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AS SOON AS THE RIVER crested, it began to recede, and it was soon flowing swiftly within its shallow banks. By nightfall, the cleaning up began, and soon life in the village returned to something resembling normal. The raging water’s encroachment upon the citizens’ lives might be finished for now, but it had reminded everyone just how tenuous their toehold on the land really was. The forces of Nature owned this valley, not humankind. Grants and patents, bills of sale meant nothing in the greater scheme of things, and a life could be snuffed out as quickly and as easily as moistened fingertips snuffed out a candle’s flame.

McAllister’s Inn’s high ground kept the flood from entering the building, and only the cellar needed cleaning. The judge’s stock of whiskey and wine that normally lined the earthen walls now crowded the shelves of Meg’s pantry. Normally, this might have rankled, but when Eben brought Raven back to the inn, he found Meg in her chair by the hearthside, plying a linen handkerchief, and he knew immediately that something was wrong. “What’s happened here? Is Zeb all right?”

“That old rooster?” she said, and snorted. “No, it’s Sarah Fletcher’s boy, Thomas. He’s missing, and feared drowned. The judge is gathering the able-bodied men for a search- party.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Eben squeezed Meg’s bony shoulder. “How old is he?”

“Eight-years. A tow-haired child with steel-blue eyes.” A tear escaped her eye and she sniffed. “Poor Sarah’s beside herself. She lost two sons last year. One to diphtheria, the other fell from the hayloft. She has a girl-child, but Thomas is the only lad she has left.”

“And he may well be out there, safe and sound,” Eben reassured her. “Don’t think the worst until we have to.”

She patted his hand, which rested lightly on her shoulder. “It’s a great comfort that you’re home, Eben. Don’t worry about Raven. She’ll be here with me.”

“Are you certain?” Raven asked, once he’d gone. “I can go to my room. I don’t wish to intrude.”

“Stay, please. I’m glad for the company. It’s not often there’s another woman to talk to around here—except for Nan, and she’s dumb as a post. One thing on her mind, and it ain’t somethin’ that interests me.” She collected herself, and sat up straighter. “Forgive me, dear, but are you hungry? There’s turkey pie just out of the oven, and cobbler with raspberry preserves.”

Raven’s stomach grumbled loudly. “It sounds delicious.

Perhaps just a sliver?”

Three slivers and a large tumbler of milk later, she plied her napkin, looking sheepishly at Meg. “I was hungrier than I first thought.”

“Had a rigorous day, did you?”

“We went to a dressmaker’s shop for a wardrobe.” “A wardrobe?”

Raven nodded. “Eben insisted. He is hoping that I will catch a husband.”

Meg’s eyes narrowed. “Is he, indeed? Is this something that meets with your approval?”

“Very few things Eben insists upon meet with my approval,” Raven admitted, then giggled at the admission. “We disagree a great deal, and sometimes it’s worse than that. Like when he took me to that whorehouse in Pittsburgh.”

“What?”

Raven noticed that Meg’s face went white then red in rapid succession, and hastened to explain. “He said he disliked bedbugs, and the sheets were always clean there. The proprietress was a very good friend of his, and he had other friends there, too—all women.”

Meg fanned herself with her handkerchief. “It’s dreadful glad I am that the judge isn’t here to catch wind of this, or we’d be scraping him off the ceiling.” She muttered something to herself for a moment or two, then fixed Raven

with a pointed stare. “Nothing bad befell you there, did it, lass? In this—place?”

Raven shook her head. The food she’d consumed was making her drowsy. She wanted nothing more than curl up under a quilt and snooze. She stifled a yawn. “Eben was there the entire time.”

“The entire time, you say?”

“Except for the morning after he came back to our room drunk. I went off alone to see the city, but he found me quickly enough.”

“Your room? As in yours and his.”

“Meg, did I say something to upset you?” Raven wondered.

The older woman’s eyes were almost slits, and her brow was furrowed, as if she were troubled by something.

“What?” Meg said. “Oh, no. Of course, not. In fact, my dear, there is nothing you could say that would upset me.”

