Page 9 of Atonement Trail
“As promised. Still warm. I may have charmed Rose into making a fresh batch just for us.”
“Of course you did.” But there was no bite to it. This was Aidan’s gift—making people want to do things for him, not through manipulation but through genuine warmth that made you feel like you were part of something special just by being near him.
They stood for a moment in the swirling fog, neither quite sure how to navigate this new territory—choosing to spend time together outside the familiar boundaries of work, outside the safe roles of boss and employee.
“I did some research,” Dylan said, needing something concrete to anchor herself. “About your family’s history, the railroad, all of it. Mrs. Whitfield at the historical society was very helpful.”
“You went to see Mrs. Whitfield?” Aidan’s eyebrows rose. “She usually guards those archives like they contain state secrets.”
“She warmed up when I told her I was trying to solve one of Patrick O’Hara’s riddles. Apparently, she had quite the crush on him when she was younger.”
Aidan’s laugh was warm and genuine. “Grandda had that effect on women. Even in his eighties, he could charm the paint off a barn.”
“He was kind,” Dylan said simply. “That’s rarer than charm.”
They climbed into Aidan’s truck—her suggestion, practical given the rough roads ahead—and she tried not to notice how the cab smelled like him, pine and possibility. As they drove, Aidan told her stories she’d never heard, filling in the gaps between historical records and lived memory.
“The two brothers who came here first,” he said, navigating the forest road with practiced ease, “were Thomas and Seamus. They’d lost everything in Ireland—the British took their land after some uprising, and they figured they had nothing left to lose by starting over.”
“The Nine Years’ War,” Dylan said, surprising him. “Mrs. Whitfield had records. Your family fought with pitchforks and axes against British soldiers with guns and armor.”
“You really did research.”
“I like understanding how things connect.” She watched the forest pass outside the window, trees emerging and disappearing in the fog like ghosts. “They named this place Laurel Valley, but before that, before the Bavarian settlers came and built their perfect little Alpine village, this was just O’Hara land.”
“Still is, mostly,” Aidan said with a pride that went bone deep. “We’ve sold some over the years, developed other parts, but the core of it—the ranch, the mountain, the lakes—that’s still ours.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Dylan admitted. “How do you stay? How do you look at the same views every day, walk the same paths, and not feel trapped?”
Aidan was quiet for a moment, considering. “I guess I don’t see the same views. Every season changes them. Every sunrise is different. And the paths…” He glanced at her, something soft in his expression. “The paths lead to different places depending on who you’re walking them with.”
The weight of that observation settled between them, too heavy for the fragile peace they’d established. Dylan turned back to the window, watching as they climbed higher into the mountains, leaving the fog behind for crystalline morning light that turned everything to gold.
The homestead ruins appeared through the trees like something from a dream—stone foundations overtaken by moss, wooden beams collapsed into abstract sculptures of decay. This wasn’t the grand ranch house where Aidan had grown up—that stood miles away, built by his father’s hands as his family grew. This was the original, the first shelter those O’Hara brothers had built in 1847 when Idaho was still wild and unforgiving.
“This is where it all started,” Aidan said, his voice carrying the reverence of someone standing on holy ground.
They walked through the ruins together, and Dylan found herself seeing it not as abandoned stones but as the beginning of something that had endured for nearly two centuries. Here, Thomas or Seamus had laid the first foundation stone. Here, their wives had cooked over open fires, their children had taken first steps, their dreams had either flourished or withered depending on the harshness of winter and the generosity of summer.
“The railroad came through in the 1880s,” Dylan said, orienting herself with the mental map she’d constructed from old documents. “By then, your family had already been here for thirty years. They’d already named the mountain, claimed the water rights, established themselves as the ones who stayed when others gave up.”
“Before the mountain came to be,” Aidan murmured, understanding dawning. “Not before the literal mountain existed, but before it had a name. Before it became O’Hara’s Peak.”
“And before O’Hara was our name,” Dylan continued. “Mrs. Whitfield showed me immigration records. The family name was originally Ó hEaghra. It got Americanized at some point, probably when the government started requiring official documentation.”
They searched methodically through the ruins, Dylan applying the same systematic approach she used for diagnostics. If Patrick had hidden something here, it would be somewhere significant but protected. The morning sun climbed higher, burning off the last of the fog, revealing the valley spread below them like a map of possibilities.
“Here,” she called from the far corner of the foundation. “This stone is different.”
Aidan crouched beside her, their shoulders touching as they examined what she’d found. The stone was newer than the others, the mortar less weathered. Someone—Patrick, presumably—had removed and replaced it, creating a hiding spot that would survive weather and time.
Together, they worked it free, revealing a metal box wrapped in oilcloth. Inside, Patrick’s handwriting waited for them, patient as memory:
Where water speaks but never flows, / where secrets rest that no one knows.
“Water that speaks,” Dylan mused, sitting back on her heels, her mind already working through possibilities.
“There are dozens of water sources on the property,” Aidan said, frustration creeping into his voice. “Springs, streams, two lakes, the old irrigation channels from when this was all cattle land.”
