Page 30 of Into the Starlight (Secrets of Sweetwater Crossing #3)

Chapter Thirty

Joanna stared at Thomas’s body, horror making her whole body tremble. “Oh, Burke, what will Gertrude do?” She raised her gaze to meet his and saw sorrow reflected in his eyes. “It was awful when Kurt died, but at least I knew it was from natural causes. The doctors did everything they could to save him and Grandmother.”

Almost involuntarily, her eyes moved downward, propelled by the hope that she’d simply imagined the still body and the lifeless eyes. But she hadn’t. Joanna shuddered again. “This is so much worse than what happened to Kurt. I just don’t understand it. Thomas was such a mild-mannered man. Why would anyone want to kill him?”

Burke wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her close to him, giving Joanna the comfort she needed so desperately. “It’ll be the sheriff’s responsibility to discover that. I’ll go for him once we take Thomas’s body to the ranch and tell Gertrude what happened.”

Her heart aching over the thought of the coming conversa tion with her former teacher, Joanna helped Burke lift Thomas into the back of the buggy, then climbed onto the front seat next to Burke.

“How can anyone kill?” she demanded, her voice fierce with anger as they turned into the drive leading to the ranch house.

“Murder’s been part of human history ever since Cain and Abel,” Burke reminded her.

Though his words were matter of fact, the harshness of his tone told Joanna his anger matched hers. As a physician, Burke was no stranger to death, but violent death, because it was so unnatural, was more difficult to accept.

Joanna sighed. “My father used to preach about ‘thou shalt not kill’ at least once a year, but that didn’t stop someone from killing him. And now someone’s killed Thomas.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm her emotions. “I can’t dwell on that right now. Gertrude will need me to be strong for her.”

Burke reached for her hand and squeezed it before he reined in the horse in front of the ranch house. “You can do it. I know you can. You’re a brave and strong woman, Joanna.”

Her confidence boosted by his faith in her, Joanna prepared to descend from the buggy. “I think it’ll be better if I break the news to Gertrude alone, so give me a minute or two before you come in.”

She knocked on the front door. When there was no immediate response, she entered and closed the door behind her, not wanting Gertrude to see Burke and the buggy with Thomas’s body.

“Gertrude!” she called out.

The off-key singing that stopped abruptly left no doubt that Thomas’s widow was inside the house. She emerged from the kitchen, her eyes widening with surprise when she recognized Joanna. “What are you doing here so early?” Gertrude’s greeting was less than welcoming, perhaps because she hadn’t expected visitors before breakfast.

Though Joanna wanted to hug her, Gertrude was not one for hugs, and so she said simply, “I think you should sit down.” She led the way into the parlor and waited until the older woman was seated before she continued. “Something horrible has happened. I wish it weren’t true, but Thomas is dead.”

Gertrude shook her head so violently that one of her hairpins tumbled to the floor. “That’s not possible. He’s out feeding the chickens.”

“No, Gertrude, he’s not. Burke is with him.”

Gertrude’s blue eyes lit with what appeared to be pleasure. “Burke is here?”

“We saw Thomas’s horse by your parents’ house and knew something was wrong, so we started looking for him. We found him at the entrance to the ranch.”

Once again, Gertrude shook her head. “I told you, he’s feeding the chickens.”

Gertrude and Thomas had no chickens. Joanna started to correct the older woman but stopped, recalling how Father had said that people in shock might say or do odd things. That must be what was happening.

At the sound of footsteps in the hallway, both women looked toward the door. As Burke entered, Gertrude jumped to her feet, raced to him, and threw her arms around him. “Tell me it isn’t true,” she demanded.

Gently, Burke disentangled himself from her grip. “I’m afraid it is true.” He pressed his hand on the small of Gertrude’s back and propelled her back to the chair. “We need to bring Thomas inside. Where would you like me to put him?”

The widow looked around the room, her eyes moving wildly, not resting on any one spot. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” Finally, she pointed to the floor in front of the pot-bellied stove. “Put him there. He always liked that stove.”

