The Timeless Love Romance Collection

by Dianne Christner

  “Thought what?” Justin got up and faced Frankie, his blood boiling so hot he had to remind himself that there were ladies around. As much as he felt like knocking Frankie White through a bunch of cedars, now might not be the best time and place to do it.

  “I dunno.” Frankie shrugged. “I thought you were just full a talk and all about that God stuff and about mistakes you said you’d made.” He met Justin’s gaze. “I thought ya figured you knew it all and hadn’t ever set foot in the real world. Shucks, like you were some kinda dandy or somethin’.” His nose reddened, and he looked down. “I was the one who put ice in your bed to bring you down a peg. Know that?”

  “I know.” Justin snorted in disgust. “I shoulda strung you up for that.”

  Frankie blanched. “You mean you … you knew I did it?”

  “Sure I did. Cook saw you steal the ice from the chest and told me five minutes after.”

  “Oh.” Frankie swallowed and looked down.

  “And that stupid mountain rattler. You put it in your pack, and it crawled off.” Justin hugged himself in the cold. “I saw you lookin’ for it that day when I took your bird eggs. You know you coulda killed me or Ernie or one of the guys?”

  “I thought babies didn’t have venom! It was this big!” Frankie gestured wildly with his fingers.

  “Well they do, stupid!” Justin hollered, flaring up. Feeling that old itch to grab Frankie by the shirt collar and shake a lick of intelligence into him.

  Frankie stuck his hands in his pockets and scrubbed his shoes in the snow. He finally looked up. “And … you still come up here after me?” he asked in a small voice. “Even after ya knew all that?”

  “Sure I did. ’Cause you’re an idiot.” Justin picked up a twig and started whittling it again.

  “Yeah. I reckon.” Frankie gave a half grin. Then he drew himself up taller, the grin fading. “But no matter what you mighta done, Fairbanks, I still think you’re swell.” He sniffled again, and Justin wasn’t sure if it was the cold or emotion. “Mighty swell.”

  Frankie’s throat quivered. “Truth is, I ain’t never done nothin’ good for nobody else in my life. All I’ve done is make trouble. I didn’t deserve to wear your boots, Fairbanks. You shoulda let me freeze.”

  “I might if you keep on talkin’ like that.” Justin clicked his knife shut and shoved it in his pocket, thinking of Reverend Summers.

  Frankie’s expression stayed sober. “I swear when I get back to camp I’m gonna try and straighten out my life. I’ll even give my rocks and stuff back to the lieutenant.”

  “And the letter you found about the gold?” Justin glared.

  “That, too. Honest Injun. I’ll even read that Bible of yours if ya want.”

  “Well, you can start by helpin’ me splint Lia’s ankle, double time, or we might never get outta this ice hole.”

  Frankie grinned and gave a mock salute. “Yes sir! I’m on it.”

  Snow gusted as they mounted the rocky, boulder-clogged ledge, hauling Mr. Parker on a blanket trussed together with ropes and sticks to keep his back straight. They helped Lia up the slippery embankment, the wind screaming across the meadow and blowing snow.

  Frankie paused, red-faced and panting, and pulled on Justin’s arm as they climbed the last rocky flank that outcropped the meadow. “Say, ain’t that where we dropped the light? It can’t be, can it?”

  “You mean where I dropped the light.” Justin wiped his sleeve across his face. “And I dunno. Everything looks the same to me.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s here. But … nah. There’s no way.”

  Justin scowled in irritation, stretching his back for one final heave of Mr. Parker’s stretcher, which they’d wedged between a clump of stones. Mr. Parker moaned, clutching his head.

  “I don’t really care, Frankie. We just gotta …” Justin broke off, staring down at the mass of stones. Trying to remember the cracks and grooves. “Hey, are those what’s left of our boot tracks?”

  Frankie straightened up in surprise. “So it was here! The flashlight fell down between those rocks, and then you grabbed in the hole there, but … but look at that big ol’ boulder! There’s no way we coulda moved that.”

  Justin ran his hand over the boulder, which stretched farther than he could reach both up and out. A heavy chunk of granite, solid, wedged back against a heavy pack of earth and stones. A white skiff of snow on top.

