Callie's Convict

by Heidi Betts

  "It's not safe for you to leave the house,” she pointed out. “Someone might see you."

  A strange comment for someone who'd originally intended for the both of them to go on this little search mission, he thought. But all he said was, “I'll risk it."

  She glanced at Matthew, her mouth turned down in a frown. A thin line of spittle connected his wet bottom lip to the soaked-through patch of material on Wade's arm.

  "Who'll watch Matthew if we both go?” she wanted to know.

  "Good question. Maybe we should give up on the idea altogether. Or you could stay home with him while I go over to Triple Y and have a look around."

  He hadn't planned on trying to talk her out of her foolish strategy again, but since Matthew couldn't very well be left alone—and he wouldn't let Callie go off on her own, either—it gave him a good excuse for one final attempt.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I have an even better idea,” she said. “I'll take Matthew to stay with Father Ignacio for the evening. The padre won't mind watching him for a couple of hours."

  His Callie was sharp, he'd give her that. She didn't miss a trick and wasn't going to be easily swayed from what she felt was right.

  What other choice did he have? “Then I guess we're heading for the Triple Y come sunset."

  She nodded. “I'll start out early so I can drop Matthew off at the orphanage first. If you're sure you want to chance going out, you can meet me there. Do you know how to get to the Young place from here?"

  "Oh, I know how to get there.” He knew the distance to Young's place from just about anywhere in or outside of town. He'd always intended to stop by, though in his mind, his visit had more to do with a confrontation and beating the ever-loving snot out of Brady Young than with taking the bastard a basket of blackberry jam.

  "I'll meet you outside. Find somewhere you won't be spotted. When I arrive, I'll check to make sure it's safe before we go in. That way, if Brady or anyone else is around, you can remain hidden and we'll put the plan off until a better time."

  "You've got it all figured out, haven't you?” he teased.

  "Someone has to work at clearing your name,” she retorted saucily.

  "And I appreciate it. Provided this doesn't turn out to be the worst idea anyone's ever come up with."

  "If we find the deed, you'll thank me."

  "If we find the deed, I'll kiss you senseless, then drag you to the mission and have Father Ignacio marry us but good."

  Callie's eyes widened at that, and he realized the nature of the words that had come out of his mouth before he'd really thought them through. They'd slipped out, certainly, but that didn't explain why Wade wasn't immediately scurrying to suck them back in.

  He pictured the two of them standing before a preacher and didn't break out in a cold sweat. He imagined them coming home to this house, or the Circle M, with Matthew in tow, and setting to work making even more dark-haired, pixie-nosed babies and didn't get an urge to find the nearest whorehouse and prove he was anything but a one-woman man.

  Because he wasn't sure exactly how he felt about the proposition that had unintentionally come up, he wasn't sure how to fix it. But Callie saved him the trouble and uneasiness of broaching the sensitive subject by pretending the words had never been spoken . . . or at least ignoring the impact he knew they'd had.

  "Let me dress Matthew and get a few things packed for him before we leave,” she said, reaching out to take the child into her own arms.

  Wade watched her go, listening as she made her way up the stairs to Matthew's room and wondering what it would be like to live under the same roof as Callie if she wore his ring on her finger.

  When Callie passed beneath the slightly crooked wooden arch of the Triply Y, the impressive two-story house was dark. The barn and bunkhouse several yards away were also unlit in the approaching darkness of evening.

  She'd been hoping for this very thing. The hands got paid on Friday, which meant that most, if not all, of them would be in town, spreading around their newly acquired wealth. Including Brady, who would go along with his men for a good time.

  Walking with purpose instead of stealth, she made her way down the dusty lane and right up to the front door. Just to be safe, she knocked, both hoping and knowing no one would answer her summons. And when no one did, she wrapped her fingers around the handle, clicked the latch, and walked inside.

  She didn't know where Wade was but suspected he was somewhere nearby, hiding in the trees or behind an outbuilding.

  Leaving the basket of preserves near the door, she moved forward to find and light a lamp that she could carry through the house with her. She kept the wick low so as not to attract attention, knowing she would need the illumination to not only make her way about the house, but to conduct a detailed search for the deed.

  Since Wade hadn't come through the front of the house, Callie carefully made her way to the back and opened a rear door most likely used by the housekeeper and other household help. She stood there for a long minute, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness and waiting for any sign of Wade's presence. Finally, she saw a figure at the top of a small hillock, coming out of the trees and hurrying in her direction.

  Wasting no time, Wade reached the back door and ducked inside, and Callie quickly turned toward Neville's—and now Brady's—study.

  "This way,” she motioned.

  The office was decorated in dark woods and fabrics. A mammoth, ornately carved desk took up most of the space in the room, with pine green drapes at the window, and book-filled shelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling.

  Wade took a seat in the studded leather desk chair and immediately began riffling through drawers. Callie set the lamp on the flat surface in front of him and skimmed the book spines, looking for anything that might be a ledger or more than simply a novel for leisure reading. She pulled a number of volumes off the shelves, flipped through the pages, then replaced them when they revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

  A clattering from the desk brought her around to see Wade yanking at an apparently locked drawer near the floor.

