by Bella Bowen
That was a private victory. She’s often had nightmares of Devlin being led up those stairs and hung for his brother’s death. And though she still believed him guilty, she held out hope it had been self-defense. If only he would explain, perhaps she could forgive him. But in any case, she hoped her nightmares would end now that the Tower was gone.
There was a self-appointed committee that stepped forward and gave her all the details of the “barn raising” event planned for the next day. And though she knew it was on their minds, no one was insensitive enough to mention her lawyers being in town, or the fact that a judge would be deciding all their fates while they busied themselves raising walls and celebrating.
An little old gentleman produced a plaque he’d been working on, hungry for a little praise for himself, but he was berated by dozens who shooed him away with hushes and whispers of “Too soon.” She’d pretended not to have noticed the writing burned into the plaque, but she did give the little man’s arm a squeeze.
Carnegie Hall.
She quickly blinked her eyes dry and tried not to let them see how moved she’d been.
Carnegie Hall. It had a nice ring to it.
~ ~ ~
At long last, her buggy was sent for.
“Would you care to have me escort you back to the ranch, Mrs. Carnegie?” The sheriff’s hat was in his hands and the look of chagrin on his face made her a bit uncomfortable. “I haven’t seen hide or hair of Devlin today. Maybe you don’t want to be out on your own...”
Even if she hadn’t read his personal journals, Gen knew Devlin would never harm her. Not the Devlin she knew.
“Thank you, Sheriff. That’s very kind. But I can see my own way home.”
He handed her up and stepped back, though he seemed frustrated, as if he’d like to say something to her, but didn’t know how.
Finally, he shrugged. “You just be careful, now, you hear?”
Gen smiled and inclined her head, then snapped the reins. “Walk on.” And the little appaloosa took her out of town.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gen headed home with plenty of sunshine left in the day. The horse clipped along at a cheerful pace with little prodding from her. And the scenery was growing familiar again. The trees to her left had grown well. The hill to her right was covered in a blanket of blue blossoms she’d not remembered seeing in Wyoming all those years ago. But the memories she’d stored away didn’t include many flowers.
But surely she would have remembered an entire hillside of forget-me-nots.
She lifted her face to the west and closed her eyes. When winter came, she would remember that moment and the warmth on her face. It would help remind her that spring would come, that summer would follow—such a reminder was always necessary when the snow is piled high and shows no signs of melting.
When he eyes tired of the bright orange glow through her lids, she brought her attention back to the road before her. Two miles more. That broken rock always meant that she still had two miles to go.
But she didn’t think about the burned arch, or the staff waiting for her. She didn’t even think about her precious house she’d always thought of as home. No. What waited for her were two little blue volumes, and she couldn’t wait to get her hands on them again.
What the devil was wrong with her?
Truth was, he’d gone and stolen the wind out of her sail and left her drifting. She felt like she’d accomplished what she’d set out to accomplish, even though the ranch wouldn’t be legally hers for another day. But that no longer gave her a thrill. It was as if she’d won a race only to find she had been hoping for a different prize.
What the devil had she been hoping for? If not the ranch, if not the satisfaction of Devlin leaving town with his tail between his legs, the same way she’d left ten years ago, then what?
How could she possibly be disappointed?
The town was warming to her. The women she’d hired to run the ranch were having no problem with their duties. Even the foremen who’d lost their jobs with Devlin weren’t lurking around the perimeter of her fences trying to take the place back.
Everything had gone smoothly, except for the arch burning down. But who could blame Devlin for striking out when he’d lost everything?
So her victory wasn’t as dramatic as she’d imagined. So the war she’d been prepared to wage had never come. How could she complain that taking the ranch from Devlin Zollinger had happened almost painlessly?
“What more do you want?” she asked herself aloud.
David’s face rose in her mind, but it wasn’t as if she had hoped to have David back.
Then the face wavered, ever so slightly, and she realized it wasn’t David in her mind at all.
But Devlin.
Her breath caught. The thought wasn’t new, but she never allowed herself to let it loose before. But somehow, on that stretch of road with the long patch of grass running down the middle and the shushing of wind bending those grasses away from her, she felt well and truly alone enough to take the idea out and look it in the face. No one would see. No one would know.
Devlin.
The face that brought a skip to her heart, even if she ignored it.
Devlin.
The eyes that claimed her soul the instant they’d met. The eyes that watched her through the years, waiting for her to turn to him. Waiting for her to need him. Waiting for her to remember that strange connection they had once shared.
Only once. For one brief moment. And time had meant nothing.
It was the minute that followed that had changed everything.
Had she ever loved David? Or had she been so determined to prove she could control her heart that she’d conjured a love that hadn’t existed?
Even in the end, in that last month of smiles and laughter and making love, had she simply been relieved and rejoicing that she was no longer treated as a burden to be bourn?
Were Devlin’s musings correct? Had David simply been acting the loving husband, pretending to be overjoyed to find his wife hadn’t been unfaithful, lying when he’d claimed to regret the lost years?
