Cross Your Heart

by Michele Bardsley

  “You gonna need therapy?” He stayed in the doorway, his arms crossed, his expression inscrutable. But I saw the glimmer of humor in his eyes.

  “Quite possibly.”

  “I got my own flaws.” He shook his head slowly, as if pitying himself. “Maybe we could share that therapist.”

  “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “I take how I feel about you very seriously.”

  I realized I’d left the door open for that response. I wasn’t sure what to say next, but Tez did. He crossed the room and took my hands in his. “No one’s perfect. And seeking perfection isn’t the path to happiness. Believe me, princess. You know what people want more than anything? The one gift we all really need, but never seem to get?”

  “What?” I asked softly.

  “Acceptance. We want someone to look at us, and really see us—our physical flaws, our personality quirks, our insecurities. And we want them to be okay with every square inch of who we are. We’re always afraid we might be too needy or too much work. We put all these limitations on ourselves and our relationships because we’re afraid that we’re not really loved. That we’re not really accepted. We hide little pieces of ourselves because we think that might be the one thing that finally drives away the person who’s supposed to love us.”

  I was awed by his insight. That was exactly what I wanted—to receive and to give. How wonderful it would be to know that my lover saw me as I was, and would accept me body and soul? And that I could do the same for him?

  Tez pulled me in close, his eyes glittering with the emotion I could not name because it was too soon. It was insane to feel that way now when we barely knew each other, and were worlds apart in so many ways, not least of which was our own natures.

  “I can promise you this, Elizabeth. At the end of the day, no matter what’s happened between us, I will let it go. I will tuck you into my arms and kiss you and let it go. We’ll have a lot of good things together. We’ll laugh every day. But I will argue with you. I’ll make you cry. We’ll drive each other crazy. You’ll want to skin me and hang my pelt over the fireplace. But I will never turn away from you. And no matter how damned flawed you think you are, you are worthy of loyalty. You deserve devotion. I will give that all to you, and more.”

  No one had ever said such loving things to me before. I knew that Tez meant every word, and I was humbled by his sincerity. It very much sounded like a marriage proposal, though he couldn’t mean it to be so. This wasn’t the end of a romance novel where the heroine threw herself into the hero’s waiting arms and agreed to marry him.

  Sometimes, people didn’t get happily-ever-afters. Look at my great-grandmother, and the other women of Broken Heart. A hundred years ago, what love they had known was stolen from them by Paul Tibbett.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “You make me feel . . . Well, that’s just it. You make me feel.” I wished I could say something as beautiful and profound as he had, but I didn’t have it in me. Not yet. I wanted to make that leap of faith—just dive off the cliff and know that I could fly. But I was standing at the edge of it still, weighing the pros and cons.

  He kissed me lightly. “C’mon.” He led me into the bathroom and turned off the flowing water. Then he undressed me, and scooped me up in a sudden whoosh. I squealed.

  And he laughed.

  Then he lowered me into the warm water, not caring how wet he got from the effort. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  “Lonely, too.” I sniffed. “Look at all this tub, and just little ol’ me inside it.” I batted my eyelashes outrageously.

  “Nice try, princess.” He tapped my nose. “Enjoy your bath. I’m gonna load up the car, and run a little errand. I promise I’ll be back before dawn.”

  I immediately wanted to know where he was going, but then I realized if he’d wanted me to know, he would’ve said. I trusted him—and I knew he would return. That was all I really wanted: To know the man I loved would always come home to me.

  Not that I was acceding to loving Tez.

  But I liked him very, very, very much.

  Tez ran his finger over my shoulder, his gaze dipping toward my breasts. Then he heaved a great, anguished sigh. “I better go before I ravish you.”

  I opened my mouth to issue another invitation, but he held up his hand. “Don’t go there. I’m one second away from giving in to temptation.”

  One more kiss, one more sweet touch, and then he was gone.

