Chapter 3 - The Name She Was Afraid to Say
For eight years, Eliza had been told her father died during a robbery.
That was the story printed in the Denver paper.
Thomas Mercer, merchant and investor, attacked while traveling west from the city.
Money missing.
Horse gone.
Body recovered three days later after a winter storm.
Case unresolved.
Her mother had rarely discussed it.
Whenever Eliza asked questions, Margaret Mercer would grow pale and say the same thing.
“Some doors are better left closed.”
Eliza had assumed grief was behind those words.
Now she wondered if fear had been.
Rowan laid the broken medallion on the table.
Eliza did not touch it.
“Tell me.”
He took a breath.
“Your father wasn't robbed.”
Eliza stared.
“He was running.”
“From whom?”
“I don't know all of it.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Rowan looked toward the window.
Snow remained only on distant peaks, but his expression suggested he was watching a winter night from years earlier.
“I was trapping north of Georgia Pass. Storm came faster than expected. Found a horse wandering without a rider.”
Eliza hugged the quilt around herself.
“I followed the tracks.”
Rowan's voice became quieter.
“Found your father below a stand of spruce trees.”
“Was he hurt?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Rowan paused.
Eliza understood.
She did not need details.
“Was he alone?”
“When I found him.”
“What did he say?”
Rowan pushed the medallion toward her.
“He told me his name.”
A strange laugh escaped her.
“At least someone let him keep his.”
Rowan watched her.
Eliza closed her eyes.
“Caleb hates Mercer.”
“Why?”
“Says it's useless.”
“It's yours.”
“I know.”
Rowan said nothing else.
She opened her eyes.
“What did my father tell you?”
“He said men were looking for a ledger.”
“A ledger?”
“He believed he'd found proof that certain mining claims around Fairplay had been stolen.”
Eliza frowned.
“My father sold farm equipment.”
“He also invested.”
She remembered.
Whispers between her parents.
Documents arriving late at night.
Her father traveling more often during his final year.
“What sort of stolen claims?”
“Families lost land after debts appeared that they swore they never signed for. Your father thought courthouse records had been altered.”
“And someone killed him over that?”
“I can't prove anyone killed him.”
“But he believed they would.”
Rowan's eyes hardened.
“He asked me to find Margaret Mercer.”
“My mother.”
“I found her.”
Eliza sat straighter.
“When?”
“Three months after he died.”
“You met my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She made me promise not to.”
Eliza's anger arrived so quickly it pushed aside pain.
“You keep promises easily, don't you?”
“No.”
“Eight years, Rowan.”
“I know.”
“She died two years after my father.”
“I know that too.”
Eliza threw back the blanket.
Pain caught her.
Rowan moved forward instinctively.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
She forced herself upright.
“You knew my parents. You recognized my necklace. Yet yesterday you asked my name as though you'd never heard of me.”
“I needed you to say it.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas told me there were people who might use his daughter to find what he hid.”
Eliza's pulse pounded.
“What did he hide?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I knew, I would've told you.”
“How generous.”
Rowan took the anger without defending himself.
That somehow made it worse.
Eliza swung her feet toward the floor.
“I am leaving.”
“You can't.”
“You said the door was there.”
“It still is.”
She tried standing.
Her knees failed.
Rowan caught her before she hit the floor.
For one second Eliza panicked.
She struck his chest.
“Let go!”
He immediately released her.
She collapsed against the bed.
Both were breathing hard.
Rowan backed across the room.
Eliza covered her face.
“I can't even stand.”
“No.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“You do not know anything.”
Rowan's jaw tightened.
“You're right.”
That ended the argument more effectively than anger could have.
Eliza lowered her hands.
“What did my mother say when you found her?”
“She knew your father had been investigating something. She didn't know how far it went.”
“Did she know about the ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Where was I?”
“St. Louis.”
Eliza blinked.
She had spent nearly a year with her aunt after her father's death.
Her mother had insisted.
At the time Eliza believed Margaret could not bear having her home while grieving.
Now another possibility emerged.
“She sent me away.”
“Yes.”
“To protect me.”
“Yes.”
Eliza stared into the fire.
“What did you promise her?”
Rowan hesitated.
“That I would stay out of your life unless danger found you.”
A humorless smile touched Eliza's mouth.
“Danger found me six years ago.”
“With Caleb?”
She nodded.
“Why didn't you come then?”
“I didn't know.”
“How could you not know?”
“Your mother told me you planned to remain in Missouri.”
“I came back after she became ill.”
“I had already moved north.”
“Convenient.”
Rowan looked wounded.
The emotion was so brief she nearly missed it.
“I checked twice,” he said.
“On me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“First year after your father died. Then the year Margaret died.”
“Did you see me?”
“No.”
“Then what good was your promise?”
“None.”
The admission silenced her.
Rowan stared at his hands.
“I failed.”
Eliza's anger weakened.
Not disappeared.
Changed.
There was something unsettling about a man who did not scramble to excuse himself.
Caleb could build a defense before an accusation finished leaving her mouth.
Rowan simply carried blame when he believed it belonged to him.
Eliza looked at the medallion again.
“What exactly did my father say?”
Rowan's expression changed.
“He said if I ever found you, I was supposed to tell you one sentence.”
Eliza waited.
Rowan reached into the leather pouch.
There was a folded piece of paper.
Old.
Creased.
“Your father made me write it because he was afraid I'd forget.”
Eliza's hand trembled as she opened it.
Three lines filled the page in Rowan's rough handwriting.
Tell Eliza the cedar remembers.
Tell her Margaret knows where winter never reaches.
Tell her not to trust the man with the silver watch.
Eliza read it twice.
Then a third time.
“The cedar remembers?”
Rowan shook his head.
“I never understood.”
“Where winter never reaches?”
“Your mother wouldn't explain.”
“The silver watch?”
“No idea.”
Eliza's mind raced.
Caleb wore a silver pocket watch.
Her breath stopped.
Rowan saw.
“Who?”
“No one.”
“Eliza.”
She looked at him.
“Caleb has a silver watch.”
The cabin fell silent.
“Did he always?”
“For as long as I've known him.”
“Where did he get it?”
“He said it belonged to his father.”
“Did you ever see initials?”
Eliza searched her memory.
The watch had been Caleb's pride.
He polished it obsessively.
Sometimes he placed it on the table while drinking.
A small engraving decorated the back.
Not initials.
A cedar tree.
Her blood went cold.
“No.”
“What?”
Eliza gripped the paper.
“It has a cedar on it.”
Rowan stood so quickly the chair tipped over.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Three stars?”
“I don't remember.”
Outside, Bishop suddenly whinnied.
Rowan turned toward the door.
Another sound followed.
A distant crack.
A branch breaking.
Then hoofbeats.
More than one horse.
Rowan crossed the cabin in three strides and extinguished the lamp though daylight still filled the room.
“What are you doing?”
He lifted the rifle from above the door.
“Someone's coming.”
Eliza's face drained.
“Caleb.”
“Maybe.”
The hoofbeats stopped outside the trees.
Rowan looked toward Eliza.
For the first time since she had awakened, his calm expression was gone.
“Whatever happens next, do not tell anyone your full name.”
Eliza's hand closed around her father's note.
“Why?”
Rowan moved beside the window and looked through a narrow crack in the curtain.
Three riders emerged between the pines.
The man in front wore a dark coat.
Even at that distance, Eliza recognized the way he sat a horse.
Her body knew him before her mind accepted it.
Caleb Rourke had found her.
May you like
And hanging from the chain across his vest, catching the mountain sunlight, was a silver watch marked with the symbol of her dead father's family.
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