Truth Be Told (19 page)

He opened his mouth as if to say more, when a hand clamped on his shoulder, turning him away from her. Amelia choked back a sob of relief when she saw Ben standing there.

“Good evening, Mr. Grayson. I didn't know you were in attendance.” Ben's mild tone contrasted markedly with the
stony look on his face. Without taking his eyes off the other man, he extended his arm toward Amelia. “Here's your punch, Miss Wagner. I'm sorry it took me so long.”

She moved next to him, feeling like a storm-tossed ship coming in sight of a safe haven. Taking the cup in her left hand, she curled her right around his arm and clung tight.

Grayson eyed Ben with a measuring gaze, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “We were just discussing what needs to be done for Amelia to put her affairs in order so she can accompany me back to Denver.”

A brief nod was Ben's only response. “If you'll excuse us, sir, we need to be moving along.”

Amelia felt Ben's muscles bunch under her fingertips as he turned to lead her out of the hall. She set her punch glass down on a table as they exited and gripped his arm with both hands.

The sun had gone down behind the hills, and gas lamps flickered along the street. They moved from one pool of light to another without speaking. Near Walt Ingram's hardware store, Ben stopped in a pocket of shadow and studied her closely. “Are you all right?”

“I am now.” She had to force the words out past the lump in her throat. “Thank you for stepping in when you did.”

Ben's lips parted in a slow smile. “Always happy to rescue a damsel in distress.”

Amelia drew a shuddering breath and tried to calm her racing heart. “How did you know I needed rescuing?” The words came out on a shaky laugh. “No one else in the room did.”

“Maybe I was the only one who really saw you. Something about the look on your face told me you felt uncomfortable.”
His voice hardened. “And I didn't like the way Grayson was crowding you.”

Amelia could feel her pulse pounding in her throat. Right now, Ben was standing even closer than her stepfather had—but his nearness didn't bother her at all.

A troubled expression crossed his face. “You aren't really planning to leave, are you?”

She shook her head, dislodging a curl near her temple. “That's a total fabrication. I'm not going anywhere, and certainly not with him.”

“What about your mother? Does she need you there?”

Amelia caught her bottom lip between her teeth at the reminder of her ongoing dilemma. “I care about her, and I try to honor her as God would have me do. At the same time, she and I are very different. My mother makes her own choices, and she has chosen to link her lot with Thaddeus Grayson. I can't change that . . . but I can't support her in it, either.”

“I'm glad you're staying.” Ben's voice took on a husky tone. “It wouldn't be the same here without you.” Lifting his hands, he cupped her face between his palms and leaned forward.

Amelia fastened her eyes on his, then let her gaze trail down his face to focus on his lips, so tantalizingly close. In another breath, they would meet hers. A tiny sigh escaped her lips, and her eyelids fluttered closed.

Footsteps clattered down the boardwalk, accompanied by a boyish shout. “Miss Amelia! Mr. Stone! Did you hear me tonight?”

Amelia and Ben sprang apart as Jimmy Brandt raced toward them. His hair had returned to its usual disarray, and a collar stud had slipped its moorings, leaving one end of his collar
sticking out to one side. There was no trace of his earlier embarrassment in the broad grin he bestowed on them.

Amelia caught her breath, hoping she didn't look as flustered as she felt. She shot a quick glance at Ben, then reached out to ruffle the boy's hair. “We certainly did. You did a fine job. I'm sure your parents are very proud of you.”

Jimmy puffed out his chest and beamed even more. “I'd be glad to give you the inside scoop when you write up the story.”

“Hey, Jimmy!” called a child's voice from across the street. “Want to play tag with us before it gets too late?”

With a whoop, Jimmy ran off to join his friends. Amelia turned back to Ben, feeling suddenly shy.

“Amelia.” His voice breathed her name as he linked his fingers through hers and stepped close again. A tingle ran upward from her fingertips to her shoulders.

Farther up the street, the door of the Odd Fellows Hall burst open, and people began spilling out into the night.

Amelia gazed up at Ben, wondering if he felt as bereft as she did. With every fiber of her being, she longed to reach up and trace his lips with her fingers, feel his strong arms encircle her. But their private moment had come to an end.

