Chapter Twenty-Five
“Luke!” Madelaine jumped up from her chair at the dinner table when she saw the three men enter the house. All of them were dirty, covered in soot, and there were even traces of blood, but none of that mattered when she saw her husband. She rushed around the table and flung her arms around him.
“I am so very sorry, Luke!” she said through tears. “I shouldn’t have left you like this! I am so sorry! And the ranch! I’m so sorry!”
Luke seemed a little surprised at her outburst, but when he looked into her eyes, his face softened a little. Despite the obvious pain in his eyes, he pulled her into his arms, and she embraced him as fiercely as she could. Madelaine didn’t even care about the other people in the room.
Luke held her for a long time. Madelaine just soaked it up, and when he finally released her, she felt somewhat out of breath.
“I want to introduce someone to you,” Luke said then, his voice harsh from all the smoke. He stepped back a little—but his arm stayed around her waist—as he pointed toward a very tall, very handsome older gentleman with silver hair and bright green eyes.
Madelaine choked a sob when she saw him, but her face broke instantly into a smile.
He didn’t need an introduction. She recognized him instantly because she had seen this man most of her younger years around the farm when he had trained horses with her father.
“Timothy!” she exclaimed, peeling herself out of Luke’s arms.
“Madelaine?” Timothy asked, a little surprised. “Oh, my, have you grown, young lady!” he remarked, and when he opened his arms with a bright smile, she ran to him and hugged him, too. “It’s so good to see you!”
“I have so much to tell you,” Madelaine said, excited to see him.
“Why don’t we give the men the chance to freshen up a bit,” Mary suggested then, looking pointedly at Timothy and his slightly sooty shirt and jacket. “Us ladies will be in the living room.”
Caleb let Evelyn go, but it was all too obvious that he didn’t want to leave her side, while Madelaine noticed how Luke stared at her with a longing look she’d never seen from him before. He finally nodded and followed the rest of the men down the hallway.
It didn’t take long before the men joined the women again—all cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes Timothy had loaned them.
Belle was fast asleep in Evelyn’s arms, and Madelaine, who sat right next to them, held Simon on her lap.
His eyes were getting heavier and heavier, but Madelaine didn’t want to let either of them go just yet. They were fine where they were.
It had been a long night, but these last few hours had done little to create a calming atmosphere, and every single person in the room still seemed too shaken up to get some rest. Even Luke joined the conversation as they discussed possible leads and outcomes, evidently somewhat recovered.
Madelaine couldn’t help but feel proud of him.
“Luke told me about Phineas,” Timothy mentioned at some point during their evaluation of the current situation. Madelaine paled.
“I don’t know if you have ever met him,” she said. Quietly, but with enough anger in her voice not to sound meek. Surprisingly, Timothy nodded.
“I knew his father,” he confirmed with both of his eyebrows raised. “He was not a nice man, and I am not surprised to hear how Phineas has turned out.”
“What do you know about him?” Luke asked. Timothy shot him a side glance.
“How much time do you have? He is a bad man who does very bad things, hanging out with the wrong crowd,” Timothy summarized.
“It’s true,” Madelaine said with a sad smile.
She told them all how Phineas had shown up at the ranch shortly after the loss of her parents, and how chaotic it had been, how he had just taken over, how he’d treated her and the children so badly, belittling her and threatening her and her siblings every single day.
“To the point that I needed to do something to keep the little ones safe,” Madelaine finally said.
“That’s when I left the ranch to go find Timothy, so you could help me get it all back, and Phineas out of the house.
I’m still not sure that it wasn’t him and his men who shot at us that morning, after we left. ”
As Madelaine told her story, she saw Luke’s agitation grow, leaning forward on his elbows and hanging on every single word she said.
He seemed angry at all the things Phineas had done to her, the children, and even the ranch.
Timothy mirrored his reactions, and Madelaine saw how both men exchanged knowing glances more than once.
“Despicable human being,” Luke added. “Caleb and I saw him at their hangout in the woods, and he treated his men exactly the same. He is a bad man,” Luke concluded. “We’ve come to the conclusion that he could very well be the leader of the horse-thieving gang,” he added.
“He is not smart enough for that,” Madelaine supplied. “He is mean, but he is not very intelligent.”
“So, are you saying that there is someone else pulling the strings?” Luke asked, slightly surprised.
