He picked up a glittery top hat with gaudy lime-green tassels stapled around the brim. “I have questions.”
She smiled. “That was probably a prop for a float or talent show. We share this space with the chamber of commerce.”
He returned the hat to its place beside a heap of multi-colored streamers. “So which units do you have access to?”
“This one and the last, obviously, and the next two down the row.”
Chase rubbed his jaw with a slow nod. “That’s gonna be a lot of kissing. Not that I mind.”
She hip-checked him. “Focus, wildcat. We’re looking for a box from the sixties.”
They searched the front and middle section. Devyn almost turned her ankle tripping over a rusted gallon of paint. Chase was a good sport when a pile of mini American flags toppled onto his head in a patriotic avalanche.
“Is this something?” Chase pointed to a gray plastic tub labeled Alan Bates.
She pumped a fist. “Score! Alan Bates led the remodeling crew for the Belle.” She joined Chase, a thread of hopeful energy stitching through her.
They sorted through wrinkled brochures and invoices for labor done on the Belle. Chase held up a flyer advertising the Belle’s steamboat race with the Delta Queen in 1963.
He scanned the crumpled paper. “They raced each other?”
Devyn nodded. “It was a huge event. The city had bought the Belle and were in the process of fixing her up. They were so confident in the progress of the repairs that they challenged the Delta before they were even certain the Belle would run.”
“Bold move.”
“They worked right up until the start of the race. But were unsure if she’d go the distance.”
“Let me guess.” He absently toyed with the end of her ponytail. “Not only did the Belle run, but she smoked the Delta.”
“Nope. The Belle got roasted. She fell behind the Delta by three miles in the twelve-mile race. The Delta even played “Goodbye, Little Girl, Goodbye” on their calliope as it passed.”
His fingers stilled on her hair. “They didn’t.”
She smiled at his surprise. “They did. Though if you think about it, it’s not just being the first to cross the finish line that makes you the winner. There’s also having the courage to enter the race even when the odds are against you. The Belle was all but totaled when the city bought her, but in a short time, she braved the waters again. Her resiliency is champion material.” And for the second time in one day, Devyn got emotional over a steamboat.
Chase looked at her.
“I know.” She fidgeted. “I can be too much.”
“Never.” He tossed the flyer aside and slid his hands around her waist. “If I stare, it’s only because of the way you talk about things others overlook.” The edges of his mouth lifted. “That, and how adorable you look with tinsel in your hair.” He disentangled the shiny offender from her locks. Holding it up for her inspection, he waggled his brows. “Look at you, wearing Christmas decorations. I didn’t realize how much you loved our game.” He reached for her with a playful growl.
She shirked away with a laugh. “Back to the search, Jones.” With a saucy grin, she sank her hands deeper into the tub. He gave an exaggerated sigh and accommodated her, grabbing a pile of papers to sort through.
More brochures, receipts, and a few pictures of the construction work. But no notes.
A box, burdened with vinyl tablecloths, peeked from the bottom shelf, the label Lost and Found stirring her interest. Devyn removed the table coverings and shimmied the box forward. They found vintage sunglasses that Devyn adored—very Audrey Hepburnish from the beginning scene of Charade. There were some leather purses cracked with age. Magazines that would sell for a fortune online, if they weren’t warbled and the pages not stuck together. It didn’t seem like the letters would be shoved into a random box like this, but she wouldn’t be satisfied until they ruled out every avenue.
A canvas pouch, that must’ve been leaning against the box before Devyn disrupted it, had fallen over and was on its side. She unzipped it and found a dozen or so small slips of paper bound by a paper clip. Her eyes landed on the J at the bottom of the page topping the stack and her breath stuck in her throat.
“You found it.” Chase pressed a celebratory kiss to the side of her head. “Your great-grandfather’s letters.”
The notes were small enough to sit in the hollow of her hand. With care, she slid off the paper clip. The first note was faded and torn. She held it up to the natural light flooding in from the door.
H,
I enjoyed our chat on the stern last evening.
But for the first time in my life I pitied the sunset.
