Page 33 of Stolen Time
“She hasn’t,” he replied. “You see, I’ve been spending more time in Prescott lately, and I’ve met some people who were able to make inquiries. Mary is living quietly with her great-aunt, and there’s absolutely no sign of any suitors sniffing around. I know I’ll be able to make her mine soon enough.”
One line of argument shot down. What else could Seth possibly come up with to convince his brother that his current course of action would only end in grief?
“You want to give her a fine house,” he said. “Maybe you’ve bought the land, but do you have any idea how long it will take to build a new home? I doubt Mary will be quite as fancy-free a year from now.”
Charles only smirked. “No need to build a house when I can buy one outright. I heard that Jeffrey Waters, who owns the boarding house down the street, wants to sell everything and move back East, since it seems his wife can’t stomach lifein a mining town any longer. I have no intention of running a boarding house, but Waters’ home up on Paradise Lane is an entirely different story. When I can show Mary what luxury she’ll be living in, then I think she’ll change her mind…and so will her family.”
Although this news about Mr. Waters was unexpected, Seth knew the house his brother was referring to well enough. It sat on the opposite side of the street and partway down the block from the one his aunt Ruth occupied, and was somewhat bigger than her house, with three stories and a large, flat lot, uncommon in their town. Only the home that Mabel McAllister, the clan’sprima,occupied was more grand, and he realized with a sinking sensation somewhere in his stomach that such a residence might very well be sufficient evidence to convince Mary’s intransigent relatives that Charles McAllister wasn’t such a bad option after all.
“You will be lying to her,” Seth said, hearing the desperation in his voice but knowing he needed to press on regardless. “You will make her entire life a falsehood.”
“A pleasant one, though,” Charles returned. “And it isn’t as if she left me because she had fallen out of love. If that were the case, I would have let her go and tried to move on with my life. But to have her sanctimonious relatives step in and decide I wasn’t a suitable match for her, just because Father lost his temper that one time and made a scene? I won’t stand for it…and I’ll make sure they’ll all be eating their words very soon.”
The jut of his jaw told Seth that his older brother wasn’t making an idle boast. While it was true that the Townes, who’d been in Jerome since the late 1890s, had been very firm about making sure their only daughter was safely away from the McAllisters, he also knew that they were invested in the trappings of wealth, and probably wouldn’t have encouraged the match in the first place if it hadn’t been for Charles’s positionas the eldest son in the family, a position that assured he would inherit a thriving business and would have no problem providing for Mary. If he were to come back to her with words of love…and the deed to one of the finest houses in town…it was very possible that they might decide to reconsider their opinion of the match.
And truly, if Charles had come by the money honestly, Seth wouldn’t have said one word about the situation. He might have privately wondered how much love was truly involved, since he’d thought once or twice that Mary could have put her foot down and refused to go to Prescott, maybe even encouraged his brother to elope and get married someplace like Phoenix, where they could be sure no one from her family would intervene. Yes, that was de la Paz territory, but the McAllisters and the de la Pazes had always been on friendly terms, and he thought theprimathere would probably be sympathetic to his brother’s situation.
But to have the house and the reconciliation and everything else built on money earned by illegal activity?
That, as his uncle Malcolm — who was very prone to malapropisms — might say, was an entirely different ball of worms.
“What happens if you get caught?” he asked. “Do you think Mary would be content with having a husband in prison, even if she was living in one of Jerome’s finest houses?”
Charles’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t get caught. And neither will anyone I’m working with. All I need is for you to keep your mouth shut.”
Well, there lay the rub, didn’t it? Seth was all too aware of the many secrets his family kept from their neighbors and the world in general, but that was an entirely different situation. Witch clans always needed to keep their magical talents hidden or risk persecution. The Salem witch trials might have taken placehundreds of years earlier, but they still served as a stark lesson regarding the hysteria that could grip the civilian population when confronted with the unknown.
In his brother’s case, though, he’d be hiding something illegal, a secret that could put the entire clan at risk if the bootlegging operation was ever discovered. Some people might have argued that smuggling liquor wasn’t a crime like murder or kidnapping, and that if the laws hadn’t changed, it wouldn’t have been a crime at all.
Seth wasn’t ready to split those sorts of semantic hairs, however. All he knew was that his brother had put him in an impossible position.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” he said slowly as an idea occurred to him. Charles’s expression brightened at once, but Seth didn’t let that prevent him from adding, “As long as you withdraw from the operation once you have the house and you have Mary back. After that, you won’t need the money any longer, since the McAllister stipend and your salary at the store should be enough to provide for you both.”
This ultimatum didn’t appear to sit too well, for Charles retorted, “Do you have any idea what kind of people I’m working with? It’s not like tendering your resignation from a position at a bank.”
“I don’t care,” Seth said. While he couldn’t count himself relieved, he still thought he’d come up with a handy way to handle the mess. “Tell them that Father has gotten suspicious about all the gas you’re using in the truck, or the way the miles are racking up. Even they should understand this isn’t the sort of thing you can keep hidden forever.”
“‘They,’” Charles returned, “aren’t exactly the most understanding people in the world. But that may be the angle I need. I can’t break it off right away, though.”
“And I’m not expecting you to,” Seth said. “I know you need some time to buy the house and to see if Mary’s family will be willing to let her come back. At least this way you won’t forever be hiding your activities from your wife. Can’t you see that’s a better way to live?”
No response at first, as Charles seemed to be mulling what his brother had just said. At length he replied, “I suppose so. But you can’t breathe a word of this to anyone in the meantime, understand?”
“I won’t,” Seth said.
It was a promise he intended to keep…no matter what.
11
A WISH AND A MISS
Although we’d leftit open-ended as to when we’d go to Cottonwood for dinner, I couldn’t help wondering, as a day passed and then another, whether Seth had decided that getting any more serious about the town amnesiac wasn’t such a good idea after all and that he was currently indulging in the 1920s version of ghosting a person.
In which case, it was probably better for me to try to get out of here.
This time, I sat in the back parlor, which overlooked Ruth McAllister’s garden. It was a lovely little spot, not really big enough for a lawn, but with beds full of roses and old-fashioned flowers like foxgloves and hydrangeas and long spikes of hollyhocks. I felt intimately acquainted with the space at the moment, considering I’d spent all morning helping Ruth pull weeds out of the flowerbeds and spray whiteflies with a little copper sprayer full of a mixture of water and white vinegar, which she claimed was a sovereign remedy for the annoying pests, always a problem in this dry climate.
I supposed that was one thing that hadn’t changed much over the past hundred years, since my mother employed a similar method to deal with the whiteflies in our yard in Flagstaff.