Madelaine shrugged. “I don’t know everything, but I do know Phineas. As mean as he is, he doesn’t have it in him to be the leader of such a huge operation, spanning all these years.”
She watched as Caleb, Timothy, and Luke exchanged glances, but she didn’t know what it meant. Then she thought of something else, and her eyes welled up with tears when the sudden realization hit her with full force. She gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth in shock.
“My mother’s Bible!” she exclaimed. “My journal! And all the important papers! They’re all gone!” She sobbed loudly as she tried to think of a positive ending to this, but it was impossible. “They all burned in the fire!”
Luke got up from his place, kneeled in front of her, and took her hands in his. “What important papers?” he asked as gently as he was able to. “Which journal?”
Madelaine needed a minute to collect herself.
“My journal… was a gift from my mother, I cherished so very much. Just like her Bible. But those are mostly sentimental,” she sobbed.
“However, the papers were the notarized documents proving my ownership of my father’s ranch.
Without them, I will never get it back!”
“You had notarized papers?” Luke asked, shocked. “If you had told me, we could have gone after Phineas and kicked him off your land legally. I have half a mind to ride over there right now!” he said angrily, and loud enough to wake Belle. Thankfully, she fell right back to sleep.
Madelaine felt embarrassed. “I didn’t know that! I didn’t know that I could do any of that. I only knew that I had to keep them safe. And now I don’t even have those anymore!” She felt panic rise. Had she lost it all now?
Nobody said a word as the severity of it all sank in.
“I need to speak to the lawyer,” Madelaine finally said. “He is the only one who can help me! I will ride into town tomorrow morning, and…”
“No! You will not!” Luke exclaimed angrily as he jumped back on his feet. “It’s too dangerous for you to go anywhere right now! These criminals are out there, causing havoc everywhere, and you think you can just stroll into town for a chat? No! I won’t allow it!”
“Luke!” Caleb and Evelyn called out in unison, albeit Evelyn’s tone was softer than Caleb’s shocked one.
Madelaine stared at her husband with an open mouth, but her shock was quickly replaced by disbelief and annoyance.
“What do you mean, you won’t allow it?” she yelled, just as loud as he did previously, yet again waking up Belle. “I need to speak with him! Mr. Sterling is the only person who can confirm that I inherited my father’s ranch!”
“How about we sleep on it?” Evelyn suggested. Mary nodded in agreement while Timothy stood up from his chair to step in between Madelaine and Luke.
“No fighting in my house, you two!” he said sternly. Madelaine immediately blushed when she realized her unruly behavior. She was a guest in this house.
“Please, forgive me,” she apologized, with sinking shoulders. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
“You won’t be doing that!” Luke said just as sternly, challengingly Timothy with an angry glance. Timothy shook his head.
Madelaine wanted to jump up and scream at Luke that she had lost everything in that fire just now, but she realized that Luke had lost even more, so her anger evaporated as quickly as it had risen.
“It was a very eventful night,” Mary said with a calm voice. “Why don’t we all go get some rest and discuss things in the morning, hmm?”
“Can I share a room with you tonight, Evy?” Madelaine asked, raising her chin stubbornly, as she set down Simon, to grab Belle from her.
“Uh…” Evelyn glanced over to Caleb, whose eyebrows rose all the way into his hairline.
“No need!” Luke scoffed. “I’ll sleep in the barn!” he grunted.
Madelaine caught Timothy rolling his eyes at him.
“That is completely unnecessary. We have plenty of room for everybody,” he said to Luke, but his former son-in-law seemingly didn’t want to hear it, as he grabbed a folded woolen blanket from a bench near the window and marched straight toward the door.
Madelaine sighed heavily. Another day, another fight. At this point, she almost wanted to take Belle and Simon and leave this place. She’d been fighting all this time—for what, to lose it all completely?
As the door slammed shut behind her husband, she sank back on her chair, feeling entirely deflated.
“He just needs time to simmer down,” Timothy said gently.
“Much like you, he has lost everything in that fire. Twice now,” he added, turning to Madelaine with a solemn face.
“We need to give him some time to process. We all need it. And then we’ll figure it all out together. As a family. Can we all do that?”
Everybody nodded in agreement.
As Madelaine listened to Timothy speak so warmly, so sure and understanding of this most difficult situation, a different set of emotions rose in her.
He spoke just like her father used to. He provided the same security and wisdom as her parents had, and in that moment, Madelaine missed them very much.