скачать книгу бесплатно
After the meeting broke up, Shelby and Amelia lingered over fresh glasses of tea and chatted about the task ahead.
Amelia laughed softly. “Welcome to the newest member of the Historical Society.” She toasted Shelby with her glass.
“I don’t know how that happened,” Shelby admitted with more than a hint of wry humor.
“I do,” her landlady said confidently. “Miss Pickford could get money and a pledge to participate in a Christmas toy fund-raiser from the Grinch.”
“I think you’re right. We need to find out about her early teaching days here,” Shelby said thoughtfully. “She must know tons of interesting stories and anecdotes.”
“Hmm, she could probably blackmail ninety percent of the population over the age of thirty since she taught most of them. My parents had her when the school board opened the elementary school here for one through eighth grades and closed all the county schools.”
A bolt of excitement shot through Shelby. The teacher might have known her parents, too. Her mother could have been a student who got pregnant and went away to have the baby, perhaps living with relatives in South Carolina and giving the baby up for adoption there.
She took a calming breath, aware that she was letting her imagination run wild. One thing at a time.
Amelia snapped her fingers. “Old Doc Barony’s records!”
“In the attic,” Shelby added, following the line of thought perfectly.
“Yes. In your spare time…” Amelia said, giving her a big grin, “maybe you could record the names of patients—oh, and the dates any of them died and any children born—then we could compare those to the county title records to make sure we got everyone.”
Shelby’s heart went into a series of rapid beats. Birth. Death. Names. Dates. Diseases and disorders. Those records might tell her everything she needed to know.
“That’s a possibility,” she said, careful to keep her voice blandly interested.
“You’d have to ask Beau, but I don’t see any reason he’d refuse. I mean, you’re a nurse, so you’d keep everything confidential.”
“Right,” Shelby said. “In fact, I’m going to be working for Dr. Dalton. In the mornings.” She explained all that had happened that day—the canceling of the health classes and her acceptance of Beau’s offer.
“Perfect,” Amelia declared, rising. She glanced at her watch. “Time to start preparing the evening snacks. I have a new recipe for crab-apple dip, as in seafood mixed with fresh chopped apples, that I want to try tonight. Come to the kitchen and we can talk while I cook.”
Shelby followed her new friend into the spacious kitchen. The cook who did the breakfast menu was gone for the day, and the two younger women had it to themselves.
“Here, taste this and see if it has too much chili powder.” Amelia handed her a cracker with a generous dollop of the dip.
“I think it’s delicious. Shall I start on a vegetable tray or something?”
“Sure. In that big refrigerator, bottom drawer.”
After a few minutes of peeling and arranging, Shelby murmured, “This is nice. It makes me sort of miss my mom, though. She and I always cooked together.”
“My mother and I were a disaster together,” Amelia admitted. “She never thought I did anything right.”
“That’s too bad,” Shelby said sympathetically.
Amelia sighed. “She was right about some things. I married a handsome rodeo cowboy I’d known for all of two weeks, suffered two miserable years of marriage, then left him when he actually hit me once. In the meantime, my grandparents died within a few years of each other and I inherited this place. I was glad to tuck my tail between my legs and come here to live.”
“You’ve created a wonderful B and B,” Shelby said sincerely. “You make all your guests feel welcome.”
“It’s because I’m happy. I learned home is truly where the heart is, and this is mine.”
For a minute Shelby wanted desperately to bare her soul to Amelia and to tell her of her own past mistakes and her present quest. She hesitated, the phone rang and the moment was lost.
That was probably better anyway. She didn’t want the information about her search leaking. If her birth mother still lived here, she didn’t want to expose her to the embarrassment of her neighbors knowing about the child she’d given up twenty-nine years ago.
After having her own child and losing it, albeit to death, she didn’t want to cause pain to anyone else. Setting the finished tray in the fridge, Shelby waved to the other woman and went to her room.
She considered the old records in the attic at Beau’s office. They might tell her everything she needed to know without her having to search for a living person.