She squeezed his fingers between hers, hoping the gesture conveyed some of the feelings she longed to express. Without speaking a word, Ben tucked her hand into his arm and they continued on their way toward the newspaper office.

But the look in his eyes promised there would be another time.

During
the interlude, a recitation by Miss Thelma Vickers's Sunday
school class met with rousing success. The second half of
the concert . . .

T
he bell over the front door jingled. Amelia looked up from setting the type for her story on the previous night's festivities.
Won
'
t
Jimmy
feel
proud
when
he
sees
his
name
in
print
!
She felt her spirits lift when she saw Ben step inside and close the door behind him.

She shot a glance toward Homer, who was busy locking the week's ads into the chase. Seeing a smile of welcome on her old friend's face, she brightened even more. When she recounted the incident with her stepfather the night before, she knew Homer regretted not being there to protect her, but his gratitude for Ben's intervention had been genuine. Homer seemed to be accepting his presence more with each passing day.

Ben walked past the counter with a nod for each of them. Moving closer to Amelia, he said, “I know you have to get the paper out tomorrow, but do you have a few minutes? I'd like to speak with you in private, if you don't mind.”

“Of course.” Amelia set down the composing stick without
hesitation and led him back to the office. The weekly deadline was fast approaching, but her story on the concert was nearly finished. Another article, on the expansion in progress at Martin Gilbreth's sawmill, still needed to be fleshed out, but she could find time to do that. That still left her with a fair amount of space on the front page, though. Unless she uncovered something substantial to report about Great Western, she wasn't sure what she would use to fill that.

Ben leaned against the office desk, his eyes troubled. “It's about that research I agreed to do the other day.”

She reached out and laid her hand on his sleeve, her fingers tightening on his arm. “You were able to go over the papers on the purchase of Bart McCaffrey's land?”

A crease deepened between his eyebrows when he nodded. “It wasn't as straightforward as I expected. As you know, McCaffrey turned down an offer on the sale of his property. What neither one of us knew, though, was that the offer came from Great Western.”

Amelia released his arm and took a step back. “They wanted to buy his land in the first place? But—”

“Putting in the reservoir was their idea. The company made an agreement to buy water from him.”

Amelia felt her heart begin to pound with strong, steady beats. “Then there never was any intention of supplying water to the farmers nearby. But that explains why he took out the loan.”

“Right, but then they retracted the offer . . . after the reservoir was completed.”

“So that's why he wasn't able to pay off the loan, which resulted in the foreclosure, meaning . . .” Her eyes widened.

The muscles along Ben's jawline tightened. “Great Western got the land after all,
plus
the reservoir. And at the lowest price imaginable.”

At last
!
Maybe she would be able to run an account of Great Western's shady dealings as tomorrow's front-page story, after all. Amelia's sense of exultation was tempered somewhat by Ben's obvious distress.

“I'm sorry,” she said, already composing the opening paragraphs in her mind. “I know that had to come as a shock to you.”

“That isn't all.”

Amelia's mental composition ground to a sudden halt. “What do you mean?”

Ben crossed his arms. “Seeing the way they dealt with McCaffrey made me wonder if anything like that had happened to other people, so I looked through the rest of the files.”

Reaching into his inside jacket pocket, he drew out a sheaf of folded papers. “I found three instances—all handled by Eddie Franklin.”

Barely able to contain her excitement, Amelia leaned over as he spread the pages out on the desk. Her lips moved as she read each document in turn. “Ephraim Seaver, Gabe . . . Wait a minute!”

Spinning around, she hastened to the file cabinet and opened the drawer containing her father's notes on Great Western. Retrieving the slip of paper she wanted, she carried it back to the desk and held it out to Ben.

“Look at this: Ephraim Seaver, Gabe Rogers, Josiah Smith. The names on those papers are the same ones my father noted down. He must have learned something that pointed him to
the same thing you discovered. I wanted to talk to the three of them, but they have all left town.” She looked up at Ben. “You say the same thing happened to them as to Bart McCaffrey?”

“Not exactly the same, but there were similarities. All three refused an initial offer from the company, but each apparently changed his mind later on. None of them went through foreclosure, though.” He shook his head. “Maybe I'm only imagining a connection.”