It could never be as beautiful as you.
Yours, J
“Nice.” Chase nodded his approval. “Your great-grandpa had game.”
“It’s weird though.” She thumbed through them, suppressing a grimace. “Reading his romancy words to someone other than my great-grandmother.”
His fingers covered hers as she handed him the notes, his gaze unusually serious. “Just because he loved Hattie doesn’t mean he didn’t love your great-grandma too.”
How many times had she told herself that very thing?
He released her and lightly chucked her under the chin. “Besides, maybe we’ll finally discover what separated him from Hattie.”
With that in mind, they skimmed through more notes, the letters being along the same lines as the first.
“Whoa.” Chase nudged her. “This one’s different.”
“Hmm?” She set down her stack. “How?”
“It’s not addressed H and Yours J like the others. But it’s written in Jack’s handwriting.” He read aloud. “Are you okay? Knowing you’re a Fairview doesn’t change who you really are. You are God’s child. You are the woman who captured my heart. I’m praying for you. But the decision belongs to you, my love.”
And just like that, a new name entered the search.
Fairview.
Chapter 28
Hattie
My joints locked, frozen. I stood numb in Duffy’s cabin, the devastating word plunging like an icy dagger into my chest.
Betrothed.
We’d moved from Jack’s stateroom to Duffy’s. His quarters had always been a place of comfort for me, but tonight, it was drafty and dark, the night pressing in with a chilling force. The kerosene lamp flickered, shifting the shadows on the walls. “What’s going on, Duff?”
He sank onto a chair and dragged a hand across his weathered face. “This isn’t easy, Hattie.” His voice, usually so decided and gruff, was brittle. “Your real name is Harriet Fairview.”
A shiver rocked my body, and Jack’s hand infused delicate pressure to my spine, almost upholding me. My gaze probed Duffy’s, searching, hoping, for hints of deception. But his dull eyes held so much clarity it made my own blink in rapid succession. It had to be a trick of the night, or illusions from my exhausted state, but it seemed even the carved lines in his aged face lost their rigidness, as if he’d strained for years bearing a devastating secret. “You’ve known my identity all along, my entire life, but never told me?” Betrayal wrestled with anger, crashing into my heart, breaking it into jagged shards.
“I’m sorry.” He slouched. “Your mother was scared. She had—”
“My mother?” Duffy knew her? “You…lied to me.” For twenty-one years, I’d been led to believe a nameless woman abandoned me on the Louisville wharf. And all this time, the man I’d trusted most had deceived me.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know.” My voice rasped. I was barely aware of Jack’s arm wrapping my waist, anchoring me to his side. “Everything I know about myself is a myth. I lived a lie. How…how could you do this to me?”
“Because your life was in danger.” His scruffy throat worked. “Still is.”
Jack flinched. “Sir?”
Duffy didn’t pull his weary gaze from mine. “You’re the heiress of
Fairview Steel and Rolling Mills in Pittsburgh.”
I scoffed. He might as well have said I was heir to the British throne. How ridiculous. Duffy sounded like he’d lost his—I inhaled sharply. Jack strengthened his grip as if expecting me to swoon. But for the first time in twenty minutes, I drew the right conclusion. Duffy’s behavior. His increased backwardness. Understanding and compassion flooded me. I left the security of Jack’s arms and took a gentle step forward. “Duffy, I think it’s time to see a doctor. Tomorrow before the noon excur—”
“You think I’m going mad?” His eyes saddened, his mouth tugging down at the edges.
I’d hurt him. Challenged one of the only strengths he’d had left—his intelligence. “Not mad, Duff. Maybe a little confused. Perhaps you dreamt all this. Or maybe the stress of the Idlewild being sold…”
Duffy stood and shuffled to his locked box. He shakily grabbed the keychain from his pocket, fumbled searching for the correct key, and struggled inserting it into the lock. His arthritis flared to alarming levels, choking the air in my chest. If I dashed over to help, it wouldn’t help at all. Because coddling Duffy equaled bruising his pride. Finally, he opened the wooden lid. He scrambled through the box, the rustling of papers muting my spurts of breath. What was he looking for? Had he been to the doctor without my knowledge and was now hunting for the report? With a jerk of his head, he motioned me forward.
