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  ‘‘The day he died. He made me promise to bring it back here to you.’’ Accepting help, especially from men, had never been easy for Annabelle. Not that the pastor was any threat in that regard, but seeing the earnestness in his eyes, she almost wished she’d read the letter before giving it to him. ‘‘I hope Jonathan’s request doesn’t put a hardship on you, Pastor. Whatever he’s asking, I’m sure he never meant it to be that.’’

  ‘‘So you haven’t read this?’’

  She shook her head and looked down at her hands clenched at her waist. ‘‘Jonathan never said I couldn’t read it . . . exactly. He only said that he wrote it for you, so I figured I’d better not. . . .’’At the touch on her arm, she lifted her chin.

  ‘‘All this letter says, Annabelle, is that Jonathan loved you very much, and that he wanted to provide for you—’’a soft question lit his eyes, followed by the faintest sparkle—‘‘and for his unborn child.’’

  Annabelle acknowledged the silent question with a nod. ‘‘We found out just before we left Denver. He was real happy over it.’’

  ‘‘Hannah will be heartbroken to hear about Jonathan but will warm to sharing your news, Annabelle.’’ He motioned toward the footpath leading to the house. ‘‘Are you . . . faring well?’’

  She walked beside him, hearing his unspoken question. ‘‘For the most part. I’d hardly know anything was different but for the tiredness and the queasy spells that have come in the past couple of weeks.’’

  ‘‘Hannah will commiserate with that, no doubt. And she’ll have far more advice than I’m able to offer on the subject.’’ His tone grew somber. ‘‘I’m assuming Jack Brennan and his group moved on north?’’

  ‘‘After they waited a day with us. Jack Brennan’s a fine man, and they did all they could.’’ She told him about her trip back through Denver and how the undertaker had prepared Jonathan’s body for burial, fashioning a coffin for him. ‘‘We can’t wait much longer to bury him.’’

  Patrick glanced back at the wagon. ‘‘I’m willing to take care of the details, if you’re in agreement.’’ At her nod, he took her arm and guided her up the porch stairs, then called out Hannah’s name. He turned to her. ‘‘I’m sorry about Jonathan, Annabelle. Before either you or Jonathan knew of his fate, God’s heart broke for you both. I hope you understand that.’’

  Though she didn’t, Annabelle nodded, hoping her lack of understanding didn’t cancel out what little trust she did have. Until recently, she and God had never really been on good speaking terms, and even now, it felt as though she were the only one doing any talking these days.

  The hinges on the front door squeaked, and she turned.

  Hannah walked from the house, and the smile lighting her face gave Annabelle an unexpected sense of coming home. When Annabelle whispered the reason for her return, Hannah’s arms came around her in a rush, drawing her close.

  The safety of another woman’s embrace—the wordless language it spoke—comforted Annabelle so deeply that the facade of strength she’d carefully constructed since Jonathan’s death swiftly gave way.

  .

  Late that night under cover of dark, Annabelle left the Carlsons’ house and skirted down the familiar back alleys of Willow Springs to the opposite side of town. When she rounded the corner and the brothel came into view, she paused. Seeing it again, especially at night, hearing the raucous laughter and tinny notes being pounded out on the parlor piano, gave her a strange sense of being out of place and time. The red-curtained windows spaced at even intervals along the second floor were dimly lit, but she knew the rooms weren’t empty.

  Not at this time of night.

  Her gaze trailed to the third window from the back and she waited, watching. How many nights since leaving Willow Springs had she lain awake and worried about Sadie—the young girl whose past too closely resembled her own. Jonathan had purposed to buy Sadie from the brothel too, after Annabelle had asked him, but the madam wouldn’t negotiate with Jonathan on that one. Fifteen years old, with waist-length jet black hair, smooth brown skin, and dark almond eyes, Sadie’s youth and exotic beauty made her one of the most requested girls in the house. Annabelle didn’t think she would ever understand the nature of some men and why they desired one so young.

  The same gnawing ache that she experienced each time she pictured Sadie still trapped there started knotting her stomach, then slowly clawed its way to her chest. How could she have ever left that child behind? She’d protected Sadie—or tried to—since the girl arrived at the brothel almost four years ago.

