She was led to multiple entries, most of the top ones about the growing of lavender in the hill country of Texas, nothing about a town.
Oh, well, she supposed there were some towns too insignificant to even come up on a web search.
Next she pulled up a map of Texas and again searched without result. So? Big surprise. Her correspondent had identified himself with a fake town.
Probably operated under a phony name, profession and life story as well. She had to give him credit for imagination though. The thing with the aged paper and stamp had tickled her interest.
She had a sense of let-down, as though something special had been about to happen and had just fizzled out. It was like waking up to think it was Christmas morning or your birthday, only to realize it was only an ordinary Monday.
She did pick up her mail personally that afternoon rather than waiting for her housekeeper to bring it in. The smell of the sea scented the air and she could see gray-green waves pounding toward her as she glanced over her shoulder, waiting until she was back inside to examine the stack of envelopes.
As long as she didn’t know what was in there, she could hope for something of interest. Not that she wanted to hear from her Texas doctor again, not exactly.
Though she hated leaving things as they were with him offended at her. She took the trouble to remind herself that none of his story had been real before she began to sort through the mail.
She found only two pieces of personal mail. The first was a picture postcard from her sister-in-law with a photo of a buffalo on the front and a brief message written on the back, “Come back soon. We miss the two of you.”
For a moment her heart warmed, than she recognized the handwriting on the envelope. This one made her heart sink.
She’d know her former husband’s sprawling handwriting anywhere. What was he doing writing to her after she’d counted on having dismissed him from her life. Certainly his price had been high enough.
Once she’d read the brief message, which was a politely worded request for an immediate visit with Betsy, she found she was shaking as she called the law firm that represented her.
Chapter Four
In some ways his practice was as difficult as that of a pioneer doctor. Grandpa had built the best medical library possible, but when illnesses were puzzling and their cures not in his knowledge, he could only search the pages of those tomes. There was no man or woman he could call on for a second opinion, no specialist to perform delicate procedures beyond his experience.
He was the last word in medicine for the people who lived in Lavender and the nearby rural area. It was a responsibility he took with the utmost seriousness and studied and read every time he had a spare moment.
He’d had some idea what he was getting into when he came back here in answer to his grandfather’s summons, but living daily with such a charge was something a man could not anticipate.
Right now he was dealing with an outbreak of measles, a common enough childhood illness, but he knew from experience that good care for the young patients was essential, that in occasional cases the disease could become lethal.
He tried to keep careful check on his patients, but this time one of them was of particular interest. His Eddie, usually such a lively child, lay on her bed, listless and too quiet, burning with fever, even though only a light sprinkling of red spots showed on her face and torso.
“Hello, Papa,” she greeted him as though the words were almost too much effort to speak. It frightened him to see her limp with weakness. His girl was normally the kind of child who made adults comment enviously about wishing they had that kind of energy.
She’d gotten sick two days ago, no surprise considering that so many of the youngsters out that they’d had to close down the school.
Mrs. Myers had taken the outbreak of illness in stride. “It’s best for them to get it over when they’re young. Measles can be rough on older people.”
Evan knew well enough that measles was serious enough at any age, but tried to tell himself he was being especially concerned this time because the patient was his daughter. Not that, in a way, he didn’t regard the town’s children as all his sons and daughters.
“Wish you could stay here all the time,” Eddie whispered.
“Me too, baby,” he indulged in the endearment she would never have tolerated if she was well. “But you know . . .”
“You have to see about all the sick children,” she finished the sentence for him. She’d always been the doctor’s daughter and knew well enough what his job entailed. “But I’m glad you’re here now.”
At eight, Edith was tall, skinny and freckled. She had inherited her mother’s auburn hair and fair skin, but not her ladylike ways. She was a tomboy, able to keep up with any of the boys her age, and not tolerant of such girlish pursuits as sewing and cooking. Maybe, Evan sometimes thought guiltily, she was like this because she’d been raised by her father and grandfather. Privately he was proud of her independent ways and wouldn’t have changed a thing about her even if that were possible.
Tonight he sat with her in the darkened room kept warm and lit only by the blazing flame in the fireplace. He told her a story he made up as he went along, not sure it made much sense, but the softened sound of his deep voice lulled her into peaceful rest.
Concerned, he slept in his chair by her side, waking at intervals to offer her sips of water and medicine. He was relieved in the morning when he found her fretful with a full crop of measles spots, but her body cooled from the ferocious fever. When she demanded breakfast and continued to be irritable all morning, he knew with relief that she would recover.
He didn’t even give his dad’s words much thought when, over a lunch of sandwiches and coffee, that rotund gentleman touched his graying mustache thoughtfully and said, “You know, Evan, I don’t remember you ever having measles.”
The two men rarely saw anything alike so perhaps it was automatic to answer, “Of course I did, Dad. All kids get measles, chicken pox and mumps. It’s close to being a law.”
Forrest Stephens shook his head doubtfully. “I remember chicken pox and I remember mumps, but I can’t say I can recall you having measles.”
