Chapter Twenty-Seven
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“MAY I borrow the car tomorrow?” Gwynn asked Aunt Maude as they washed the dinner dishes that night. “I won’t need it for long. Maybe an hour or so?”
“I don’t see why not. Russ? Do you need the car?”
Uncle Russ shook his head. “Where are you going? You want company?”
Gwynn opened her mouth to decline his offer but paused. She’d been planning to trespass on the ranch again; to pry off a loose board covering a window, and if that didn’t work, then she’d try her hand at picking a lock. But what if whoever had made those tire tracks showed up, either before she arrived or while she was snooping around? Even if she armed herself with a gun for self-defense, she hadn’t shot one since she’d fled Prospect.
She wrung the dish towel in her hands. Maybe Cash had a point and Uncle Russ could use his connections to help her. “I … I want to visit the AJ Ranch. I don’t know how else to regain my memories”—and retrieve that money—“except go to the source where the madness occurred. But I’d be trespassing, so … how should I go about this?”
The Davisons exchanged a glance. Aunt Maude gave a slight nod, and Uncle Russ left the kitchen. Gwynn frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Wait until Russ gets back. Here.” Aunt Maude handed her a pot to dry.
A moment later, Uncle Russ returned holding a thick six-by-nine-inch manila envelope. He extended it to her.
Gwynn took the envelope and withdrew several sheets of paper and a set of house keys. Her gaze skimmed over the legalese, the words trust and property and of age jumping out at her. Her pulse thrummed. “What is this?”
Uncle Russ dried a serving bowl. “Together with Jeb and Edith, Maude and I bought the AJ Ranch after it went through probate. Got it for a song. No one wanted to touch it after what happened, not even that land developer, Neil Clifton. And since there was no lien on the property, the bank didn’t need to inflate the price at auction.” He tapped his finger on the papers. “We put it in a trust, to be held until your twenty-fifth birthday. Come mid-April, you’ll be the ranch’s legal owner.”
Gwynn’s world tipped for the second time in less than a week. She caught the edge of the island counter. “You bought the ranch? For me? Why would you waste your money like that?”
“It wasn’t a waste,” Aunt Maude snapped, slapping a wooden spoon in Uncle Russ’s hand to dry.
Gwynn’s face flamed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and I’m honored you thought of me, but—”
“Your father should’ve had a will,” Uncle Russ said. “Had the courts known you were alive, the ranch would’ve gone to you eventually.”
“Perhaps, although I was a minor at the time. In this case, you had to pay for it.”
“We were happy to pay. You deserve an inheritance—”
“I do not.” Gwynn paced away, the papers shaking in her hand. “I don’t deserve any kindness you’ve given me. Not you, not Poppa Jeb or Mama Edith, not Cash, and should Uncle Erik and Aunt Dani forgive me for hiding away when they discover I’m alive, I won’t deserve that, either.”
“Sweetheart”—Uncle Russ gripped her shoulders and looked her in the eyes—“when are you going to forgive yourself?”
His words struck her like a physical punch. Forgive herself ? She swallowed against the ache in her throat that appeared all too readily these days. “I-I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m alive yet my parents are dead. I enjoyed my do-over while friends and relatives mourned my supposed loss. I’m blessed with a deed to a ranch while others struggle to afford a simple studio apartment or a college tuition. How can I make amends for all of that? Why should I receive such favor when I don’t deserve it?”
Uncle Russ let out a small sigh. “Why does God allow the things He allows? Why does He cause other things to happen? We don’t know. We can’t know, because we’re finite beings with finite minds, incapable of seeing how God works all things together for good, according to His purposes.” He gave her shoulders a little squeeze. “God has allowed you time to heal, and now He’s brought you home. To face your past? Probably. To face your fears? Definitely. Everything else—everyone else—will fall into place.”
