Heart of Texas Vol. 3 (15 page)

“Grady and Savannah drew him a map.”

“You're kidding!”

“Nope.”

“What gives
him
the right?”

Cal smiled, remembering that his initial reaction had been similar to that of his brother. “He thinks it's time someone solved the mystery.”

“Really?”

“I tend to agree with him.”

“Fine, but it should be one of us, then, someone from Promise. Don't you think?”

“Why?”

“Because it's
our
town. Our history. Personally I don't like the idea of some city slicker poking around in affairs that aren't any of his damn business. If he wants to uncover a few skeletons, I say let him open his own closet.”

“You willing to do it or not?”

“Dig up the dirt about Bitter End?” his brother clarified.

“Yup.” Cal studied his brother. “You know—figure out what went wrong. And why.”

Glen expelled a long breath. “I say let sleeping dogs lie. Frankly I don't need to know.”

“That's the way I felt, too,” Cal told him. “Until recently.”

Glen broke off a long blade of grass and stuck it between his teeth. “What changed your mind?”

“Richard Weston.”

“What about him?” Glen asked, sounding disgusted.

Cal didn't hold any more affection for Grady's brother than Glen did; Richard had done nothing but embarrass the family and the community. It wasn't common knowledge that he'd stolen from his family not once, but twice—and, as they'd since learned, he'd victimized a lot of vulnerable people in a really nasty scam back East. The news about his arrest and prison sentence had been the talk of the town for weeks. Some people had difficulty believing Richard was capable of committing such crimes. Cal had no such problem. Richard was a lowlife and deserved every day of the twenty-five-year sentence he'd received.

“Richard being airlifted out of Bitter End brought up a lot of questions about the town. Quite a few folks had never heard of it. Others had and wanted to know more. I think it's time we put an end to this speculation and settle the past once and for all.”

“Grady agrees with you?”

“He'd planned to personally take Travis Grant there, until his water pump broke. Even then, he had Savannah draw Travis a map. From what Jane told me, Nell's involved in this, too.”

Glen continued to chew on the stem of grass. His hands were tucked behind his head and he stared up at the blue sky. “Maybe you're right.”

“What can we do to help?” Cal asked after a silence.

“You and me?” Glen seemed surprised.

“We're among the few who've actually been to the town.”

Glen closed his eyes. “Don't remind me.”

Glen had been there once, Cal twice—most recently with Jane, who'd insisted she wanted to find the town. He'd finally given in and agreed to accompany her, knowing that otherwise she'd search for it on her own.

As it happened, their going into the ghost town precisely when they did had saved Richard Weston's life. The events of that day had shaken Cal considerably. He was accustomed to being in charge, knowing what to do, but if it hadn't been for Jane and her medical expertise, he could have done little but watch Richard Weston die.

“I'm trying to remember what I know about Bitter End,” Glen said, cutting into his thoughts. “What do you think Nell and her friend might want to know?”

Nell and her friend. Cal ignored the question and concentrated on the picture that formed in his mind. He'd seen Travis and Nell dancing at the rodeo not long ago. It had been a shock to see her in the arms of a man, especially since she'd always refused dates and invitations. Once the shock wore off, he'd felt pleased. She'd been completely absorbed in the guy, hadn't even noticed him and Jane.

The ribs he'd injured in the rodeo had been hurting like hell, but he'd managed to talk Jane into staying for the dance. The pain was worth it, seeing as Willie Nelson had unexpectedly shown up. Jane still talked about it; she'd been thrilled.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Glen teased. “If they're worth that much.”

“I was just thinking about Nell and Travis Grant….”

“What about them?”

“There's a romance brewing.”

“So?” Glen said.

“So, I think it's a good idea. I liked Jake—he was one of my best friends—but I'd hate to see Nell grieve the rest of her life away. Jake wouldn't have wanted that, either.”

“Is she interested in this Travis character?”

“Seems to be.” More than that, Travis Grant was obviously taken with her. Whatever was happening there, Cal hoped it would work out for Nell. She was in line for a bit of happiness.

J
EREMY LIKED
T
RAVIS
G
RANT
—so much that it actually worried Nell. Her son was enthralled with him. Several times now she'd been forced to talk to Jeremy about giving Travis time to himself. Like this afternoon, for example. She knew Travis was writing, but the minute her son returned home from school, he'd raced out to see Travis. She didn't know what they'd talked about, but Jeremy had been wearing a silly grin ever since. As if he knew something she didn't.

She'd chastised him soundly for not doing his chores, and he'd left the house in a temper. At dinnertime, when she couldn't find him, she knew where he was likely to be. She hurried over to the bunkhouse and knocked at the door.

“Yeah?” Travis called.

Apparently this was how New Yorkers said, “Come in.”

