Strong and Stubborn (44 page)

“But you didn't tell him you planned to kill Braden.” Naomi seemed to understand something Mike could only guess at.

“No. I arranged that with Draxley. Why split the profits and dodge suspicion if we didn't have to? But Owens, sentimental fool that he was, got himself killed by racing back to save our cousin. Not that it mattered. Sure enough, Braden lived.” She grimaced in disgust.

“Most of us were glad about that.” Naomi shifted again. “Now, do you want to tell me why you're pointing a gun at my head?”

“Because you, dear sister, are going to climb those rocks and fling yourself over the edge. I'll make sure everyone knows you couldn't stand the thought of marrying anyone other than Harry. Your mad, unrequited love has built for half a decade, and you snapped.” The crazy woman snapped her fingers to further illustrate the point.

Slowly, Mike pulled off his boots and started edging out of the woods, making as little noise as he could manage. If Naomi planned to jump her sister, he wanted her to know he was there for her. He wanted to get as close as possible to the crazy woman with the gun. He saw Naomi's eyes widen when she caught sight of him, but otherwise she kept her calm. Better, she kept her sister talking.

“Why kill me?” Naomi scooted again, making Mike's breath catch. Could she be trying to grab her sister's pistol? “What's the point?”

“I'm your closest relative. Your shares in Hope Falls—and the mine—will come to the sister you so recently reunited with.” Mrs. Blinman waved the pistol and adopted a sorrowful tone. “Imagine my devastation, after I worked so hard to help you find a husband of your very own, that you decided to end your life over my Harry.”

It seemed like ages passed since Mike started creeping up the cliff side, cautiously balancing amid small, sharp rocks. He sent up a prayer of thanks that he'd thought to remove his boots—the rocks against boot heels would have given him away in a heartbeat. Finally, he'd gotten close enough to risk lunging at the lunatic.

But Naomi beat him to it. With a deft motion, she untwisted the fabric she'd been bunching and unbunching in her hands. She pulled it taught and flung the thing upward, diving to the side in a cloud of sawdust. Her sister started sneezing immediately, finger tightening on the trigger and sending a bullet ricocheting off the nearest boulder and back into the woods behind all of them.

When Naomi dove to the side, Mike lunged. He caught Mrs. Blinman around the waist, hand closing over the wrist holding the pistol. For such a tiny woman, she had a surprisingly strong grip. He had to slam her arm against the ground before she released it.

For a moment all three of them lay there, gasping for breath. Mrs. Blinman punctuated the silence with a few more sneezes before Naomi got to her feet. Without speaking, she refolded what Mike now recognized as her work apron—and the source of the sawdust cloud. He couldn't help but grin at her brilliant makeshift weapon.

“Sawdust sneezes,” her sister wheezed. “Crude, but effective. I should have remembered how hopelessly provincial you can be.”

“As opposed to being a scheming, lying murderer?” Naomi glared down at her sister. “If that's what passes for sophistication these days, then I'm well rid of it. Just as I'll be well rid of you.”

“Not so fast.” Charlotte's sneer made Naomi's blood boil. “You can't prove anything—and you know you have to let me go. Otherwise I'll tell the world my big sister's sordid little secret, won't I?”

“No.” Naomi froze, fighting the now-familiar clench of fear. “No one will believe an adulterer, saboteur, and murderer.”

“People believe the best story,” her sister spat out. “If you turn me in, I'll turn out your dirty laundry. Imagine how the gossips would love it—they'll gleefully pick apart a whole family!”

“What is she talking about, Naomi?” Michael's deep, steady voice made her nerves flutter more than ever.

“Nothing.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, searching for a solution to this impossible situation. She couldn't let Charlotte go—Braden deserved to find justice for the mine sabotage. And even if he didn't, she couldn't live with herself if her sister went on to hurt some other person, family, or even an entire town.

But she couldn't stand to have Charlotte tell Michael what a despicable, lowly woman she really was. The look on his face when he saw her unmasked would hurt more than a thousand Harold Blinmans.
Why are you leaving it up to Charlotte?
A small, brave voice surfaced from deep inside her.
You can't set her free, and she'll hurt you if she can. Don't let old guilt give her new power
.

“On Charlotte and Harry's wedding night, Mama gave me hard liquor to steady my nerves. Everyone was talking about me, staring to see if I'd fall apart. Then there were the toasts. And the punch.” She remembered the sensation of floating and tried to capture that same detachment. “I don't remember anything, but I awoke in Charlotte's bed the next morning—in place of the bride.”

“I don't believe it. You would never, not in a million years …” Michael rubbed his forehead as though trying to push away the thought. “All that about a man mistaking one sister for the other … Do you mean your sister's groom never realized his mistake?”

“No. It can't be true. I would've known… .” Harry emerged from the forest, visibly shaken and staring at her as if he'd never seen her before. “Why would you say something like that, Naomi? Did you hear me coming and think I was eavesdropping? Because I wasn't. I came to find you and your sister since you'd been gone so long.”

“She said it because it's true, and I'm going to tell everyone,” Charlotte crowed. “You went to bed so drunk you didn't recognize that the woman wasn't your wife. It's a wonder you did anything to be ashamed of, in that condition.” She gave a crude snicker.

