Her Montana Man (21 page)

Eliza kept filling the teapot and frosting more cakes. How many could they possibly hold?

A soft tapping woke her. She rose and padded forward. Expecting Jonas, she opened the door.

Phoebe stood in the hall. “Ward sent me. You have a visitor downstairs.”

Groggy from the dream, she cleared her head. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Dunlap.”

Royce had come here? She experienced a moment of panic.

“I’ll come in and sit with Tyler,” Phoebe told her.

Eliza glanced at her boy, still sleeping soundly. “All right. Thank you.”

Downstairs, Royce waited in the foyer. “How are you faring, dear one?” he asked.

“I was resting.”

“Forgive me for disturbing you,” he said. “Is my son resting?”

“Tyler’s sound asleep.”

“We must speak. Is there somewhere private?”

Eliza glanced at Ward, and then led Royce around the front desk to the office. He entered behind her

and closed the door.

She was fairly confident that he wouldn’t make a scene with so many people nearby; still, she didn’t

want to listen to anything he had to say.

“Your days of behaving like a trollop are over,” he announced in that pious tone.

She studied the oak woodwork for a long minute before looking at him. It gave her supreme satisfaction

to see the cut at the corner of his mouth. He’d seen her reaction, and his nostrils flared. He tightened his

lips, setting his thin mustache in a straight line. He’d changed into a clean white shirt. She refused to buy

into his meanness by asking what he was talking about.

“You and the barkeep have been entirely too cozy, dear
sister
.”

She remembered Willie’s report of a rider following them out of town. “Are you following me?”

“I have better things to do with my time.”

“I’ve often wondered what those things were.”

“I have eyes and ears everywhere,” he said. “And this latest tryst is finished, do you hear me? You’re

moving back to the house.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? If you’re concerned about propriety, I’ll hire you a companion until we’re married. Someone

proper, not a saloon girl.”

“It’s too difficult to be in that house now, since Jenny…” She let the words drift off.

“You’re coming back. It might as well be sooner than later.”

“I need more time.”

“To do what? Get yourself up a stump by yet another miscreant? The next child will be my own son, I

can assure you.”

“What is the purpose, Royce?” she asked. “I’ll give you my share of the company. That’s all you’ve

ever wanted. Jenny’s share, then mine. If you have all that, why do you have to keep after me, as well?

You don’t love me. You never loved Jenny.”

The room was too small. When he walked toward her, there was nowhere to go except backward into

a wall. He took a strand of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers and thumb. “Power has nothing to

do with love, foolish girl. I run the biggest company in this part of the state. People do what I tell them to

do.”

“Why isn’t that enough?” she asked.

“I’ll own Sutherland Brick Company lock, stock and barrel. But then it will be Dunlap Brick Company.

And I’ll have owned both Sutherland women. You’ll be Dunlap property, too. I’ll have everything your

father once had and more.”

Eliza swallowed.

“Jenny Lee wanted your bastard, not me. You’ll do well to remember that. Taking him made Jenny Lee

happy and pacified your father. Pretending that I cared made me look good. Henry’s not watching

anymore.”

“Tyler’s a Dunlap in the eyes of Silver Bend.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned. I want my own son.”

Even if she was planning to stay and keep Tyler here, he wouldn’t acknowledge him as a son? The more

she heard, the more certain she was that leaving was the right thing—the
only
thing to do. She was done

begging and pleading with a man who had no conscience. “What do you want from me?”

“You’re going to move back to the house. Then you’re going to marry me and be a good little wife.”

“And the alternative?”

“Your precious boy will be all yours, which suits you in one respect. On the other hand, everyone will

know you’re a whore and that he’s a bastard.”

He backed away, his smug expression showing how pleased he was with himself. “I’ll be mortified that

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

the news leaked out, of course. I had tried so hard to protect you and your son and give the boy a good

name.”

“Give me two weeks to find a companion. I may have to advertise out of town.”

“One week. At that time I will let it be known that we are observing a mourning period and then we will

marry. For the boy’s sake, of course. And to keep the family legacy intact.”

“Of course.”

“And no more dallying with the barkeeper.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stay clear of him. If you don’t take me seriously, see what happens.”

“What more could happen?”

“Oh?” He walked to the door and rested his hand on the knob. “He could get shot. Again.”

Royce opened the door and let himself out.

Eliza stared at the back of the oak door. Shot again. Meaning he would shoot him or have him shot?

Again, meaning he had something to do with the last time?

She raised her hand to her breast as the implication and the threat swirled in her mind and settled into

cohesive assumptions.

If he was having her followed, then he knew where she went and who she went with. He couldn’t see

inside these walls, but someone could have observed them on the porch that night and shot at Jonas.

Why? To get him out of the picture?

She had never doubted Royce’s determination or the heights he would scale in order to get what he

wanted. He was devious enough to paint himself in a flattering light while working his selfish strategy

behind the scenes.

She had no doubt he would stop at nothing to carry out his plan, but as more and more facts came to

light, it had become clear that the situation was perilous. Everything that mattered was at stake. Her

freedom, Tyler’s future, their safety….

Everything.

liza Jane remained in her room most of the day and throughout the evening. Nadine had carried up food

for her and Tyler. When Jonas stopped by to check on them, Eliza Jane seemed reluctant to talk and

eager to be left alone.

