With Family In Mind (Saddle Falls Book 1) (20 page)

“My mother is dead.” The coldness of her tone was not intentional, but Rebecca had had no emotion where her mother was concerned for years, so why should she expect to feel anything now that she was gone?

“Margie’s gone?” Shocked, the waitress shook her head. “Well, I’m real sorry to hear that, hon. Your mama, she was good people.” Dottie pulled a rag from her uniform pocket and began to wipe the counter. “I’ll tell you one thing, poor Margie, well, she got a raw deal back in Saddle Falls. A real raw deal. It was a shame what they did to her.” Shaking her head, she scrubbed the counter harder. “A real shame.”

Her body trembling, Rebecca leaned forward on the stool. “What do you mean, Dottie?” Desperate, she grasped the woman’s arm. “Please, talk to me. I need to know what happened to my mother. What happened the night she was watching little Jesse Ryan and he disappeared.”

Dottie hesitated, then nodded. “Eldon,” she called over her shoulder to the man in the kitchen. “Come out here and watch the counter. I’m going on break.” Reaching for a cup, she poured herself a coffee, then
motioned Rebecca toward an empty booth in the back of the diner. Rebecca picked up her cup and followed, sliding into the booth opposite her.

“So, you know about little Jesse Ryan, huh?” Dottie asked with a hint of a frown.

Rebecca nodded. “Yes. I don’t remember much about that night, I just know that my mother was baby-sitting for him when he disappeared.”

“That she was, hon, and it was a shame what happened. But you listen to me. No matter what they say, your mama didn’t have nothing to do with that little boy’s disappearance.” Dottie shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

“How can you be so sure?” Rebecca asked.

Dottie averted her gaze, twisting one of the many rings on her fingers. “Cuz I’m sure, that’s all.”

Rebecca leaned forward. “Dottie, please. If you know something, please tell me about that night.”

“Why is it so important after all these years?” Dottie cocked her head, studying her. “Why would you care about this now?”

“Why?”
The word nearly exploded out of Rebecca’s mouth. “I’ve lived my whole life with the fear that my mother was responsible for the disappearance of an innocent child.” Heat churned inside her, making her words harsh. “I spent most of my life living in an orphanage because my own mother didn’t want me. She abandoned me, Dottie, because of something that happened that night.” Tears filled Rebecca’s eyes. “And I think I have a right to know why.”

“Oh hon.” Dottie’s eyes filled as well. “Your
mama would never have abandoned you if she didn’t have to.”

“What do you mean?” Rebecca asked with a frown. Some spark of hope that she’d carried with her from childhood flared to life, but she refused to fan the flame, afraid to truly believe she’d been wrong all these years about her mother.

She couldn’t have been wrong.

Her mother
had
abandoned her, hadn’t loved her enough to come back for her.

Dottie sighed. “I don’t know that your mama would want me to be telling you all this. I’ve never talked about it with no one cuz I made her a promise, hon, never to do that, and I’d never break my promise to her. But she’s gone now, and you’re all grown, so I don’t see the harm.” Dottie glanced across the room, then brought her gaze back to Rebecca’s. “That night, the night that little boy disappeared, your mama had a date.”

“A date?” Rebecca frowned. “Dottie, do you remember the man’s name?”

“Sure do. Not likely to forget it.” Dottie twisted her cup around and around. “His name was Charles, but we called him Charlie. Never did know his last name. He was supposedly some big rancher over in the next county. Your mama and I, well, we met him one night when we was out for an evening. He took a real liking to your mom, he did.” She shook her head. “Now me, I didn’t care for the man much, not from the get-go. First of all, he was married, and right there I didn’t like that he was out catting around. Sec
ond, all the money he was spending, trying to impress us—well, if the truth be told, it wasn’t his money.”

“Whose money was he spending?” Rebecca asked with a frown.

“His wife’s. Heard she came from some big, prominent family up near the state capital. Married Charles against her family’s wishes. They’d been having some marital trouble, I guess, and his wife had been threatening to leave him and cut him off from the financial pot.”

“Is that why he was going out with my mother?”

She shrugged. “Don’t rightly know, hon. Who knows why a man does anything? But old Charlie was just a bit too slick for me, always coming up with schemes and cons to make money.” Dottie shuddered. “He smelled of five miles of bad news.”

