Before the Dawn (Truly Yours Digital Editions) (17 page)

“Martin City.”

“I’m supposed to take you to the town house to wait for him to return.”

Karen stopped and looked up at him. “I am tired, Buckford. I’m tired of being apart from David. We’ve been apart in one way or another since last fall. This is going to end now. You are welcome to come with me, but I’m going.”

He took the valise once more, a resigned cast coming over his features. “Very well, ma’am. If you’d like to go to the ladies’ waiting room, I will procure the tickets. The westbound train won’t leave for an hour yet. There will be time to get some coffee and send word to Mrs. Webber at the house. Would you like me to telegraph ahead to Martin City to let them know we’re coming?”

“No. I believe we’ll just surprise them.”

“Of that I have no doubt, ma’am.”

Arriving that evening in Martin City brought Karen a feeling of having come full circle. Was it only five months ago she and David had left for Denver, he wounded and embittered, she uncertain and wary? They had both changed and grown in those months, but was it enough to move forward to have something better than they possessed right now?

She swallowed and twisted her fingers while Buckford lifted her bags from the back of the surrey he’d rented at the livery. Lights shone through all the ground-floor rooms of the Mackenzie home, beckoning. Piles of dirty, slushy snow lay along the foundation and mingled with the smell of smoke and hot metal from the smelters, the damp promise of spring settled over her. She knocked on the door.

“Why, Karen! Buckford!” Matilda enveloped her in a hug, pressing her cheek to Karen’s in a gesture so reminiscent of Aunt Hattie’s that Karen had to blink back tears. “What a surprise. Come in, come in. Jesse will be thrilled to see you. David didn’t mention you were coming. I thought you were still in Kansas City. Please, dear”—Matilda drew Karen along into the house—“do accept our condolences on your aunt’s passing. I know you must miss her terribly. Buckford,” she tossed over her shoulder, “it’s so good to see you again. As well meaning as the new man is, he’s not you. Leave the bags. I’m sure Mrs. Morgan will want to sit you down in the kitchen for some coffee and a good talk.”

Before Karen could get a word into the conversation, she was seated in the parlor sans cloak and gloves and accepting a cup of hot, sweet-smelling tea.

“Now, I expect you’re very anxious to see David, but I’m afraid he isn’t here.” Matilda picked up her knitting and settled into her chair.

“Isn’t here?” Dismay trickled through Karen. “Buckford said he set out on yesterday’s train.”

Matilda laughed and touched her temple. “I didn’t mean he isn’t in Martin City. I meant he isn’t in the house. I don’t know what kind of miracle worker that tutor you hired is, but David is a changed man. So confident, so focused and sharp. He was almost like his old self. This morning they had hardly finished breakfast before they were off and out of the house. Sam said not to wait up for them, because they would most likely be gone late into the night.”

Karen could hardly fathom her mother-in-law’s descriptions. A confident David, like his old self? He ate breakfast with his family, and he’d left the house voluntarily? Had being separated from her been that beneficial to him? Her sense of loss grew. How was she to reconcile with a man who thrived without her?

Matilda went on. “I’m so glad to know you’ve met the new pastor who’s coming later this summer. Pastor Hamilton? You’ll have to tell me all about him. I was so sad when Pastor Van Dyke said he was retiring, but I suppose it comes to all of us in time. Though I don’t know that Jesse can retire. I think he’d dry up and blow away if he had to stop working.”

Karen put her cup down and asked the question foremost on her mind. “Matilda, do you know why David came back home? I wrote him when my train would arrive, and when I got to Denver, he was gone.”

The knitting needles stopped clicking, and Matilda’s brows formed straight lines over her eyes. “None of the Mackenzie men would tell me anything. When Sam and David arrived last night, they took Jesse into the study and closed the doors. Whatever it is must be serious. David wouldn’t have come otherwise, not with you expected back.”

Karen wasn’t sure about that. Her return to Colorado might have been the thing that sparked his flight to Martin City. “And you have no idea what it might be about?”

