Chapter 7
As Susan stepped inside her little house, the first thing she noticed was the scent of her father’s pipe smoke.
Her nose crinkled. Back home, their house had been saturated in the scent, but this was her home. She couldn’t abide the same thing happening here.
“Da?” She walked toward the lounge, her steps growing quicker as she neared it. She opened the door and coughed, batting her hand through the haze. “Da! I don’t like anyone smoking in my house. Now, you can do it outside as much as you want, but I’ll not?—”
As the smoke cleared, she noticed two figures inside the room. Her father in an armchair, and a male figure with his back to her in the chair opposite. She froze.
“Ah, Susan.” Slowly and stiffly, her father stood.
The other man stood, too, unfolding to a towering height.
No.She knew that build. Butit couldn’t be…
The man turned around and gave her a leering grin.
As her eyes met his, she cried out in surprise, stumbling backward. “No! Oh, no! Da, what’s he doing here?”
Panic engulfed her, a multitude of thoughts racing through her mind. She’d tried so hard, had traveled all this way… No. This wasn’t happening.
“Ack, now, Susan. What way is that to greet an old friend?” His voice was as sickly smooth as ever.
“You’re no friend of mine, John Murphy!” She was shaking now—trembling with a blend of rage and dismay. Her gaze shifted to the silent figure farther back in the room. “Da, what’s he doing here? All the way over here? And in my house?”
A tearspilled down her cheek, and she swiped it away. She wouldn’t crumble. She couldn’t.
Her father shrugged his hunched shoulders. “Well, eh… That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Devastation drained through her. “What?” Her voice was barely a gasp. The opportunity he’d mentioned at the post office—it involved the man who’d made their lives so miserable back home that she’d single-handedly crossed an ocean to escape him? “But, Da…”
“I know, I know. You and John haven’t always seen eye to eye. But things are different now, love. He’s got a better opportunity for me than any of the ones back home. There’s more freedom here, for one thing. Sure, the state of California’s getting onto its feet, you know? Building up and expanding all the time. There’s plenty of money to be made along the way.”
Susan stared at him. He hadn’t changed at all. She’d known. So why had she been so desperate to believe him?
“Word on the street is there’s gold not too far from here. That’s what brought me over. And then imagine my surprise when I ran into your oul da here.” John’s smoky laugh ruptured the silence.
“You expect me to believe that?” Susan challenged him. “Thatyou didn’t know he was here?”
“Of course I didn’t.” His sneaky smile and cunning eyes were a blatant contrast to his verbal claims of innocence. There wasn’t one thing about the man she could trust.
And the same went for her father.
“Sure, why don’t you get John a wee cup of tea and we can all have a wee chat about his opportunity for us.”
Susan blinked, her heart thudding. “Us?”
“You can’t be making nearly enough in that wee post office. But if we were all to work together, then?—”
Susan inched back even more, pressing her hands to her head. “Get out! The both of you! I’m not getting mixed up in one more thing with the pair of you!”
“Ah, now, my wee Susan?—”
“I am not your wee Susan! I mean it, Da!” Her voice increased in volume and desperation as she pointed at John. “Get that man out of my house! And you get out with him! I knew nothing had changed! I knew it, Da! And I will not?—”
In two strides,John was beside her, his painfully tight grip around her arms, stunning her into silence. “Now, now, young Susie. The three of us are bound together, whether you like it or not. And if you think I put up with all the rotten flea-infested quarters on that ship and all the nights I spent sleeping rough just to get here to this dry, hot wee town, then you’ve got another thing coming.”
She’d forgotten the depths of contempt and cruelty his eyes held. Being confronted with it again now made her want to vomit.
The three of us are bound together, whether you like it or not.
It had been true back there. But here...surely here it didn’t have to be that way.
She looked at her father, silently pleading for him to step in and protect her for once in her life. But his expression hadn’t changed. He still looked at her in hopeful agreement with John’s words. He didn’t even seem to notice how tightly John’s hands were gripping her, or how much he looked like he hated her.
Indifferent. That’s what her father had always been.
“Let go of me!”
If her father wasn’t going to fight for her, then she would have to just do it herself.
“Don’t be an eejit, Susan.” John shook her.“Now, I can cut you in on this opportunity and be a good friend—like I used to be—or I can be your worst nightmare. Which is it going to be?”
Devastation rippled through her. She glanced at her father. “And you’re alright with him talking to me like this, Da? You’re alright with him hurting me?”
Not even the hysteria in her voice seemed to faze him.
“He’s not hurting you, love, he’s just trying to get you to see sense.”
Susan gaped. Tears stung her eyes and her throat ached.
“Let go…” she whispered. “Let me go and get out.” Strength came back to her voice. “Let go! And get out!”
“Have it your way, then,” John rasped.
As hisgrip loosened on her arms, they began to throb. But before she could move, his big, rough hands closed around her neck. And squeezed.
She flailed her arms, trying to push him away, to punch him or pry his hands off her.She tried to kick him.
Black dots smattered her vision. No!
Her gaze roved frantically from the man strangling her, to the man doing absolutely nothing to stop him.
And as her awareness slipped away completely, the overwhelming sentiment that filled her wasn’t fear or panic.
It was the sick sensation of betrayal.
A betrayal she’d known deep down to be coming.