“I’ll walk with you. I have a little time before Caleb finishes up at the bank.” Rachel looped her arm through Meredith’s and guided her along the planked walkway in the direction of Abe’s Livery. “Personally, I think Hunter always regretted that you’d had to move away. He was pretty sweet on you. I half expected him to propose, but I guess during the trial was hardly the time, and then maybe he figured it was better for you to get away from everything for a while.”
Their footsteps echoed on the wood of the raised sidewalks, beating in tandem with her heart, though the latter seemed to hold more ferocity. She tried to marry Rachel’s words with what had actually happened, but there was a deep abyss between what her friend believed and the truth.
“I’m sure he got over it.” She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice. Rachel and Hunter were still good friends.
“Are you?” Rachel tilted her head to one side and the morning sunlight danced along her glowing skin. “I’m not so sure. He’d never talk about it afterward. Closed right up on the subject. And he’s never taken up with anyone else, not seriously. Not that there haven’t been plenty of mamas practically throwing their daughters at him. A handsome sheriff with a family fortune waiting in the wings is a potent combination. But he’s avoided the matchmaking. I always wondered if he wasn’t carrying a torch for you.”
“I’m sure he isn’t.” No man rejected a woman in such a horrendous fashion, then pined for her afterward.
“Well, either way. When he received word your pa had passed on, he rode to Laramie to bring him home. He and Bertram arranged the burial and made sure he rested next to your ma like he wanted.” Rachel stopped at the corner in front of the mercantile and nodded toward the door. “This is me. I promised Ethan I would bring him back a peppermint stick.”
“Ethan?”
Rachel laughed. Meredith marveled at how her friend’s face lit up as the sound filtered around them like music. “Oh, Meredith. There is so much to catch up on. I took Ethan in a few years ago after his ma died. Promise me you will let me invite you out to the Circle S. You can meet Caleb and Ethan and you wouldn’t believe how much Brody has grown.”
“Good heavens. Your brother was just a little boy when I left. And Freedom?” Meredith asked, referring to Rachel’s housekeeper.
Rachel shook her head. “Still trying to teach me how to cook. She’d love to see you. Tell me you’ll come?”
A strange sense of belonging rooted Meredith to the spot and for a brief speck of time all she could do was stand there and let it wrap around her. It had been so long since she’d felt it. She’d feared coming back to Salvation Falls she wouldn’t be able to find it. Just another thing she’d lost along with her family. But she hadn’t. It was still there waiting for her to grab hold.
“I would love to, Rachel.”
“Great!” Rachel hugged her hard, the tiny baby growing in her belly brushing against Meredith’s own. A strange longing bloomed deep inside of her but she shook it off. The hope of love and family were lost to her now. She needed to accept that. “How about this coming Sunday? After church. We can make a day of it,” her friend suggested.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
They said their goodbyes and Meredith continued on to the livery, her step lighter than it had been, the ruffled edge of her skirt bouncing at her ankles. For the first time since arriving in Salvation Falls she felt certain she had made the right decision.
She still had friends here. People who cared. She wasn’t alone.
Hunter opened the door to his father’s house, taking in the shabby state of the once grand home. The house had been in decline since his mother had left them over fifteen years ago.
For a little while, Hunter had made an obligatory effort to keep the place up, certain it would just be a matter of time before his mother returned. But weeks passed into months then into years and eventually he stopped believing in such things. He packed away his hopes in that regard and shelved them along with the few belongings she hadn’t seen fit to take with her.
Shy Waters, his father’s latest housekeeper, did her best to keep the place clean, cook meals for his father and see to his basic comforts, but time insisted on having its way. Curtains and quilts faded, cushions flattened, surfaces dulled and dust collected.
At some point, Shy Waters had decided that covering a large portion of the house in sheets and closing the doors made it easier to deal with. It gave the cavernous house an abandoned feel to it.
He guessed, in a sense, that’s what it was. His mother had abandoned it, and so had he, spending most of his time between the sheriff’s office and the room he’d cleared out in the attic above it. He came home weekly to check in on his father, playing the dutiful son. Not that his father noticed. As far as he was concerned, Hunter should be here full-time; anything less was reneging on his responsibilities. Soon, his father would have his wish. It was not a day Hunter looked forward to. He kept making up reasons to put it off but time was running out. He told himself he didn’t owe his father anything—God only knew he’d never got anything from him—but duty and honor and some misplaced hope that he could still build a relationship with his father would not die. He longed to experience the type of closeness he’d witnessed between Meredith and Abbott. It was foolish, he knew. His father was nothing like Abbott Connolly, but he was the only blood Hunter had left.