Linda Castle (19 page)

Cold seeped into his bones while Temple stared at Connie. He had hoped she would give him the benefit of the doubt, allow him to explain everything before she judged him, but she was truly C.H.’s daughter. Her reaction was quick and decisive. Just like C.H.’s—and just as wrong.

“Is it so easy to imagine me doing something criminal, Connie? Even for you?”

“Temple, I never meant… The letter said…”

“Never mind, I understand. It’s probably for the best anyway. This never would have worked.” His lips twisted upward on one side, giving his expression a painful ironic appearance. Temple looked at her for half a minute before a harsh epithet left his lips. His gaze fell on his hat, and he scooped it up and strode toward the tent flap without a backward glance or another word.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my side of the cut—I momentarily forgot my place—and my goal. I won’t make that mistake again.” He stopped at the mouth of the tent. His shoulders grew more rigid. “Goodbye…Connie,” he whispered as he ducked out the flap.

For one crazy moment she nearly ran after him, but then she remembered all the newspaper accounts about him. He had been called a bounder, a man who would use any weapon, take any liberty to get what he wanted.

She stared at the rumpled blankets on the cot and a deep hollow opened in her soul. Temple had used his skill as a seducer to get her where he wanted her— now he was headed back to the dig and the bones that had been his goal all along.

Temple made his way down the slope while anger and sadness built inside his chest. He had been a fool to think that Connie would see him differently than the rest of the world.

He should have known better.

“Just as I should have seen Thaddeus Ball for what he was,” he grumbled. He remembered Thaddeus Ball clearly. The eager young reporter had not looked like the kind of man who would resort to blackmail, but the letter was clear enough. Temple shook his head in
amazement. He had been wrong about Ball, but what tore at his heart was that he had been wrong about Connie.

She believed him capable of every sin—every crime. His judgment of other people’s character was off by a mile. Just as faulty as their assessment of him. The pain of it tore at his heart, but he pushed the feelings aside. He had worn a thick coat of armor for years and only sweet Connie had been able to get past it.

“I will never make that mistake again. Never, by damn.”

He was halfway across the cut, lost in his misery and anger, before he realized that he was not wading in hip-deep water. He stopped and glanced around in confusion. The ground was wet and muddy, sprigs of silt-coated grass poked up here and there, but there was no standing water.

Temple squinted down at the rough water-marked edge of the cut, where the two sides of the gorge had met only yesterday. Now instead of the pointed end of this meandering canyon, he saw an open cut. The sides had been eaten away by the force of the rainstorm and rising water, and a new wash had been created at the end of the old one where the water had emptied into the lower flatlands beyond the canyon.

Temple looked at his digging site. The canvas was gone of course, swept away with the flood, as well as the mound of dirt that had been piled beside the hole. He felt his breath lodge in his throat as he hurried forward. He had to be the first one back to New York. Montague’s endowment had taken on more importance in the past few minutes. Temple paused and swallowed hard. He took a deep breath and looked down.

There in beige stone, washed clean by the torrent, was the beautiful four-foot-long skull with the rows of sharp recurved teeth. But now it was not alone—there was more much more to his miraculous find.

At the base of the skull, well-formed and completely intact vertebrae curled backward. As usual the dinosaur had contorted in the last throes of death. Below the skull the animal’s ribs and shoulders connected to what had once been a set of exquisitely formed and highly functional flippers. Now the delicate bones that once propelled it through the ancient oceans were connected to the remains of three-inch-long petrified claws.

The dinosaur was glorious—and unknown. Temple’s gaze slid over the bones again. They extended only slightly farther back than the ribs. It was not an intact skeleton; the hips and tail section were missing. But then the odds of finding a whole dinosaur in as good a condition as this were slim.

He took off his hat and stared reverently at the front half. It was splendid, ready to packed into a crate and taken back to New York.

“I have won.” His flat voice seemed to echo through the sides of the ravaged canyon.

No matter what dirt Thaddeus Ball had dug up, or what Dandridge University had told the papers, Temple was going to win Montague’s prize.

At last he was the winner. All he had to do was return to New York and spend the rest of his life trying to forget that he had fallen in love with Connie.

He had never felt so alone.

C
onstance stared at the tent flap, unable to move. She tried to swallow the hard hot lump that had mysteriously taken shape, but it lodged stubbornly in her throat.

“Stop being silly.” Her voice cracked and broke with a flood of disappointment. She sniffed and pulled herself up straighter.

She
had asked
him
to stay with her. It wasn’t as if he had begged her on bended knee. The daylight had come and banished all her romantic illusions as it had driven away the rain. Now it was business as usual, and the most important thing to Temple, as it had always been, was proving himself the better digger and garnering Montague’s money.

