When The Heart Beckons (40 page)

“Is something wrong?”

“No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I
think I know how to make things right. At least, I’m going to
try.”

“Go then,” Conchita touched her shoulder.
“Our problems might be solved, but I think that you and the
Señor
McCallums will not sleep well until something else
is settled.”

“You’re right, Conchita.” Annabel clutched
the book to her chest and turned toward the door. “It is time to
settle one very important matter.”

On the porch, Brett was studying the
gleaming tips of his boots. “Before Annabel comes out here, I need
to know something. You’re in love with her, aren’t you, Cade?”

Cade had just rolled and lighted a cigarette
and he regarded his brother over the glowing tip. “I reckon you
could say that. Any objections?”

“No, how could I ... I mean ... hell, Cade,
she’s my best friend. Of course, I never thought of her as a woman
until ... until I saw her out here for some crazy reason ... she
was always just Annie, sort of like a sister ... only ...”

“Only what?”

“Only when I saw her the other night at
Lowry’s damned fiesta, I started thinking ... maybe she could mean
more to me. She’s beautiful. And she’s the most loyal, intelligent
woman I know. And her eyes, I never really noticed how they glow.
No one else’s eyes have that sparkle in them ...” He pushed his hat
back on his head and sighed. “Only one problem. When I kissed her
...”

Cade’s eyes narrowed. “You kissed her?”

“Ahuh. Out by Lowry’s corrals when we were
spying on his men.”

“Go on.”

“Well, when I kissed her,” Brett went on
casually, “it was pretty wonderful, only,” he rushed on hastily as
Cade stood up, fists clenched, “only I could tell that her heart
really wasn’t in it. And I’d guessed from the way you two were so
angry at each other that there was something neither of you were
admitting between you. So I figured out that it’s not me she wants
after all. Maybe she did once—the thought occurred to me
occasionally, but I never really took it seriously. Until that
night. Oh, hell,” he burst out, stomping across the porch with
restless energy, his boots cracking over the wood planks, “maybe I
just wanted to kiss her because I knew
you
wanted to kiss
her—but I thought you should know about it and I also think you
should know that you’re damned lucky if she does love you because
Annabel is the best thing that could happen to you.”

“I know that.”

“You’d better treat her right,” Brett added
warningly, spinning around to glower at his brother in a
threatening way that was only half-joking. “Otherwise you’ll have
to answer to me.”

“Answer to you for what?” Annabel asked, as
the front door thudded softly shut behind her.

Both brothers glanced over at her in
surprise and then exchanged quick looks. “For not being nice enough
to a certain inquisitive lady,” Cade replied easily, and held out a
hand to her.

She went to him and nestled against him as
naturally as a rose curling toward a leaf. “You’re always nice to
me,” she said softly. “Except when you’re being impossible.”

Brett shook his head, studying the two of
them as their eyes locked for a moment in the moonlit shadows of
the porch.

“Think I’ll turn in,” he said pointedly, but
Annabel’s voice stopped him.

“No, wait. I have something to show you.
Both of you.”

The night air was cool, but it felt
refreshing upon her cheeks and neck as she moved slightly away from
Cade and held up the book.

“Cade, you asked me what this was one time
when it fell out of my carpetbag.”

“Oh, yes, that famous carpetbag. Is there
anything you
don’t
have tucked away somewhere inside that
thing?” he teased her.

“Yes,” she assured him, “there isn’t a stove
in there, nor a horse. Nor a saddle. But that’s about it,” she
admitted. Then her smile faded and her expression grew serious.
“This is my aunt Gertie’s old diary. I’ve kept it as a keepsake,
but this evening, while you two were out walking with Tomas and
talking about whatever menfolk talk about when they go off like
that, I dug it out of my carpetbag and I read it.”

“You read Gertie’s diary?” Brett frowned
disapprovingly at her. “Why?”

“I only read parts of it. Parts pertaining
to events that took place years ago. I wanted to see if she might
shed some light on what happened around the time of your mother’s
suicide.”

Silence descended upon the porch, but for
the hum of insects and the distant wail of a coyote. Annabel
glanced cautiously from one brother to the next. Brett looked
stunned, Cade thoughtful.