If only David was still alive so she could confront him and demand to know the truth. But would he give it to her? Had he told her the truth ever?
Perhaps Devlin was right. David may well have enjoyed tormenting both of them. He may have known, all the while, that his brother and wife had never so much as been alone together, much less embraced.
Dear heavens! Of course he knew. He had spies all over his ranch like she had investigators all over the states. David Zollinger knew everything that happened on his ranch whether he was present or not. He knew she was faithful, and he treated her as if she were sleeping with his brother each night.
She looked back, horrified by the memory of David insisting she take one of the rooms upstairs for her own, insisting she find her own space. Sending her where Devlin’s own room would be convenient.
David had pushed her from his room, from his bed, from his heart knowing all the while she’d done nothing wrong.
“Bastard,” she whispered.
A horse snorted off to her right. She hadn’t been paying attention to the road and the horse hadn’t needed her instruction. She’d left the town behind and the next miles were wooded. There was a pistol under the front edge of the buggy. She’d not worried. One bullet and a lot of threats was all she would have needed to get out of most altercations. Another lesson from Bartie. She wasn’t about to stop her buggy, however, unless she had to.
She turned in the seat and strained to see who it was on the horse behind her, then pulled back on the leads when her heart gave a familiar trip. Perhaps it was habit formed long ago, but stopping for Devlin was an automatic response.
He caught up with her and she wrapped the leather around the break while she gathered the courage to face him.
“Genevieve,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Devlin.” Heaven help her, had she ever said his name like that before? Like she was lying on a
pillow beside him? She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “What do you want?” She looked everywhere but his eyes. His clothes were new, but the man inside them looked weary.
“You know what I want,” he ground out. “They’re my property. You said I could have what was mine.”
Her heart was his too, but he wasn’t there to ask for it, so she would bury that secret as deeply as she could. Six feet beneath the green ash tree was not deep enough.
He wanted the journals. She wasn’t ready to give them up yet. She still had a few things to work out in her mind, and though his written words only seemed to confuse her further, she hoped that would be different. One more time. She would read them once more only. Then she’d give them back. But what would he do with them?
“No. You’ll burn them.”
The way his eyes flared at the mention of fire told her all she needed to know. Yes. He’d burn them. So she was all the more justified in keeping them away from him.
“Yes. I know you burned David’s journals. I could kill you for that. I might have found answers—”
“You left some spies behind.” He looked off into the dying sun for a moment. “I should have expected that. But you’re wrong about his journals. You’ll have to trust me when I say any answers you found wouldn’t have been pleasant.”
She lifted her nose in the air. “Why in the world would I trust you?”
He lowered his chin and stared at her from beneath his dark brows. “I warned you not to read my journals, Gen. That you’d regret not handing them over. And I was right about that.”
Do I regret having my eyes opened?
She didn’t know yet. Too soon to tell. That’s why she wanted to keep them a bit longer. She was lucky she knew up from down at the moment, especially when her heart urged her to move closer to him while her head was telling her to get moving, to put a safe distance between them.
“You’re right about one thing. You should have anticipated my spies. I can’t imagine why you didn’t. After all, it was your own brother who taught us both how to be mistrustful.”
Devlin nodded. His gaze dropped to his hands. “He taught us well.”
“I’ll lock them away. No one will ever see them. You’ll have to settle for that.”
His jaw flexed, but he gave a nod. “And the other...?”
Her heart jumped again. Devlin was asking her flat out about the photograph. He still wanted it? After she’d taken everything from him?
“Never mind.” He turned his horse and kicked it hard. She had no chance to respond, even though she hadn’t the first idea what she might have said.
Perhaps he was drunk, she told herself. He would have never asked after her picture if he hadn’t been.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Devlin paced his room, facing up to the truth; it was going to be another sleepless night.
He was furious with his stupid, careless tongue. He may as well have fallen at her feet and begged her to love him.
He’d been so determined to prove to her that he wasn’t the same man who filled those journals with drivel. So determined! And he’d faltered at the first sight of her.
That was what he deserved, of course, for approaching her with no one else around. After all those years of imagining what he might say if they were ever able to be together, he’d imagined so many romantic scenarios that he’d been primed to make a fool of himself.
He should have sent her another note. He should have turned away, even after she stopped. He should have never uttered a word.
But it was all over. She was never going to give them back. She was never going to forget. And he was never going to forgive her.
He couldn’t fathom why he’d asked about the picture. It wasn’t as if the image wasn’t burned into the back of his eyelids already. Every time he closed his eyes, for nearly half his life, her face was always there waiting for him in the darkness.
And he was going to have to think of something to rid himself of her short of cutting off his own eyelids.
~ ~ ~
Dev blinked his eyes, realizing a few things at once.
First of all, he’d actually fallen asleep.
Secondly, it was later than he would have guessed if the light glowing through his curtains was any indication.
