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Authors: Cindy Myers

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BOOK: The View From Here
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Those were the same words her father had told her when the boy she'd dated in high school had gotten engaged to another girl. He'd also told her there'd be other men, but he'd been wrong, as he'd been wrong about so many other things.
“Jake hurt me and I'll never forgive him,” she said.
“I doubt a dead man is much worried whether he gets your forgiveness or not.”
“People think he was such a hero,” she said. “But that's wrong. He did some horrible things.”
“Wouldn't surprise me a bit,” Bob said. “But in case you haven't figured out by now, most people aren't much interested in the past. If you'd let things die down, people will mostly forget about Jake in a few months or a year.”
But Cassie would never forget. “It doesn't seem right he was never punished for the awful things he did.”
“My God, woman!” Bob's voice was sharp. “The man took himself off to a mountaintop to wrestle with his demons. You don't think alone up there in the cold and dark with only a bottle for company he wasn't in a special kind of hell?”
“I thought Jake liked it up there. He wanted to be alone.”
“I imagine he liked it well enough sometimes. Maybe even most of the time. But it ain't natural for a man to separate himself from people like that. If you ask me, Jake was punishing himself. He spent a lot of time alone with the memory of things he'd done.”
She had an image of Jake up there in that cabin, staring out into the darkness, alone. Just as she'd spent so much of her life alone. “Maybe he was ashamed and too embarrassed to face me,” she said.
“Or maybe he was afraid you'd try to rope him into marrying you,” Bob said. “The thing is, you'll never know. And it don't matter. He's gone. Let it go.”
She hated to admit a man who annoyed her as much as Bob was right. She sniffed and dabbed her eyes again. “I'm fine now. You can go.”
He didn't hesitate, but grabbed hold of the doorknob.
“Bob?”
“What is it now?”
“If you breathe one word of what I told you to anyone, I won't wait until you're dead to take my revenge.”
She expected him to leer at her, or to make some kind of a joke. Instead, he nodded solemnly. “I'd never tell a lady's secrets,” he said.
She was still gaping after him when the door swung shut. She sank into the rocking chair once more, all the strength drained from her. She looked around the parlor, at the books and mining tools and china crowded together on the shelves. All that fuss over Jake Murphy, and where had it gotten her? She was still the same person, in the same house.
She felt a little foolish. Maybe she had made too much of the whole affair. Yes, Jake had been a jerk, but that didn't make him special. Lots of men were weaker than the women around them. She nodded to the portrait of her father that hung over the fireplace mantel. He'd been a kind man, but so foolish. The women in Cassie's family were always the strong ones. The ones who kept everything together.
She stood and smoothed her hair, then reached up and carefully peeled off the other set of false lashes. Time to stop mooning about and get to work setting things to rights. After all, she was a mountain woman.
Chapter 25
J
ameso didn't say a word on the way up Garnet Mountain. Only his rigid posture and the speed with which he drove, the truck fishtailing around every curve, gave a clue to his emotions. Maggie gripped the edge of the seat with one hand and the armrest with the other, staring out into the darkness and trying not to think of what might happen if they missed a curve. Or of all the horrors that might befall a boy out there alone in the darkness. Finally, she could bear the tension no longer. “If he's at the French Mistress, he'll be okay,” she said. “When Barb and I were in there, we didn't see anything that would hurt anyone.”
“You didn't explore the whole mine,” Jameso said. “You don't know what's down there.”
“No, I'm just an ignorant city woman who doesn't know anything, is that it?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to. You've made it clear from the first night we met that you think I'm incompetent.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, though he continued to stare straight forward, focused on the road. “You might have been ignorant of a few things, but I never thought you were incompetent.”
“Then what do you think? I'm sick of the whole inscrutable male shtick. Tell me what you really think of me.” Her voice rose, on the edge of hysteria. She purposely goaded him, craving a fight. She was tired of always being calm and reasonable and adult—of letting men walk away unscathed while she suffered.
He glanced at her for half a second, but it was too dark for her to read anything in his eyes. “How did it go with your husband?” he asked.
Her
husband?
Did he know how lucky he was she didn't have a weapon handy right now? “My ex-husband. You know that.”
“He came all the way to Eureka to find you. Sounds to me like he didn't want to be your ex anymore.”
Maggie couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Is that why you left town? Because you were jealous?”
