Stay a Little Longer (30 page)

That’s my daughter!

When Charlotte reached the front of the stage, she clearly began to look around in the audience, her eyes searching across
the rows of chairs. Rachel thought to raise her hand, to make it easier for the girl to spot her if only for a quick moment,
but just as she was about to do so, Charlotte came to a sudden and complete stop, her acting role forgotten, her eyes fixed
upon something in the rear of the gymnasium.

Even as the other children continued to do as they had been instructed, never forgetting their role as leaves, blowing here
and there but always moving to the opposite side of the stage, finally passing behind the curtain, Charlotte stood planted
in place as surely as if she were the tree she was supposed to have fallen from. At first her arms hung limply at her sides,
but as a spectacularly broad smile spread across her face, she lifted a hand and waved.

“Charlotte!” a voice whispered from backstage. “Charlotte! You’re supposed to be off the stage!” Rachel caught a glimpse of
a frantic woman, her eyes wide and pleading, waving one arm about in the hope of gaining the girl’s wandering attention.

Instead, Charlotte continued to stare.

Intensely curious, Rachel turned in her seat and followed Charlotte’s gaze. At first, she could see nothing but the faces
of those seated around her, many regarding what was going on with bemused interest, but then she let her eyes travel farther,
finally noticing what had caused all of the commotion.

Mason!

He leaned against the back wall of the gymnasium, standing mostly unseen in the deep shadows; if it hadn’t been for the sparse
light seeping in through the door at his side, Rachel was quite certain she would never have seen him. With a hat pulled down
low over his brow and his arms folded across his broad chest, Mason would have been impossible to identify without closer
scrutiny. She thought she could see him smile in answer to his daughter’s broad grin and wave.

Though Mason had told Charlotte that he wouldn’t be able to attend her performance, something had happened to make him think
better of his decision. Whether it had been the copious amount of tears his daughter had shed that had swayed him or if it
had been his intention to come all along, Rachel couldn’t know, but her heart soared at the surprising sight of him. She knew
it was impossible for him to sit beside her in the crowd, to allow his former friends and neighbors to look upon him and his
scars, but that hadn’t been enough to keep him from watching his daughter on her important day.

But what Rachel felt most was more than her happiness for Charlotte; seeing Mason raised feelings of her own. She turned away
from him quickly, suddenly aware that questioning eyes were falling upon her. Her heart beat thunderously and she was thankful
for the relative dimness of the makeshift auditorium, if for nothing more than it masked her blushing cheeks.

As Charlotte’s teacher went out onto the stage to retrieve her wayward pupil, a sudden truth revealed itself to Rachel; she
was beginning to have feelings for Mason Tucker, the man who had been married to her sister.

Just as soon as Charlotte was reluctantly pulled off the stage and behind the curtain by her teacher, Mason quietly turned
and slipped out the door that led from the gymnasium. Even with his hat pulled down low, the glare of the lights felt blinding.
Thankfully, the short hallway that led from the auditorium to the street was empty. Within seconds, he was stepping out into
the chilly November night.

It might have been risky, but it was worth it!

Seeing Charlotte on the stage had warmed Mason’s heart in a way that hadn’t happened once in the eight years since he had
set off for France. Though she was only a little girl, from a distance she so reminded him of Alice, particularly the color
of her hair. From the moment she stepped onstage, he found himself holding his breath, his heart pounding full of pride, full
of feelings he’d never imagined existed.

Mason’s intention
had
been to stay away; he’d meant what he’d said to Charlotte and Rachel when he’d explained why he couldn’t attend the performance.
But somehow, watching out the window of his room in the boardinghouse as they set off for the school, he had known that if
he didn’t see his daughter at such an important moment of her life, even for an instant, he would regret it for the rest of
his days.

“I’m through missing out on the events of her life,” he’d muttered to himself.

