Until Stone snatched her arm and turned her around to face him. “Hold on there, Charlotte. I never said anything about needing that letter to make my decision. I need it to help me determine my next move.”
She scowled up at him and yanked her arm free of his hold.
“Look.” He blew out a breath. “I’m sickened by what I just heard. There’s no way I can continue working for Randolph Dorchester with a clean conscience.” He hesitated, not sure if he should share the rest of his thoughts.
Charlotte must have sensed he was holding something back. “But . . . ?”
Stone held her gaze for a long moment. “But others won’t be as discerning.”
She grabbed his forearm as if someone had just kicked her legs out from under her. “Others?”
He had the strangest urge to pull her against his chest and console her as she had done with Lily. Yet even as the idea sprouted in his brain, she chopped it down by releasing her hold on him and wrapping both arms around her waist as if warding him off.
“Others are coming? I thought you said you were the best in the business.” Panic pushed her voice into a higher octave. “Why would he hire others?”
“To hedge his bets.” Stone watched her face. Shoot. Her eyes had a wild look about them, and her lips were trembling. She pressed them together, though, mastering her emotions. He couldn’t help but be impressed. The woman had a steel core. “I may be the best, but you did a right fine job of hiding. I’ve been hunting for two months without much to show for it. Dorchester got impatient. He hired a second man.”
“Will he find us here?” Her eyes begged him to say no, but he couldn’t offer her false hope.
“It’s possible. If Dorchester shares my information with him. With no confirmation from me, he might assume my lead didn’t pan out. Or he could grow suspicious. Either way, if he doesn’t hear something from me soon, he’ll send Franklin to investigate.”
“Franklin is the other retriever?”
Why did she have to look at him like that? All scared and brave, begging him for reassurance even as her body clearly signaled that he wasn’t to touch her.
Stone exhaled and scratched at the stiches on his chest beneath his shirt. “Yes.”
“He’s good?”
“Yes.” Franklin wasn’t as adept at puzzling through clues and fitting things together, but once he got the scent, the man was like a bloodhound. And he didn’t care about the hows or whys. He just cared about the paycheck at the other end. Not that Stone would admit as much to Charlotte. She had enough on her plate already. “I’m better, though. That’s why Dorchester hired me first. I’ll not abandon you to him, Charlotte.” Stone moved closer, his jaw working back and forth like the arguments in his head. Stuff it. The woman needed comfort. Ever so lightly, he cupped his palm around her shoulder. She flinched but didn’t move away.
“We have a few days to strategize while we wait for that letter from Austin.” And he had to wait for that letter. He believed Lily’s story. She had no reason to lie nor the understanding to fully grasp the ramifications of what she’d revealed. Yet the story alone wasn’t evidence. Getting confirmation of Charlotte’s legal guardianship would give them the freedom they needed to take action. “In the meantime, I’ll need to go to town and wire Dorchester. Give him just enough to hold off Franklin without tipping our hand.”
“What will you tell him?”
Stone grinned as he squeezed her shoulder, trying to infuse her with a confidence he didn’t feel. “I’ll think of something.”
14
What would she do if he didn’t return? Charlotte let the curtain drop back into place in her front bedroom window after checking the drive for the hundredth time, looking for any sign of Stone Hammond and his monster horse. After their discussion the day before yesterday, she’d known he needed to travel to Madisonville to send that telegram, but he’d been gone four hours. He could have walked there and back in two.
She’d wanted to go with him, to see the message he sent with her own eyes, to make sure he didn’t betray them, but he’d insisted on going alone. Said it was better if no one in town saw them together. He even planned to stop by Dr. Ramsey’s office to suggest the man forget where they’d met. It was the best way to protect Lily if Franklin came looking later on. There’d be no evidence that Stone was helping them.
If he actually was helping them. Charlotte’s assurance on that point dissipated a little more with every fruitless glance out the window.