Then he remembered that his curtains hadn’t been orange…about the same time his ears started registering the word being shouted below him in the street.
“Fire!”
He shook himself awake and ran to the window. The glow came from the right. He knew exactly what was burning. If he was smart, he’d just crawl back into bed and put a pillow over his head. But he couldn’t do that.
Damnit!
~ ~ ~
It was a good thing Gen didn’t sleep with a gun or she probably would have shot Fontaine when the girl shook her awake. Sleep was so hard won, so precious and essential that it was clearly a sin to wake her up if by some miracle she’d managed to doze off. A sin. But Fontaine had been right to do it.
Puuku already had Gen’s horse saddled and waiting by the front steps. The Indian then slipped onto a bareback pony and raced to the gate to replace the guards who were escorting Gen into town. Of course there was a chance it was all a trick to get her and some of her army off the ranch, but the rest of the guards were still at their stations, and it wasn’t going to be easy to get past Puuku. The Indian didn’t cotton to much conversation and she’d let her gun do her talking for her. Besides, Gen couldn’t see Devlin expecting anyone to take a bullet just so he could steal his ranch back. He didn’t seem to want it back that badly.
Of course, he might be coming for the journals, but he wouldn’t harm anyone to get to them.
Her mind jumped back to the first thought. Did he not care about the ranch? Either he didn’t plan to fight very hard for it, or the believed he had some ace up his sleeve—a secret that Gen and her crews of Crawlers and lawyers hadn’t been able to anticipate.
She leaned forward in the saddle and glanced to the northwest where the sky was orange and bright, but it had nothing to do with the sun. She hoped it was the new hall that was burning. Of course it meant an attack on her and her plans, but at least no one would have been hurt. If any other structure burned, there would have been people inside.
They entered from the south which took them directly into the heart of the town. The east end of Main Street was still and dark. At the west end of the street, where most traffic entered town, there was a well in the middle of the road. It was a gate to the city, of sorts, and wagons moved to the sides of the well to enter. That end of the town looked like morning had already arrived, or else the sun had backed up and created a sunset in the middle of the night.
It was four o’clock and there was a long line of wide-eyed folks that started at the well, moved east a block, then turned north into the town square where the new hall was to be raised later that day. But that wasn’t the case. Not anymore.
Gen, Fontaine, and the two guards tied their horses in front of the sheriff’s office and headed down the street to help. When they rounded the corner they were nearly knocked over by the waves of heat that greeted them. The square was full of flames. Four walls that had earlier been resting on the ground had become roaring fires with the floor of the hall burning in the center. It all looked like the paddles of a blazing windmill only flush against the ground.
There were parts that smoldered and never caught either because of the buckets of water being applied or the greenness of the wood. But it wasn’t enough to save it. They might as well let it burn.
After being dismissed with a nod, Gen’s two guards stepped into the line to help. No one seemed to care they were wearing britches. Fontaine ran off toward the well. Gen recognized the shape of the sheriff’s hat as he stood over a dozen people gathered against the buildings on the far side of the flames. She hurried to see if there was something she might be able to do to help.
They were huddled together. Folks on the outside le
aning over others who were kneeling. It was a strange time to gather for prayer, she thought.
She tapped the sheriff on the shoulder. “Can I help?”
He turned, and when he recognized her, his face twisted with disgust. “You’ve done enough here, I reckon.” Then he turned his back to her, blocking her view.
Confused, she moved counter clockwise around the circle, trying to get a look at what held their attention. Finally, a man led his wife away and Gen moved quickly into the void they provided.
The woman in front of her knelt and Gen was able to see all the way to the center, but the taller people blocked the light of the fire from illuminating anything. Finally, Gen shielded her eyes. Someone was lying down. Someone had been hurt. And if the sheriff was angry with her…
“Devlin,” she gasped before she could stop herself. But the fear of Devlin being injured drove her forward. She pried people out of the way. She had to know. Slowly, she gained inches. Then a step, then a step more.
She knelt and looked upon the face of the old man who had been so eager to present his surprise to her the afternoon before. His arms were still clutched about the plaque. The wrinkles were gone from around his eyes. There was no smile left on his face. And no one was trying to help him.
The doctor, a different one than the doctor she’d known a decade earlier, felt the old man’s neck for the last time, then shrugged his coat from his shoulders and laid it on the old man’s face.
Gen bit her lip while the tears poured steadily down her cheeks. She bit hard, fearful of what she might say. She felt horrible, truly horrible, that most of those tears came from her relief that it wasn’t Devlin that lay there. Some were from shame. Some were for the sweet man who’d been too excited to wait.
She shook her head and released her lip. She had to ask. “Why was he inside?”
The doctor shook his head. “He wasn’t inside, Mrs. Carnegie. Someone killed him right here. There’s a puddle of blood beneath his head. Must have been struck from behind. Most likely, he came across the one who set the fire and tried to go for help.” He frowned at Gen then. “Don’t suppose it would have been a woman. Not unless she was rather strong for her…gender.”