“Why didn't I remember? Why didn't anyone tell me?” Harry went pale and looked as though he was going to lose his dinner.

“Would you have wanted to know?” Naomi steeled herself for the answer. “Would it have made any difference, or would you have helped them ship me off and get rid of any difficult questions?”

Michael kept his gaze locked on the ground, unwilling to even look at her. That hurt more than Harry's refusal to answer her.

“Michael.” She whispered his name, pleading for understanding. “I didn't mean to do it. I didn't plan on it or want to. I don't even remember anything except becoming ill when Mama told me.”

“Your hair,” Harry burst out. “I would've noticed your hair.”

“Mama and Charlotte took pains to hide the white streak that night.” Naomi closed her eyes at the memory. “So I'd look young enough to maybe catch the interest of some other gentleman. Not that I was at the party for long—I got so confused Charlotte took me back to the family wing so I could go to bed and sleep away the fog.”

“Wait.” Michael's head jerked up from where he was pinning Charlotte's arms behind her and tying them together with the apron Naomi had passed him. “Your sister is the one who took you to bed? After she tried so hard to hide your hair?”

Naomi understood what he was suggesting, but her mind couldn't make the connection stick. Not until Charlotte rose to her knees and hissed at Michael. That's when she knew. Michael saw what she never had.

She bent down to stare her sister in the eye. “You did my hair so I'd look more like you. You kept giving me champagne and making toasts to get me tipsy. You took me upstairs and put me in your own bed… . I should have realized someone undressed me. The maids would have taken me back to my room if they found me there. Even a drunken groom would notice his bride wore a red dress instead of white!”

“Yes. Your shame and guilt kept you from asking too many questions or examining your memory too closely.” Charlotte cackled. “How else was I going to fool Harry into thinking he'd married the young innocent I pretended to be? A little sleeping powder for you and lots of bourbon for Harry, some creative juggling, and voilà. Stained sheets the next morning to make my husband happy.”

“I never stole your wedding night.” Naomi sat on the nearest boulder, her knees unable to support her. Relief and rage at this revelation robbed her of any strength. “You stole mine.”

“For all the good it did me.” Charlotte snorted. “Harry turned out to be as useless as you, but the secrets do me no good now. I'll tell them to anyone and everyone if you turn me in for the mines and trying to make you walk over the cliff,” Charlotte promised. “You and Harry won't be able to hold your heads up.”

“The mines?” Harry looked confused, and Naomi knew he really had just joined the conversation. Quickly, Michael filled him in.

“No one will believe you.” He echoed Naomi's earlier hope.

“Gossips love a good story.” Charlotte jerked against the binding Michael made from Naomi's apron strings, unable to get free.

“I'll give them a better one.” Harry's face filled with wrath. “A selfish, grasping adulteress who seduced a good man, sabotaged a mine, and tried to kill her own sister. When she failed, she went mad and her poor husband had to place her in an asylum, where she screams obscene stories from the mess of her mind.”

“You wouldn't put your wife in an asylum—it'd be the sort of scandal you want to avoid.” Her sister's bravado couldn't hide her fear.

“Better than the sort you'd create if everyone didn't dismiss your ramblings for insanity.” Michael's face hardened. “And considering the things you've done, I don't question that you're insane. The asylum will stop you from hurting anyone else.”

But there was nothing he could do to heal Naomi's hurts. He didn't know how to banish the haunted look in her eye as Harry took her sister away, condemned by her own evil madness to a life of misery.

“Do you think I could've stopped her?” The choked question brought him to her side. “If I'd fought harder with my parents so they never sent her away? Maybe I could've helped her… .”

“No.” Mike decided they'd bypassed propriety by this point and folded her into his arms. Her hands crept up his chest and locked onto his shoulders, hanging on as sobs wracked her small frame.

When they slowed, he slipped a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “It's not your fault. Not Harry, not the wedding night, and not the mines. You've shouldered her blame for the past five years—lay that burden down, Naomi.”

“She used me.” Naomi winced. “But my mistakes paved the way. No matter how guilty Charlotte is, I'm still a fallen woman.”

“No you aren't!” His hands closed around her upper arms, making her stand straight and tall. “If Blinman didn't look so sickened by the whole thing and I didn't know your sister orchestrated the situation so skillfully, I'd be tempted to beat him to a pulp for taking advantage of an unconscious woman. No man has that right, and no woman should bear the responsibility for what was done to her.”

“But I'm still responsible for letting Charlotte trick me, for being so morose I drank enough liquor not to notice her machinations. If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my anger over her and Harry's betrayal, I wouldn't have been vulnerable to her plans.”

“Have you confessed those mistakes? Repented of them?” He almost missed the nearly imperceptible bob of her head. “Doesn't the Word say that if you've done that, He's faithful and just to forgive you and purify you from unrighteousness?” Another stronger nod.

“Then why, Naomi, do you continue to doubt your own worth?” He slid one hand up her arm, over her shoulder, and into her loosened hair. Mike let the silken strands slip through his fingers. He knew what he had to do next, and he dreaded it. But he couldn't expect her to be brave if he hid things from her. “You're not the only one who's needed that sort of grace. I know I did—and still do.”