  "Do you see a key anywhere?” he asked in a hushed voice. He rattled the handle again, at the same time searching the desktop with his free hand.

  Callie came forward to help him look, glancing over papers as she moved them aside and rattling a small crystal saucerlike dish of coins.

  "Forget it,” Wade said, reaching past her for a pewter letter opener and ramming it into the narrow slit between the drawer and the desk frame. After working the implement against the latch for a few seconds, she heard a crack and the drawer flew open.

  Callie returned the letter opener to its proper place while Wade shuffled through the drawer's contents. It was bad enough that Brady would probably know someone had been in his office by the broken lock on his desk; she didn't want anything else to be out of place.

  "Hmph."

  "Did you find something?” she asked in response to his snort, leaning across the desk to get a look at the books in his lap.

  "No ownership papers for the Circle M, but they have two sets of books here. One shows they've been using my ranch for cattle and grazing, and turning a profit at it."

  Deep lines of displeasure bracketed his mouth, and she felt a stab of sympathy for him.

  As he continued flipping through ledger pages, she moved about the room, lifting rugs to feel for loose floorboards and running her hands over the lines of the wainscoting, searching for built-in hidden compartments.

  "I'm going to check the rest of the house,” she said finally, moving toward the doorway. “You keep that lamp; I'll find another."

  His only response was a jerky nod.

  As she started out of the room, she lifted the edge of a wall hanging and glanced behind it. She found nothing, but the almost unmindful action made her wonder if anything might be behind the other paintings in the room and inspired her to check.

  At the last frame, hanging high above the mantel of a small hearth, she
discovered more than flat, nondescript paper decorating the wall beneath. Standing on her toes, her fingers brushed across cool metal as she struggled to lift the painting from its hook.

  "I don't suppose you could help me,” she prompted when Wade didn't react to her huffing and grunting, “I think I might have found something. I just can't reach."

  Before she'd even finished her sentence, he was beside her, lifting down the picture and setting it aside.

  "I'll be damned."

  They stood back a step, staring. Wade's curse summed up Callie's initial reaction precisely.

  "It's a safe,” she said, though she needn't have bothered.

  "Deeds can be kept in a safe.” Wade stated the thought uppermost in both their minds.

  "There's only one problem: We don't have the combination."

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Wade's head was pounding as he turned around and hurried back to the desk. Holding the ledger he'd been perusing up to the yellowish glow of the dim lantern light, he said, “Try 15-38-7-24-19-4."

  Standing on the edge of a small end table for better access, Callie spun the large dial in the center of the metal contraption. Right, then left, then right, and all over again. Barely auditory ticks accompanied her motions. When she was finished with all six numbers—only two of which she needed Wade to repeat—she wrapped her hands around the even larger pipe-like handle and yanked.

  They heard a click and the vault door squeaked open.

  "I can't believe it,” Callie breathed. “How did you know that would work?"

  "The idiot wrote the combination on the front cover of his business journal,” Wade scoffed as he lifted Callie from her perch on the table and took her place, pulling out the contents of the safe and passing them to her.

  When he was sure the vault was empty, he jumped down to the floor and joined her at the desk, where she'd spread out everything and was searching the pile.

  His chest began to burn, and he realized he wasn't breathing. He shoved his shaking hands into his pockets, standing stock-still, letting her sort through the papers by herself. He was too afraid of what they might—or might not—find to touch any of the documents. He could only hope . . . and pray.

  "Wade."

  She said his name and his heart lurched. His eyes darted to hers and he swallowed hard.

  "What? You didn't find anything, did you? I knew it was too good to be true.” He took a deep breath, trying to dispel the cramping in his gut.

  "Actually,” she answered, sounding a bit too chipper for his peace of mind, “I think this might be what you've been looking for."

  She held out a sheaf of yellowed parchment toward him, smiling her angel smile, but he was still afraid to look. Afraid it wouldn't be his deed to the Circle M at all, and he'd be right back where he started—on the run, with no prospects and no hope for the future outside of a dank, rat-infested prison cell.

  Callie fluttered the papers beneath his nose and said, “Look."

  He did, and he could have sworn he was about to swoon. He grabbed the sheets away from her and stared even harder.

  It was his deed, the copy Neville Young had stolen from his house, and proof that he really did own his ranch.

  "I can't believe it. I can't believe we found it."

  "Neither can I. But now that we have, we'd best get out of here."

  She gathered up the scattered contents of the safe and hopped up on the rectangular table to shove them back inside, slamming the heavy metal door after them.

  Callie took the paperwork from him, and Wade re-hung the painting. They each examined the room, making sure nothing looked too noticeably out of place. He even thought he'd gotten the locked desk drawer closed again in such a way that Brady wouldn't necessarily notice it had been jimmied open. At least not right away.

  He followed Callie into the hall and toward the front door, where she collected her jars of jam, hiding the deed beneath the checkered cloth. He snuffed out the lamp, and Callie returned it to what he assumed was the very spot she'd taken it from earlier.

