Chapter 40

Allie had spent many hours thinking about Mrs Bouchard. Lying in bed at night she would recall conversations from the past, each word and expression clearly remembered as she tried to work out if any of it had been real or it had all been a lie. I just want one thing, she thought, some sign that shows there had been truth to anything she had done or said. With each memory she would find herself getting upset at first, once again becoming that little girl who longed for the warmth of a mother's love, a family like others had. Then as she thought about it more she would pick out all the moments when she had been fooled by Mrs Bouchard's false sincerity, until a clear picture emerged of how the woman had played her father and her, using her hopes and his honour to satisfy some unjustified need for revenge.

It had been a solitary journey she had taken into the past as she worked her way through this, careful not to let her parents see her turmoil, for this was something she had to do without any influence from others. Her thoughts alone were going to unravel the truth she was looking for and as she reached her own conclusion she knew she could not let the woman get away without knowing she had been found out.

Now here she was, waiting for her moment and hoping that she would find the right words. This was the time and she was going to make sure that by the end of it Elizabeth Thatcher Thornton Bouchard knew that it had all been for nothing. So she sat patiently listening as the two women exchanged pleasantries, yet the threat was clear to her in the younger one's words. Don't get too confident, she wanted to say to her, you are not fooling all of us. "I missed you Abigail," Elizabeth said softly. "When I needed you the most you weren't there for me. That was hard."

Abigail looked sad. "I was always there for you, all you had to do was reach out. You had so many people trying to help and yet you didn't listen to any of them. All we wanted was what was best for you and Little Jack. What happened Elizabeth?" For a second there was a flash of something in her eyes before she replied once more in the soft voice she had adopted. Had that been anger? Hatred? Allie was sure she was probably the only person who saw, because she had been looking for it, and suddenly she realised it had been there so often in the past.

Elizabeth was struggling to keep her self-control, balancing her different personalities as she made herself the person Abigail was looking for, unsure of what was going on in Allie's mind as she sat still, her focus fixed. "I think I was hurting too much to let anyone else in. Not even God seemed to have an answer to what I was going through."

While Abigail was surprised to hear the honesty in Elizabeth's voice, Allie was still watching her eyes. They don't match her words, she thought. "But could you not see that you were hurting other people? Was your own pain so great that you took it out on others? This is not the way the young school teacher I remember arriving in Hope Valley all those years ago would have behaved. I wish I had been here to stop you before it all became so bad."

There was the flash again, this time Allie was sure it was hatred. "But I wasn't that young school teacher any more, Abigail. She died the same day Jack did. Or maybe even earlier, when he chose the Mounties over me."

Surprised by the bitterness in her voice Abigail tried to make her understand the truth. "But what we all admired and loved about Jack was his devotion to duty. You knew when you married him that he would always face that struggle, loving you as he did but seeing being a Mountie as his calling. He could no more stop himself from that than you could stop yourself from loving him."

Elizabeth said nothing, her eyes down no longer looking at Abigail. Allie knew what she was doing, working out how to act next. This was her time to speak up. "Is that what happened with my father, Mrs Bouchard? When you told him you had been looking for your dead husband in him, didn't you really mean that you wanted to test him over and over to see if he would choose you. Then when he did, you rejected him because that wasn't what you really wanted? You wanted to destroy him in the way Jack's choice destroyed you? Did you enjoy doing that to a good man and to a child, knowing that every time you let me down you were hurting him even more."

There it was in her eyes again, now clear for everyone to see. Hatred. But this time it stayed.

"I didn't want to destroy him for that, Allie, I wanted to destroy him because he was the reason Jack was dead. And because he is so strong the only way I could really do that was to hurt you. You were the only weakness he had that I could truly exploit." Elizabeth could feel the anger building inside her now. At the pity she saw in all their eyes. At the helplessness she felt inside herself. At the failure of what she had been doing. Her voice was so quiet they could hardly hear the words but then she spoke again. "Nobody saw my pain, they were too busy feeling their own. They didn't love him the way I did."

