Echoes (32 page)

"Molly?" Rosie's weakened voice pulled her attention back inside the wagon. She took hold of Rosie's hot dry hand.

"I am here, Rosie. Are you thirsty? May I get you—"

"No," she whispered, her voice rasping against her dry throat.

Molly picked up a cup of water and lifted Rosie's head to dribble some down her throat anyway. The withered woman drank a small amount, but the effort seemed to sap her of what little strength she had.

"My time is come," she said softly. Molly shook her head, but Rosie raised a weak hand and said, "Yes, it is. You can't stop God's time." She coughed painfully and lay back wheezing. Her eyes held a glassy, feverish glow. "You take care of our baby when I'm gone. You promise me you'll do that?"

"Yes, Rosie, of course I will."

Another fit of coughing curled Rosie onto her side. Molly dropped to her knees at the edge of the mattress and helplessly held her as she gasped for breath. When the spell passed, Rosie lay still and drained. Molly thought she'd lapsed back into oblivion but suddenly the frail woman turned, looking around with a blind wildness.

"I know what you think of him," she shouted, pointing past Molly, as if seeing someone who was not there. A soft, whimpering sound came from her parched lips. "He didn't mean it. It wasn't his fault. Ambrose…" She started to cry.

"Shhh, Rosie, there is no one there." Molly held her while another wracking cough quaked through Rosie's body. It sounded as if loose rocks rattled together in her lungs and a dry heat rose from her skin. "You mustn't talk," Molly murmured gently. "It will only—"

"She
taunted
him," she said, gripping Molly's arms in a tight claw. "She was the devil, I swear it." She sputtered and coughed again, wheezing frantically to draw in a breath between the violent bursts.

"There was no good in her," she gasped when the spasm passed, "but I still can't leave this world until you know the truth. He killed her. She pushed him to it, but he killed her." She held Molly's hand painfully tight, belying the weakness that sapped her strength. "Frank... Frank, I hear you. I'm here."

She sat bolt up, staring at the back of the wagon as if Frank had suddenly appeared. With a superstitious chill, Molly glanced over her shoulder. A white face hovered against the black backdrop of night for a frightening instant and then vanished like a specter in a flood of light.

"Don't leave me, Frank," Rose pleaded.

But it wasn't Frank whose face had peered in at them. It was Brodie.

Molly had no time to react before the next bout of coughing took control of Rosie's diminished body. The hacking shook her for so long that Molly feared it would never stop. She clutched Rosie's hand to her heart, praying silently for mercy. And then it came, so suddenly that it thundered in the quiet like doom.

"I'm sorry, child. You know I love you like my own," Rosie whispered, taking in a long, rattling breath. And then she closed her eyes and breathed no more.

* * *

Dawn glimmered like a mirage on the horizon when Molly staggered out of the wagon. Exhaustion had blunted the impact of her night, but the shock of it hovered just at the edge of her awareness where Rosie's dying confession buzzed round and round and the visage of Brodie's pale face gasped with rage.

"
He killed her…
"

The early morning air followed a shiver down her spine. She took a deep breath, amazed at how cool and gentle it felt atop the rot of sickness and the taint of death that was seared beneath her skin.

Adam knelt next to the campfire, coaxing a small flame to life. He looked up when he saw her and stood. She didn't know where Brodie was. Arlie, most likely, was still asleep in the tent.

Silently Adam watched her approach. His light gaze traveled over her face to her eyes. He read the grief that she knew gleamed in them.

"She's gone?" he said.

She nodded, fresh tears spilling over her lashes. Adam covered his face with his hands and without thought Molly stepped forward and brushed them aside. She pulled him to her, holding him while they both cried for the loss of a woman who had always seemed unconquerable. She'd had courage, fortitude and her smile and tittering laughter had spurred them all from bouts of self-pity, keeping them united and brave.

But she'd kept more than their spirits afloat and their bellies full. She'd kept secrets to protect her son. Had she kept them from Adam as well, or did he know the terrible truth?

When he began to pull away, she let him go. Her troubling thoughts were too much for her overloaded emotions. She needed to escape, if only for awhile. The sun breeched the top of the wagons and glared down on them, pinning them both in the cleft of their shadows.

"I need to tell Brodie," Adam said hoarsely.

She nodded and without a word, walked away.

* * *

They buried Rosie on a barren hill beside the
Platte River. The grave was miles from the little cemetery where her husband and other children laid at rest, miles from anything that she might have found familiar. Molly read from the Bible while Adam, Brodie, Mrs. Imogene and Mr. Tate, Captain and Mrs. Hanson and plump Alice Ann O'Keefe stood by the open grave. Others gathered quietly behind. The Hansons witnessed the ceremony with stoic weariness while Alice Ann gazed woefully at Brodie.

Adam stared into Rosie's grave with a stony expression and Arlie, who was always wont to squirm, clung to his father with uncharacteristic solemnity. He didn't understand that his beloved grandma lay in the sheet wrapped bundle, but he knew that something was very wrong that morning. Brodie cried freely and inconsolably. The vent of his grief nearly destroyed Molly's own tenuous control. She would never know how she managed to get through it.

The earth proved hard in the Wyoming territory. Adam and Brodie had toiled as long as the Captain would permit and still the grave was shallow. In a vain effort, they piled stones over the heaped dirt when the grave was filled, but they knew the wolves and coyotes would get her all the same. They could do nothing but try not to think of it.

By ten that morning, the emigrants had yoked their oxen and begun their journey once more. As they moved on, Molly looked back at Rosie's grave. Brodie stood over it, staring down at the piled stones and shaking his head, as if denying her death could somehow bring her back. Not a tree was in sight and the crude wooden cross that Adam had quickly made that morning poked from the ground like a feeble growth, cowered by the glowering ridge of mountains in the background.