Raven stifled another yawn. “I think I’ll lie down for a while.”

Meg smiled, but that watchful, scheming expression never left her angular face. “Did he indeed?” she murmured, once Raven left the room. “Did he indeed?”

ZEB’S SEARCH PARTY WOULD GATHER at the inn

before dawn and set out at first light to look for Thomas Fletcher. In the meantime, Eben and Jacob Miller set out in the canoe to scout for the child. Perhaps more than anyone in the county, Eben understood what the boy was facing. He’d been a terror-stricken eight-year-old boy when his parents were murdered, and for three harrowing days, he’d burrowed into his hiding place, too afraid and too stunned to come out.

Finally, the devastating ache of an empty belly had lured him from hiding, and someone who’d stumbled on the carnage found him and took him to the judge while the two men left behind buried his folks.

That day when his family splintered still haunted him. It was the reason he’d never stopped searching for Jase, sending out feelers, asking questions. It was why he couldn’t heed

Zeb’s advice and leave well enough alone. Familial connections were everything. And Eben had none.

It was also the thing that kept him out searching until a thick fog and fatigue finally drove him back to the inn. Meg met Eben and Jacob in the kitchen. She set two plates before them, and watched as they ate. Jacob drained his glass of milk, and thanked her. “You’d better get some rest, boy. They’ll be off again at dawn, and you’ll want to be with them.” Besides, I’d like to have a private word or two with Mr. St. Claire.”

“Night, Meg. Night, Mr. St. Claire.”

“Get some sleep,” Eben said. He finished the last bite of cold turkey pie and drank the milk she gave him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything that good, Meg. Thank you.”

“Is that so?” she said lightly. “I would have thought Sally Sourwine could afford to hire herself a decent cook.”

Eben went still, his mug poised in midair. “Say again?” “Sally Sourwine. She’s a madam, I believe, and a friend of

yours. And she’s also well-acquainted with that young lady upstairs, is she not?”

Now, it made sense. Her back was up, because Raven had been talking, and he speculated for a few silent seconds on just how much she might have said. “So, that’s what this is about. Raven mentioned Sally’s.”

“She did indeed, and she also mentioned that the two of you shared accommodations.”

Eben put the mug down and waited. “If you’ve something to say, then say it. You’ve never held back before when it came to having opinions about my affairs. Why start now?”

She leveled a stare at him that could have soured the remainder of the milk in his mug. “Is that what this is Eben? An affair? Because that girl upstairs is no whore, to be trifled with lightly. She’s a tenderhearted little thing barely out of her girlhood.”

“I do not intend to harm her,” he said, thoroughly sick of everyone reminding him how young she was, how vulnerable.

With all this talk of him robbing the cradle, he was feeling quite the lecher.

“But that doesn’t mean you won’t.”

He sat back in his chair, his expression closed, his anger building. “And what does Raven have to say about all of this? Have you thought at all about what she might want?”

She braced her palms on the rough wooden table and leaned toward him, her expression menacing. “Are you saying she seduced you? She’s not Ivory.”

He ignored the remark, but his words were clipped, his voice hard, his expression suddenly gone cold. “I am saying that whatever happened between her and I is our business. No one else’s. Not even yours, Meg. Stay out of it.”

He stalked from the kitchen into the night, and after a while, the chill embrace of the fog took the bite from his anger. He hated meddling, and he especially hated other people meddling in his business… but Meg was right about one thing. Raven wasn’t Ivory, and he would have to tread very carefully where she was concerned.

It was a little amazing, how swiftly she’d garnered allies. First Zeb, now Meg. Everyone seemed to be rallying around her, protecting her from him. Yet no one had asked Raven what it was that she wanted.

Least of all him.

Her words from that same afternoon stayed with him. Then why can’t we be together?

Because it wasn’t right. Because he had other plans.

Because his future didn’t include a wife. And because she deserved so much more than he was willing to give her.

His dream was about horseflesh, and prestige, and honor, and fortune. Never once had he thought about love, about giving. About anything but himself.

“She’s right, St. Claire, you are an ass.”

