Bella poured some coffee for Claire who showed up with the boys to check on the puppies. Ben and George had gone to the barn to play with them while she and Bella had gone inside the house.
"So you kicked the reporter off the ranch," Claire said.
They both went to sit on the porch outside.
"Yes I did…Ernie's not a bad man but he's getting caught up in the big story."
"I thought he came to interview you about your life."
Bella sighed.
"That's how it started but before we left San Francisco, we had a run in with a man named Dylan Daggett who's head of a gang to get Clara away from him. She'd been living on the streets since she lost her parents and he took advantage of that."
Claire digested that.
"So you and Amelia rescued her."
"Something like that but Daggett was very angry," Bella said, "There'd been some murders of men and one of them was a businessman named Warrick. He was new in town and excited about setting up shop and he wound up dead in the street not long after."
"Who killed him? Was it this Daggett and his gang?"
Bella shook her head.
"It was someone else. Some of the wealthy leaders had private security like's come to Paradise only there just as much outlaws as the people they supposedly fight."
Claire's eyes widened.
"Is that what's happening here? The men who are helping Axelrod and other business owners…they're outlaws too?"
"I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if they were…some of them. Some of the latest Darrin Wyatt hired were from San Francisco."
Claire just stared at her.
"Then some strange man shows up in our barn threatening Amelia like he knows her. She didn't know him."
"Maybe he just wandered into town to cause trouble from someplace."
Bella shook her head.
"He knows the man who killed Warrick. What he's doing showing up in Paradise is the real question."
Claire just sighed.
"Dakota's in town trying to figure out who most of these security men are," she said, "One named Burke showed up at Axelrod's store to guard it but he's not very nice."
"They aren't paid to be nice. They're paid to intimidate people even honest folks."
"What can we do about it?"
"Nothing…and Ernie just made it worse by asking Amelia all these questions she didn't want to answer."
Claire paused for a long moment.
"She saw the man murdered didn't she?"
Bella looked up at her and nodded.
"They weren't after Warrick," Bella said, "They were after her."
"Why…? What did she do?"
"Nothing…she hadn't been in San Francisco long…she just saw the sights and came to some of my parties to raise money for the women's center. Daggett didn't like what I was doing because he needed a supply of women who were desperate enough to work as saloon girls and make him a wealthy man."
"That sounds awful."
"It was for many of them but what else could they do," Bella said, "Some lost their husbands, others lost their way. It happens and being a woman on your own is a very tough world. I turned to outlawing to survive."
Claire digested that. She'd been an orphan herself with her brothers until they'd been sent to Uncle Ethan. Without him, she didn't even want to imagine what would have happened.
"So what happened to Amelia?"
Bella hesitated.
"The killers took her with them."
Amelia sat there looking towards the lake. Ethan stood beside her.
"It doesn't matter what happened."
"It does to me…so why don't you just tell me?"
She rubbed her forehead.
"I don't know what you're going to think of me."
He sat down next to her and she didn't move away from him. She didn't move closer either.
"Why don't you try me?"
She fell silent after he said that and just kept looking out at the lake.
"I don't know all of it or I don't remember."
He paused.
"Ernie said something about your ex-husband..."
She chuckled derisively.
"You mean Pierce…no he wasn't there. I never saw him at all. I don't even know if he's still alive."
"He seemed just fine the last time we ran into him," Ethan said, "Why would he be dead?"
She paused again and he could see her struggling with her words again. He didn't know if she'd tell him and he didn't want to push her.
"He got involved in a land scheme with the wrong men," Amelia said, "He tried to swindle them and got away with a lot of money."
"So they went looking for him to get it back," Ethan said, "That's pretty much his life these days isn't it? Outrunning someone he's conned out of something?"
She nodded slightly.
"They couldn't find him but they found me."
Ethan saw the look on her face change.
"So what happened," he said, "How did they find you?"
She sighed, looking down at her hands.
"I was in San Francisco on my travels and I went to Bella's parties and that's where I met Warrick. He was a nice man Ethan…friendly, knew a lot about different places but he settled down in the city because he really liked what he saw."
"He seemed like a nice man."
"All he wanted to do was walk me back to the hotel," she said, "That's all. Nothing was going on between us."
"It's not my business anyway."
"It just wasn't like that. You see he lost someone dear to him which is one reason why he left Chicago and I…well I had been doing a lot of thinking and I'd made up my mind what I wanted to do."
He just listening not wanting to break up her chain of thought with any questions.
"You were going to come back to Paradise."
"Well yes, of course," she said, "I know what I wanted and it was to return to you and the children and find out some way to undo the hurt I caused all of you."
He shook his head.
"You didn't do anything wrong Amelia," he said, "It was just as much what I needed to do and I didn't. I had a lot of time to regret it."
She sighed.
"I had a lot of time to do that too. I told Warrick what I planned to do on the way back to the hotel and he told me I had to do what I had to do…to get back to the one I loved."
