Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (21 page)

“It was the same with my mother.” Charlotte nodded. “Her crosses became too great for her to bear.”

“I am sorry, Charlotte.”

She couldn’t suppress a smile at his using her real name. “I wish I could talk to her, if only for a minute.”

“I’m sure you would have plenty to say.”

“Much more than a minute, I suppose,” she agreed.

“Even though I had years to talk to my mother, I don’t know if I ever said all I wanted,” Owen admitted.

“Was it an illness that took her?”

Owen nodded. “It was hell for us to watch her get sick. Being so damn helpless made me furious. My mother became ill gradually,
not all of a sudden, like she’d broken a leg. It started with a weakening of her body; she’d get a bit breathless from time
to time, need to go lie down after being on her feet for only a couple of hours. Then her appetite vanished, no matter what
Hannah made for her, and she started to lose weight so fast I thought she’d just dry up and blow away. It wasn’t long before
she was in bed all the time. In the days before she died, she cried in her sleep. The worst part was accepting that the doctor
couldn’t do anything for her. I always thought that was what doctors were supposed to do, make bad things better, but sometimes
it’s just too late.

“Hannah and I were with her the morning she died and
it was the first time I had seen her at peace in years. I’m thankful that I was able to share her life, without question,
and that I could care for her when she needed me the most, but the ache of missing her never seems to go away.”

“It gets a little easier over time.”

“I hope so.”

“Had your father passed before your mother?”

Owen looked away quickly, his face a mask of distaste. “I never knew him,” he spat. “I never knew who he was.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte murmured, regretting her thoughtlessness. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Her apology lifted the gloom from his eyes. “It’s all right. I think this is all a feeling I’ve held in for too long.” He
laughed weakly. “I guess I never really realized it until now, but I’m carrying the same burden that my mother bore, in some
way. Maybe if I continued to hold it in, I’d end up just like she did, my secret eating away at my insides.”

Charlotte couldn’t help but think of the secrets that she kept, as well as those that had been kept from her. Her father had
kept her whole family from knowing that he was still alive after the war. She herself honored Sarah’s vow of silence as to
the identity of the man who had fathered her unborn child. Even Hale’s secret, his love for Hannah, obvious as it was, was
never Charlotte’s to tell. From the moment she had seen Owen in the dining room, she had known that there was
something
about him that wouldn’t be easily told, something he kept hidden. Now, she found herself hoping he would reveal it to her.

“I came to Oklahoma because…” he began, before his voice trailed off.

“Owen,” she interrupted, “you don’t have to tell me right now if you don’t want to,” letting him off the hook although she
desperately wanted to know the reason. “Whenever you choose, it’s up to you.”

But Owen had decided that this was the time.

“Hannah and I came here because I think that John Grant is our father.”

Charlotte was shocked. She felt as if she had been struck by lightning, a freight train, or a massive boulder crashing down
a hillside. It was almost impossible for her to believe what Owen had said. Over and over she searched for the words that
would convey her surprise, but she continued to struggle, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. Finally, it was Owen who filled
in some of the blanks, though they presented issues of their own.

“My last name isn’t Williams,” he explained. “It’s Wallace, the same as my mother. Hannah and I changed it when we left Colorado.
If my suspicions about John Grant proved correct, it would have been pretty stupid to walk onto his property with a name he
would easily recognize.”

“Owen… Wallace…” Charlotte struggled.

“It wasn’t my intention to deceive you, but we couldn’t take any chances. John Grant is my father. I truly believe it to be
so.”

Now everything seemed even crazier in Charlotte’s head; Owen and his sister had traveled to Oklahoma for a
reason, changing their names to avoid suspicion, scheming to get close to the man he believed had to be their father. But
to think so poorly of John Grant, to carry so much dislike for the man who had invited her into his home, had shown her nothing
but kindness, seemed ridiculous. It couldn’t possibly be true. How could Owen believe such a thing?

“But you don’t know for certain? You have reason to doubt it?”

“A few,” he admitted, “but when I’m absolutely sure of the fact… I’m going to ruin him.”