  Justin’s mouth hung open as he tried to replay the scene. He felt along the smooth and wrinkled stone, cold to the touch, where he’d gripped and pushed. It couldn’t be. Could it? That piece of rock must weigh more than a freight train.

  “That’s it all right.” Frankie’s eyes bugged. “But how’d we do it? How’d we move that thing? You don’t think it’s because we …”

  “Because we what?”

  Frankie flushed. “I mean, I don’t really believe in all that prayer mess, but we moved that rock somehow.”

  “Well,” Justin shrugged, “you got some other explanation? Space aliens, maybe?”

  Frankie laughed briefly, but his face stayed sober. “Dunno, Fairbanks. Maybe I’m gonna hafta think about all that God business again. ’Cause man, we sure needed that light.” He wiped his wet nose on his sleeve. “I ain’t gonna be no preacher though. Uh-uh.”

  Justin gazed up at the boulder. “I can’t think of nothin’ better to be, Frankie, than a preacher. I promise ya that.”

  Chapter 9

  Justin guessed it must be noon from the brightness of the clouds and the rumbling in his stomach at the thought of the mess hall. Anything they plopped on a plate sounded good. Slimy boiled potatoes? Fine. Soggy leftover chicken? Dandy. It was food, and with the cold temperatures and physical exertion, he’d probably eat the plate and the table, too.

  They’d struggled partway down the ridge, pausing only once to rest and build a fire when Mr. Parker began to shiver uncontrollably in the makeshift stretcher. Justin rested there, spent, while a weak fire sputtered. His wrists and back ached from gripping the sides of the rough pine stretcher, and he flexed his stiff fingers. All the blood seemed to have pooled there in one desperate attempt not to let Mr. Parker slide off the stretcher—leaving red gouges across his wrists and forearms.

  Worst of all, Justin felt clumsy and off balance. His toes had no feeling, perhaps from the tight boots, and he wasn’t as fleet and nimble as before. Several times he’d had to brace himself from falling, holding an arm against a shaggy pine trunk while he shouldered Mr. Parker’s stretcher.

  He’d just let his head sink into his bent knees when Lia whispered something next to him, her breath stirring his hair.

  “What’d ya say?” He jerked his head up.

  “It was you who sent it.”

  Justin turned to look at Lia as she knelt there next to him on a folded blanket over snow, her dress filthy and eyes swimming with tears. A frightening bewilderment creeping into his chest that—by George—he’d somehow made her cry again.

  “Sent … sent what?” He ran a dirty hand through his hair, wondering if she was hallucinating again.

  “The money every month.” She winced as she shifted position to let her injured leg out straight, adjusting the flimsy splint and pulling the wool blanket tighter around her shoulders. “You’re the one who’s been sending it. I figured it out.”

  Justin dug his boot heels into the thin crust of snow to steady himself. “What makes you think that?” he finally asked, trying to keep his voice neutral. Reaching out to rub his hands in the glow of fire warmth and avoiding her gaze.

  “Frankie said you’re always signing up for extra work, taking jobs at local farms on the weekends, but you never buy anything—and still never have a nickel to your name.” Lia ran a finger over her cracked lower lip, which had begun to heal slightly.

  Justin’s shoulders jumped in unexpected laughter. “That sounds like somethin’ Frankie would say.” He shook his head, picking uncomfortably at a blue-black fingernail he’d smashed with a hammer
awhile back.

  Lia leaned closer, fingering a strand of hair. “And every time the money comes in, we meet Margaret at the market. Like her money comes in around the same time ours does.” She watched the fire, waving away smoke. “I thought I saw Beanie once, on the road from our house to yours, right after we found the money—but I never knew for sure.” She looked up at him. “Is it you, Justin?”

  He picked at his thumb a few more minutes, his forehead creasing into a deep line. “I reckon that’s why there’s a fifth amendment in the Constitution, Lia,” he finally said, keeping his eyes down. “Can you do me a favor and not ask me so many questions? No offense, but I’d really rather not talk about it. Please.”

  Lia seemed to understand, and she brushed her hair back with her fingers, nodding. A snowflake streaking past her face and another landing in her hair.

  Justin hesitated then brushed the snowflake out of her messy curls. Then he wrapped his arms around his knees, suddenly shy. “As long as your folks are doin’ all right, your mom and sis especially, then I’m happy. There’s nothin’ more to say.”