Rising up from her chair Allie moved to stand in front of the woman she had once wanted to love her, a sideways glance at Gabe telling him that she knew what she was doing. "That brings me to the one question I really want to ask you. The reason I came to see you." Elizabeth looked up then, a hesitancy on her face as she tried to think what this meant. "Do you really know what love is Mrs Bouchard? Have you ever felt that emotion towards any person other than yourself? Even Little Jack? The feeling that they mean more to you than anything else on this earth? Because I can assure you that if you had, you would know that with the beauty of it comes sadness, with the light comes darkness. Love can and will cause you to hurt but it is the single thing that will give you happiness that you can't explain."

No longer hiding behind the timid façade she had chosen to present to them Elizabeth spat her next words out as all constraint left her and her true feelings appeared. "What do you know about real hurt, Allie?"

"What would you know about real love Mrs Bouchard? My guess is nothing."

With that she turned her back on the woman in the chair. "I'm done here Uncle Gabe." Then looking down at Abigail she gave her a smile before saying, "I will leave you to continue Mrs Gowan. I need nothing more from this person."

She had just reached the door when she stopped and looked back. "There is one final thing. When you are all alone wherever they decide to send you from here I hope you think about your son. Because Little Jack will be living a life surrounded by the type of love you will never understand."

Gabe closed the door and hurried after Allie as she marched down the hallway. Hearing him approach she stopped and swung around to face him. "I am fine Uncle Gabe so please don't be concerned about me. I said exactly what I intended and needed to in there and if that meant being rude to an adult then frankly I don't care. Elizabeth Bouchard doesn't deserve my respect." She was surprised to see a smile start spreading on his face as she continued. "You don't have to worry about speaking to my dad either because I am going to tell both my parents as soon as I see them and I will make sure they know this was not your fault."

Gabe smiled, grabbing her in a hug. "I'm not going to say anything, Allie, as it is your right and privilege to do that. I just hope your head doesn't get too big as you receive the deserved respect for what you just did in there!" He let go of her then, his eyes still on hers as he continued. "I am very proud of you. but then I always have been. What you did in Brookfield will go down in the folklore of the town, your calmness in the situation something that I have witnessed in few adults. Do you know, sometimes when I watch my children sleeping I say an extra thank you to God for giving you to all of us. As long as we have people like you then I know they are growing up in a world that can only get better."

Abigail had remained sitting as she reflected on what she had just heard, impressed by the strength of the young woman who had spoken with such insight. Allie Grant certainly was growing up to be a force to be reckoned with and one who was destined for great things she had no doubt. Nathan seldom talked about his sister Colleen, the pain of her death still something that he found difficult to discuss, but when he did he spoke of a woman who cared deeply about others and was willing to fight for those she loved. He could have been describing himself, she thought. Now, having watched Allie, she realised that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

A movement in front brought her back to the present and a decision on what she should do now. Was there anything more to say? Knowing that this was probably her only chance to speak to Elizabeth she had to regain her composure first, not knowing where the conversation would lead them. But then Elizabeth broke the silence. "You understand, don't you Abigail? When you lost Noah and Peter you were determined to do everything you could to get justice for them, which you did when you took the mining company to court. That's all I was trying to do"

Finding it difficult to think of a response to that Abigail took her time, breathing in deeply as she wondered how she could have been so wrong about this woman. "There is nothing the same about our two situations and how we dealt with them, Elizabeth. There were so many of us trying to come terms with the tragedy of the mine collapse and then we faced the risk of losing our homes as well. Fighting the mining company was all about survival. But whatever hardship I faced I could never have deliberately set out to hurt innocent people along the way. To destroy a child so that you could gain some sort of revenge for what had been an accident? How could you?"

Elizabeth's mouth had dropped open, surprised by what she was hearing as she expected Abigail to offer her support, as she always had in the past. Yes she had acted as her conscience on occasion by telling her she was wrong about something but she always felt her to be on her side. Now she wondered if that had really been the case. Perhaps all those late night conversations she had with Jack after closing up the café had not been with their happiness in mind after all. Now she wondered if Abigail had been the one who encouraged him to follow his calling and place the need to be a Mountie before his love for her? She could feel the bitterness growing inside but as she opened her mouth to speak a hand was raised to stop her.