They’d been through a terrible ordeal, he understood, so he respected her privacy and worked late. With

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

the niggling question of Luther Vernon’s ease in locating Tyler, he strolled down the street and settled at a

table in the saloon.

Luther was playing cards with a handful of the regulars, and from the looks of it, the stakes were pretty

high. He pulled a fistful of cigars from his vest pocket and passed them out. The men scraped matches

over the edge of the table and lit up. A pungent cloud formed over the table and hung in the air.

Quay brought Jonas a glass of beer with a yeasty head of foam and set it down.

“How long’s this been goin’ on,” Jonas asked.

“Since this afternoon. He’s throwing around that reward money and buyin’ rounds for the house.”

“Peaceful enough?” Jonas asked.

“No problems.” Quay spoke in a low tone. “Luther’s been in Silver Bend maybe two or three years

now, would you say? I’ve never seen him with money before, and I guess now I know why.”

Jonas nodded, visiting with a few men, until the hour grew late. He helped close up and tip chairs upside

down on the tables. Eventually, he headed home to his quarters, washed and settled in to read. The

journals had become his regular pastime, a link to the father he’d never really known. Through them, his

father had transformed from a shadowy absent figure to a man sick with regret and grief, a man doing the

best he could.

Still not sleepy, Jonas put the last journal back in the trunk, pausing over the packets of his parents’

letters. Resigned to reading through them, he settled comfortably in his chair. The missives from his father

were reserved accounts of his days and the work he was doing. He spoke more passionately of the

battles, the principles and beliefs behind them, and often mentioned his desire to make a difference.

He’d written in a letter stamped with one of the later postmarks:

I miss you and our son more than words can say. Jonas is a bright boy with a stubborn streak that will

carry him far, as well as back him into corners, depending on how wisely he chooses.

When I return this time, I plan to stay home for good. It’s been difficult for you, alone during these

months that have turned to years, and my growing desire is to spend the rest of my days and nights with

you, my dear wife.

I have deliberated on a project that Jonas and I can work on together and have chosen one to complete

first. We will dig that root cellar you have always wanted and plant a garden. You can pickle beets for

him to turn up his nose at.

Jonas detested pickled beets. His father had known that?

Every letter was signed, “with unflagging love for you and our son.” As a boy growing up without a

father present, he’d believed that his father had simply cared more for his travels and his work than for

his wife and family. A world of hurt had partnered with those beliefs. He’d learned respect for women by

seeing his mother’s strength, but he admired her all the more now, recognizing how much she had

sacrificed to help the man she loved follow his heart and live by his principles.

Jonas had never set out to become a hero. Defending those weaker than him was something that came

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

over him as instinctively as raising his fists to a bully. Didn’t take a genius to recognize he’d harbored guilt

and regret over being unable to protect his mother or that he hadn’t been able to set it aside.

For years he’d resented his father for not being there when she’d needed him most. Helping people was

Jonas’s way of making up for his weakness back then. It was his way of being unlike his father.

But his father had been helping people, too. He’d slept in tents and traveled with the army because he

believed in what he was doing. A new understanding of the man and his work took some shifting of

notions in Jonas’s stubborn head. He’d always seen his father’s profession as abandonment and—more

importantly—as the reason for his mother’s death.

His father’s commitment to the army and the men who served, was an extension of his compassion for

people. His written regrets melted through the cold resentment in Jonas’s heart. He should have forgiven

the man long ago.

It was time to let go of the resentment. But he couldn’t pick up regret, either. That’s what his father had

done and it had destroyed him. Jonas had come back to Silver Bend. He’d spent time with his father

before his death. He’d done the best he could at the time.

That knowledge would have to be good enough.

That night Eliza dreamed of the sunroom at the house. She and Jenny sat on a flowered sofa faded by

years of sunlight and watched Tyler playing on one of the quilts their mother had sewn. The pale-haired

infant entertained himself with a stack of painted blocks and his wooden horses.

“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” Jenny Lee told her. Her blue eyes reflected love and her

fair hair glistened in the sunlight. “You know that, don’t you?”

Eliza had nodded.

“Will you always remember how very happy I am right this moment? Years from now, when you

question yourself or think back, will you remember? Please say yes.”

“Yes,” Eliza had told her. “I’ll remember.”

Eliza woke with tears on her temples and homesick disappointment lying heavily on her heart. “I

remember,” she whispered into the darkness.

Jonas and Eliza walked Tyler and the Harper boys all the way to school the following morning. She

wanted to bend down and wrap her arms around her child, but he gave them a goodbye wave and

headed for the little brick building.

Eliza watched with her heart in her throat.

Partway there, his steps slowed. He turned back to face them. In the next instant, he was running toward

Eliza full tilt. He threw his arms around her waist and hugged her with all the strength in his scrawny little

arms. The Harpers grinned and waited.

“I’m gonna be fine,” he told her, leaning back to look up at her.

She knelt. “I know you will.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Don’t worry about me, ’kay?”

“Okay,” she said, but the word was spoken around tears. She stood.

Matt and Daniel followed him inside.

“Maybe someone should be here to watch over the school today,” she suggested.

“Warren has somebody on that,” Jonas replied. “He deputized Earl Mobley’s nephew. Uriah will be

checkin’ on them through the day and meetin’ ’em after school.”

With that assurance, she felt marginally better about Tyler’s safety. Adding what had happened to the

uppermost burden on her mind, she still had plenty to worry about. Royce’s threat that she stay away

from Jonas was alarming.