And he probably always would be. He had no intention of changing. Not for anyone. Not even Raven.

Still, he thought about going to her, talking it out, explaining himself—possibly making it far worse than it already was. And in the end, he found himself sharing a stall with Cadence. He took down a saddle blanket and sat in the corner where the straw was fresh and free from shit. And he thought about Raven, soft and warm and sweet in her bed. But at least for this night, he kept his distance, and she was safe.

Twenty-five men searched the entirety of that next day, without finding Thomas Fletcher. The best that they could do was to give Sarah a muddy shoe they’d found in the corn stubble along Plum Creek, then, watch helplessly as she collapsed weeping in the dooryard of her simple home.

Only Eben stayed away. He didn’t need to witness the woman’s grief. He knew just how it felt. The search affected him, and he didn’t return to the inn when darkness fell.

Instead, he went up into the hills that rose above Plum Creek. Years ago, these hills had been a favorite place to run and hide and play. The cave, well hidden among the rocks, a secret hideaway that had at one time, saved his life. If he’d listened to their father and had been helping Jase work the fields that day, he would not been here now. Instead, he had snuck away, and come to the cave.

When he’d finally gone home, his parents were dead, and his brother was missing.

Each time he came home to McAllister’s Ford, he climbed the hills to visit this place. In a way it was punishment, an ordeal to temper his spirit, his will. A forced reliving of that black day and all the bad and good that had come from it.

He would never let himself forget, to lapse into enjoying the small everyday pleasures that could lull a man into complacency, a willingness to just go on, to allow the dead to rest, undisturbed, unavenged. There were times when he grew tired of carrying the past, when the weight on his soul seemed too great to bear a moment longer, and he would long to be like other men, to find some jolly, red-cheeked girl and settle down. The thought always disappeared as swiftly as it came. He was not—would never be—like other men.

Even in the dark, he had no difficulty finding the cave. The overhanging slab that jutted out over the opening was cold under his hand—like marble, like the grave. Only the stars glimmering above the trees bore witness to the look of deep pain that came over his face. It lasted a second or two, then, he bent low and disappeared beneath the hillside.

The inside of the cavern was unearthly cold and black as pitch. The room was large enough for him to stand almost straight, and he stood unmoving as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Back along the farthest wall, a trickle of water still fell from the stone, forming a puddle big enough to quench the thirst of a small animal, or a boy frightened out of his wits.

He’d heard the water that day when he’d run here— afterwards. For a long time, it had been the only sound to break the profound stillness. He’d stopped sobbing by then, and the hatred and mistrust that had been his companions for years afterward had yet to set in. He had felt nothing then, except for the cold and an unreasoning fear.

He shifted his weight, and something crunched under his boot. His precious horde of snail’s shells, like everything valuable from that time in his life, gone to powder, gone to dust. Only the memories remained, and one last niggling hope that his agent in Pittsburgh would find some tangible part of his past still living.

As he stood there, thinking of Jase, something moved in the rear of the cave. It wasn’t an animal sound, but more a sound of weariness, like a child sighing in its sleep. Eben searched his pockets for his tinderbox, and in a moment, struck sparks into a bit of cotton. The cotton flared orange, then went out, but it had been enough for him to see the child curled and shivering in his sleep.

It was after midnight when Eben brought Thomas back to the inn. Some of the search party still sat drinking, reliving their search, and one among them took off on horseback to alert the boy’s mother that he was safe.

Eben handed the lad to Meg, who wrapped him in a warm blanket, and sat close by his side, much as she done with Eben

so many years ago. Raven, roused from her bed by the commotion, stood off to one side. “You’re wet,” she said. “You should change your clothing before you take ill.”

Eben sighed. “What I really want is some whiskey. Meg keeps a bottle in the kitchen pantry. Would you find it for me?”

She went down the hallway to the kitchen, and in a moment returned with bottle and glass. He splashed some liquor into the glass and tossed it back.

“You did not come home last night,” she said. “Did spending so much money on my clothing upset you?”

