The Heart's Pursuit (3 page)
A smile curved his mouth. “I see. And what is it I can do for you, Miss Matlock?”
Silver had rehearsed what she wanted to say to the banker all the way from Twin Springs. “The First Bank and Trust holds the mortgages on my parents’ home and business.”
He nodded.
“Matlock Mercantile,” she added.
He nodded again, still without comment.
She lifted her chin. “Our store was robbed week before last, and the money in the safe was taken—the money my father intended to use to make the final mortgage payment that is due next week.”
“I see.” He swiveled his chair around and rose, then walked to his office door. “John,” he called to his clerk, “bring me the Matlock file. Matlock Mercantile, Twin Springs.” He faced her again. “May I inquire why you are here instead of your father?”
She hesitated before answering. “My father is a proud man, Mr. Owens.”
“In other words, he doesn’t know you’ve come to see me.”
Desperation overwhelmed her practiced calm as she leaned forward in her chair. “It’s my fault the store was robbed.”
“Your fault?” He returned to his chair behind the desk.
“Yes. The man . . . the man who robbed us was—” Oh, how hard it was to admit to a stranger. “He was my fiancé.”
The bank manager’s brows arched as his eyes widened, but he said nothing. His clerk entered the office and laid the requested file on the banker’s desk.
“Excuse me a moment, Miss Matlock.” Jess Owens slid his glasses up his nose and opened the file. Thoughtfully he studied the papers inside the folder, a frown beginning to crease his forehead.
“Mr. Owens.” Silver gripped the edge of the desk. “Please don’t take their home or business. My father has worked hard for everything he has. He’s poured his life into that store and into the community. If you could give him some additional time, I know he will make good on the debt.” She didn’t know anything of the kind, but she said it anyway.
“Miss Matlock, there is a legal due date on the note. The final payment was a full third of the amount borrowed. A considerable sum.” He put down the file and removed his glasses. “To overlook it wouldn’t be fair to the bank’s depositors. It’s quite a large sum of money.”
The breath caught in her chest. “How much?”
He shook his head.
She took hold of the gold locket hanging around her neck. “Would this cover the amount? That’s a real diamond, Mr. Owens. The necklace belonged to my great-grandmother, so it’s quite old.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Matlock. I cannot divulge the details of your father’s loan. I can guess that your necklace wouldn’t be worth more than 10 percent of the sum owed.”
Silver felt the color drain from her face. Her father’s debt must be at least several thousand dollars. She hadn’t
dreamed it could be so much. It might as well be ten million. Tears flooded her eyes, and she blinked to keep them from falling.
The banker cleared his throat. “Perhaps I could grant a brief extension. Say, ninety days?”
“Ninety days,” she repeated in a whisper, grasping at hope.
“It’s the best I can do.”
She drew herself up. “Thank you, Mr. Owens. We’ll have the money for you in ninety days. I promise.”
Silver sat with her younger stepsister in the small parlor of the Downing home, sipping a cup of tea and enjoying the quiet while her two young nephews slept.
They’d spoken of numerous things since her arrival—her brother-in-law, Dan Downing’s, apprenticeship with a veterinarian, the mischief her nephew Fredrick got into since he’d begun walking, the relief her stepsister, Rose, felt now that two-month-old Harry was sleeping through the night—but they couldn’t avoid discussing Silver’s disastrous wedding day forever.
“How is Mother?” Rose asked. “Is she . . . is she doing any better since we left Twin Springs?”
“She’s taken to her bed. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for so poorly choosing a fiancé.”
“Oh, Silver.”
“It’s all right.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not sure I can forgive myself either.”
“You couldn’t have known Mr. Cassidy would . . . leave you at the altar.”
“Couldn’t I?” Silver wasn’t so sure. When she thought back over the weeks of their courtship, she couldn’t deny there had been signs of Bob’s true nature. Thoughtless comments that could sting. Flirtations with other women that he brushed off as meaningless. A seeming obsession with money. Her father’s money in particular.
“Well, I’m glad you came for a visit,” Rose continued. “We’ll do all sorts of things to take your mind off of him while you’re in Denver.”
“I didn’t come here to be entertained.”
Rose tilted her head in silent inquiry.
“Papa could lose the store . . . and the house.”
“What?”
“There are mortgages on both of them. Apparently the store hasn’t been doing as well as it used to when Twin Springs was growing rapidly. Papa had that land out by Copper Creek, and he sold it, meaning to use the proceeds to pay off the notes, which are coming due. Only the money was in the safe.”
