Dusting off her hands, Olivia smiled. “Oh, sure, hon. I’ve kept you long enough.”
“Thanks.”
Robin hurried into her outer layer of cold-weather gear, but as soon as she got into the car, she tugged off her gloves and put in a call on her cell phone. As usual, she got her father’s voice mail, so she left a message.
“Dad, I need a favor, and I need it ASAP. That state-of-the-art software you’ve had installed, will it cross-reference addresses? If so, I need to find two women who live at the same address in the Los Angeles, California, area. Their names are Molly Johnson and Colleen Connaught. You’ll have to try every spelling of the second name. And please, get back to me as quickly as you can, but not on this phone. Call the inn. Thanks. I owe you.” She couldn’t take a chance that he’d call while she was with Ethan and ruin the surprise she was planning. Besides, if this didn’t work, she didn’t want to get Ethan’s hopes up for nothing.
Back at the inn, she set about garbing herself for the dress rehearsal. The long dress with its high neckline, gathered skirt and long sleeves was not actually wool so wouldn’t scratch, but she wore a black leotard under it anyway. The bodysuit gave her added warmth and doubled for stockings. Over the dress went the knee-length white smock with its gigantic floppy red bow. She twisted her hair into an adequate knot, being sure to cover her ears, and wore her plainest pumps. She’d hoped to borrow a pair of historically accurate shoes from the museum, but women of that era had proved to have ridiculously tiny feet, at least those whose shoes they had acquired anyway.
She was in the process of fixing holly in her hair when the phone in her room rang. Dropping everything into the sink, she ran to answer. It was not her father but a Templeton foundation research fellow named Abel Goodenour.
Abel spoke with a slight German accent when he said, “Greetings, Ms. Frazier. Your father has instructed me to call you with the following findings.”
He went on to tell her that a Molly Johnson and a Colleen Connaught lived at a certain address in Valinda, California. He gave her the address and three phone numbers, all of which she wrote down.
“Thank you, Mr. Goodenour.”
“Dr. Goodenour,” he corrected her.
“Thank you, Dr. Goodenour,” she corrected, determinedly not rolling her eyes. “I appreciate the information very much.”
He rang off with a terse “Goodbye.”
Robin could hardly contain her excitement. Perhaps soon she could speak to Ethan’s sister. She wouldn’t expect too much. It would be enough if Colleen would just call Ethan to wish him a merry Christmas. That and the truth were all Robin had to give him.
*
Everyone looked great. Ethan couldn’t have been more pleased with the costumes. Unfortunately, the rehearsal could only be described as disastrous. The donkey stepped on an angel’s foot, which, thankfully, did not appear to be broken despite copious tears. A sheep ran amok, much to the screaming delight of the children. The chicken tried to roost in the Christmas tree in the vestibule, which toppled and had to be put back into place. The shepherd with the rope decided to practice lassoing everyone and everything as soon as his mom was called away by the babysitter to pick up his sister, who was suspected of having a stomach virus.
“That’s all we need,” Chauncey Hardman exclaimed, sure that the stomach virus would run rampant through the cast and church by Christmas.
Feeling defeated, Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose, gathered everyone for prayer, then sent them all home. They knew what to do and when to do it. More practice was not going to change anything for the better; it was just going to frustrate those who took this seriously, himself included, and give more opportunity to those tending toward mischief.
The Shaws helped move the altar and pulpit to places down in front of the stage set for the next day’s service. Ethan hoped that seeing the set on Sunday morning would encourage everyone to return for the Christmas Eve program, but he felt discouraged about the whole venture, or perhaps he just felt discouraged in general.
The euphoria over roping the bells that morning had vanished with Robin’s eagerness to get away from him. She had as much as admitted that his concerns about her family approving of him were merited. Worse, she’d intimated that her secrets were more dire than he had anticipated. How they could be worse than his own, however, he could not imagine.
Nevertheless, her fear of the truth made him fear it, not that he would shrink from it—or so he told himself until he realized that, for once, Robin did not have to be coaxed to stay behind when the others left. He just looked around as he was turning off lights and there she sat, a lone figure in a black leotard, a great green cardigan that swallowed her from neck to knees and an incongruous pair of brown pumps, her costume in a plastic bag that draped, clothes hanger down, over the back of the pew beside her.
Something in the way she sat there watching him put his senses on alert and turned his stomach into a jumble. They’d hardly had a chance to speak at all that evening, but now that he thought about it, he realized that she’d been unusually quiet and thoughtful, even for her.
He’d gotten all the lights in the sanctuary except one. That left just the light in the vestibule and a light behind the set, which he’d intended to switch off after checking the side doors. Despite the golden glow of the windows from the light poles on either side of the building, large rectangular shadows reached across the pews, meeting in the center aisle and banding the great hall in thick stripes of black.
She sat calmly in a wash of muddy gold light, waiting for him to come to her. He’d left his own smock and bow on a hanger draped over his reading stool but wore his tweed pants, white shirt and suspenders with an old pair of black lace-up dress shoes. He’d parted his hair in the middle like the parson in the old photo and slicked it down with water, but it wouldn’t stay in place.
