Mountain Heiress: Mountain Midwife (18 page)

“Open eyes, open heart, wide horizon,” Zach said, leaning over her shoulder to see the computer screen. “Like the note on Michelle’s landscape sketch.”

They were onto an important discovery. She could almost hear the puzzle pieces falling into place. “Michelle wanted us to connect the sketch with this letter.” She read more of the translated document. “There was another woman. Louis was having an affair.”

“Not exactly an unusual story.” He stood and walked away from her workstation. “Men have affairs all the time. Even in the 1870s.”

“But it means something. Michelle went to a lot of trouble, leaving this trail of clues. I wonder why she didn’t just tell me.”

“There must have been a reason.”

Gabby would have enjoyed a story about Louis Rousseau, the Frenchman who married a Native American woman and wore a gold earring like a pirate. His affair would have been one more colorful chapter. “Michelle liked her secrets. I never knew why she turned her back on her family in Brooklyn.”

“I know why,” he said.

His simple statement surprised her so much that she rose from her seat. “She told you?”

“We talked several times a week. Before Charlotte came, she was alone, maybe lonely.”

She approached him. “I want to know.”

“I’m not going to tell you right now. I want you to think about it,” he said. “Once I expose Michelle’s secret, I can’t take it back. I can’t unring that bell. Her story becomes a permanent part of your family legacy.”

He was warning her, and she’d be wise to pay attention. Zach wasn’t the kind of man who was easily alarmed.

Chapter Twenty-One

What kind of terrible thing could have driven Michelle from Brooklyn? A little later, Gabby sat at the kitchen table and called Daniel on his cell. He sounded even more cheerful than yesterday. Her mood was in sharp contrast to his. Tersely, she said, “I’m coming to pick you up. Be ready by ten o’clock.”

“It’s all good,” he responded. She could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Excellent.”

“What’s going on?”

“Sarah and I have the whole inheritance thing figured out. It’s the perfect solution, and we all come out winners.”

“Winners? This isn’t a poker game, Daniel.”

“Hell, no, this is a sure bet.”

She hated that he was using gambling phrases to talk about their inheritance and the terms of the will. In the past few days, they’d gone through so much, and none of it was good. Had he already forgotten that he’d been assaulted and almost died? “I’m leaving soon. Be ready.”

Zach came up behind her and gently massaged her back. When he rolled her head from side to side, she heard a series of pops from the tense muscles at the base of her neck. “Feels good.”

“Relax.” He glided his skillful hands down her arms. “Think about your breathing and relax.”

“I’m so glad I met you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Better than inheriting a house? Better than starting a business?”

“Absolutely.”

“Better than finding your brother and making new friends like Rhoda and Toby and Charlotte?”

“I can’t believe she’s still asleep. I should wake her up before we leave to pick up Daniel. It’s best if she stays with Rhoda while we’re gone. I don’t want a repeat performance of the attack on Daniel.”

He leaned down and kissed her behind the ear. “You go wake her. I’m going to put my pretty Corvette away.”

“I wish we could drive it to the bed-and-breakfast. But it’s a two-seater, and I’m bringing Daniel back if I have to drag him, kicking and screaming.”

Upstairs, she tapped on Charlotte’s door and peeked inside. “Are you awake?”

“I was just lying here, thinking. Those girls I hung out with at the rodeo would hardly talk to me in high school. And I have a boyfriend. And I’m...blonde. How did this happen?”

“It was time for you to come out of your shell. When you did, you saw the world was a pretty decent place.”

When she sat up in the bed, Charlotte accidentally exposed the real reason she’d been hiding out in her bedroom. She had a big red hickey on the left side of her throat. “I love my life.”

“You need to get out of bed. Zach and I are going to be gone, and I don’t want you staying here alone. You’ll have to go over to Rhoda’s.”

“Okay.”

“And you might want to wear a turtleneck.”

Charlotte giggled as Gabby closed the door.

In her bedroom, she changed into her new, practical boots. They weren’t pretty but definitely comfortable. The rest of her outfit was simple—a long shirt, vest and jeans. The only nod to fashion was the leopard-patterned scarf around her neck.

Zach had hit a bull’s-eye when he reminded her of all the positive things that had happened—the house, the business, the new friends. She was basically an optimist. Her mother had been the same way, but none of the other women in her family were naturally cheerful. Rene always expected rain, even on sunny days. And Michelle was a complicated bag of neuroses. Her troubled, secretive life might have been part of her artistic genius. Whatever the cause, Gabby wanted to know her secret. All the secrets—even her own shameful decision to contact Fox—had to come out.