I rushed to his side.
“I can’t lift it,” he muttered, and I followed his pained gaze to a yellowed paper sticking out from the stack.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Certified Record of Birth.
My eyes widened at the bold lettering. I pinched the paper free from the smothering articles stuffed in the box, my hand shaking as fiercely as Duffy’s. I sensed more than felt Jack’s commanding presence behind me. But I couldn’t tear my eyes from the certificate.
My birth record.
The date listed was the exact day and year Duffy had told me. My birthday. Faded ink in a masculine scrawl drew me. Harold Fairview. My father. My finger traced his signature, my heart tying to a man I never knew but whose blood coursed through my veins. My vision blurred at the edges, but even that couldn’t stop me from reading my mother’s name. Ruth Young Fairview. Fiery tears scorched a blazing path over my flushed cheeks. My mother had given this to Duffy. She’d touched this very paper even as my father had.
“It’s true?” Jack whispered. “Hattie’s an heiress?”
Out of my peripheral, I saw Duffy dip his chin, assenting to Jack’s words. “Sit, Hattie. There’s more to discuss.”
I couldn’t peel my gaze from my birth record. I didn’t want to let it go. But with all these emotions came the heavy realization that Duffy was telling the truth. I was a Fairview. In line to own a company. Even I was aware of the steel empire and the kingdom of factories based out of Pittsburgh. And somewhere in this story was a terrible twist in which I was betrothed. I set the paper down as if it turned to fire. Because of that certificate I was bound to a total stranger, whose name I’d yet to hear, an impending union my heart screamed to deny.
Duffy lowered onto a stool. “As you see, your papa is Harold Fairview. He and I were good friends. Like brothers. His father handed over the company to him when he was in his early twenties. Harold was a brilliant man.”
A brilliant man with a misfit daughter. I’d been right all along. They had known I’d never measure up. They hadn’t bothered to give me the chance to prove my worth.
Jack gently squeezed my waist. “Sit, Hattie. You’re shaking.”
“I don’t want to sit.” I wanted to run. I wanted far away from this conversation. Yet my legs wouldn’t budge, my soles rooted to the floor. My own being was torn, half begging to retreat and never know, half yearning for answers to lifelong questions.
“Please?” Jack grabbed a chair. The same one I’d sat on when opening my birthday presents. The same day I’d kissed Jack. It seemed a lifetime ago. Another person ago—one that had been Hattie Louis. A woman belonging to no one except the waters she loved. Now, I was Harriet Fairview? An heiress belonging to a man I’d never met? The hairs on my arms raised, the tendons behind my knees weakened.
I sat, but remained at the edge of the chair, gripping the handrails, my thumb digging into a decorative brass rivet. “What about my mother? Was it a joint agreement to be rid of me?”
“No, my dear girl.” The sadness returned to Duffy’s eyes, along with something else. Muffled insistence. “You were wanted. You were loved.”
My lashes flitted shut, damming the tears surging against my lids. Loved. Wanted. How I’d craved those words all my life. Duffy had the power to tell me the truth about my parents, yet he hadn’t. The only papa I knew withheld a secret, rather several secrets. The tears escaped in a wild fury. Jack pressed a handkerchief into my trembling palm, and his finger stroked a soothing path on my wrist before pulling away.
Duffy leaned forward, a struggle evident in the lowering of his gray brows. “Harold had an…accident that took his life not long after you were born.”
“What?”
Duffy shook his head. “Ruth panicked and found me when I was wharfed in Louisville waiting for the river to lower. She was desperate. She asked me to keep you safe until your twenty-first birthday.”
I felt Jack’s hands flex then tighten on my chair’s back.
Duffy’s mouth pressed tight as though wrestling his words. With a roughened exhale, he raised his eyes to mine. “Ruth believed Harold was murdered.”
I gasped. “By who?”