Grabbing up his long coat and hat, Mason had practically leapt down the staircase and out the door, but he had still been
cautious, finally deciding to approach the gymnasium only after he’d felt certain that everyone who was planning to attend
was already inside. Entering the building carefully and standing beside the main door, he’d been ready to make a quick exit
if it was called for. In the deep shadows, he believed it was impossible for Charlotte to see him, but when she had, he’d
felt his heart nearly burst with pride.

Mason felt bad that Rachel had had to sit by herself, but he had no doubt that she would have realized who Charlotte was waving
at; what finally necessitated his leaving was that nearly half the audience turned to see what the leaf found so fascinating.
He hoped that Rachel understood what he was trying to do for his daughter.

Thinking about Rachel made him recall what he had said to her the other night on the back porch. His words had surprised even
himself, falling out of his mouth as easily as rain from the sky. Declaring that he didn’t want anything to change in Rachel’s
relationship with Charlotte undoubtedly was heartfelt, but complicated nonetheless. The simple truth was that he enjoyed her
company in ways he had never anticipated; the thought of her leaving his life, as well as Charlotte’s, unsettled him.

Still, so much else in his life was similarly unsettled.

Sooner or later, Mason knew that he was going to have to face the people of Carlson without standing in the shadows. The list
of those to whom he owed amends was long, but it began with his father. Sherman Tucker had always remained the largest figure
in his life. From what Rachel had told him, Mason himself was the one responsible for the hard times that had befallen the
man.

Mason was lost in these difficult thoughts, wondering how he might be able to speak with his father privately, when he rounded
the corner of Main Street to see a man hurriedly approaching. Even lost in concentration, his head down, the man was instantly
recognizable.

It was his brother, Zachary.

Fearful that he might have another collision, one from which he would be unable to escape unrecognized, Mason stepped back
into the inky shadows between two buildings and watched as Zachary came closer. Well-dressed and groomed, considerably overweight,
his brother was oblivious to whatever was going on around him. As he watched, Mason became aware of an insistent tugging at
the back of his thoughts, one that told him that encountering his brother was a sign and that to ignore it would be every
bit as regrettable as having missed Charlotte’s performance.

With resolve, Mason turned and walked into the night.

Z
ACHARY TUCKER WALKED
quickly down the main thoroughfare of Carlson, his shoulders slumped as low as his mood. A brisk, chilly wind raced down
from the north, and he turned up the collar of his wool coat for what warmth it provided. No one else was foolish enough to
have ventured out on such a night; he had the streets all to himself.

Only minutes earlier, Zachary had finally left the bank for the night. He’d spent the entire day pouring over the piles of
paperwork he had done in requisitioning property for the Gaitskill Lumber Company: promissory notes, ledgers full of figures,
and even the telegrams that had been sent by both parties. Everything was in order.

Except…

Never in his wildest imagination would Zachary have believed that the success of his ingenious plan could hinge upon the whims
of his brother’s former family. He felt naïve for having believed that he could go to Rachel and receive a fair turn. She
had proven every bit as stubborn as her mother. Even the attack on her uncle hadn’t proved enough to sway them to his cause.

But what could I possibly have expected?

Still, Zachary knew that no amount of anger or frustration, no matter how justified, was going to change a single thing. After
all, what could he even conceivably do; have Travis Jefferson burn the boardinghouse to the ground? At such a late date, the
options remaining to him were few: maybe he could attempt to sway the company’s board of directors to believe that there was
another spur of railroad they could use; maybe he could persuade them to give him a bit more time; or maybe he could convince
them to speak to that bitch Eliza Watkins and negotiate a better deal…

What in the hell am I going to do?

Loath as Zachary was to admit it, his grandiose schemes seemed to be blowing away like so much smoke. Months and months of
planning, meticulous manipulation of funds and people, all would be ruined by the stubbornness of one woman, one family. He
would still be wealthy, would still hold his position of authority in town, but it wouldn’t be as much as he had wanted. There
would be no choice but to settle.

