For the past year, Reese explained, he’d been residing in Denver. He’d had a good job at a lumber mill, as a sawyer—did such a good job he hadn’t even lost any fingers. After that, he’d taken a position at the Assayer’s Office.
“I dunno.” He held his glass up to the light, squinting at the mellow amber depths as if he hadn’t noticed just how low the level had fallen. “Somethin’ just didn’t—click. I’d been wanderin’ all this time, couldn’t seem to connect to anything or anybody. And then I saw this ad in the newspaper.”
Even tucked away, motionless and soundless, in her corner of the settee, Letty flushed. The color didn’t just rise in her shadowed face; it flamed. Hoping that no one would pay attention, she drew in on herself and tried to be inconspicuous.
“See, Ma sent me one final letter, on my way off to find the holy grail, that caught up with me somewhere around the Mississip’. Oh, I never answered it,” Reese responded to the unanswered question. “You know what things were like in that house. But she did mention she’d heard you were livin’ down here in Turnabout. And, I thought, dang my hide, I’d oughta go visit brother Ben. And then,” he said softly, repeating his earlier words, “I saw this ad in the newspaper.”
This time he looked across at her, in the mellow lamp light, meeting her gaze with such a moving, wistful expression that Letty could actually feel her heart clenching in some indescribable emotion, and a great lump hitting hard in her throat.
“I knew—I knew, then and there, this was what I wanted. What I’d been lookin’ for. So I wrote back.”
A few grains of sand slipped down from top to bottom of Camellia’s prized hour glass on the whatnot shelf, and then a few more. Illumination from a nearby candle flame glinted upon the passage of time.
Reese wasn’t finished yet.
“And I had to come here.”
He swallowed. That the motion might be painful was evidenced by a taut flex of muscles in his bare brown throat.
“And a good job it is that you did, boy,” burst out Ben, in great relief. “Enough coincidences worked together to get you here, with me. With us. With this young lady you’ve promised to marry.”
“Ben—”
“I must say, I was almighty upset when Letty first told us what she’d been up to,” he admitted, with a short, uncomfortable bark of laughter. A pull at one ear lobe, and a shake of the head with its shaggy mane of hair so similar in color and texture to Reese’s own. “Couldn’t imagine how she could just accept a proposal made by some feller she knew only from letters, ’specially with what Molly had gone through just a couple months b’fore.”
“Ben—”
“But, then, shoot, she wore me down, logical reasons and all that. And my own wife convinced me to give the idea a chance, since we’d both of us managed to get past any problems and make a go of it, the same way.”
“Ben—”
“And here you are,” he ran on, beaming, “my own brother, set to tie the knot with Cam’s sister. Seems like the world might be makin’ things right for all of us again.”
“It ain’t just—”
“But, Cole, what I can’t quite understand,” and a perplexed Ben leaned forward, hands clasped together between his knees, “is why you come here under false pretenses. An alias, boy. Were you ashamed of the family name?”
The breast of Reese’s neat cotton shirt lifted, and fell. “That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell you, Ben. There’s more. I’m not—I’m not who you think.” And here he flung an anguished look in Letitia’s direction. “My past ain’t all in the past. Because—because I’ve got a price on my head. I am a wanted man.”
Chapter Thirteen
WHO COULD POSSIBLY settle down and even faintly hope for a decent night’s sleep after all the stunning—and shocking—revelations at the Forresters’ impromptu gathering this evening? Too many emotions had criss-crossed that parlor like strands of twine from a child’s game, so that everyone there felt bound and constricted into an uneasy mesh. After hours of talk, most wanted to do nothing more than escape for a brief time of peace, to absorb and digest the facts that had been handed out.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Reese’s adverse report, given at the last, had transcended all the wonderful, heartwarming announcements made earlier. Those final words, “I am a wanted man,” were what remained, hard and cold, in each person’s recollection.
“What are you going to do next?” Letitia wondered, scuffing dejectedly along.
The town clock had just struck midnight, an absurdly, shockingly late time to be out and about, no matter how safe the streets might appear. Ben, Gabriel, and Paul had volunteered to walk the boarding house sisters back to their room, with the probably futile desire to sidestep whatever complaints an outraged Mrs. McKnight might voice.
As for Cole Reese Barclay Forrester, he had offered to join the group setting out in the misty chill of darkness, but Letitia, not yet ready to concede any point in his behalf, had waved him away. And a hovering, concerned Camellia had supported her in the decision.
> “Take a little time apart,” she had wisely urged. “We’ve all been overwhelmed with information, and we need to let matters resolve. Besides—”
Besides, the young man had looked so white and exhausted, his mouth a mere slash against the recalling of old memories, his face—and the scar from temple to cheek—damp with perspiration. Camellia’s tender heart ached for both of this pair, caught up in circumstances beyond their control.
She had sent Reese off to his room at the Drinkwater, exhorting him to rest, if he could.
Then Ben had immediately ordered Camellia to retire to their room, as well. Much earlier, she had admitted to feeling just a little bit more tired than usual, and he realized she had already overexerted herself today and must be exhausted. The long buggy ride back from Manifest, the emotional announcements, the maternal care for her family and almost-family—it would be enough to wear anyone out, let alone a woman burdened by child.