Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family]

by Keep a Little Secret

  “Is something the matter?” she asked when he had reached her side.

  “Why would there be?” He smiled slyly.

  “It’s just that I wouldn’t have expected to see you here,” Charlotte explained. “You usually make me walk home.”

  “Today’s special.”

  “Really?”

  “I thought… I thought that maybe you might like to come somewhere with me,” he managed. “There’s a place that I found when I first arrived from Colorado, a bit outside of town and near the river, that I wanted to show you. I was hoping that we could talk… talk about the other night…”

  “About our kiss?”

  “Among other things, I reckon.”

  “Won’t Hannah be angry that we’ve left her in Sawyer?”

  “It’s already taken care of.”

  Owen could see that Charlotte was pretending to think his offer over, teasing him a little, but he already knew she was going to accept.

  “All right.” She nodded. “I’ll go.”

  “Right this way.” He smiled, taking off his hat and waving it toward the truck, heat shimmering off its metal body.

  As they drove off, Charlotte waved at Constance Lowell, who was still rambling to herself in front of the funeral parlor.

  Charlotte felt a tremor of nervous excitement as Owen drove the truck past the school and headed out of town. She had never been in that direction; her route from the ranch led through town and stopped at the school, never farther. Today would be different. With a cool breeze rushing in through her open window, they passed the last house on the outskirts and kept on going.

  For a little while they drove parallel to the railroad tracks, traveling in reverse of the route Charlotte had taken when she had first come to Sawyer. She remembered a fenced-in herd of cattle here, a formation of rock there. But then the road turned away and Owen drove them down into a depression where the sparse wild grasses stood still unmoved by the wind.

  “It’s not far,” Owen assured her, his tone casual, his hand lolling out the window.

  “You’re not going to tell me what it is you’re taking me to see?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  Even though she didn’t know where they were going, Charlotte felt glad to be traveling there all the same. Her day at school had been difficult; another uncomfortable exchange with Paige Spratt about the benefits of wholesome, married life had been followed by an afternoon spent with rambunctious kids who were sick of being cooped up in the heat. Well, so was she.

  She was glad to be with Owen…

  “I hate to admit it, especially to you,” he said, breaking their shared silence, “but I’m impressed, Charlie.”

  “With what?”

  “With you being a teacher,” Owen explained, taking a quick glance at her as he guided the truck along a curve in the road. “It takes an awful lot of guts, something special, to get up there in front of a classroom and try to teach a bunch of kids. Heck, I don’t think I have it in me.” He laughed. “About the first time someone gave me any guff, I’d light into them in such a way that I’d be certain to get fired.”

  “It’s not that hard. I’m more impressed with what you do.”

  “Driving you back and forth to the ranch?”

  “No, not that.” She laughed. “With how you work with the horses.”

  “There’s nothing to it. All you need to do is learn their language.”

  “It’s not any different with children.”

  Owen shook his head. “I’ve seen the way they act up. They’re more stubborn than any horse I’ve ever met.”

  “Remind yourself about that the next time one of your favorites doesn’t want to get into its stall for the night.”

  “You might have a point there,” he replied, and they both laughed.

  The road gently dipped and rose before them until turning to the right beside a lonely stand of trees that stood silently watching, one of them leaning so far to the right that it looked to be giving them directions.

  “Here it is,” Owen said.

  Charlotte’s eyes widened in wonder. The road had come to a sudden end, vanishing into a broad watering hole. Brilliant rays of sunlight, a kaleidoscope of color, reflected off the surface as if it were made of glass. Along the shoreline, thin reeds broke through the water, reaching for the crystal blue sky above. A swallow drifted a few inches above the surface before it suddenly darted down to snatch an unwary bug for its meal. Charlotte was surprised and delighted by what Owen had introduced to her. She got out of the truck, leaving the door open behind her.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said when Owen joined her. “How did you find it?”

  “Whenever I arrive somewhere new,” Owen explained, “I like to look around to get the lay of the land, so when I dropped Hannah at the lawyer’s office, I’d go exploring to see what there was to see. I’ve taken every road out of town for miles, hoping all the while that no one will notice how much gas I’ve been using.” He laughed. “I found this place by accident.”

  “Maybe it was meant to be.”

  “I don’t know if I believe in that sort of thing.” Owen shrugged. “But I’m glad to have found it nonetheless.”

  Owen led Charlotte around the edge of the water, a startled frog jumping in as they approached. He held out his hand to steady her when they climbed a difficult rise. Farther ahead, under the shade of a lone tree, an outcropping hung out over the water. The view was magnificent. Wiping her brow in the heat, Charlotte had an urge to jump in and cool down, which made her laugh. Owen spread out a horse blanket he had brought along. From somewhere, he produced a couple of apples.

  “It isn’t much, but it was all I could scrounge.”

  “It’s more than enough.”

  For a while, they were both content to just look, enjoying each other’s silent company. A clump of daisies grew nearby; Charlotte plucked at their delicate white petals, letting the faint breeze pick them up and whirl them down to the water below. Owen absently skipped small stones across the water, counting the loud kerplunks of their journey on the pond.

