The carriage came to a stop in front of the Anabranch Hotel, and Tristen stepped out. He had been given this address a few months ago by Douglas. It did come as somewhat of a surprise when he was told of Bastian’s new living quarters, but he also knew there was probably little other choice. After the death of his father, Bastian had nothing left and no one to live off of. If he were to make himself any kind of a living, he would have to work for it—a concept totally foreign to him.
Stepping inside the building, Tristen walked over to the bartender. “I’m looking for Bastian Tanner.”
The man behind the bar pointed to a table at the rear of the establishment.
Tristen nodded his thanks, then walked over to the table and cleared his throat loudly.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Bastian asked without looking up. “It’s not often the hermit leaves his abode.”
“Amalie is at my station seeking work,” Tristen said. “I thought you might know why.”
Finally, Bastian looked up at him. “And why would you make that assumption?”
“You were engaged to the woman, Bastian. It stands to reason you would keep track of her actions.”
“That may be your assumption, but I assure you that isn’t the case.”
Tristen eyed him curiously. “So you have no idea why, after almost a year, Amalie has come to see me?”
Bastian shrugged. “Maybe she intends to make you suffer for taking her brother away from her.”
Tristen scoffed at his remark. “I guarantee you I have paid for whatever sins I’ve been guilty of more than twice over. There is little else anyone can do to make me suffer.”
“If she has come seeking revenge, you could hardly blame her. After all, it is because of you her brother is dead.”
Tristen clenched his jaw. He knew this man was baiting him, and he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing him lose his temper. “Both Jacob and I heard Amanda scream from inside that building that night. We both went in to save her.”
Bastian nodded. “Yet it was only you who walked out unscathed. Convenient really.”
“Unscathed?” Tristen asked, forcing himself to stay calm and not indulge him. “Since you appear to know so much about what happened that night, can you tell me why Amanda was out in the workers’ cottage in the first place?” he asked, redirecting the conversation.
“I was told she’d been meeting with a woman in secret,” Bastian replied.
“Define meeting.”
Bastian sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “They were lovers, or so it was rumored. There was a witness who supposedly saw a woman running from the back of the workers’ cottage the night of the fire.”
Tristen thought about that for a moment. He wasn’t surprised to hear of the apparent relationship, knowing that such a thing was far more common than most thought. Remembering Jacob’s confession to him that night though, he was slightly confused. Wasn’t his best friend the one having an affair with Amanda? Maybe if he could find the identity of Amanda’s suspected lover, she could shine some light on what actually happened that night and who Amanda had really been in a relationship with before her death.
“Did this witness get a close enough look to give some kind of a description of the escaping woman?” he finally asked.
Bastian unfolded his arms, reaching forward, his fingers running along the rim of the empty glass sitting before him on the table. “It’s said she was a little over five feet in height and had a curvaceous build. Her hair was thought to be brown the way it was in contrast to her pink dress.”
Tristen stared at the man sitting in front of him, certain he was trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn’t ignorant to the similarity of the witness’s apparent description to that of Amalie. Even the dress color was the same. Deciding Bastian was only playing some cruel trick on him, Tristen turned away from him. It was time he returned home.
“I thought it odd that the woman described sounded exactly like Amalie,” he heard Bastian say behind him. “Wasn’t she wearing a pink dress that night?”
Tristen didn’t stop to answer him. He just kept walking out of the hotel and back to his waiting carriage. Though he tried to push Bastian’s words from his mind, he couldn’t. What if there really had been a witness that night? If there had been, and she in fact saw Amalie running from the workers’ cottage, then maybe his lost love knew far more about that night than he had been led to believe. He would have to find out for certain, and with her back in his life, this may well be his last chance.
Stepping into the carriage and ordering his driver to take him home, Tristen sat back in his seat. He would have to aim his questions at Amalie carefully when he confronted her though, for fear he could push her away again. It had to be clear that he wasn’t accusing her of being responsible for the fire that night, but that maybe she had suppressed some memory of what or who she saw out near the cottage.
Glancing out of the window, he saw his house just up ahead, his heartbeat quickening as he thought about the woman who now resided there. He wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms and tell her that he would make everything all right again. It was a promise he couldn’t honestly make though. Before he could offer her anything, he needed to know what, if anything, she saw the night her brother died, as well as what had brought her there to him.
The carriage pulled up to the house, and he stepped out. What if her reason for being there was directly related to the night of the fire? Walking up to the front entrance, he knew there was only one way he would ever find out for certain.
* * * *
Amalie placed the plate of half-eaten food on her bedside table. She hadn’t eaten properly in ages, and she should have been starving, but her heart ached too much to care about food. It had been so long since she’d seen Bastian, and now that she had—and had seen the pain on his face—she wanted nothing more than to reach out to him and engulf him in her arms.