“I have some styling gel you can use,” she told him as he nervously attempted to right the mess his hair had no doubt become, sliding his hands through it.
“Rusty told me to oil it.”
“Rusty would probably know,” she said with a nod. “He knows a lot. For instance, he knows all my secrets.”
Ethan felt as if he’d been felled with an ax. He practically toppled into the pew beside her. “What does Rusty know?”
“First, you need to understand that I didn’t tell him,” she said urgently. “He guessed, and, well, he’s part of it, in a way.”
Confused, Ethan glanced around the shadowed space, taking in the jumbled set, the altar and the pulpit. “I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It’s just… We came here about the same time, you and I, and you’re keeping secrets with one of the town’s most respected citizens, while I feel I’ve barely made a start.”
“But it’s a good start.”
“Is it?” he asked. “The truth is, I’m not much of a minister. I have my own secrets that you know nothing about. Why, my own sister won’t speak to me.”
“She’ll come around.”
“I can’t see my own niece.”
“You will.”
“My father is in prison.”
“Not because of anything you’ve done, and you were able to reach him, turn him to God.”
“I can’t take credit for that. Prison is a mighty influence on a man.”
“But you didn’t give up on him,” she argued.
“How could I?” he asked. “God didn’t give up on me. I just don’t know if I’m living up to His expectations, His purpose for me.”
She clasped both of his hands in hers, saying urgently, “Now, you listen to me. You’re making a difference here in this valley, Ethan Johnson.”
He wanted to believe that, and he blessed her for saying so, but he had to wonder.
“Am I? Am I really? Then why don’t you trust me enough to tell me your secrets?”
“I do.” She bit her lip. “I just don’t want you to think less of me.”
Letting go of her hands, he smoothed
the hair around her face, saying, “I think the world and all of you, Robin Frazier, more than I want to, to tell you the bald truth. But I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s bothering you.”
Sighing, she slumped against the pew and closed her eyes. Ethan let his hands fall away, but then she straightened and swiveled to face him, her knees bumping his.
“You can’t help me,” she said, “but I’ll tell you. It all started when my great-grandmother was dying. Everyone expected it. She was one hundred and three years old, but we were very close, she and I. She wasn’t gone yet, and I was already missing her, so she told me what no one had ever suspected, that her name wasn’t really Lillian. It was Lucy. Lucy Shaw.”
Ethan blinked at that, sure he’d misheard. “I thought you said Lucy Shaw. But that wouldn’t be possible. Lucy Shaw…”
The implications slowly dawned on him.
“She didn’t die when Ezra’s Model T went off the bridge,” Robin confirmed.
“That is wild!”
“She faked her death. So she could marry my great-grandpa Cyrus.”
Ethan had a difficult time getting his teeth to meet. “Faked her death.”
“Ezra wanted her to marry someone else. Rusty thinks it was to save the bank after Silas Massey left town.”
“Rusty thinks?”
“He was there that night when they faked the accident, and he’s kept her secret all these years.”
Astonished, Ethan leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hands over his face, trying to wrap his mind around this information. “Lucy didn’t die, and Rusty has known it all along. She was your great-grandmother and told you all this on her deathbed, so…” He sat up straight. “You’re kin to the Shaws.”
Robin grimaced. “That’s why I’m here. Great-Grandma wanted me to connect with my Montana family, but my parents thought it was all a hallucination on her part, and by the time I could prove she’d been telling the truth, I’d been here long enough to realize that the Shaws wouldn’t take kindly to this information or my delay in bringing it to light. I mean, they are sort of the first family around Jasper Gulch. To them, I would be just a hanger-on trying to worm my way into the family for some nefarious reason.”
“But you’re a Templeton on your mother’s side,” Ethan pointed out, “and my impression is that the Templetons can hold their own with the Shaws status-wise. Perhaps even eclipse them.”
“Well, my mother certainly thinks so, and that’s part of the problem. I’ve been befriended for my connections with the Templetons enough to know how unwelcome hangers-on can be, and when you add in the Masseys and the gold…”
Ethan shook his head. “The Masseys I get, sort of, with Faith marrying into that family and them being ridiculously wealthy, but what’s this about gold?”
Robin rose, turned and leaned back against the pew behind her. “Rusty claims that Lucy told him the time capsule contained a fortune in gold meant for the heirs of the Shaws and the Masseys.”
Ethan blew out a long breath, then, sitting back and crossing his arms, he considered. “But when the time capsule turned up, it only contained historical documents and old photos and mementos.”
“Exactly.”
“So you think whoever stole the time capsule took it for the gold.”
“And that had to be someone who knew about the gold.”
“Hmm. Well, that probably means one of the Masseys or the Shaws, and that most likely means…” Ethan looked up suddenly. “You think Jackson Shaw took that gold!”
“Rusty does,” Robin confirmed, “and it makes sense. Jackson could have taken it either to try to prevent the bridge from reopening or to keep the Masseys from getting their share of it because Silas did actually loot the bank before he left town, and the Shaws had to make good for that.”
“Or for both reasons,” Ethan mused.
