Page 93 of The Promise
"Our father was a wily old goat, Loralee. I wouldn't put it past him to slip the coordinates into the locket. Especially if he thought there might be trouble."
"Look, this is crazy." Michael held up a hand. "Father couldn't have found the silver. We're ignoring the fact that my mother ran off with it. She and that son of a bitch muleskinner." He spit out the word as if it tasted vile.
"His name was Zachariah Bowen and he didn't run off with anyone." Loralee's voice was tight with anger. "My Zach never ran off with anybody."
"Your Zach?" There was a note of incredulity in Michael's voice.
Loralee squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "Zach Bowen was my husband."
26
There was complete silence around the table. Cara studied each of the faces. Loralee looked angry enough to spit nails. Michael looked equally angry, but his anger was tinged with amazement. Patrick simply looked sick at his stomach. She had no way of knowing the depth of the emotions around the table, but she was astute enough to know that with one sentence Loralee had managed to change everything.
"Did my father know?" Patrick's words were almost a whisper.
Loralee nodded. "That's how we come to be friends."
"I see." His mouth tightened into a thin line, hurt radiating from his eyes.
Loralee placed a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Patrick. I tried, that night on the porch, but somehow I just couldn't." She stared at her hand, looking miserable.
"Zach never mentioned the fact that he was married." Michael's words were clipped, almost harsh.
Loralee's chin went up again. "That was because of me. I didn't want him telling folks."
"Why the hell not?" Michael barked. Loralee cringed and Cara put a gentle hand on Michael's knee. He glanced over at her and some of the frustration in his face faded away. "I mean it seems odd that you wouldn't want anyone to know," he continued in a more gentle tone.
"It was for him, not me. I didn't think folks would cotton to him being married to a…"
"Working girl?" Patrick finished for her.
"A whore, yes." Somehow, coming from Loralee's mouth, the term sounded almost dignified. "I didn't want folks looking down on him. I'd already quit working, but you know how gossip travels from camp to camp. He was going to send for me and Mary when he had enough money. Then we were going to try to start over, someplace far from here." Tears welled in her soft brown eyes. "We were going to make a go of it."
"But he decided to run off with my mother instead."
She glared at Michael. "He didn't run off with your mother. I don't know what happened, but there's no way he would have done something like that."
Michael's voice softened. "I understand the way you feel. In fact, I admire your loyalty. But face it, Loralee, you aren't the first wife to be jilted by her husband."
"You don't understand." She scrubbed at her eyes, wiping away the tears. "When I found out I was pregnant with Mary I knew it was his. I hadn't been working. Just being with him." She sucked in a deep breath. "But I still wanted to get rid of the baby. There's ways to do that, you know. There's always some gal around who has a potion or a doctor willing to take care of things for a price. Anyway, I was certain it was the right thing to do. I cared about Zach, but there wasn't any future in it. I wasn't proper and besides, he didn't seem like the marrying kind."
Patrick's eyes were now filled only with concern. "But you did marry him."
"It was like I told you the other night, Zach wouldn't have it any other way."
"You knew about this?" Michael shot Patrick an accusing look.
"Only that she'd been married."
Cara reached out to pat Loralee. "Go on."
She responded with a watery smile. "Well, Zach was tickled pink about the baby. More than any man I've ever seen." She smiled to herself, lost in her thoughts. "He used to lie with his head on my stomach and talk to the baby. Silly stories and dreams. About what our life would be like, the places we'd go, the things we'd do. Oh, he had grand plans for us all."
"I still—" Michael started, but Cara waved him silent.
Loralee sighed. "He was pretty persuasive, Zach Bowen. Finally, I was so worn down I said yes." She hugged her middle rocking back and forth. "And for a while we was real happy. But the money ran out and he headed here to try and make more. He wrote every week."
Patrick's look had changed to thoughtful. "You told me the last letter you had from him was about the silver."