“I assume you found something interesting.”
Cade lifted one eyebrow at her, but though his words were spoken
lightly, his features were dead serious.

“I did. I think you should both read several
entries —or ... let me read them to you.”

Brett nodded and swallowed, looking tense
and pale in the shimmer of moonlight. Cade said nothing, but merely
watched in taut silence as she opened the weathered volume to the
page she had marked and quietly began to read aloud.

“
March 11, 1861—What a dark day this has been.
Rain and clouds all morning long, that clumsy Marta dropped a pan
of fresh biscuits on the floor, and little Master Brett has the
devil of a cold. But the worst of all was the missus. Poor Mrs.
McCallum, Bridget found her pacing in her room today, quite beside
herself. Crying, she had been, but no one knows the reason why.
When Bridget asked her if there was anything she could do for her
or get for her, Mrs. McCallum said only that she should get her Mr.
McCallum’s hunting rifle and let her put an end to her misery.
Bridget was nearly beside herself and when she told me, I went
straight to Mr. McCallum. Maybe it was not my place to do so, but
the look in Mrs. McCallum’s eyes lately puts great fear in my
heart—she is that sad and that haunted. Mr. McCallum turned pale
when I told him, poor man. He thanked me for coming and sent me
away.

As soon as I left the study though he followed me
out into the hall and went straight upstairs—to find her, I
imagine. I pray that he is able to help her with whatever troubles
are tormenting the poor thing. It is plain that he loves her more
than anything—I have never seen him be so gentle or solicitous with
anyone else ever—even his sons—Master Cade, God bless him, such a
good sturdy boy, and even little Master Brett.”

Annabel glanced up. “There’s some more, but
that is all that day that relates to your mother and Ross. But
there is another entry that you must hear. Listen.

“
I am so distressed I do not know how I will ever
find a moment’s sleep tonight. I went down to the kitchen late to
have a cup of warm milk and a slice of the cherry tart left over
from supper, and before I started back up, I thought I heard a
noise in the cellar. Thinking it might be rats, I took a candle and
a broom and went down to see for myself but couldn’t find anything,
and then, as I was coming up the steps, I heard voices there in the
kitchen. Well, I froze when I realized it was Mr. McCallum himself
and Mrs. McCallum. I didn’t know what to do, and being embarrassed,
I stayed where I was on the stairs. The door was closed and they
must not have heard my footsteps. She was crying, poor, poor dear,
and he was comforting her. ‘You mustn’t worry about him,’ Mr.
McCallum said. ‘I will not let that scoundrel hurt you
again.’

She began to cry even harder and said he must hate
her for what she’d done, for all the trouble she’d brought him. Mr.
McCallum begged her not to distress herself, he vowed that he loved
her, and his tone was so tender there were tears on my cheeks.
Something awful is afoot, I told myself but Lord help me, I do not
exactly understand what it is. I waited there on the steps until
they had left the kitchen and gone up to bed. She seemed comforted
in the end, but the sounds of her misery ring still in my ears. I
wish I had never heard what I did. I will say nothing to anyone for
it’s their own business, poor souls, and I trust Mr. M to take care
of it.”

Annabel lowered the book and touched Cade’s
arm. “Are you all right?”

He met her gaze with eyes bleak as fog. “It
... seems that I ... misjudged ... him.” There was a terrible agony
in his voice that flayed at her heart.

“It was a mistake, Cade. You couldn’t have
known ...”

“What about me?” Brett burst out miserably.
“I didn’t even give him a decent chance to explain. I ran off ...
like a coward,” he cried, and wheeled away from them to gaze out at
the mountains so quickly that Annabel knew there were tears in his
eyes. “I was so eager to believe Boxer’s version of things. Was
there ever a bigger fool?”

“Mistakes can be rectified,” she said into
the silence that followed. “When we go back you will both do what
is necessary to make things right with your father.”

“If Boxer hasn’t destroyed him first!” Cade
threw down the butt of his cigarette and crushed it with his boot,
looking as if he’d like to crush Frank Boxer instead.

Brett still gazed out at the empty night
dotted with stars. In the distance, moonlight outlined an elk atop
a black butte. “Annabel, is there more? You might as well finish
adding whatever light Gertie’s diary can shed on this mess.”