Evan laughed and gave the matter no further thought. He had too many young patients to give much thought to his own health.
“You don’t understand,” Cynthia tried to explain, “He doesn’t care for her. He never wanted her. He’s only using her to get more money.”
The firm’s brightest young attorney, the son of the man who had represented her parents for years, bent slightly toward her. “Mrs. Burden, he is the child’s father and as far as you’ve told us, he’s never offered her any physical harm.”
“But emotionally, he admitted he only married me because of my parents’ legacy. He never cared for either of us.”
The young attorney looked embarrassed. “We can keep this in the courts forever, but is that what you want for your daughter? A visit now and then, how can that harm her? You don’t really think he’s going to hurt her?”
She knew he wouldn’t understand the answer if she gave it. No, she hoped Michael would never strike Betsy, starve her, lock her up or anything like that.
What she did think was that he would break her heart? He wasn’t just not fond of Betsy, he actively disliked her. He hated both of them. He saw them as the prison that had kept him locked in for years of his life while he earned the right to his share of the income from her trust fund.
She’d been eighteen when they married, nineteen when Betsy was born. With the baby as an extra concern, she’d begun to realize that her husband wasn’t just difficult, hard to please, but that he’d no love for either her or their child.
It wasn’t until after first her mother died and then her father that he’d dared the open abuse. He was clever and not about to give her lawyers ammunition to deprive him of one cent of what he thought of as his money.
In public her life was perfect. Privately it was hellish. Fina
lly she’d moved away from him to try to create a new life for herself and her daughter. He’d told friends and family that Cynthia was having a breakdown from the loss of her parents. Obviously she wasn’t quite in her right mind. Hadn’t her brother killed his own girlfriend? Perhaps something was seriously wrong with Cynthia as well.
He threatened in private to take Betsy away from her if she made a move against him.
It wasn’t until unexpectedly her brother had been proven innocent of the crime of which he’d been accused that she’d begun to believe in herself again. In the years of their marriage, her husband had taken away her confidence, but now it began to come back.
She instructed her lawyers to agree to whatever settlement Michael wanted as long as he gave her a divorce and full custody of their daughter.
The amount of the settlement was generous enough to make headlines in California’s newspapers. And now, not even two years later, he suddenly felt a desperate need to spend time with Betsy.
Cynically she wondered what he’d done with all that money.
He was so convincing, so smooth, so likable. Hadn’t he fooled her during their early years?
She said a barely polite goodbye to the lawyer, went out and immediately got on the phone to the detective firm that had come highly recommended as the best available. She would find out what had happened to Michael in since they’d been divorced.
A call from Betsy’s school that her father was there and wanted to pick up their daughter sent terror racing through her body. Fortunately this was the kind of school where high income custody battles were a way of life. They wouldn’t surrender the child just because the man could prove he was her dad.
She raced to the school, faced down Michael who, in front of school authorities, laughingly accused her of paranoia. “Betsy and I need a little time together,” he said, playing for the principal and her assistant. “Don’t be selfish, Cynthia dear.”
She didn’t bother to argue. He would make it appear that she was a vengeful, over-protective mother, determined to use her daughter as a pawn against her ex-husband. After all, this very scenario was undoubtedly regularly enacted in this office.
She was furious to discover that her daughter was already being brought to the office and stood stiffly while the fair-haired eight-year-old who looked so much like her dad, was pulled into his arms and greeted lovingly. Instead she reminded the principal that evidence of her full custody rights had been filed with the office when she’d enrolled Betsy and that her father didn’t even have visitation rights.
Betsy didn’t respond to Michael’s overtures, but politely drew away to go over and stand at her mother’s side. Without saying a word, Cynthia took her daughter’s small hand in her own and walked out, ignoring Michael’s calculatedly pathetic pleas that he be allowed “to spend just a little time with his baby.”
Instead of heading for home, she went directly to the nearest airport and arranged a private flight to Oklahoma City. It wasn’t until they were waiting to be boarded that she texted her brother with the information that she and Betsy were coming for a visit, but that she didn’t want anyone to know they were there. Then she turned her phone off.
In all this time Betsy had made no comment. It wasn’t until they were seated, the only passengers in the executive jet, that she said, “I wish he really meant it.”
Cynthia closed her eyes. That was the real danger. She wouldn’t have her bright, loving child spend her life wishing for a father’s love that would never come.
She knew better than to offer either criticism or explanation for Michael’s behavior. Instead she said, “We’re heading to the ranch for a little visit.”
Betsy brightened immediately and began to talk about her aunt and uncle and the farm animals she loved. Cynthia tried to settle her jangled nerves and figure out what she would do next.
Usually she and Betsy rented a car at Will Rogers airport and drove out west to the ranch, but this time Moss and Lynne were waiting when the plane landed. She hugged them, then frowned , “I don’t remember telling you when we’d get here.”
