“He didn’t know, but he told me about the intruder at the apartment. I’m trying to come up with a reason for someone to break into a house where he’d find no money or anything of value. Do you have any ideas?”
She shook her head. “None. The man said, ‘Where is it?’”
“What was the ‘it’ he was looking for?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had much time to think about it. I had to pack and come out on the train immediately. Quite honestly, I thought he had the wrong house.”
He frowned. “What can you tell me about your parents?”
She looked down at her hands. “You already know our father died three months ago. I never knew my mother. She died when I was tiny. Your father knew her though. He told me more about her than I’d ever heard.”
Her voice held melancholy, and he wondered what his father knew about her mother. That would keep, though. “Jed said your father told him to keep some kind of secret. That someone might show up looking for something.”
She gasped. “Jed’s never said a word about this to me. Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand him?”
“Very sure.” He watched her twist a long strand of hair around her finger and bite her lip. “What did your father do?”
“He owned a pawn shop.”
Ah, maybe a motive. “Anything valuable in the shop?”
She shook her head. “There was a break-in the night his buggy overturned. The thieves took everything of value.”
“Everything? Nothing was left?”
“Nothing.”
“Relatives?”
She looked at him finally. “Actually, I have an uncle in this area. I saw him in the mercantile.”
Something stirred in his gut at her expression. “Maybe I know him. Who is it?”
“Drew Larson. My mother’s brother.”
“Larson!” He studied her downturned face. There was more she wasn’t saying. “I know him,” he said grimly.
“I know. And you don’t like him. It’s written all over your face. Plus, you were quite rude about him in town. Mrs. Walker told me about the feud.”
“He’s a cattle rustler,” he said, not caring if the truth upset her.
“Cattle rustler! He said . . .” She frowned as she broke off whatever she’d been about to say.
“You’ve spoken to him?” He thought back to that moment in the general store. She’d been walking away from Larson. “You lied to me.”
Her chin came up. “I did no such thing! You didn’t ask if I’d been talking to him. You asked if he was bothering me. He wasn’t.”
He fixed a glare on her. “Did you arrange to meet him here? Was this marriage some kind of agreement between the two of you?” More questions raced in his head. All the stirring dreams he’d had about the future came to a halt. He should have known Lucy was too good to be true.
She held his gaze. “It was the first time I’d seen him since I was three. I knew he lived in the county, but that’s all.”
He wasn’t sure whether he believed her or not. “Does he know you’re married to me?”
She nodded. “I told him.”
“Bet that set him back on his heels.”
She looked down at her hands. “He was, um, surprised.”
He kneeled to poke at the fire. “I’m sure he had plenty to say about me.”
“He said you took some land that belonged to him.”
Nate threw the poker to the floor and stood to face her. “That’s a bald-faced lie! His father went bankrupt and the land went on the auction block. Pa paid a fair price for it. Larson was away in the war when it happened, and he’s never gotten over it.”
Her eyes were sorrowful. “Did my grandfather kill himself over it?”
He hadn’t been thinking about the relationship that existed. Old Larson was her grandfather. “Some around here thought so. Any fool knew better than to cross the Red River in flood stage.”
She flinched. “What happened when Uncle Drew got back from the war?”
“He wanted to buy the land back, but Pa was already running cattle on it. And Drew didn’t have the money anyway. He wanted Pa to sell it on land contract. Pa told him he wasn’t a bank.”
Nate wished he knew what she was thinking. Her blue eyes were faraway and contemplative as though she saw something he didn’t.
She finally sighed. “It’s quite a tangle. I’d hoped the misunderstanding could be easily resolved.”
“There is no misunderstanding. Larson knows exactly what happened.”
“He seemed to dislike you personally, not your father. Why is that?”
He’d been right—she was perceptive. “Pa transferred the land to my name last spring. Larson asked me to sell it to him as well.” He shrugged. “I can’t afford to do it either. Pa has worked hard and poured all his money, sweat, and blood into building this ranch. I can’t piecemeal it up and give it away.”
She didn’t say anything for several long minutes. “Did you pray about it?” she asked finally.
Had he? It was too cut-and-dried in his mind so he didn’t think he had. “No.”
She sat back in her chair and picked up the quilt piece. “Don’t you think you should?”
He managed to hide his outrage. “What’s to pray about, Lucy?
My pa bought the land fair and square. We did nothing wrong.”
“No, you did nothing wrong. But that doesn’t mean God wouldn’t ask something sacrificial of you.”
Sacrificial? He didn’t like the sound of that. “I’d better finish chores.” There was no arguing with her. She didn’t understand the economics of ranching yet.
SIXTEEN
The fire crackled in the fireplace and threw out light. Lucy heard every stamp of the horses’ hooves outside, every whistle of the wind through the eaves. It would take awhile to get used to the new sounds. Ranch noises were far different from the clop of horses along Wabash streets. When the rooster crowed outside the window, she finally got up as quietly as possible and grabbed a dress in the dark.