Standing from her seat, she walked over to her suitcase and, opening it, started to unpack her few belongings. As she moved around the room, putting her clothing away, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the strong, confident man she had fallen in love with so long ago. This man who invited her to stay with him was barely a shadow of who she remembered he used to be. He certainly didn’t resemble the heartless, cold monster she’d been told he had become.
In fact, nothing about the entire house matched the story she’d been told about his womanizing and constant greed. There was hardly anyone there, and there were less than half of the decorations she remembered used to adorn this station house. Everything was so sparse and basic, not something expected from a greed-driven, wealthy station owner.
She glanced around the room. It was certainly nothing like what she remembered it had been. It felt strange being in there again after so long. She and Tristen met there so many times. Running her fingers along the end of the bed frame, she remembered her and Tristen making love on this very bed. Why would he have chosen this room to put her in? Did he want to torture her with memories of what they once shared?
Lifting her hand to her face, she brushed the loose tendrils of hair back. She should never have agreed to come there. Feeling as she was now, raw emotions being dragged back to the surface, wasn’t something she was prepared for. It certainly hadn’t been part of Bastian’s plan.
His plan. Amalie couldn’t help but think something wasn’t right about all of this. The man Bastian told her about—the monster Tristen had become—was nothing like the man who offered her a room to stay in for as long as she needed. Bastian assured her Tristen was the cold-hearted killer who murdered her brother, tossing her aside into a life of servitude. So why had he welcomed her so quickly this evening, even after it had been so many long months since they had seen each other?
Something on the mantelpiece caught her eye. Walking toward it, her breath caught in her throat. The ledge was filled with mementoes of their relationship, from dried flowers to handkerchiefs. Stopping directly in front of the mantelpiece, she reached for a white, lace object that was now slightly covered in dust. She had given this glove to Tristen the night before Jacob died. Holding it in her hand, her fingers running over the soft fabric, memories of the times she’d shared with Tristen came flooding back to her.
None of this made any sense. If Tristen was the monster Bastian told her about, then why had he kept all of these things, items so personal and given from the heart? Replacing the glove, her hand fell back to her side. She glanced around her at all the familiar objects, doubt filling her. How was she supposed to do what she had been sent there for feeling the way she did now?
Walking back to the bed and her travel bag that sat upon it, she thought of the man Tristen now was. From what she had been told, he never married, nor accepted any offer of engagement. That in itself confused her. Before the fire, Tristen was one of the most sought after bachelors in the area; his tall, solid build and black hair making women swoon at the knees. Not to mention his wealth, a lure for even the most hardest of women. Still, he was alone and she couldn’t fathom why.
When she laid eyes on him earlier that day, it was the first time she had seen him since the fire. Of course she saw his slight scarring. She’d even been told that such disfigurement traveled further down his body. Despite knowing that, and from what she had just seen, Amalie noticed immediately that Tristen was still as handsome as she remembered him to be. He was still quite solidly built, his black hair still to his collar. There was one noticeable change about him though. His eyes. His eyes had always been dark, almost like two black pools, but now…Tristen looked like he was haunted by the ghosts of his past, his sins robbing him of any joy he’d once known. Even when he looked at her, he looked pained.
That wasn’t the man she had prepared herself to find, nor was it what she wanted to see. When Bastian sent her there, he told her she would be reunited with the bastard who murdered her brother, a cold-hearted monster who cared for nothing or no one but himself. That was the man she needed to see. She needed to hate him if she were to justify stealing from him. Looking around at the sparse interior of the room, she found herself feeling anything but disgust for Tristen.
Walking over to the small bedside table, she opened the drawer, hoping to find something—anything—that might explain the man he had become in her absence. The drawer was bare except for several empty pill bottles. Picking one up, she lifted it to her line of sight so she could read the label. Heroin. She quickly lifted up another. Its label was the same. Opening the drawer fully, she counted at least half a dozen empty bottles.
As if it were alight, she slammed the drawer shut and stepped back away from it. Bastian told her Tristen only pretended a relationship with her to gain control of her family’s assets. If that were the case, then why did Tristen live this way? Why were there empty pill bottles indicating some kind of drug dependency? If Tristen were as wealthy as the rumors claimed, and as monstrous as she had been told, then shouldn’t the station house be far grander? Property aside, shouldn’t Tristen be acting far more smug and contented than he appeared to be? What she had been told and what she was now witnessing were two vastly different people. Something wasn’t adding up, and she was determined to find out what.
There was a slight knock on the door behind her, and then it opened quietly, followed by the sound of someone clearing their throat. She turned immediately to see who it might be. In the doorway stood Tristen, his dark eyes watching her.
“What are you doing here, Amalie?” he asked, his hands on his hips, looking every bit the commanding figure he was rumored to be.
