A Promise to Believe in (36 page)

“All right. I won’t tell you that Harvey’s lies had nothing to do with us. Harvey obviously put them between you and him, and you’re putting them between you and me.”

“That’s not true. I’m not responsible for what happened. I knew nothing about his past. I’m just as surprised as you to find my outhouse papered in hundreds of dollars of stock certificates.”

“But don’t you see?” he said, coming closer. “We have both been duped by Harvey. We’ve both been hurt by the decisions and choices he made. Let us use it to unite our cause rather than destroy us.”

“There is no us,” she countered. “Everything has been built on falsehoods. I can’t trust that this is the end of it just because the stocks were found. For all I know, Harvey may have married someone else and have a family elsewhere. He might have been running from them, as well.”

“But that has nothing to do with you and me. I love you, Gwen.”

She raised her head fully. “Don’t. I want to set you free from our engagement.” She sighed, and it was as if some of the life left her with that single breath. “I can’t explain why this hurts me so much. I know it seems silly to you, but I can’t help it. I have to sort through all of this and figure out what I need to do next. All I know for certain is that you shouldn’t feel obligated to me.”

“I don’t feel obligated. I love you. I don’t want to be released from our engagement.”

“But you need to go to Boston. Once you’re there, you will probably find that your old lifestyle is more appealing than the idea of living in Montana.”

“If you really think that of me, then you don’t know me at all.” He was getting frustrated. How dare she suggest he could so easily cast aside their love for the comfort of the familiar?

“That’s my point. I don’t really know you. You don’t know me. If you did, you would know that I only cause pain and suffering to those I love. You would know that I’m destined to be alone.”

“This is about that curse again, isn’t it?” He looked at her, and though she didn’t answer, he could see the affirmation in her eyes.

“The real curse is that you’re blind to the truth,” he said, heading for the door. He knew if he didn’t leave he would say something in anger that he might regret. “You’d do well to read that Bible of yours—if you want to know what the answer is.”

Gwen heard the survey team return for the evening and realized she’d wasted the entire day in her room. Beth had tried to talk to her about eating lunch, but Gwen had begged her to just go away for a few hours. She knew she’d hurt Beth’s feelings, but she couldn’t even begin to talk to her or anyone else.

Now, given the shadows in her room, Gwen knew that it must be quite late. The summer sun in Montana was up sometimes until nine-thirty or ten. Seeing the fading light made her realize she’d lost all track of time, doing nothing but rocking and contemplating her life.

Why did it have to be like this? Why was she so naïve about people and the things they said and promised?

I am a poor judge of people,
she told herself.
I believe most anything, only to be disappointed when reality hits.

Still, the things Hank had said made sense, she reasoned. But so had the things Harvey told her.

She knew she had lost the ability to trust. There was no way she would set herself up for that kind of hurt again. Trusting in men had proven her downfall. Didn’t it make sense to protect herself from the possibility of it happening again?

Her thinking might be unfair to Hank, but Gwen sincerely felt he’d be better off without her. At least now, before the store actually began to be built, Hank could cancel his plans and return to Boston, unfettered by ties, either emotional or financial.

It really will be better this way.

A knock at her door caused Gwen to stiffen. Had Hank come back to try again? “Who is it?”

“It’s Patience Shepard. May I come in?”

Gwen realized she’d not bothered to lock the door again after Hank left. “Go ahead,” she called and straightened in the chair.

Patience smiled sympathetically. “Your sisters told me you weren’t feeling quite yourself.”

“That’s putting it mildly, I suppose.”

Taking a seat on the bed, Patience reached out to take hold of Gwen’s hand. “Why don’t you tell me about it.”

With defeat settling over her like a wet blanket, Gwen didn’t know where to begin. “I can’t believe Harvey lied to me all those years. I can’t believe he continued to lie to me right up until his death. I feel like my entire life has been based on lies, and the worst of it is, I lied right along with everyone else.”

“How did you lie?” Patience asked.

“I lied to my mother when I promised not to go to the fortune-teller,” Gwen said, staring at her lap. “I lied about what I had done at the fair when she asked me after we’d returned home. I’ve lied to my sisters when I told them everything would be all right—that Pa’s only problem was the fact that Mama had died and he was sad and lonely.”

“But he
was
sad and lonely. There’s no doubting that. You couldn’t possibly lose a mate and not be.”

“I know, but Pa was always chasing one dream or another. He dragged us around when Mama was alive, and he kept dragging us around after she died. He was restless and could never find anything that satisfied him. If he’d lived, we would have found ourselves selling out to Rafe and moving within a matter of a year or two.”

“Why do you say that?”

Gwen looked at her friend. “Because he talked about it. I never told anyone else, and you mustn’t say anything to the girls.”

“But why?” Patience squeezed Gwen’s hand. “Why would he have ever wanted to sell to Rafe? This stage stop has been a tremendous success.”

“But Pa was never satisfied with anything for long. Besides that, he told me that we girls would soon be married and gone, and he couldn’t run the place by himself. I assured him that I wouldn’t go and that, together, we two could keep Gallatin House going, but he said it would never be fair to me.”

“He probably felt he’d forced it upon you.”