He’d left his cache of weapons locked away in her barn as collateral. Surely he wouldn’t abandon such valuable items. Didn’t men like him feel an attachment to their weapons? She’d seen how well kept they were. Clean. Oiled. The handles worn in places as if they’d been shaped to their owner’s hand over time. The leather of his gun belt even bore his initials. He wouldn’t just leave all that behind. Would he?
She’d gambled on him. Gambled on the Bible he’d brought in from the bunkhouse that listed his name in the birth records in his mother’s handwriting. Gambled on his outrage over Dorchester’s behavior. Gambled on his heroic nature. But what if she’d misread him? Money wielded a powerful influence. It took a strong man to escape its lure. She’d known Stone Hammond only a matter of days. How could she possibly judge the depth of his character with any accuracy?
The arguments tugged back and forth in her brain like a logger’s saw, its jagged teeth tearing deeper and deeper into her until she was nearly torn in two. Her legs trembled, threatening to topple her. Her breath rasped. She needed a distraction. Needed . . . music.
Charlotte wrenched the bedroom door open and made a beeline for the parlor, for the only thing certain to soothe her chaotic spirit.
The piano beckoned to her like a lost love, promising solace. She slid onto the bench and positioned her hands over the keys. Dobson had taken the children fishing down at the lake. There was no one to hear. No one to see.
As a music instructor, she’d played in front of her students countless times, but always when she was in full control. Never when the storm raged so recklessly inside her that she had to play or be consumed. Not when her soul would be vulnerable, exposed. No, those times required privacy. And God’s providence had provided precisely that at the moment she needed it most.
Closing her eyes, she let her fingers hit the keys. Chopin. Her fingers needed to fly, and her mind needed the challenge. The dark tones and unconventional chords of the “Prelude in G Minor” told her story. Trapped. Helpless. Questions that had no answers. But the short piece ended too quickly. Her emotions still churned for release. So she chose another piece, one in F sharp minor. Her agitated spirit accepted the frantic pace, stealing her breath as her fingers sprinted over the keys. But it wasn’t enough. Chopin challenged her, pushed her, but his music didn’t speak to her soul. Not like Beethoven. “The Tempest”—that’s what she needed to play.
Lifting her hands away from the keys, Charlotte straightened her posture and let her gaze rest on an indistinct space on the wall over the sofa until the melody of Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 17 in D Minor” sang through her mind.
Wait.
She could hear her father’s instructions. “Don’t touch the keys until the music is in you. Until your heart is one with the song.”
Wait.
Her fingers hovered above the piano. She breathed. In. Out. Felt the storm build.
Now.
It began gently. Like she had. Wanting to trust. Wanting to believe that Stone Hammond wouldn’t betray them as so many men in her life had done before. But in less than two bars, the doubts rained down. She didn’t really know him. Why would he forfeit Dorchester’s payment? Why would he care?
Yet he’d taken on a wildcat for Stephen without a thought to his own safety. The music slowed again, like a ray of sun peeking through the clouds just long enough to give hope before the gray storm blotted it from the sky. This time the storm raged longer. Her right hand warred with her left as the lighter tones trie
d to press their way through the roiling seas of the lower hand like a mermaid calling to a sailor caught in a maelstrom, urging him not to give up, not to be afraid.
Unlike the Chopin preludes, Beethoven’s sonata stretched long before her, allowing her to fully immerse herself in the swells and currents of the song. Up and down she went, over and over. To trust or not to trust? If she did and Stone betrayed her, what would she do next? How could she protect Lily?
The music became a prayer, the groans of her spirit that were too complex for words. She poured herself out until exhaustion claimed her, the tempest building to its thunderous conclusion before finally giving way to peace. Her spirit gave up the fight as well, spent from the frenzy of worry. She couldn’t control Stone or his motives. She had to give that over into God’s keeping. He could be trusted even if Stone couldn’t. The Lord would show her what to do when the time came.
