Chapter Seventeen
Max thought he would feel less off-balance once he knew that Grimes was really dead this time. From what Cordell had told him, he had wounded Grimes enough he would have died but the fire and the explosion had finished him off.
He felt such a rush of pride in his brother. Cordell had stepped up in a way he’d never expected. Max couldn’t help but wonder if things would have gone worse had he been there. He would never know, but he was glad when his brother walked into the room later that afternoon.
“How’s it goin’?” Cordell asked as he moved to the side of Max’s bed and took his hand.
“The doctor said I’m going to live.”
“Was there any doubt?” his brother joked. “I told Goldie not to worry because you’re the strongest man I know.”
Just the sound of her name was a stab to his chest. He didn’t feel strong right now. He felt anything but. “How is she?”
“She went back to work today at the café.” Max nodded. “She wants to see you.”
“That’s not a good idea,” he said and felt his brother’s gaze narrow on him.
“I thought you’d be anxious to see her,” Cordell said.
He shook his head, unable to explain this awful feeling he had even to himself, let alone to anyone else. “I think she’s better off without me.”
“Is this about Roger? He’s gone. Nothing came out about our pasts. No one would care anyway. It’s over.”
So why didn’t it feel that way? Because he was sheriff and he’d be facing the next threat that came to town? Living in Dry Gulch, he’d never thought about how if he married Goldie, he might be putting his wife and children in jeopardy. But he did now thanks to Grimes.
“I’m staying at your house until you get out of the hospital and after that if you need me, but Max, you love Goldie. Don’t push her away.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He quickly changed the subject. “I had a dream that Esther Mason was in my hospital room and was about to smother me with a pillow.”
Cordell didn’t know what to say. “That’s pretty weird.”
“One of the state police told me that she provided information about you and me, Josie and Goldie to Grimes.”
“Do you want me to take her out for you?”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Max said. “You got lucky with Grimes, same with Dave. You could have been killed or convicted of a crime.”
“But I wasn’t,” Cordell said, looking worried. “Are you sure you’re all right? The nurse told me not to upset you.”
“You killed two men and you’re acting like…”
“Like life goes on?” his brother demanded. “I almost lost my brother and Josie and my own life. You think I don’t know that I had to kill two men?” He waved a hand through the air. “Instead of curling up in a ball, I bought the old Dry Gulch Hotel. I’m going to reopen it.”
Max blinked. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Cordell laughed. “We deal with what happens to us in different ways, bro. This is my way.”
“What does Josie think about this?” he had to ask.
“She thinks the same thing you do, that I’ll never make it happen. But that was the old Cordell Lander. I’m going to turn that hotel into a destination resort and pump some life back into this town.”
Max shook his head. “Go for it,” he said, seeing that there was no dissuading his brother. “Can’t wait to see what this new improved Cordell does.”
His brother grinned. “I just might surprise you.”
“You already have, brother.”
* * *
The first customer who came through the door of the café sent Goldie’s heart hammering and stole her breath until she recognized the rancher. Yet her hands were shaking as she took him a menu and a glass of water.
“Glad to see you’re okay,” the rancher said. “None the worse for wear.”
She couldn’t say that, but she smiled and took his order. When she turned it in, she saw Maggie watching her with concern. “I’m fine,” she told her.
“Sure you are,” the woman said as if trying to sound like she meant it.
A few more people came in, all talking about Big Blue instead of the crazed criminal who had taken her hostage, and Goldie was glad of it.
“Wonder who took it to start with?” a local man said.
“You know it was those folks over in the Rosebud County. They’ve always been our rivals,” another man said.
“I’m wondering more why they brought it back. I heard Josie hired some local kids to scrub the horse down with soap and water. That’s the kind of pride I like to see in this town,” the woman with them said.
“It’s nice to have it back,” the men agreed. “I missed it.”
That the town could so easily go back to the way it was didn’t help with Goldie’s unsettled feeling. How could something that frightening and life-threatening happen to you and everything go back to normal so quickly?