“No, just that it was mine business. It is good to have David involved again. I know you must’ve been disappointed that he wasn’t there to meet your train, but it has to feel good to know he’s here and working again.” Matilda smiled. “I know you only went along with the lawsuit idea to please me and because we were out of options at that point, but you have to admit, it’s all turned out beautifully.”

❧

The next morning, Karen paced the flagstones of the conservatory behind the house. She should start gathering the flowers Matilda had sent her to get, but her thoughts tumbled and roiled like a snow-freshened creek in the spring.

David and Sam had not returned last night. Jesse came in near midnight, grave lines etching his face and his hair seemingly whiter than she remembered. He shrugged out of his coat, sagged into a chair, and put his face in his hands. “I don’t know if the boys will be home tonight. They’ve been up at the mine office all day, and they’re still working.” He dragged his fingertips down his cheeks. “Matilda, I can hardly believe it, but Marcus is guilty. He’s been systematically sabotaging the mine. They’ve tied him to nearly every disaster we’ve had over the last year. My own nephew.”

Karen’s jaw dropped. “Marcus? But why?”

Matilda rose and went to her husband, squeezing his shoulder and touching his hair. Jesse sighed. “We don’t know yet. Nobody’s been able to find him.”

“Was he responsible for the cave-in?” Karen’s mouth went dry. Marcus was David’s cousin. His friend and coworker. Marcus Quint had asked several times for permission to come courting, though by that time she’d met David and wanted no other.

“They’re still working on that one. They know he’s guilty but not how he did it. The sheriff has a warrant for Marcus’s arrest, and they’re looking for him now. He wasn’t on the night train to Denver. Beyond that, we don’t know where he’s gotten to.”

As of this morning, there was no further news. Jesse had gone to the Mackenzie Mine to insist Sam and David come home for some rest. David should be here any time now. He’d be exhausted and in no shape for a discussion of his marriage. With everything going on with Marcus and the mine, it might be some time before they could talk things out.

She stopped pacing and picked up the clippers on the potting bench. She’d take some of the irises and some of the forsythia branches for a table arrangement. Calming herself, she breathed deeply of the warm, peaty smell of the hothouse.

Though Jesse teasingly grumbled about the cost of heating the greenhouse all winter, Matilda loved her flowers and Jesse loved her. He paid the bills and enjoyed the pleasure his wife took in the plants.

Gathering her armful of blossoms, Karen replaced the clippers and latched the door securely behind her. She could only see the chimneys of the Mackenzie house over the tops of the trees on the slope above her. Wending her way up the zigzagging path, she tried to avoid the dirty scarves of snow melting along the path. This early in April, further snowstorms were almost a certainty in Martin City, but for now a definite tang of spring flavored the air. She put her head down and hurried to get back to the house before the chilly air damaged the flowers.

Her heart jerked when someone stepped out of the trees onto the path, blocking her way. She had an instant to realize it was Marcus before he grabbed her and slapped a cloth over her mouth. Though she screamed, the cloth muffled the sound. Cold, hard fear throttled her senses. The flowers fell from her hands as she grappled with him, struggling for breath. Sickeningly sweet fumes invaded her lungs and blackness crept into the edges of her vision. Weakness suffused her limbs and everything disappeared.

❧

David awoke to a rock drill battering inside his skull. Stones jabbed his cheek, and when he tried to move, he thought his head might explode. Fizzing sparks snapped in his brain, but none stayed lit for long.

Footsteps scraped nearby and earth scritched as if something were being dragged across it. The sound echoed, and he became aware of. . .panting? The unmistakable smell of being underground enveloped him—dank, musty, earthy. “Who’s there?”

A thump and quick rustle. “You should’ve stayed out cold.”

Dread shot through David. “Marcus.” His dry throat made his voice sound like paper crumpling. He coughed and wished he hadn’t. “What are you doing?”

“This is your fault. If you’d have just stayed in Denver, everything would’ve been fine. You two made me do this.”

“Two of us? Is Sam here? Sam? Where are you? Are you hurt?”

