Redemption (19 page)

“Thanks for letting me know,” Frank said as he watched his daughter park. She looked toward the two horses he had saddled and ready to go. He’d been afraid she wouldn’t show and was relieved now as she got out of her car. She saw that he was on the phone and made a face as if expecting him to drop everything for her. He reminded himself that she was young, very young, even for her age.

The deputy was still talking, filling him in on another case, when Frank finally interrupted him. “Thanks for the information. I have to go. I’ll check in with you later.” He hung up.

Tiffany was still looking at him, impatience and a growing anger marring her pretty face.

“Sheriff business,” he said as he walked toward her. “Sorry. I’m turning off my phone so we won’t be interrupted on our ride.”

Her expression softened a little as she turned toward the horses. “Which one is mine?”

“Princess,” he said and walked over to the buckskin mare. “She’s very gentle. Come say hello.”

Tiffany hesitated before slowly stepping to the horse.

He told her the dos and don’ts, then said, “Let me help you up on her. You can just sit up there and see how it feels,” he added when he saw concern cross her features.

A stubborn resolve seemed to replace the concern. He wondered if she’d gotten that from him or her mother, as he helped her up into the saddle.

She gripped the saddle horn, white knuckled. The horse moved under her and she let out a startled sound. But after a moment she seemed to relax. She even took one hand off the saddle horn and stroked the mare’s neck.

“When you’re ready, I will lead you around the corral so you can get the feel of the horse’s movements.”

She nodded and he began to walk Princess slowly, all the time watching his daughter to make sure she was all right.

“How old were you when you first started riding a horse?”

He laughed. “Probably two. The first time I got bucked off, I was three.”

Her eyes widened in alarm.

“It was my own fault. I wanted the horse to go faster and I took off my hat to swat the horse. The wind caught my hat and blew it right in front of the horse and spooked him. I got right back on, though.”

She didn’t look relieved by his story and he mentally kicked himself for telling it.

“So I would have learned to ride when I was two?” she asked.

He could see where she was headed with this. “Only if I was holding you in my lap.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but she quickly looked away. “Aren’t we going to ride anywhere?” she asked after a moment, her voice tight.

“You ready to take the reins?”

She reached for them and he explained how to get the horse to turn, how not to pull too hard, how to keep her balance.

Then he opened the corral gate, led his own horse out and swung up into the saddle.

“Do you ride a lot?” she asked as they started slowly down the road.

“Most days I try to get out. I enjoy using a horse rather than a four-wheeler to check the cattle I run. Much quieter,” he said with a grin, but saw that it was wasted on her.

“Does your girlfriend ride with you?” she asked, an edge to her voice.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

She glanced over at him, eyes narrowed. “What about Lynette Johnson?”

He didn’t let her see his surprise or his anger at her mother. What had Pam told this poor girl? “Like I said, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Tiffany seemed to relax a little in the saddle. They rode in silence for a while. “So you have a lot of land?”

“Not much—a few hundred acres.”

“That sounds like a lot. Are you rich?”

He laughed. “I’m a sheriff. Sheriffs don’t make a lot of money.”

“Then why do you do it?”

He shrugged. “I like what I do. Kind of like you. You like art. You’ll probably never make a lot of money, but it won’t matter as long as you love what you do.”

She raised her chin and at that moment he saw her mother in her. “How do you know I won’t make a lot of money with my art?”

He swore under his breath. “It’s just that a lot of artists don’t. You could be the exception.”

Again they rode in silence. He wondered if he would ever be able to say the right thing to her, ever be able to have a close father-daughter relationship, or if it was too late because of all the lost years—and the lies.

Her questions about Lynette had unnerved him. Obviously her mother had told her things she shouldn’t have. He thought of Pam and had to look away so Tiffany didn’t see the fury boiling inside him.

After a while, Tiffany said she was tired and they headed back.

“You want to brush Princess down?” he asked as he helped his daughter from the saddle.