"I'm not finished, Elizabeth. There was nothing the same about us. I lost my husband and son and had no-one to turn to here. You had people who cared deeply for you, a family who supported you and the wonderful gift of a baby, a piece of Jack to keep the memory of your love alive. But that wasn't enough for you. You were a Thatcher and it is clear to see now that you believed things like that shouldn't happen to you and if they did then someone needed to pay for it. So instead of being grateful for what you had you set out on a journey of hatred towards anyone you thought was standing in your way."

Abigail didn't know how to stop. It was like the opening of floodgates as the words poured out, every emotion strongly felt. She knew that if she asked God what to do now this would not be it but there was a time in everyone's life when the truth had to be told. "Do you think I didn't hate Henry then? That I didn't blame him for everything that happened? Of course I did but it never crossed my mind that I should be the one to make him pay. That was for the courts here to decide. And for God to do when the time came. Look at us now. I realised he was a good man who tried to do right by everyone and ended up doing everything wrong. That didn't make him bad, it made him human. And he has spent every moment since then making up for what he sees as his sins, seeking redemption in every way possible."

But then she began to laugh, a low throaty sound that she couldn't help. Ed was just about to move across to her when she shook her head. "Do you know the most ironic thing about all of this? You then teamed up with the very people who had actually been responsible for Jack's death and helped them gain their vengeance against the RCMP. You were complicit in all of their crimes, believing you were avenging Jack when in fact you were enabling them in doing the very things that your husband had been fighting. You became what he despised."

Abigail paused before looking Elizabeth straight in the eye. "You killed Jack over and over again from the moment you chose Lucas Bouchard. No….long before that. Every single time you hurt Nathan and Allie."

Bill waited for Greg Aldritt to take Lucas back to the saloon before moving around to the other side of his desk and reaching for the telephone. Then he hesitated for a moment, looking out through the windows at the front to the Main Street of this town that he had grown to love and wondered whether it was worth the price they had all had to pay. He was tired of feeling angry, as were all the men, so he understood how exhausted Nathan must be. Then to have a bombshell dropped like the one they had heard today from Lucas was almost too much to deal with.

It was normal for anger and weariness at dealing with so many evil people to build up in a Mountie but usually there was breathing room between the bad situations to allow them to come to terms with what they had encountered. Here it was all happening so fast. And this time it was personal. He couldn't think about Jack right now. This evening he would walk down to the rowhouse to see Charlotte and Tom and inform them of the latest development. As strong as she was, he knew that even she would be unable to hear that her son's death had been deliberate without it breaking her. He didn't want them to be departing from Hope Valley with this news but they needed to be told and then it would be good for them to put distance between themselves and the investigation to take it all in. The ensuing trials would be time enough for them to learn all the facts.

But first he knew that the conversation he was about to have could make a big difference to how Nathan faced the coming days. That he realised immediately the impossible situation he was in regarding the investigation showed the quality of the man, but Bill was not going to let him hang around on the sidelines waiting to learn what he should do next. He wasn't a man to stand idly by and watch without it destroying him bit by bit each day. The decision that was due in a few weeks must be made now for he feared that without it the RCMP were going to lose one of the best officers they had ever had.

It was obvious that everything was going to change very quickly here in Hope Valley once the investigation was concluded and life moved on for the people here. In fact it was already happening. The newly found confidence in the future of the town would bring prosperity and growth and that would mean new people wanting to move here. There would be expansion and with the problems uncovered in Benson Hills the whole area was due for reorganisation for the RCMP. Bill believed Nathan was the person to lead that and much more, which he knew from conversations during his recent visit that many at headquarters did as well.