“That’s what I tried to convince myself of, but I know it was a lie. Just one among many.” Gwen pulled her hand away from Patience and got to her feet. “Like I said, my life has a foundation of lies, and while I understand that Pa couldn’t help his wanderlust, it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.”

“But why should it matter now that he’s dead?”

Gwen looked at her in disbelief. “Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean their lies don’t live on. Harvey told me he loved me. He told me how important my love was to him, because he’d never had anyone’s love. That was a lie. His brother and mother loved him, even if his stepfather didn’t—and who’s to say that he didn’t? And if he could lie about his family like that, why wouldn’t he also lie about his feelings for me? I feel like such a fool.”

“And that’s what really bothers you about all of this, isn’t it?”

Gwen shook her head and began to pace. “I don’t know. I don’t know what bothers me most about this.”

“How does Hank figure in?”

“He asked me to marry him,” Gwen admitted. Patience smiled, but Gwen held up her hand. “Before you comment on that, you should know I just broke the engagement. I can’t marry him if I can’t fully trust him.”

“But why?” The older woman was clearly puzzled by this declaration. “Hank has done nothing wrong.”

Gwen went to the window and stared out at the darkness. “We found the stock certificates that Hank had come looking for. I found them in the outhouse. Apparently Harvey had taken them and hid them there, under the newsprint.” She turned back and leaned against the sill. “That’s when all of this really sank in. Harvey had those certificates, and he knew he had to keep them from me. Otherwise, I’d know that everything else was a lie.

“Hank came here for the sole purpose of recovering those certificates and the jewelry Harvey had taken. Hank lost sight of it by allowing his emotions to get in the way by feeling sorry for me, and for a time, I think the stocks no longer mattered.”

“You think Hank fell in love with you because he felt sorry for you?”

“Well, maybe not completely, but now that he has his stocks back, he needs to deliver them to his mother. He also has to tell her of Harvey’s death. That won’t be easy for a mother to hear.”

“No, I don’t suppose so,” Patience admitted.

“Especially if he tells her about all the lies.” Gwen buried her face in her hands for a moment. After several moments she looked up. Tears blurred her vision. “I love Hank, but I loved Harvey, too. I guess I just wasn’t a good judge of character or of love. What I thought I had wasn’t real.”

“Gwen, I believe Harvey really did love you.”

“If he loved me, then why couldn’t he just trust me?”

“Why can’t you trust Hank, if you really love him?”

Gwen wiped at her eyes with the edge of her apron. “Because I don’t want to get hurt again. I can’t bear the thought of being such a big fool. What will everyone think of me when the truth is told?”

Patience got to her feet and came to Gwen. She put her hands on Gwen’s shoulders and took on a stern expression. “Your heart is bitter because you feel that you look foolish. You feel vulnerable and silly for having learned that your fairy tales were not true. Harvey was human—fallible and capable of making the wrong decisions. But, Gwen, so are you. So am I. That’s the fallen way of man. You must decide for yourself—but in my eyes, you will only be foolish if you allow pride to make your choices for you.”

She abruptly turned away, leaving Gwen to stand there, rather stunned by the declaration. Patience exited the room without another word, and Gwen found her own voice would not come. The lump in her throat made speaking impossible. Was this really all about her pride? Was she about to lose her chance at happiness and love because she was too afraid to look silly?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Lacy saw Hank working with his black gelding and knew that he was packing to leave. Knowing that Hank had proposed marriage to her sister, Lacy wondered now if he’d called it all off on account of the stocks and Gwen’s strange mood. Would he head back to Boston and stay there?

“I see you’ve decided to leave us,” Lacy said, leaning back against the fence rail.

Hank looked up and nodded. “I need to return my mother’s property to her and let her know about Harvey.”

“And will you come back, or have you given up on that idea?”

He looked hard at Lacy for a moment, then turned his attention back to his saddlebags. “I plan to come back.”

“I see.”

He chuckled. “Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“I’m not,” Lacy countered, pushing off the fence to come closer. “I might not have liked you much in the beginning, but I’ve come to respect you. And you love my sister and plan to marry her.”

“I did plan to marry her.”

“You’ve changed your mind?” Lacy rubbed the black’s face and waited for an answer.

“I didn’t, but she did.” Hank finished with the bag and turned back to face Lacy. “She told me she doesn’t want to marry me—that I’d be better off without her.”

“And would you?”

Hank’s expression softened. “No. I can’t even imagine life without her.”

“Then don’t give up on her that easily.”

“I hadn’t planned to give up on her at all, Lacy. I’m just sort of nursing my wounds and trying to rethink my plans. Maybe going away will give her time to regret what she’s done and change her mind. Then again, maybe it won’t.”

Lacy could see he was troubled by the very thought of leaving. “Gwen’s had a hard life. She’s the oldest and always felt responsible for Beth and me. She even stopped going to school in order to take care of us. She loved school, and I knew it was a real sad thing for her, but I was so young, I couldn’t do anything about it.” Hank seemed puzzled, so Lacy waited for him to pose the question on his mind.

“Why did your father allow her to quit school? Surely he knew how hard it would be on her. Didn’t he care?”

Lacy shrugged and moved away from the horse. Hank followed her and they walked for a ways down the road. She wondered how she could possibly explain her father to Hank.