Constance stiffened while she absorbed that fact. She forced herself to walk to her trunks and pull out some clothing. She had been unwise to give her body and affection to a rogue like Temple. Her father had called him a pirate for years—she should have listened. One hot salty tear snaked its Way over her cheek, but she brushed it away with the back of her hand.

“I will not cry,” she told herself between clenched teeth. By drawing in a shuddering breath she managed to hold back the tears, but none of the sorrow. A great raw gulf opened inside her bosom while she hastily pulled on her father’s purloined shirt and a pair of his trousers. Mechanically she combed her hair and arranged it into a functional knot on her head.

Constance stepped outside. The sound of horses’ hooves and the jingle of harness startled her. Peter Hughes urged his stocky team toward her tent. The wagon wheels were caked in mud and the sides of the wagon were splattered.

“Howdy, Miss Cadwallender.” He held his hand aloft in greeting. Constance forced herself to smile at him even though her face ached from the effort. “I thought you might be getting low on supplies.”

“That was very kind of you, Mr. Hughes.” Constance stepped forward. Her boots sank into the top layer of muck and made her progress slow. “But you didn’t have to go to all that trouble. I could have waited until the mud dried a bit.”

“No trouble, miss, no trouble at all.” He wrapped the reins around the hand brake and jumped down. His trouser legs were tucked into his boots and he marched through the mud without care, obviously accustomed to this kind of environment.

She kept her eyes firmly on Peter Hughes, not wishing to allow her gaze to stray anywhere near Temple. She knew if she turned and looked at him, even briefly across the wash, she would burst into a torrent of humiliating tears.

Temple was on his hands and knees, chipping away the last bit of limestone around his find when he heard Peter Hughes’s voice. He had seen the wagon coming
earlier a nd had intensified his efforts to free the skull from the sandstone. He had undercut the soil and rock surrounding the specimen on every edge and was confident he could lift it out in two flat sections. It would be easy to transport back to Morgan Forks and then by train to New York.

He stood and found himself staring at Connie. He was not prepared for the impact the sight of her would have on him. His belly lurched and plummeted while a cold clammy sweat enveloped him. Temple didn’t want to look at her—but he couldn’t take his eyes from her. She was beautiful, almost fragile looking with her father’s trousers and shirt hugging her slim body. Her shiny rain-washed hair was tightly bound on her head.

He felt that strange sizzling compulsion to set the dark tresses free. But he could not.

She thought he was a thief. She had no respect for him. Even though he ached with love for her—even though he would have gladly spent his days trying to understand her eccentric habits, being blamed for every predicament she got herself into, he could not allow himself one kind word or gentle gesture.

Connie, with her soft brown eyes and seductress’s body was the only thing standing between him and his prize—between him and a long overdue measure of respectability. His pride would not allow him any other course but to continue forward toward his goal.

The sound of another horse and wagon drew Temple’s attention to the horizon.

“Son of a—just what I need—Holt Morgan.” Temple swore a little under his breath. But he was being foolish. The cowboys in the back of the Flying B wagon would have the bones packed in no time.

Temple took off his hat and dragged his hand
through his hair. He stared down at the bones, the wonderful unique bones, and realized that he was miserable.

Constance gratefully allowed Holt and his men to take charge of putting her site in order. The water had brought in a thin layer of silt to cover all she had found. She looked across the cut and felt a cold dull ache settle beneath her heart.

Temple was so busy he had not once even looked her way. It was as if the night they had shared meant nothing to him. While she watched the morning sun capture the silver and gold of his hair, a new insight came to her.

She was another of Temple’s many conquests. She shivered involuntarily at the thought.

“He charmed me into my own bed,” she whispered to herself. And while she watched him and Peter loading two crates into the back of the wagon, fury and pain mingled in her soul.

His shirt stretched taut across his back.

She willed herself to banish the memory of how those muscles felt beneath her palms. Anger and a sense of betrayal gained force as she observed him. He was a pirate—and he had stolen her heart. The knowledge that he had done it so easily and most probably as just another way of ensuring his success was what brought fury cresting in her mind.

His trousers hugged powerful thighs.

She was furious at both her own weakness and Temple’s lack of feeling for her. And she found herself galvanized into action. She strode to the site and hopped down beside a cowboy who was digging.

“Give me the spade,” she snapped. “I don’t have
much time to get these bones crated and get back to New York.”

Constance angled the surface of the spade until it was almost flat and then she scooped up a layer of silt. Whether because of her fervent prayers, or some small degree of skill on her part, she was rewarded by the presence of bones.