"Loved…"
She looked over at him.
"You know I love you Ethan…That never changed…it's just that everything else did."
"The night that he walked you back to your hotel."
"We never made it Ethan," she said, "I saw him die and I saw who killed him."
He looked at her face marveling at her ability to be calm about it.
"Who killed him Amelia?"
She lost some of her calmness then and she struggled to control anger and sadness and other emotions.
"It wasn't Daggett but I think you know that," she said, "It was two men…they weren't outlaws at least not by reputation. They were private security men…"
Amelia saw the look on his face when she told him that. It wasn't disbelief or that he felt she'd gotten it all wrong like with the reporter. He trusted her that she knew what she saw happen.
"Why did they kill him?"
She sighed, fighting back the lump in her throat. Because Warrick hadn't deserved to die, he'd done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Because he was with me," she said, "Because they didn't want to leave a live witness."
Ethan's eyes widened then at what she told him.
"Why…why were they after you?"
She had a hard time looking at him. His gaze was so intense, the concern on his face palpable.
"It wasn't me…well not exactly at first," she said, "They were after Pierce. He had swindled their boss and he said he'd pay them a huge bonus if they found him."
"So they followed you and when you and Warrick turned off the main street, they ambushed you."
She nodded.
"They killed him pretty quick…one gunshot after he tried to help them," she said, "They told us they were lost at first and all he did was try to direct them…then he saw that they had guns and asked them what they wanted."
"Then they killed him."
She looked away.
"He went down right away and just lay there," she said, "bleeding so much and moving…they just left him there and I tried to run away but one of them grabbed me…I couldn't get away. They took hold of me and pushed me into a wagon that was in the alley and one of them stayed with me so I wouldn't escape while the other drove…"
"Where…?"
"I don't know where…some house…we drove on the road and then it got bumpy…tossed us around a bit and then where they arrived, it was so dark…"
She felt the fear rush through her again like it had that night. The shock of watching Warrick alive one moment and dying the next and then struggling with the men to get away from them…and they kept saying she'd done wrong.
"They said I was…helping my ex-husband swindle people on some land deal," she said, "I said I didn't know anything about it. I hadn't even seen him in over a year."
"They didn't believe you did they?"
She shook her head, and she felt herself trembling with it. Damn she didn't want Ethan to see her fear. She had to be strong for herself just as she'd tried to be that night.
"They kept saying as they dragged me into the building that I was his partner in the crime and nothing I said convinced them otherwise. I loved him once but I don't…I'm not going to help him if he's breaking the law."
She remembered what they had said next…that even if she hadn't helped him, she needed to tell them where they could find them.
"I didn't know where he was and I didn't care. I just wanted to get away from them."
She felt some residual guilt that she'd cared so little for her ex-husband until she'd remembered how badly he had treated her. Abandoning her and then returning only to scam her all over again right before he stole from her. He hadn't cared at all when she confronted him and she'd been glad when he'd disappeared again from her life. Even though he stole the divorce papers.
"They didn't let you go did they?"
He'd said those words so carefully but it didn't matter. She didn't want to go there even with him. Anger, fear and shame flooded through her and she couldn't stop any of it. She got up and started walking away again towards the lake.
"Amelia…it's okay…"
She turned around to face him, her composure suffering badly.
"No it's not Ethan…it's never going to be okay."
She felt like she might collapse on the ground, her legs suddenly weak. But she kept her footing.
"I didn't want what happened next and I didn't do what Ernie said I did," she said, "but it doesn't matter what the truth is…it doesn't change anything."
"It matters to me and I know you…if anything happened it wasn't what you wanted and you didn't ask for it…whatever you had to do to get away from them…that's all right too…not that it makes it better but sometimes surviving is about making some very tough choices."
She felt such empathy in his voice and much more that it nearly undid her.
"I don't know all of it…I tried to give them money to make them take it and let me go," she said, "but then one of them…I don't remember his name said they weren't going to take my money. They wanted something else."
She sank on the ground then overwhelmed by everything, the memories of what happened, the reality that she'd spilled out what she did to him. She'd planned on coming back to him and telling him how much he loved him, how it didn't matter what he did for a living or if it scared her. Living without him was just not an option for her, that she'd rather take her chances by being with him. Not taking any of it, any day for granted as long as they had to spend together, she'd accept it. But what did it matter now after what happened? Women didn't have things done to them by men that they didn't invite or deserve and everyone looked at those women as if they were damaged or tainted goods in a world where the economic value of women mattered more than anything else.
But that didn't seem to matter to Ethan. He walked deliberately towards her and knelt down beside her taking her into his arms and holding her tightly. Any instinct she had to fight him was overruled by her need to be held in his embrace.
He held onto her as if he'd never let go of her and so they stayed wrapped up in each other for longer than they could measure closing out the rest of the world.