With the team he had brought here they had shown how the investigation into major crime could be changed for the better, with the bringing together of a team with specific skills and experiences to deal with every aspect of the operation. One man with vision had done that and the respect the Mounties under his command had for him was clearly evident in the approach they took towards their work and the results they had achieved in a relatively short space of time. Bill wasn't about to let what Lucas told them today change what should be one of the best decisions the RCMP could make.

At the warehouses Nathan was not surprised to find that everything concerned with the people smuggling investigation was completely under control, he would expect no less from these men. While they hadn't known what they would find when they came to Hope Valley, in every big case there were always times when extra understanding was needed and of his team these were the two he knew he could call on for that. They had an empathy with victims that went that bit beyond what others were able to provide and as so many turned to or away from God in times like this their strong religious faith often resonated with those who were questioning their own.

They had added the murder of the young Chinese man, Jook Liang, to their remit, the main suspect having been taken to the jail in Benson Hills. Every morning Nathan reminded the team of all the victims in this, taking the time to read out their names. It was too easy to forget that these were real people and so he found this helped everyone to remember. Tomorrow Walter and Patrick would get the morning train through there to interrogate him and the others being held from The Tipperary. They were looking for information of who was involved in the operation here in Hope Valley and the connections within the mobs. He knew that they would give no quarter when it came to getting what they needed, the memory of what they had seen here etched forever on their minds.

Now he took his time wandering back, determined to show Allie that he had faith in her by not hovering outside the hospital while she finished speaking to Elizabeth. He knew his daughter. In fact he often felt as though he had known her all his life for she was so like her mother that sometimes he found his breath catching at an expression on her face or something she said that was so much like his sister that it hurt.

Other times he felt guilty when he realised what a double edged sword it all was. If Colleen had lived then he would not have had Allie as his daughter, which was almost inconceivable to him now, and yet he would give anything to have had his sister grow old alongside him. That she and Cecilia would have loved each other went without question in his mind. Two strong women with the biggest hearts, trying hard to stop the scars from their past overwhelm their present, they would have believed they could conquer the world together. That was why he said yes to Allie today, he wanted to give her the chance to heal her own wounds before they became permanent. So that she could put them behind her and move on.

He knew he shouldn't be enjoying this time alone but it was only as he walked out into the fresh spring air that he realised he needed this to think about what would happen now. There was no-one better than Bill Avery to get the truth out of Lucas and with Greg assisting him he knew the interrogation would not be affected by his absence. Undoubtedly there would have been other information revealed this afternoon and he had to leave it to Bill's discretion to decide what was shared with him. As hard as it may be to step away, he owed it to all the victims of these crimes to not do anything to jeopardise the investigations. So no matter what decision headquarters made, tonight he would sit down with the team and hand over everything to them.

With Allie having hopefully done what she needed regarding Elizabeth, it was time for them to think about heading home before the baby was born. What would come after that he didn't know but he wanted them to spend as much time together as a family before Allie headed off to college.

As he approached the end of the boardwalk he noticed some pots had been planted with a colourful mix of spring flowers. Were they new or had he been so focused that he hadn't spotted them before? Not professing a great horticultural knowledge he did at least recognise some gerbera daisies amongst them, remembering how his mother would plant them in the garden by their kitchen door when he was a child. His father had destroyed so much at the front of the house in his drunken stumbles back from town that she had given up trying there. But this was her special place. Often she would sit out there in the afternoon sun preparing the vegetables for dinner and enjoying the little garden she had planted. Again he felt a renewed resolve to heal the rift in his family. There was too much to forget but forgiveness was not beyond hope and he wanted to give the gift of grandparents to his children before it was too late.

Looking down Main Street he wondered where his wife was. He knew she would not have gone far from the hospital while Allie was still in there, so that meant she was probably working at the newspaper office. Reaching there he was surprised to see that the lights were out and a closed sign hung on the door. She had just started writing a new children's book in the Mountie series so she may be working on that. It was something she felt she could do in the final stages of her pregnancy and when the baby was still young. As usual she didn't share anything about it until she was almost done, when she was then quite happy for both his and Allie's opinions. He would have looked for her at home but with Patrick O'Reilly using the study at Bill's house for his work she wouldn't be there. So the most likely choice was Minnie's Place. Quickening his steps he crossed over to The Mercantile, hoping that Ned still had some bouquets for sale in the baskets outside. It was a long time since he had bought flowers for either of his girls and in the spirit of the more carefree man he hoped to become this was as good a time as any to rectify that.