She took the table’s orders, only screwing up one of them and breaking a couple of glasses and a plate, before Maggie’s daughter showed up. “I could really use the work,” Lindsey said.
Goldie shot a look into the kitchen, where Maggie was busy at the grill and didn’t look up as she did her best to pretend she was innocent.
Goldie appreciated the thought. She’d told herself that work was what she needed, but she realized what Maggie had.
She wasn’t up to this yet. She took off her apron and smiled at Lindsey.
“It’s all yours. Thanks. And thank your mother. ”
The teenager smiled and hurried to take care of the couple that came through the door.
Goldie wished she was going to the place she had considered home, Max’s place.
Instead, she headed for the extra bedroom at her cousin Clancy’s down the block.
As she walked, she found herself looking up the road into town as if expecting something bad to roll down the main drag at any moment.
* * *
As a week passed and then another and another, Josie began to wonder if she’d been wrong. Everyone seemed to have gotten over what had happened.
Goldie had been shaky at first when they’d gotten together to share a bottle of wine and talk. But she had bounced back—even when Max hadn’t wanted to see her at the hospital or at the house on his return to town.
“It’s really over between us, I guess,” her friend said one evening at the office. They were sitting on the couch, feet tucked under them, talking about everything that had happened and how it had affected them.
“It’s strange how different we all are,” Goldie said. “I thought at first I would never get over it, that I would continue to be scared at the café. I actually thought about putting it up for sale.”
“You’ve talked about selling it before,” Josie reminded her.
“That’s when I thought Max and I would be getting married. I wanted to devote myself to being the perfect wife and figured we’d have kids after that, and I’d be too busy to run the café. I have to accept that it’s over between us.”
“I’m sorry.”
Goldie took a sip of her wine. “I’ve decided to move on.”
“Good for you.”
“I told myself the other day that the first man who walked into the café who was under seventy and single, I was going to go out with him.”
Josie laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”
Goldie laughed with her. “Hope I’m not seventy before it happens.” She took another drink. “Can you believe the progress Cordell has made on the hotel?”
Josie couldn’t. “He’s been working at it constantly for weeks and even hired help. I think he’s serious about opening it again.”
Goldie looked as skeptical as Josie felt. “He actually thinks that if he builds it, people will come?”
Chuckling, Josie nodded. “He plans to advertise. He was telling me about some ideas he has. They aren’t bad, if he can pull them off.” While he had stopped by on occasion, he hadn’t mentioned going out to dinner again.
“I think he’s serious about staying here this time.”
“I guess we’ll see,” Josie said, still feeling that growing darkness hunkered on the horizon as if waiting for something. She had no clarity about what it was or what it meant. Just that it was evil, eviler than Grimes, something she couldn’t imagine.
She just hoped it had nothing to do with Cordell.
She’d never seen him like this. Every day, she watched the progress on the hotel from her office window, cheering him on and silently willing him to keep going.
The whole town was watching the place come back to life and rooting for him, but no one more than Josie.
She had a feeling that he needed this as badly as she needed to see him do it.
* * *
Max had been glad to get out of the hospital. He kept having bad dreams in which Esther or someone else had tried to kill him. He knew it didn’t make any sense. The fear, though, was real. He didn’t feel safe.
Back at his house, he wandered through the place, intensely aware of Goldie’s missing things.
He hadn’t realized how much of a home she’d made with a plant here, a candle there, a quilt on the wall behind the couch.
The house felt empty and made him sad. He couldn’t wait to get back to work so he didn’t have to spend much time here.
“You should at least go see her,” Cordell said one day when he stopped by.
“You should mind your business,” Max had snapped and saw his brother’s look. “Sorry.”
“Once you get back on your feet, maybe everything will look differently,” Cordell had said.
Max knew it wouldn’t, but he didn’t argue. He’d had enough arguments between his head and his heart over Goldie. Fortunately, he hadn’t seen Goldie because he feared his heart would betray his head. Lindsey Dean had been bringing him meals from the café.
