“Mr. Mortensen?” Wiley asked cautiously.
“Yes, Wiley?”
“Do yah wanna hear ‘bout breakfast?”
Quinn sighed as his eyes followed Zoe. “Actually, Wiley, I’ve lost my appetite.”
The other man’s eyes followed his. “All right,” he answered. “But if yah change yer mind, I can have Weyland whip yah up somethin’.”
“Thanks, Wiley. I think I’ll just head over and wait on the barber,” Quinn declared, as he turned toward the door.
“Tell ‘im I sent yah and he’ll give yah a discount,” Wiley called after him.
“Thank you,” Quinn replied, as he turned to give Wiley one last look. His eyes drifted behind him to Zoe’s closed office door. He couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t keep putting off the inevitable. He had to face the truth.
Even if you don’t like what it is.
When he caught himself, Wiley was still staring at him. He nodded and turned to the door and left. He would face the truth, but not that second. He’d give himself some time and then he’d find Zoe and tell her the truth. Just a little longer.
I’ll do it by the end of the day.
Quinn wandered out of the saloon, but his mind was no longer on a haircut. He needed to think. He needed to clear his head to face what he feared the most—that Zoe Ferguson was really his sister.
The streets were silent, despite the horse and carts rolling up and down it. Quinn couldn’t hear them. The only thing he could hear was his own thoughts, reciting how he’d tell Zoe the truth.
Should he sit her down and work into the truth slowly? Should he just blurt it out to her? Should he write her a letter and watch her read it? How was he going to do this?
It was a thought that tortured him for the better part of the day. He didn’t have breakfast, and lunch came and went, and he still couldn’t put his mind to it. It was only when dusk started to set in that he even contemplated food. Still, he couldn’t make himself eat. Instead, he wandered by The Red Stallion. The day was almost over. It was time.
He walked into the saloon to the sound of guffaws and glasses clinking. The men from the mine were having a good time and everyone was having a good time with them. Some of the waitresses were standing near tables doing more laughing than serving. Wiley was so busy that he didn’t even notice when Quinn walked in. Zoe was missing.
He stalked across the room and was only stopped once when one of the other deputies called to him. Quinn stopped at the table where three of his fellow officers were sitting, enjoying a drink after work.
“How’re you boys doing?” Quinn asked, as he relaxed his stance.
“Doing just fine, Quinn. Wanna join us? Pauley here is getting himself hitched,” Lincoln answered as he patted the other man’s back.
“We’re celebrating in advance,” Joseph stated as he raised a glass.
“I’d love to but I was just going to find Miss Zoe,” he replied.
“Come on. You don’t have five minutes to celebrate?” Joseph asked.
Quinn looked at the faces of his fellow lawmen. He turned to the door of Zoe’s office. He didn’t want to offend them, after all, he’d just joined them. It was the right thing to get to know them a bit outside the Sheriff’s Office. That’s what he told himself, at least.
“Sure. Why not? I have five minutes,” he answered, as he pulled up a seat next to Joseph.
“Lemme get you a drink,” Lincoln stated. He raised a hand to get the attention of one of the waitresses, which wasn’t an easy thing on that particular night. Eventually, he got one young woman’s attention long enough to order Quinn a whiskey shot. It arrived several minutes later.
“I’d like to propose a toast, if I may?” Quinn declared as he took his shot in his hand. “Pauley, congratulations on taking the biggest step of your life,” he continued. “May your marriage bring more adventure than the job, more satisfaction than a beef and potato dinner, and more pride than a brand new Winchester.”
“Here! Here!” the other men called as they raised their glasses in unison and proceeded to down their respective drinks.
“Another round!” Lincoln called.
Quinn looked at him as the man smiled back at him. Would they throw him an engagement celebration like this?
Not if you never face the truth.
Quinn swallowed the question. “One more!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Zoe couldn’t believe Quinn. After all they’d been through, the trouble her own lies caused, he was still willing to keep things from her? He was still willing to see her every day and hide whatever it was he was concealing from her? She couldn’t understand that. She wouldn’t understand that.
Cloistered inside of her office, with the door locked, she fumed. Hours passed and still, her anger and frustration refused to abate. She wanted all the unpleasantness between them to be over. Didn’t he? Didn’t he want to move forward? Didn’t he want more? She did.
Work didn’t go well. Zoe couldn’t think. The only thing on her mind was Quinn and what he’d said. What was it that he was hiding? What could be so terrible that he doubted she could handle it? She’d faced moving to Shaniko on her own as a single woman. She’d faced Victor Norton and gotten through it. What could be worse?
All day she waited for Quinn to come to her, but he didn’t. Every knock on the door, she expected it to be him, and when it wasn’t, she was disappointed and perplexed.