  “This makes me a bit homesick,” Charlotte said wistfully.

  “I didn’t bring you here to make you sad.”

  “And here I thought that was exactly why you brought me.” She looked at him with a teasing frown. “But I grew up on a lake in Minnesota and I guess I just didn’t know how much I missed it until now.”

  “There were plenty of lakes in Colorado, too, but I don’t miss any of them.”

  “What was it like?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “What was what like?”

  “Growing up in Colorado. Aren’t there things you miss about it, about your childhood?”

  Owen’s mood darkened; the change was so marked and sudden that it took Charlotte aback, but she wanted to know all about him, to understand him.

  “There isn’t much of my childhood that I miss,” he finally answered, his voice as sad as the limp breeze.

  “Because of your mother’s death?” Charlotte prodded.

  Charlotte felt Owen begin to close up, to erect the walls he relied upon to block out all that was unpleasant. She could only imagine how often he had resorted to that tactic, but it was obvious that he’d had a lot of practice. But then his eyes found hers and held, softening as a low sigh of resignation escaped his lips. She knew then that their kiss had changed him, at least toward her, allowing him to open himself, if only a crack.

  “My mother was a wonderful woman,” he began, his eyes somewhere distant, “kind and caring, always ready with an encouraging word. She liked to sing, to struggle at the stove, and insisted that I get a proper schooling. I thought she was beautiful, in the way that most sons regard their mothers, but others also thought her pretty. I never knew her to speak ill of anyone, even when they deserved it. Through all of that, she was resigned to keep burdens to herself. I’ve no doubt that was what killed her.”

  “It was the same with my mother.”
Charlotte nodded. “Her crosses became too great for her to bear.”

  “I am sorry, Charlotte.”

  She couldn’t suppress a smile at his using her real name. “I wish I could talk to her, if only for a minute.”

  “I’m sure you would have plenty to say.”

  “Much more than a minute, I suppose,” she agreed.

  “Even though I had years to talk to my mother, I don’t know if I ever said all I wanted,” Owen admitted.

  “Was it an illness that took her?”

  Owen nodded. “It was hell for us to watch her get sick. Being so damn helpless made me furious. My mother became ill gradually, not all of a sudden, like she’d broken a leg. It started with a weakening of her body; she’d get a bit breathless from time to time, need to go lie down after being on her feet for only a couple of hours. Then her appetite vanished, no matter what Hannah made for her, and she started to lose weight so fast I thought she’d just dry up and blow away. It wasn’t long before she was in bed all the time. In the days before she died, she cried in her sleep. The worst part was accepting that the doctor couldn’t do anything for her. I always thought that was what doctors were supposed to do, make bad things better, but sometimes it’s just too late.

  “Hannah and I were with her the morning she died and it was the first time I had seen her at peace in years. I’m thankful that I was able to share her life, without question, and that I could care for her when she needed me the most, but the ache of missing her never seems to go away.”

  “It gets a little easier over time.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Had your father passed before your mother?”

  Owen looked away quickly, his face a mask of distaste. “I never knew him,” he spat. “I never knew who he was.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte murmured, regretting her thoughtlessness. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Her apology lifted the gloom from his eyes. “It’s all right. I think this is all a feeling I’ve held in for too long.” He laughed weakly. “I guess I never really realized it until now, but I’m carrying the same burden that my mother bore, in some way. Maybe if I continued to hold it in, I’d end up just like she did, my secret eating away at my insides.”

  Charlotte couldn’t help but think of the secrets that she kept, as well as those that had been kept from her. Her father had kept her whole family from knowing that he was still alive after the war. She herself honored Sarah’s vow of silence as to the identity of the man who had fathered her unborn child. Even Hale’s secret, his love for Hannah, obvious as it was, was never Charlotte’s to tell. From the moment she had seen Owen in the dining room, she had known that there was something about him that wouldn’t be easily told, something he kept hidden. Now, she found herself hoping he would reveal it to her.

  “I came to Oklahoma because…” he began, before his voice trailed off.

  “Owen,” she interrupted, “you don’t have to tell me right now if you don’t want to,” letting him off the hook although she desperately wanted to know the reason. “Whenever you choose, it’s up to you.”

  But Owen had decided that this was the time.

  “Hannah and I came here because I think that John Grant is our father.”

  Charlotte was shocked. She felt as if she had been struck by lightning, a freight train, or a massive boulder crashing down a hillside. It was almost impossible for her to believe what Owen had said. Over and over she searched for the words that would convey her surprise, but she continued to struggle, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. Finally, it was Owen who filled in some of the blanks, though they presented issues of their own.

  “My last name isn’t Williams,” he explained. “It’s Wallace, the same as my mother. Hannah and I changed it when we left Colorado. If my suspicions about John Grant proved correct, it would have been pretty stupid to walk onto his property with a name he would easily recognize.”

  “Owen… Wallace…” Charlotte struggled.

  “It wasn’t my intention to deceive you, but we couldn’t take any chances. John Grant is my father. I truly believe it to be so.”