“Oh no.” Rose covered her mouth.
“Oh yes.”
“Doesn’t Sheriff Cooper hold out any hope of finding Mr. Cassidy?”
“He thinks he’s long gone from the Denver area. They’ll keep looking, of course, but he wasn’t very encouraging. There’s so little to go on, and no real evidence Bob was involved in the theft. Miss Harris—you remember the dressmaker?—swears she saw him leaving town the night before.”
“Whatever will Papa do if he loses the store? And Mother. She’ll never forgive—” Rose broke off suddenly.
Silver understood anyway. “I know. She’ll never forgive me.” She drew in a deep breath. “Before coming here this morning, I went to see the banker. He’s agreed to give Papa another ninety days to raise the money.”
“Will that be enough time? If Dan and I had anything extra, we would—”
Silver gave her stepsister a sad smile. “I know you would. But Dan’s only an apprentice, and you have two babies to support. Father would never ask you to help. This is my fault. I’m the one who has to help recover what was taken.”
That night, Silver lay sleepless in a bed in her sister and brother-in-law’s home. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her racing thoughts.
This
was
her fault. She was the one who had made Bob Cassidy a part of her family, even before the wedding could take place. She was the one who’d convinced her father to give Bob—a newcomer to Twin Springs—a job in the
mercantile. She was the one who had taught him all the inner workings of the business and showed him how to tally the day’s receipts. It was she who had told him her father took his deposits to the bank in Denver every other week because of a long-running dispute with the Twin Springs bank manager.
Was that when Bob had decided to steal the money in the safe? Or had he made that decision only after he decided to leave her at the altar?
Her cheeks grew hot as the sting of mortification returned. She’d waited for Bob at the church for more than an hour on her wedding day—along with her father, stepmother, stepsister, brother-in-law, nephews, and all of their guests. They’d waited and waited and waited. She’d heard the whispers, seen the pity in the townspeople’s eyes.
How she hated Bob for humiliating her that way. He’d played her for a fool, then compounded it by stealing from her parents. She couldn’t let him get away with it. She had to find him and get back their money. She had to save her father from financial destruction.
She remembered him, then, that man who’d stood beside his horse outside the Mountain Rose Saloon. She’d been running from the church, angry and embarrassed, shamed and disgraced, hating the tears that streaked her cheeks. Then she’d looked up and there he’d stood, a stranger, tall and rugged beneath a dusty brown hat.
And he’d smirked at her!
“We going or not, bounty?”
As the words replayed in her memory, she sat up in bed. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? A bounty hunter. If the sheriff hadn’t enough deputies or enough cause to look for Bob Cassidy, she could hire someone to do it for her. Who better than someone who tracked down criminals for the reward?
She fingered the locket at her throat. It was all she had. It wasn’t enough to pay off the mortgage, but it was surely worth enough to hire a bounty hunter. She would do so first thing tomorrow.
J
ared leaned back in the chair and let his gaze move over the customers in the restaurant. His mood was black, and it didn’t help to think about his lack of funds. According to the sheriff, Rick Cooper, problems with the paperwork would delay collection of the reward for Lute Peterson for at least a couple more weeks, maybe longer. The waiting was driving Jared crazy. He wasn’t used to staying in one place very long.
He rubbed the old wound in his shoulder. Whenever he became frustrated or angry, the pain returned, reminding him why he wasn’t at home in Kentucky, reminding him why he lived the kind of life he did. It wasn’t what he’d been born to. It was a life thrust upon him by the acts of an evil man, a life Jared couldn’t change until he obtained justice.
With the scrape of wood against wood, he pushed back his chair, rose, and dropped the coins for his meal beside his empty plate. Then he left the restaurant and strode along the boardwalk toward the sheriff’s office.
The morning air was crisp, a light wind blowing down from the snowcapped mountains to the west. But spring was coming to the mile-high city of Denver. He hoped he wouldn’t be around, cooling his heels, when it arrived.
At the sheriff’s office, he pushed open the door to the front entry. Through another doorway he could see Rick Cooper seated behind his desk, a woman in a blue dress standing before him, her back to Jared.
“It’s a bad idea, Miss Matlock.” Rick shook his head.
“But, Sheriff Cooper, you said yourself you haven’t enough deputies. Why shouldn’t I hire someone to do what you’re unable to do?”
Her voice told Jared this Miss Matlock was young, but lack of years hadn’t made her timid. She spoke with firmness, and she stood straight, her shoulders level, her head held high.