Page 85 of All We Carry Home

She met my gaze with her eyebrows raised in surprise. “How did you find out?”

“There’s a rumor . . .”

“That Bill Birkstrom never had any children.” She lowered her knees and hung her legs over the edge of the platform. She lifted an eyebrow as if considering whether to tell me or not. “It’s one of the town’s most favorite stories to gossip and theorize about.”

I held my breath, praying she would tell me more. The wind whooshed, making the platform creak ever so slightly.

“I ran away from an orphanage in Philadelphia, hopped the train, and ended up in Baker before I nearly got caught and ran from the train stewards.”

My pulse quickened. She’d grown up in Philly too? Though our circles might not have overlapped, something stirred deep inside me knowing we’d been that close, even as children.

She handed back the canteen. “Bill found me under a bench on Main Street that night and took me in. And though I did sneak out every night, there wasn’t anywhere for me to go from here. I was too short to steal the car and couldn’t walk the forty miles back to town in the dark.”

“The horses saved you,” I said, repeating what she’d told me in Germany.

She nodded. “They did.”

I thought of Eddie, Lucky, EP, Bennett, Mason, and the changes I’d seen in them over the past few weeks. No matter how much work they had in a day, they’d always stop to give one of the mares a scratch on the neck or sneak a carrot to Phantom. The horses had a way of reaching them.

Eva fell back into her thoughtful silence as clouds rumbled in the distance, lightning streaking at the very edge of the horizon. “It won’t crest the mountains to the east of us,” she said faintly. “The storm. Those clouds never seem to make it into this valley. Perhaps that’s why I never thought I’d lose Birkstrom. The storms had always passed us by.”

“You’ve faced the storms now,” I said. “Head-on.”

Her eyes locked onto the distant clouds. “I think the worst storm is yet to come.”

Twenty-Two

Eva

JUNE 15

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

“Thanks, Harold,” I said into the receiver. “Tell Lorraine I send my love.”

I hung up the phone and turned to Warren, who leaned against the wall and looked like a detective in a fedora and suit, perusing a newspaper but mostly listening to my conversation. We’d arrived in Seattle only a few hours ago after a long day of driving and had just enough time to call Harold Jefferson at the FBI office in Langley before we needed to dress for the banquet.

“He couldn’t guarantee they’d find anything,” I said with a shrug. “But at least they’ve heard our side of things first.”

Warren folded his newspaper and glanced around the hotel lobby. We’d been careful to lose the two men following us from Baker in a black sedan, but it was no secret to Keith that we’d be attending the fundraiser tonight.

The past week had been a flurry of activity, working with Phantom, rebuilding the cabins, setting up temporary lodging for the now seven men who lived on the ranch. I adored them all and had met several of them in my two weeks in Kötzting. EP had also been settling in well, getting to know the closely knit men of the 42nd.

Now all roads in and out of the property were carefully watched, gates were reinforced, and a lookout tower had been hidden in one of the tallest pines behind the cabins.

Birkstrom was a fortress.

That meant leaving for Seattle hadn’t been as hard as I’d expected. Annie hated being left behind, but she took her duties seriously—she was to look after the chickens and other assorted animals. Bennett was able to exercise all the horses in my absence, and even Phantom tolerated him.

With returning Stormy to the Carsons’ ranch after successfully curing her habit of breaking halters, I had enough for another mortgage payment and breathing room for another month. I was also able to work with the half-blind auction rescue, as that gelding was now looking more robust. Hopefully I could get him solid under saddle and then sell him.

Keith’s filly was also progressing well. A few months more and I could close out my business with him.

An hour after Warren and I parted ways to get ready for dinner, he knocked lightly on my hotel door. I took one last look at myself in the mirror and froze. In the deep royal-blue dress with my hair spilling in curls over my face, I was the spitting image of my mother.

My makeup accentuated the similarities. Oval eyes, high cheekbones, heart-shaped lips. I looked nearly the same as her photos in the newspaper from when she’d been arrested at age twenty-five. Younger than I was now.

“Eva?” Warren’s voice was deep on the other side of the door. I’d taken too long to answer.