A tiny sob escaped her throat.
“Mrs. Grace, are you sure everything’s all right?”
“No, sheriff,” she answered softly. “It isn’t. I —” She looked toward her bedroom. “I’ve been robbed.”
“What was taken?”
“All the money from the sale of the cattle.” She motioned for him to follow her. “I returned a short while ago to find this.”
Sheriff Noonan stopped in her bedroom doorway, his gaze taking in the mess the thief had left behind. “Anything else missing besides the money?”
Julia started to shake her head, but uncertainty stopped her. She hadn’t really looked after seeing the empty money box.
She knelt on the floor by the upended keepsake box. She retrieved the letters first and put them back where they belonged. Her grandmother’s necklace peeked out at her from beneath her bedstead. A little more searching located the silver cross under her pillow on the floor.
But where was the ring? Angus’s mother’s ugly ring.
“Mrs. Grace?”
She looked up.
“Something else is missing.” It wasn’t a question this time.
She nodded. “A ring. But I … I don’t know that it was worth anything much. It belonged to Angus’s mother.”
“Maybe you’d better tell me where I can find Mr. Brennan so he and I can have a talk.”
Tears once again stung her eyes. “I don’t know where he is. I came back a short while ago and his horse was gone.”
“Mind if I have a look at his bunk?”
“Of course not.” She stood. “I’ll show you where he stays.”
Hugh didn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. I know he couldn’t do it.
She repeated the words in her mind again and again as she left the house, crossed the yard, and entered the barn. She believed the words right up until the moment she opened the door to the room that held the bed, lantern, table, and chairs. But nothing else. All of Hugh’s personal effects were gone. No saddlebags. No clothes hanging on hooks. No Bible.
From behind her, the sheriff said, “Looks like he decided to leave before Monday.”
Julia found it hard to draw breath.
“Guess we know who took your money and ring.”
She wanted to wail. She wanted to scream. She wanted to curl up and die.
“Love is a risk,” Rose’s voice whispered in her memory. “But it’s a risk worth taking.”
Her friend couldn’t be more wrong. It wasn’t worth the risk. Nothing could be worth the way Julia felt now. Nothing.
Hugh awakened with a start, heart racing. A nightmare? No, he hadn’t been dreaming and he wasn’t afraid.
He sat up and looked around. His horse stood, head low, near a tree. A nearly full moon illuminated his campsite. The air was filled with the sound of flowing water from the stream a stone’s throw from Hugh’s bed on the ground. The fire had burned down to embers.
Something had awakened him. Something like … like a whisper. Only not a whisper. There was no voice. There was no sound above the gurgle of the creek.
Go back.
The words weren’t just in his head. They filled him to the brim. It was God’s voice he heard. He knew it with more certainty than he’d ever known anything in his life.
Go back.
Julia needed him, and even if she didn’t love him, even if she could never love him, he had to be there for her as long as she needed his help. Charlie Prescott could threaten Hugh all he wanted, and it wouldn’t change his mind. He had to go back and help her. He wouldn’t allow her brother-in-law to take what was rightfully hers.
And he couldn’t wait for daylight to start back toward Sage-hen. Hugh tossed aside the blanket and reached for his boots.
TWENTY-FIVE
It was midmorning on one of those Sundays in June when the air is fresh and the sky seems extra blue. Normally, such a day would draw words of praise to God from Julia’s lips as she sat by the river. But this morning, her heart felt numb. Too numb to read or write or sing or praise. Almost too numb to breathe. Too numb to keep on living. Not in the sort of way that made her want to throw herself into the river and drown. In the kind of way where a body could lay down and simply die for lack of a will to go on.
Such were her thoughts when Bandit alerted her to the approach of another. Her heart quickened a moment — was it Hugh? —before her hopes were dashed. The man on horseback wasn’t Hugh. It was Charlie. Tired as she was, she got to her feet. She wouldn’t allow him to tower over her more than necessary.
“Good morning, Julia.” He stopped his horse and leaned a forearm on the pommel.
She acknowledged him with a nod.
“I heard about the robbery. Folks are talking about it in town.”
“People shouldn’t gossip.”
“I wouldn’t call it gossip. The sheriff was seeking more deputies to look for Mr. Brennan. Naturally the word got out.” He shook his head. “I knew that fellow was no good.”
She hadn’t the strength to deal with her brother-in-law. She wanted him to leave. This was still her land, at least for another nineteen days. “Did you want something, Charlie?”
“Yes. I want to help you.”
Help her? He couldn’t help her with what mattered most — her broken heart.
“Let me buy your ranch now, before you lose it over unpaid taxes. You can leave Sage-hen with money in your pocket. Isn’t that better than being destitute?”
Even with her mind clouded by depression and her heart empty of hope, Julia knew Charlie would never offer such a thing for kindness’s sake. Perhaps he wanted to look beneficent to his neighbors or to other men in places of power. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to wait a few more months for the ranch to be auctioned off. Whatever his reasons, they didn’t matter to her. Not now. She had lost something of much more value than this ranch, than land or livestock.
“I’m not going to sell,” she said.
