The Timeless Love Romance Collection

by Dianne Christner

  Two of the guys next to Justin looked up at her briefly, but their eyes wandered back to the pink-cheeked girl in the doorway, her daylily-orange hair fashionably curled under her hat. Laughing with someone on the other side of the doorway.

  “Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, Justin.” Lia looked around nervously. “I know you’re in a hurry, but Lieutenant Lytle said I could speak to you. I’ve been trying to find you for two days.”

  Justin sat there like a startled mule deer, nodding senselessly.

  “I just wanted to say thank you.”

  “For what?” Justin’s fork dripped blackstrap molasses.

  “For what you said.”

  Lia laced and unlaced her fingers, which shook in the dim light of early dawn. Head bowed. She’d wrapped a white scarf around her neck, over her yellow dress, making her look like an out-of-place daisy in a room full of navy-blue-clad guys. Most of them sullen at being awakened on a perfect, sun-clear Saturday for hours of hacking trails through the woods, “cribbing” the eroded banks of the river with logs chinked with stones, and clearing fallen trees by Green River spike camp. Heavy rains had downed a whole ridge, and about a quarter of Camp Fremont’s boys were helping out, either voluntarily (like Justin, for extra pay) or for penance (like Ernie, on account of getting caught on one of his liquor runs).

  Justin’s hand clenched the fork so tightly the metal edge dug into his palm. “You mean what I said about … about your …?”

  “Papa.” Lia’s eyes suddenly quivered with tears. “I loved him. Do you know that?” She looked over at him fiercely, wiping her cheek.

  Justin sat there like an idiot for a second then abruptly scooted back his chair and headed over to a quieter corner, leaving a space for her to follow. Careful not to touch her.

  “I know you loved him,” he finally said, lowering his voice and softening it to a husky tone. He stared up at the log corners of the wall, hands stuck in his pockets. “And I meant what I said. I’m sorry as I can be. I was a fool, Lia. All the beatings, and Pop, and …” Justin looked away, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably. “I sort of lost my mind, I guess. But I was still a fool.”

  “What beatings?” Lia looked irritated, wiping the corner of her eye with her fingers.

  Justin started to laugh in disbelief then slowly closed his mouth. “You … you mean you didn’t know? Your pa didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “About my family. Stuff at home.” Justin shrugged, incredulous. “I thought everybody knew.”

  “If Papa knew anything, he didn’t tell me. He never was one for gossip.”

  Chairs shuffled behind him, and Justin glanced over his shoulder, wishing he could step outside. But they’d shout the end of breakfast in a minute, and Justin would line up for the truck with fifty other denim-clad schmucks, off for another day’s work.

  Lia reached for a curl of her hair and twirled it nervously, looking away. The unexpected gesture sending a stab of pain through Justin’s chest.

  “I knew you drank though.” Lia didn’t meet his eyes. Her voice so soft over the mess hall noise that Justin had to bend closer to hear it.

  “Course I drank. I wanted to forget everything. And what happened with your pa—with … your father—was an accident. A pure accident. I took Pop’s car, loaded up with gin and whiskey, and didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.” He swallowed, crossing his arms tight over his chest. “I wish I’da died instead of your father, Lia. I swear.”

  She blinked faster, still twirling that curl of hair.

  “Did ya think I downed all that booze because I liked it?” he said a little more harshly than he intended. “You never thought that maybe my life was rotten and I wished I could die, too, like my ma?”

  She flinched. “I guess I’d never thought about why you drank, to tell the truth.”

  “Only that you hated me.”

  Her cheeks colored slightly. “Maybe.”

  Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and Lia finally raised her head. Letting her curl of hair go and smoothing it back in place. “I know your father wasn’t around much. Margaret said so once, and Papa, he …” She swallowed. “He knew your father wasn’t well, exactly, but he never shared with me the specifics.”

  “Pop ‘wasn’t around much’? Margaret said that?” Justin threw his head back and stared up at the ceiling, not sure whether he should laugh or pound a table with his fist. That was Margaret all right, always trying to smooth things over and believe for the good. One of the best people he’d ever known.

  And Reverend Summers, too. If he’d known the whole story about the rages and the beatings, at least he’d had the courtesy not to spill to everybody else.