He hadn’t had to order what he wanted since Goldie knew him so well. Each day, she’d send him something special, making him hurt even worse. Finally, he gave a list of what he wanted to Lindsey—all things completely different from what he normally would have ordered.
From then on, nothing was special about the meals.
He could no longer feel Goldie’s love and, while that broke his heart, he knew it was the way things had to be.
He couldn’t offer her the life she deserved.
She’d get over him and move on, and he would die a bachelor, old and cranky, just as his brother now predicted.
He listened as Cordell talked about the renovations at the hotel. He’d wondered where his brother had gotten the money. Cordell said he’d been working on several of the ranches when they needed help, although he swore that he still had what he’d saved in the years he’d been gone from Dry Gulch.
“It’s going to happen, you know,” Cordell said. It took Max a moment to realize what he was talking about. His thoughts wandered more than they used to. “The hotel. It’s going to happen. I’m going to call it the Lander Inn and Resort.”
“Sounds pretty highfalutin.”
“You’ll see. I have all kinds of plans. Think I might have a soft opening as early as the spring.”
Max envied his brother for taking on such a project, although he had no idea what a soft opening was. “If anyone can do it, it’s you,” he said truthfully. This Cordell could do anything, he thought. His kid brother had definitely changed, and he wondered how much Josie Brand had a hand in it.
“I’m going back to work next week,” Max announced.
“You sure you’re ready for that?” Cordell asked, looking concerned.
“Why would you ask? I’m healthy as a horse. Doc told me at my checkup.”
“I don’t know,” his brother admitted. “I just feel like maybe you’ve lost your drive to be sheriff. If you want to hang up your star, you can go into business with me at the hotel.”
Max shook his head. “Nothing’s changed,” he lied. “So how are things between you and Josie?”
“I’m taking it slow. I need to prove to her the kind of man I am now,” Cordell said and grinned. “One of these days, I might even ask her out.”
* * *
Josie couldn’t help her shock when she looked up from her office to see Esther Mason standing in the doorway. Her disgust for the woman must have shown, because Esther bristled and propelled herself forward as if on a mission.
Bracing herself, Josie sighed and leaned back in her chair, ready for the onslaught.
“I just wanted you to know that a lot of lonely women write to prisoners,” Esther said.
“The whole town wants to make me into the villain. How was I to know that Roger was going to come here and—” She waved a hand through the air before narrowing her eyes at Josie.
“You believe what you want, but those boys tried to kill him. That’s what brought him here. Wasn’t anything I told him.”
“I see no reason to debate this, Esther. Roger Grimes is dead. Cordell and I have been cleared in his death. Max is getting better. It’s over.”
The older woman puffed up like a blowfish. “I know for a fact that he wasn’t the only one writing to someone from around here.”
That took Josie by surprise. She had hoped that Esther was the only one who’d had contact with Grimes. “You know that for a fact?”
“Roger told me.”
“Did he tell you who?” She could feel her skin crawl, her blood pounding in her ears. Esther was enjoying knowing something Josie didn’t. But it quickly became apparent that she didn’t know much.
“He wouldn’t say, just that I’d been more helpful.”
“I’ll just bet you were,” Josie said, losing patience. “Is that all, Esther?”
The elderly woman looked indignant for a moment. “This is a hateful town. I’m so glad I left it.”
Not as glad as the residents, Josie thought, but bit her tongue.
“But you should know. There is someone among you who is deceiving you all.” With that, Esther turned and left, slamming the door behind her.
Josie sighed, hoping she was wrong, but worried that she wasn’t. If someone in town had been writing to a prisoner and Roger Grimes knew about it, then the two criminals must have known each other. Even been friends?
But other prisoners didn’t have any reason to want to hurt anyone in Dry Gulch, she reminded herself as she tried to brush off what Esther had told her.
It was just Esther stirring the pot. At the same time, she hated that now she would be unconsciously looking for the letter writer among the town’s female residents.