“Your uncle.”
“My uncle?” Another relation I never knew existed. One rumored to be a killer? What next? My quivering insides couldn’t bear to know.
“He’s the younger son and reckless. Harold owned the steel company and Bradford resented it. Your mother believed he killed your father because he wanted the fortune and factories. But Bradford didn’t know about you.”
My sharp breaths stabbed my chest. “How could he not know?”
“Ruth had trouble staying in the family way. She’d had several miscarriages.” Duffy’s tone lowered to a gruff rumble, and I leaned forward to catch his words. “She took to staying at the country estate when with child. They decided to keep your presence a secret until they knew for certain she could carry you through birth.”
My stomach knotted. What hardships my parents had endured.
“You were only hours old when news came that your uncle had returned to the states. He lived overseas for years.” Duffy’s gaze hardened. “Your father traveled to the city to meet him, but never made it home. A carriage accident.”
“That’s too much of a coincidence.” Jack echoed my very thought. “I’m guessing Hattie’s father didn’t mention her arrival to his brother.”
Duffy shook his head. “Ruth wanted a week alone with her new daughter before telling the world.”
“And where is my mother now?”
Duffy averted my stare, his gaze fusing to the floor. “She’s dead.”
Jack’s protective hand gentled on my shoulder.
I would never get the chance to meet either of them. Could anything be crueler? To learn of my birth parents only to be informed in the next breath that they were both out of my reach. How many ways could they be ripped from me? “What happened?”
“It’s uncertain. She fell down a staircase, but the housekeeper reported hearing a fight before her tumble.”
I shuddered. How much more of this could I take? I shot to my feet.
“Hattie.” Duffy’s weak protest stilled my retreat. “He knows about you. I don’t know how he found out but he did. He knows you’re aboard the Idlewild.”
Jack tensed. “Are you saying he’ll come after her?”
“He already has. Remember the incident on the Louisville wharf?”
My fingers flew to my mouth. The two men. The assault. Everything fell into place with a sickening click. “He told me who I was.”
�
�What?” Jack rounded the chair and knelt before me, his concerned eyes searching my face. “Who did?”
“The man with the gun. He said, ‘You’re a Fairview if I ever seen one.’ I thought…I thought he was mocking me about my looks, but he must’ve meant my resemblance. He knew who I was. That’s why he tried to steal me away.” My gaze darted to Duffy. “Was that my uncle?”
“No. One of his henchmen. The plan looked as if it was for him to sneak aboard in the secret cargo and get rid of you.” Duffy’s voice trembled, fear strangling every word. “If he’d succeeded…I don’t know how I’d live with myself.” His eyes glossed. “You’re my world, Hattie girl.”
I was angry with Duffy. He’d lied to me. He’d wronged me. But my heart couldn’t handle the anguished sheen in his eyes. The stern steamboat captain was more fragile than I’d ever seen. “I’m okay, Duff.” I leaned over and hugged him. “It’ll be all right.”
“He won’t stop.” His whisper was urgent. “He knows what the will says. It all became yours the day you turned twenty-one.”
I eased away. “But I don’t want it.” What on earth would I know about running a steel factory? “Can’t I just refuse it all?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Jack paled. “The coded message the Coast Guard intercepted. The one that brought me here.” His haunted gaze swung to me. “There was never alcohol aboard, was there? The diamond in the message referred to Hattie.”
“Shakes Donovan didn’t send it. Bradford Fairview did.” Duffy shifted on the stool. “I knew the moment you showed me. The last portion of the missive sealed it—to unload before Pittsburgh.”
My heart thudded dully, then with each passing, fearful thought, picked up momentum, rolling into my throat.
“I let you come aboard, Marshall, under false pretenses, and I’m sorry. I figured you would help keep my girl safe. And you have.” He turned to me, and I barely registered he’d called Jack by his given name. “Once we dock in Pittsburgh next week, I’m taking you to Mr. Jones. He’s your father’s lawyer. He knows all the particulars of the will and the…arrangement.”
Undercurrent of Secrets Page 20