Nell opened the door and was surprised not to see her son there, making a pest of himself despite her scolding. “Have you seen Jeremy?” she asked.

“Not lately.” Travis was sitting in front of his computer screen, his brow furrowed.

“I hope I didn't interrupt anything,” she said, feeling badly to have barged in on him, considering she'd admonished her twelve-year-old for doing the same thing.

“No problem, Nell.” He seemed abstracted and barely glanced away from his work.

She quietly closed the door. Jeremy sometimes liked to escape to the hayloft and read, especially if he was angry with her. She headed in that direction next, hoping to make peace with him.

“Jeremy.” She stood in the middle of the barn, staring up at the loft.

“Yeah.” Her son peeked over the ledge.

Yeah.
Just like Travis. She swallowed the urge to correct him and said, “Time to wash up for dinner.”

“Already?” he groaned. He climbed down from the loft and followed Nell back to the house, dragging his feet. He didn't mention the incident earlier that afternoon, and because he hadn't, she didn't, either.

“What are you reading?” his grandmother asked him.

“A book,” he said and set it on the kitchen counter. “When will Emma be back from Girl Scouts?”

Nell glanced at her watch. “Any minute. Kathy's mom is dropping her off. Would you kindly tell Travis dinner will be ready in ten minutes?” She didn't need to make the suggestion twice; Jeremy was out the door as fast as a cartoon character racing across the screen.

“He seems to like Travis,” Ruth commented.

“I noticed.”

“That worries you?”

It did, Nell thought. Once Travis left—and he
would
leave—her son might well feel abandoned. Initially she hadn't been concerned, but Jeremy's liking for Travis had recently grown into full-scale adulation.

And what about her own feelings? Travis had shaken up her emotions, made her feel all kinds of things she'd shut herself off from. Like attraction. And…desire.

“Yes,” she answered her mother-in-law. “I'm worried he likes Travis too much.”

“You seem to like him yourself,” Ruth added slyly.

Nell bit her lip, unable to explain or confide.

“Something happen you want to talk about?” The older woman studied her closely.

Nell just shook her head. Fortunately Ruth left it at that, giving her a hug before pitching in to set the table.

Dinner consisted of meat loaf, scalloped potatoes, homemade bread, corn, green salad and fresh rhubarb pie. Emma ran in the back door, shucking off her jacket, just as they were about to sit down.

As usual, dinner conversation settled around the children and school. This evening Nell was more than grateful to let her two youngsters do the talking. Particularly since her adventures with Travis in Bitter End wouldn't have been an appropriate subject. Nor did she want to discuss their trip into town and the chat with Dr. Jane.

“What's that book you were reading earlier?” Ruth asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

“
Prairie Gold,
by T.R. Grant,” Jeremy said. His gaze briefly flew to Travis before he helped himself to a second slice of bread. “He's a great writer.”

“You've read enough of his books,” Nell said in a conversational tone as she passed the butter to her son.

“You heard of him?” Emma asked Travis.

Jeremy burst into giggles and Nell quelled him with a look.

“You could say we're friends.” Travis smiled at Emma, and Nell wondered if he was teasing her daughter. She certainly wouldn't appreciate it if he was.

“I've read all his books,” Jeremy stated proudly.

“Every one of them,” Nell testified.

“Do you
really
know him?” Emma asked, returning to Travis's earlier statement.

“Travis is a writer,” Nell said. “He probably knows lots of other writers.” She didn't want to put him on the spot.

Once more Jeremy burst into giggles.

“What's going on here?” Nell demanded.

“Mom, have you ever wondered what the
T.R.
in T.R. Grant stands for?”

“No,” she said. She hadn't given the matter a moment's thought.

“Travis Randolf,” Travis supplied slowly, holding her gaze and refusing to let go.

Nell dropped her fork with a clatter.

“Nell?” Ruth said, her eyes showing concern.

“You're T.R. Grant?” Nell whispered, finding it hard to speak and breathe at the same time.

Travis grinned. “At your service.”

“I
TOLD YOU
I
WAS A WRITER
,”
Travis explained as though the logic should have been obvious.

“I figured it out this afternoon!” Jeremy exclaimed excitedly.

“But you didn't say
what
you wrote,” Ruth said, frowning.

It just so happened that one of the most popular children's authors in the entire country was sitting at this very table, was sleeping in their bunkhouse. Was kissing her senseless every chance he got.

“Nell?” Travis's gaze continued to hold hers. “Maybe you and I should talk about this privately after dinner.”

The idea of being alone with him for even a minute was too much. She shook her head vigorously. “That won't be necessary.”

Before Travis could comment, Jeremy and Emma immediately bombarded him with questions. At any other time Nell would have cautioned them to mind their manners. But not tonight.

