Chapter Five

Steve rode alongside McColl; Heath had asked their foreman to show Steve to the old two bedroom home Tom and Victoria had used before their new home was built. Heath had assured Steve that someone would bring Lily as soon as she returned. As they rode down the dirt road, Steven surveyed the land before him. He remembered the times he would travel out of the mountains with Adam Brighton and the pull towards wide open spaces like this, not that Steve hated the mountains he didn't. He might not have thought about those trips only he was feeling the same pull now; only it was stronger, as if someone actually had a hold of him and was doing the pulling. With that thought, Steve's mind wandered back to the day Adam Brighton had taken his last breath.

"Ya was so young," Adam lay on his deathbed looking up into the face of his 'son'. The guilt the older mountain man was feeling could be seen in his eyes and heard in his weak voice. "Looking back on it, I guess I should have taken the risk and took ya back down ta the valley, showed someone that book ya had on ya. They might have been able ta help ya. I," Adam sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "But there were only one sheriff close enough to take ya to, and he was as crooked as they came. Tried more than once to frame me for somethin' I didn't do, last time he came too close for my comfort." He opened his eyes as he covered Steve's hand with his. "All I could think of back then was makin' sure I didn't give him something to twist and turn, to frame me for good. So, I hid the book and kept ya alive while I was doing my own living. It was wrong of me. I could have made the time to travel around his town and to another. If that book is where I think it is…" the man's voice trailed off and he closed his eyes.

Steve thought about the book he carried inside his saddlebags, and the notes made in the back. He wished it just held the name of the Barkley family. As it was, there two families mentioend; the Barkleys and the Alders. The questions that had plagued him ever since he'd found out he hadn't been remembering wrong when he'd seen himself alone in the mountains with that book again sounded in his ears. Who was he really? Was he a Barkley or was he the child of their friends? And why had he been alone when he'd begun to feel there had been someone else with him for awhile? At the tail end of those questions came the most important one. As Lily had asked him, if he was going to say nothing to the Barkleys…why then had he insisted that Lily and he come to Stockton?

"Here we are." Duke McColl's voice brought Steve out of his thoughts as he turned his eyes to the home before him.

"Mr. Barkley wasn't joking." Steve said as he let out a low whistle. He could see more than one shingle were missing while others barely hung on. Some of the windows were broken, and the building needed a good paint job. "I'm surprised a family as wealthy as the Barkleys have a house on their land in this bad of shape."

McColl, who had worked for the Barkleys for more years than he cared to admit-mostly because he'd have to admit his age, shook his head. "As a general rule they do take extremely good care of anything they own. But…" he stopped and shrugged his shoulders. "No one's lived in there for a lot of years. Mr. Barkley; that is, the boys' late father, Tom, threatened to tear it down more than once. He never did though."

"Why not?" Steven asked as he dismounted his horse.

McColl, who allowed memories from long ago replay themselves in his mind, didn't answer until he too was standing on the ground. "Mrs. Barkley wouldn't hear of it." He shook his head and added in a somber tone, "She doesn't ever come here, but she wouldn't let it be torn down either."

For a split second Steve thought about asking the foreman to tell him just when the Barkleys moved out of the house. Instead, he started up the steps only to hear the second one creak. He hurried up the few steps and then, looking back at the steps, he said, "Those steps are the first thing to get fixed." He wasn't so concerned about himself as he was Lily. He didn't want his wife hurt over something that could be fixed so easily.

~oOo~

"The two of you had McColl do what?" Victoria, who had returned from the orphanage, now stood in the study staring at Jarrod, who was sitting behind his desk, in disbelief.

Jarrod sighed inwardly. He had known his mother would not be happy when she learned what Heath had suggested, and how Jarrod had backed his blonde haired brother up. Only, what other choice was there? The couple had to have a place to live, and to expect Steve to travel from Stockton, work the long hours he'd be working on the ranch, only to turn around and travel back to town might be plausible enough…but it was also unnecessary. He explained the reasoning to his mother and then added quietly, "It's been twenty three years mother. Don't you think it's time to let go? Mrs. Alders finally did; you can too."

Victoria stiffened and then turned her back on Jarrod. "We can't find them." Tom and their friend Charles Alders looked at their wives. The men had been looking for their sons who seemed to have wandered away from camp a few hours before. Since Nick was five and Tommy six, both families were terrified for them. "We're going to grab some food and go back to looking though." Tom's words from long ago rang in Victoria's ears, and she successfully fought to keep the tears at bay. She knew her eldest was right, but he wasn't the one who has lost a son in "those mountains" as Mrs. Alders once put it. "There's got to be another place for them to stay." She finally turned around and faced Jarrod.

"There isn't." Jarrod shocked himself and his mother when he stood up and spoke as firmly as he would have with any of his siblings when he was trying to get them to see reason…even using his "Pappy tone". That was definitely a first for him. He might not have spoken to his mother that way only he had been shocked to have an extremely strong feeling fall over him…one that pushed him to make sure the man they'd just hired fixed the cabin up and moved in with his wife. Though, seeing the shocked expression on his mother's face, Jarrod softened his tone as he walked around his desk and up to his mother. "I assure you; they seem like good people. They need a place to stay and, if the home is going to continue standing, it needs to be repaired now." He lifted hands, pulled his mother into his arms in a loving embrace and asked quietly, "Or have you changed your mind? Do you want the house torn down?"

A part of Victoria wanted to tell him to do just that. After all, she'd never stepped a foot inside the home since Tom had moved her and Jarrod into their new home. It hadn't made any sense not to do something with the empty building. However, even all these years, she still couldn't get herself to speak the words that would bring their first home…the place where her lost son was born… to the ground. "No," she finally said quietly. "Go ahead, let them move in and fix the place up."

Jarrod let go of a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. However, he couldn't help wonder why he'd gotten the impression he had or why it was so important to have their newest hand and his wife living there. Though, he didn't dwell on the matter but a few minutes as he hoped time would give them all the answers to that question.