O
WEN KNEW IN A HEARTBEAT
that he had said too much. There was no denying that it had been liberating to let go of his burden, to talk about his mother
and the horrible way in which she had died, and that comfort had loosened his tongue. He hadn’t seen the harm in revealing
what he believed about John Grant because regardless of how difficult it was to hear and know,
it was true
. But now that it had been let free, now that he saw the wide-eyed, openmouthed disbelief in Charlotte’s face, there could
be no going back… only forward.

“What are you saying, Owen?” she asked, her voice rising, shrill and confused with every word. “Why would you want to ruin
John if you know him to be your father? Why?”

“Because of what he did to my mother,” he explained. “Because he abandoned her.”

“He didn’t make her sick!”

“It was because of him that she was forced to leave here and go to Colorado, living alone as she struggled to raise two children,
twins born out of wedlock!” Owen heard himself shouting. “I’m sure that it was because he chased her away, denied her when
he found out she was pregnant! He was ashamed of her, embarrassed. She would have had a better life, a different life, if
it weren’t for him!”

“What proof do you have that John is your father? You said yourself that your mother kept her secrets. If she didn’t tell
you, who did?”

Struggling to keep his temper in check, not at Charlotte but at the remembrance of his grievances against John Grant, Owen
explained his conclusions: how he and Hannah had discovered that their mother had once, in the time before their birth, lived
in Sawyer, how he had found what remained of a letter, dating back to Caroline Wallace’s time in Oklahoma, that mentioned
John Grant by name, and spoke of him being the man she could never stop loving, even if he had chosen to reject her; and how
when he had first laid eyes on John
he had known
; deep in his gut he was certain of John’s guilt.

“But that doesn’t prove anything,” Charlotte protested.

“It proves that he broke my mother’s heart.”

“Possibly, yet it doesn’t give you any concrete evidence that John is your father, either. Who knows what the real story is,
or whether there even is one worth talking about? Maybe she loved him from afar, but instead he loved
Amelia. Maybe he couldn’t break off his engagement, or his feelings, and your mother couldn’t accept that. The truth is that
you don’t
really
know, Owen. You don’t know enough to go off half-cocked, wanting to ruin a man!”

Owen rose to his feet in frustration, kicking distractedly at a clump of flowers. When Charlotte doubted his conclusion and
offered other scenarios, he was nonplussed.

What in the hell did you expect her to say?

If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t known what he expected, but Charlotte’s disagreement unsettled him; it even caused
his confidence in his cause to waver, made him question how sure he was of what he was doing. Because he was beginning to
care for her, her opinions carried weight with him. For six excruciatingly long months, he had persuaded himself that John
Grant was the man who was responsible. He had uprooted their lives in Colorado and come to Oklahoma under an assumed name
because John Grant
had
to pay for what he had done to Caroline Wallace. But what if he accidentally destroyed an innocent man? What then? What would
his mother think of that?

More important, what would Charlotte think of that…?

Desperately, Charlotte struggled to show Owen how flimsy a basis he had for his accusation. His relentless pursuit of the
truth was understandable, but he was letting his need cloud his better judgment. He was leaping to conclusions and grasping
at straws. If he were to follow through with
his plans for revenge, the consequences for him and Hannah would be too great to bear. She had to convince him that there
was another possibility. But how?

“He rejected her because he got her pregnant,” Owen murmured as he paced back and forth in front of Charlotte, the certainty
slowly vanishing from his voice. “He didn’t want to take responsibility for what he had done.”

“John Grant doesn’t seem the sort of man who would turn his back on a woman with child,” she countered.

Charlotte thought of the way John spoke about Sarah Beck, of the great lengths to which he had gone, at certain risk to his
reputation, to ensure that the girl got an education. He had taken in Sarah and her father, complete strangers from Arkansas,
and put them up on his land. When Charlotte had pressed him about them, John had told her of his own regrets, a moment in
his life when he had been unable to do right by someone. Had he meant Owen’s mother? She’d never asked, but there seemed little
doubt that all the Becks had, their bedding, food, and firewood, had to have been provided by John. How could the same man
who had taken them in have completely rejected Owen’s mother?