Turning the corner that led to the home he shared with his bedridden father, Zachary came to a sudden halt. For an instant,
out of the corner of his eye, he thought he had seen something dart between the houses on the other side of the street. Was
it a deer or some other wild game? Hell, it was probably some drunken slob like Otis Simmons looking for a place to relieve
his booze-laden bladder. The poor bastard would probably be lucky not to fall asleep outdoors and freeze to death because
of his own stupidity.

Shaking his head and chiding himself for his nerves, Zachary plodded on, the weight of the moon and stars above pressing down
on him.

Mason hurried along in the darkness, carefully picking his way behind the buildings that lined Main Street. He was careful
not to trip over anything lying in the way as he wove past crates and grease-stained barrels, yet he was still able to keep
Zachary in sight. Thankfully, his brother’s pace was easy to maintain; one good thing about Zachary’s new girth was that he
wasn’t going to be going anywhere in a hurry.

The moon looked down from above, just short of half full, surrounded by thousands of stars; the light that shone from the
heavens was faint, hardly illuminating the ground at Mason’s feet. Hastening along, he worried that he might encounter a barking
dog that would alert Zachary, but he couldn’t hear anything except for his own breathing.

So far, so good…

Even as he moved forward, Mason wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing; he knew that he should be staying as far away from
Zachary as possible. With all that Rachel had told him, combined with his own bad experiences with his younger brother, it
was clear that Zachary had grown into an outright scoundrel.

Still, seeing Zachary on the same night that he’d felt such a strong urge to see his father was too much of a coincidence
for Mason to ignore. While it would undoubtedly have been wiser to wait a day or two longer, until he was certain that Zachary
was busy at the bank and his father was alone, he felt drawn to look upon Sherman Tucker with an insistence he was unable
to ignore.

Moving ahead of his brother’s pace, Mason slipped behind Carlson’s Lutheran church, its tall white steeple standing out in
stark contrast to the black sky above. Paralleling a row of well-groomed hedges, he hurried around the church in order to
keep Zachary in his sight. Though the temperature continued to drop, driven downward by the breeze, Mason felt no cold, his
chest burning with the desire to complete the task he had set for himself.

On and on they went, Mason shadowing Zachary, who remained unaware of being followed. Suddenly, crouching in the shadows between
two houses, Mason was startled to see his brother come to an abrupt halt, looking in his direction. Faster than a spooked
rabbit, Mason darted behind a nearby evergreen, certain that he had been seen, his heart hammering. Seconds dragged on. A
cold sweat beaded his forehead, but finally he forced himself to move. Between the next gap of houses, Zachary came back into
view showing no sign of having noticed him. Mason kept on cautiously.

Finally they came to the home that Sherman Tucker had built in the years before his sons were born. On the far northern edge
of Carlson, standing splendidly against a backdrop of grand evergreens and elms, Lake Carlson no more than a stone’s throw
away, the two-story home was one of the nicest in town. With an elegant wraparound porch, beveled glass windows, and gabled
roof, it represented the success that its builder had accrued for himself and his family. As Mason warily approached, a careful
eye kept upon the single light that shone through the downstairs windows, memories of all the years he had spent growing up
inside the home’s grand walls flooded his thoughts. Somewhere inside was his father.

Mason watched as Zachary made his way up the short walk and let himself in through the front door, leaving behind him the
audible click of the lock being turned, the noise carrying out into the cold night.

Hurrying toward the rear of the house, Mason saw more lights being turned on as his brother proceeded deeper through the darkened
rooms. Ever darker shadows enveloped him as he headed closer to the trees at the back of the property, their tall branches
stretching into the night sky, blocking out the brilliant moon and stars above. Crunching sticks and pine needles, his approach
startled a pair of rabbits, who scampered away.

As a child, Mason had spent hours playing on his father’s property, learning each and every secret it might hold. In order
to escape from Sherman’s overly protective eye, he’d needed a way to get in and out of the house undetected; it was this avenue
he would use to gain entry.