The Redemption Of Jake Scully. Elaine Barbieri

even temporarily. The thought was disconcerting. He refrained from answering her question. Instead, he stood up, reached for his hat and said, “Come on with me. I have something to show you.”

      Around the desk in a moment, Scully took Lacey’s arm. She hesitated momentarily, then said, “I suppose we can talk later.”

      Talk. Talk meant continuing the same argument they’d had earlier that morning. He’d had enough of it for the day.

      He drew her out of the office with him toward the saloon’s rear door.

      “Where’re we going, Scully?”

      Again ignoring her inquiry, Scully ushered Lacey along with him, then pushed open the door of the back entrance and urged her out ahead of him into the narrow yard.

      He felt the shock that rippled through her.

      

      Lacey gulped. She took a deep breath. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she started toward the hitching post where the small burro was tethered.

      It couldn’t be…but it was!

      “It’s…Careful!”

      The burro’s name emerged from her lips with a sob as Lacey reached the animal in a few running steps. Careful turned his head toward her with a welcoming bray and tears streamed down her cheeks. She slid her arms around Careful’s neck and hugged him tight….

      She was a child again. The days were long and sun-filled, and Careful was her loyal playmate, helpmate and friend.

      The choking stench of the fire hung on the air. Her grandfather lay dead in front of her and the charred remains of her home behind her. She was terrified and alone, but Careful stood steadfast nearby.

      The road was long, the sun hot. Her head throbbed, her legs ached and her throat was parched. She was afraid. She couldn’t walk any farther, but Careful trudged on beside her, limping every step of the way.

      The Gold Nugget came into view at last. She couldn’t make it. She couldn’t walk another step, but Careful wouldn’t give up, and neither could she.

      She was sick. She didn’t want to get better. She didn’t want to remember…but Careful was alone, and he needed her.

      She was fully recovered. She was leaving for boarding school to be educated as her grandpa always wanted. She was leaving Careful behind, and the emptiness inside her ached….

      So many years in between. So many clouded memories and uncertainties, but she was home again at last. She knew that now, because Careful was with her again.

      Uncertain how long it took to compose herself, Lacey turned back toward the big man who stood silently watchful behind her. Aware that words could not adequately express the full scope of her emotion, she said simply, “Thank you,” then walked into Scully’s embrace.

      

      Enveloped in joyful tears as Scully held her comfortingly close, Lacey was not aware of the well-dressed man lurking in the shadows nearby. She had not seen him lingering in the mercantile, listening intently to her conversation at the counter. Nor had she noticed him following her at a safe distance when she left the store and started across the street.

      Standing still unseen, Barret Gould paused to coldly assess the emotional scene unfolding. He had overheard the statement Lacey Stewart made in the store minutes earlier. She said she had returned to Weaver with plans for the future that had nothing to do with Jake Scully. She’d added that her plans didn’t include waiting around for the right man to come along. Both were commendable statements that appeared innocent enough to the average person.

      Yet the average person did not know Lacey’s secret—a secret she did not know he shared.

      A slow elation expanded inside Barret. He was being given a second chance for success in a plan that had met with devastating failure ten years earlier.

      He would succeed this time, and the distinguished future that had escaped him—for which he was destined—would finally be his.

      Lacey Stewart didn’t stand a chance.

      Chapter Three

      “The answer is no!”

      Lacey stood opposite Scully in the morning shadows of her room. The events of the previous day, when Careful was returned to her, had left her shaken. She hadn’t had the heart for the argument she knew was certain to ensue when Scully learned she had accepted a job in Sadie’s restaurant, but he had appeared at her door that morning for breakfast, and she had known it was now or never.

      Never was not an option.

      Lacey took a deep breath, then said, “Try to understand, Scully. I—”

      “I said, the answer is no. You aren’t going to do that kind of work.”

      Her reply was spontaneous. “I don’t recall asking your permission.”

      Scully’s gray eyes pinned her. Somehow, he had never looked bigger or more intimidating than he did at that moment as he towered over her in his anger, but Lacey did not back down when he replied, “No, you didn’t ask my permission, but you should have.”

      “You forget. I’m eighteen years old—an adult. You’re not my guardian anymore.”

      “I’m not, huh?”

      Regretting her harsh statement, Lacey took a conciliatory step toward him and said, “Please…I don’t want to argue with you, especially after yesterday. You’ve done so much for me, and taking care of Careful all those years while I was gone…I appreciate every bit of it, but I can’t let it go on, don’t you see? I have to start out on my own sometime.”

      “Sometime…but not now.”

      “When, Scully? Am I supposed to let you support me until I wither on the vine waiting for ‘the right fella’?”

      “You don’t stand a chance of ‘withering on the vine,’ and you know it.”

      “No, I don’t know it. And neither do I care. It’s time for me to take responsibility for my own life.”

      “That’s good thinking. It’s premature, that’s all. You need time to settle down here for a while so you can get reacquainted with the real world.”

      “The real world…” Lacey took a stabilizing breath. “You’re right. The world I lived in these past ten years is far removed from Weaver. It wasn’t a real world—not for me. I knew it then, and I know it now. Many of the memories of my life with my grandfather are unclear, but they aren’t so dim that I wasn’t able to see the differences. I belong here. This is my home, and the sooner I make myself fit back in, the better it will be.”

      “You’re rushing things. You’re not giving yourself a chance.”

      “I’m ready now to step back into my life, Scully. I need to, for so many reasons.”

      “None of those reasons are good enough. You need time. You deserve better than you’re asking for yourself.”

      “Do I, really?” Lacey took another step closer. “Do I deserve better than working in a place where hardworking men like my grandpa felt privileged to have a good, hot meal set down in front of them at the beginning of the day? Do I deserve better than getting to know them so I can share a part of their sometimes lonely lives?”

      Lacey paused, forcing back a gradual thickening in her throat as she continued, “I miss Grandpa, you know? He loved me. With his dying breath, he gave me the best advice he knew when he placed his Bible in my hands and told me to depend on it and the Lord to guide my way, and then when he sent me to you. He taught me so many things that’ll stay with me the rest of my life. But somehow, so many of my memories of him have become vague and cloudy in my mind. I was robbed of those memories that last day, and I want them back. I don’t know any other way to get them except to make a place for myself here so they’ll