After dinner Ruth went into her bedroom to watch
Jeopardy
on her television set. Protesting loudly, Jeremy and Emma were sent upstairs to do their homework, while Nell cleaned the kitchen.

She scrubbed the dishes, rinsed them, dried them. She didn't turn around, but she knew Travis was still in the kitchen long before he spoke.

“You might have said something,” she told him in a deceptively mild voice.

“Well, I didn't exactly hide it, but I didn't shout it from the rooftops, either.” He paused. “Does it change who I am?”

“Yes…no.”

“I'd rather you got to know me for who I am first—without muddying the waters with my success.”

Although she understood, it hurt that he hadn't trusted her with the truth. But it was just as well. This simply reinforced what she already knew—that she shouldn't expect anything from him.

“You wanted to ask me something?” she said pointedly.

“I want to go back to Bitter End in the morning.”

“Why?”

“We're missing something important there, Nell. I can feel it, but I can't put my finger on it.”

“I don't have time to waste. I've got work to do around here.”

He hesitated. “I need you.”

“Why?” she cried again, standing with her back to him. “You know the way now. You
don't
need me.”

“I do,” he said softly. “But I'll leave it up to you.” Having said that, he quietly left.

W
HEN MORNING ARRIVED
and the children were off to school, Nell had a change of heart. This, she promised herself, would be the last time. From then on, Travis was on his own.

“I'm glad you're coming,” he said, smiling as she climbed into the sports utility vehicle, sitting beside him.

“We ran into a dead end,” she muttered. “And if it was up to me, we'd drop the entire project now.”

“You don't mean that.”

It was true she didn't, but she refused to admit it.

They parked in the same place they had before and made their way into the ghost town. Even before they reached Bitter End, Nell could feel the sensation approaching. Gradually it descended on her, the intensity mounting with each step she took.

“What are we looking for?” Nell asked in a whisper, standing close to his side. She'd prefer to keep her distance, but the town frightened her.

“I don't know yet,” he said, his voice low.

As they stood in the center of the street in the middle of Bitter End, Travis surveyed the buildings. “Does anything strike you as familiar?” he asked after a moment, his voice slightly raised.

“No.” Nothing had changed from the day before except her anxiety to leave, which had only increased.

“The tree!” he shouted, pointing down the street. He started for it, leaving her behind.

He stopped some yards from the large dead oak with its gnarled twisted limbs.

“Wh-what about the tree?” she asked, breathless from running after him.

“Nell, don't you remember the quilt? That's the tree! You can tell by the trunk.”

Travis walked slowly toward it. “Look. Nell, look.”

He ran his finger over the rough crude letters in the dead wood.

Nell's swift intake of breath was the only sound.

There, carved into the side of the tree, was the word
cursed.

I
T CAME TO
T
RAVIS THEN
,
in a blinding flash. The quilt squares they'd found so puzzling held the key to whatever had happened in Bitter End.

“The quilt,” he said. “The squares tell what happened to the town.”

“A story quilt! I hadn't even thought of that.” Nell's eyes went bright with excitement. It was all Travis could do not to kiss her right then and there. He resisted, with difficulty.

He might have kissed her, anyway, if he hadn't felt her withdrawing from him. The fact that he was a successful novelist had come to light at the worst possible moment. In retrospect, he realized he should have told her much sooner, but he'd enjoyed the anonymity. He appreciated being accepted and liked for the man he was and not for what he'd achieved.

Then, too, her unawareness of his identity, his success, had given him a chance to know her. His career hadn't intruded on their relationship. They'd simply become friends. Well, more than friends if he had his way.

Unfortunately he'd felt Nell retreating emotionally as soon as she'd learned the truth about him. She believed he'd misled her and he supposed he had, although he hadn't meant to. He'd planned to tell her in his own time. And now…

“Think,” Nell said, biting her lower lip. “What else was on those quilt squares?”

Travis tried to remember, but his thoughts were on Nell, not on the quilt. There'd only been a handful, five or six squares. Obviously they weren't enough to complete the entire quilt, which meant some squares were missing, maybe forever lost.

“Okay, the oak tree. And one of the squares showed a grave marker,” Nell said, counting them on her fingers.

“One of them showed something that resembled a dry riverbed,” he recalled. “But there's no river around here.”

“Gully Creek isn't far,” she said with a thoughtful frown.

“It isn't unheard of for creeks to run dry,” he added.

“What else?” Nell asked.

“A frog?”

“Yes, but a frog doesn't make sense,” Nell said.

“If there was a creek here, there could have been frogs.”

“Yes, but…” She shook her head. “The quilt sounded promising at first, but I'm beginning to have my doubts—especially about the square with a hangman's noose. What could that possibly mean?”

