Chapter Four
Nolan Avery woke suddenly, with the uneasy certainty that something was wrong. For a moment, he lay still beneath the weight of the blankets, listening, hoping to clear his mind to understand why he felt this way.
The house creaked softly around him in familiar rhythms. Wind brushed faintly against the outer walls. He knew the animals were still asleep, and the noise couldn’t have come from the barn.
He heard only normal sounds. And yet the uneasy feeling remained.
Nolan moved his gaze toward the bedroom window, where darkness still covered the land beyond the glass. Leaving the window, he slowly shifted his focus to the room... And then he saw it. A narrow strip of light beneath his bedroom door.
Nolan frowned. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached automatically for the revolver resting atop the nightstand before stepping into the hallway.
The house was quiet. Almost too quiet.
The lamp downstairs glowed faintly, giving him the light he needed. Carefully, he descended the staircase, each board groaning beneath his weight.
When reaching the dining area, he glimpsed another very dim light coming from the kitchen. Slowly, he moved toward the shadows until his sight adjusted.
Deborah sat alone at the kitchen table, still dressed... and pale. A cup of coffee rested untouched near her elbow, steam long gone cold. Her hands were clasped tightly together atop the table, though not tightly enough to hide the tremor running through them.
Nolan’s awareness sharpened immediately. She was afraid of something, which in turn made him leery.
“What happened?” he asked.
Deborah jumped and looked up quickly, almost guiltily, as though she had hoped to compose herself before he found her. For a moment, she said nothing. Then, slowly, she slid something across the table toward him.
A folded note. Beside it, rested a small blue wildflower.
Nolan narrowed his eyes. He picked up the paper first. Black handwriting curved across the page. Pretty things rarely survive the desert.
Cold anger settled low in his chest. It wasn’t because of the words, but it was the knowledge that an uninvited stranger had been inside his house.
He lifted his gaze sharply to Deborah. “Where did you get this?”
“It was on my windowsill.”
Every muscle in Nolan’s body went still. “When?”
“The window was open when I retired to the room after supper.” Her voice shook slightly despite her efforts to steady it. “The flower and note were there.”
Nolan clenched his jaw hard enough to make his face ache. Someone had crossed onto his property. Walked up to the house. Near Ellie... and his invalid brother.
His grip on the paper flexed. “Who wrote this?” he asked flatly.
Deborah swallowed. “I believe it was the Sapphire Widow... A woman I’d researched from my past.”
The name meant nothing to him. But the fear in Deborah’s eyes did.
Nolan pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. “Tell me everything.”
For several seconds, Deborah simply stared down at her hands. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded tired in a way that reached deeper than exhaustion.
“I never meant to bring the problem to you. In fact, I didn’t know I’d be followed.”
“That’s not an answer I seek, Deborah.”
She displayed a slight involuntary reaction. He surmised this was not due to the content of his words, but rather their intensity. She appeared aware of the potential risk yet chose to come into his home regardless. His daughter should not have been subjected to this situation.
It irritated him that she could enter his life and, in less than twenty-four hours, he came to care for her, enough to want to help her with the mix-up that had happened.
Nolan exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing some measure of control back into himself. “Tell me the truth, Deborah.”
At that, something in her expression shifted. She didn’t appear defensive. Instead, it was as though she’d spent too long carrying something alone.
“From what I’ve researched, the Sapphire Widow isn’t one person to most people,” she said quietly. “She’s a rumor. A story told in whispers. Men blame her for ruined fortunes and disappearances, but no one ever says her name publicly.”
“Do you personally know her?”
She shrugged. “No. There was a time I thought I saw a woman dressed as a widow, who had been watching me. But then she disappeared as soon as I spotted her. I wondered if I had been imagining her.”
“You say she was dressed as a widow?”
“Indeed. She wore black, even the sheer veil attached to her bonnet that covered half of her face. In fact, if she dressed as other women and talked to me on the street, I don’t think I would recognize her.”
A chill moved unexpectedly through Nolan despite the warmth of the kitchen. Deborah stared somewhere beyond him now, lost briefly in memory.
“I’ve heard that the widow is always calm,” she said softly. “That she’s the sort of woman people notice the moment she enters a room.” Her fingers tightened together. “And that she smiles while making threats.”
Nolan watched her carefully. Deborah wasn’t trying to be dramatic in her description and what she’d heard, but the obvious look of terror in her eyes was unmistakable. “Why has she targeted you?”
Deborah hesitated. Then she rose slowly from the table. “I’ll show you.”
She disappeared upstairs before he could say anything. Show me? Besides the threatening note and the wildflower, what else was in her possession that had brought endangerment into his home?
Nolan leaned back in his chair, the note still clenched in his hand. Every instinct he possessed screamed that this situation had just become far worse than he’d imagined. And he’d already imagined plenty.
One thing was certain. He needed to get Deborah out of his life and send her back to Illinois to take care of her own problems.
A moment later, she returned carrying a bundle wrapped carefully in cloth. She set it gently on the table between them.
