A Vote of Confidence (27 page)

Two days later, Roscoe Finch — the gardener and handyman who worked for Morgan — delivered a note to Gwen.

Dear Miss Arlington,

I am afraid I will be unable to have my lesson next Tuesday as I have gone to Boise on matters of business and expect to be
away from Bethlehem Springs until week’s end. I do, however, look forward to receiving my lesson the following week. I trust
you are willing to continue to instruct me since I have heard nothing to the contrary.

Your servant,
Morgan McKinley

“Thank you, Mr. Finch.” Gwen looked up from the sheet of paper, composing her expression to reveal none of her conflicting
emotions.

“You’re welcome, miss. I’m always glad to do whatever Mr. McKinley needs. He’s a good soul, giving an old man like me work
and a place to live.”

“You’re not old.”

He chuckled. “You’re wrong about that. A person can’t argue with the passing of time, and I don’t mean to try. If you’re wise,
Miss Arlington, you’ll take note of it now while you’re young. The years, they go by faster and faster, and you don’t want
to find yourself at my age, looking back and wishing you’d done things you hadn’t or wishing you’d gone places you didn’t.
You only get one time around on this here earth. You gotta make the most of life while you can.”

She acquiesced with a nod.

Roscoe tipped the brim of his hat in her direction. “Well, good day to you, Miss Arlington. I’d best be about my work.”

“Good day to you, Mr. Finch.” She watched him as he moved toward the gate, a slight limp in his walk.

Loneliness tugged at Gwen’s heart as her gaze dropped once more to the note in her hand. She wouldn’t see Morgan for another
whole week. It already felt like a lifetime.

She groaned at the thought. Only yesterday she’d been determined to tell Morgan she could no longer be his piano teacher.
Only yesterday she’d been convinced that putting him from her mind was the best thing to do — for both of them.

Only she couldn’t do it. She realized that now. She wanted to see him. If only for half an hour once a week, she wanted to
be with him. Because despite all her denials and words to the contrary, she cared for him.

Cleo was right about her. She was a fool with her head stuck in the sand.

Morgan was strolling back to his hotel after a late lunch with William Rudyard at the senator’s private club when a female
voice stopped him.

“Morgan! Morgan McKinley!”

He turned around.

A young woman with dark hair and eyes hurried toward him, smiling broadly. Who on earth? Was it — ? No, it couldn’t be.

“Daphne?” he said aloud.

His sister looked the same as she had following their mother’s funeral, and yet she was different too. More of a woman than
the girl she’d been. Was it the way she carried herself or the clothes she wore or something else?

Daphne stopped in front of him, rose on tiptoe, and brushed his left cheek with her lips. “Yes, Morgan. Of course it’s me.
What are you doing in Boise? You are the last person I expected to see here.”

Before he could answer, someone joined them on the sidewalk, and Morgan lifted his gaze to see who it was.

His sister looked behind her at the young man. “Morgan, this is my friend Robert Dudley. The one I wrote you about. Bob, this
is my brother, Morgan.”

Robert doffed his hat. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. McKinley.”

“Likewise.”

“Daphne has told me a great deal about you, sir.”

“Has she indeed.” He looked at his sister. “I’d like to hear that myself. I trust it was entertaining.”

Daphne laughed, then asked, “Where are you staying?”

“At the Idanha Hotel.”

“That’s where Bob and I have taken rooms as well. Are you going there now?”

“Yes.”

“Then we shall walk with you, if that’s all right.”

“Of course it’s all right.” He offered his arm, and she took hold of it.

Robert fell in behind them on the sidewalk.

“You received my letter?” Daphne asked as they walked. “The one telling you I was coming?”

“Yes, I received it, but I didn’t expect you until next week. I thought you were stopping to see the sights. Have you enjoyed
your trip west?”

“It’s been delightful, although we didn’t make as many stops as I’d hoped we would. Bob is anxious to reach California so
he hurried us along. He wants to be rid of his obligation to me and be about the business of becoming a well-known figure
on the motion picture screen.”

“Don’t believe her, M r. Mc Kinley,” Robert interjected . “Daphne was the one in a hurry. She was eager to see you.”

The idea pleased Morgan — that his sister wanted to be with him. He thought again of Gwen and Cleo, of how close they were
despite the many years of separation. Pray God the same would happen between the McKinley siblings.

He patted the back of Daphne’s hand where it rested in the crook of his arm. “I’m glad you’ve come. It’s been too long since
we were together.”

“I feel the same. And to be honest, I was weary of traveling around Europe and just as weary of staying put with Cousin Gertrude.
She is a dear woman, truly she is, but I no longer need to be chaperoned as if I were a child. And the way she tries to keep
men away from me.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “It’s positively medieval.”

Morgan nodded but made no comment. He knew Gertrude Anderson, an unmarried woman in her forties, had meant to protect the
young McKinley heiress from fortune hunters. In fact, that was one of the things he’d charged her with doing when he’d asked
her to be Daphne’s chaperone. But his sister needn’t know that.

“Morgan, you haven’t told me why you’re in Boise. I know you didn’t come to meet me.”

“I’m here on business for New Hope. I’ve got a meeting with men from the railroad later in the week, and in the meantime,
I’m hiring more workers and placing orders for materials and furnishings.”