  “Why, isn’t what Margaret said about your father true?” Lia looked up at him, her eyes looking even bluer against the buttercup yellow of her hat. “Maybe he worked a lot, or …?

  “Well, he wasn’t good and kind like your pa, to say the least. Which incident do you want me to tell you about—the time he beat me so senseless I didn’t get up for a day and a half after I jumped on him for tryin’ to hit my ma?”

  Lia’s face paled, and her fingers stopped on her hair in mid-curl.

  Justin barely saw her. “Or the time he held us all at gunpoint for six hours, dead drunk, because he swore we’d swiped his whiskey stash? I finally took him out with a kitchen chair but not before he put two bullet holes in the wall by my head.”

  He gave a derisive snort. “Liquor makes you forget, Lia. Or it makes you think you will. But in the end it kicks your tail even harder than the memories. I know that now.”

  Over the dull noise of breakfast talk and clinking plates, Justin felt an awful silence, like a gaping hole.

  And when he looked down again, Lia Summers was mopping a wet palm against her streaming eyes. Her throat shuddering with sobs.

  Swell. First I make her throw up, and now I make her cry. Justin felt like banging his head against the log wall in frustration. Couldn’t he remember to hold his tongue? Everything he did seemed to be wrong in some way or another—especially around a girl. Like he’d forgotten the manners his ma tried to teach him so many years ago.

  And he didn’t even have a handkerchief to offer. Not with these ugly work denims.

  Justin sighed, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “Look. I’m sorry about everything, okay? I didn’t mean to …”

  Before he could step away, Lia reached out quickly and put a gloved hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I just … didn’t know.” She wiped her face, sniffling. “There’s a lot I didn’t know back then either. About you, I guess, and about life and … forgiveness.”

  Justin’s gaze fixed on Lia’s soft fingers on his shirtsleeve. Warmth soaking through the harsh fabric.

  “I forgive you, Justin.” She steadied her breath and raised her chin. “I’ve wanted to say that for a long time, but I never saw you again. Not after you left town, and nobody knew where you went.” She pulled off a glove and wiped her cheek. “Bruno told Cynthia there were some guys here from Kentucky, but I never imagined in a hundred years you’d be one of them.”

  Justin stared at his boots as she gently withdrew her hand. His jaw clenching as he imagined Lia dressed in black, standing by her father’s rough pine coffin.

  “And I want you to know that my family’s all right, even without Papa. God’s been good to us. He never forsakes His own, you know. No matter what the economy’s like or how bad it gets.” Her voice caught again, but she took a deep breath and kept going. “I miss Papa, but … Mama’s remarried, to a doctor, and he’s a good man.”

  Justin didn’t move a muscle, ashamed to hear about Lia’s life. The present colliding with the past, just like those two cars on that rainy night back in Berea. His eyes bored into the outline of his boots against the hard floor, and he felt heat rush to his face.

  “My stepfather doesn’t make much out in the country, but we do all right. He got me
into Berea College, where you don’t have to pay tuition, and I’m studying to be a teacher. It’ll be a good job, and Miriam can go, too, when she’s older.” She puckered her brow. “And somebody’s been sending a few dollars every month ever since Papa died, and it’s saved us more times than I can count.”

  Justin froze. Cleared his throat. Blood pumped to his face so fast he could hardly breathe. Palms growing clammy with sweat.

  “We don’t have a clue who’s sending it. Nobody we know has that kind of money to give away. The church helped out for a long time, of course, but after things got so bad with the Depression and Mama married again, the help dwindled down to a little trickle and then disappeared. But every month those extra dollars are always there—sometimes two, sometimes five or more—sure as the sunrise.” Her eyes took on a tender light. “Like the manna God sent to the children of Israel in the desert, Mama says. We used it when the well ran dry and when a storm tore the roof off the end of the house. When Miriam got sick. It’s been a blessing.”

  Justin realized he’d better say something—and quick. “Well,” he said, suddenly absorbed in the worn button on his sleeve. Working one loose thread with his close-cut fingernail. “That’s mighty fine.”

  Lia took a deep breath, and Justin thought she’d finished everything she’d come to say.

  “But there’s one more thing, Justin,” she said, shifting her weight a bit nervously. “I want you to forgive me, too.”