Gertrude remained silent while Burke carried Thomas’s blanket-covered body into the parlor, her face as expressionless as a stone statue. When Joanna tried to comfort her by touching her hand, she knocked it away.

“I need to fetch the sheriff,” Burke said. “I’ll ask your parents to come too.”

“No!” Once again, Gertrude gave her head a violent shake. “I don’t want anyone, Clive. Just Joanna. She’s the only one who knows how I feel.” Though she’d rejected Joanna’s gesture of comfort only seconds before, Gertrude reached out to grasp her hand. “You’ll stay with me. You have to.”

“Of course I’ll stay with you, but Burke needs to tell the sheriff what happened.”

As she mentioned the sheriff, Joanna realized that Gertrude hadn’t asked how Thomas died. The blanket covered everything but his face, hiding the blood-stained clothing and the evidence that his had not been a peaceful death. Gertrude’s lack of curiosity must be another sign of the shock she’d suffered.

“Do it. Do whatever you have to.” Gertrude, the woman who’d taught her pupils that discipline could be maintained without raising one’s voice, practically shouted at Burke. “Just leave Joanna and me alone.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Burke told Joanna as he left.

Once the front door closed, Gertrude rose, keeping Joanna’s hand gripped in hers. “I don’t want to stay here any longer. There’s nothing I can do for Thomas. Let’s go for a walk. I need to visit my garden.” She spoke almost mechanically, her eyes flashing with an emotion Joanna could not identify.

“Perhaps later when it’s warmer,” Joanna said, trying to calm the obviously distraught woman. “There’s nothing blooming now, is there?”

“Of course not. It’s winter. But we need to go there. Come on, Joanna.” She tugged Joanna’s hand, releasing it only when they were outside. “Don’t dally. There’s no time for that.”

Practically running, Gertrude reached the flower bed in half the time it had taken the last time she’d brought Joanna here. When they reached it, she looked down at the rectangular plot that had been covered with blossoms during the summer, then turned her gaze on Joanna.

“I had to do it, you know. It was the only way.”

She was making no sense. “What did you have to do?”

“Kill Thomas.” Gertrude’s tone was matter of fact, as if she were discussing the price she’d paid for flour rather than her husband’s murder.

Joanna stared, wondering if this was further evidence of Gertrude’s being in shock but realizing it wasn’t. What had seemed odd before now made sense. Gertrude had had no reason to ask how Thomas had died, because she’d been there. She’d been the one who’d pulled the trigger. No wonder the shot had been fired at close range. Thomas would have had no reason to fear his wife.

“Why?” Why had this woman whose eyes bore a madness Joanna had never before seen killed the man she’d married?

Gertrude looked at Joanna as if she were a pupil having difficulty learning a simple lesson. “I couldn’t have any barriers separating Clive and me. I always knew he loved me and would come back for me, and he did. He’s just as handsome as he was then. He hasn’t aged a bit.”

Burke. She was speaking of Burke.

Joanna had thought it odd that Gertrude had called Burke by his uncle’s name so many times but had dismissed it as a slip of the tongue triggered by the strong resemblance between Burke and Clive. It appeared that she’d been wrong and that there was a deeper, darker reason why Gertrude confused the two men.

“Clive Finley is dead.” Joanna needed to bring the older woman back to the present.

“Of course he is.” Pointing toward the now dormant flower bed, Gertrude smiled. “Why do you think my flowers grow so well? Clive is buried beneath them.”

Was this another delusion? Though Joanna wished that were the case, the bed was the right size and shape for a grave, and Gertrude would have been strong enough to dig it. An hour ago, Joanna would have dismissed the idea of her former teacher killing someone, but after her confession that she’d murdered Thomas, the story of Clive being buried here seemed plausible.

“I thought he died in the war.” That was the story everyone in Sweetwater Crossing—everyone but Gertrude—had believed.

“He might have, if he’d gone back to Alabama, but he didn’t.” Gertrude’s expression grew somber as she looked at the place she claimed to have buried a man. “I begged him to marry me, but he wouldn’t. He said he was promised to Della and that she was the only woman he would ever love. He wouldn’t listen when I told him I’d give him more love than she could.”

