Daring to Start Again: An Inspirational Historical Romance Book

by Grace Clemens

  It seemed to her he was the type to have read the letters. At least she hadn’t said anything bad about him or her brothers. Her lie had saved her from whatever she might have told Bobby about them that could come back and haunt her.

  But did Bobby care enough to forgive her for her lies?

  “I’m done with the kind of life you lead, Bruce,” she said, emphasizing his name so he would get the point that she truly was done. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “You can prove that by giving me the money I ask for so me and your brothers can head West.”

  Sarah thought about it for a moment. She knew her father was blackmailing her. If she gave him money, him knowing where and how she was living, he would come back for more. Again and again, she was sure. And, unless she told Bobby everything, she would have to come up with all kind of lies to cover up what she was doing. She might even end up stealing from her own husband.

  She wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “Where are Bart and Danny?” she asked, looking over her father’s shoulder down the road. “They didn’t come with you, did they?”

  Bruce snickered. “They’re in town. Maybe they’ll run into your husband. Let him know what’s up. Get some money out of him. However they have to.”

  Fear slipped into Sarah’s heart. For so long, she’d hoped her brothers would grow to understand how awful her father and his criminal lifestyle were. How she wished they had changed. How she wished they had come with Bruce to keep him from causing harm.

  “They won’t hurt my husband,” Sarah said with confidence. “He’s a strong man with a lot of friends. Especially in town.”

  “If you don’t want anything to happen to him or that pretty little girl” Bruce’s voice was low and threatening. “You will come up with the money. And soon.”

  Sarah ground her teeth. “I don’t have any money to give you. And all of Bobby’s money is going into rebuilding the ranch.”

  Bruce chuckled without humor. His evil eyes narrowed at her. “That’s not what sweet little Samantha said on our nice little walk from the schoolhouse.”

  “You stay away from Sammy,” Sarah said, bravely taking a step toward her father. She had uncrossed her arms and was holding her hands at her sides, fists clenched. There was no way she would win in a fight with him, he would kill her with one punch. But she had to let him know she would fight for the child and for her husband and her new life.

  “I know you have money. Little girl says her papa found a lot of money someone had left for him on the porch. That means he’s got excess what he needs. She very proudly said it was hundreds and hundreds of dollars.”

  Sarah narrowed her eyes, openly trembling with anger. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She wasn’t going to give him any money, either. She’d have to figure out another plan. The fear of Bobby making her return to her father once he found out about her lies created a chaotic battle in her heart. She had to tell him, to avoid her father’s blackmail.

  But she could lose him if she told him.

  “Sammy is a child,” Sarah said. “She doesn’t know the concept of money.”

  Bruce’s chuckle was dark. “Oh, she seems real smart to me. I don’t think any little girl of her age has talked to me like that before.” Sarah’s eyes dropped to his hand when he reached in his pocket and pulled out a necklace. She gave him a confused look.

  “What is that?” she asked, her heart skipping a beat. It looked familiar to her. She had a flashback to when she was very young, perhaps four or five. Her mother had been alive, and her father was happy. She remembered grabbing at the necklace and singing a happy song.

  “I used to love you and your mother,” he said. “At one time, you and her and your brothers were my whole life. But she’s gone now, your brothers want to go off on their own, and you left in the middle of the night.”

  “It was morning when I left,” Sarah said abruptly. It didn’t matter whether she’d left at night or in the morning. She just wanted to prove him wrong about something, no matter how small.

  He shook his head. “Don’t matter. Look at it. Do you remember it?”

  Sarah clenched her jaw, trying not to let her emotions get the better of her. Bruce hadn’t been her father for many years.

  “I remember it. It doesn’t matter. I don’t have any money to give you.”

  He glared at her, breathing harshly through his nose. He let the necklace dangle, the locket on the end open and swirling slowly. She saw two photographs, what had probably been a family portrait, with the faces cut out and attached inside the locket. It was a little girl, obviously her, and a woman who bore a striking resemblance to her. She instantly recognized the face of her mother. Her heart wrenched and she was overcome with a feeling of sorrow she hadn’t felt for the longest time.

  He snatched the locket back and shoved it in his pocket, clicking it shut with a snap.

  “You will get my money. Meet me at the Brook Inn at ten tonight. If you don’t come or you come without money, you aren’t the only one who will pay. Understand that, little girl.”

  He spun on his heel and left Sarah angry and frightened on the porch behind him.