So why did the thought of Stone riding away from her leave her so bereft? Something beyond concern for Lily stirred in her breast. Something she didn’t want to acknowledge. Yet something her heart couldn’t keep quiet as her fingers moved to the soft, aching melody of another Beethoven sonata: No. 14. “Moonlight.”
Stone sat on the front porch steps, afraid to move. Scared that if a stair creaked or a floorboard moaned beneath his weight the music would stop. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there. Fifteen minutes? Twenty?
When he’d ridden in from town, he’d barely been able to hear the piano, it being closed up in the house. He’d assumed John was playing again. Until he’d unsaddled Goliath and noticed that the wagon was gone and recalled the afternoon fishing trip the kids had been chattering about that morning at breakfast.
It had to be her.
Charlotte.
Lily had mentioned something about her playing being different than John’s, but he hadn’t grasped her meaning. Not until he’d strutted up to the front door and been walloped by a raging storm. It had stopped him in his tracks. Never had he heard such music.
He’d sunk to the steps and braced his back against the side railing. If he tilted his head back just enough, he could make out her face through the window glass, between the half-drawn curtains. That’s when his breath had left him. The serene expression she always wore had fallen away like the mask he’d suspected it to be, leaving her true self exposed. She grimaced as if in physical pain as she bent over the keys, the motions of her body adding emphasis to the turbulent tones. Then, when the music lightened, her face would turn toward the sky as if she was begging the Lord for guidance, searching for the hope she’d somehow misplaced.
She doubts me. Stone closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the railing. He couldn’t blame her. He had come here intending to rescue Lily. Rescue. Ha! As if the girl needed rescuing from the woman who had sacrificed so much to keep her safe.
Hearing Charlotte’s turmoil through the piano cut him to the quick. He wanted to go to her. To reassure her that he’d not betray her. That he’d made his choice, and it didn’t include Dorchester. But trust couldn’t be demanded; it had to be earned. And he sensed that Charlotte’s trust would come at a higher price than most.
She took such pains to lock her inner self away from the world. For protection. Someone had hurt her long before Dorchester. And before that fool, Sullivan, and his closing of her school. A suitor? Her father? Stone hadn’t dug very deep into the old scandal surrounding her parents. He’d been focused on uncovering properties Charlotte had ties to, not fifteen-year-old gossip. Yet now he wished he’d taken the time to find out.
The music changed.
Stone opened his eyes. That song. The one John had played for Lily. Yet while the notes sounded familiar, the effect was staggeringly different. Stephen had said the song made him feel lonely when his teacher played it. Stone had to agree. Hearing it reminded him of nights alone on the trail, the wind soughing through the trees, creating its own lonesome lullaby—the kind that made him question the future he’d mapped for himself. Would the cabin and property he’d worked his whole life to claim bring him fulfillment or just isolation?
He shook off the melancholy as he’d trained himself to do, yet the music continued to woo him back. Why? Why did it affect him so strongly?
His gut clenched. It wasn’t the music. It was the musician. The song drew him to his loneliest place because that’s where she was. Alone.
Unable to stop himself, Stone rose to his feet and crept toward the right side of the porch. Then to the parlor window. Her eyes were closed, her lashes dark against her pale cheeks. He peered closer. Something glittered on the skin beneath those lashes. Tears? The back of Stone’s throat constricted. Charlotte. Always so strong, so controlled for everyone else. They leaned on her, depended on her. Who do you lean on?
Not having a clue what to say but determined to let her know she wasn’t alone, Stone pulled his hat from his head and strode into the house. He halted in front of the sofa and stood there, praying she could see his intention in his eyes.
She didn’t jerk away from the piano as he’d expected. No, her hands simply hovered over the last notes before slowly lifting to brace themselves against the wood casing. Her lashes lifted. She turned to face him, tears flooding her eyes.
“You came back.”