He was tired to the bone, but he managed a smile. “I thought we’d settled that much. I want you to have pretty things.”

She dimpled at that, and he thought he’d never seen her looking more lovely or more desirable. “If it wasn’t the money, then what was it that kept you from your rest?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

The din died down in the common room as the door opened and Sarah Fletcher walked in. She went first to her boy, then found Eben. Holding her son tightly to her, her eyes filled with tears. “I wanted to thank you—for giving me back my boy.

You found him when no one else could.”

“Ma’am, I can’t take credit for that—it was an accident that I stumbled upon him.”

“God shone a light upon your path. He guided you there. I’m convinced. You’ll know what this means when you’ve children of your own. God bless you, Mister.”

Eben was embarrassed by the woman’s gratitude. Outside, Zeb was tapping a keg of his best whiskey for the search party, but Eben had no wish to join them, to hear himself praised again and again for taking part in an accidental rescue. He was weary and solemn as he turned to Raven, and thinking how good it would feel to be alone with her. He would rest better in her arms.

Then, he remembered everything he’d stupidly said the night before, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t retract his one noble impulse.

Frenchman’s Bend

Orleans Parish, Louisiana

JASE ST. CLAIRE HEARD THE barnyard cock’s high- pitched crow, a fitting herald to a dawn that had yet to break across the bayou. Here in the garden, off the west wing, the dew lay heavy on the grass, wetting the fine Moroccan leather of his boots.

Another sleepless night. It was becoming a pattern, and he didn’t like that.

He didn’t like the images that came with nightfall, after his task-filled day had begun to slow—shadowy specters he’d thought were exorcised long ago. Yet, they had come again, out of the past to disturb and unsettle his otherwise perfect world.

Years had passed since he’d thought of McAllister’s Ford, and all that came after. When he’d taken Catherine Blaise Breaux to wife, all of that had been put behind him. He’d concentrated instead on rebuilding Frenchman’s Bend, Catherine’s ancestral home, and on starting a family.

Catherine was his world now—Catherine and the boys, he mentally amended—and he was more than just disturbed that his dark past had reared its ugly head, he was angry. What right had those bloody times to surface now, just when everything was so right? He pushed his fists deeper into the pockets of his coat, and turned to reenter the house, the cock again singing out behind him. As he had known she would be, Catherine was waiting for him in the darkened study.

Even in the dim light of an approaching dawn, he could see the silver flecks in her turquoise eyes. He could also see the worry there, and it only added to his discomfort. She didn’t speak, and the spell that held him in thrall remained unbroken. She just sat in his chair behind the big desk, her white lawn night rail puddling on the floor around her bare feet. She

watched him as he took a seat on the edge of the desk, a foot from where she sat—close enough to breathe in her scent, to bask in her warmth. Without his saying a word, she knew what was on his mind. “You will go, Jason.”

“Yes, damn it. I’ll go. I don’t have a choice. That much is clear.”

For a moment there was silence between them, then he added. “God help the son-of-a-bitch if he’s an imposter.”

Catherine rose to embrace him, his anchor, his solace in a world gone suddenly mad. “At least you will know. I must check on the children.”

She walked from the room, and Jase took the crumbled letter from his breast pocket and read it one more time. It had come roundabout, and bore among other things, water stains that in places blurred the scrawl of a solicitor named Joshua Hargraves. From Pittsburgh, by God. It was far too close to be ignored.

The basic content informed its recipient in New Orleans, a colleague of Hargraves, that one Eben St. Claire was attempting to verify information he’d recently received about the whereabouts of his brother, Jason—until now, unknown.

David Grooms, recipient of the missive, was of course aware of Jason St. Claire, and had come calling yesterday to pass the letter into Jase’s hands.

The rest was up to Jase. He could go north and look into the matter. Or he could burn the letter and get on with his life.

How many times had he balled the thing, intending to do the latter, only to have Eben’s youthful face float up before him?

It was enough to keep him constantly on edge. Was it possible? Could Eben still be alive?

“It’s possible,” he said to the dawn’s light, streaming through the French doors. “And that’s what plagues me.”