It was her mother’s fancy dress, the one she’d worn for courage to meet Nate. As she started to lay it aside to get one for everyday use, she heard something clunk. The firelight revealed nothing on the floor. What had made that metallic sound? She held the dress up and examined it. The buttons were small and made of pearl. Again she noticed how heavy the dress was. She laid it on the bed and felt the fabric. When her fingers reached the hem, there was something hard under the material. Her sewing kit was under the cot, so she pulled it out and extracted her scissors. The stitches in the hem were uneven, almost as though a child had done them. Once the threads were snipped, she unfolded the hem. A silver coin winked in the firelight.
Lucy picked it up and laid it on the bed, then snipped the rest of the hem. She found a total of twenty coins hidden in the hem of the old dress. Staring at them, she could hardly breathe. It was incomprehensible.
Who had put them there? Surely not her mother. They would have been in this dress for twenty years. She tried to remember if she’d ever seen Catherine rummaging in the trunk, but as far as she knew, the woman had never set foot in the basement. She was terrified of mice.
“Lucy?”
She turned to see her brother rubbing his eyes. His red hair stuck straight up. He was staring at the coins on the bed. The expression on his face caused her stomach to drop. She held out her hand with several coins in them. “Jed? What do you know about these coins?”
He licked his lips. “I—I hid them for Dad. He asked me to put them in a safe place.”
“He asked you to hide them? They belonged to him?” Her brother nodded. She pointed to the end of the bed. “Sit down and tell me what this is all about.”
“I’m not supposed to,” he whispered. “He made me promise.” He stepped closer, still staring at the coins.
“I’ve found the coins now, so you have to.” She pointed again, and the springs squeaked under his weight as he sat with obvious reluctance
. “Where did these come from?”
He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away. “A man brought them to the shop the week before Dad died.”
“He pawned them?”
Jed nodded. “For forty dollars. He told Dad it was a fair price.”
It would take her months to earn forty dollars. So while it wasn’t a fortune, the man had received what appeared to be a fair price for twenty coins. “So why hide them?”
Jed leaned forward. “Dad found out they were worth a fortune. Then in the paper, Dad saw that the man had been murdered.” Jed shuddered and hugged himself. “That night someone broke into the shop. Dad was sure he was someone after the coins, but Dad had taken them home with him for safekeeping. The next day he told me to keep them safe. And that I wasn’t to tell anyone that we had them.”
Lucy wanted to shudder herself, but she didn’t want her brother to see her fear. “Did he go to the police?”
Jed shook his head. “I can’t remember, Lucy.”
“You think someone ran you off the road deliberately?” She’d always assumed it was an accident, and Jed had been in no shape to be questioned following the tragedy.
He bit his lip. “I don’t know.”
“I think that’s what that man wanted the other night at our old house. He was after the coins.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw someone when I took Eileen to the privy. I thought it was one of my friends, so after I took her back inside, I went out again. He grabbed me and asked me where the dollars were. It was the night the guy broke in.”
She remembered the night the intruder came in. He’d growled, “Where is it?” Was he after the coins? Lucy picked one up. It warmed quickly in her hand. She held it under the light. “What’s so special about these?”
Jed stared in fascination. “Dad said they were rare.”
“And worth a fortune? How much of a fortune?” Ten thousand? Twenty? The coin shimmered in the light.
“Over a million dollars.” Jed’s voice was hushed.
A million dollars? Lucy’s response stuck in her throat. It didn’t seem possible there was that much money in the world. She rolled the coin around in her hand. “For the lot?”
Jed nodded. “There’s one that’s worth half that all by itself.” He studied the coins on the bed and picked one up. “This is it.” He dropped it into Lucy’s palm.
“It’s just a silver dollar.”
“Dad said it was a Dexter draped bust coin. There are only eight in the world.”
Would someone kill to possess this coin? She shuddered at the thought that her father might be dead because of someone’s determination to have this.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “Who do we give the money back to? It’s not ours.”
“Dad said the owner was dead.”
“His family might still be alive. I wonder if the police would know about this.”
Jed bit his lip. “Dad said it was dangerous to tell anyone.”
“I have to do something about these coins. I can’t just put them back in the hem and forget them.”
“Dad didn’t know how much they were worth when he bought them. The owner was happy with the money too. But Dad still didn’t feel right about it. He wanted to make sure they weren’t stolen. That’s why he wanted to talk to the police. He wasn’t going to give them to the police, though, unless he found out they were stolen. He wanted to keep them.”
“And the shop was broken into. Someone knew how much they were worth.”
“Dad said maybe someone who knew their worth had been planning to steal them and found out where the owner had pawned them. He said to keep them safe until he found out, because if it was all fair and square, the money would help all of us.”
She gathered up the coins. “I’ll put these away for now and think about it.”
“Be careful, Lucy.” Her brother touched her arm. “I think they killed him. I get so scared when I try to remember that night.”
Lucy waited until her brother went out to start chores, then looked around for where she could hide the money. Under the mattress was too obvious. She carried them into the kitchen and glanced around. The root cellar. She grabbed the lantern, then stepped outside and opened the door to the cellar. In the cellar she opened a barrel of pickles. After wrapping the coins in an oilcloth, she stuffed the package deep into the bottom of the barrel.