“I don't know,” Travis admitted. Like her, he was feeling some reservations. “You said one of the squares was a grave marker, right?”

She nodded.

“Do you remember what it said?”

“Yes.” Nell answered and took a deep breath. “It said Edward Abraham Frasier and there was a Bible reference.”

“I don't suppose you remember the Bible reference.”

She nodded. “Matthew 28:46.”

It didn't mean anything to Travis. They'd have to wait until they were back on the ranch and had access to a Bible.

“‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'” Nell quoted in a soft voice.

Travis was impressed. “Great,” he said and reached for her hand, squeezing it gently. He intended to check out the cemetery next to see if they could find the grave marker.

“I…read that passage frequently after Jake's death,” she whispered.

Travis remained silent, knowing this was a difficult moment for her.

“Let's go look at the markers in the cemetery here and see if we can find that name,” she finally said.

The graveyard was behind the church, surrounded by a sun-bleached cedar-rail fence. Several markers still stood, crude crosses, a few headstones.

Travis wandered among the graves, but found nothing.

“It's impossible to read the names,” Nell protested. “Something might have been etched into the wood, but you can't read it anymore.”

Travis knelt in front of one headstone, choosing it randomly. A rosebush bloomed nearby. The irony of it didn't escape him—the only living plants in this town were in the cemetery. God had a great sense of humor.

He could see that a name had once been visible on the simple stone marker, and not knowing what else to do, he ran the tip of his finger gently over it. After a moment he could make out the first letter.

“W,”
he said aloud.

“Did you say something?” Nell asked, strolling toward him. She stood at his side while he continued to kneel in front of the marker.

“A,”
he said, his enthusiasm growing. “
L…T,
I think…
E…R.
”

“Walter?”

“That was his name.” Travis glanced up at her. “Try pressing your finger over the inscription,” he said.

Nell did as he suggested, kneeling in front of another grave, close to Travis. It wasn't easy; her hands were callused from ranch work while his were more sensitive. The most strenuous activity he used his hands for was tapping computer keys.

“A!”
she shouted triumphantly.

“Wonderful,” he said. He removed a small notebook and pen from his pocket. Walter E. Bastien was the first name he entered. If he read the dates correctly, Walter had died at age three.

“D…E…L…E,”
Nell completed excitedly. “Adele!”

Travis moved on to the next marker. They were able to read nine names before they found Edward Abraham Frasier. He'd died at age five. Of the ten names they'd recorded, Travis noted that eight were children, who'd all died before the age of seven.

“Life was hard in those days,” Nell said soberly. “My great-grandmother was one of ten children and only five survived to adulthood.”

“A fifty percent mortality rate.”

“I couldn't bear to lose a child, not after…” Nell didn't need to complete the thought. “Well,” she said abruptly, sitting back on her haunches, “this is all very interesting, but what does it mean?”

Travis didn't know and merely shrugged.

“How can we solve anything? We need to know what happened! Okay, so the quilt is somehow tied in to the town's history, but what does it tell us? Bitter End does indeed have a tree with the word
cursed
carved in the wood. And we found the grave marker for Edward Frasier, who's got to be an ancestor of Ellie's but it doesn't mean anything if we don't know all the facts.”

“The tree's dead,” Travis murmured.

“What else is new?” she said, sounding almost flippant. “Everything in this town is dead.”

“I want to know why. What happened here? At one time this was a prosperous enough community, but something went very wrong. Something that no one's ever written about, so we're stuck with no documentation. Except…what about old newspapers?”

“If Bitter End ever printed a newspaper, whatever copies were published disappeared a long time ago.”

“We don't know that.” His research skills were beginning to kick in. “I'm thinking that if something horrendous happened, it would be reported elsewhere.”

“Like where?”

“Perhaps in the Austin newspaper. Maybe San Antonio. It wouldn't do any harm to check it out.”

“But how in heaven's name would we ever find that? Travis, it would take weeks of looking through microfilm.”

“My dear,” Travis said, slipping his arm around her waist, “haven't you ever heard of the Internet?”

E
LLIE WAS BUSY READING
a cookbook when Glen walked into the kitchen, fresh from the shower. He skidded to a stop when he saw her and pretended to be terrified, shielding his face with both arms.

“All right, all right,” she said dryly. “Very funny. But I'm not planning to poison you, if that's what you're thinking.” Ellie's limited culinary skills had become a shared joke. She'd learned a few recipes but rarely ventured into new territory.

“Honey, I don't mind cooking.”

Ellie knew that was true, but Glen's repertoire consisted primarily of roast beef, beef stew and spaghetti with meat sauce, except that he added ingredients not generally associated with those dishes—jalapeños, green olives and walnuts. He was also inventive when it came to salads.