  Annabelle headed for the darkened back porch, determined not to make the same mistake again. The door wasn’t locked.

  Memories crouching just inside sprang full force when Annabelle stepped into the kitchen. Stale cigar smoke and the stench of soured whiskey seemed to ooze from the wood-planked floor and walls. An overly sweet bouquet of lilac, reminiscent of perfume the girls wore, hung in the stagnant air, but it couldn’t quench the mingled scent of days-old sweat and humanity.

  The place looked different to her—shabbier, older, more dismal than she remembered. Yet a quickening inside told her it wasn’t the building that had changed.

  ‘‘Betsy will be mighty glad to see you again. And mighty angry.’’

  Recognizing the familiar voice, Annabelle turned to see Flora lounging in a kitchen chair, lace-stockinged legs propped on the edge of the table, cigarette in hand. The harsh-looking blonde smiled, but the smile held no welcome.

  ‘‘Hello, Flora. Has Betsy missed me that much?’’

  Flora blew out a thin trail of smoke. Her eyes narrowed. ‘‘So where did you take her? Betsy had Gillam check every parlor house between here and Denver.’’

  Annabelle frowned, not following.

  Flora laughed as she stood, snubbing out her cigarette. ‘‘You always were a good liar, Annie. I’ll give you that. Betsy cussed a blue streak when she found out she was gone.’’

  ‘‘Found out who was gone?’’

  ‘‘Drop the act, Annabelle. We all know you did it with the help of that man you left with.’’ She raised a brow. ‘‘We just couldn’t figure out how you did it or where you hid her.’’

  Uneasiness crept through Annabelle. She glanced toward the door leading up to the rooms. ‘‘What are you talking about, Flora?’’

  The suspicion weighing Flora’s expression lessened. She pinned Annabelle with a look, then cursed softly. ‘‘You really don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’’ The hardness in her face melted away. ‘‘Sadie disappeared nearly four months ago. We all woke up one morning last January and found . . .’’ She hesitated, firming her lips. ‘‘We found blood on her pillow, Annabelle. Sadie was gone.’’

  CHAPTER | TWO

  THE NEXT DAY, WITH Hannah Carlson on her left and Kathryn Jennings close on her right, Annabelle stared at the fresh mound of dirt marking her husband’s grave and felt a double sense of loss. First Jonathan, and now Sadie. She’d awakened during the night, regretting having ever left Sadie behind, wondering where the girl was now, if she was still alive. Odds were against it.

  Thinking of Jonathan and what he’d done for her, what he’d tried to do for Sadie, Annabelle felt an invisible cord binding her to the place where she stood. How could a man like you have chosen to love a woman like me, Jonathan?

  She tried to listen as Patrick paid tribute to her husband’s life, but the sleeplessness of recent nights kept flanking his words with random thoughts. They crowded one atop the other like voices competing for her attention, blurring Patrick’s testimony and dragging her back.

  One man’s voice, distant yet distinct, jarred her concentration more than all the others.

  ‘‘She doesn’t love you, Johnny. She’s only using you, doing what she knows best. You know that, right?’’

  Annabelle hadn’t been able to see Jonathan’s face that night, but as she peered through the spacing of the roughhewn plank door she had glimpsed Matthew’s, and the rage in h
is features only sharpened at the calm in his brother’s response.

  ‘‘I know Annabelle doesn’t love me, Matthew. Not yet anyway, not like that. But she will, given time. I’m trustin’ she’ll learn to love me.’’

  While Matthew’s insults cut deep, the truth Jonathan spoke with such tenderness, about her lack of wifely love for him, knifed through her heart.

  Matthew’s dark eyes went near black, and his fists clenched at his sides. Annabelle stood in the shadows of the tiny back room, feeling every bit the whore Matthew Taylor claimed she was. How quickly the sins that had supposedly been washed clean in Fountain Creek so often crawled back over those muddy banks to slather her again.

  That was the last time Jonathan and Matthew had spoken to one another, and what they’d said, the sound of their voices, was ingrained in her memory.