“There’s one more entry you should know
about.” She glanced uncertainly at Cade, waiting for his nod before
she went on reading.

“
This is the saddest day I ever remember in this
house. The master has locked himself in his study with a bottle of
spirits and no one dares try to speak to him, even though it is now
midnight and he has not come out since early this morning when we
found poor Mrs. M. Shot herself she did, right there in the garden.
No one knows but the servants and Dr. Holt. Mr. M spoke with the
doctor and then gave instructions to every one of the servants. He
said no one is ever to know the truth, that everyone should say it
was a fever that killed Mrs. M. Ah, mercy me, everyone knows that
secrets are hard to keep in a big house like this, the way servants
talk, but if anyone can arrange to silence a secret as horrible as
this one, Mr. M will find a way to do it and I pray that he does
for the sake of those two poor children upstairs. Bad enough Master
Brett and Master Cade will have to grow up without their mama. They
surely don’t need to hear gossip and whispers and scandal all their
days. Ah, I don’t know who I’m sorrier for ... Mrs. M or the
master. I shudder when I remember his face—a gray shade of oatmeal
it was. A body weeps to think of it. Tomorrow we shall have the
funeral. Oh, there are terrible days ahead.”

Brett wrenched himself around, his face
twisted in anguish. “I am taking the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
back to St. Louis tomorrow. If anyone wants to join me they’re
welcome, but I won’t wait even a day. I have to get back.”

“I’m going with you.” Cade spoke quietly
into the darkness. “We’ll face this together, Brett.”

“All three of us.” Annabel closed the book
and went to Cade’s side. She touched his arm. “We can make things
right with your father and deal once and for all with Frank
Boxer.”

“If it isn’t too late,” Cade muttered with
awful bitterness.

“It won’t be. Don’t even think that way.”
But though Annabel tried to sound confident, her heart was full of
fear. She was sure that it was Boxer who had hired Cobb to kill
Brett, and she suspected something else too. “Brett, you left that
letter with Derrickson before you ran away. Isn’t that what you
said?”

“That’s right. You don’t know him, Cade,
he’s Father’s man of business, but he only came to work for him in
the past four years. But you’ve met him, Annabel.”

“Oh, yes. A proper little toad. Maybe too
proper,” she added grimly.

“You think Derrickson waylaid my letter?
That he’s in cahoots with Boxer?” Brett’s eyes widened with chagrin
as she nodded.

“That is exactly what I think. Before we get
on that train tomorrow, I’m sending another wire to Mr. Stevenson
so he can warn your father of the danger he’s in. Boxer has planned
to kill you, to ruin your father financially, and who knows what
else? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“Even murder ... isn’t that what you mean,
Annabel?” Cade gripped her wrist, and she looked up to meet his
eyes.

“Even murder.”

A coyote howled again in the distance, and
the three on the porch shivered. Each one of them knew that they
might already be too late.

St. Louis

N
o sound or light
escaped from within the large McCallum stables, set well at the
back of the estate’s rambling grounds, as Lucas Johnson sauntered
from his carriage in the starlit yard and beheld the building
before him. Behind him, the handsome team of grays that were his
pride waited restively, but a quick glance over his shoulder
reassured him that his groom had them well in hand. Johnson
signaled the man to wait, and kept walking, regarding the stables
with a mixture of loathing and satisfaction.

This was the infamous place where he had
been held and trussed before Ross McCallum had him shanghaied. This
was the place where he had lost his freedom. How appropriate now
that this be the place where Ross McCallum should lose his own
life.

He eased open the stable door, his heart
pumping with a queer anticipation. He’d waited twenty-two years for
this moment. Though McCallum had been held prisoner for days now in
the cellar of his own home, while Derrickson closed the house, sent
all the servants away, and put out the news that their employer had
gone out of town for the month, the time had finally come for
McCallum to be moved to the stables, and informed that his demise
was at hand.

Johnson was now ready to let himself be seen
for the first time since Ross’s imprisonment. He would present
himself to Ross McCallum tonight for the first and last time, and
have the pleasure of seeing the expression on his face when
McCallum realized who was the mastermind of his undoing.