Rosie's words still hummed incessantly in her head, but for now, weariness dulled her senses until she felt as empty as the marauded graves they'd passed along the trail. Tomorrow....who knew what she'd feel tomorrow?

It wasn't until much later that she noticed Brodie had rejoined them. Unable to stop herself, she glanced back at him. No longer did he wear the mask of grief on his face. In his eyes she saw suspicion and fear and underlining both, the unmistakable gleam of malice. She was not the only one remembering Rosie's last words.

Chapter Thirty-One

Awareness came to Tess with a rush. She stood in the middle of the cemetery, surrounded by Mountain Bend's dead. Why was she here? And then she remembered. Rosie. That wasn't right, though. She was Tess and Rosie belonged in Molly's world. But the tears on her face and sunken feeling in the pit of her stomach were testimony to the loss she felt, Molly or not. Feeling a ghostly connection to the people laid to rest there, she moved on unsteady legs and made her way through the rows of graves.

The clouds had overwhelmed the sun and turned the sky into a sluggish shroud of shifting gray. A darker bank crouched just over the eastern mountain peaks, waiting for the perfect opportunity to advance. It was just after noon, but it had grown cold and somewhere a fire had been lit. The smell of burning pine scented the air.

A damp wind shuddered in the trees and with it came again the feeling of being watched. Tess shivered, turning in place as she scanned the deserted church grounds and gravesites, remembering how moments ago she'd done the same. Only then she'd been searching for Arlie. Had his screams been an extension of Molly's recurring nightmare? Or were they both a premonition? A sound to her left made her start, but it was only a squirrel racing down an
Aspen. An instant later another followed. Nothing else moved.

She headed back to her car, warily watching for the slightest shift in shadows. The lot was all but deserted. In front of the chapel were two cars. One, presumably belonged to the pastor. The other was Craig's Lexus. Tess had parked on the opposite end, near the tree and bench.

She was almost on it before she recognized the only other vehicle in the lot. It was an old and battered truck. Grant's truck. The passenger door swung open as she drew near. Without question, she got in.

"Visiting anyone I know?" Grant asked.

She didn't bother to answer. He looked too tired for banter. He looked too tired for anything. He had his seat pushed way back and his long legs stretched out. He wore blue jeans and a denim button-down hung open over a white t-shirt with an American flag on the chest. A cowboy hat rode low on his forehead, throwing his face into darkness.

She stared at him, longing to touch him, to smooth the lines of worry from his brow. How had he become so important to her in so short a time? If Craig was right, Grant was playing Tess for a fool. But something inside her refused to believe it. She needed Grant to be a good guy, needed it like air. But needing something to be true didn't make it so. Craig had raised more questions, more doubts about Grant. Until she knew her belief in him was based on something more substantial than her desire, she had to stay on guard.

She forced herself to look away and focus on something other than the long length of him next to her. "I see the sheriff decided not to hold you," she said, her voice unnaturally husky.

"It's amazing who'll they'll let walk around free."

"You have a point there. This town is jam packed with creeps. Every time I turn around someone is threatening me—or lying to me. But then you know all about that, don't you, Grant?"

His eyes narrowed, but he didn't answer.

"You told me your father and my sister had a thing. You told me they were 'banging' each other. What I can't figure out is how that can be true considering the fact that your dad was practically an invalid."

"Who said he was an invalid?"

"It doesn't matter who said it."

"Does it matter that it isn't true?" His voice was low and bitter.

"You're saying it's not?" She took a deep breath and let it out in a frustrated sigh. "Okay, Grant, set the record straight for me. Tell me, how
was
your father's health before he died? Was he a fit man?"

"Fit enough."

"Fit enough for what? A nursing home or a woman who was nearly half his age?"

He shifted in his seat, laying his arm across the back of it. His fingers were near her neck, close enough to touch, to grab.... The lot was nearly empty and they were isolated on this side of it. What was she doing, provoking this man
again
? Why was it that she couldn't leave him alone and stay away? But she couldn't stop, not without knowing the truth and she couldn't convince her heart that Grant Weston wasn't the man he seemed. Even as logic told her she should get out of the truck and bolt, everything inside her was keyed to the sensuality in him. She forced herself to ask the next question.

"When was the last time he rode a tractor, Grant? When was the last time he was able to do that?"

His silver eyes glittered and his jaw clenched with anger, but he spoke soft and slow. "I'd say that was about a second before he died."

It was a sucker punch, but it knocked the wind out of her all the same. He leaned closer to her, taunting her with his nearness. He moved his hand just enough that his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her nape.

"No snappy retort, Tess?" he murmured. "No comeback zinger? Why don't you ask me what you really want to know? Go ahead, ask me."

"Stop it. Stop trying to scare me."

"Is that what I'm doing?" He touched her again and a shiver of awareness went through her. "Because that's not what I want to do to you at all."

She left that alone, knowing it was a gauntlet. Knowing she dared not pick it up.

"Come on, blue eyes. Let's get it out. Ask me if I killed my dad and took off with your sister. That's why you came to my house in your little apron this morning isn't it?"

"No," she said. "That's not why I came."

"Sure it is. You don't know me. I'm just some has-been actor who fucked up the golden dream. Who knows what else I might do? Isn't that what you're thinking?"

She raised her chin. "Did you?"

He looked away, making a noise that might have passed for laughter had there been even an ounce of humor in it. "No."

Her question seemed to have stolen the fun from his game. He leaned back in his seat again, facing forward. He gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled fists and shook his head. "Believe it or not, I loved my dad. As for Tori, I have no idea where she is."