The child yawned and rolled over, staring at her with heavy-lidded eyes. "What are you walkin' around for?"
"I'm sorry I bothered you. I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about a hundred things, and I just had to get up."
"What were you thinkin' about?"
"Someone."
"I saw you go off with Jeff Johnson today," Leah said, those dark eyes losing all traces of sleepiness. "You're thinkin' about him, aren't you?"
"You saw me with… but… I thought all the children were playing by the corral."
"I came back early. I was followin' you and Mama into the house, and then you stopped an' sneaked off with Jeff Johnson. Mama said I shouldn't tell anyone, or you'd get it from Grampa."
"Yes, I would," Addie said ruefully. "I'd rather you didn't tell anyone. Why are you wrinkling your nose like that?"
"Why'd you sneak off with him?"
"I had to talk with him, Leah."
The girl wrinkled her nose again, as if she had smelled something unpleasant. "Oh."
"What's the matter? You don't like Jeff? Why not?"
"You told me not to say why."
"Oh… I…" Addie paused and looked down at her, while curiosity leapt inside her. "I don't remember telling you that, Leah."
"You said it was our secret."
It took all of Addie's strength to swallow down her sudden raging impatience and keep from shaking the secret out of the child. She smiled and sat down on the bed, keeping her tone light. "Well, if you don't refresh my memory, I really won't be able to get to sleep. Why would I forget such a thing? Tell me what our secret is. "
"Aunt Adeline, I'm tired-"
"Tell me, and then we'll both be able to go to sleep."
"Don't you remember? I was hidin' under the veranda, and you and Jeff were in the porch swing, talkin'. "
"Was it in the morning or evening?"
"Evenin'."
"Was it a long time ago, or a short time?"
"Short time," Leah said solemnly.
"What were we saying?"
"You were talkin', real quiet, tellin' Jeff things about Grampa and Ben… and…"
"And what?"
"And a will. Grampa's will. And I made a noise, and you got real mad when you saw I was there. Don't you remember?"
"I… maybe a little." Addie closed her eyes, feeling dizzy. Russell's will.
Rushing down the porch steps, grabbing the frozen, dumbstruck child by the shoulders, hearing her own voice, soft and terrible in its icy rage. "What did you hear? What did you hear?" And then, gentle and cajoling and cunning: "Don't cry, Leah. I've decided you're a big girl now, old enough to share a grown-up secret. What you heard is our secret, Leah…and you can't tell anybody …"
That was all she could remember.
"What was I saying about Grampa and Ben?"
Leah turned her face to the wall. "I don't want to talk about it."
Slowly Addie leaned over and kissed Leah's forehead. "I'm sorry if! scared you when I got mad then."
"It's okay, Aunt Adeline. Is it still our secret?"
"Yes, please, Leah," she replied, her voice thin, insubstantial. "You have sweet dreams, you hear?"
The child turned over and flopped onto her own pillow, sighing.
Her knees weak, Addie walked to her own bed and sat down.
Why would I be telling Jeff about the will? There was no reason to. Unless … unless I was plotting something with Jeff. Oh, but I couldn't have been. Not about the will. Why, that would mean…
Suspicion spread through her like poison. Wilfully she tried to deny it.
I was-am-Russell's daughter. I wouldn't do anything to hurt him, no matter what I was like before. I know I wouldn't.
"My God, what's going on?" she said through dry lips.
What kind of a person had she been before she had returned to Sunrise?
A schemer. And maybe something far worse.
6
THE WEDDING WAS HELD OUTSIDE IN THE COOL MORNing air. Addie sat through the entire ceremony without hearing a word of it, her mind feverishly occupied with questions. Until now she had been certain about Ben's guilt and her own innocence. It had been so easy to picture him as the villain, and herself as the heroine who would save the day. But nothing was black or white anymore. Ben wasn't all good or bad, just as she wasn't. And the most horrifying thing of all was that if he wasn't guilty of plotting to kill Russell, she might be. She couldn't forget what Russell had said to her about the will.
"Aw, honey … I know you're prob'ly a mite disappointed at gettin' Sunrise in trust instead of all that money … you'd be a rich woman if I did that … you'd have enough money to do whatever you wanted for the rest of your life …
A rich woman.
How badly had she wanted to be a rich woman? If only she could remember more about the things she might have done in the past. If only there weren't so many shadows crowded in her mind.
She cast her eyes over the congregation until she saw Jeff's hatless head, his mahogany hair shining in the morning light. He hadn't even looked at her this morning. Boyish, blue-eyed Jeff. Had he really been that clumsy drunken stranger in the blacksmith shop last night? She could hardly believe it. It seemed like a dream.
Ben was just a few seats away from her. She was astounded by the strange part he had played in all of it. He was the last one she would have cast as her rescuer. His head turned in her direction, and she looked away before their eyes met. She couldn't look at him, not after what had happened between them.
Wincing, Addie couldn't dispel the picture that flashed through her mind, the two of them writhing on the floor of the blacksmith shop. She could feel her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she bent her head to hide her face. The way she had let him touch her, the way she'd encouraged him… no, she could never bear to meet his eyes again.
In the last twenty-four hours she'd become a stranger to herself. Addie smiled bitterly as she recalled how this unwanted nightmare had begun. How full of fire and conceit she had been, so eager to convict Ben, so certain she would be Russell Warner's savior. But last night she had found herself clinging to Ben like a wanton, drunk with desire for him, with no thought of Russell or anything else to sober her. It had never been like that before, not with anyone. After her first resistance she had made no effort to push Ben away. So much for herself-righteous intentions.
And what Leah had said later that night in the privacy of their room was more disturbing than anything else so far. Addie hadn't forgotten a word of it. It made her more than a little afraid. What had Leah overheard her planning with Jeff? What had she and Jeff been conspiring to do?