Gertrude turned beseeching eyes on Joanna, begging for understanding. What Joanna understood was that at some point Gertrude’s mind had taken a terrible turn, her reasoning becoming twisted.

“I couldn’t let him go to her, so I shot him just like I shot Thomas. Thomas thought we were going for a romantic ride before breakfast. Foolish man. He didn’t know that would be the last ride he’d ever take. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. How could I marry the man I love if I already had a husband?”

Joanna had heard of madness, how it warped a person’s mind, how it blurred the lines between right and wrong. Though she had never suspected it of Gertrude, her former teacher had slipped from sanity into madness.

“What happened to Clive?” Joanna wondered how Gertrude had lured him to the ranch. Like Thomas, he probably did not anticipate any harm from this normally calm woman.

Gertrude’s lips twisted into a macabre smile. “I told Clive my father needed to speak with him out here before the four of them met that night, but Papa and Mama weren’t here. They were already in town with your parents. No one knew that Clive had come out here. They all thought he’d left for Alabama early. No one knew he was buried here.”

The pieces to the puzzle were starting to fit together, and the picture they formed was a frightening one.

“Did you write the letter to Della and sign my father’s name?”

Gertrude nodded. “I had to. I didn’t want her to send someone here to look for him. I would have copied your father’s handwriting, but I didn’t know what it looked like, so I used a font I’d seen in an old book. You know how good I am at calligraphy. It was easy enough to copy another font and pretend I was your father. It fooled Della for all these years.” There was a note of triumph in Gertrude’s voice.

“I still don’t understand why you killed Thomas.” She’d claimed she was paving the way to marry the man she loved, but Clive had been dead for decades.

Once again, Gertrude regarded Joanna as if she were slow to learn. “He can’t marry me if I’m married to someone else. Thomas was an impediment. I had to get rid of him just like I have to get rid of you. I can’t let you marry him.” Slowly and deliberately, Gertrude pulled a gun from her pocket. “Don’t think I like doing this, Joanna. I don’t, but it’s the only way.”

Thank you, Lord. Burke knew it was no coincidence that he was here. He was preparing to drive back to town when he saw Gertrude leading Joanna out of the house. Though he wanted to get the sheriff’s investigation started, Burke’s instincts told him something was wrong, that there was no good reason for the women to be walking outside in the cold.

The pace Gertrude was setting and the way she gripped Joanna’s hand made Burke suspect that grief had overcome Gertrude’s common sense and that she might need a sedative to calm her, and so he grabbed his medical bag, climbed down from the buggy, and followed them, staying out of sight by darting from one tree to another. The ground was still soft, muffling his footsteps, but nothing muffled Gertrude’s voice.

The story she related was worse than anything Burke could have imagined. The woman Sweetwater Crossing had admired for decades had killed twice, not in the heat of passion but coldly, deliberately. There was no doubt that Gertrude wasn’t in her right mind, but that didn’t excuse what she’d done or what she planned to do. The gun she had pointed at Joanna had already killed once this morning. Burke couldn’t let her press the trigger again.

Show me how to stop her . He closed his eyes for a second, seeking a way to save the woman he loved. Gertrude’s tale made it clear that she’d suffered from unrequited love decades ago when his uncle had lived here and that she was having trouble distinguishing him from Clive. Perhaps careful use of that delusion was the answer. After another brief prayer for wisdom and strength, Burke placed his bag on the ground and stepped away from the tree.

“Gertrude, darling, why are you all the way out here?” He deepened his accent, hoping that made him sound more like his uncle. Della had once told him that while the physical resemblance was great, his uncle was a bass rather than a tenor.

As Burke had hoped, Gertrude’s head swiveled toward him, though she kept the gun pointed at Joanna, her finger on the trigger. “Oh, Clive, I knew you’d come to me.” Her voice was soft and higher than usual, giving the illusion of someone much younger.

So far, Burke’s plan was working. Gertrude had returned to the past. Now he needed to get Joanna away from her. He could only hope Joanna recognized his ploy and would do nothing to disrupt it. Although another woman might have been trembling with fear, she stood almost motionless, only the briefest flash of her eyes and pursing of her lips telling him she’d received his silent message.