He didn't answer, but he gunned the truck up a particularly steep slope, throwing her back against the seat. Maggie's stomach hurt, and so did her heart. Maybe Jameso did care for her, but he was about as trustworthy as a bear. And he clearly didn't trust her.
But she wasn't going to let him off the hook so easily. “You didn't answer my question,” she said. “Did you leave because you were jealous—of Carter?”
Frustration choked her as he remained silent. She leaned forward, ready to strike words out of him, but the seat belt held her back as the truck jounced over ruts in the dirt road. “I left because I realized we don't belong together,” he said, his voice hard and flat.
“And you decided this while we were making love? Or after?”
He glanced at her, but she couldn't discern his expression in the dark. “That afternoon with you was the best afternoon of my life,” he said. “But you're better off without me.”
“So you get to decide that, and you get to leave. And I get to pick up the pieces.” She wanted to shake him out of all his macho certainty. “What if I'm pregnant?”
The truck swerved and she had to clutch at the dash to steady herself. He slowed and then steered straight again, but she heard the shock in his voice. “Are you? Isn't it too soon to tell?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean I don't know. But I could be.” She knotted her hands in her lap, her heart fluttering wildly.
Was
she expecting a baby? Stupidly, they hadn't used any protection, too caught up in the moment to think straight. She'd always wanted a baby more than she'd been able to admit, even to herself. But she hadn't wanted to conceive one this way.
“If you are, I'll do right by you.” His voice was stronger, but not reassuring.
“Meaning what?” she asked.
“Meaning . . . I'll . . . I'll . . . pay for the baby and . . .”
“I don't want your money. I just want to know why you ran.”
Silence again, only the whine of the truck tires on gravel filling her ears. She swallowed hard, refusing to give in to tears. He wasn't worth crying over anymore.
“I ran because I'm a coward.”
“A coward?” She'd accused all men of being cowards, but in her heart she couldn't believe the adjective applied to Jameso. He was so masculine, so stoic and strong. Not the type to back down from a challenge or a fight.
“I looked at that ex-husband of yours and I realized what you were from—the kind of life you were used to. I'm a part-time ski bum whose most valuable possession is a motorcycle. I can't give you anything like the life you're used to.”
“I'm here because I don't want that life anymore.”
He shook his head. “I'm bad news, Maggie. I'm thirty-two years old and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I'm still fighting my demons. Jake and I had that in common.”
Jameso may have been her father's best friend, but she refused to believe they were alike. “You're stronger than my father was. He drank and resorted to violence. You turned away from that.”
“That doesn't mean I don't fight it inside. You deserve better.”
Maybe he was right. But this wasn't about what she deserved. If people always got what they deserved, there would be a lot more miserable people in this world. All she could think of to say was, “You shouldn't have run out like that.”
“Yeah.”
So much for getting any real answers out of him. She stared out the window at the darkened landscape as the truck rattled past the entrance to her driveway. “Where are you going?”
“There's another road, takes us closer to the mine.”
If this “road” really existed, she couldn't see it in the dark, and she didn't know how Jameso did either. The headlights of the truck barely made a dent in the blackness, lighting up a spot barely five feet in front of them, revealing uneven ground scattered with rocks. Maggie had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from rattling as Jameso guided the vehicle over this moonscape. She held her breath as they descended a steep slope, the nose of the truck pointed straight down. “You can get out and walk if you like,” Jameso said.
She glared at him in answer.
At last they came to a wall of old tree stumps and boulders, and what looked like a rusted set of box springs, all held together with barbed wire. “Jake put that up to keep folks from driving back to the mine,” Jameso said. He shut off the engine. “We'll have to walk from here.”
Maggie climbed from the truck on shaking legs and prepared to follow Jameso to the mine. But instead of striking out ahead, he waited and took her arm. “The trail's pretty rough,” he said. He flicked on the flashlight he held in his other hand, revealing more of the same uneven terrain.
She jerked away. “I'll be fine.” Then, recognizing something like hurt in his expression, she softened her tone. “It'll be faster if you go ahead. Lucas might need help.”
They hiked for perhaps a quarter mile, picking their way around rocks and the remains of old mining equipment. The rain had stopped, but clouds still obscured the moon and stars. The air was icy, the ground rimmed with frost. Maggie's ears and fingers soon grew numb. She shoved her hands in her pockets and prayed that Lucas had some way to keep warm. That he was safe and they would find him.
They descended a small hill and the beam of Jameso's light caught something shiny. “We're here,” he said, and shone the light on the mine entrance. Her heart leaped when she spotted the blue bicycle on its side in front of the gate.