  "Are you sure you don't want to leave that, after all?” he asked, gesturing to the basket on her arm. “To thank Brady for returning my deed to me?"

  One corner of her mouth lifted in response to his own grin, but she shook her head. “Since he didn't exactly return it to you, I doubt that would be wise. He'll figure out we've been here soon enough."

  Wade peeked out the front door, checking that it was safe. “I don't see anyone, but be careful."

  "You be careful,” she warned him. “You have much more to lose if you get caught."

  He nodded. “I'll see you at home,” he said, waiting for her to slip outside before closing the door after her and heading for the kitchen.

  Once on her way, Callie walked toward town, careful not to twist an ankle on the rutted dirt paths this late at night. But instead of going straight to the orphanage to retrieve Matthew from Father Ignacio's care, she stopped at the sheriff's office, where a light burned bright in the small window facing the street.

  She hoped Sheriff Walker was still on duty. Although he often turned things over to his deputies in the evening so he could be home with his family, Friday and Saturday nights in Purgatory sometimes got a bit rowdy, so it was just as likely that he was working at this hour.

  Callie wasn't sure she was doing the right thing. Her pulse picked up at the very thought of reciting to Sheriff Walker the speech she had worked to prepare her entire trek from the Triple Y to town.

  Wade would kill her if he found out. If he'd had any idea of her intentions, he'd have dragged her home with him, and left Matthew at the orphanage until morning.

  But he needed help, more help than Callie alone could provide. She'd tried to find the unidentified ranch hand Wade thought had witnessed Neville's murder; she'd come up with the prospect of trying to discover some proof of Wade's original ownership of the Circle M.

  But even though she now had his deed in her possession, that didn't mean they would ever be able to use it or truly prove his innocence. Callie, for one, had absolutely no idea how to go about it.

  Sheriff Walker seemed like a decent, honest man, however, and she couldn't keep from believing that if he knew the wrong man had been convicted of a murder, he would be willing to help set things right.

  Callie realized she had to be careful, though. She couldn't let it slip—or even let the sheriff begin to suspect—that Wade might be hiding out at her place. Which was why she'd spent the entire distance between Young's ranch and Purgatory figuring out exactly how best to articulate her entreaty.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped inside the sparse office containing a battered desk and chair, two heavily barred cells, and a wall of tacked-up wanted posters.

  "Miss Quinn."

  Sheriff Walker, who had been working at his desk, stood as soon as she entered. Crossing the room, he picked up an extra chair from the corner and brought it forward for her.

  "This is a surprise. What can I do for you?” he asked.

  The sheriff returned to his seat, and Callie lowered herself gently to the solid pine chair he'd provided. She twisted her hands nervously, praying this was the right thing to do.

  "You know that Lily, over at the Painted Lady, was Matthew's mother, don't you?"

  He nodded. “I'd heard something of the sort."

  "What you might not have known is that Wade Mason, the man you came to the house to ask about the other day, is Matthew's father. At least, that's what Lily led me to believe,” she added quickly.

  The sheriff's brow knit. “I'm not sure I'm following you."

  Careful, Callie, she thought. She had to be so careful. “Because Lily and I were rather close, she asked me to take care of Matthew when she realized she was dying. And confided in me probably more than she did anyone else. Before she passed on, she intimated to me that Mr. Mason was the father of her child, and that he wasn't guilty of the murder for which he'd been convicted. I don't
know why she didn't come forward, but she seemed adamant about that man's innocence."

  Taking a deep breath, she reached into the basket on her lap and withdrew the sheaf of papers they'd taken from Brady Young's study. This was the tricky part, the one she'd been most worried about.

  "After you came to the house to warn me about Wade Mason's escape from prison, I went through some of Lily's things. I hadn't had a chance to look through them very closely before, but Mr. Mason's name sounded familiar to me for some reason, and I thought I'd try to figure out why. I found this."

  She handed Sheriff Walker the deed to Wade's property and waited for him to read it.

  "I'm familiar with the piece of land Wade Mason lived on and worked before being sent to prison,” she continued. “He and my brother were friends. I also know Brady Young now claims ownership of that same area. Which is why, when I found these papers, I began to wonder—"

  "If Lily wasn't telling the truth about Mason being innocent."

  "Exactly."

  He continued to study the papers in front of him as he said, “I don't know what to tell you, Miss Quinn. What happened with Wade Mason was before my time here. But I'd be happy to look into it, if you'd like. This deed certainly raises some interesting questions."

  Refolding the deed, he passed it back to her. “If something unscrupulous occurred to put Mr. Mason in prison for a crime he didn't commit, that might explain why he supposedly headed back to Purgatory when he escaped."

  "That's why I thought I should come to you,” she said. “Nathan always liked Wade. He seemed to think he was a good man, and I remember how shocked he was that Wade had been accused, let alone convicted, of murdering a man."

  Walker stood and Callie followed suit, slipping the basket back over her arm.

  "I'll ask around, see what I can dig up. I can't make any promises, but if I find something, I'll come right out to the house and let you know."

  "I'd appreciate that, Sheriff Walker,” she said as she moved toward the door.