She knew he would ask, but she didn’t think for it to be now.
“I’m not a fool,” he continued. “I haven’t heard from you nor seen you in almost a year, yet today you turn up on my doorstep. I can’t help but wonder why.”
Staring at him, she fought the urge to approach him. She wanted to hit him, hurt him as she had been by his desertion. The only thing stopping her from doing such a thing was the sorrowful look in his eyes. He looked as if he had already been hurt far more than she could ever imagine.
“If you have come here to punish me for some sin you think I have done you, I assure you, I’ve already suffered enough,” he added.
His words irritated her. Did he think he was the only one to have lost anything? Her gaze narrowed on him. “Suffered?” she asked. “What do you know about suffering? You still have your family home. You still have your businesses. I have nothing. You took everything from me.”
“I lost as much as you that night,” he said. “Surely you must know that.”
“You bastard! How dare you stand there and claim—”
Just then footsteps were heard behind him, heavy on the floorboards. “Fire!” they heard one of the station hands yell. “Fire!”
Tristen immediately turned his attention away from her. “What has happened, Robert?” he asked the gasping man hunched over just outside of the door.
She walked toward the two men, her gaze settling on the scared worker struggling to catch his breath.
“The hay shed is on fire,” Robert exclaimed. “The flames are heading toward the house!”
Tristen left at a run, the weary worker close on his heels. Amalie followed them, as if being drawn outside by the drama of it all. Her footsteps stopped on the dirt meters from the rear door. Before her, the fire was quickly engulfing the small building, the flames licking higher and higher into the sky. Seeing Tristen talking with a group of men, she forced herself to cautiously step toward them to see what was happening.
“How the hell did this happen?” Tristen demanded of his men.
Robert promptly directed the other workers to the buckets of water. “We need to get this fire out now, or else the whole station will be little more than a pile of ashes.”
Tristen grabbed at his shirt, stopping his retreat. “I want to know how this happened!” he yelled.
Robert pulled away. “Only way is if someone lit it,” he explained. “There could be no other way.”
Tristen let him go then. Amalie watched for a few moments until he joined his men. Fear filled her as she saw him reach for a hessian bag, and drenching it in the water barrel, he began to attack the flames as they directed themselves toward the house.
“Watch out!” Robert yelled as the creaks of the collapsing shed echoed through the night sky.
Still Tristen didn’t move, instead he continued fighting against the flames, looking almost desperate in his actions.
“Tristen!” she yelled as shrapnel from the falling building flew toward him.
She watched helplessly as Robert ran toward Tristen, dragging him to safety just as the burning pieces of wood landed where he’d once stood. Quickly getting to his feet, he turned instantly to face her.
“God dammit, Amalie, it’s too dangerous for you out here,” he yelled at her, running toward her. Stopping in front of her, he grabbed her elbow. “I’ll take you back to the house.”
She pulled back from him as if he were alight. She couldn’t go through this again. The last time there was a fire, she lost everything. “Get away from me!” she screamed, turning and running back toward the house. She couldn’t stay there.
He caught up to her just as she reached the stairs that led up to her room. Feeling his hand on her arm, she turned immediately and pushed him away, her fists firm on his chest as she pounded him.
“You need to calm yourself,” he instructed her. “The fire is almost out, so there is nothing left to fear.”
She stepped back from him, her tear-filled eyes looking directly at him. “There is you,” she blurted out.
He let her go then. “Even now, you still blame me for the fire that killed Jacob and Amanda?”
Lifting her hand to her cheek, she wiped away the tear that escaped. “I lost everything that night, and all anyone can tell me is that it was your fault. Given that you never came to tell me otherwise, maybe the rumors are right after all.”
She turned away from him and ran up the stairs to her room, her tears consuming her. This wasn’t why she had come there. It certainly wasn’t why Bastian sent her here. She was supposed to be looking for deed papers and romancing them from under Tristen’s nose. She wasn’t going to achieve that if she allowed her sorrow-driven confusion to take control every time she saw a fire.
Being out there tonight though, watching the flames getting closer and closer to Tristen until his life was under threat, brought everything back to her. It was just like that night almost a year ago when she heard screams coming from outside, and she ran with Carter from her father’s house to see the workers’ cottage in flames—the same cottage she was to have met Tristen in that night.
She ran into her room, slamming the door behind her and locking it. Running toward the bed, she threw herself down on it, her tears flowing freely. She should never have agreed to come there. Pulling the pillow to her, she buried her face in it. She had so many reasons to hate Tristen, to blame him for abandoning her. Tonight though, seeing his life under threat yet again by fire, she found herself feeling another emotion. Though she felt a fool, she admitted that as she watched Tristen fighting the fire with his men, what she feared most was losing him.