Heart of Stone (21 page)

“And?” Amelia was watching him closely. “How did you react? Were you shocked?”

“Of course I was shocked, but once I recovered, I told her that I didn’t care. That I loved her. I even asked her to marry me.”

“Oh, Brand. I know you love her, but—”

“Now she’s gone.” He walked over to the window that faced the street.

“Maybe she just needs time. You both need time. Was it wise, proposing to her on the heels of her revelation? You know how much I care for Laura, Brand. She’s a wonderful woman who has done a remarkable job of turning her life around, but you are a minister and she is a woman with a checkered past.”

“I have no doubt that God has brought her into my life for that very reason. Who better to love her unconditionally? Who better to find forgiveness in his heart?” He shook his head. “When I think about the look on her face when she told me good-bye yesterday, it scares me to death. There was such…finality to it.”

Amelia came to his side. “Let’s stay calm,” she said too quickly.

“You don’t look calm,” he noted.

“She has no one to turn to. Nowhere to go.” Amelia’s eyes were suddenly bright with tears. “All those photographs and daguerreotypes in her drawing room? She bought them, Brand. She’s completely on her own.”

“She has us,” he said.

“She doesn’t feel worthy of us.”

As he stared down the street, a swift, dark thought came to him.

“Collier Holloway,” he said. “Maybe she went to him.”

“Oh, I surely hope not. I think that’s the last thing she would want to do.”

“Is it?” His heart was hammering. “She believes herself unredeemable. That the life she led is unforgivable. All my talk of forgiveness fell on deaf ears. She was more concerned about me and worried about how I was going to maintain the trust of the congregation and the church board when they learned the truth about her. Maybe she thought going back to Collier was the only way to discourage me—”

Amelia shoved his hat into his hands. “Go. Go to the Silver Slipper. Don’t waste another breath. If she’s there, drag her out by her hair.”

He shoved his hat on as he stepped outside and headed for the porch steps.

“I’ll walk down to the
Gazette
office and tell Hank she’s missing,” Amelia called out.

Brand stopped in his tracks and turned around.

“Before you do, wait to hear from me. If she is in the Silver Slipper, I don’t want anyone to know.”

“If she
is
in that saloon, do whatever it takes to get her out.”

The saloon doors were already open even though it wasn’t yet ten o’clock. Brand reined in, dismounted, and tied his horse to the hitching post in front of the Silver Slipper.

He walked inside without hesitation. The barkeep, Denton Fairchild—the same man who’d been there the day the unfortunate Jenny died—recognized him.

“Hey, Preacher. What can I do for you?”

Brand glanced toward the office door in the back wall. “I want to see Holloway. Is he here?”

The barkeep hesitated a second too long before he said, “He’s out.”

If the man hadn’t glanced up toward the last door on the
second-floor balcony, Brand might have believed him. He started across the room and took the stairs two at a time.

“You can’t go up there! He’s busy.” Fairchild started around the end of the bar after him.

Brand hurried along the balcony, passing the various doors until he reached the room at the end of the line. At the end of the hall were double doors, larger, grander in scale, with brass hardware.

He reached for the knob. It was locked. He rattled it, tried to twist it open.

“Holloway! Open up.” He had visions of Laura on the other side of the door. “Open up!” He pounded on the doors.

The barkeep was behind him now, trying to pull him away. He shrugged the man off just as the door whipped open. Collier Holloway stood on the other side of the threshold in a half open, quilted satin robe. His hair was a tousled mess, his eyes red from excess.

Brand steadied himself, ready to save Laura from a fate worse than death.

“Well,” Holloway slowly smiled. “If it isn’t the preacher. How are you doing this morning, Reverend?”

Brand looked past him. There was a woman in the bed on the other side of the room, a wide-eyed brunette clutching the covers beneath her chin.

Not Laura.

Relief coursed through him.

“I take it there’s a reason for your unexpected appearance?” Collier leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. “Or were you just dying to see me?”

“I’m looking for Laura. Is she here?”

“Lovie?”