  Tez hadn’t returned by the time I finished bathing. I toweled myself off and poked through the lotions and powders Martha stocked in every bathroom. I took my time lathering the jasmine-scented lotion onto my body, hoping Tez might come back and find me naked and willing.

  Unfortunately, his errand was taking much longer than I’d anticipated. I slipped on the black nightgown, the one I had rejected earlier in the evening as too distracting. I now had every intention of using my feminine wiles on Tez, rusty though they were.

  I blew my hair dry and did a quick facial.

  Still, no Tez.

  Utterly disappointed, I wandered into my grandfather’s library and tried to find a suitable book. It was too much to hope for a romance novel, much less some juicy commercial fiction. After a few minutes of perusing his collection, I decided I was too keyed up to read. I stared longingly at the lemon cake that beckoned from its china plate. I left the coffee on the tray, since it was now too cold to enjoy, and brought the cake into the bedroom. I might not be able to have any, but there was no reason Mr. Metabolism couldn’t enjoy the rest.

  I realized I hadn’t talked to Damian yet, so I dug through my purse and pulled out my iPhone. Three seconds later, our call connected. I told him everything we’d found, and then discussed our theories about the killer, whom we suspected was the malevolent spirit of Paul Tibbett, and his motives for not only murdering Elizabeth Silverstone, but also for causing the suicides of four other Broken Heart women. This was, of course, assuming Evangeline LeRoy had died mysteriously, too. How the shadow factored in to the new theories was still unknown.

  After I finished telling him everything, I asked, “How are Patsy and Eva?”

  “Sedated in the prison,” said Damian. “We’ve closed up the entrance to the room and posted guards. So far, no one’s attempted to entry, but . . .”

  “What?” I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.

  “The trunks in the back room are missing,” said Damian. “All five of them. We don’t know when they were taken or by whom. But it does not bode well, Liebling.”

  “And no one else has found the missing items from those shelves?”

  “Nein.” He sighed. “We will see what we can discover about Mr. Tibbett. You will bring back the skull and papers?”

  “As soon as I wake up,” I said, “Tez and I will head back to Broken Heart.”

  “Ah. One more thing, Elizabeth. Have you seen Phoebe?”

  “Not since I saw her and Connor at the manse,” I said.

  “She hasn’t returned my calls. I can’t get through to Connor, either,” said Damian.

  I looked at the clock and calculated how much time I might have before dawn. “I could swing by the hotel tonight, and see if they’re there.”

  “You will call me as soon as you find them?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  We said our good-byes, and I tucked the phone back into my purse. I hurriedly dressed in a blouse and slacks, slipping on a pair of beaded mules. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and checked the clock again. It was about an hour and a half before dawn. If I ignored the speed limits, I could make it to the hotel in twenty-five minutes. As I gathered my purse and headed out of the bedroom, I wondered why Damian hadn’t just asked Patrick to pop in. He had the ability to transport himself in the blink of an eye. So did Lorcan, but I supposed that he didn’t want to leave Eva. And Patrick was terribly busy with Patsy’s triplets and his own children.

  Still, I couldn’t shake off my trepidation.

  If
I couldn’t return to the house before sunrise, I could easily bunk with Phoebe and Connor. All I needed to do was contact Tez and let him know where I would be.

  “Elizabeth.”

  I stopped and turned around. Tez was walking toward me from the direction of the study. The expression on his face made me wary.

  “I thought you were gone,” I accused him. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

  “I was emptying out the rolltop and I found some letters, an envelope with newspaper clippings, and your great-grandmother’s diary.” He was holding a small box filled with papers and a leather journal. He looked like he’d been chewing on lemons. “You’re not gonna like it.”

  “I’m sure I won’t,” I said. “But it’ll have to wait. I promised Damian I would track down Phoebe and Connor. He can’t get hold of them.”

  “I know that’s important,” he said impatiently, “but so is this. Paul Tibbett didn’t kill your great-grandmother.” He paused, his gaze on mine. “Jeremiah Silverstone did.”