“We just drove straight over. Somehow Moss guessed you’d be on a private flight even though you usually come the regular way.”
“From your message, I thought something must be wrong,” Moss said, then stopped abruptly as Cynthia gave her head a slight shake, glancing meaningfully at Betsy.
“It was Daddy,” the little girl said matter-of-factly. “He tried to pick me up at school so we scooted right out here.”
Once again her daughter had caught her by surprise. She always forgot that not much got past Betsy. “It’s not that your father would harm you, Betsy,” she said hurriedly.
“Of course not,” Moss agreed, backing her up, though he’d never even met Michael. He’d been busy elsewhere during their marriage. “Let’s get your luggage and head home.”
“Uh, we don’t have luggage,” Cynthia said, continuing her progress through the lightly populated airport.
“We went straight from school to the plane,” Betsy contributed cheerfully, than began to question Lynne in detail about her animal friends at the ranch.
They drove to the ranch through darkness, meeting mostly trucks carrying supplies from city to city on the interstate highway. Betsy slept against her shoulder in the back seat and she listened to the soft chatter of her brother and his wife from the front as they turned onto the roadway that led north to the ranch, beginning to feel a little more relaxed.
It was only when Moss got out to lock the wide gate behind them and they moved up toward the house that she began to forget to be afraid. The gate was only symbolic, of course, anybody could cut the fences, but it was significant that her brother had locked that gate. Usually it was open for anyone to drive in. More comfortingly she reassured herself that Michael had never been here. He would not find it easy to locate them at this isolated location.
Chapter Five
Coming down with measles forced Evan Stephens into a certain degree of leisure. For the first five days his body raged with fever and his mind was so unsteady that nobody wanted to be treated by him for any physical ills. Luckily no real emergencies surfaced during this time and the two helpers he’d trained in basic first aid were able to deal well enough with the ordinary coughs, colds and sprained ankles that came their way.
By the second week, he was able to rest against his pillows and complain loudly that he needed to be up and seeing to his patients, but when he tried to stand his legs collapsed under him and his father and Mrs. Myers had to help him back to bed.
It was humiliating to find he felt weak as a newborn infant and that his head seemed to be spinning, so much so that he was temporarily silenced.
Auburn-haired Eddie stared at him in shock. “Why is he so sick?” she demanded. “He only has measles. I had measles and I didn’t fall on the floor.”
Her grandfather patted her head. “Don’t panic, Eddie. Measles is harder on us old folk.”
Evan wanted to protest that he wasn’t that old, not nearly as aged as his father who had, annoyingly, went through his own case of measles at age twelve, as he kept reminding Evan as though his son had made a mistake in not following his example.
Sadly he didn’t have enough energy left even to argue with Dad.
“We’ll take good care of him, Eddie. Don’t you worry. In a couple of weeks, he’d be right as rain.”
“Weeks!” Evan sputtered. He would go out of his mind.
They insisted he rest. They wouldn’t let him read or have company other than family members. After two days of this, he managed to wobble over to his desk where he obtained two sheets of paper, a pencil, an envelope and one of the stamps left from the old times.
In the very dim light that was all he was allowed while he recovered from measles, he began his letter.
Dear Cynthia,
Help!
The report from the detective agency was not encouraging. Money had been running fast through her ex-hus
band’s hands. As long as they were married and he was spending her money, the executors of her trust fund had maintained some control. But once the settlement was made and money was his to spend as he liked, he’d been indulgent. He’d bought things, big things like sports cars, boats and expensive houses. Worse, he’d developed a passion for gambling. He’d endowed Las Vegas with a good deal of the money he’d gotten from her.
He was by no means broke, but obviously he was not as rich as he wanted to be. So he’d come back to profess his devotion to his daughter and angle for another buyout.
Despairing, she recognized this was a kind of blackmail. No matter how much money she gave him, he would always come back for more and Betsy would be the one who was hurt in the process.
They couldn’t go on this way. Betsy was missing school and her friends and her normal life. But if they went back—these days Cynthia’s worst fear was that Michael would kidnap her daughter and hold her until she paid whatever amount of money he demanded.
That night she and Moss stayed up late, Betsy having gone to sleep at her regular time and Lynne having retired, Cynthia was sure, to give brother and sister a little time alone.
She was feeling tired and close to hysterical as she slumped into a chair and said, “I’d be willing to give him all of my money if he’d just leave us alone.”
Moss eyed her thoughtfully. “You can’t do that. Mom and Dad left the principal in trust. The income is generous, but dammit, Cynthia you can’t let him get away with this. You’ll never be rid of him!”
She tried to smile. “I know, but what can I do? We can’t live like this. I’m just surprised he hasn’t already shown up at your door looking for us.”
“We’ll get a restraining order tomorrow,” her brother promised grimly.
“I already looked into that. They tell me you have to show cause. And you know Michael, he’s a fine, upstanding citizen, who never even threatened to harm either me or Betsy,” her tone was full of sarcasm.
Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 2) Page 3