Gabe watched Allie walk away, a lightness to her step that told him the girl was going to be just fine. Sometimes you had to make sure you had scraped the last of the mess off the bottom of your boot so that you could take the next step forward cleanly and she had just done that with conviction.

Going back into the room he was surprised to feel a change in the dynamics there. Abigail Gowan seemed to have grown in confidence with Allie's words and now she was speaking clearly herself, not holding back on what she had to say. In the chair opposite her Elizabeth had shrunk down, unable to look at the others she kept her eyes focused on the hands she had clenched in her lap. "There is nothing you can do to change the past Elizabeth but you can begin to redress some of the wrongs you have committed. First you can help the Mounties put Hargreaves and The Bouchards away for a very long time. Your testimony could make a difference there and you would finally be getting justice for Jack."

Both men noticed that Abigail did not mention the deal that Lucas had made, nor did she suggest something similar for Elizabeth as an enticement. There was a lot this woman could gain from telling the truth about the events of her past but escaping the consequences of her actions would not be one of them. She had hurt some of their own and that was unforgivable.

Elizabeth shifted in her seat, trying to make herself as small as she felt. She needed time to think about what she should do, Abigail's words having come as a shock to her. What did she mean by saying that Andrew Hargreaves and the Bouchards were responsible for Jack's death? That couldn't be true. It had been Nathan. Everything she had done was because Nathan was to blame.

Then she remembered who had told her. Helen Bouchard.

Abigail's voice cut into her thoughts and finally she looked up. "What? I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you just said." Her voice was almost a whisper as she struggled to form any words.

"I said, there can be no redemption without one thing Elizabeth. You have to apologise to Nathan Grant. You nearly destroyed a good man and it is only his inner strength and the love of the brave young woman who was just here that got him through it. Now he needs closure from this and you have to give him that."

Cecilia looked up as the door to the cafe opened, a smile immediately on her face as Allie walked in. She could see a difference in her straight away, as though the burden she had been carrying had been discarded and now a whole new world stood in front of her. She crossed quickly, giving her mother a kiss on the cheek before taking the seat beside her, then picking up a fork she snuck a bite of the chocolate cake Cecilia had ordered but not yet eaten. "Hello mum, Mrs Coulter, Miss Miller." She looked in turn at each woman. "I thought I may find you in here."

All three women had held their breath for a moment, not daring to ask but wanting to hear what Allie had to say. Cecilia broke the silence, "You are teasing us young lady and that is not fair." Mumbling with another bit of cake in her mouth Allie finally spoke. "I know but I want to speak with dad and you first, mum. Then you can decide who needs to know what happened. I don't want to say the wrong thing to someone."

Rosemary had thought that after the happenings in Brookfield there was nothing this girl could do to amaze her but here she was displaying a maturity beyond her years. Although the smudge of chocolate cake on her nose was a good reminder that she was still young.

"I also want to speak to you both about college as it is time for me to make some decisions."

Cecilia was about to answer when Allie turned towards Rosemary. "I need to discuss some things with you too Mrs Coulter. There is a proposition I would like to put to you, something I have been thinking about, so could we meet in your office at a time when you are free?"

Then she looked at Fiona. "And Miss Miller….do I still call you that or should I address you as Mayor?" Fiona laughed, still unaccustomed to how people reacted to the role she now filled. "Well, you are almost reaching the age when you can call me Fiona but for now Miss Miller is just fine."

Allie nodded. Finally wiping the chocolate from her face she was about to continue when suddenly she burst out laughing. Standing in the doorway was her dad, his face barely visible behind the most enormous bunches of tulips and daffodils she had ever seen.