Hours crawled by and still, Quinn didn’t come. Zoe sat in her office and sulked. She didn’t want to hear anyone. She didn’t want to see anyone. She only wanted Quinn. She only wanted the truth.
It was late when the knock on the door came. Zoe stared at the door for several seconds, her hopes rising with every passing moment before she got to her feet. She walked to the door and unlocked it.
“Quinn,” she said softly as his frame appeared in the doorway.
“May I come in?” he asked. She could smell alcohol on his breath.
“You’ve been drinking,” she stated, as she stepped aside to allow him in.
“I had a couple. One of the guys from the Sheriff’s Office is getting married,” he stated as he stepped into the room and crossed to the middle. He turned and looked at her as she closed the door.
“Pauley,” she commented. “He’s a nice fella. Sarah will be very happy, I’m sure.”
They looked at each other hesitantly from across the room. Was he there to tell her the truth? Zoe’s heart beat harder at the thought. Could it be that he did want more? She held her breath.
“Zoe, I think you should sit,” Quinn began.
Her heart jumped. It was never good when someone told you that you needed to sit to hear what they had to say. Still, she obeyed and took a seat at her desk as she awaited the rest of it.
Quinn’s face was laced with reservation as he looked at her. He wrung his hands and Zoe could see the way the lump in his throat bobbed over and over as she waited for him to speak. She clasped her own hands together in her lap beneath the desk.
“Do you remember how interested I was in that brooch?” he asked slowly.
Zoe frowned. The brooch again? “Yes.”
Quinn reached into his breast pocket and pulled something out. He walked toward her and placed it on the desk. Her eyes grew wide. How did he get it?
“My brooch?” she questioned as she reached for it.
“No,” he answered. “My brooch.”
Zoe’s fingers had just reached the pin when his words struck her ears like thunder. His brooch? She picked it up. Sure enough, the peacock was the same, the gems were identical. It was the same brooch. Her eyes rose to meet his face. “What does this mean?”
Quinn took a deep breath. “I don’t know my real name. Quinn Mortensen was the name Neil and Agatha Mortensen gave me when they adopted me when I was a year old. My mother, whoever she was, couldn’t take care of me so she left me at an orphanage, or so I was told. That pin was in the basket with me and a note saying that
one day it would lead me back to her.”
His blue eyes were dark as he spoke and Zoe could hardly breathe. “You were adopted?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“You never told me,” Zoe commented.
“It wasn’t important,” Quinn replied. “It had nothing to do with anything. It was something from the past. It had nothing to do with now. At least that was what I thought until I saw the identical brooch pinned to your dress that evening of the ball. Then when you told me the history…then I knew.”
“Knew?” Zoe asked as she tried to process the unexpected revelation. “Knew what?”
“The truth,” Quinn answered, as once again the lump in his throat bobbed.
“What truth?”
“You said the other went missing. It didn’t. My mother gave it to me. Do you understand?”
Quinn’s eyes stared at her intently. It took a minute for his meaning to dawn on her.
“Your mother gave one to you. My mother gave one to me,” she stated as she looked at the brooch in her hands. “So you think…”
“That they’re the same person,” Quinn finished. “You said it yourself. There couldn’t be another. It was made for your family. That means mine couldn’t be something bought or found. It was given to me by my mother before you were born. It means…you and I…we have the same mother.”
Zoe’s heart dropped in her chest. “Is this why you’ve been acting so hot and cold with me? You think that I’m your sister?”
“I’m pretty sure you are,” Quinn answered as his expression fell. “I’ve been wrestling with telling you all this time. At first, I wasn’t sure. Then the more you told me and the more I thought of it, there was less doubt. Still, I didn’t wanna tell you. I didn’t want this, whatever this is between us, to end. I liked this feeling,” he admitted. “But I can’t live a lie, and it isn’t right for me to hide the truth from you.” He sighed. “Nothing can ever be between us. That’s why I couldn’t love you back, even though you said it.”
There was a drumming in her ears. It was so loud she almost couldn’t hear what Quinn was saying. She looked up at him and soon she was on her feet. She crossed the room in a rush and took his face in her hands as she kissed him.
“What’re you doing?” Quinn asked, as he stepped away from her. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Yes. You said you couldn’t tell me you love me back because you thought that I’m your sister. That means you love me,” she smiled as elation washed over her. She’d wanted to do this for so long, and now, she couldn’t contain herself. Quinn Mortensen loved her, too!
The day she confessed her feelings was both beautiful and frightening. It was beautiful because she wanted to say it. It was frightening because he didn’t reciprocate. He just remained silent. Now, she knew the truth. She knew why he’d acted that way.