“Who’s Lovie?” Brand was sick of the man’s stalling.

Something flickered in Holloway’s eyes. A conceit and a familiarity Brand despised.

Holloway watched him intently. “So, she didn’t even tell you her real name?”

“She did, but she’s Laura Foster to me. Where is she?”

Collier Holloway stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him. He nodded to the barkeep.

“You can go, Denton,” he said. “I can handle him.” Holloway focused on Brand. He kept his voice low, his gaze steady. “What makes you think she’s here?”

“Yesterday she told me everything. This morning I went by the boardinghouse and it appears she’s gone. She didn’t tell her help or her friend, Amelia, where she was going.”

“And I guess she didn’t even tell you, eh, Preacher?”

“No.” Brand shook his head, fighting a sinking feeling around his heart. “She didn’t.”

“Then it appears the
lady
doesn’t want to be found.” Holloway rubbed the night’s growth of stubble on his chin. “What did you do, Reverend? Start ranting and raving when she told you? Did you send her packing?”

“I proposed.”

Collier shoved away from the wall, his expression a study in contempt and barely restrained anger.

“You happy now, Preacher? You asked her to be a preacher’s wife? Who are you kidding? She’s a smart gal. She knows she can
never
be what you want her to be, so she ran. Good luck finding her. It took me four years to track her down after she left me.”

Brand kept his hands fisted at his sides. He took one long deep breath after another. It would be so easy to let himself go, to fall into the yawning pool of anger that beckoned. So easy to lash out and knock Holloway senseless.

It was a struggle, but Brand finally reined in his temper and held himself in check.

“I can see you’re worried, Preacher,” Holloway said. “Don’t be. That woman’s like a cat. She always lands on her feet.”

Holloway laid his hand on the doorknob behind him. Before he stepped back into his room he said, “If and when you find her, be sure to tell Lovie I said that if she ever comes to her senses, my door’s still open.”

Brand was headed back to the Larsons when he heard the loud, hollow sounds of footsteps beating against the wooden walkway along Main Street.

“Reverend!”

He turned around just as Richard Hernandez reached him. The young man was out of breath. Bracing his hands on his knees, he bent over and drank in long draughts of air.

“Is she back?” Brand asked.

Richard shook his head and looked up. “My…my father sent me. He said to tell you he looked in the carriage house and the horse is gone. The horse that pulls Mrs. Foster’s carriage. Maybe she left on the horse.”

“Alone?”

Laura had no experience riding save yesterday’s. Brand hoped she hadn’t gotten it into her head to take off on her own. If so, she could be lying somewhere on the open prairie with her pretty neck broken.

“Is Jesse back yet?” At this point, Brand could only hope she might have talked Jesse into helping her.

“No, sir. He’s still gone.” Richard hesitated.

“What is it?”

“If you are thinking he went with Mrs. Foster, you are wrong. I saw him leave yesterday. He had a bedroll with him. He never came back yet.”

“But you didn’t actually see Laura leave?”

“No, sir. I was at the
Gazette
office early helping Sheriff Larson with this week’s newspaper.”

Within twenty minutes Brand was back at the Larsons’. Amelia had been waiting for him, watching through the window. She sat him down at the kitchen table and poured him a cup of strong coffee.

“No word at all, you say?” She filled his cup almost to the brim and then passed him the sugar bowl and creamer.

“She’s not with Holloway—”

“Thank heaven,” she whispered.

“The Hernandez boy told me that her carriage horse is missing. Harrison Barker said she didn’t board the stage this morning.”

“Do you think she rode off on her own?”

“If she did, I don’t think she’ll get very far very fast.” He sighed, took a sip, and set the cup down again. “Maybe she paid Jesse to take her somewhere.”

“Good. With Jesse she’ll be safe. When he gets back, he can tell us where she’s gone.”

“Why would he come back to Glory?”

“Because you’re here,” she said.

“Richard said Jesse left to go hunting yesterday.”

“Laura may have sent him off early to avoid suspicion. Maybe they met up outside of town,” she mused.

“That would mean she was planning to leave
before
I proposed.”