* * *

O
N
THEIR
DRIVE
to the bed-and-breakfast, Zach was in the passenger seat of Gabby’s little hatchback. He didn’t like riding shotgun. His fingers itched to get on the steering wheel and his foot kept stomping on an imaginary brake.

Gabby pulled up at a four-way stop at a deserted intersection in a field and waited while a fat black crow waddled across the road. She exhaled a sigh and said, “I’m ready to talk about Michelle’s secret.”

He’d expected her to ask; her curiosity wouldn’t let her close her eyes to the truth. Though Gabby wanted to believe that family was the root of all happiness, she knew better. “It’s not a pretty story.”

“I’m not going to shoot the messenger,” she promised. “There is something that puzzles me. Of all the people she could have chosen to confide in, why did Michelle pick you?”

“We were kindred spirits,” he said. “We both left home when we were young, and that decision changed us.”

“Then this is also a story about your past,” Gabby said. “Bonus.”

“What makes you think I’m going to tell you about my past?”

“Because the truth—no matter how ugly—is better than being haunted by secrets. First, tell me about you.”

“My family had a small ranch in Wyoming and not much money. I had a younger brother who died when he was nine from a rare genetic heart disorder.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Zach had been fourteen when his brother passed away. That might have been the first time he looked for relief in a bottle of his dad’s rotgut whiskey. “My parents were afraid to have any other kids.”

“Because the illness was inherited,” she said.

“They didn’t want to take a chance on having another child who died young, so they put their heads down and kept working. My mother was a shy, sad woman. My dad was mean as a snake. To his credit, he never hit my mother or me.”

When he looked back on the silent misery of his childhood, Zach saw his father as a coward who wouldn’t raise his hand to another human because he feared the consequences. “He was the worst kind of abuser.”

He glanced over at Gabby. Though her eyes focused on the road, she was listening intently. He could have ended his story here, and she wouldn’t know the difference. There was no rule that said he had to reveal every part of himself, and he’d rather stay a hero in her eyes.

But he trusted her.

“My father hurt things that couldn’t fight back. Animals.”

The truth was poison. Zach hated to think of his father’s blood running through his veins. “Any dog that got in his path got a sharp kick in the ribs. I saw my father skin a rabbit alive. When I tried to stop him, he called me a sissy and told me to keep my mouth shut. I learned to do just that. I could go days without saying a word, shuffling along on a dark path and never looking up.”

“You’re not your father,” she said.

“Do you really want to hear more?”

“I wish there wasn’t more to tell. I wish you could have had a happy ending.”

“No such luck.”

The GPS directions indicated a left turn, and he waited until she was back on route. Going home, he’d insist on driving.

“When I was seventeen,” he said, “I came home from high school and I saw my dad beating one of our horses. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t listen to me until I dragged him away from that poor animal and hit him hard enough to knock him down. Then I hit him again. He cowered in front of me, and I was glad to see his pain. That’s when I knew.”

“When you knew what?”

“I was like him. He’d taught me how to use my fists to hurt somebody else. He lay there in the dirt with his mouth bleeding, and he told me he was going to press charges and have me locked up in jail. I left and never went back.”

“You did the right thing,” she said.

“I never doubted that leaving was the right move,” he said. “Beating my father was wrong. There’s no good reason to lay hands on another person.”

“It’s not something you’ve made a habit of doing. You’re not the kind of man who solves his problems with his fists.”

“I’ve run into situations when I had to fight.”

“Of course,” she said, “and you’ve taken on bucking broncos and Brahma bulls. But you’re a patient man.”

He trusted her, and she accepted him with all his dark history and all his flaws. He might be in love with this woman.

“And now,” she said, “tell me about Michelle.”

He knew how important family was to her, and he hated to poison her mind. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve thought about it. I’m ready.”

“Michelle was a victim. She never told me the name of the Brooklyn man who raped her, but it happened more than once to both Michelle and her sister.”

“Rene? She was abused?”

“Both girls. They told their mother, and she did nothing to stop the abuse because she didn’t want to disrupt the family, which Michelle considered ironic. Neither she nor her sister ever married or had children. The Rousseau family line ends with you and your brother.”

“Cold revenge,” she said.

“That’s why Michelle left and never went back to Brooklyn.”

“I wish they’d spoken up, but I understand.” Her hand trembled on the steering wheel. “It happened a long time ago, sixty years in the past when abuse wasn’t talked about.”

“Are you okay?”

“My grandfather was their brother. He’s been dead for twenty years. Was it him?”

“We’ll never know.”