“Quick, use the brushes and clear away this dirt.” She heard the excitement in her own voice and without conscious thought found herself looking up, eager to share her find with Temple. When she saw him, tying ropes on a wooden box in the back of Mr. Hughes’s wagon, her breath lodged in her throat.

“If I thought it would open his eyes, I’d go knock him down for you.” Holt’s deep sympathetic voice startled her. She looked up and found him staring at her.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Constance blinked rapidly to stay the hot tears stinging the backs of her eyes.

“Do you love him that much?” Holt yanked the checked kerchief from around his neck and handed it to her.

“Is it that easy to see?” There was no use in denying her feelings—at least not to herself.

“Ma told me. At first I didn’t think it was true— didn’t want to believe it was true, I guess.” Holt gave her a sad smile. “But the way you look at him…only a blind man wouldn’t know it.”

She managed a trembling smile. “You are nearly right. Temple is not blind, but the only thing he can see is these.” She pointed at the bones that were rapidly being unearthed by the cowhands.

“What can I do to help, Miss Constance?” Holt’s green eyes were sincere.

Constance glanced at Temple once more. Then she knew what she wanted. “The rain has destroyed my chance of proving my theory.” She frowned and stared at the muddy earth. “But it would be my greatest pleasure to see Temple Parish humbled. If I can get these bones crated and back to New York before he does, then I will win Montague’s endowment for the Dandridge. It would mean a lot to me to be able to keep my pledge to my father—in spite of— everything that has happened.”

Holt smiled. “I understand, miss. Leave it to me and the boys. These bones and you will be on the next train out of Morgan Forks.” He touched her shoulder lightly with his fingertips before he started barking orders.

Constance stood back, content for once to let someone else be competent and responsible.

Temple felt the urgency in Connie’s camp. He could not hear or see anything specific, but he had been on enough digs to know that she had found what she was searching for. He scuffed his boot into the damp soil and tried to forget the way she had looked at him— the way she sounded when she read Ball’s letter.

But he couldn’t.

She thought he was a street rat, just like everyone else. Temple tightened his hands into fists while the pain of her words ebbed. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Connie’s slender form across the ravine.

As long as he had the name, he might as well play the game, he thought bitterly.

Temple turned away and started planning—designing a way that he could not possibly lose the prize.

T
he strained silence was wearing on Peter’s nerves. Temple had not said a word since they’d packed up his tent and headed back toward Morgan Forks. In fact, the only time he even seemed aware of where he was, was when Peter had to double back and find a way around an arroyo that was still running with muddy water.

“You look like a man heading for his own funeral,” Peter quipped.

Temple’s head came up and he stared at Peter in silence. The look in his eyes brought back a wave of memories. The haunted expression of pain and loss gave Temple’s eyes an edge as sharp and cold as ice. It sent a shiver through Peter just to look at him.

“Sun’s getting low.” Temple’s voice was flat and emotionless.

“Guess it’s time to stop for the night.” Peter found a little rise and eased the wagon up. Then he set the brake, wrapped the reins around the iron railing of the seat and hopped down. Temple didn’t even complain about the delay, he just followed Peter almost as if he were sleepwalking.

All the while Peter was tending the team he watched Temple. It was almost scary to see him like this. He was like a hollow shell. While Peter observed the younger man, he came to a decision. He would have to tell Temple about the night in Central Park.

Temple sipped the bitter coffee and stared out over the Montana prairie. The golden glow of another campfire no more than two miles away held his attention. He stared at the fire until his eyes burned from the strain but still he could not look away.

It was Connie and Holt Morgan’s fire.

The assurance that Holt would keep her safe filled him with an uneasy calm. Even now, knowing that she was not far behind and might possibly claim Montague’s endowment, could not completely erase his need to protect her. It made him angry to admit it— but he had feelings for Connie. Just how deep those feelings ran he couldn’t say—didn’t want to know— because it was pointless.

In her eyes he would always be someone without roots or scruples. He would never have her respect, and without that he didn’t want her love.

He drained the cup but continued to sit and stare at the winking fire.

“It’s almost as dark and quiet as it was that night, ain’t it?” Peter stood at the edge of the light.

“What night?” Temple grated out.

“The night the statues were smashed in the park.”

Temple’s head came around and his eyes narrowed. Peter could see him focusing, reaching into the fog of the past.

“How would you know?” Suspicion rumbled in his question.

“I was there,” Peter said softly. “Look at me close, boy. Don’t I look a little familiar?”