  Chapter 16

  No. I wanted to absolve my great-grandfather of any wrongdoing, and here was Tez confirming my fears.

  “You ever see a picture of Jeremiah Silverstone?” he asked. “There wasn’t even a sketch of him in the newspaper article. He built half the town, but there’s not a picture of him anywhere, is there?”

  “I’m certain I’ve seen photos of him,” I said. But I wasn’t certain at all. “Family portraits . . .”

  “You know, the only crap your grandfather took from Broken Heart was what he stored in the attic here in Tulsa. Everything else was left there, with Josiah. You wanna know why?”

  “No,” I said faintly. I scrambled through my memories. Hadn’t I seen a photo of my great-grandfather somewhere? A sketch? Any kind of rendering of the man’s face? I couldn’t recall.

  Tez pushed the box at me, but I was shaking too much to take it. “Go on. Read through everything. I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. Facts don’t lie.”

  “But people do!” I snatched the box out of his grip and marched into the bedroom with it. I put it down on the bed, and then I dug out the iPhone from my purse to call Damian. The phone rang before I could touch the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “Have you left yet?” asked Damian.

  “Just on my way.” My gaze strayed to the box with its insidious contents.

  “We heard from Connor. Phoebe has disappeared. They’ve been searching everywhere for hours. There’s no sign of her. And Connor says she’s not responding to his telepathy. He says she is silent, and he assumes she is unconscious.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I suspect the shadow,” said Damian. “He has gone after all the descendents of the founding families, ja? So, maybe he got to Phoebe.”

  “That’s not very good news.”

  “She is protected,” said Damian. “Her immortality is tied to the talisman. Nothing can harm her. At least nothing we know about. Out of all of you, she is the safest.

  “In the meanwhile, we are tracking down the grave of Paul Tibbett. It seems he died not long after Elizabeth did. Lorcan is helping us. I’m afraid he’s not taking his wife’s confinement very well.”

  “We’ll resolve this situation soon,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. I also held off on telling Damian that Paul Tibbett might be the wrong man. Oh, Jeremiah. How could you? “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Damian hung up, and I disconnected and tossed the phone back into my purse. I sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “I can’t believe my own flesh and blood would do something so terrible.”

  Tez sat next to me and took my hand into his. “The thing is, Ellie, he’s not your flesh and blood.”

  I glanced at him. “How can that be?”

  “The Silverstone line died with Josiah. He was the only son born of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Silverstone.” He slipped the journal out of the box and handed it to me. “Looks like your grandfather marked the relevant passages. But before you read it, you might want to check out the newspaper articles.”

  He stood up. I noticed he had gotten dressed, in anticipation of running his mysterious errand.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m going to finish loading up the car. And I still have a surprise to get.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across mine. “I’ll be back soon. You’re gonna need some alone time to process everything.”

  I didn’t really want to be alone. I’d spent a great deal of time by myself over the past few years, and was usually satisfied with my own company. But relying on Tez for the last seventy-two hours had made me realize how nice it was to share my burdens, my worries, my fears with another soul—with someone who offered comfort and support without question. I was afraid I’d gotten rather used to it, and I loathed the idea I might have to let him go.

  He touched my face one last time, and then left me alone with my family’s past.

  I curled against the headboard with the box in my lap, and took out the yellowed articles snipped from a paper called the Missouri Statesman. There were three columns attached by a rusted paper clip. The first one was about the disappearance of a wealthy oilman’s young wife. Her name was Bethany Silverstone. And the oil-man? Jeremiah Silverstone. The second article detailed the gruesome discovery of her remains: A little boy’s dog had uncovered the shallow grave in the woods.

  Bethany had been strangled to death.

  The third article was just a snippet about how the murderer of Mrs. Silverstone was none other than her gardener, Wilson Caper. As punishment for his crime, he got the noose. Mr. Silverstone, devastated by the loss of his bride, moved to Tulsa. Penciled in the margin was a year: 1886.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Had my great-grandfather killed his first wife and somehow framed the gardener? Had poor Wilson Caper paid for a crime he didn’t commit? And when my great-grandmother dared to love another, had Jeremiah killed her, too? Then he framed Paul Tibbett, her former fiancé?