According to the GPS directions, they were less than a mile from Sarah’s bed-and-breakfast. The land around them was forested and rugged. At a wide space in the road, Gabby pulled her car onto the shoulder and parked. “I need to take a minute to calm down.”

He got out of the car, came around to the driver’s side and opened her door. Without speaking, he took her hand and pulled her out of the car. “Let’s take a walk. Stretch your legs.”

Though there wasn’t any traffic, he guided her away from the road into a path through the pine and conifer forest. Leafy green shrubs brushed against their legs as they walked uphill.

“I still want a family,” she said. “In spite of the awful past—starting with Louis Rousseau’s infidelity—I believe a family can be nurturing.”

“The trick is choosing the people you want to be close to.”

“Like Rhoda?”

“I’d rather have her for a favorite aunt than anybody else. And Charlotte makes a good little sister.”

“What about us?” She didn’t pause to look at him but kept hiking. “Where do we fit in a family structure?”

“You’re sure as hell not my sister.”

They had climbed to the top of a ridge. From this vantage point, they looked down at a sprawling cedar lodge, Bentley’s Bed-and-Breakfast. She wrapped her arm around him and rested her head against his chest. Since she wasn’t wearing her platform shoes, she was a couple of inches shorter than usual.

A shudder trembled through her. “My God, look at this view.”

It was unusual for her to comment on the scenery. While cruising around in the Aspen area, they’d driven through spectacular mountain vistas, and she’d barely taken note. He asked, “What about the view?”

“Don’t you recognize it? There are two high mountains, and I can see the beginning of a river.”

He saw it. “It’s the sketch Michelle drew.”

Gabby’s great-aunt had led them to this spot, and he had the feeling that even more secrets were about to be revealed.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The door to the bed-and-breakfast swept open as Gabby charged toward it. Her brother welcomed her with open arms as though he was the new owner. “Wait until you hear what Sarah and I figured out.”

She held up her hand to stop him. “Is she your new girlfriend?”

“We’re business associates.”

As long as it wasn’t monkey business, they were okay. The way Gabby figured, Michelle had led them along this convoluted trail because of a connection in the distant past—a family connection. The details swirled around in her head like a crazy stew of secrets. It was entirely possible that Daniel and Sarah were related.

Zach stepped onto the porch beside her. “Let’s go inside, sit down and find out how much Sarah knows.”

“How much do I know about what?” Sarah stood behind them with an armload of firewood.

“The past,” Gabby said.

Sarah climbed the two steps to the wide wraparound porch where rugged wood chairs had been arranged for guests. “Don’t think you can give me a history lesson, Gabby. My roots are deep, all the way back to the 1800s.”

Gabby took Zach’s hand for support as they followed Sarah into a clean, charming living room with rustic decor that was in harmony with the setting. On the wall beside the fireplace hung a grouping of five small paintings of Tarot cards. Gabby pointed to them. “These are unusual.”

“A gift from Michelle.”

Gabby nodded. It seemed appropriate for the paintings to be here, hiding in plain sight. “I want to talk about your roots. How much do you know about your ancestors?”

“There were a lot of strong women.” Sarah arranged her load of firewood in a metal log bin. “The first I know about was Prudence Hanover. She raised a family and single-handedly ran a boardinghouse for miners.”

“What about her husband?”

“She was a widow. Her first husband was killed in the Civil War, and she never married again. But there was a man in her life. She had three children with him.”

When Sarah stood and faced her, Gabby noticed her coloring. In spite of the strawberry-blond hair, Sarah’s eyes were as dark as her own. If she looked deeper, Gabby was sure she’d find other similarities. “Do you have any idea who fathered Prudence’s children?”

“I do. Michelle told me.” She scowled. “Would you like to guess the name of that original boardinghouse?”

“Wide Horizons,” Gabby said. “In a letter to his wife, Louis Rousseau mentioned it.”

Daniel circled around them. “Gabby, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I had those letters from Louis translated,” she said. “One of them was an apology. He was having an affair, and I’m guessing it was more than a casual fling if he had three children.”

“I still don’t get it,” Daniel said.

“Louis Rousseau was the longtime lover of Prudence Hanover.”

Daniel’s head swiveled as he focused on Sarah, then on Gabby, then on Sarah again. “We’re cousins?”

Sarah strolled across the room and stood at the front window, looking out. “Michelle figured it out. She even had an explanation for the myth of the Frenchman’s Treasure. Instead of hitting a gold strike, Louis found two strong businesswomen. Your ancestor was a terrific rancher, who usually made a profit, and mine had a fairly successful boardinghouse. If one of them was running low on cash, he’d borrow from the other and tell her it came from his treasure.”

