AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not true. Happens much more often than you’d think.”
She laughed and laid back down. The morning sun glinted off her ring, and she frowned a little. “How did your parents die?”
“Scarlet fever.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight? Maybe nine.”
His voice didn’t change, but the sudden tenseness of his body next to her spoke louder than anything else could have. She reached over and took his hand in hers. For a few moments, they laid there in silence, just being together.
“I don’t know much about you, either,” he said. “Less even, than you knew about me going into all this, since you’d at least heard of me.”
She let go of his hand, retreating to her safe space. The questions had been anticipated. After all, she’d just interrogated him about his life. But somehow knowing the questions were coming and actually hearing them, knowing answers were expected—and owed—was entirely different.
Gray turned on his side and looked down at her. “You told me before that everyone in Desolation has their secrets.”
She blew out a long breath, knowing where this was going and wishing she hadn’t started it. “Yes.”
“You know my secrets,” Gray said. “And if I’m to protect you, it might help to know yours.”
She didn’t react for a second. He had a point. A good one. But she’d gone too many years avoiding talking about anything that had brought her to Desolation until opening up now wasn’t easy.
“You can ask me what you’d like,” she said. “I will try to answer.”
Gray nodded, regarding her for a moment. “Who is buried in the orchard?”
Mercy froze. She didn’t think he would start with that question. In fact, it hadn’t occurred to her he would even wonder.
“My father. He was a good man but—the last few years, he often gambled to excess. Left me to take care of most things.” She tried to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat. He deserved to be told the truth. “Everyone in town knew he was gambling away the money I’d earned working the farm—and I was ashamed. Ashamed of my own father.” Her voice broke, yet she held his gaze. “But I loved him, Gray. Faults and all, I loved him.”
He took her hand and rubbed his thumb over her fingers. “How did he die?”
The rage that flashed through her veins made her hands shake, and Gray threaded his fingers through hers, giving them a squeeze.
She took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “I found him facedown in the creek, his head bleeding. The sheriff said he must have fallen and cracked his skull, knocked himself too senseless to pull his face out of the water. But I know it was Josiah. Dad had crossed that creek a thousand times. He grew up here with a cousin of his, the one who left him the property. He knew every rock in that creek bed. And the timing was far too convenient. There’s no way his death was an accident.”
Gray brought her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. “He won’t get away with it,” he promised.
Her eyes searched his and, after a moment, she nodded, apparently seeing what she needed to see. He only hoped he could follow through for her.
“So that’s why you’re in Desolation?” he asked. “Inherited a homestead?”
She looked at him and shrugged. “To begin with. But Desolation kind of grows on you,” she said with a soft smile. “I liked the people. For the first time in a long time, I had a family again. And I had this place and my orchard. There’s even a full river flowing through the property, so plenty of water for the trees. Everything seemed to be going well, but then Dad died and…you know the rest.”
Gray’s brow furrowed. “Everything except why Josiah wants this place so badly.”
“That, I truly don’t know.” Mercy sighed. “Then again, he’s probably just a greedy landowner who wants to increase his property. It’s good land, fertile, full-grown orchard on it that brings in a tidy income. And he does own most of the surrounding property. People have killed for less.”
“That’s true enough.” He gave her hand a little tug, bringing it to his lips so he could press a heated kiss to it. “Thank you for telling me.”
Mercy gave him a faint smile, still a bit embarrassed that she had told him so much. She reached out and brushed his hair from his face. “You know, you might like it here if you give it half a chance.”
He gave her a slow grin that sent heat pouring through her veins. “There are some parts of it I like immensely.” He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. Whatever else she was going to say evaporated from her mind the moment his lips touched hers. She’d remember later.
…
Gray woke a few hours later and reached out for his wife, only to find her empty pillow. He sat up, frowning, and rubbed his face, trying to wake up. A bit of a commotion seemed to be going on outside, and if he wasn’t mistaken, Mercy’s voice was in the thick of it. What had that woman gotten herself into now?