Nolan frowned as she unfolded the fabric. What had been hidden behind the cloth was papers... dozens of them, and ledgers, maps, and contracts. His former lawman instincts sharpened immediately.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
“I found them.”
“That’s not enough explanation for what appears to be half a railroad office, and two brothels, and a handful of boarding houses.”
Deborah closed her eyes briefly. “I worked briefly as a secretary for a man in Bloomington named Edwin Mercer. I didn’t realize at first what kind of business he handled.” Her voice lowered. “Then one night I stayed late and heard shouting downstairs.”
Nolan listened silently.
“There were men arguing about land claims and payments. Someone threatened to expose them.” Her breathing hitched slightly. “Although I strongly felt whatever these men were up to was corrupt, I knew I had to help in some way, so I went looking for evidence.”
She slid one of the ledgers toward him. Nolan flipped it open. On the spreadsheet were columns of numbers and property transfers, with names and addresses. Several lines were crossed out in black ink.
He scowled. “These are land confiscations.”
Deborah nodded faintly. “There are false death records, too. And these,” she slid another page toward him, “are railroad acquisitions. More than likely, they are bribes.” She swallowed hard. “I think people were murdered over them... God rest their poor souls.”
Nolan looked up sharply. “And you took this? Why would you do something so foolish?”
“At first, I took them home to read through everything in private, without getting caught,” she shot back, emotion cracking through her composure for the first time.
“Once I realized the information I had, I thought about returning them, but I couldn’t.
Something inside of me knew this was evidence that I had to turn over to the sheriff.
But... I was frightened that I might end up on a spreadsheet like this...
my life taken because I wanted to make it right. ”
Silence fell heavily between them.
Nolan studied her for a long moment. She looked exhausted, but mostly terrified. And entirely sincere. But sincerity didn’t change the facts. She had discovered something dangerous, and it was up to him to return her to Illinois and find a U.S. Marshal.
“You should’ve told me before you crossed my doorway,” he said quietly.
Pain flickered across her face. “I know, but I honestly didn’t think someone would follow me. And... I don’t have any place else to go.”
The simple honesty of it hit harder than he expected.
Nolan cursed softly beneath his breath and stood, pacing once toward the stove before turning back. This was his home. His family. They were all placed in danger because a frightened woman had nowhere else to run.
Anger ran through him fiercely with reluctant understanding. “Whoever left that note got close enough to this house to watch us sleeping. Do you understand that?”
Deborah lowered her gaze. “Yes.”
“And if the widow woman followed you here—”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
Her voice broke on the words. That stopped him, because beneath the fear and secrecy and trouble, one thing had become painfully obvious. Deborah Prescott carried guilt like an open wound.
Nolan scrubbed a hand across his jaw. Then he dropped his eyes once more to the documents spread across the table. Railroad records. Federal land contracts. That type of corruption reached far beyond Illinois, he was certain.
Indeed, the U.S. Marshal in Illinois should be in charge of this.
“We will take these documents to the U.S. Marshal in your territory,” he said finally.
Deborah blinked. “What?”
“These papers.” He tapped the ledger. “They need turning over somewhere this widow can’t reach easily.”
“Why can’t you find a U.S. Marshal in Montana?”
“It needs to be in Illinois.” His answer came instantly and sharply. He already knew small towns too well. Money bought silence and loyalty in places like Willowhaven. There was no way he would take that chance with his family living here.
“We will go back east tomorrow,” he said. “Chicago, if we must, but somewhere federal.”
Deborah stared at him in disbelief. “You... are going to take me?”
“Well, I’m not going to leave you to travel alone while someone’s hunting you.”
A complicated expression crossed her face then—relief tangled painfully with guilt.
“You barely know me, Mr. Avery.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
But in reality, it did matter. More than he wanted it to. But Nolan had once worn a badge long enough to know exactly what happened to frightened women forced to face dangerous men alone. And despite everything, despite the anger simmering beneath his skin... he believed her.
A small sound interrupted the silence. Nolan turned. Ellie stood halfway down the staircase in her nightdress, clutching the railing sleepily.
“Pa? You leaving?”
The question pierced straight through the room. Deborah’s expression fell instantly.
Nolan softened his voice, not wanting his daughter to know his frustration. “Just for a little while, sweetheart.”
Ellie looked uncertain. “Together?”
Nolan hesitated only briefly. “Yes.”
Her gaze shifted between them before she nodded slowly and disappeared back upstairs without another word. The silence she left behind felt heavier than before.
Deborah stared down at the table. “Mr. Avery, please believe how sorry I am for all of this.”
Nolan looked at her for a long moment. “You brought trouble here,” he said honestly.
She flinched.
Then he sighed roughly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m turning you out to face it alone.”
Emotion flickered briefly across her face so quickly he almost missed it. Was it gratitude? Or was she starting to trust him now?
Nolan looked away first. Trust had a way of becoming an attachment before a man realized he’d allowed it. And attachments got people hurt. Especially in situations like this.