Brand stared at the worn tabletop. A pottery vase filled with dried flowers served as a centerpiece. Hank and Amelia’s home was neat but sparsely furnished. The couple had been tested, but their love had survived. Brand knew his love was true. His belief in his and Laura’s future just as solid.

Amelia made him finish the coffee before he took his leave and even managed to tempt him with a bowl of the chili bubbling on the stove.

“I’m going to head back to the boardinghouse,” he told her. “See if Jesse’s back yet. See if he knows anything.”

She walked him to the front door for the second time that morning. “Let me know.”

“I will,” he promised.

She reached out and touched his sleeve. “Don’t worry, Brand. You’ll find her.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said. He refused to accept the notion that he would never see Laura, never hear her voice or kiss her sweet lips again. “I sincerely hope you’re right.”

T
hat afternoon, Brand sat in uncomfortable silence during the emergency board meeting. It was the last place he wanted to be with Laura moving farther out of his life with each passing moment. He was tempted to get up and walk out, but he couldn’t leave with his fate still among the topics yet to be discussed.

The board members had appeared uncomfortable from the minute he joined them. There were seven in total counting Brand, and all were present except Timothy Cutter, who was at the bank. Mary Margaret Cutter was there along with Barbara Barker, Harrison’s mother; Amelia, whose father had been instrumental in building the church; Bud Townsend, a wealthy rancher; and Raymond Pettigrew, a retired lawyer who was new to town. He and Townsend were friends and Pettigrew had a habit of siding with the rancher whenever it came time to vote.

The underlying, unspoken question was still whether or not Brand should be retained. At the moment, though, the topic was whether or not to reroof the church. He wondered how long they would put off the inevitable vote regarding his tenure. He hadn’t the stomach to fight his own case today, not with Laura missing. All he could think about was where she might be, whether or not
she was safe, and how to go about finding her—especially if she didn’t want to be found.

Across the table, Townsend had a tentative hold on his temper. His weather-worn face was two shades redder than usual. Two years ago, the rancher had donated funds for a new roof for the hall. This year the church itself was in sore need of reroofing, but Bud had balked when Mary Margaret asked if he could again be generous. If not, she suggested, perhaps he could donate half the amount needed.

Studiously avoiding meeting Brand’s gaze, he told the rest of the board, “There’s no way I’m handing over any more of my family’s hard-earned cash for anything as long as McCormick is still minister.”

The rancher had a demeanor as tough and abrasive as his leathery, weather-weary hide. Townsend wasn’t about to mince words even in front of Brand. Everyone else shifted uncomfortably in their chairs when he turned to Brand directly.

“It’s bad enough you got yourself a half-breed son, Reverend. The fact that you never married the buck’s mother compounds the problem. What are people gonna think of us when they hear? Those aren’t exactly the qualifications we were looking for in a preacher when we hired you on. We’re trying to attract upstanding, God-fearing folks to this town.”

“I, for one, don’t care what anyone else thinks,” Barbara Barker said. “Brand has done a wonderful job of—”

“Right up until his ‘son’ showed up and spilled the truth about him,” Townsend interrupted. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “And now I hear he’s been spending a lot of time courting that highfalutin widow.”

“I call for a vote of confidence.” Mary Margaret Cutter quickly cut off all discussion. “Otherwise we’re not going to get anywhere.”

Amelia shook her head. “This isn’t the time to—”

“When is the time?” Townsend had a full head of steam and was running with it.

Brand pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

“There’s no need for a vote of confidence.” He looked at each of them in turn—friends, supporters, and his outspoken opposition. “Before this meeting, I wrote to an old friend and asked if he could stand in for me as acting minister until you can find someone of your own choosing. He’s recently retired. I’m sure he’ll agree to come and arrive within a couple of weeks. In the meantime, please consider this my resignation. I quit.”

“Brand!” Amelia was on her feet. “You can’t—”

“I just did.”

He was free now. Free to go after Laura. Free to find her and make her his wife without repercussions from his flock. He was beholden to no one but God and he knew without a doubt that was one vote of confidence he could always rely on. The only one that really mattered.