“I cannot wait to see what you’ve accomplished. For that matter, I cannot wait to see where you have settled. Who knows? Maybe
I’ll decide to stay in Bethlehem Springs too.”

Harrison rode his horse down the incline to the water’s edge. About a quarter mile north of the wall of trees on the opposite
side of Crow’s Creek were the pools and the bathhouse of the New Hope Health Spa. Elias Spade had promised him this was the
best way to enter the grounds undetected. Maybe the only way, due to the guards now patrolling the area.

It was a risk, of course, for him to be here in the middle of the day, but he’d wanted to see for himself what Spade intended. A stick or two of dynamite, Spade had told him, was all it would
take to destroy that section of the resort compound. A spa without pools and bathhouse was no spa at all. Without them, the
resort couldn’t open. And maybe that would be the final straw for McKinley

Gwen’s article for the
Daily Herald
was due the next day, and she hadn’t managed even one sentence. She’d found a dozen other things to do besides write, including
baking a cake and two pies and scouring her kitchen. The cake and one of the pies had been taken to the Goldsmiths. She would
most likely eat the second pie herself. Every bite of it, unless she threw off this funk.

That was one reason she was now in her buggy, Shakespeare trotting along the road heading north. She hoped the fresh air would
rid her of her bad humor and save her from that pie. Her other reason — the more important one — was to see if an idea that
had come to her that morning might provide not only tomorrow’s piece for the paper but a series of them. She wanted to write
articles about some of the men who were building the spa. One article about a carpenter. Another about a stonemason. One about
Mr. Doyle, the site overseer. Another about… the owner.

Summoned by her thoughts, Morgan’s words repeated in her head as they had done often over the past week.
“Isn’t it obvious? I have come to care for you. To deeply care for you.”
Would he say those words to her again if he were given the chance? Or would he withdraw them for good because of her rejection.

Sounds floated to her through the forest — hammers striking nails and wood, men shouting to one another. She was nearing the
building site.

Just as Shakespeare was about to pull the buggy around a bend in the road, Gwen caught sight of a man on horseback down at the creek’s edge. She drew back on the reins. If that was Fagan
Doyle —

But it wasn’t the site overseer. She could see the man’s face now as his horse picked its way across the shallow water. It
was Harrison Carter. What was he doing down there?

Harrison looked up, saw her, and reined in, stopping his horse in midstream. After a brief hesitation, he waved to her. “Miss
Arlington. Wait there, will you?”

It wasn’t a difficult ride from the creek up to the road, and yet Gwen thought Harrison Carter looked as if he’d traveled
a mile uphill. There was a sheen of perspiration across his forehead and upper lip, and when his gaze met hers, it skittered
away at once. Almost as if he were unnerved by her presence. Which made no sense to her. Harrison Carter was
not
the nervous type, and especially not around women.

“Visiting the resort site?” he asked, glancing toward the bend in the road.

“Yes.” She could have told him about her idea for the articles. She chose not to.

“Has Mr. McKinley returned?”

“No, I don’t believe that he has.”

He looked at her again, then down the road toward town. “Too bad. I wanted to speak with him about some concerns the board
has regarding the effect the spa will have on Crow’s Creek. Once it joins the river a few miles south of here, it will become
our problem.”

Gwen almost asked him what those concerns were, but a check in her spirit stopped her from voicing the question aloud. Something
told her Harrison was being less than honest.

“Maybe you know when he’s to return, Miss Arlington.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know for certain.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

She stiffened. What business was it of his what Morgan said to her? “I didn’t see him before he left.” True — and she felt
no compunction to tell him there had been a note. “You must excuse me, Mr. Carter. I’ve an article to write and too little
time to do it in.” She slapped the reins against Shakespeare’s rump, and the buggy moved forward, around the bend, and out
of Harrison’s sight.

Disagreeable man.

Unless the voters of Bethlehem Springs voted for Morgan despite his endorsement of Gwen, she would be the newly elected mayor
in a few weeks. She would have to work with Harrison Carter on matters that concerned both town and county. That wasn’t a
pleasant thought. The longer she knew him, the less she liked him.

The road curved to the right again, then to the left, and once more to the right. The final turn brought the New Hope lodge
into view. She imagined herself as a guest arriving for the first time. Surely it would make a guest’s heart leap when he
or she saw that magnificent building. She was no judge of health spas, having never visited one, but she had to believe this
would be as grand as any other.

How many guest rooms would there be in this four-story building? Sixty? Eighty? More? Would a day actually come when all of
those rooms would be filled with guests? Morgan must think so or he wouldn’t be pouring so much money into its development.

In an area some distance from the lodge was a clearing where several corrals had been built. Each held a number of horses.
Nearby were several wagons with horses standing in the traces. She guided Shakespeare in that direction.

By the time she stepped out of her buggy, Fagan Doyle could be seen striding toward her.

“Miss Arlington, sure and it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Good day, Mr. Doyle.”

“If it’s Morgan you’re looking for, you won’t find him here.”

She nodded. “Actually, it was you I came to see.”

“Me? Be still my heart.” He placed both of his hands over the left side of his chest. His grin gave away his jest.

“Perhaps you know that I write articles for the
Daily Herald
”