Feigning surprise at seeing Joanna, Burke continued. “Why did you invite that woman?” He wouldn’t use her name, lest that shift Gertrude’s mind back to the present. “Is that any way to treat the man you’re going to marry? This was supposed to be just us two.”

Gertrude glanced at Joanna, as if only now registering her presence, then turned back to Burke. “You love me, don’t you?” Once again, her voice was that of a simpering young woman.

He wouldn’t lie, but he needed to sustain her delusion long enough for Joanna to escape. Burke extended his arms in a welcoming gesture, hoping Gertrude would accept the invitation. “Come here and let me show you how much.”

She started to move toward him, then stopped abruptly, staring at Joanna as if she were a stranger. “What are you doing here? Go away. Leave Clive and me alone.”

As Burke had hoped, Joanna picked up her skirts and ran behind the tree where he’d left his bag.

He manufactured a smile for the woman who’d lost her grip on reality. “We’re alone now, honey, but why are you holding that gun? You wouldn’t hurt me, would you?” Though he believed she was deep in her delusion, Burke wouldn’t risk becoming another victim of Gertrude’s madness.

“Never, Clive. I love you.”

“I know you do. Now put that gun down and come here. I want to hold you.”

Dropping the gun, she giggled. “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that.” Like the young girl she once was, she giggled again, then ran into his embrace.

It was exactly what he wanted her to do. When Gertrude raised her face, inviting his kiss, Burke wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides. There was nothing loverlike about the way he held her or about his voice when he called out to Joanna.

“I need my bag.”

Wrenched back to the present, Gertrude began to struggle, trying to escape from the arms that imprisoned her. “What are you doing?” she demanded, stomping her foot like an angry child. “You’re not Clive. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

Nor would Burke. “I won’t hurt you, Gertrude, but I can’t let you hurt anyone else.” Two murders were two too many. God willing, there would be no more.

When Joanna reached them, he directed her to open the bag. “You’ll find a green bottle of chloroform and a gauze pad. Soak the pad and bring it here.”

“No! I don’t want you to hurt me!” Gertrude’s struggles increased, and she began to kick Burke’s shins. “Let me go! I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Burke waited until she lifted her foot again, then pushed her backward, softening her landing on the ground as much as he could. While he attempted to keep Gertrude immobile, he nodded at Joanna, then turned back to Gertrude.

“Don’t fight us,” he cautioned her. “This is for your own good. It’s what Clive would have wanted.”

When Joanna had soaked the pad with chloroform, Burke held Gertrude still while she pressed it over the woman’s nose. The struggles subsided, and Gertrude’s eyes closed. Once he was certain she was unconscious, Burke picked her up.

“We’ll need to restrain her before she wakens,” he told Joanna. “Do you know where she might keep rope?”

“Probably in the barn. I’ll go ahead and see what I can find while you bring Gertrude back to the house.”

But before they could reach the house, they heard the sound of an approaching buggy. Seconds later, both of Gertrude’s parents stood next to Burke and Joanna, their faces dark with fury.

“What have you done to my daughter?” Mr. Albright demanded. “Why are you carrying her, and why is she asleep?”

“We need to get her inside,” Burke said as calmly as he could. The Albrights would undoubtedly protest when he tied Gertrude’s wrists and ankles, but he didn’t want to give her too much chloroform and couldn’t take the risk that she’d try to escape before the sheriff arrived.

Perhaps not wanting the Albrights to see Thomas’s body in the parlor, Joanna led the way to the back door and through the short hallway to Gertrude’s bedroom.

When Burke laid her on the bed, Joanna straightened Gertrude’s skirt, then handed him the rope.

As recognition dawned, Mrs. Albright screeched. “You can’t do that!”

“It’s for her own good.”

Something in Burke’s tone must have convinced them, because neither Albright said anything more until he’d finished restraining Gertrude.

