Chapter 21 #3
Paige explained what she’d found and why she’d come to Heartstone.
While she was talking, Savannah rolled in the tea cart, a plate of shortbread beside the teapot, cups, and saucers.
She might have been curious about the conversation, but she didn’t linger, serving the tea and withdrawing before Paige was finished explaining how she’d found the letters and picture of Sarah.
“So, you think your father, this Paul Williams, is the man our Sarah ran off with?” Miss Martha asked, leveling a concerned look at me.
“That’s what we’d like to find out,” I said.
“I’m not sure how much help I can be,” Miss Martha said. “Sarah and I were close.” She looked to me with soft eyes. “She and your father were a terrible fit. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure who would have been a good fit for your father. Maybe that viper you married.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “She could have saved us all a lot of heartache if she’d just gone after him in the first place.”
Miss Martha shook her head. “Normally, I hate to speak ill of the dead, but not when it comes to Prentice. The problem there is that he always liked the gentle. I always thought he enjoyed dominating them, using up all that soft and leaving them broken.” Miss Martha let out a sigh, heavy with sorrow.
“Your mother struggled in this house. She loved you boys so much. But Prentice was all hard edges and cruelty. Sarah needed love.” She picked up her cup of tea and sipped.
Finally, she said, “I knew she found someone, but not who she was seeing.”
“But there was another man?” I pressed.
Miss Martha nodded slowly. “There was a lightness to her. It started not long after you were born. I didn’t know a Paul Williams,” she said, looking to Paige.
“I’m sorry. Back then, Prentice did a lot of business from the house.
There were people coming and going all the time.
If they stayed, I knew who they were. But those who didn’t spend the night in the house, the ones who stayed in town or visited for a meeting and left again, I didn’t always know.
Sarah was home more often than not in those years.
She didn’t have a nanny or work outside the home, so she spent most of her time with her boys.
If she met someone, it was probably a business associate of Prentice’s.
But like I said, I never had a name, just a suspicion.
She didn’t confide in me about that. I’d say we trusted each other, but…
that’s a secret she would have done everything to keep. ”
“Were you surprised when she left?” I asked.
Miss Martha let out a long sigh, and for the first time, I saw her years on her face.
“Oh, Ford, surprise doesn’t cover it. When I say she loved you and your brother, I mean she loved you so fiercely.
I never understood how she could have left.
But then there was your father. He made her life a misery.
And Sawyers Bend wasn’t like it is now, with West in charge.
There was nowhere for her to go. You understand? No one to help her.”
“You’re saying he hurt her?” Paige asked quietly, and Miss Martha nodded.
“He did. Not so that she went to the hospital, not so that any bruises showed. Your father was a clever man, if not a good one.”
“Did he ever hurt the children?” Paige asked carefully, shooting a sidelong look at me.
“No, no. Not with his hands. With his words… Well, he hurt everyone with his words—children were no exception. But he never— Unless—” Horror washed over her face as her eyes flashed to me.
I shook my head. “Not when I was little. When we were older and could take it.” I shrugged, remembering the occasional slap or hit, once a fist to the face. I summed it up with the plain truth. “All of us learned early how to stay on the right side of Prentice’s fists.”
Miss Martha nodded. “That was how it always seemed to me. I never would have thought she’d leave you. But I’m not surprised she didn’t stay with Prentice.”
“What happened to all of her things?” I asked, frustrated that we seemed to be at another dead end.
“Your father—” She shook her head. “He wanted every scrap of her burned. But I saved what I could.”
A small wave of hope hit me. “Where is it?” I asked.
“We’ll have to ask Savannah. In the attic, I think.
Things got rearranged after a leak, but everything is still up there.
We’ll just have to hunt it down. I’ll help you tomorrow.
It’s been up there for thirty years. It’s not going anywhere.
I don’t know how much help it’ll be,” she said.
“You should talk to Harvey or Edgar. Both of them always had a soft spot for your mother.” She smiled faintly.
“Everyone did except your father. They would have known who she met with, might recognize the name Paul Williams.”
It was worth a try. Harvey, our family lawyer, was more likely to talk than Edgar.
I knew he’d argued with both Prentice and Edgar frequently, usually trying to talk them out of some of their more cutthroat business maneuvers.
But he’d always kept my father’s secrets just as well as Edgar.
It was hard to hope that he’d tell us anything useful.
She turned to Paige. “Are you hoping to find your father, dear?”
Paige let out a sigh and sipped her tea. “At first, I was. Now, I don’t know what I’m looking for.” Her eyes met mine over her teacup. “Or maybe I’ve already found it.”
I smiled back, wanting to fall into the icy blue of her eyes, a cold burn that seared all the way to my soul. We hadn’t been looking for each other. Not on purpose. But now that we’d found each other, I wasn’t going to lose her. No matter what Cole Haywood had planned.