use them as a map?"
"Yup. I know it sounds crazy, but you have to remember that the Promise has been considered a lost mine for at least ninety years. I found it totally by accident. And if the light hadn't been just right, I'm not sure I'd have seen it at all."
"But even if I accept that as true, why in the world would Nick be going to such extremes to find an old abandoned mine? The Promise played out four years ago. Hell, just under a hundred and fifteen years your time."
She cringed at the confusion and bitterness playing across his face.
"It doesn't make sense, Cara."
"I know. But Nick is a deliberate man. So there is logic here. We're just not seeing it."
Michael stared up at the paintings. "You never actually told me about Nick Vargas."
"I guess we kind of got side-tracked." She focused on Nick, letting her mind pull together what she knew about him. "Nick's dad owned the bar before he did, and to hear Nick tell it, he practically grew up there, hanging on the words of the old timer—men who'd lived through Silverthread's glory days. That's where he got his interest in history."
She reached for a thin book on the desk. "This is his. Silverthread Boom to Bust. It chronicles Silverthread's rise and fall, so to speak." She flipped open the book to a photograph of a tin-starred lawman, his angelic continence at odds with his steely-eyed gaze.
She shivered, closing the book and dropping it back on the desk. "Anyway, I don't think his life was a good one. His father drank, and I think he slapped Nick around some. But I don't know for sure. It was all a long time ago. Most of it before I was even born. Nick talked about it some, but only a little."
Michael frowned, his mind obviously working on the puzzle. "None of that ties him directly to the mine, yet he seems to be obsessed with it. Why?"
She crossed to the desk, randomly picking up one of the books and leafing through it to the index. Turning to the P's she ran her finger down the list until she found the entry she wanted. Flipping back to the referenced page, she scanned the paragraph about the mine, feeling Michael's breath on her cheek as he looked over her shoulder.
"What does it say?"
"Not a lot. A version of the story about your mother. With the added caveat that neither Zach nor Rose was ever seen again."
Michael's eyes hardened. "Best for all, I'd say."
Cara reached for his hand. "This book is right, Michael. Anything could have happened to them." She read further. "It goes on to say that the silver was never recovered and is considered by some lost treasure. Could that be what Nick was looking for? The silver?"
Michael blew out a breath. "You said it yourself, Nick is a deliberate man. He'd have to have something more than a legend to go on. Besides there's no silver at the mine. My mother and Zach took it with them. The reason it was never found was that they spent it." His last words came out flat and harsh, colored with bitterness.
Cara wanted to hold him. to make him see that not everyone was as callus as his mother had been, but now was not the time.
"I think we should go. Vargas could be back any minute."
She nodded, and put the book back on the table, managing to knock a map onto the floor at the same time. Reaching down to pick it up, she noticed a slip of paper stuck between the back of the desk and the wall.
"Wait a minute, there's something down here." She slid her hand behind the desk and came up with a tattered newspaper article.
Gooseflesh broke out along her arms as she read the faded print.
Macpherson Killed in Gunfight
Silverthread, Colorado. Patrick Macpherson was shot and killed yesterday in gunfire exchanged at his ranch, Clune. Macpherson, 21, was fleeing Sheriff Amos Striker at the time. Striker was attributed with firing the fatal shot. Macpherson stood accused of murdering two Silverthread prostitutes.
A lifetime resident of the valley, Macpherson surprised everyone with his duplicity. Owen Prescott, a close family friend, attributes the change to the recent death of his father, Duncan, and disappearance of his brother, Michael.
Duncan Macpherson was found stabbed to death along the road to Clune two days before his son was killed. Sheriff Striker suspected that Macpherson's older brother Michael might have killed his father in an argument over a silver strike. However, in light of recent events, suspicion has now turned to Patrick. "I don't believe any of this," Prescott said. "It's all so tragic."
Instability seems to run in the family. Duncan was a known drunk and womanizer, and Macpherson's mother Rose ran away with her lover years back, reportedly taking a small fortune in silver with her. Although this latest transgression fits the family profile, it comes as a surprise to those who knew Macpherson.
"Guess you just can't ever tell about folks," Amos Striker said. "It's a sad day..."
Cara stopped, frustrated. "That's all there is. The rest has been torn away." She knelt by the desk, squinting into the gloom, hoping for the rest of the article. "There's nothing here."
Michael leaned down and grabbed the article from her hand, his eyes darting across the page. "This isn't right. It can't be right." The pain in his voice threatened to undo her. He looked terrified and she wanted to do something, anything to erase the look. "If this is right, then everyone in my family is dead. Patrick … my father…" He crumpled the article in his hand. "This is a lie."
"We don't know anything for certain, Michael. We don't even have the whole article."
He rounded on her, his blue eyes turning black with anger, his fingers digging into her shoulders. "My brother didn't kill any whores."
She bit her lip, trying not to cry out in pain. He wasn't even seeing her. He would never intentionally hurt her. He was blinded by rage. As if reading her thoughts, his grip loosened and he gently massaged the skin he'd been gripping so ardently.
"There's just no way Patrick would kill a woman—any woman." His words were softer now, deceptively calm. "These charges aren't true." He waved the wadded up article in punctuation of his words.
Cara tugged on his arm. "This isn't the place to talk about this, Michael. We need to get out of here. We need to get you out of here. We'll take the article. Nick won't even miss it in all this mess. Come on."
Grabbing the urn's lid from off of the desk, she pulled him into the alcove and slammed it into place. The mechanism whirred and scraped, and they returned to the immaculate office.
Michael moved slowly, his mind no doubt numbed by the things they'd discovered. She had to get him out of here. She had to get him home—to 1888.
And if she was right, she had to do it as quickly as possible.
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*****
Michael paced back and forth across the rug, his emotions tied in knots. He was marooned in the twenty-first century and because of it, his brother and father were dead. While he'd been cavorting like a stud in heat, someone had murdered his father and then set his brother up to take a fall. He was supposed to have protected them.
"Michael?" Cara's touch on his arm pulled him out of his reverie. "There's no sense in blaming yourself. It wasn't your fault you were shot. In fact, I'll wager it was related somehow to all of this."
"Maybe so. But how. Damn it, how? And where does Nick Vargas fit into all of this?"
"I don't know." She stared down at the crumpled newspaper article, her eyes narrowed in thought. "And I'm not sure it matters right now."
"How can you say it doesn't matter?" He knew he sounded harsh. Knew that he was hurting her, but his pain was so deep, so emasculating.
She held out the article, as if somehow it contained all the answers. "Michael, what was the date when you were shot?"
He forced himself to concentrate on her question. She was only trying to help. "I told you before—1888."
"No, I don't mean the year; I mean the date." She was still staring at the article in her hand.
"May twenty-first."
"This was written on May twenty-seventh." She pointed to the heading at the top of the page.
"So?" He struggled to pull himself out of his lethargy, to think clearly. But it was hard—damn hard.
"So today's the twenty-fifth." She stared at him, waiting for the impact of her words to reach him.
His stomach roiled and in an instant he sprang back to life, hope blossoming. "You're saying that if time passes the same here and there, then Patrick isn't dead, yet."