“Julia, be —”
“Please go away.” She turned her back toward him.
There was a lengthy stretch of silence, then, “Angus always said you were both stubborn and stupid. I see he was right. Have it your way.”
She waited until the sound of hoofbeats faded into nothing before she sank once more to the ground, surprised to find there were more tears left to be shed after all.
Hugh figured he was less than an hour outside of Pine Creek when he stopped to rest his horse. He sat on the ground in the shade of a tall tree to eat some beef jerky while the gelding grazed nearby. That’s where he was when three men on horseback found him. One of them was the sheriff. A bad feeling washed over Hugh as he stood to meet them.
“Hugh Brennan?” the sheriff said, as if there might be some question about his identity even though they’d met before.
“Yes.”
Sheriff Noonan bumped his hat brim with his knuckles. “Didn’t expect to find you this close to town.”
The words had an ominous ring to them.
“We need you to come back to Pine Creek with us.”
Even more ominous. “What for?”
“Just need to ask you a few questions. About Mrs. Grace.”
“Julia?” He forgot his own misgivings. “What about her? What’s happened? Is she all right?”
“It’ll be better if we talk about it back at my office.”
Hugh went to his horse, took the reins in hand, and swung into the saddle. “Then let’s go.” He kicked the gelding in the ribs, and the horse shot forward.
The sheriff and his deputies were behind Hugh in an instant. Instinct told him that if he tried to get away, one of them would shoot him. But he had no intention of trying to get away. He had to know what happened to Julia — and getting to Pine Creek would put him that much closer to her.
Sheriff Noonan rode up beside him. “Slow down, Brennan. We aren’t going to a fire.”
Hugh recognized a command from a man of authority when he heard it. Years in prison had taug
ht him that. He reined his horse back to a slow trot. Then he looked at the sheriff. “Has Mrs. Grace been hurt? Was there an accident at the ranch?”
“No. No accident. She’s not hurt.”
He felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. Whatever had sent these lawmen to find him, he could deal with it as long as he knew Julia was unharmed. They rode the rest of the way to town in silence, Hugh beside Lance Noonan, the two deputies following close behind them.
Based upon the number of families walking on the boardwalk in their Sunday best, church services in Pine Creek were over by the time the four men got to town. Some of those families paused to stare at the horsemen as they rode by. Hugh had the feeling they knew something he didn’t. It wasn’t a good feeling.
In front of the jail, they dismounted and tied their mounts to the hitching post.
“Rogers,” the sheriff said, “take care of Mr. Brennan’s belongings.”
“Yessir.”
Hugh frowned.
“Come inside, Brennan.”
Something happened to Hugh as he followed Sheriff Noonan into his office. First, dread washed over him and the walls seemed to close in. It was like being in one of his nightmares and not unexpected. But before panic could take hold, he felt gripped by a sudden stillness instead. Peace. As if he’d been plucked from the heart of a storm and was now above the wind. Unlike the dread, the latter feeling was most unexpected. It had to be the Lord’s peace. There was no other explanation for it.
Hold fast. As in the night, the words seemed audible, although they weren’t.
“Have a seat,” the sheriff said as he walked to the opposite side of his desk and sat in his own chair.
One of the two deputies, Rogers, came into the office. He looked at the sheriff and gave his head a shake.
The sheriff cocked a brow, as if doubting the man.
“Nothing,” Rogers said.
Lance Noonan looked at Hugh. “Mind showing me what’s in your pockets.”
It was obvious they suspected him of stealing something. Knowing it should have sent Hugh into a panic, but that strange, powerful, wonderful calm continued to blanket him as he stood and reached into his pants-pockets, withdrawing a pocketknife from one and the wages Julia had paid him from another. From his shirt pocket, he pulled a handkerchief. He put the items on the sheriff’s desk.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it.”
The sheriff frowned. “Where were you headed, Brennan?”
“When you found me? Back to Sage-hen. Before that, I was on my way to Boise. Only I changed my mind about leaving just yet. And since I obviously don’t have what you’re looking for, maybe you should tell me what this is about and let me be on my way.”
“Mrs. Grace was robbed.”
His peace was momentarily shaken. “Was she hurt?”
“No. She wasn’t home at the time.”
“And you think I did it.”
“Given your history —” Sheriff Noonan paused to make his point.
Hugh understood. Charlie Prescott knew about his time in prison. The sheriff knew he’d been a thief. And now Julia knew the truth as well.
“Mrs. Grace came home to a house that was ransacked, her money box broken into, and you’d left without a word.”
“I left her a note.” It sounded even more cowardly coming out of his mouth than when he’d first thought about it yesterday.
“She didn’t mention a note to me.”
Hugh rubbed a hand over his face. If he were the sheriff of Pine Creek, he’d toss him into a cell and throw away the key — and yet the peace persisted. “Was anything else taken?”
“Only other thing missing besides the money was a ring.”
The ring. The one Hugh had seen yesterday morning.
Guilty, a different voice whispered in his mind. An ugly voice. One meant to shake him.
Hold fast, came the words that kept him steady.