15
Charlotte stared at the silent man who had thrust himself into her parlor. Into her life. She should feel relieved that he’d not run back to Dorchester. Or perhaps angry that he’d lingered in town so long and caused her to worry. Maybe even embarrassed that he’d caught her playing, or shamed that he’d seen her weakness. Yet none of those emotions flared in her chest. In truth, she was so wrung out from the music, all she could do was stare silently back at him.
Their eyes held for a long moment, and something in the way he looked at her gradually imbued her with renewed strength, as if she were a wilted garden, scorched by the summer sun, and he a gentle rain. She’d been on her own for so long, no one to depend on except herself and a God who too often felt far removed. Yet Stone was there. His arms strong. His shoulders sturdy. What would it be like to lean on him? For just a little while?
Fanciful nonsense—that’s what it was—conjured by a heart too weary to protect itself against old dreams that had never fully died. Still, she couldn’t quite shake the thirst. The yearning to be loved by an honorable man, one worth his salt, as Stone had called it. She licked her lips, almost expecting to taste the tang, but of course there was nothing there. Just spinster skin and foolishness.
Stone must have recognized her lack as well, for he suddenly cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Of course I came back,” he grumbled. “I told you I would.” His gaze flitted from her to the ceiling to his boots to the window before alighting once again on her.
Charlotte did smile then. His fidgeting, the hint of insecurity in a man so thoroughly capable, restored a measure of the control she’d lost in Beethoven’s sonatas. She straightened her posture and slowly rose from the piano bench. “In my experience,” she said, feeling more like her usual self, “a person saying he will do something is not necessarily a guarantee that it will be done.”
All signs of awkwardness vanished from Stone’s countenance in a flash. He pinned her with a look that stole the breath from her lungs. “I’ll make you a deal, teacher. You start judging me by my own actions instead of those of the sorry yahoos who let you down so many times in your experience, and I’ll judge you by yours instead of lumping you into the same category as the tight-laced, sour-faced, switch-whacking schoolmarms of my past that I always loathed.”
The comment brought her up short. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . .”
Had she been unfair? Life had taught her to be cautious of men, but being cautious didn’t give her the right to assume all men were guilty of poor character and then treat them as such. A man, or woman, should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Hadn’t she asked Stone to give her the benefit of the doubt before spiriti
ng Lily away? And he had. He’d listened to her, examined her documents, written letters on her behalf, all in the face of evidence that proclaimed her a kidnapper.
Charlotte lifted her chin and forced herself to hold his gaze. “Forgive me, Stone. I’ve done you a disservice. I . . .” She swallowed. “I can’t promise it will never happen again.” Habits formed over half a lifetime rarely disappeared overnight. “However, I can promise that I will make every effort to stop viewing your character through a tainted lens. You’re right. You deserve to be judged on your own merits.”
The lines of his face softened, and he stepped closer. So close she could touch him if she simply lifted her arm. Naturally, she kept both appendages firmly at her sides.
But he didn’t.
Stone reached his hand to her face and stroked a fingertip lightly along her hairline then traced the curve of her ear. Tingles coursed over her scalp, and for a moment she feared her knees would buckle. Never had a simple touch shaken her so completely.
“I’m not perfect, Charlotte.” His low voice rumbled over her like river water plunging down a cliff in a spectacular fall. “I’m bound to make mistakes, but I swear to you here and now, that I will do everything in my power to keep you and Lily safe. Do you believe me?”
She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. Yet she couldn’t quite silence the suspicious voice that clawed through her mind.
He knows you’re a lonely spinster. That’s why he’s touching you, looking at you with such intensity. It’s a manipulation to gain your cooperation. It’s not real. It can’t be trusted.
But what if it wasn’t a manipulation?
Charlotte examined his face, the lines of his mouth, the strength of his chin, the sincerity in his eyes. Either Stone Hammond was the finest actor ever to tread the streets of Texas, or he was, in fact, a man of integrity. A man worthy of trust. Could she afford to send such a man away when he’d just declared his intention to keep Lily safe?
A Worthy Pursuit Page 11