  And when Sarah turned to hurry into the house to calm down, she found herself staring into Sammy’s wide, terrified eyes.

  Chapter 21

  Bobby left Steven at his house with his family, ready to see his two favorite women again. He’d been gone all day and, since the tornado, he’d found himself anxious whenever he was gone from home too long.

  He didn’t know if the way he felt was the result of the storm or something else. He’d felt more protective than ever in the last few days. Chalking it up to the fear left over from the thought of losing his wife and daughter, he calmed himself and was just happy to be heading home.

  The sun would be down in a few hours and he’d be having dinner with his women. He wondered what was for dinner. He hadn’t asked Cookie that question in a long time, he thought to himself, chuckling internally.

  He was halfway home when he saw a stranger turning onto the main road. He pulled his eyebrows together, certain that it was the path to his house the stranger had turned from. This was the third stranger in town, and one of them was at his house?

  Was there somewhere else on that path he could have been coming from?

  The closer he got to the man, the more anxious he felt. When they were close enough, both he and the stranger lifted their hands at the same time. That simple gesture eased his nerves some. The man had a friendly look on his weathered face. He looked like he’d led a hard life.

  “Howdy!” he said when they were closer to each other.

  “Howdy back!” the man replied. “Name’s Mitch McKinney.”

  “Bobby Huggins.” Bobby slowed his horse, aware that he was about to have a conversation. He wondered if he was with the men in town. He could possibly have been their father, judging by his age. They did look somewhat like him. It was a little hard to tell how old McKinney was because of the wrinkles, scars, and other signs of the harsh life he’d been living.

  “Good to meet ya.” McKinney stopped his horse when he and Bobby were side-by-side.

  “Thinkin’ about movin’ to Comstock?” Bobby asked. His mind whirled with possible ways to get information from the man. Should he just ask outright if he was with the men in town? Who he was in relation to them? Why had he just come from the path that led to Bobby’s ranch?

  McKinney looked doubtful. For some reason, Bobby was glad to see it. That meant he probably wasn’t planning on staying long. His chest was tight with apprehension, even though the man’s smile was friendly enough.

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” McKinney replied to the question. “I’m headin’ out to California. You know they got gold down that way and I want me some of that.”

  Bobby grinned, nodding. “I can understand why a man with no ties would want to do that. You takin’ any family with you?” He was proud of himself for bringing that up. He hoped it
would prove fruitful.

  “Yeah, me and my sons. We’re headin’ out that way to see what we can find out in them hills. I bet there’s plenty of gold for everyone out there. People just gotta try to find it.”

  Bobby nodded again. “It’s all people are talkin’ about right now, I know. I hear something about it every day. Always something in the newspaper about it.”

  “Well, I’m aimin’ to make that me and my boys in there. Maybe someday you’ll see me on that front page of your Times.”

  Bobby chuckled. “Called the Inquisitor, actually,” he said, his voice amused.

  McKinney shrugged. “Yeah, that. I only been here a day, so I don’t know.”

  “You staying in town?”

  McKinney nodded, his eyes moving instinctively over Bobby’s shoulder down the road. “Yeah, but I think I’m lost. I don’t know if this is the road to take me back there or not. I gotta turn off anywhere?”

  Bobby shook his head, adjusting his body in his saddle so he could look over his shoulder. “Nah, this is the right road. Plenty of people taking it these days, it goes from one side of Oklahoma to the other.”

  McKinney’s eyebrows shot up. “It goes that long? All the way?”

  Bobby nodded. “Ya didn’t know that?”

  McKinney gave him a strange look that he couldn’t decipher. His tone was awkward when he said, “Nah, didn’t. But that’s good to know.”

  “Don’t you have a map?”

  “The boys have one, but I don’t think it’s new. Probably been wandering all over without a clue we could be going a lot faster. No matter. We had to come through this way, anyway.”

  “Oh?”

  “There’s a lot of people coming to Comstock recently?”

  Bobby felt a jolt of confusion. The man had said something strange and had avoided explaining himself by abruptly changing the subject. He wanted to know why the stranger had to come through Comstock. Something was off about McKinney. But he wasn’t a lawman and couldn’t just ask outright why McKinney was in his town. Even if he did ask or was a lawman, that didn’t mean McKinney would tell him the truth. He had a feeling the man could easily lie and get away with it.

  “Yeah, lots of people going West. Not just to California for the gold, though. Expansion, I reckon. People want to find new land to live on.”