  ‘‘. . . and Lord, we commend the soul of Jonathan Wesley McCutchens to you today. You created the first man, Adam, from the dust of the earth, and our earthy bodies are like his, unable to live forever. But your Word promises that after a believer dies, you will give him a new body, a heavenly one, like Christ’s. And holding to that, Lord, we trust that Jonathan is now clothed in that new body and that he’s standing in your presence even now.’’

  Silence followed, and Annabelle looked up to find Pastor Carlson watching her. He motioned, and she stepped forward with a clutch of purple and white columbine, nearly crushed from having been clenched tight in her hands. She laid them at the foot of the rough-fashioned wooden cross that bore Jonathan’s full name.

  Stepping back, she caught Larson Jennings focusing on something that lay just beyond her. She followed his line of vision to a grave not far from where they gathered. She knew the spot well for having visited there several times with Kathryn not so long ago. Larson knew it well too, for at one time the grave had been his.

  Annabelle turned back to find Larson’s gaze on her. Though fire had ravaged his face beyond recognition as the man he’d once been, his eyes still held the bluest hue she’d ever seen. Such a piercing, vibrant blue that it gave the impression he could see right into a person. Kathryn had once said as much. But the awareness in Larson’s stare didn’t bother Annabelle in the least because Annabelle had seen into him the very same way.

  He directed a crooked smile at her, and the unlikely kinship she shared with this man, who was as close as a brother might have been, swept through her.

  After a moment, Kathryn leaned close. ‘‘We’ll stay with you as long as you like, Annabelle. Take your time.’’

  Annabelle squeezed Hannah’s and Kathryn’s hands in hers. ‘‘Thank you, friends.’’

  She stared across the narrow valley bordered by mountains on the west to the clear bubbling waters thrashing between the banks of Fountain Creek. She let out a sigh. ‘‘Jonathan would’ve liked this spot.’’ They had walked these banks together countless times. Birthed somewhere deep inside the Rockies, the stream, famous for its hot-spring pools, forged a path through miles of underground channels, braving twisting canyons and rocky plunges on its long trek to Willow Springs.

  If only she possessed a smidgen of that river’s fortitude.

  There were thorns in her heart that nobody else knew about, but somehow Jonathan had known. He had seen. They’d torn at her flesh until her tears had finally flowed. Tears had fallen in her heart most all her life, but it wasn’t until she’d seen them fall from Jonathan’s eyes that Annabelle finally began to suspect that she was worth far more than the dark, craven whisper had once convinced her was true. Somehow this man had begun to piece together the jagged shards of a young girl’s shattered life.

  Though her life had just started over in some ways, a part of it was ending almost before it had begun. Yet standing here between these two women, sheltered by the memory of Jonathan’s love that seemed to reach beyond the grave, Annabelle found she wasn’t quite so frightened.

  At the same time, she knew she couldn’t stay here in Willow Springs. Jonathan had known that too, and in his kindness, in his dying hours, he had prepared a way for her and their child. Annabelle didn’t know how she would get there, but she fully intended to finish the journey she and Jonathan had set out on together.

  CHAPTER | THREE

  May 30, 1870

  WHEN MATTHEW TAYLOR REACHED the outskirts of Willow Springs, he coaxed the tan gelding back to a canter, veered northwest, and urged the mount up a steep embankment. Despite the many miles put behind them in the last month, the horse made the rocky ascent with seemingly little effort.

  Once they crested the ridge Matthew reined in and leaned down to stroke the animal’s lathered coat. ‘‘Well done, fella,’’ he whispered. ‘‘We’re almost there.’’ The gelding tossed its head and whinnied in response. Matthew’s hopeful anticipation at seeing his brother again lessened when he thought of how he and Johnny had parted ways last fall. Prior to meeting up that night, if memory served, it had been eight years since he had last seen Johnny, and six years of silence had stretched between them since their last correspondence. Yet remembering all they’d been through together helped to ease the knot in Matthew’s stomach. With a soft click of his tongue, he prompted the horse onward to their destination.

