“No, this meat isn’t as tender. Dried venison never is. Too bad you’re so finicky.”
He broke off a chunk of bread for her, but there was no butter for it on the table. It was possibly the last of the fresh loaf he’d brought from town, not so fresh now two days later. Would he make more? Did he know how? The stew was evidence that he had some knowledge of cooking.
She watched him dip his bread in the stew to coat it with gravy before taking a bite of it. She tried that and was surprised by how good it tasted.
“Are you good at map drawing?” he asked after a while. “Or are you just supposed to dazzle me with your beauty?”
These backhanded compliments didn’t impress her, but they did disconcert her a little. He had been watching her while they ate, so she had a feeling he was leading up to discussing that kiss, or getting ready to insult her again.
Violet had kept her own eyes averted—the man still hadn’t buttoned up his shirt! But she glanced up at him now to abruptly change the subject. “I want to view my father’s mine after dinner.”
“There’s nothing for an impostor in Charley’s mine,” he replied.
“His money?”
“With no mine door to secure it?”
That was a good point, but Morgan’s mine was about as secure as a bank vault. And if he and her father had been friendly, Charles might have asked Morgan to lock his money up for him. No—he’d already said he didn’t have Charles’s money. Good grief, this was so frustrating, and he was beyond infuriating with his flat refusals to do as she asked.
He stood up, saying he was going to wash his empty bowls in the stream. She followed him to do the same, annoyed that her legs still hurt so much, annoyed with Morgan, annoyed with the world—and tripped and fell face-first into the bed of flowers.
“What the devil!” she cried out, pushing herself back to her feet.
He glanced back at her. “You didn’t notice the fence?”
“You could have warned me.”
“Didn’t think you’d go walking through my flowers.”
“Yes, you did!” she accused.
“Yeah, but I know enough to step over a fence.”
“What bloody fence?”
“Use those violet eyes of yours—Violet.”
She squinted behind her until she saw a rope strung between stakes barely a foot high. And it didn’t exactly contain the flowers. They were already growing on the other side of it.
“It’s good enough to keep the animals out,” he added. “That and a few good yells taught them pretty quick.”
Glimpsing bright orange through the trees down below, she realized it was the setting sun and was pleased to have this confirmation of which way was west. She just didn’t know if this mountain range was north or south of the road they’d traveled on so long yesterday, or even east if the road had curved around the range.
Glancing around at the flowers, she realized they were nothing like the wild ones she’d seen yesterday. “These don’t grow here naturally, do they?”
“I had a dream one night that my mother paid me a visit. Which is never going to happen, but I still ordered some seeds and tossed them around this spring. New ones keep sprouting, and the garden’s a bit messy, but I think Ma would approve.”
This was the first time he’d talked about his family. She wanted to ask him about them, but he was already walking away, so obviously he didn’t want to continue the conversation. Still, it surprised her that he’d plant flowers just because his mother liked them. Unless he’d used that as an excuse so he wouldn’t have to admit that he liked them. Did he think that would make him appear less manly? Ha! Nothing could make him appear less manly.
Back in the cabin, he lit several lanterns that hung on the walls, then split an apple for them for dessert and sat down to eat his half. She wondered if he would try to stop her if she went down to view what was now her mine. She didn’t need his permission—except he didn’t agree that it was hers.
And then she was incredulous when he said, “I know that Charley hid his earnings somewhere up here. He heard too much about the money not being recovered from that recent bank robbery in town. That was why Charley refused to use the bank and hid his money up here.”
“Did you lose everything in that robbery?”
“No, nothing worth mentioning. I use banks in New York and Nashart. I haven’t bothered to look for Charley’s stash. You can if you’ve a mind to, but you don’t get to keep it. Find it and I’ll send it on to his sons.”
That would actually work out perfectly—if it was enough. “How much did he have?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. Have you run out of ammunition?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The proof of your identity you offered earlier involves sending a telegram, which I can’t do immediately. So what else do you have to support your claim?”
She hadn’t thought he would accept personal information about her father as proof that she was Charles Mitchell’s daughter, and he still might not, but she was invigorated from the bath and her long nap, and ready to do battle again. “You’re quite right. The proof I offered you earlier is days away, not here right now. But I have more up here.” She pointed to her head. “I can tell you more about my father than you can tell me. His hair was a lighter shade of blond than mine, his eyes dark blue, and he favored a handlebar mustache—at least, he did the last time I saw him. He was a tad over six feet tall. He broke his right leg when he was a young man and was left with a very slight limp that wasn’t noticeable unless he was overly tired, so hardly anyone knew about it. He had a good sense of humor and liked to tell jokes. I could recount some he might have told you, but I’m bad at remembering jokes even if I’ve heard them a dozen times. But there was one about two sailors, and another one about a princess and her watchmaker, something about her constantly summoning the poor man to her palace to repair her watch that wasn’t broken. And Charles’s birthday was May fourteenth. Oh, and my brothers are twins. If he mentioned that, he might have admitted that he could never tell them apart.”
“Could you?”
“When we were children I could, but when I saw them for the first time in five years just three weeks ago, both fully grown, no, I couldn’t.” She was pleased that he no longer looked skeptical. “You finally believe me, don’t you?”
“It was the jokes. They were horrible.”
She laughed. “We loved them—when we were children.”
Chapter Sixteen
THE BURDEN OF MORGAN’S disbelief that she was Charles Mitchell’s daughter had been more harrowing than Violet had realized. Now that it was gone, Morgan no longer made her quite so nervous. He might still look like a shaggy bear, but she’d had brief glimpses of his gentle side, and he no longer seemed ferociously unreasonable. He also no longer had any excuse not to answer her questions.
“What did you mean when you said you allowed my father to stay?” she asked first.
“The answer might not be good for the digestion,” he warned.
“I assure you I have an excellent constitution.”
“I meant mine.”
“Oh, the answer makes you angry,” she said, then reminded him, “But I’ve weathered your storms so far, haven’t I?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose you have. Well, I woke up one morning to find your pa picking at the cliff only a few feet from my claim. I wasn’t happy about it.”
“You were furious, weren’t you?” she guessed.
“You could say a little more’n that. I yelled at him to get the hell off my hill. He just waved at me and smiled, as if he didn’t hear me, which just made me angrier. I went down there and saw that he’d hammered in a stake that was literally touching mine. But he hadn’t made a dent in the rock yet. So I told him that his claim was invalid and he had to be gone by the end of the day.”