Tomorrow she would start work for Beau Dalton. She would ask him about going through the records for the Historical Society and volunteer to dispose of them. She considered this plan from all angles and decided it had no problems that she could see.
A picture of intense blue eyes flashed into her mind, eyes that seemed to see right inside her at times. She would have to compose her request beforehand so that she didn’t stumble over the words and arouse his suspicions.
She wondered if he believed her story of finding out about the position here over the Internet.
It was true…as far as it went.
But, of course, it wasn’t the whole story. She’d known exactly where she was going to look for a job.
The town was the only thing she knew about her birth mother. A copper bracelet had been forgotten and left at the birthing clinic. It had been made by a Nez Perce family and sold through a gift shop here in Lost Valley. The nurse had put it with her belongings when her adoptive parents had come to pick her up.
Shelby removed the bracelet from her small jewelry carrier, a velvet roll-up bag with several pockets her aunt, one of her father’s sisters, had given her at graduation years ago. The copper gleamed brightly in the afternoon light from the window. Its polished stones were engraved with intricate symbols, similar to Egyptian scarabs but using birds and plants for models.
She didn’t think her parents had been Native American, but that was a possibility. After considering wearing the bracelet, she reluctantly put it away. She had no idea whether anyone might recognize it, but she wasn’t ready to take that chance. Not yet.
With a rueful smile, she admitted she’d learned caution in her old age. Her birth mother must have learned it, too.
The lines from a poem studied long ago came to her.
I was young, as was my heart;
And I followed where it led—
Followed my heart and not my head,
Those days
When I was young, as was my heart.
Some wistful part of her longed to be that young, confident girl again, excited about life and all that it could hold.
A more cynical part of her scoffed at the idea.
She knew which part to believe.
Chapter Three
S helby didn’t like the way her insides got all in a knot when she parked at the far end of the paved area beside the Lost Valley Medical Clinic. The first day on a new job was always nerve-racking, but she’d worked with many doctors in many situations at the hospital in her hometown. Today was no different from any other.
Except that she would be working with Beau Dalton and her reasons weren’t purely medical.
Well, she couldn’t sit in the car all day. Still, she hesitated for another few seconds. Scolding herself for being a coward, she climbed out of her subcompact station wagon and went inside.
“Hi,” Beau greeted from the door to his office. “I was wondering if you were going to come inside or if you’d changed your mind already.”
The receptionist wasn’t in sight, so Shelby assumed they were alone. Perhaps this was an opportunity to mention the old files. She took a calming breath, then started. “I haven’t changed my mind. In fact, I’ve been sent on a mission here.”
He gestured toward his office. “We have a few minutes. Come in and tell me about it.”
She glanced over his bookcases and briefly studied the diplomas and plaques that doctors acquired during their years of training. He’d taken courses in both diagnostics and surgery procedures, making him well qualified for a general practice in a small town.
“Do you approve?” he asked in some amusement.
“Very much. Are you planning on doing surgery here?”
“Only for emergencies. I have arrangements with a surgeon in Boise to perform scheduled operations. You were going to tell me about your mission?”
“Oh, yes.” She explained about the Historical Society and its needs.
“The old records,” he murmured, his eyes on her. “The attic is full of ’em. You know, that’s a good idea. I’ll help you go through them so we don’t miss any of the founding fathers and mothers, then we’ll shred the files.”
She was sure he didn’t realize he was staring at her while he considered, but she was very aware of that deep blue gaze burning holes in her skin. Electricity zinged along every nerve, so much so that she hardly registered his decision to help her. Then it hit her.
“Oh,” she said. “Uh, you don’t have to help. I mean, all that dust to be stirred up. And it’ll probably take a lot of time.”
He merely nodded. “It’ll be interesting, checking the old records. I’m familiar with most of the original families, so that should speed things along.”
She realized to protest further would arouse suspicion. He was too quick on the uptake to deceive. Not that she was doing anything wrong. At least she didn’t think she was. So why did she feel sneaky and underhanded?
Answer—the clear blue gaze that stared right into her soul. She looked away with an effort.
He reached over and stroked gently along her cheek. She whipped around, startled.