  It all made horrible sense.

  If my great-grandmother had loved Paul, why on earth did she dump him to marry Jeremiah? For the money? Surely she would’ve chosen love. I had to believe it.

  Yet, her choice to be with Jeremiah was proof enough.

  I let the papers flutter back into the box.

  Dawn was approaching; I could already feel the pull of sleep. I took a minute to put my nightie back on, and then I checked the blackout curtains on the windows on either side of the bed. I also closed the thick curtains around the bed itself. Then I crawled under the covers. I picked up the journal. As Tez had pointed out, several pieces of paper poked out from the top, marking the pages my grandfather had probably thought to be important.

  What had Tez meant about me and Jeremiah not being flesh and blood? Nothing would please me more than to not be related to a murdering psychopath—a serial killer who had the power to continue tormenting his victims after his own death. And what power he had, too, if he could figure out how to call forth a demon—and if he could return in ghostly form to reenact murder.

  I opened to the first marked page of Elizabeth’s journal. I read about her excitement of being in the land run, how Paul set up a tent and lived on their parcel while she stayed with a cousin in Tulsa. She was obviously very much in love with Paul Tibbett.

  So much so, she was already sleeping with him. The land run was in April 1889, and in the next entry, which was June 14, she mentioned the book of poetry Paul had given to her. And how she knew she was pregnant with his child.

  With my grandfather, Stephen Paul Silverstone.

  Elizabeth and Paul wanted to get married quickly, and made plans to wed at a small church in Tulsa.

  I ached for these two people. They had a bright future together, a new life to build on that Oklahoma soil, a child to raise together, and love, so much love.

  The third entry shed light on why Elizabeth chose to marry Jeremiah. Paul had been accused of thievery, and arres
ted—and “arrested” was a loose term. There wasn’t a sheriff in those days, certainly not in what was still considered Indian Territory. They tied him to a tree and debated about whether or not to hang him.

  Hanging won out.

  Then Jeremiah had approached her.

  “Marry me,” he said, “and I will vouch for Paul. He will live, and I will take care of you and your child. I will give the babe my name, and my wealth. All I ask is that you pledge your heart to me, Elizabeth.”

  I could not sincerely pledge my heart to Jeremiah, but I would have said anything, promised anything so that Paul would live. When I agreed to be affianced to Jeremiah, he kept his word. He vouched for Paul, and the money that had been stolen from around the camps was mysteriously returned.

  When Paul found out what I had done, I thought he would be angry with me. But Paul understood—he knew me like no other, and loved me without question. I did not want to marry Jeremiah, and I would rather live poorly with the man I loved than spend a minute in the opulence promised by a man who did not hold my heart.

  Paul and I decided to wait until nightfall and then leave. I admit I was a coward. I had never broken a promise, and before I lied to Jeremiah Silverstone, I could say I was a woman of my word. Living with my shame was worth the price. Is there any cost you would not pay for love?

  We never got a chance to leave. Paul disappeared. And I was alone, and pregnant. Without a husband, I would be destitute and ostracized. This was my first lesson in learning that Jeremiah never took chances. He trusted no one. He wanted me, and he would have me. I thought Paul was dead, and I grieved for his loss.

  Then I married Jeremiah.

  I almost couldn’t bear to read anymore. Love opened all the doors a woman needed to walk through, and duty opened none. And her love for Paul forced Elizabeth into the life she did not want. I knew well how that felt. But I couldn’t blame societal pressures (other than my mother’s not-so-subtle trust fund hints) for my choices. I chose to stay in the good graces of my parents; I chose to marry Henry despite, as my great-grandmother so eloquently put it, he did not hold my heart; and I chose to stay in a marriage with an unfaithful man.