“Louis was a dog,” Daniel said.

“I should have told you.” Sarah turned to face them. “But Michelle swore me to secrecy.”

Gabby nodded. “She did that a lot.”

“In any case, I think Daniel and I have come up with an equitable solution for the inheritance. We sell the Roost, the estate passes to me and I make a side agreement with you to divide up the proceeds three ways.”

Their plan benefitted Sarah and Daniel with an immediate cash return, but Gabby was deeply unsatisfied. “I don’t want to give up ownership of the Roost.”

Zach backed her up. “And I don’t want Fox to get his commission for the sale.”

“If we present him a united front,” Sarah said, “we can negotiate him down. He’s going to be here in about fifteen minutes.”

A shock went through her. The last thing she wanted was to have Fox and Zach in the same room together. She didn’t want him hearing about her loan from the lawyer. After he’d shared the darkest secrets of his life with her, she couldn’t repay him with deception.

“I have a better idea,” Zach said. “I’ll buy the Roost and sell it back to Gabby.”

His generous offer stunned her. “It’s a lot of money. I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I can handle it.”

She believed him. Zach could handle anything, but she didn’t want to start their relationship in his debt. Taking his arm, she pulled him toward the front door. To Sarah and Daniel she said, “Excuse us for a moment.”

Outside the bed-and-breakfast, she hurried toward a path leading into the surrounding forest. Their escape came none too soon. As they went into the trees, she glimpsed Kevin Fox’s black SUV turning into Sarah’s parking lot.

Her timing was all wrong. Earlier, when she and Zach were standing on the ridge overlooking Sarah’s place, Gabby had been ready to spill her own secret about Fox. Zach had trusted her and told her everything, and she owed him the same trust. But then, she’d seen the view, and they’d rushed here.

When they were far enough away from the house that they couldn’t be seen, she stopped and gazed up at him. His expression was open and caring. She didn’t want to lose him. “I’ve been keeping a secret, and it’s driving me crazy.”

He took a few paces away from her, leaned his hip against a boulder and folded his arms over his chest. “I meant what I said about buying the Roost. I can afford it.”

“I don’t want to take money from you. I want us to go into this relationship as equals.”

“I don’t measure worth in dollars and cents.”

“Do you have to be so wise? So understanding?” She batted at the low-hanging branch of a pine tree. Her decisions seemed petty and foolish. “I did a really dumb thing. At the time, it seemed smart. I was scared that Daniel would die if he didn’t get proper medical aid. He doesn’t have insurance. And I didn’t have enough ready cash to pay for his treatment.”

“What did you do?”

“I borrowed the hospital money. From Fox.”

She was almost afraid to look at him, but she couldn’t hide from what she’d done. She watched the light fade from his blue eyes. His jaw tensed. “You went to Fox.”

“I had to take care of my brother.”

He pushed away from the boulder he’d been resting against and turned his back as though he intended to walk away from her without another word.

She pleaded, “Say something.”

“All your talk about families and relationships doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t turn to each other when things go wrong. That’s why families are different from friends or lovers. When you need help, a family is there for you.”

“That’s why I did it. For Daniel.”

“You’d do anything for him because he’s your brother. But not for me.” He shot a glare over his shoulder. “You don’t trust me.”

“Forgive me.” Her heart ached. “Don’t hate me.”

“I don’t,” he said quickly. “We can be friends, maybe even lovers. But we aren’t family, and we sure as hell don’t have a relationship.”

As he walked away, she sank to the ground and buried her face in her hands. Too devastated to cry, she rocked back and forth. The Universe wasn’t going to save her from this sadness. She’d made her own mistake. Somehow, she’d have to find a way to live with it.

She heard a rustling in the trees. Was Zach coming back? Was he going to forgive her? She was afraid to look.

She heard one word. “Bitch.”

Her head jerked up. She was staring into the watery blue eyes of Kevin Fox. “It was you, stalking me in the old house.”

He gestured with a handgun. “On your feet, Gabby. I’d rather not shoot you, but I will.”

“You’re the intruder, the person who kept breaking into the house. You almost killed my brother.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I let out that bull to trample you. Except for that first burglary, it’s been all me. And I’m really sick and tired of driving back and forth to your cruddy side of the mountain.” He held the barrel of the gun only an inch away from her nose. “Get on your feet. We’re going to take a walk.”

“And if I don’t?”

With a flick of his wrist, he slapped the gun against the side of her head. Pain exploded inside her skull. She fell but got back up.

“Move it,” he said.