“No, not when these names are the very ones that appeared in my father's notes.” Amelia's thoughts raced. “Maybe this is linked to whatever was troubling him so much at the end.”

She leaned over the papers again, and Ben bent beside her. She felt the warmth of his arm through the sleeve of his broadcloth jacket, and her breath quickened.

Pulling her attention back to the task at hand, she read through every word on the Seaver agreement, then went over the papers for the Rogers and Smith sales with equal care. Her brow puckered, and she picked up the Smith and Rogers contracts to study them more closely.

“Ben?” Her voice came out on a thin note. “Look at this.”

“Did you find something?”

“I'm not sure. Take a look at the sellers' signatures on these agreements.”

He studied the scrawls at the bottom of both pages, then took them from her hands and peered at them closely.

Amelia's heart hammered. “Do you see the same thing I do?”

His face hardened into a taut mask. “Both those signatures look like they've been written by the same hand.”

“That's what I thought.” She turned, closing the distance between them to mere inches as she looked up into his face.
“But why would anyone need to forge these papers? What does it mean?”

“I'm not sure,” Ben admitted. He looked down at those clear blue eyes staring so trustingly into his. The lips he had come so near to kissing the night before were only a few inches from his own. All he had to do was lean forward and . . .

A scuffing sound from the printing office caught his attention, and he looked over the top of Amelia's head to see Homer watching them through the open door. His watchful gaze cooled Ben's ardor as effectively as if he'd been doused with a pail of cold water.

He cleared this throat and turned his attention back to the paper in his hand. “It would have to mean there was something fraudulent about the way they acquired these properties, but why go to such lengths?”

He took a step back, letting his thoughts run free. “It would make sense to snap up the McCaffrey property, since they wanted the reservoir. But I can't make a connection with these others.

“The Seaver place is near the reservoir, but Gabe Rogers owned a square mile of nothing but forest, and the property Josiah Smith owned is a ways southwest of here.” He shook his head. “They don't have anything in common, as far as I can see.”

“There has to be a reason for all this,” Amelia insisted. She planted her hands on her hips, and her eyes flashed. “Those forged names didn't get there on their own, and you know I don't trust Owen Merrick or Thaddeus Grayson one bit.”

“I know, but let's not be hasty. I don't want to leap to unfounded conclusions. Your father's commitment to printing nothing but the truth is one worth honoring. Merrick has been in and out of my family's home all my life, and I know how highly my father thinks of him. Besides, Eddie Franklin is the one who did the paperwork on all of these transactions. Let me find out more before we make accusations based on nothing more than dislike.”

He could see the struggle of emotions that played across her face before she finally drew a deep breath and nodded. “You're right. This paper is about the truth. I don't want to settle for anything less. Go ahead and see what you can find out, but rest assured, I'll be looking, too.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “I have no doubt about that.” Mindful of Homer's watchful eye, he shifted to block the older man's view from the doorway and lifted his hand to graze her cheek with his fingers. “I'd better get going. I'll need to find a way to slip these papers back into their files before anyone notices they're gone.”

With a quick good-bye to Homer, he strode out the door and started back toward the Great Western building. With any luck, he could find some excuse to stay late again that evening to replace the documents and look through the financial records on the Rogers and Smith sales, as well.

The discovery that both those agreements had probably been forged had shaken him more than he wanted to let on to Amelia. Something was definitely amiss at Great Western. His mood darkened. He had never liked Eddie Franklin, and he wouldn't put it past the man to be part of any sort of chicanery. If he could prove the man's guilt and take that proof to Mer
rick, it would only remain for Merrick to deal with Franklin and put the whole ugly episode behind them.

When all was said and done, his boss might even thank Amelia for persisting in her quest for the truth. The thought brought a smile to his lips at the reminder of her fiery gaze and determination to move forward, whatever the cost.

So much tenacity in such a small package! He laughed aloud, drawing a curious glance from a passerby. He could still feel the warm pressure of her hand on his arm and picture her lips so close to his. How he longed to gather her into his arms and hold her close!

That day would come, he promised himself. And it couldn't come quickly enough to suit him.