“All right, young man. This travesty has gone on long enough.” Mr. Albright’s voice was harsh with anger and fear. “Tell me why you feel the need to treat our daughter like a common criminal.”

Burke saw the sympathy on Joanna’s face. Even after being held at gunpoint by Gertrude, she still wanted to protect the woman’s parents.

“I wish it weren’t true, but your daughter killed two men and threatened to kill Joanna.”

“That’s not possible. Gertrude wouldn’t do that.” Mrs. Albright practically screeched the denial.

“I’m afraid it is true,” Burke told her. “There’s more to the story, and the sheriff needs to hear it as well as you.” He turned to Joanna. “Will you go for him? We’ll wait in the kitchen.”

It was one of the longest half hours of Burke’s life. The Albrights spoke softly to each other, shooting occasional glances at Burke as if he were the criminal, but at last Joanna returned, accompanied by Sheriff Granger.

They sat around the kitchen table, silently listening as Joanna recounted what Gertrude had revealed.

When she finished, the sheriff ran his hand through his hair in what appeared to be a nervous gesture. “Two murders. I can hardly believe it.”

“She wasn’t in her right mind.” A lawyer might call that an extenuating circumstance, but Burke suspected a jury wouldn’t take it into account. The only way Gertrude would escape hanging was if she was confined to an asylum rather than being held accountable for her crimes.

Mrs. Albright shook her head. “I don’t believe it. Gertrude has always been a good girl. She never showed any sign of ...”

“Madness?” The sheriff completed the sentence.

“No, never.”

Mr. Albright laid his hand on his wife’s in an attempt to comfort her. “It appears we didn’t know her as well as we thought.” He turned to the sheriff. “What are you going to do?”

When Sheriff Granger hesitated, Burke suspected he was imagining the pain that seeing their daughter hanged would bring to the Albrights and perhaps to the whole town. For years, Gertrude had been its well-respected schoolmarm.

Though he wasn’t a lawman, Burke couldn’t let the sheriff be swayed by his friendship with the Albrights. “We can’t take the risk that Gertrude might harm someone else.” He doubted he’d ever forget the fear he’d felt when he’d seen that gun pointed at Joanna.

Sheriff Granger was silent for a moment before he said, “You’re right. She needs to be put in an asylum.”

Blood drained from Mrs. Albright’s face when she heard the sheriff’s decision. “That would kill her. Gertrude is a sensitive girl.”

“I have no choice, Mrs. Albright. It’s either that or a trial.”

Her face crumpling with shock and sorrow, Gertrude’s mother rose, shoving her chair aside. “I can’t listen to any more of this. That’s my baby you’re talking about.” As sobs wrenched her, she stormed from the kitchen.

Mr. Albright was silent for a moment. “My wife is right. Being confined to an institution would kill Gertrude. Is it possible there’s another answer? What if we turned this into an asylum? We could put bars on Gertrude’s windows and keep her locked up unless one of us was with her.”

“How would you do that when you live in town?” Though the sheriff had not dismissed the idea, he was clearly dubious.

“We would move back here,” Gertrude’s father said. “I don’t think anyone would be surprised if we told them she was devastated by Thomas’s death and that we needed to be with her. We’d make it clear that she isn’t able to have visitors.”

He paused for a second, as if trying to consider every aspect of his hastily constructed plan. “We’d be very, very careful.”

Burke heard Joanna’s gasp and realized she was as disturbed as he was that the sheriff would even entertain such a scheme. While Burke understood the Albrights’ desire to protect their daughter, there was no ignoring the fact that she was a dangerous woman.

“The risk is too high,” he said firmly. “Gertrude needs to be in an asylum.”

When the sheriff nodded, Mr. Albright rose, his face contorted with grief. “I want to tell Lorena what you’ve decided.” He left the room, searching for his wife. Only seconds later, Burke heard him cry, “Oh, Lorena, what have you done?”

Moving in unison, Burke, Joanna, and the sheriff headed in the direction of Mr. Albright’s voice. They found him in Gertrude’s bedroom staring at the form lying on the bed, a pillow clasped to her face.

