Evelyn nearly screamed.
Boone stood behind her.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.”
She lowered her voice.
“You knew.”
Boone looked at the opening.
“I knew there was something under this kitchen.”
“What?”
“Your father knew.”
Evelyn stood.
“Tell me what happened.”
Boone’s massive hands curled.
“Not tonight.”
“You don’t get to do that.”
His gaze rose.
“My father is dead. My mother is dead. You say their names like you knew them, and everyone here behaves as though I’m walking through a story nobody will tell me.”
Boone’s face softened.
“You look like him when you’re angry.”
“Then tell me.”
For a long moment the huge man struggled against something inside himself.
Finally he sat.
“Twenty-three years ago, Elias Harper and Samuel Ridgewell started Thorn Ridge together.”
Evelyn stopped breathing.
“Dawson’s father?”
Boone nodded.
“Half and half. Your father knew cattle. Samuel knew land. They built everything.”
“My father never owned a ranch.”
“He did.”
“No.”
“He did.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“We were poor.”
“You weren’t supposed to be.”
Boone’s voice broke slightly.
“There was an accident. Then money disappeared. Cattle vanished. Papers changed. By the time anybody understood, Samuel was dead and your father had left Thorn Ridge forever.”
“Why?”
Boone looked toward the darkness beneath the floor.
“Because someone promised your mother that if Elias stayed, his children would die.”
Cold spread through Evelyn’s chest.
“Who?”
Boone stood.
“I never found proof.”
“You know.”
“I suspect.”
“Who?”
Before he could answer, footsteps sounded outside.
Boone extinguished the lantern.
“Close it.”
“Boone—”
“Now.”
They replaced the floorboard and table seconds before Jack entered.
He carried a lantern.
“Everything all right?”
Boone stared at him.
“Fine.”
Jack smiled.
But his eyes moved to the kneading table.
Then to Evelyn.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.”
Jack watched her for another second.
“Neither could I.”
The following morning, someone tried to poison the ranch.
Evelyn discovered it by accident.
She opened the sugar barrel and smelled something bitter.
Barely detectable.
She touched one crystal to her tongue.
Not sugar.
Lye.
Enough had been mixed into the barrel to severely burn any man who drank sweetened coffee.
Evelyn immediately dumped the entire container into the yard.
Dawson stormed into the kitchen.
“Who had access?”
“Everybody.”
His face hardened.
“Nobody leaves the ranch.”
Jack arrived moments later.
He examined the barrel.
“Could’ve been an accident.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“Someone accidentally poured lye into thirty pounds of sugar?”
“I’m saying don’t panic.”
“I am not panicking.”
Her voice went quiet.
“Someone entered my kitchen and tried to poison twenty men.”
Dawson looked at Jack.
For the first time, Evelyn saw distrust between them.
That afternoon a rider arrived.
He wore a black coat and silver spectacles.
“Gideon Vale,” Dawson muttered.
Evelyn knew the name.
Dry Creek Bank.
The man holding the mortgage on her home.
