Chapter 7 - The Man Who Came Looking for His Wife
Maeve's horse stood trembling beneath the trees.
Rowan reached it first.
“Maeve!”
Only thunder answered.
Eliza remained beneath the porch roof.
Rain began falling.
Rowan examined the saddle.
“No blood.”
The relief in his voice was slight but real.
“What does that mean?”
“Means we don't assume the worst.”
A note had been tied beneath the shawl.
Rowan unfolded it.
Your widow is alive.
Bring Elizabeth to the old sawmill at noon tomorrow and she stays that way.
Come alone.
C.R.
Eliza read it over his shoulder.
“No.”
Rowan looked at her.
“I won't let Maeve die because of me.”
“She won't.”
“You can't promise that.”
“No.”
“Then I'm going.”
“No.”
“You don't decide for me.”
Rowan's jaw tightened.
“You're right.”
That surprised her.
Again.
He continued.
“But you don't make decisions without knowing the whole board either.”
“What whole board?”
“Caleb doesn't want only you.”
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Then we don't have it.”
“He may believe you know where it is.”
“I do.”
“The conservatory.”
“Yes.”
“And if you tell him?”
Eliza swallowed.
“He'll still need me.”
“Until he doesn't.”
Rain hammered the roof.
Eliza paced.
“He took Maeve because he knew you'd care.”
“Yes.”
“He expects you to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“And he knows that can be used against you.”
Rowan gave a grim smile.
“You understand him.”
“I had six years of lessons.”
They spent the night planning.
At dawn, Rowan rode toward an old trapper's settlement where he knew two men he trusted.
Eliza remained hidden.
He returned near ten with one man.
A tall Black prospector in his fifties named Isaiah Boone.
Eliza recognized the name.
“You knew my father.”
Isaiah removed his hat.
“Not well.”
“But you knew him.”
“I did.”
His voice was gentle.
“Your father bought supplies from me when other merchants wouldn't extend credit.”
Eliza looked away.
Another piece of Thomas Mercer surviving in someone else's memory.
Isaiah studied her.
“You have his eyes.”
She nearly cried.
Instead she nodded.
“Rowan says Maeve's in trouble.”
“Yes.”
“We'll get her.”
“How?”
Isaiah smiled faintly.
“By disappointing Caleb's expectations.”
The sawmill stood beside an abandoned logging road.
Caleb expected Rowan alone.
Instead Rowan approached openly while Isaiah circled through the trees.
Eliza was supposed to remain a mile away with the horses.
She obeyed for almost fifteen minutes.
Then she heard a distant shout.
Her heart took over.
Eliza moved closer.
Slowly.
Painfully.
She reached an overlook above the sawmill.
Below, Caleb stood beside Maeve.
The widow's hands were tied, but she was upright.
Alive.
Relief nearly dropped Eliza to her knees.
Rowan stood twenty feet away.
“No Elizabeth?” Caleb asked.
“No.”
Maeve gave Rowan a furious look.
“Good.”
Caleb laughed.
“You always did like stubborn women.”
“Let her go.”
“Where is my wife?”
“Not yours anymore.”
Eliza's breath caught.
Caleb's expression changed.
“Marriage doesn't work that way.”
“Neither does ownership.”
“You've filled her head.”
“No.”
Rowan's voice was steady.
“She did that herself.”
Caleb walked closer.
“You know what Elizabeth is like?”
Rowan said nothing.
“Ungrateful.”
Eliza almost laughed.
The word was so familiar.
“She was nothing when I found her.”
Lie.
“I gave her a house.”
Her mother's house.
“Food.”
Purchased partly with Mercer money, she now suspected.
“A respectable name.”
Eliza's anger rose.
Mercer had been respectable long before Rourke.
“She repaid me by stealing.”
Rowan tilted his head.
“Thirty-eight dollars?”
Caleb froze.
There.
A mistake.
He had never told Rowan the amount.
“You went through her belongings.”
“She told me.”
Caleb glanced toward the trees.
“She's here.”
Rowan's expression did not change.
“Eliza!”
Caleb shouted.
Maeve closed her eyes.
“Don't!”
Caleb struck the post beside her with his hand.
“Quiet.”
Eliza's body flinched automatically.
Rowan saw the movement in the brush.
Their eyes met for half a second.
He knew she was there.
He did not betray her.
Caleb continued.
“You think Creed's protecting you?”
Silence.
“He's protecting himself.”
Rowan's jaw tightened.
“Ask him what he did the night your father died.”
Eliza froze.
Caleb smiled.
“Ask him why Thomas Mercer was still alive when Creed found him but dead by morning.”
Rowan said nothing.
“Ask him why he didn't take your father to a doctor.”
Eliza knew the answer.
The storm.
Yet Caleb's phrasing planted doubt with surgical precision.
“He let Thomas die because Thomas knew Creed helped steal freight.”
Rowan finally spoke.
“That's enough.”
“Truth bothers you?”
“Your version does.”
Caleb stepped closer.
“I was there, Elizabeth.”
Her heart stopped.
“I saw your father after Creed found him.”
Rowan's eyes narrowed.
That was new.
“You never told me that.”
Caleb smiled.
“No.”
“What did you see?”
“A dying man begging for help.”
“And?”
“And Rowan Creed refusing to move him.”
Eliza looked at Rowan.
For the first time uncertainty flickered.
Not belief in Caleb.
But awareness Rowan had not told her everything.
Caleb saw it.
He always saw cracks.
“Come home, Elizabeth.”
His voice softened.
The voice he used after apologies.
“I forgive you.”
A laugh escaped Eliza.
All three men looked toward the ridge.
She stepped from behind the rocks.
“Eliza,” Rowan said quietly.
She descended.
Caleb's face transformed.
First relief.
Then possession.
Then rage hidden beneath tenderness.
“My God.”
He stepped toward her.
Eliza stopped.
“No.”
“Look at you.”
“No.”
“I've been worried sick.”
“No, you haven't.”
His smile strained.
“You're confused.”
There it was again.
Eliza straightened.
“My name is Eliza Mercer.”
Caleb's expression emptied.
Not Elizabeth Rourke.
Eliza Mercer.
The name her mother gave her.
The name Caleb hated.
The name he had tried to erase.
“I am leaving you.”
Maeve's eyes filled with fierce pride.
Caleb's voice went low.
“You don't mean that.”
“I do.”
“You'll come home.”
“I'd rather sleep in that ravine.”
Silence.
Then Caleb smiled again.
“All right.”
Too easy.
“Let Maeve go.”
“I will.”
He untied the widow.
Maeve hurried toward Rowan.
Isaiah emerged from the trees behind them.
Caleb did not appear surprised.
“Boone.”
“Rourke.”
Caleb mounted his horse.
Eliza watched suspiciously.
“That's all?”
“For today.”
He looked at her.
“You want to know who killed your father?”
Her body went still.
Caleb touched the silver watch chain across his vest.
“Find the cedar box.”
His smile vanished.
“Then ask Rowan why his brother's name is written inside the ledger.”
Caleb rode away.
Rowan turned pale.
Eliza looked at him.
“Jonah?”
Rowan said nothing.
And in that silence Eliza realized the ledger might not merely expose Caleb.
May you like
It might destroy the man who had saved her.
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