“No,” she said. “I have things I have to do.” She started toward her car without a backward glance.

“I hope you enjoyed the ride,” he said after her. Pam apparently hadn’t taught her any manners. All his ex had given their daughter was a hatred of her father.

At her car, Tiffany stopped and turned to look back at him. “Thank you for the ride.”

He felt his heart well up inside him like a helium balloon. “You’re welcome. Maybe you’d like to ride again sometime.”

She didn’t answer as she climbed into her car. He watched her drive away, his need to find her mother growing with each passing second.

But with the resources he’d been able to use, he hadn’t had any luck locating Pam. It was as if she’d dropped off the face of the earth.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
RUE TO
C
ILLA’S WORD
, the entire quilt club showed up Tuesday evening, armed with gallons of paint, rags, drop cloths, brushes and rollers.

After Jack had left, a shaken Kate had showered and changed to hurry downstairs. She shoved tables and chairs into the center of the room and helped put drop cloths over the booths, as the women, dressed in dungarees, as they called them, went to work.

She worked with them, trying to distract herself from what had happened earlier upstairs. She couldn’t help worrying that she’d made a pact with the devil. She didn’t even want to think about the kiss or how it had affected her.

The quilters were a hardworking bunch, varying in age from early thirties to the oldest, Loralee Clark, who Kate would have guessed was over eighty.

Cilla introduced them quickly. “Don’t worry, you’ll never remember all the names until you get to know the women.”

Kate had wondered why the elderly Loralee had bothered to come. She looked too old for this kind of labor. A petite woman with long, gray hair braided loosely down her back and piercing blue eyes, Loralee quickly went to work supervising the group. Once she had them all working, she asked Kate if she would make a pot of coffee, then reached into a large bag she’d brought with her and took out a half dozen plastic containers of food.

Kate saw that there were six desserts within the containers.

“For after the painting is done,” Loralee announced.

Kate did whatever she could to help, but the women had clearly worked together before and made a quick job of painting the interior of the café.

“Do you like the color?” Cilla asked.

“I love it,” Kate said without hesitation. She hated to think how long this job would have taken her alone. And the color was fine, a nice neutral, as Cilla had said.

When the work was done, the women cleaned up and all gathered at the large table that Kate had pushed by the front window.

Loralee brought out the desserts, while Kate provided the plates and silverware. She was about to pour the coffee when Cilla took the pot from her and insisted she sit down, even though Kate certainly hadn’t worked that hard.

The moment Kate took a chair, she felt the older woman’s keen blue eyes on her.

“Where do I know you from?” Loralee asked.

Kate shook her head, positive she and the elderly woman had never crossed paths before she’d come to Beartooth. “I just have one of those faces.”

Loralee swatted that away with a wave of her hand. “I never forget a face. I just can’t remember where I’ve seen you before and it’s been bothering me all night. But it will come to me. It always does.”

“Mother,” her daughter Marian reprimanded. “Kate’s not from around here, and you’ve only been outside the county a few times, years before Kate was even born, so I’m sure—”

“Pishposh,” Loralee snapped.

The group fell silent as Marian gave Kate an apologetic smile.

Cilla changed the conversation to quilting and the rest of the evening the talk was of quilts, quilt patterns and an upcoming shop-hop.

Kate had never heard of a shop-hop but quickly learned that the women piled into cars and caravanned from one quilt shop to another, traveling all over their part of Montana.

“We’ll come around to hang a few quilts on these walls this week,” Cilla said. “I already have some in mind that will look beautiful in here.”

It wasn’t until the coffee and desserts were consumed that everyone readied to leave and Marian drew Kate aside.

“I’m sorry if my mother made you feel uncomfortable,” she apologized. “She’s starting to forget things and gets confused.”

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Kate assured her. “Your mother is delightful.”

“That’s a word I’ve never heard to describe her,” she joked.

Kate walked them all out. As Marian was starting to pull away from the curb, her mother reached out the passenger side of the SUV and grabbed Kate’s arm.