The office door opened, drawing Hugh’s eyes to it. There in the doorway stood Peter Collins.
“Is it true?” Peter demanded, his gaze shifting to the sheriff. “You’ve arrested Hugh.”
“No.” The sheriff stood. “It isn’t true. I had some questions for him, but he’s not under arrest. Yet.”
A look of relief passed over Peter’s face. “Good, because I can tell you, you’d be making a mistake if you did arrest him. This man would never steal. And definitely not from Julia Grace.”
A sick feeling twisted Hugh’s gut. “Peter, I —”
“I’ve already heard the talk about your time in prison. But that’s in your past. I know the man you are today, Hugh. The other’s over and done with. I can take the measure of a man, and you’re no thief, no matter what you once did or who you once were. I’d stake my life on it.”
Waiting for her husband to come out of the sheriff’s office, Rose sat on the wagon seat, Jemima sleeping in her arms, and prayed. She prayed that Peter would know what to say and do. She prayed that Hugh would be the man she and Peter thought him to be. She prayed that Julia’s faith wouldn’t be shaken. She prayed that the money would be found.
“When’re we goin’ home, Ma?” Eden asked from the wagon bed. “I’m gettin’ hungry.”
“Me too,” Faith chimed in.
“I know, girls. Be patient. Your pa had something to do. We’ll be on our way soon.”
Lord, please work a miracle. I’m pretty sure it’ll take one to clear up this mess.
The door to the sheriff’s office opened. Peter stepped onto the boardwalk first. A moment later, Hugh Brennan appeared beside him. Both men set their hats on their heads as they looked her way.
“Pa,” Eden called, “we’re hungry. Can we go home now?”
“Sure can,” Peter answered. Then he turned toward Hugh and offered his hand. “I don’t suppose you’d care to ride along with us.”
“No. I need to get to the ranch. I need to talk to Julia.” Hugh took Peter’s hand and shook it. “I appreciate all you said in there.”
“Just spoke the truth.”
Rose saw something flicker across Hugh’s face. She couldn’t say what it was for certain, only that it made her heart ache for him. The two men broke apart. Peter stepped down into the street and up onto the wagon seat. Hugh swung into the saddle.
“Mr. Brennan,” Rose said quickly. “Tell Julia I’m praying for her.”
He gave her a tight smile as he nodded. Then he turned his horse down Main Street and rode off.
Rose went straight back to praying.
Julia held a kitten between her hands and rubbed its soft fur against her cheek. She would need to ask Rose to give the cat and her litter a home. She couldn’t bear to leave Sage-hen without knowing they would be taken care of.
How long after the taxes were due before the sheriff came to evict her? Days? Weeks? A few months? And where would she go when the time came?
“Julia?”
She sucked in a breath. His voice sounded so real. As if he were present instead of just in her head.
“Julia.”
She whirled around.
Hugh stood in the barn doorway, the light at his back, his face hidden in shadows. But it was truly him and not a memory or wishful thinking. He was real and standing before her, and in that instant, she knew in her heart he hadn’t betrayed her. No matter what he’d done or the reason he’d left, she believed in him.
She put the kitten back with its mother, then moved a few steps toward Hugh. “The sheriff’s looking for you.”
“I know. We spoke already.”
“He didn’t arrest you?”
“No.” He shook his head.
She drew in a breath of relief.
“I didn’t steal from you, Julia.”
“I know. I thought you did, for a little while. But I don’t believe it now.”
“I tried to explain in the note.”
“What note?”
Though she couldn’t see it, she heard the frown in his
voice. “The sheriff said you didn’t mention one, but I left a note for you. I shouldn’t have done it that way. I should have waited for you, told you the truth in person. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t find a note. What did it say?”
“How I thought I was doing what was best for you, by leaving. I thought it was best for me too.”
“And I thought you were gone for good.”
“But I was wrong. So I turned around and came back.”
A smile slipped into place on her lips. “You came back.” The sheriff hadn’t brought him back. He’d come of his own accord. Something warm and wonderful wrapped around her heart.
“Yes.” It was his turn to take a couple of steps forward. “I need to tell you about my past. About the things I did and why I … why I went to prison.”
“Later. Tell me later. After supper.”
“I want you to know everything. No secrets between us. Not any. Just the truth.”
Throat tight, she nodded.
“I love you, Julia.” Another step closer. “You may not want my love, especially after you know what I used to be, but you at least need to know how I feel about you.”
She could see his face clearly now. The faint scar on his right cheek. The lines around his brown eyes and his mouth. The dark stubble that said he hadn’t shaved that morning.
He loved her. He’d returned because he loved her.
“I don’t have much of anything to offer you, Julia. I don’t have any money except what you paid me to work for you. I’ve got a good horse and saddle, a Winchester rifle, and a Bible. I’ve got a strong back, and I’m willing to work hard.”
“When I lose the ranch, I won’t have much more than that myself.”
“Maybe you won’t lose it. Maybe the sheriff can find who took the money and get it back.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t believe it for an instant — and it didn’t matter, now that Hugh was with her again. The idea of leaving Sage-hen no longer frightened her. Not as long as she was with him.
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