For the first time, Temple really looked at Peter. His skin was weathered—like that of most of the men in Montana. The clothes on his lean body were not any different than those worn by any other man Temple had seen here. Peter looked like a prospector, or a teamster. But as Temple looked, tiny little things caught his notice. Peter wore lace-up shoes instead of boots. He wore a cloth cap, not a wide-brimmed hat. And he did have a way of pronouncing words that hinted at a long-ago abandoned accent.

“I’ve watched you all day, boy. You’ve got that same look in your eye.”

Temple was on his guard, curious yet wary. “What look would that be?”

“The look you had in your eye that night. I saw that you were ready and willing to die for what you believed. I don’t think you could help yourself—I don’t think you can help yourself now. You are like a dog that’s been trained for the pits, Temple. Once you set yourself on a course you don’t know how to stop, to turn back. Even if it is tearing your heart out to keep going forward.”

“How do you know so damned much about me?” Temple stood and tossed the empty cup aside. “Just who in the hell are you, anyway, Peter Hughes?”

Peter took a deep breath and sat down on a nearby boulder. Temple stood above him, glowering.

“I was like you, Temple. I lived on the streets— did what I could to get by.” Peter looked at him and smiled. “There was a time I thought that money would buy me the respectability I had not been born to. I was wrong. And you are wrong.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“You can’t take the money and the credit, not if it means hurting Miss Cadwallender—”

“The only thing I’m interested in is the money. And you are right about one thing, Hughes, money does buy respect. I’ve tried to earn it by hard work and it hasn’t meant a tinker’s damn. Now I’m going to do what I’ve been accused of for years. I will cheat, steal and even break Connie’s heart to get Montague’s prize, I promise you that.” His voice was hollow and cold.

“I don’t believe it—I won’t believe it, ‘cause if it’s true then I saved your hide and left New York for nothing that really mattered.”

The fire reflected off the craggy weathered face, and Temple truly did recognize him. Peter Hughes was the man who stopped the bullyboy from bashing in his skull that night in Central Park.

A strange feeling crept up his spine and out into his limbs. It was a sensation he was not accustomed to. It was the knowledge that he owed this man a long overdue debt of gratitude.

“What do you mean, Hughes?” Temple’s curiosity was stronger than his sense of dread and for that reason he kept asking questions.

“Until that night—in the park—I had never known anyone, seen anyone, who was willing to die for an idea. But you stood your ground, shouting how it was wrong to destroy something beautiful, how it was a crime against the people to shatter those statues. You were ready to have your head smashed in, willing to die if need be, to protect those stupid models because you thought they were beautiful.”

“I was a stupid kid,” Temple grumbled, while
memories buffeted him like an icy wind. “I know better now.”

“No, you were the smart one—back then.” Peter grimaced. “Up until that moment I had only been surviving. I had never been alive until a skinny boy stood against a dozen of the Tammany thugs in the dark. I wasn’t the same after that. You changed me.” Peter stared at Temple with the fire of accusation in his eyes.

“I changed you? How?” Temple didn’t want to hear it, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking. Now that Peter had opened the floodgates that had held his memories in check, they were pouring out of control. Temple remembered his hunger, his loneliness, his desperate desire to belong. A shudder coursed through him when he realized that though he had grown older and taller, those cravings were still with him, perhaps even stronger now that he had confronted Connie’s true opinion of him.

For all the years he had wandered the earth, looking for some way to win C.H.’s respect, he had believed that little Connie cared for him—accepted him. But time had changed her, too. She had grown into a woman and now she thought of him as a guttersnipe, just like her father.

“I was ashamed of what I had done, smashing those wonderful things. That was why I saved your life— that and the look in your eye. I left New York right after that night. I traveled as far as Boss Tweed’s stolen money would take me, looking for a different life, a better me.” Peter stepped a little closer. “That’s why I know what you’re going through now, son.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Temple challenged. “You don’t know how hard I’ve worked to gain respect.”

“I know the newspapers are full of stories about you. In fact they are calling you the most noted scientist and explorer of the year.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Temple cut his hand through the air in a gesture of dismissal. “That isn’t what I want.”

“Why?”

“Because there was only one person’s respect I’ve been trying to earn. I don’t care what the world thinks of me—all I care about is…” He shuddered and the words stuck in his throat.

“What, Temple?”

“All I care about is C.H.’s respect. I want him to know that I didn’t do what they accuse me of. I want him to know I’ve worked hard. That’s what matters. And the only way I can prove it to him is to beat Connie.” The words wrenched from him as he made the admission both to Peter and to himself.

