Page 56 of Borrowed Time

After all, the fewer people who knew about the kidnapping and attempted murder, the better, even if they were your fellow clan members.

“It is a terrible thing,” Jeremiah agreed. Both his voice and his face were grave, signaling nothing of the truth he hid. “But if our hospitality can provide you with some comfort, then I hope you won’t feel that your journey out here was entirely in vain.”

“And perhaps the gossip is true, and your cousin really did leave town with Robert Rowe,” Grace said.

Everyone else at the table — well, except Samuel, who appeared amused by his wife’s comment — exchanged uneasy glances. Yes, that seemed to be the story most people wanted to go with, but since there was no real evidence that the couple had actually gotten on a train and headed west together, I supposed the Wilcoxes could see why Seth and I weren’t quite ready to accept it as the gospel truth.

“Better that than her being alone somewhere, with no family or friends to protect her,” Seth said. I noted a wicked glint inhis eye as he added, “What do you know about Robert Rowe, anyway? He was a stranger in town, correct?”

Again, most of the guests assembled around the table looked less than happy with this line of questioning. I knew that Samuel and Robert had made quite a scene outside church one Sunday morning, but no one Seth and I had talked to during our tenure here in Flagstaff had apparently wanted to mention it.

Most likely, they all wanted to leave the unfortunate incident behind them and pretend that none of it had ever happened.

However, Jeremiah seemed to think it was time for him to step in.

“Yes, Mr. Rowe came here to scout land for a ranch,” he said. “He came from Connecticut, I believe, and it appeared he had ample funds to work with. Other than that, however, I don’t think any of us knew very much about him. He mainly kept to himself — except, perhaps, for his interest in your sister.”

“You saw them together?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer to that question.

Jeremiah’s mouth tightened for a fraction of a second, and I wondered if he was remembering the way my mother had held my wounded father in her arms, thinking for sure she was going to lose him if she couldn’t find a way to somehow get him to a future where he would receive the proper medical help.

However, Jeremiah’s voice sounded smooth enough as he said, “Not really. I believe I saw them speaking to one another at the harvest dance we held several weeks ago, but they did not dance with one another, and they certainly left separately. As far as I’ve been able to tell, the gossip about them is simply that — gossip, and nothing more.”

A believable enough description of the situation…if you didn’t know what had actually happened.

“Which means that, even if we were somehow able to track down Robert Rowe, we most likely still wouldn’t discover what really happened to our sister,” I said.

“I suppose that means you won’t be with us for much longer,” Samuel remarked, his gaze holding mine for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. He’d worn a sour expression during most of the previous exchange, although it seemed he hadn’t wanted to interrupt his older brother. “When did you plan to return to St. Louis?”

The question probably was bordering on intrusive, but it seemed Seth decided to take it at face value rather than call our dinner companion out for his rudeness.

“We don’t want to stay until the weather truly starts to close in,” he said. “So, most likely, only a few more days.”

He sent me the barest sideways glance as he spoke, as if to signal that, while he might have been speaking the words Samuel wanted to hear, he also wanted us to get out of here sooner rather than later.

The conversation moved from there to the possibility of snow over the next week, with pretty much everyone…except Samuel…looking relieved that the conversation had shifted to a much more innocuous topic. It seemed the consensus was that we should probably have a decent storm within the next seven days, although early snow like this generally didn’t stay around for too long.

And while I knew I was growing impatient as well, I honestly had no idea when Seth and I would be able to leave 1884.

So much depended on how my “training” the next day turned out.

It felt kind of strange to go back to Jeremiah’s house the next morning after having been there just the night before. Again, no one seemed to be out and about on Park Street, which meant Seth and I were able to go up the front steps and knock on the door without anyone taking note of our presence.

Today, Jeremiah himself answered the door, since of course the whole point of this exercise was that his housekeeper was thirty miles away and occupied with family matters. He smiled as he greeted us, although I noticed he closed the door swiftly once we were inside and taking off our outerwear.

Just being safe, or was he having doubts about whether his “stay away” enchantment was sufficient to keep his family members from spying where they shouldn’t?

But he didn’t sound particularly worried as he said, “Come into the office. I have some tea waiting, since it’s such a bitter morning.”

That it was. While the air and the sky didn’t have that heavy, lowering feel that always seemed to descend when snow was imminent, gray clouds clustered overhead, and the air felt much more raw and unfriendly than usual. As far as I could tell, our conversation at dinner the evening before had only pointed out the obvious — we were moving into mid-November, and in Flagstaff, that meant snow was pretty much inevitable.

Seth and I thanked him, and for a minute or so, we were occupied with pouring ourselves some tea and doctoring it the ways we preferred. While I only put lemon in my iced tea and nothing else, I always liked having a little cream and sugar in the hot stuff.

“Well, then,” Jeremiah said once we were all done and sipping from our teacups. “I think today we need to be bold. Mrs. Barton will be back a little before five-thirty, which gives us a good amount of time to work with.”

“No pun intended,” I remarked, and his right eyebrow went up ever so slightly.

However, he ignored the interjection and went on, “We should keep some margin of error, so I don’t want to have you return too close to five-thirty, just to be safe. Devynn, why don’t you try to move forward to four o’clock this afternoon? Even if you overshoot slightly the way you did the last time you tried this, you should still return before my housekeeper arrives to get dinner started.”

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