  McKinney nodded, leaning forward so one forearm rested on his saddle horn. “I ain’t ashamed to say I hope not many of ‘em went there for the gold. More for me and my boys.” He grinned, but Bobby had lost the friendly feeling he’d had for the man.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  The sun would soon be dipping behind the mountains. Bobby wanted to go home and check on Sarah and Sammy, but he needed to find out more about McKinney so he could feel safe. What if the man and his sons came to his ranch? Again?

  McKinney had clearly been to his ranch. Sarah would tell him why, if she knew.

  Maybe the stranger was watching his house. Watching his women.

  Why would he be doing that? What was his reason for being on the road to Bobby’s ranch?

  “I can understand that,” Bobby said, nodding. “So, tell me, you got a firm destination? You know where you’re gonna settle?”

  McKinney turned his eyes down the road, seeming to get lost in thought. “Not yet. We’ll find a good spot when we get there.”

  Bobby decided to launch into another topic to see if he could dig some more information out of the man without looking like he was prying. Prying could get a man shot.

  “You know, I think I might have met your sons in town.”

  McKinney’s reaction was strange. His eyes narrowed and he suddenly looked confrontational. When he replied, “Oh?” it sounded like he didn’t approve.

  “Yeah. They were coming out of the saloon. Causing a bit of a ruckus, I must say.”

  McKinney continued to look defensive. “How’s that? How you know it was my boys? They don’t usually cause no trouble.”

  Bobby shrugged. “It turned out okay. One of them, I guess his name was Danny—didn’t catch a last name or the name of your other boy, if that was them. Danny won a poker game against one of the locals and the man got upset. There was a bit of a brawl but the sheriff and deputies broke it up.”

  Bobby was amazed by the range of emotions that passed over McKinney’s face while he was talking. He looked wary, then disdainful, then maybe a little afraid when Bobby mentioned the sheriff and deputies.

  “You don’t gotta worry, though,” he hurried to say. “The sheriff didn’t take your boys away. They weren’t the ones who did anything wrong. All they did was win a poker hand.”

  Now McKinney looked relieved, his shoulders relaxing.

  “Well, that’s good to hear then,” he said.

  Bobby wondered why McKinney didn’t confirm that it was his sons.

  “Do you have a son named Danny?” he prompted an answer.

  McKinney nodded. “Yeah, that’s my boy, and his brother, Bart. Strong boys.” Bobby didn’t think he sounded very proud. He sounded possessive. “Glad they didn’t get in trouble.”

  “Do they usually?” He remembered how Danny had given Tom his money back and wondered if he’d been mistaken about McKinney. If his son was generous enough to give back his winnings plus some, he had to have learned that from somewhere. And the best place would be his father, considering it was obvious their mother wasn’t in the picture anymore.

  The thought made him a little sad. McKinney had gone through the same thing he had, losing his wife after having children with her. He wondered if she’d met a tragic end, if their family had been close, and if it had affected McKinney a lot. His own situation was different. Losing Rebecca had been sad and tragic, but she wasn’t the love of Bobby’s life. He was quickly realizing that spot belonged to Sarah and Sarah alone.

  McKinney’s eyes were narrow again when he answered. “They’ve gotten in their fair share of trouble. But they’re usually good boys. Never been in jail or anything like that.”

  Bobby was glad to hear that, but he wondered if McKinney could be trusted.

  “Your boy, Danny, gave his winnings back when he saw how much it affected Tom. Tom’s my neighbor, married to a woman who is about to have their second child. He has a few bad habits but he’s an overall gentleman. To see your boy give the money back like that was really somethin’. Gonna remember that for a while. Never seen anyone do that.”

  McKinney was quiet for a moment. Bobby was sure he’d seen a look of rage cross the old man’s face. He spoke in a low growl. “What do you mean, he gave his winnings back?”

  Bobby lifted his eyebrows. “It was the right thing to do. Tom’s not a bad man, he just got drunk and made a mistake. Your son said he didn’t need it, that he had plenty of money.”

  McKinney snorted, shaking his head. “That boy doesn’t know plenty of money from spit.” He kept his voice low. “But I guess you’re right. It was a nice thing for him to do. Hope this Tom fellow puts it to good use.”

  Bobby nodded. “I’m sure he will. He’s got plans to get his wife a present. Make things easier for her.”

  “He shoulda thought of that before he started gamblin’,” McKinney said under his breath, turning his face away from Bobby. Bobby didn’t know if the man intended him to hear his words, but he did regardless.

  His suspicion of the man was stirred in his chest once again.