She stumbled to her feet. When she touched her temple, her fingers were wet with blood. It would have been better if she’d passed out. She started walking.

The groomed pathways around the bed-and-breakfast were all neatly marked. Sarah probably had maps of them. This one was called the Cascade Trail.

She walked in front, her head throbbing with each movement. When she slowed down, he prodded her with the gun. She asked, “Why did you do it?”

“It was a little scheme my uncle and I cooked up. Taking the money from Michelle’s paintings and not entering it into her accounts.”

“Fraud,” she said. “Osborne was doing the same thing.”

“Michelle was old and rich, an easy mark.”

“Were you all working together?”

“Osborne is an idiot. He took the computer that turned out to be worthless. He’ll take the fall, and my uncle will get him off with a minimum sentence.”

“You were looking for the accounting books, the information that Rhoda kept.”

“At first,” he said, “then we figured that the real problem was you. We needed to get you out of the picture. That way, my uncle could stay in control. With some fancy juggling, he could keep everything covered up. But you wouldn’t budge.”

She realized that Sarah and Daniel’s plan to sell the house would play right into their hands. “Was Sarah involved?”

“She knows Uncle Jason, but she’s too high-minded to get her hands dirty.”

She heard a rumbling noise. A sign on the trail said: Cascade Falls. After a sharp turn, she saw the waterfall. The trail went up to the ledge behind the gushing water. She guessed the height was about four stories, enough to kill her if she plummeted to the rocks below.

She wiped at the blood on her forehead. “You’re not going to get away with this.”

“Sure I will. Nobody would believe that Sarah would take a fall like this. But you?” He laughed. “You don’t know your way around the mountains. And accidents happen.”

She could dig in her heels and refuse to cooperate, but he’d just knock her on the head and carry her unconscious body up the hill. If she was going to die anyway, she wanted people to know she’d been murdered. She had to make him use his gun.

When he prodded, she pivoted. The swift motion sent a renewed burst of pain into her skull. She grabbed for his weapon, but Kevin was fast.

He jumped back. Using the handle on the gun, he whacked her shoulder and knocked her to the ground.

She didn’t hear Zach approach, but she saw him leap from the path above and knock Kevin off his feet. Through blurred vision, she saw him disarm Kevin. The redheaded man went down after one punch. The fight was over before it had started.

Zach stood over Kevin with his gun pointed at the other man’s midsection.

“I hate bullies,” Zach said.

“Don’t hurt me.”

“I’m a real good shot,” Zach said. “I could shoot your ear off. Or put a hole in your kneecap. That would end your snowboarding career.”

“I’ll cooperate.”

“What do you think, Gabby? Should I shoot this bully in the leg just to watch him cry?”

She was immediately aware of two things: she wasn’t going to die, and Zach had changed his mind. He hadn’t gone into the bed-and-breakfast. “You were coming back to me.”

“If you have your cell phone, this would be a handy time to call Sarah and the sheriff. I want to get these Foxes into jail where they belong.”

There was only one thing she wanted to know. “Do you forgive me?”

“Gabby? The phone?”

She staggered to her feet, ignoring the pain. “Don’t get me wrong, Zach. I’m truly grateful that you saved me from certain death.”

“And I love you.”

“I love you, too. Oh, my God, I love you. But I still want to know. Will you, please, forgive me?”

He smiled. “Yep.”

* * *

J
UST
BEFORE
C
HRISTMAS
, Gabby sat at the cutting table where she and Zach had made love and signed the final papers to settle the estate of Michelle Rousseau. Their final solution, worked out with Zach’s attorney, satisfied everybody. Daniel received a hefty cash settlement, as did Sarah’s Forest Preservation Society. Zach had purchased the Roost, which made sense because his ranch bordered the property, and he deeded the house back to Gabby.

She gazed up at him and smiled. “Ownership really doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Not really,” he said. “After we’re married, it’s all family property.”

“Still, it seems right and proper for a Rousseau to own this place.”

Charlotte dashed up to her with a piece of fabric in her hand. “Would you call this color teal or peacock-blue?”

“Teal.”

Her custom embroidered shirts were doing well with internet sales, a phenomenon that she entirely attributed to the sexy photo of Zach in the black-and-white shirt. Charlotte worked for her full-time, and they’d hired two other part-time seamstresses.

Zach leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I want to talk to you about having a Rousseau own the Roost. After we get married, your name is going to change.”

“I’ll hyphenate.”

“Rousseau-Sheffield is a lot to write.”

She patted the bump on her abdomen where the next addition to their family was growing. “This kid will be smart enough to figure it out.”

* * * * *