“Sam’s not here, though I wish he was. His snooping brought you back here. If he’d have left well enough alone, I wouldn’t have had to get rid of you.”

Something soft subsided onto the floor. Satin brushed David’s cheek and wisps of long hair feathered across his face. He tried to brace his hands against the ground to rise, but he couldn’t seem to get his limbs to cooperate. A familiar perfume drifted to him.

Karen!

He tried to pull his thoughts together. How did she get here? Where
was
here?

“Why kidnap Karen? She has nothing to do with the mine. I still can’t believe you’d do any of this to us. Why, Marcus?” He tried to keep Marcus talking, to stall the moment when he’d kill them both.

Marcus snorted. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to always come in second place to the Mackenzies? Just because your name is Mackenzie, you think you’re so much better than I.” His voice echoed off the rock. “You should’ve been working for me. I had seniority. I had the experience.”

Hard hands shoved David, and his cheek impacted a rock wall. Pain spun like a pinwheel in his head, making Marcus’s voice sound far away. He gathered himself, gasping, trying to control the vertigo washing over him. “But we were kind to you. Took you in. My father paid for your schooling. Marcus, you’re family.”

“Your father crammed his charity down my throat until I choked on it. He was ashamed of me, of my parents—his own sister. He couldn’t even bear to speak her name!” A clanking sound, like glass on stone. “Another dose with the last of this chloroform should ensure she stays out for a while longer.”

A cloying aroma assailed David. “Stop it! Leave her alone!”

“Shut up.”

An explosion of glass hit the wall over David’s head and rained down on his hair and shoulders. His nostrils stung and his head whirled. David groped for Karen, his heart in his throat. The venom in Marcus’s words made him sound on the verge of madness.

Her breath fanned his temple, and his heart started again. She was still alive.

Something clanked and squeaked. David, groggy from the knock on the head and the anesthesia permeating the air, inched his hand from beneath himself and felt around. His knuckles grazed wood then a metal wheel. A cart? He’d seen a hundred of them before, flat, with a metal pole on one corner to hang a lantern. Used to haul equipment from one tunnel to another. An icy finger traced up his spine. That must’ve been how Marcus got them underground by himself.

“Marcus.” David clutched the edge of the cart. “What are you going to do? Don’t leave us down here.”

“Someone has to pay for what your family has done to me. Once I’ve blown the entrance to this mine, nobody will ever find you.”

“Don’t you think I’ve paid enough? I’m blind, Marcus.”

“You’ve always been blind. You, the favored one. The one Jesse always bragged on. Your whole family is blind. There I was, right under their noses, and they never saw me.”

A violent tremor started in David’s core and radiated outward. He sucked in a staggering breath. “I can understand your anger at me, but why Karen? She has nothing to do with this.”

“She has everything to do with this. Do you think you were the only one who loved her? She wouldn’t even look at me after she met you. You took everything from me. I offered her all I had, but it wasn’t good enough. She wanted you.” He spat the words like vinegar. “You’ve no one to blame but yourselves. I want your last thoughts to be of how you wronged me.” He grabbed David’s shirtfront and shoved once more, cracking David’s head against the wall.

Stars burst behind David’s eyeballs, and a groan shot from his lips. He slid to the ground, gasping, trying to hold on to consciousness. Marcus’s footsteps and the creak of the cart faded away, and David was helpless to stop him.

Time passed, though he had no way of knowing how much. He drifted in a murky half consciousness. Clammy sweat trickled down his temple and into a cut on his cheek, but the stinging was mild in comparison to the evil pain in his head and his inability to make it recede through sheer force of will. Far away a muffled blast sounded and a faint tremor rippled through the floor on which he lay. He finally gave in to the fog enveloping him.

SEVENTEEN

Hearing returned first. His own breathing and heartbeat. He became aware of time having passed and of being able to marshal his thoughts again, a little at a time.

Karen.

Had Marcus hit her on the head, too? He inched forward until his fingers brushed her dress. Satin, with velvet trim. The one she had told him was pale green.