“Now, if you’ll please excuse me.” He hated to walk out on Amelia and Mary Margaret like this, but the time to act was long overdue. Bud Townsend was right. He
had
been focused on Laura of late. Right now, she was his entire concern. If he didn’t go looking for her, who would? Even if she refused to marry him, there was no way he could let her walk down the dark and twisted road she’d once traveled. No way he could live with himself if he did.

He left the hall and went directly to the church, opened the side door, and went in. It was chilly inside, cavernous and empty. Slipping into the closest pew, he closed his eyes and began to pray for guidance. He’d barely started when the door opened behind him. He suspected it was Amelia, until he heard spurs chink against the floor.

He opened one eye, expecting to see Bud Townsend or Raymond Pettigrew standing there.

But it was Jesse. Hat still on, hands riding his hips just above his holster.

Brand stared at the hat. Jesse shrugged then took it off. “Sorry. I need to talk to you.”

Brand slid over. Jesse appeared uncomfortable, but sat down beside him. He gazed up at the high-peaked ceiling.

“Where’s Miz Foster?”

“I wish I knew. I hoped you might. Thought maybe you’d helped her leave town.”

“I went hunting yesterday and just got back. Rodrigo told me she left. Permanent-like. Rode over and saw you walk in here.” Jesse scratched his ear. “You know why she might have packed up and took off?”

“Maybe.”
Because I asked her to marry me.

“How long are you going to sit here doing nothing while the trail gets cold?” Jesse looked Brand over. His son didn’t say a word, but Brand could tell he was thinking,
Is this how you went about trying to find my ma?

“I had a board meeting. I’m finished here and just about to pack up and go looking for her.”

“I hope you’re better at preaching than you are tracking somebody down.”

“I am, but I just quit.”

Jesse looked at his hands. “Because of me showin’ up, no doubt.”

“I need to find Laura and I wasn’t getting anywhere listening to small-minded folks arguing over old news.”

Brand spun out his theory about Laura taking the carriage horse. Told Jesse that he’d checked with Harrison Barker and found out Laura hadn’t bought a ticket for the morning stage.

“I don’t even know which direction to go.”

“She didn’t take the horse. Rodrigo found it wandering around in the pasture behind the house.”

“Then how did she leave town?”

Jesse shook his head. “A headstrong woman with money can do just about anything she wants.”

“Do you have any idea where we should start looking?”

His son stared at him as if he were crazy. “You asking me to help you?”

“I am.”

Laura wanted him to get to know Jesse, or rather, Jesse to get to know him. Now her disappearance might be the catalyst for bringing them together.

“Why should I?”

“For one thing, she took you in, gave you a place to live and an honest day’s work. I’m not asking you to do it for me, I’m asking you to do it for her. The consequences, if we don’t get her back, are unthinkable.”

“Pretty strong words.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“If it’s got anything to do with that scallywag who owns the saloon, I can’t imagine it amounts to anything good.”

“He doesn’t know where she is either.”

“Then I reckon that’s good news.” Jesse sat there a minute or two. Dusted the brim of his hat.

Brand tried to clear the lump in his throat before he said, “I can’t give you back the past or the years we lost, but I can give you the future. I’m not convinced I can do this alone. I don’t know the first thing about tracking anyone.”

Jesse sat for so long Brand thought he ought to take the silence for a no.

Then Jesse turned to him again. “I don’t have much else to do. I’m in.”

“We’ll find her. I know we will.” Brand said. The alternative was unthinkable but he had no guarantees they would succeed. And if he found her, then what? Not only was his own reputation in question, but there were those who would never, ever come to accept the woman who had won his love.

“I’ll go pack some things,” Jesse said. “We could be gone awhile.” He stood up and stepped out of the pew. “If I were you, I’d say a few extra prayers.”

“Don’t worry, I plan to.” Brand was already giving thanks for Jesse’s help. “Meet me over at my place when you’re ready.”