  “What did you do to your thumb?” She reached abruptly over his arm and ran her finger across the bruised thumbnail.

  “Ah. Nothin’.” Justin shrugged in embarrassment, suddenly self-conscious at the sensation of her tender touch, light as it might have been. “Nothin’ that won’t heal up in a month or two.”

  “It’s funny how even the worst injuries eventually heal,” she said in soft tones. “Even when we think they won’t.”

  Justin caught his misty breath, raising his eyes to her. “But my thumb ain’t … ain’t the same as it used to be. Won’t ever be again.” He ran his hand over the lines on his jaw, heart thumping in his throat.

  “We’re all scarred, Justin. Every single one of us.” Lia met his gaze. “And we won’t be new until eternity. But we can choose to go on living or give up. God can give us a new life.”

  He didn’t trust his voice to speak. Wondering, in a wild flail of his heartbeat, if she meant “us” as collective humanity or a different “us.”

  Whichever way Lia meant it, she didn’t explain. She simply squeezed his wrist lightly and then withdrew her hand, pulling the blanket around her and turning back to the fire.

  Leaning ever so slightly against the curve of his arm.

  “Did you hear that, Fairbanks?” Frankie whirled around. “Is my brain playin’ tricks on me, or was that somebody hollerin’?”

  Justin skidded to a stop in the snowy ground, holding his breath. A noisy blue jay rattled a branch overhead, sifting down a shower of snow.

  “I heard something, too.” Mrs. Parker stopped, her arm tight around Lia’s waist in support. She turned wire-rimmed glasses, frosty with condensation, toward the sound.

  Justin glanced at the direction she’d looked—the trail—and felt his heart leap up in hope. “Holler, everybody!” He cupped his hands around his mouth.

  And they all yelled together—even Mr. Parker—startling a flock of grosbeaks from a nearby tree. Wings flapped and snow tumbled. Spruce boughs quivered then slowly swayed to a stop.

  And then: a chorus of shouts, echoing off snowy hillsides. Ringing against the rocky slopes of the mountain like the most beautiful sound Justin had ever heard.

  The first person Justin saw when the rescue crew from Camp Fremont dug their way through boulders and snowdrifts was Ernie Sadler—a wool cap pulled over his head and an anxious look on his cold-red face.

  “Good lands, Fairbanks!” Ernie yelled, nearly knocking Justin over with his pounding hug. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

  Guys swarmed around him with whoops and shouts, slapping hands. Three of them took Mr. Parker’s stretcher, passing him a canteen of hot coffee.

  Justin laughed and smacked him with his cap. “Not as glad as I am.”

  Ernie shook Justin’s shoulder, his nose flushed with cold and eyes wild with excitement. “You scared the spit outta me! Why, you’d all be frozen as solid as penguins if we hadn’t found that note on the Parkers’ car.”

  “You found my note?”

  “Sure I did. When you didn’t show up at the mess for dinner Saturday I got kinda worried, and nobody saw ya all day today—or Frankie either. I called the other guys to check it out, and somebody said they’d spotted that snazzy Ford over by the lake.” Ernie rubbed Justin’s head. “I know you’re dumb, Fairbanks, but I didn’t know you were dumb enough to go up after Frankie by yourself in a freak blizzard!”

  “Hey. I asked for help.” Justin shivered as Ernie opened another canteen of coffee and pressed it, warm and steaming, into his hands.

  Justin pushed away the canteen. “Naw. Give it to the gals. They’ve been up here longer than I have.”

  “There’s plenty for everybody. Cook sent up sandwiches, too—pretty awful ones, mind you.” Ernie broke off in a laugh, shaking his head as one of the men barked orders to the others. He pulled off Lia’s twig splint and wrapped her ankle in a sturdy cotton bandage, and someone else opened wool blankets.

  “Shucks, the whole camp’s been in a tizzy since you guys disappeared,” said Ernie as they headed back down the mountain, glancing up over the ridge at the sky. Probably worried about more snow. He paused to navigate his way down an icy rock formation, reaching out to help Cynthia. He needn’t have; Cynthia already had three guys swarming around her like bees on honey.