“I have been in your shoes, I know what you are feeling, but I’m asking you—begging you. Make the right decision, Temple, or it will haunt you for the rest of your life. If you take the wrong path now, thinking all that money and fame will give you what you’ve been chasing—you’ll regret it.” Peter dragged his hand down his face and sighed as if he were weary. “Respect is hard earned, and maybe in your case it is long overdue and lacking, but don’t let yourself sink back into the sewer, boy. Remember how you felt that night—find that kind of courage inside yourself again.”

Temple stared at Peter for one long painful moment. Then he uttered a string of oaths and stomped off into the night. The silence hung around him like a shroud.
Only the blink of Connie’s campfire penetrated the darkness.

Morgan Forks looked just the same except for the main street, which was now a river of mud. Temple grimaced when he realized that Connie was only an hour or two behind him. Once again they would be forced to occupy the rooms over the hotel.

“When is the train due in?” Temple asked Peter.

The old man’s frown deepened and he refused to look at Temple, but finally he answered. “Early tomorrow morning. Why?”

Temple tried to ignore the disappointment that emanated from Hughes. The old fool didn’t know what he was talking about and he didn’t know Temple. “I’m in a hurry, that’s why.”

Peter snorted, and in spite of himself, Temple felt his gut knotting with something that felt uncomfortably like guilt—or maybe it was shame for what he knew he was planning to do.

As soon as the wagon rolled up in front of the small building that doubled as train depot and telegraph office, Temple hopped out. He strode inside, surprising the elderly man standing behind the desk. Temple would have known in a crowd that he was a telegraph operator. He wore black garters on his sleeves, had long quick fingers and beady sharp eyes—just like every other operator in every office Temple had ever been in.

“Can I help you?” He adjusted garters that didn’t need adjusting.

“I want to send a telegram.” Temple dug into his trousers until his fingers closed upon some coins.
“And then I want to unload a couple of boxes. Where can I put them where they will be safe?”

“There’s a woodshed in the alley beside the office. Has a floor and a roof—will that do?”

“That’ll do.” Temple hitched one leg and propped his elbows on the tall counter. “What day is this?”

The operator pointed to a calendar hanging on a nail behind him. “Monday. Who do you want to send the telegram to?” The little man stuck the end of a pencil in his mouth and prepared to jot down the message.

“Mr. Thomas Jones, care of Ashmont University, New York City. Say that Temple Parish has won. Tell him that I will be in New York Thursday afternoon by two o’clock. Tell him to meet me at Ashmont’s offices—and to alert Mr. Montague so he can bring the press and the funds.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all.” Temple placed three silver dollars on the counter. “Is this enough?”

“Yea, that’ll do.” The little man was already busy tapping out the message. Each time the machine beneath his finger clicked, Temple winced.

He turned and walked out into the mire of Morgan Forks’s main street. A strange empty ache had settled in his belly. Peter was still sitting in the wagon seat.

“I can unload the crates over here.” Temple walked to the side of the telegraph office and looked inside the shed. As the operator had promised, there was a floor. The area was clean and dry.

He walked to the end of the wagon and slid out. the first crate. It was heavy, but manageable. He glanced up and saw Peter watching him. “No, there’s no need for you to help, Hughes, I can get them both,” Temple snapped irritably..

Hughes chuckled. “I thought you could. You seem to be real good at taking care of things all by yourself. I wouldn’t want to butt in where I wasn’t wanted.”

Temple stopped long enough to glare at Hughes, but when he saw the man’s mischievous smile widen, he knew it was pointless to say any more. He picked up the second crate and positioned it beside the first.

A noise drew his gaze to the end of the street, and he stepped back into the sunlight. He half expected to see Connie and Holt pulling into town, but it was just a buckboard with a man and a boy. They stopped in front of the mercantile while Temple heard himself expel the tense breath he had been holding.

“Are you thirsty?” Peter Hughes had climbed down from the wagon and now leaned against the wall of the telegraph office.

“I could use a drink,” Temple said. He found himself wanting company, or perhaps he just didn’t want to be alone with his own thoughts. “How about you, Hughes, would you like to share a bottle?”

Peter’s brows shot up. “A bottle, eh?” “That’s what I said. Look, if you don’t want a drink, just say so. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to drink alone.”

“Don’t get yourself worked up.” Peter stood away from the building. “I’m feelin’ a little dry.”

Temple stepped off the small stoop and sank into the thick mud. He realized that his worn leather bag was still stowed under the wagon seat. The mud made a sucking sound when he turned back to get it. When he looked up, he saw the glint of sunshine off metal in the distance. ’

Connie was coming.

He wasn’t sure he could face her.