It just wasn’t possible.

No matter how she felt about
why
John had become involved with the Becks, Charlotte did not feel free to tell Owen about Sarah. She knew that he would leap
to whatever conclusion painted John Grant in the worst light; he might even go so far as to wonder if the girl’s unborn
child belonged to the rancher. Charlotte didn’t like keeping silent, but there appeared to be no other choice. While Sarah
had asked her to keep her secret, the identity of the man responsible for her pregnancy, it was the secret of her very existence
that Charlotte felt needed to be kept.

“Have you thought about talking to John about it?” Charlotte asked hopefully. “Because of the letter you found, it’s obvious
he once knew your mother. If you told John you believe him to be your father, if you were honest with him, you would finally
learn the truth.”

“He’d lie.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because he’s a coward,” Owen said. “Once a coward, always a coward.”

“Maybe he doesn’t even know.”

“How could he not?” Owen snapped, turning to her, the color rising in his face.

“Have you considered that your mother might have left Oklahoma without telling him? Sometimes, when a woman finds herself
with child, especially when she isn’t married, she doesn’t think as clearly as she should.” Charlotte need look no further
than her own mother’s experience; Alice Tucker had been erroneously told that she had lost her husband while he was at war,
long after she’d found out she was pregnant. It had all proven too much for her to bear. On the day she had given birth to
her daughter, Alice had chosen that she no longer wanted to live. “An unmarried woman is scared and vulnerable. It’s possible
that the shame of what had happened caused her to run away.”

“Then he should have gone after her and brought her back.”

“Maybe he tried,” she soothed. “After all, look how hard it was for you to find him.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“It’s never too late for you to find your family, believe me.” Charlotte couldn’t help thinking of the man she had found out
in the woods when she was just a child; he had been Mason Tucker, her father, and he had been a part of her life ever since
that fateful day.

Charlotte regarded Owen with tenderness. It was as obvious as the beauty of the day that this whole affair, the uncertainty
of it, was tearing him apart. Sympathy filled her heart, making her want to hold him in her arms as she had only days earlier;
at that moment, nothing else seemed to matter, erasing all of the things that weighed on them both. But she knew he was too
worked up. Instead, she would have to find another solution.

“What about Hannah? What does she think?”

“She came here with the same determination I had,” Owen explained, “to learn the truth and make sure that the man responsible
for abandoning our mother was punished. That was why she got the job at the lawyer’s office.”

“With Carlton Barnaby?”

Owen nodded. “With Barnaby’s trips to the courthouse,
it gives Hannah plenty of time to go through his files to find some mention of what happened to our mother.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“All that matters is learning the truth. If that means breaking the law, then so be it.”

“What has she learned? Has she discovered anything?”

“Not explicitly.” Owen frowned. “But Hannah did discover mention of a claim of rape that occurred in the year before our birth.
Barnaby had been contacted regarding it, but it mysteriously stopped without much mention with all of the principal names
involved blacked out. It doesn’t mention him by name, but I think that it’s possible this was a claim filled against Grant
for assaulting my mother.”

“Owen, no! He couldn’t have done it!”

“I know you don’t want to believe me, but it truly
is
possible.”

“Does Hannah believe it? Does she think that this speculation incriminates John?”

Owen frowned. “She’s not as convinced as I am… nor is she as vengeful.”

“Shouldn’t that tell you something?”

“Only that I’ll have to discredit that bastard on my own.”

“What about
my
doubts?”

“They’re all ‘maybes’ and ‘what-ifs.’ I know in my bones I’m right.”

Suddenly, the events of the last couple of days reassembled themselves in Charlotte’s mind. She had been too
overwhelmed, dreaming about their passionate kiss and the romantic way he had come to surprise her with a getaway to the pond,
to wonder what else was at stake, but Owen’s mention of discrediting someone jarred it loose; he wasn’t the only person compiling
evidence toward proving a man’s guilt.