“Lucas!” Jameso shouted.
“Lucas!” Maggie cried. She turned to Jameso. “We forgot the key. It's at the house.” She could have wept in frustration at this new delay.
“There's a spare.” Jameso reached behind the N
O
T
RESPASSING
sign and brought out a metal box, the kind with a magnet on the back, designed to attach a spare key to the bumper of a car. He fit the key in the lock and the gate swung open with a groan.
He focused the light on the floor of the mine entrance. The dirt was scuffed, but Maggie couldn't make out any distinct footprints. “Lucas!” she called out.
The word was swallowed up in the empty reaches of the mine.
 
While Emergency Services quickly organized groups to search for Lucas, Lucille and Olivia returned to the house. Lucille hoped they'd find the boy asleep or engrossed in a book or a computer game. But the rooms were dark and silent when they entered, and cold in spite of the gas furnace that hummed in the background.
Olivia led the way up the stairs to her son's room under the eaves. She switched on the light and wrinkled her nose at the sight of the unmade bed, quilt half-trailing on the floor, a pair of jeans hanging from the closet doorknob, another draped over the back of the desk chair. She walked to the desk and began rifling through the papers stacked there.
“What are you looking for?” Lucille asked.
“I don't know. A note. Something to tell us where he's gone.” She picked up a book and read the title on the spine, then set it aside.
“You don't think he's run away, do you?” Lucille asked.
“I don't know what to think.” Olivia looked back over her shoulder at her mother. “I can never figure out what goes on in his head.”
“I remember feeling the same way about you when you were only a little older than him.”
Olivia's eyebrows rose. “I was never as smart as Lucas is.”
Lucille plucked a shirt from the end of the bed and folded it, as if busying her hands would help quell the fear growing inside her. “You didn't like school or books, but you were very intelligent. Smart enough to see through me.”
Olivia frowned. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You saw through my feeble attempts to be the mother all your friends had—June Cleaver in high heels and pearls. I was never like that.”
“And I never wanted that.” She gave a harsh laugh. “Please!”
“I know I made some mistakes.” Lucille forged on. “I just want you to know I'm proud of how you've turned out. And I'm proud of the job you've done with Lucas.”
“Give yourself some credit, too.” She turned back to the desk, opening drawers and rifling through the contents. Her shoulders stiffened and she drew out a bundle of letters. Lucille recognized the handwriting on the envelopes.
“Are those all from D. J.?” she asked.
Olivia nodded and thumbed through the pile. “Why did he write to Lucas and not to me?”
“Maybe he thought you didn't want his letters.”
“I told him I didn't, but that didn't mean I was telling the truth.”
“What will you do when he comes back to the States?”
“There's nothing to do.”
“He might decide he wants his truck back.”
“Then he can have it. I don't care.”
But she did care. Lucille could read that so clearly, in the tight set of her daughter's shoulders and the slightest trembling in her lower lip.
Olivia returned to her search of the desk drawers. “What's this?” She held up a strand of blue beads.
Lucille accepted the trinket and turned it over in her hand. “It looks like the bracelet Jake gave me for Christmas last year. Why would Lucas have it in his room?”
“I don't know. Where did Jake get it?”
“I always assumed he'd picked it up in his travels. But Maggie said she found stones similar to this around the house.”
“Could they have come from the mine?”
“The mine?” She shook her head. “I doubt it. It's a gold mine.”
“But Lucas said people mined other things around here. Silver and lead. That's what all these books he's been reading are about.” She gestured toward the desk. “Maybe they mined stones, too. I'll bet he did go up to that mine, to try to find out.”
“But why would he go today, with the festival going on, and the play—?”
“He probably thought it was the best time to get away with no one noticing. And I'm sure he planned to get back home in time for the play.” She swallowed, fear dimming her eyes. Lucille felt the same fear. If Lucas hadn't gotten home in time for the play, it meant something must have prevented him from doing so.
“We should call the sheriff and let him know,” Lucille said.
“Maggie and Jameso headed up to Jake's mine, didn't they?”
“Yes, we'd better go, too. In case they find . . .” She swallowed hard, choking off thoughts of a boy's broken body lying at the bottom of a mine shaft. “In case they find him. We can both read him the riot act for running off this way.” She started down the stairs, leaving Olivia to turn out the lights in Lucas's room and follow.
BOOK: The View From Here
3.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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