Burke hurried to the bedside, although the body’s unnatural stillness told him there was no reason to rush. Pulling the pillow aside, he saw proof that Gertrude had suffocated.

“How did she get her hands loose?” he demanded.

Mrs. Albright’s blue eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t leave her like that. She said she wanted to hold Thomas’s pillow, so I untied her. Before I knew it, she wasn’t breathing.”

The woman was lying. Burke knew that as surely as he knew she’d believed she was saving her daughter from an unthinkable future when she held the pillow over her nose and mouth.

He doubted Gertrude had spoken. She was probably still under the effects of the chloroform when her mother tried to spare her being sent to an asylum. And death had not occurred as quickly as Mrs. Albright had implied. Asphyxiation didn’t happen immediately. It took minutes.

Lorena Albright had killed her daughter just as surely as Gertrude had murdered her husband and Burke’s uncle. The question was, would anything be served by accusing her of the crime? The almost imperceptible shake of the sheriff’s head said he was unwilling to do that.

Burke turned toward Joanna, whose face was contorted with sorrow as she looked at the woman who’d been first her teacher, then her friend. When she met his gaze, she too shook her head. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps justice had already been served, although not in a conventional way. Gertrude was no longer a threat, and her parents would have to live with the memory—and the guilt—of what had happened today. Perhaps that was punishment enough.

“This might be for the best,” Sheriff Granger said. “You can have a double funeral and bury her with Thomas. We can tell people that Thomas was killed in a fall from his horse and that Gertrude died of grief over her husband’s death. Folks will speculate, but there’s no need to say more, no need to sully the Albright name.”

“Thank you.” Mr. Albright nodded slowly, then wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Thomas needs to be laid to rest in the cemetery with his parents, but I think we should bury Gertrude out here, don’t you? We can extend the flower bed.”

The tears she’d been trying to hold back trickled down Mrs. Albright’s cheeks. “She would have liked that.”

Joanna, who’d been silent since they’d entered the bedroom, nodded. “She said she wanted to be near Clive.”

And though it was only her body, not her spirit, that would be with him, Gertrude’s wish would be answered.

Mrs. Albright let out a deep sigh, fixing her gaze on Joanna. “I know it’s asking a great deal, but do you think that someday you’ll be able to forgive my daughter for wanting to kill you?”

When Joanna took a deep breath, Burke wondered whether she was remembering how many loved ones she’d lost this year and how close she’d come to death herself. Could she forgive? He wasn’t certain he could.

Slowly, Joanna reached forward to touch Mrs. Albright’s hand. “I already have. I remember how dedicated she was when she taught all of us. That was a gift she bestowed on so many pupils.” Joanna paused for a second. “I only wish she’d been happier.”

Gertrude had been more than unhappy. Like Kurt’s first wife, she’d suffered from what some called a disease of the spirit. Perhaps someday physicians would find a way to cure it or at least mitigate its effects.

Her face reflecting relief, Mrs. Albright turned her hand to squeeze Joanna’s. “Gertrude wasn’t as fortunate in love as you.”

“I’ve been blessed.”

Burke moved to his future wife’s side. Her pallor and the way her hands had begun to shake told him it was past time to take her away from the scene of so much sorrow. For her sake and that of the child she carried, she needed a chance to remember that life was filled with promise, but first there were things they had to do.

“Joanna and I have both been blessed,” Burke said as calmly as he could. He touched Joanna’s shoulder. “We need to tell Della what we’ve learned.” Perhaps then they could put the past behind them.

Joanna was thankful that Burke had taken the lead in explaining what had happened. As they’d ridden back to town, she’d suggested that her sisters and their husbands needed to hear the story too, and so they’d asked everyone to gather in the parlor of Finley House. It was fitting, she realized, that everyone learn about Clive’s final days while seated in the house he’d built.

As she’d expected, there were gasps of shock as Burke revealed the extent of Gertrude’s madness and the lengths to which she’d been willing to go to ensure that Burke, whom she’d continued to confuse with his uncle, would marry her, and Della’s eyes had filled with tears.