“I just had to see if your skin was as soft as it looked. It is,” he told her.
His smile wasn’t bold or teasing or sardonic. Instead he seemed pensive and lost in his own thoughts as questions flickered through his eyes. Some part of her also questioned the awareness between them and what it meant.
“I think,” he said in a husky tone, “that together we may be flint and steel.”
He touched the hair at her temple, then, without losing contact, moved his hand until he curled a finger under her chin and lifted her face so he could study her more closely.
Alarm whipped through her. “No,” she whispered.
He raised his eyebrows slightly, as if amused by the odd play between them. “No?”
Their eyes met and held. A door opened and footsteps sounded in the hall. The moment shattered like dropped crystal. “Hello?” a feminine voice called.
“In here,” he called. “It’s Ruth Stein. Have you met her?” he asked Shelby.
During the next few minutes Shelby met Ruth, the nurse-midwife, a woman in her late forties who was married to one of the two brothers who owned the hardware store. The receptionist was Alberta Stein, married to the other brother and also in her mid to late forties.
That’s where the similarity ended, Shelby noted. Ruth was close to six feet tall and pleasingly plump. Bertie, as the other was called, topped the chart at maybe five-two and a hundred pounds. Shelby, in the middle at five-five and average weight, was amused to see they formed a perfect set of stair steps as they shook hands and exchanged greetings.
“Why do I suddenly feel outnumbered?” Beau demanded, managing to appear worried about his safety.
“Because you are,” Ruth assured him. “You’d better behave yourself in this office.”
“I promise to curb my wilder tendencies.” He cut a glance at Shelby. “Although I make no such claims for when we’re outside office hours.”
A sizzle of undefined emotion rushed along her nerves as the two older women followed his gaze, then smiled at her with speculation as well as kindness in their eyes.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Beau said conversationally.
“Very much so,” Bertie agreed.
“Watch him,” Ruth advised. “If he gives you any trouble, let us know.”
“I will,” Shelby promised as the other three laughed with the easy camaraderie of those long known to each other. “You know, I think I’m going to like it here.” She couldn’t resist giving her boss a challenging sideways glance.
“You women,” he scoffed, then ducked into his office as the phone rang. “I’ll get it.”
“Time to start work,” Bertie said cheerfully, going to her desk at the front of the office.
Shelby realized it was exactly eight o’clock. The day had truly begun. She wondered when she could get at the files in the attic.
At five that afternoon Shelby hung up the phone on her last call. She’d completed all the follow-up calls to the parents of those students who needed additional care per Beau’s instructions, so all was in order for school to start in two weeks. Since she didn’t have classes, she technically had no other duties until that time.
Returning to the B and B, she changed to shorts, tank top and jogging shoes, then headed for the path on the other side of town. There, she noticed all the new building going on around the lake formed by the reservoir dam as she jogged along the trail.
Most of the houses were impressive, and she wondered how so many people had the money to build such large homes. She gazed wistfully at the cottage that was for sale next to a large building that looked as if it would be a resort. Her heart dipped when she saw a Sold sign on the tiny house.
“Hey, hello!”
She stopped in surprise when Beau Dalton yelled and waved her over. Going to where he and a couple of other men worked on the foundation of the resort, she couldn’t help but gasp when the trio smiled at her.
She couldn’t recall ever being in the presence of three more dynamic men, all of them similar in their blue-eyed, dark-haired good looks, two of them as alike as the proverbial peas. They all wore old cargo shorts or cutoffs with sneakers and no shirts.
Bronzed, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, they exuded masculine power and confidence. She found herself wary, on guard against the overwhelming aura of force they unconsciously represented.
Beau gestured to the other two. “My cousins, Travis and Trevor. And yes, they’re twins.”
“Glad to meet you,” one of the twins said.
“Ditto,” the other said with decidedly more enthusiasm, unbridled interest leaping into his eyes.
Shelby felt a bit flustered.
“Down, boy,” Beau said to his cousin. “Trev is a nuisance, but harmless,” he then assured her.