  Ernie spoke close to Justin’s ear. “Tell you what. Soon as we get back to camp, I’m gonna knock Frankie White’s lights out. The dummy.” He snorted in disgust. “He’s got it comin’ to him, and ain’t nobody gonna tell me otherwise.” He turned to Justin in a low whisper. “You with me?”

  Justin hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at Frankie, who was helping Mrs. Parker down an incline. His arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. Those silly loafers flapped open, showing threadbare socks.

  “I think you oughtta go easy on him.” Justin unscrewed the canteen and sipped hot coffee, burning his tongue. Warmth swirled inside him, delirious, and he almost forgot his next words. “Really. The poor kid’s all shook up.”

  Ernie stopped dead still, and the two guys behind him almost knocked into him from behind. “You gotta be joking.”

  Justin shrugged and lifted the canteen again. “He’s an all-right kid, Ernie. Just gets a little turned around sometimes, ya know? But I think he learned his lesson.” His eyes softened, remembering his hand on the top of Frankie’s head. “I think he’s gonna straighten some things out.”

  Ernie stared at Justin. “You nuts? You got hypothermia or somethin’?” His eyes didn’t smile.

  “No, but Mr. Parker might have it. He couldn’t stop shivering. And maybe Lia, too. You’ve gotta take care of her.”

  Lia. Justin’s heart caught a bit, and he swiveled around to see her there as two men from the camp boosted her up in a makeshift seat. The color had returned to her cheeks as she sipped a canteen of hot coffee, the steam rising up in front of her face like a sheer wedding veil. Her downturned eyes lifting briefly to his.

  “She’ll be all right.” Ernie slapped Justin’s arm. He opened his mouth with a slight smile as if he wanted to make a joke and then thought better of it. “You’ll be all right, too. Even that doggone Frankie White, if he lives through the night. I’m thinkin’ ice in his bed though, at least. If he ain’t seen enough of it since yesterday.”

  Faint snow dusted the ground at the entrance of the camp as the rescue party tromped back through the trees, sending up shouts of victory. Cheers echoed through the camp buildings and into the calm, gray evening—overcast but without the blustery wind that had tormented them up on the ridge.

  Justin remembered the first time he’d seen Camp Fremont. He’d been a green recruit then, just off the train and mind spinning with heady independence and near intoxication of being far—farther than he’d ever imagined—from Berea, Kentucky.

  He’d wanted to sink to his knees in reverence and give thanks to someone�
��God, perhaps—even all those months ago before he knew Him. Before he prayed for that same God to forgive his sins and change his life.

  But now, here on a misty afternoon and all the lupines dark, the sparrows and juncos silent under scudding clouds, Justin felt like he’d never seen anything more beautiful. He wanted to weep at the sight of the flag on its flagpole, at the long log buildings that housed classrooms and bunks and horrible chow.

  “Doc’s waitin’ for ya.” Ernie pushed Justin ahead. “Anything you need, just tell me, and we’ll bring it, okay? Soon as Doc checks ya out, Cook’s got a hot meal waitin’ for ya.”

  “What did he make?” Justin half closed his eyes, prodding his empty stomach to go a few minutes longer by imagining.

  “Dunno. Reckon it’s that rotten meatloaf like the rest of us had for lunch.”

  Meatloaf. The oily, grainy one with half-raw onions and skimpy on the salt. Baked as hard as a brick and with a funny burned aftertaste.

  And for the first time Justin could remember on meatloaf day, his mouth watered in ravenous pleasure.

  “Justin Fairbanks. You alive?” Lieutenant Lytle strode across the cold grass in his uniform toward the infirmary building, his craggy face a mixture of relief and rage.

  “Yes sir.” Justin drew himself up tall. Inside Doc was taking a look at Frankie, while two local doctors called in on emergency treated the others—namely, Mr. Parker. Justin had waited until the end to hear how they’d fared. After all, what did he really need Doc for? He was warm now, and his stomach would be filled shortly.

  Why, if it weren’t for some scratches and those numb toes, Justin hardly knew he’d crawled up a mountain in a storm.

  “Then I want to talk to you. Immediately.” The lieutenant gestured with his head toward his office, doing an immediate about-face and leaving Justin standing there. His shoulders rigid with what Justin guessed was rightful fury over having his explicit orders disobeyed—nearly resulting in the deaths of five people. Four of them guests, and three of them women.