  He jerked his head up in bewilderment, still surprised at the sound of his name in her quiet voice. “What?”

  “For the things I said to you.” Her lips trembled as she raised her eyes, reaching as if to twine her hair and then abruptly folding her hands together. “I was angry, but I shouldn’t have said them. I’ve felt terrible for that for years. After all my own sins God’s forgiven, how could I hate you?” Lia played with the finger of her glove. “I was wrong, too. And I’m asking you to forgive me.”

  An army officer gave a shout to line up at the door, and the room filled with stifled groans and scuffling boots. Last minute gobbles of coffee and clinking forks.

  Every last word flew out of Justin’s head like a startled loon on the lake. He swallowed in disbelief then turned over his shoulder and looked at the departing tables. “I’ve got to … to … work,” he managed, nodding his head. Not trusting his voice to speak. “I’ll see ya.”

  “We’ll be back this way around lunchtime. Franklin says the lake’s pretty close by.”

  “Franklin? You … you mean Frankie? Frankie White?” Justin could barely look at her, turning back from the bright doorway. Hating the way a patch of sunlight spilled across the right side of her hair, painting the dark walnut brown curls gold and copper.

  “Cynthia’s uncle brought his camera, and Franklin says the lake’s beautiful.” She dipped her head again, hiding her face. “And then we’ll leave for the Grand Tetons after that. Her uncle’s planning to take some photos over there before we head back to Bozeman.”

  “I’ll be on the crew until this evening.” Justin shoved his hands in his pockets. “So … I guess this is good-bye.” He managed a smile. What else could he say? “Tell your folks hi”? “Come visit”? Naw. “Take care of yourself, Lia.”

  “I will. And Justin?” Lia looked up, that shaft of sunlight catching the bright blue in her eye. “You didn’t say you’d forgive me.”

  Justin hesitated, his hand on the open door hinge. A breath of dewy sage and pine wafting in from the mountains.

  “Of course I do.” His words came out so soft he could barely hear them.

  And something grateful passed through her eyes before he stepped through the doorway, slants of white-gold morning sun blinding him in all its exquisite, cloudless radiance.

  It was almost quitting time when Justin looked up from the mess of logs and stones he was cribbing along Green River’s eroded bank, mud already up to his knees, and saw an odd slant of sun. Hazy and mist-covered, with dark clouds boiling on the horizon.

  An ominous wind picked up, skidding across the gushing river water like a skipping stone. Bending spiky river grasses and flattening the leaves of a downed cottonwood that three guys were trying to saw into pieces.

  “That’s some wind,” said one of the guys from Green River spike camp, whom Justin knew only as “Little Joe.” He scrunched up pale blue eyes at the clouds. “Smells like snow, if ya ask me.”

  “It ain’t gonna snow, ya idiot.” Lanky Ernie Sadler from Camp Fremont, grumpy at giving up his much sought-after leisure time for another Saturday covered with mud, ran a dirty hand through his hair.

  Little Joe glared. “I’m tellin’ ya. I smell it. I’m from Indiana, and I’ve seen plenty a snow.”

  Ernie faced him. “Well, I’m from Wisconsin, and I’ve seen enough of the white stuff to cover you three times standing up. And I’m sayin’ it ain’t gonna snow.”

  “Why don’t ya both jest shut up and get to work?” bellowed a redhead, wiping his hands on his stained pants as Justin reached for a log. “Soon as we can get this done, we’ll get outta here. Y’all can spend your Saturday in the river if you want, but I shore ain’t.”

  Another wind whipped the grasses as Justin and Ernie pushed the log into place in the soggy riverbank, and a wall of clouds slid across the sun. Blotting out the golden glints that had danced across the ripples like diamond fire and bringing a gust of sudden and shocking cold. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two of the supervisors talking, shirt collars turned up in the wind. And something about Fremont Lake.

  “Lieutenant says the storm’s blowin’ in somethin’ fierce over there,” said one of them, raising his voice over the wind. “Turned over a boat.”

  Justin froze, his hand still reaching for a river stone to jam between the logs. “What’s he saying?” he asked the redhead, stepping over a muddy limb to hear better.

  “Just gimme another rock, will ya?” he scowled.