“It’s over now,” Burke said. “The last of the questions that brought Della and me to Sweetwater Crossing have been answered.”

Grateful that her hands no longer trembled and that she’d had no coughing fits, Joanna nodded. “We can only pray that Gertrude is at peace.”

There was a moment of silence when everyone appeared to be praying. Then Harold turned to his wife. “We could bring Clive’s body into town, have a proper funeral, and bury him in the cemetery. Not the same day that we bury Thomas, but soon after.”

Della met his gaze, her eyes shining with emotion. “Thank you, my dear, but that will accomplish nothing good. Let his body rest where it is.” She faced Burke as she said, “I came here to see Clive’s grave, but I never thought it would be under a bed of flowers.” A small smile crossed her face. “That’s more fitting than Gertrude probably realized. Clive loved flowers as much as I love books.”

Neither Louisa nor Emily made any effort to hide their shock. “Gertrude showed me that flower bed,” Emily said, “but I never thought it was covering the biggest secret this town has ever had.”

Louisa nodded. “When I saw it, I thought the secret was that Gertrude had planted it without her mother’s knowledge. I didn’t dream there was anything hidden underneath.”

“I wonder what she thought each time she tended those flowers. Did she regret what she’d done, or did she believe she was justified?” Joanna would never know, just as she’d never know whether the regrets Miss Heppel had mentioned were over the efforts she’d taken to keep Clive from leaving Sweetwater Crossing. Some secrets would remain secret.

That evening as they walked toward the bridge, Burke wrapped his arm around Joanna’s waist and drew her closer to him. “Today was a day neither of us will ever forget, but as horrible as it was, I think we have reasons to give thanks.”

“I’m thankful that you realized something was wrong and followed Gertrude and me.” Joanna didn’t want to think about what might have happened if Burke hadn’t felt compelled to learn why they were headed away from the ranch house.

“That was God’s prompting,” he said firmly, “but there are other reasons to be thankful. First, there are the answers we received. We were both determined to learn what had happened to Clive, and we succeeded. As tragic as the story is, I know Della is more at peace now.”

Peace. Was that the feeling that was stealing over Joanna, the sense of completion that she found when she turned the last page of a book and the characters’ dilemmas had been resolved? Perhaps it was. The lingering mystery of Clive’s final days had caused her more anxiety than she’d wanted to admit. Now it felt as if the light breeze that rustled the leaves on the live oaks was dissipating her worries about how not knowing what had happened to her fiancé had affected Della.

Joanna nodded, silently telling Burke she understood.

“Just as importantly, we no longer have clouds hanging over us.” He smiled as he pointed upward. Though there was no moon, stars twinkled across the dark sky. “No clouds, literal or figurative. I’m not saying that there won’t be problems along the way—undoubtedly there will be—but our love is strong enough to overcome them.”

Burke was right. Though they couldn’t—and shouldn’t—forget the past, for it had formed them and brought them to this point, it was time to focus on the future. “When I returned to Sweetwater Crossing, I dreamt of creating a new future living at Finley House. That dream disappeared the first day when I realized how much had changed—including me. After that, I didn’t want to think about my future, because it was uncertain. I felt as if my dreams had died, but then you arrived and I started to have better dreams than I’d ever had before.”

Burke paused, waiting until Joanna looked up at him before he said, “You weren’t the only one whose dreams changed for the better. I thought I knew what I wanted my future to be, but I was wrong, so wrong.”

“Do you know what the best part is, Burke?” Without waiting for him to answer, Joanna told him what she’d realized as the months had passed. “I may never need to dream again, because my fondest dreams are coming true. Thanks to Miss Heppel, I have a home of my own, but the greatest thanks go to you. Thanks to you, I have a way to use the talents God has given me to help others. Thanks to you, my baby will have a loving father and I’ll have the most wonderful husband any woman could want. I can’t predict what the future will bring us, but I know it will be a glorious one, because we’re sharing it.”

Joanna pressed a kiss on his cheek. “I love you, Burke Finley.”

“And I love you. I can’t wait to see what the new year brings us. What I know is that 1884 will be a year we’ll never forget.”