“So you see why I’m reluctant now to tell the Shaws that we’re related.”
“You’re afraid they’ll think you’re just after your share of the gold.”
“Wouldn’t you think so?”
“Not after I got to know you, and they all know you by now, Robin.”
“Jackson doesn’t! Not really. None of them do. They just think they do, but when they find out that I haven’t been honest with them, you can see what conclusions they’ll draw.”
Ethan spread his hands. “Look, you don’t know that Jackson took the gold. It could have been Pete Daniels like everyone suspects. Or someone no one suspects. And even if you’re right about Jackson, you could just refuse any part of the gold.”
“I can’t do that! I’m not supposed to even know about the gold. No one is.”
Ethan threw up his hands. “What a mess!”
“I know,” Robin agreed, “and the worst part is that if Jackson believes I’m trying to horn in on the gold, he might decide to force me out of town.”
Ethan shot to his feet. “Now, wait a minute.”
“He could. You know he could.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Ethan promised. “I know he’s used to getting his own way, and he has lots of influence around here, but he can be reasoned with. I’ve had plenty of dealings with him already, and I—”
“No.” She put out an unsteady hand, saying, “If he can do it to me, he can do it to you, too.”
Ethan felt as if a shaft of sunlight had pierced his chest. “You sweetheart. You said it, but I didn’t understand. That’s why you didn’t want to tell me. You’re trying to protect me!”
She blinked rapidly, her hand sneaking up to press a fingertip against that little spot beneath her eyebrow. “Mostly I was afraid you’d be disappointed in me,” she confessed.
“Disappointed?”
“I lied. All these months, I’ve been living a lie. I didn’t come to town to write about genealogy. I came to prove my great-grandmother’s story and meet my Montana family.”
“And you thought I’d condemn you for that? How could I possibly when everything you’ve done has shown me that you’re the dearest, sweetest, kindest, most caring, generous—”
She lurched forward and kissed him, pressing her lips to his. He slid his hands around the slender curve of her waist, smiling against her lips and feeling her arms creep around him.
Breaking the kiss, he rocked her gently side to side and laid his nose against hers, whispering, “We are a pair, you and I, with our secrets and our fears.”
“I’m so glad I told you,” she said, “but it doesn’t change anything, you know.”
“Oh, but it does,” he told her. “The truth always changes us, Robin. The Bible says it sets us free. Of our fears, if nothing else.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” she agreed, pulling away to trail a hand over the back of the pew in front of them, “but I can’t see any way for this to end with me staying in Jasper Gulch.”
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded.
“It’s true, though, Ethan,” she argued. “I’ve thought and thought, and I’ve prayed and prayed, and no matter how I look at this, I don’t see Jackson Shaw welcoming me into the family. I don’t have the kind of proof that would stand up in a court of law, and I’m afraid that’s what it would take for him.”
Ethan couldn’t dispute that. “He’s a proud man but a Christian.”
“His family is more important to him than even this town,” Robin pointed out, “and he’s been mayor here practically his whole adult life.”
“But you’re not a threat to his family.”
“Ethan, he’s fought against reopening the bridge all these years because he believes Lucy died going off it in a car accident. Do you really believe he’ll consider my story as anything other than a threat to the very fabric of the family history? My delay in coming forward and the gold just give him more reason to believe that.”
“So what do you propose to do?” Ethan wanted to know. “Live with the lie? I can tell you from experience that it isn’t easy to do.”
“Or they could believe you,” Ethan proposed hopefully.
“You know that isn’t likely.”
“Say they don’t believe you, then,” he pressed. “That doesn’t mean you have to go. I agree that Jackson might try to force you out if only to quash your story, but that doesn’t mean he will or that he can. Stand your ground. Tell them the truth, then stay and fight for it. Rusty will back you. You know he will.”
“And what about you?” she asked, smiling softly. “Will you stand with me, Ethan?”
He clasped her hand in his. “Of course I will! It goes without saying.”
To his dismay, she pulled free. “All the more reason to go. I won’t let Jackson hurt you. I know how much you love it here. You told me that day up at Gazebo. Remember?”
He remembered, and he wished he could have the words back now.
“That’s not important.”
“Of course it is. I’m not so worried about Rusty. What can Jackson really take from Rusty? But you…you could lose your pastorate over this and have to leave Jasper Gulch. I won’t let you lose your church and your home, not because of me.”
She pushed past him into the aisle, snagged her costume by the hanger and started for the door. He could see that it wouldn’t do any good to argue with her about this, not now, but he couldn’t let her go just yet, either.
“Robin, wait!” he called, hurrying to catch up to her. “I haven’t thanked you.”
“For what?” she asked, letting him turn her to face him.
“For trusting me with your secret. It means more to me than you know.”
Smiling, she lifted a hand to his cheek. “Good night, Ethan, and merry Christmas.”
He looped his arms around her and pulled her in for a hug, laying his cheek against her crown. “Merry Christmas. Don’t give up hope. I’ll be praying about this whole matter.”
Love Inspired December 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Rancher for ChristmasHer Montana ChristmasAn Amish Christmas JourneyYuletide Baby Page 13