  Now everything seemed even crazier in Charlotte’s head; Owen and his sister had traveled to Oklahoma for a reason, changing their names to avoid suspicion, scheming to get close to the man he believed had to be their father. But to think so poorly of John Grant, to carry so much dislike for the man who had invited her into his home, had shown her nothing but kindness, seemed ridiculous. It couldn’t possibly be true. How could Owen believe such a thing?

  “But you don’t know for certain? You have reason to doubt it?”

  “A few,” he admitted, “but when I’m absolutely sure of the fact… I’m going to ruin him.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  OWEN KNEW IN A HEARTBEAT that he had said too much. There was no denying that it had been liberating to let go of his burden, to talk about his mother and the horrible way in which she had died, and that comfort had loosened his tongue. He hadn’t seen the harm in revealing what he believed about John Grant because regardless of how difficult it was to hear and know, it was true. But now that it had been let free, now that he saw the wide-eyed, openmouthed disbelief in Charlotte’s face, there could be no going back… only forward.

  “What are you saying, Owen?” she asked, her voice rising, shrill and confused with every word. “Why would you want to ruin John if you know him to be your father? Why?”

  “Because of what he did to my mother,” he explained. “Because he abandoned her.”

  “He didn’t make her sick!”

  “It was because of him that she was forced to leave here and go to Colorado, living alone as she struggled to raise two children, twins born out of wedlock!” Owen heard himself shouting. “I’m sure that it was because he chased her away, denied her when he found out she was pregnant! He was ashamed of her, embarrassed. She would have had a better life, a different life, if it weren’t for him!”

  “What proof do you have that John is your father? You said yourself that your mother kept her secrets. If she didn’t tell you, who did?”

  Struggling to keep his temper in check, not at Charlotte but at the remembrance of his grievances against John Grant, Owen explained his conclusions: how he and Hannah had discovered that their mother had once, in the time before their birth, lived in Sawyer, how he had found what remained of a letter, dating back to Caroline Wallace’s time in Oklahoma, that mentioned John Grant by name, and spoke of him being the man she could never stop loving, even if he had chosen to reject her; and how when he had first laid eyes on John he had known; deep in his gut he was certain of John’s guilt.

  “But that doesn’t prove anything,” Charlotte protested.

  “It proves that he broke my mother’s heart.”

  “Possibly, yet it doesn’t give you any concrete evidence that John is your father, either. Who knows what the real story is, or whether there even is one worth talking about? Maybe she loved him from afar, but instead he loved Amelia. Maybe he couldn’t break off his engagement, or his feelings, and your mother couldn’t accept that. The truth is that you don’t really know, Owen. You don’t know enough to go off half-cocked, wanting to ruin a man!”

  Owen rose to his feet in frustration, kicking distractedly at a clump of flowers. When Charlotte doubted his conclusion and offered other scenarios, he was nonplussed.

  What in the hell did you expect her to say?

  If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t known what he expected, but Charlotte’s disagreement unsettled him; it even caused his confidence in his cause to waver, made him question how sure he was of what he was doing. Because he was beginning to care for her, her opinions carried weight with him. For six excruciatingly long months, he had persuaded himself that John Grant was the man who was responsible. He had uprooted their lives in Colorado and come to Oklahoma under an assumed name because John Grant had to pay for what he had done to Caroline Wallace. But what if he accidentally destroyed an inno
cent man? What then? What would his mother think of that?

  More important, what would Charlotte think of that…?

  Desperately, Charlotte struggled to show Owen how flimsy a basis he had for his accusation. His relentless pursuit of the truth was understandable, but he was letting his need cloud his better judgment. He was leaping to conclusions and grasping at straws. If he were to follow through with his plans for revenge, the consequences for him and Hannah would be too great to bear. She had to convince him that there was another possibility. But how?

  “He rejected her because he got her pregnant,” Owen murmured as he paced back and forth in front of Charlotte, the certainty slowly vanishing from his voice. “He didn’t want to take responsibility for what he had done.”

  “John Grant doesn’t seem the sort of man who would turn his back on a woman with child,” she countered.

  Charlotte thought of the way John spoke about Sarah Beck, of the great lengths to which he had gone, at certain risk to his reputation, to ensure that the girl got an education. He had taken in Sarah and her father, complete strangers from Arkansas, and put them up on his land. When Charlotte had pressed him about them, John had told her of his own regrets, a moment in his life when he had been unable to do right by someone. Had he meant Owen’s mother? She’d never asked, but there seemed little doubt that all the Becks had, their bedding, food, and firewood, had to have been provided by John. How could the same man who had taken them in have completely rejected Owen’s mother?

  It just wasn’t possible.

  No matter how she felt about why John had become involved with the Becks, Charlotte did not feel free to tell Owen about Sarah. She knew that he would leap to whatever conclusion painted John Grant in the worst light; he might even go so far as to wonder if the girl’s unborn child belonged to the rancher. Charlotte didn’t like keeping silent, but there appeared to be no other choice. While Sarah had asked her to keep her secret, the identity of the man responsible for her pregnancy, it was the secret of her very existence that Charlotte felt needed to be kept.