Quinn looked confused. “Zoe, you’re my sister, you and I can’t…”
“I’m not your sister,” she interrupted him with a grin.
“What?”
“I’m not your sister,” Zoe repeated as she laughed.
“Wait…what?”
Quinn’s confusion was written on his face, and as much as she was enjoying the sight of it, she needed to tell him the truth.
“I have a story, too,” she answered. “Like you, I was adopted. My mother, Rosalyn, took me in when I was a few months old.”
Quinn continued to look at her in confusion.
“Let me explain. I was the youngest in a family of fourteen. My real parents couldn’t handle another mouth to feed, so my mother and father took me into their home and made me their own.”
Zoe could remember the day she learned the truth. She was hurt and disappointed. She felt as if she’d been lied to her entire life, when her real family was right there all along.
“It was shortly before I left home, that I learned the truth. I learned that the poor family we went to visit and bring food to, were my real family. It was my mother’s way of allowing my birth mother, Doris, and my birth father, Ethelbert, to see me. It was her way of allowing them to continue to be a part of my life.” She met Quinn’s eyes. “The way she couldn’t for her own child.”
Quinn looked incredulous. He was blinking so much but there was nothing coming from his parted lips. She stepped closer and took his hand.
“Rosalyn Ferguson isn’t my real mother,” she repeated. “She’s yours.”
Tears glistened in Quinn’s eyes. “Rosalyn? That’s her name,” he said as he repeated her mother’s name.
Zoe smiled. “Yes.”
She couldn’t imagine how he was feeling at that moment. He’d just found out that the thing he was dreading wasn’t the truth, and discovered who his birth mother really was. She hoped he took the news better than she had, but he already knew the truth. It was a shock to her when her parents finally told her.
Zoe never liked anyone growing up—until Thomas King. He was one of the young men in the King family. She’d see him when they went to visit and then one day they met in the streets. It wasn’t long after that he started coming to visit her after school. She never told anyone. It was their secret and it was exciting. Then they got older and Thomas, who was always a perfect gentleman and never tried anything, asked her to marry him.
The day they went home to talk to her mother and father and confess everything they’d been hiding, was the day everything changed. It was the day they learned the truth. After that, Thomas refused to see her again. Zoe was filled with hurt and anger until she no longer wanted to stay in Boston. Thomas was the one person she could always rely on. Though she didn’t feel for him the way she felt for Quinn, she loved him in her own way and thought that a deeper love would come with time. He was her best friend, and she’d lost him in one second of truth.
Quinn squeezed her hands. “So that means that you aren’t my sister.”
Zoe shook her head gently. “No. I told you that I’m not.”
“You’re sure?” Quinn questioned.
She laughed. “We can ask my mother if you want to be sure?” she teased. “She’ll tell you if you don’t believe me.”
Quinn chuckled. “No. I believe you.”
Quinn looked into her eyes and Zoe could see the deep blue was suddenly brighter as a smile lit up his face. She loved his smile. She loved the way he looked at her.
“All this time you were carrying this?” she questioned. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve gotten past this long ago.”
“I couldn’t bring myself to,” he answered. “I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t accept that you and I were brother and sister because I already loved you. I think I loved you from that first game of cards,” he laughed.
Zoe stepped closer. “Then we fell in love at the same time,” she answered, as Quinn pulled her closer.
“Is that so?” he asked as he looked down at her. The grin was still on his lips.
“Yes, Mr. Mortensen, that’s so.”
He released her hands and wrapped his arms around her waist. “So why did you never say anything?”
“I did,” Zoe laughed. “Remember, that day in your room?”
“Before that,” Quinn replied. “Why did you wait that long?”
Zoe’s eyes lowered from his and settled on his chest. She watched as it rose and fell beneath his shirt. “Because I was scared. I didn’t want to open myself up to the hurt that comes with love,” she admitted. “I tried not to love you, but you took me by surprise. Before I could put up my defenses, you’d already knocked them all down.”
Quinn lifted her chin with his hand. “I tried to keep things professional with you, but you just took over everything in me. I don’t really know how you did it, but you did. Before I knew it you were in my head every day. I found myself looking forward to our meetings. Looking forward to your smiles.”
On cue, a smile spread across Zoe’s face as her cheeks warmed.
“See, there you go,” Quinn commented. “I love it.”
“Quinn…” she said, as she placed her hand against his chest. She tried to put more space between them, but he wasn’t having it. He held her securely, but gently. She could feel his heart hammering beneath her palm.
“Now that we’ve cleared up the matter of us being siblings,” Quinn stated. “We have one more thing to settle.”
Zoe’s brow furrowed. “What’s that?”
He hugged her tighter. “Where do we go from here?”
A Western Tale of Love and Fate: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 22