Rebecca blinked. There was a dull pounding in the back of her head that was getting worse by the minute. Everything Dottie had told her only confirmed what she knew—or rather had believed—about her mother.

“Anyway, hon, the night little Jesse disappeared, your mama was supposed to meet Charlie up at the Saddle Falls Inn. But then she got that call to go over and baby-sit. She phoned Charlie and told him the Ryans were going out and she wasn’t going to be able to meet him because she had to sit for the youngest boy, Jesse.”

“And?”

“Well, good ole Charlie, he wasn’t one to take no for an answer. He convinced your mom to wait until you kids were asleep and then come meet him anyway.”

“Oh my God.” Rebecca’s hand flew to her mouth as bile rose, and her eyes searched Dottie’s as the truth slapped her with the force of a blow. She tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but didn’t think she was capable of either. Rebecca leaned back in the booth and let her eyes close for a moment.

“My mother wasn’t even there when Jesse was taken, was she?” she finally asked in a whisper. “She was out with Charlie.”

Dottie smiled sadly. “That’s right, hon, she wasn’t there. But of course, she couldn’t tell anyone that. She knew she’d lose her job for leaving you kids alone. But she was young and in love, and naively thought Charlie loved her, too. Thought he was gonna leave his fat-cat wife.” Dottie shook her head sadly. “That Charlie, he was one smooth talker.” Seeing the stricken look on Rebecca’s face, Dottie reached for her hands. “Hon, your mama was sick about what happened to that little boy. Just sick over it. But she had nothing to do with what went down. He was safe and sound, fast asleep, when she left to meet Charlie. When she got back a couple hours later, the front door was wide open and the boy was gone.”

Rebecca’s mind was churning. “Dottie, who else knew that my mother was baby-sitting for the Ryan family that night?” She leaned forward, urgency in her words. “Who else besides Charlie?”

Dottie frowned in thought. “No one, that I know of. Only Charlie.”

Another piece of the puzzle seemed to drop into place. “Dottie, do you know if my mother ever wrote a ransom note to the Ryans?”

Dottie shifted her weight, then fidgeted with her rings again. “Well, I can tell you she didn’t want to.”

“You mean she
did
write that note?”

“Yeah, honey, she did.” Dottie sighed. “She thought it was a good idea at the time.”

“What do you mean? If she didn’t have anything to do with Jesse’s disappearance, why on earth would she write a ransom note? Did she expect to get money out of the Ryans?”

“Becca honey, I know your mama might not have been the most mature or responsible mother in the world, but one thing you gotta know is that she loved you.”

“No, she didn’t,” Rebecca said firmly, swallowing the boulder that seemed to have formed in her throat.

“Oh honey, yes, she did, and I’m sorry you’ve thought otherwise.”

Rebecca didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t think she could. She looked at the older woman carefully, wondering if she was deliberately changing the subject.

“Dottie, what does my mother loving me have to do with the ransom note she wrote to the Ryans?” This was not making sense now.

“Your mama may not have had much schooling, hon, but she wasn’t stupid, I’ll tell you that. It didn’t take her long to figure out—like you just did—that Charlie was the only one who knew that you kids were home alone. He never showed up at the Saddle Falls Inn that night. Your mama waited for him for close to two hours, but he stood her up.”

“Where was he?”

“Don’t rightly know. Don’t think anyone knows.”

Rebecca filed the information away, then plunged on. “So why did my mother write the ransom note?”

“Because she was scared, honey. Scared out of her mind. A little boy was missing, and even though she didn’t know nothing about it, she feared that Charlie had something to do with it, feared he was gonna implicate her in some way. Well, honey, think about it. She was the boy’s nanny and he was the man she’d been dating. She was afraid if anyone found out—”

“You mean the authorities?”

“Yeah.” Sighing heavily, Dottie went on. “Becca honey, try to understand how scared your mama was. She had no family, no friends other than me, and a little girl to take care of. She was suddenly caught up in something she had nothing to do with, all because of a man. She thought she could go to jail if the cops found out she’d been seeing Charlie when that little boy disappeared. Thought the authorities would think they planned it together or that she’d helped him, when she didn’t. She had nothing—nothing to do with it. Her only crime was being in love. And trusting a no-account fool man.” Dottie sighed, then absently brushed a crumb from the table. “So she wrote the note, thinking it would throw the police off, make them believe the boy was being held for ransom.”