“I know you from somewhere,” Loralee said with defiance. “I never forget a face. It will come to me.”

She only released her hold on Kate when Marian started to drive away.

Kate stood at the edge of the road and watched the elderly woman squinting back at her in the side mirror. How long before Loralee figured it out?

Ticktock. Ticktock,
Kate thought. Claude had warned her this might happen.

* * *

“
A
S
I
ALREADY
told you, I was curious about my brother’s wife,” Claude said. “I’d heard she was much younger than him. I couldn’t help wondering what happened to his first wife. I guess I was wondering, too, how he’d gotten himself a young wife. I’d heard those boys of his were hellions.”

“So your curiosity got the best of you,” she said, trying to move his story along to the part she’d been waiting years to hear.

“It wasn’t that simple. I didn’t want to see my brother. He hadn’t recognized me the one time we’d run into each other, but I didn’t want to chance it should we cross paths again. The place was fortified with not only a wire fence, but also booby traps, and those sons of his were just itching to shoot someone.”

She shook her head. “But all that didn’t stop you.”

Claude actually smiled, even though she knew he was in a lot of pain. “I found a spot where I could watch the place, and one day I got my first glimpse of her. I was astonished. Teeny was just as I had heard—young and beautiful. That was the moment I knew I had to try to save her.”

Kate saw the pain in his expression. He hadn’t saved her. But he’d tried. “I’m guessing you met her.”

He let out a sound, half laugh, half sob. “I didn’t dare try to get into the compound. I knew how crazy my brother was, and from the local stories I heard, he was getting worse with each passing day. Fortunately, during huckleberry season, your mother ventured out of her prison alone.”

Kate didn’t know what to say. “The two of you—”

“I hadn’t planned to fall in love with her. I was much too old for her. Not as old as Cullen, but still...” His eyes took on a shine and for a few minutes, Claude looked a third of a century younger.

“Something tells me you didn’t plan on getting her pregnant,” she said. “That is what happened, isn’t it?”

Behind her, the nurse came in, a new one on duty, one Kate hadn’t seen before.

“You can’t be in here,” the nurse said firmly. “Only immediate family is allowed in here at this hour.”

Kate looked to Claude. “Well? Am I immediate family?”

* * *

L
ORALEE
C
LARK MOVED
to the sink and flushed the pill her doctor had prescribed down the drain. Earlier, when her daughter had insisted she take it, she’d palmed the pill. She’d become quite good at it, and smiled as she turned on the disposal and ran water until she was sure there was no more sign of it.

Her daughter meant well enough. But the pills made her groggy. She wasn’t going to be one of those old women who dozed all day in a rocker until one day someone noticed she’d kicked the bucket.

No, she wasn’t ready for a rocker, she thought as she left the kitchen and walked down the hall to her sewing room. Her husband, Maynard, had built the room large enough for her to have several quilting frames going at one time if she wanted.

Today there was only one set up at the center of the room. She moved to it, sat down and had to search a moment to find her needle where she’d left it stuck in the fabric. It worried her that her eyesight wasn’t what it had been.

Marian kept trying to talk her into having that nice lady up at Fort Peck machine-quilt for her.

“Not as long as I can lift a needle,” Loralee said now as she found her needle and began to make small, uniform stitches. She loved this part of quilting and had no intention of giving it up until she was forced.

But her mind wouldn’t still as she worked. She kept thinking about Kate LaFond and where she’d seen the young woman before. It was driving her crazy, since she could feel the answer right on the edge of her memory.

The third time she stabbed her sewing needle into her finger, she pushed back from the frame in frustration. How could she concentrate on quilting, the one thing that gave her peace, when not only her daughter but also the entire quilt club thought she was losing her marbles?

Her old eyes were tired. She rubbed them, then straightened, realizing her back hurt, too. Getting old wasn’t for weaklings, her mother used to say. Loralee couldn’t have agreed more.