Aunt Maude came over and swept Gwynn into a hug. “Time for you to stop feeling guilty about surviving, dearest,” she murmured into Gwynn’s hair. “The Scriptures tell us that those who have been forgiven much, love much, yes? Well, maybe those who have received much, bless much.”
* * *
Gwynn cut the engine where she parked in the empty driveway and clutched the steering wheel. Her childhood home waited beneath the overcast sky, its shadows taunting her with the secrets locked inside. She swallowed. Uncle Russ had again offered to join her, but she’d declined now that she knew she wasn’t trespassing. Beyond that front door, she’d either have a mental breakthrough or a mental breakdown, and no one would witness it besides herself and God.
Which was why she’d ventured here before Cash returned from Miles City today. Not that she’d spoken to him since he left, even though he’d asked for her number. She glanced at her phone in the cup holder. More than twenty-four hours later, Gwynn worked hard not to read into his silence.
“Enough pussyfooting around,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Get in there and do what needs to be done.” She pocketed her phone, grabbed her backpack purse and Uncle Russ’s flashlight from the passenger seat, and exited the car.
Her heart pounded as she crossed the porch to the front door, the house keys jingling in her trembling fingers. On the second try, she fit the key into the lock and turned the knob. The door swung open to a dim interior, wan daylight seeping through the non-shuttered living room window.
The stench of stale cigarettes accosted her, and she paused, a chill stealing through her bones.
Her parents had done many things, but they’d never smoked.
So, who had?
“H-hello?” she called. “Anybody here?” Had she been wrong to assume the house was empty?
When her question was met with continued silence, Gwynn crossed the threshold. She held the flashlight like a club in one hand and the keys in her other so that the jagged edges jutted between her fingers. With her elbow, she flicked the light switch near the door. Nothing happened.
“Okay, then.” She rolled her shoulders. “We do this in the play of shadow and light.”
Gwynn turned on the flashlight and passed the beam over the living room. The sleeping bag slumped in the same position as the other day. She relaxed and moved the beam across the dining area. The light caught on the beer cans littering the tabletop, and her muscles tensed again. In the kitchen, camping supplies and dishes cluttered the island countertop, and a ceramic ashtray overloaded with cigarette butts sat by the sink.
Her breathing accelerated. Someone was squatting in her house.
She slipped her hand into her coat pocket for her phone. Maybe she should have Uncle Russ join her, after all.
But as she retreated a step, the room spun and memories rushed at her with the force of ocean waves at high tide: Mother cooking at the stove, her blouses strategically placed to hide the black and purple bruises. Alex stomping in after a long day on the pretense of working a cattle ranch, disgust twisting his mouth, fists eager to release dark emotions. Mother sneaking into the house in the wee hours of the morning, reeking of another man’s cologne. The constant, pervasive odor of whiskey and greasy food. Alex’s impulsive backhanded cuff.
The images crashed upon the shore of Gwynn’s mind, one swell after another, and she groped for the door handle behind her. Must. Flee.
No!
She blinked and shook her head to clear away the images. “You must stay, Gwynn,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is what you’ve come for—memories.”
How many would she have to battle until she recalled the ones from that night ? And what would be left of her by the end?
“There’s no way around, Sadler. You’re going to have to walk through.”
Straightening her spine, she dropped her hand from the doorknob and glared into the shadows where the past writhed like demons. “You’re nothing but a vapor. Ugly to look at, yet no substance. You can’t hurt me anymore.” And her father was dead. He couldn’t keep her bound in chains.
Unlock the memories and you unlock the chains.
The words sounded as clear as if they’d been uttered aloud.
“Unlock the memories … starting with the one I already possess.” Raising her chin, she turned toward the closed door beyond the kitchen hutch leading to the staircase. What would her bedroom look like after sitting abandoned for almost a decade? Or had someone—perhaps this someone who smoked and drank cheap beer—already gone through her things looking for valuables?
Her heart thwacked. Please let the money still be there.
Hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulders, Gwynn hurried up the creaking stairs to the second floor and pushed open her bedroom door.