A deep, aching sadness enveloped Rebecca. “She must have been terrified,” she said softly, trying to understand how her mother must have felt.

Although she didn’t condone her mother’s actions, she was beginning to comprehend them.

“She was, hon. She was.”

“Dottie, let me ask you something.” Rebecca chose her words carefully. “You said my mother loved me. Why do you say that? The day after Jesse disappeared, when the police picked my mom up for questioning, I was taken into custody by Social Services. I never saw my mom again. She never tried to find me or contact me, not even when she was released after the police questioned her. I spent my entire childhood in an orphanage, waiting for my mother to come get me. And she never did,” Rebecca added sadly, brushing the tears from her eyes.

“Oh hon.” Dottie reached for her hand and gave it a gentle tug. “Now you listen to me, and listen good. Charlie was waiting for your mama when she was sprung from the police station. He wanted to know what she’d told them. Course, she couldn’t tell them anything, cuz she was afraid she’d be implicated. But Charlie didn’t believe her. He told her that she’d better not ever tell what she knew, and if she did, if she ever breathed a word about him or anything that happened that night, why, you’d disappear just like that little Ryan boy.”

“This man threatened my mother?” Staggered, Rebecca clenched her fists impotently in anger. “Are you telling me this man threatened to harm
me
if my mother told the truth about that night?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t she just go to the authorities and tell them everything?”

Dottie laughed harshly. “Now, hon, who was going to believe an unwed mother with a history of trouble, who’d been dating a married man—a very prominent
married man, I might add, whose wife’s family was connected at the state capital? Your mama feared if she went to the authorities and told them the whole story they’d think she was the one who’d done something to that boy.”

“She was powerless,” Rebecca said with a shake of her head. “Totally powerless.” The knowledge only fueled her anger and frustration, and made her feel an unbearable sadness for her mother and what she’d gone through.

“That’s why your mama never came for you, hon. She was afraid that if she came and got you, it would be too easy for Charlie to find you. She was convinced he was gonna do something to hurt you, and she didn’t want that to happen.” Dottie shrugged. “She figured at least if you were with the state, you’d be safe. They’d put you in a new home, maybe in another town, and then Charlie would never be able to find you. She didn’t even know where you were. She didn’t want to know, cuz she feared it was too dangerous for you. She didn’t come back for you cuz she wanted to protect you.” Dottie shrugged, reaching for Rebecca’s hand again. “Maybe it wasn’t the best thing for you, but at the time, she didn’t know what else to do.”

“That’s why she left town right afterward?” Rebecca suddenly understood so many things her mother had done. Not because she didn’t love her, but because she
had.

All these years, all these wasted years! Rebecca had allowed her past to paralyze her, her misguided beliefs to cripple her. And none of it was true!

Feeling as if her whole life had been a lie, she struggled to hold herself together. Tears threatened. She needed to grieve for the mother she’d lost, the mother she’d never had. She needed to grieve for all the years she’d spent believing she’d been unloved.

Because of one selfish, dangerous man.

The emotions threatened to come tumbling out, but Rebecca knew she couldn’t let them loose, not here, not now, not yet.

“Yeah, hon, your mama skipped town right afterward. She didn’t even tell me where she was going, thinking it would be safer if I didn’t know. She just wanted to get away from Saddle Falls, Charlie and everything that had happened. To forget the past and start over.”

“Dottie, why didn’t you ever tell anyone this?” Rebecca demanded suddenly, surprising the older woman.

“Who was I gonna tell?” She shook her head, looking quite affronted. “Besides, no one ever asked.”

“The police never questioned you after Jesse disappeared?”

“Course not. Why would they?” She shrugged. “Not many people even knew your mama and I were friends, ’cept for Charlie and a few of the ranch hands who might have seen us out together.”

“Dottie, do you know what happened to Charlie?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, hon. I left Saddle Falls shortly after your mama did, but I never did see him again.” She shrugged again. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”