That part was easy. Deciding what to do next would be much more difficult.
NATE HAD HEARD every sound in the room below him all night long. Jed groaned several times in his sleep. Lucy was up taking Eileen to the outhouse several times, and he heard soft weeping at one point near dawn. He thought about climbing down from the loft to see who it was, but he didn’t have the right words to fix the problem if it was Lucy. He’d finally fallen into a heavy sleep when he’d known he should just get up.
The rooster crowed. He rolled over and punched his straw pillow into shape. It was prickly and uncomfortable. He was used to the feather pillow now propping Lucy’s head. Their conversation last night and the threat to his new family had kept him awake until the wee hours.
And Lucy was related to Larson. He didn’t care for that knowledge at all. He’d been ready to trust her and work on a relationship, but what if her pretty face hid something darker? He grimaced, remembering the fear he’d seen in her face when he asked to kiss her last night. She obviously thought he intended to claim his husbandly rights. Her blue eyes had been huge, and she looked as though she wanted to bolt for the door. Those soft cheeks had bloomed color like the first rosy blush of dawn. He smiled at the memory. He’d like to make her blush again.
A rooster crowed again from the chicken coop out back, and Nate sighed. Those cattle weren’t getting herded into the south pasture by themselves. In spite of having little sleep, he had to get up.
As he swung his feet to the floor, he heard the rattle of pans in the room below. He raised an eyebrow. Who was up so early and why? He pulled on his boots and climbed down the ladder. Jed yawned at the kitchen table while Lucy, her glorious blond hair still hanging down her back, poked life into the cookstove fire. She was already dressed in a faded blue gingham dress.
Jed saw him first. “Morning, Mr. Stanton.”
“Call me Nate, remember?” he said, his eyes on the way the lamplight lit Lucy’s hair with shimmering lights.
“Yes, sir.”
Lucy turned and caught his stare. A becoming bit of color raced up her cheeks, but she bravely met his gaze. He saw the muscles in her neck move as she swallowed, then she spun around and took some eggs out of a bowl.
“Jed and Eileen got me some eggs this morning. I hope that’s all right,” she said without looking at him. “He did chores.”
“I didn’t break none,” Eileen put in with a big smile.
He smiled at Eileen and put his hand on her head. “I wasn’t expecting any of you to get out of bed so early. You had a busy day yesterday.”
Lucy stirred the gravy. “So did you. I heard you tossing and turning all night.”
“You didn’t seem to get much sleep either,” he pointed out. He glanced at Jed. “We have a full day’s work ahead of us. You ready for it?”
“You bet!”
He grinned at the boy’s enthusiasm. “We’ll be working by the big house, so I expect we’ll be late tonight.”
“No lunch?”
He shook his head. “We’ll let Percy feed us.” Bridget nosed his leg, and Nate looked down. “You want out, girl?”
The dog whined, and he went to the door and pushed it open. Bridget gave a deep bark and wobbled out the door. Barking furiously, she limped to the road and planted her feet wide as she growled and barked at a figure by the gate.
Nate squinted through the dim light of predawn. A rider on a horse. Not willing to take any chances, he shut the door and stepped to the back door, where his rifle leaned against the wall. He checked to make sure it was loaded, then swung open the
front door.
Drew Larson waved his hand. “Put the peashooter away. I didn’t come to see you.”
Scowling, Nate tightened his grip on his rifle. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, Larson. And if you’re here to see Lucy, I’ll ask you to stay away from my wife. You tried to burn down my barn. The next time I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
Drew gave a derisive laugh. “You don’t have the guts, Stanton. Now your pa, that would be a different story, but I got nothing to fear from you.” He touched his hat, his gaze again on Lucy. “Morning, Lucy. I thought maybe you’d want to have lunch with your old uncle. My sister would like to meet you.”
“You have another sister?” Lucy took a step onto the porch. “I have an aunt?”
“You do. And some nieces who are eager to make your acquaintance.”
Her glance slid sideways toward Nate. “I should like that. But not today, I’m afraid, Uncle Drew. I have so much to do getting settled in.”
Larson shrugged. “Another time, then.”
“Where does she live?”
“In town. At the end of Main Street. I’ll tell her you’ll be along soon.” He turned his horse around and rode away.
Nate let out the breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. His jaw hurt from clenching it, and his heart was stuttering like a faulty steam engine. He went back inside with Lucy on his heels. Her brother and sister flanked her.
He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. “I could use some of those flapjacks I smell cooking.”
Lucy blinked as though she had forgotten what she was doing, then blushed and turned back to the stove. “The gravy is done, and the eggs will be ready in a minute.” She flipped a pancake, then faced him. “I want to meet my family.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again at the entreaty on her face. “I’d rather you stayed away from him.”
“I’d rather you solved your differences.”
“That’s not possible.”
She sighed. “Very well. But I’m not going to ignore the only family I have still living.”
She had a point. How would he feel if someone told him he couldn’t see his family? “Fine. But I don’t want him here.”
Blue Moon Promise Page 12