Chapter 1 #2
She dropped to her hands and knees. Cool linoleum pressed through her leggings. Dust smeared her palms. She reached into the shadows until her fingers brushed smooth glass.
There you are.
She closed her hand around it and backed out carefully so she didn’t whack her head. As she shifted, something caught her eye. A drawer tucked into the underside of the desk, invisible unless you were down here looking up.
Huh.
She rocked back on her heels, ornament in hand. Her pulse picked up. She tugged the drawer knob.
Locked.
As executor of her mother’s estate, she had gone through every bill, every document, every last piece of her mother’s life. Done. Final. Finished.
Or so she thought.
A hidden drawer? Why?
She tugged again. Nope. Not opening.
Well, fiddlesticks.
She went around to the front of the desk, opened each drawer, and found paperclips, pens, two small keys that didn’t fit anything she could find. Maybe one of them unlocked the drawer.
Except no, they didn’t fit the hidden drawer either.
Locksmith?
She glanced at the clock. Not at seven p.m. on a Saturday in Evergreen Springs.
This could wait until Monday.
Except her mind had already latched onto it like a dog on a bone. What did Mom hide?
Her imagination spun out the ridiculous. A secret affair? Adoption papers? A dark confession? She almost laughed. Mom wasn’t the type.
But everyone had secrets, didn’t they?
Even Megan.
Hers was named Braxton Buffington III. Superintendent of the school district. Conference in Omaha. Hotel bar. Expensive whiskey. A decision she regretted instantly and carried like a bruise. He still nudged her to “see where this could go.” She dodged every suggestion. Shame always tasted the same.
“Sorry, Mom, I have to know.” She picked up the letter opener and attacked the lock. Metal scraped. The blade bent. “Darn.”
Wrong tool.
She pulled a hairpin from her bun and slid it into the keyhole. Slow. Careful. The same steady patience her mother taught her when untangling jewelry chains.
Click.
The lock gave.
Excitement and dread punched her. She held her breath.
Inside lay a manila envelope, faintly scented with Opium, her mother’s perfume.
Megan lifted the envelope, brought it close, inhaled as tears pressed at her eyes. She sniffled them back, untied the string. The top sheet was copy paper, curled at the corners, toner faded.
The Bozeman Avant Courier, December 30, 1870.
LOCAL DROVER brAVES BLIZZARD TO SAVE EVERGREEN SPRINGS SETTLEMENT
Bozeman, Montana Territory—
News reaches us of uncommon heroism near the small frontier community of Evergreen Springs.
When the recent blizzard rendered all trails impassable and cut off the town’s supply of food and medicine, Mr. Holden Reed, a cattle drover employed by the Murray Cattle Company, undertook a perilous ride through blinding snow to reach help for the stranded settlers.
For two days and nights, he pushed onward in blackout conditions to reach Fort Clifton. The citizens of Evergreen Springs said, “No man ever rode truer or with greater courage.”
The Courier commends Mr. Reed’s noble example, proof that the spirit of the frontier yet endures.
Wait.
Holden Reed?
It wasn’t Captain William Murray, her three-times-great-grandfather, who saved Evergreen Springs?
Who in the heck was Holden Reed?
She read it again. Murray’s name only appeared as Reed’s employer. Somewhere along the line, the story twisted. Had her family twisted it?
Her throat constricted. She reached into the envelope again, half-dreading what came next.
Pink stationery embossed with: From the Desk of Tina Collins.
February 2004
I found Great-Granddaddy’s journal while settling Dad’s estate, and it’s shaken my worldview.
Family legend says Captain William Murray rode through the blizzard of 1870 to save Evergreen Springs. But it’s untrue. A drover called Holden Reed made the ride to save our town.
Somewhere along the line, the Murrays claimed his story as their own. And we’ve repeated the lie ever since. Dad knew. His father knew. Each generation chose stolen valor over truth.
I can’t bring myself to destroy the proof. But I can’t face what happens if I speak it aloud. So I’ll leave it here, tucked away, for someone braver to find.
Megan stared at the looping handwriting. Twenty years. Her mother carried this alone. Never told her. Never corrected the pageant. Never changed the narrative, even as it gnawed at her.
Family name or truth.
And Tina Collins chose silence.
Megan lifted another item from the envelope. A black moleskin journal—her great-great-grandfather’s confession that the Murrays protected the lie.
There really was no way out. Her family had stolen Holden Reed’s story and built a legacy around it.
She pulled her knees to her chest. “Mom, I need you. I don’t know what to do.”
One last thing sat in the envelope.
An antique Christmas card. Gold Merry Christmas script. Paint cracked with age. A cowboy leaning against a snowy fence, in a rich brown duster. Dark eyes fixed on something beyond the frame. Jeb Ortega’s signature curled in the corner.
On the back:
Holden Reed, 1878.
Eight years after the blizzard.
Holden mattered to someone. Someone kept this. Someone remembered him.
Where had he gone? Had he watched Evergreen Springs celebrate the wrong man? How had that felt?
She touched his painted face. Rugged. Handsome. “I’m sorry my family robbed you.”
The apology felt useless across centuries. But she could stop the lie now. She could stand on that stage and tell the town exactly what happened.
But her stomach twisted at the thought. Board members. Old family friends. The Murrays. Hilary Paige. Braxton Buffington. Her mother’s colleagues.
Would they understand Tina’s silence?
Or judge them both?
The proof sat in her lap. The truth stared back. Holden Reed rode into a blizzard for strangers. The least she could do was speak his name.
She stared at the Christmas card.
Holden stared back.
Handsome, yes. But something else in those enigmatic eyes—steadiness, courage, challenge.
“I need to honor your truth,” she whispered. “I need to know what to do. I need—”
Suddenly, the card warmed in her hand.
She gasped.
Heat bloomed through her skin. Light sparked along the edges, bleeding into the painting, brightening the snow, deepening the shadows.
Drop it.
Move.
Run.
She couldn’t. The painted cowboy leaned just a fraction.
A tiny squeak escaped her.
Light pulsed. Her heartbeat matched it, and her vision blurred. Heat climbed her arms and gathered in her chest.
“What do I do? I need to know what’s right. I need you.”
That’s when a blast of golden light filled the office and broke over her like a wave.