  “Listen, pal,” barked Justin, deliberately kicking the log out of place. “I asked you what he said, and I meant it. Some of our crew’s over on the lake, and while it may not mean nothin’ to you, it sure does to me.”

  The redhead curled his hands into fists then took a step back when Little Joe and Ernie turned on him. “Then ask him yourself,” he growled. “I’m jest tryin’ to get my work done and make tracks outta this place. Get it?”

  Justin threw down the stones he’d gathered and climbed up the bank. Just in time to hear Ernie call something over his shoulder. “What?” Justin tipped his head back.

  “Cynthia’s gone, if that’s who you’re worried about.”

  “Cynthia?”

  “That good-lookin’ dish who was over at the camp. When Sweeney came to bring over those new trucks, he said they’d left already. Their car’s gone. Nice son-of-a-gun car, too—a ’34 Ford in some fancy-schmancy color. Seen it? It’s a doozy.” Ernie tugged his cap back on in the wind. “Anyhow, they left a thank-you gift for Lieutenant when they left.”

  Justin wiped a muddy hand on his shirt, staring over the horizon at the line of snowcapped Rockies. The angular shapes fading slowly into a gray soup of clouds. First Fremont Peak disappeared then Gannet Peak. Wiping the smear of pine forest smooth, as if the mountains had never existed at all.

  “It’s awful quiet in here.” Ernie stepped into his olive uniform pants back in the barracks, gooseflesh raising on his arms from the sudden chill. “Ya don’t reckon Frankie actually went on the rest of their trip to the Tetons with ’em, do ya?”

  “With Cynthia’s folks? No way.” Justin buttoned up his regulation shirt, the same requisite shade of olive drab. “Why, ain’t he over in the rec hall? Tucker said he saw him.”

  “Nope. Charlie Pryde’s gone, too. But that don’t surprise me none. If I know Charlie, he’s probably made a break for it. The kid’s homesick like the dickens.”

  Justin’s fingers froze on a button. “You don’t s’pose Frankie …”

  “S’pose he hooked
up with Cynthia? Not a chance.” Ernie’s face crinkled. “She’s too good for him. Girls can be awful funny though, when it comes to the fellas.” He punched Justin’s arm. “Hey, wasn’t that other gal talkin’ to ya in the mess this morning? What about her? She ain’t much of a looker, but hey, I’d take whatever I could get around here.”

  Wind whistled around the corner of the log barracks, rattling the door and windows, and several guys rushed over to bolt the windows tighter.

  An oily feeling like bad beef settled in Justin’s stomach as he fixed the wind-ruffled sheets on his cot, smoothing them back to regulation wrinkleless bliss. His eyes darting over to Frankie’s bed. One blanket askew and pillow dented slightly as if made in a haphazard hurry.

  The bird’s eggs. The treasure map in a jar.

  Oh no, Frankie. Please tell me you got more sense than that. Justin suddenly whirled around to Frankie’s cot, ripping the blankets and sheets apart in careless mayhem. Shaking the pillow out of its case.

  “You lost your mind, Fairbanks?” Ernie looked up from sticking his socked foot in a boot. “He’s gonna jump ya when he sees this mess.”

  “I’m lookin’ for somethin’.” Justin flung the bedding back in an ugly pile and threw open Frankie’s olive drab footlocker at the foot of his bed. He pulled out Frankie’s socks and underwear and tossed them in a pile, pausing only to check one sock when it thunked on the hard floor. Justin fished out shiny chunks of obsidian like polished black glass then hurled them down in disgust.

  “It’s gotta be here. I know he said he found a map in that jar. Wait a second.” Justin jerked out a muddy clay jar and held it up to the light. A ragged paper edge stuck out from the closed top, dull yellow and torn on one corner. “The little creep was tellin’ the truth. He’s got a map all right.”

  He pulled out the paper and flattened it carefully, trying to read the faded ink in the dim light: Waterfall. Ridge. Two miles. A bunch of arrows and lines.

  “I swear, that kid must have mush for brains.” Justin slammed the trunk lid shut and stood up, stuffing the map in his pocket. “You comin’, too, Ernie? I’m worried Frankie mighta got himself stuck up there on the peak somewhere. Maybe with the whole passel of ’em.”