Jesse walked out. Alone again, Brand clasped his hands, lowered his head, and prayed for strength and guidance.

Turning to his faith and following his heart had always gone hand in hand. Laura had seen his initial shock, his doubt and hesitancy as he had tried to absorb what she was saying. What she couldn’t see was that his love was stronger than his doubt. That he was willing to stand by her. If he was blessed enough to find her, it would be up to him to convince her that if God was willing to forgive the worst sinner, then man could surely do no less.

When he left the church, he found Amelia waiting for him outside.

“We took the vote and we want you to stay. It was four to one. Pettigrew went against Bud Townsend. If Timothy would have been present it would have been five to one.” The hem of her skirt flared out around her ankles as she jogged to keep up with him. “Please say you’ll reconsider your resignation.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, Amelia, but this is for the best. Now I’m free to go after Laura and I don’t intend to stop until I find her and bring her home. The board may have confidence in me now, but what will they think of my decision to marry her when they find out about her past? What then?”

His words gave her pause. After a few more hurried steps in the direction of his home, she grabbed onto his sleeve. “Please, stop a minute. I can’t keep up with you.”

“I’ve got to hurry. Every minute we lose puts her that much farther away.”

“You can’t go off alone. Looking all over Texas is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Jesse has agreed to go with me.”

“That’s good, I guess.” She nodded. Her expression brightened some. “That’s real good. I hate to think of you riding around unarmed. Hank has a gun he can loan you.”

“No, thanks. Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. It’s Laura we should be worried about.”

“I hope you’re not too late.”

“I pray I’m not.”

She took his hands in hers. Held them tight. “You listen to me, Brand McCormick. You find Laura and then you bring her home. I wish I could speak for the whole board, but I can’t. You won the vote of confidence, but I have no idea how long we can hold your position for you.”

“I understand. Just watch out for Charity and the children. I’ve got enough in savings to see her through for a while—”

“Hank and I would never let them go hungry. You know that. You have plenty of friends here. Friends who want you to stay on.”

“Friends who will still back me when Laura and I marry?”

She didn’t answer. Even he didn’t know if those friends might find his commitment to Laura untenable once they learned the truth.

“Everything will be fine. You’ll see,” Amelia said. “Just start by finding Laura and bringing her home.”

C
harity followed him around the house as he grabbed a couple of clean shirts and long johns.

“Are you sure you should leave in the middle of all this trouble?”

“Laura is gone because of my initial response to what she told me. I’ll admit I was stunned, but who wouldn’t be? I love her, Charity. I’m the one who sent her running. Because of me she’s walked away from her home, her dream.”

He couldn’t voice his true concern aloud. Now wasn’t the time to add any more to his sister’s pile of worry.

“I’m entrusting the children to you, as always. Amelia and Hank will help you out with anything you need. See Mary Margaret at the bank if you need any money. I’ve left some cash in the water pitcher in the pie safe.”

“But what if you don’t find her?”

“I’m not going to stop until I do.”

She planted her fists on her hips. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re more than capable of handling things until I get back.”

“Will you stop by the school and tell the children good-bye?”

He walked into his room. Opened a tall wardrobe and pulled out a coat he hadn’t worn in a long time—a jacket of suede lined with lamb’s wool. He shrugged out of his collar, took off his black coat, and changed into the heavy jacket.

“I don’t want a scene. I’ll leave them a note. That way they’ll have something to reread until I get back.” He scanned the room before he picked up his extra clothing. “Tell them Jesse is going with me and I promise to bring him home with me when we get back. That ought to make them happy.”

“Brand, what if something happens to you? What if you don’t come back? How will I know you’re all right?”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders.

“Where’s your faith, Sis? I’ll try to write once a week to let you know where we are.” He let her go and shrugged. “Who knows? We might be back in a couple of days.”

“Maybe so.” She smiled. “You’re right. Maybe you’ll be back by supper.”

“How about you pack us some vittles? Something to eat so we don’t have to stop along the way.” He didn’t need her to remind him he had no idea where they were going or how long they might be gone. With any luck, they just might be back for supper after all.