  Newly leafed aspen flanked the seldom traveled back road leading to Willow Springs. Though Fountain Creek was masked from view by moss-grown boulders and clumps of willow trees, the familiar sound of the mountain-fed stream cascading over smooth rock bore strange resemblance in Matthew’s mind to a deep murmured whisper of Welcome home.

  In a way, he wished he’d never left this place and that Willow Springs was still his home. Just like he wished he could erase his decisions of the past year and start over again. At the same time, he felt a bitter tug inside him knowing that if any other choice had been left to him, he would never have returned here—not when considering why he left in the first place nearly eighteen months ago. His sole reason for coming back was to find Johnny.

  He wanted to see him. Needed to see him again. Especially now.

  Matthew heard a rustle in the brush behind him and pulled up short. He turned in the saddle and glanced behind him while pulling his rifle from its sheath. He waited, watched. When a small ground squirrel scampered from behind a rock, he shook his head at his own skittishness and continued down the path.

  Thankful for every mile distancing him from the Texas border, he assured himself that he was still days ahead of whoever was following, if they were following. He had no doubt that his former associates in San Antonio would have carried through on their threat if given the chance.

  His only question now was how far they would go to do it.

  When the shack came into view, he reined in. The weathered structure looked much the same as it had the last time he’d seen it. Huddled against a rocky foothill and partially hidden behind overgrown brush, it sagged beneath the weight of too many harsh Colorado winters. The place appeared deserted. Matthew dismounted and scanned the surroundings, watching for signs of inhabitants. If someone were here, they would have heard his approach.

  Staring at the partially open door, his thoughts drifted back to that October night last fall when he’d stood in this very same spot, his heart thudding. Same as it was now. A letter he had received from Johnny had prompted that visit. And as it turned out, the contents of that same letter were what compelled him back here today.

  Johnny had been in Denver last summer buying cattle, and Willow Springs being the last place he knew regarding Matthew’s whereabouts, he’d come looking for him. But Matthew was already gone by then. His brother got word from the livery owner in town that Matthew had headed south, toward San Antonio, so Johnny chanced writing him there.

  Matthew still remembered his astonishment at recognizing Johnny’s handwriting on the envelope.

  Johnny wrote that he had sold the family farm in Missouri— four years earlier—and had purchased ranch land in Idaho.

  Idaho . . . Matthew wondered again what had persuaded
Johnny to do such a thing.

  In the letter, Johnny had explained that since he’d used the proceeds from the family homestead to purchase the land in Idaho, half the land rightfully belonged to Matthew. Jonathan was inviting his brother to join him. But Matthew had very much doubted that the ‘‘ranch’’ Johnny had started in Idaho was anything to speak of. As far back as he could remember, his brother had always possessed a knack for stretching the truth. Besides, when leaving home at the age of fifteen, Matthew had knowingly relinquished any ownership to his birthright. And had done it gladly, without a backward glance.

  Filled with painful memories, the homeplace hadn’t been worth much anyway, and Matthew would have paid any price to be out from under Haymen Taylor’s harsh hand. Which should have made what Johnny had penned next seem like a godsend.

  Your father is gone now, Matthew. You can come home.

  As though it were yesterday, Matthew recalled reading those words for the first time and remembered the oppressive weight being lifted from his shoulders. But the freedom that accompanied hearing that news had also been laced with regret. It wasn’t right somehow . . . a son not mourning his father’s passing.

  The memory faded, and Matthew gave the partially-opened door a nudge. It squealed on rusted hinges. He scanned the inside. Empty. A scene flashed in his mind, and through a haze of memory, he pictured his brother standing there just beyond the doorway last October.

  Johnny’s face had reflected obvious surprise as he glanced from his new bride to his younger brother, his introduction still hanging between them. Johnny must have sensed something, because doubt flickered across his face. ‘‘Have you two already met somewhere?’’

  Hesitating, her eyes wide, watchful, knowing, Annabelle Grayson finally stepped forward. She recognized him—there was no doubt in Matthew’s mind. ‘‘I look forward to getting to know you, Matthew. I’ve heard wonderful things about you from Jonathan.’’