* *
Two women approached the falls from the trail, pulling Colin from his thoughts. He nodded to David, Cade and Terry. They’d seen enough for now. They moved away from the falls and headed back down the trail.
“What do you know about her sister and brother-in-law?” Colin asked.
“Not much,” David said. “They’re newlyweds, I hear. I imagine it means a lot to Jewel that they’ve come to see her, since she’s been estranged from her family for a long time. Once when Silas and I were out fighting wildfires in the interior, he shared a little about Jewel. What a rare find she was.”
Colin wouldn’t argue with him there. Her name said it all.
“She comes from a wealthy family, and they didn’t think Silas was good enough for her. When her parents made it clear they disapproved of him, he almost walked away. He loved her too much to tear her away, but in the end, he’d been selfish, after all. He couldn’t let her go. They were young and impulsive.”
“And that’s why she hasn’t been in touch with her family all these years?” Colin asked.
“They didn’t give her much choice—her family disinherited her when she chose to marry him.”
“What kind of parents did that? Disowned or disinherited their child?” Cade asked.
“That’s just weird,” Terry spoke as he led them down the trail.
Colin couldn’t say much. Guilt and shame over how he’d treated his own family had followed him here to Alaska. He’d left his parents behind in Texas and, as they aged, his sister was forced to take sole responsibility for their care. Colin hadn’t been much of a son or a brother, but after what happened, he saw himself as a burden to his family—one they would be better off without. They must see what he wanted to forget every time they looked at him.
“She left it all behind—her family and the wealth—to follow Silas to Alaska.” David kicked a rock down the path.
“I can see why he would think she was special,” Colin said. “She must have loved the man deeply. It’s not easy to live here or to give up your family. To give up wealth on top of that.”
“You know, she could love deeply again, right?” David studied Colin.
Cade and Terry walked together up a ways. Colin was glad they hadn’t heard David’s question. He was just prying into Colin’s personal thoughts. Either that or nudging him toward a place he had no business going.
They’d almost made the trailhead where they would kayak back to Mountain Cove, following the path Jewel’s group had taken in their search. Colin eyed his friend. Understood the meaning behind his words.
“Jewel deserves someone far better than me.” And if she had a wealthy family, she was more like Katelyn than he’d realized. That wealth had come between them more than once. Her wealthy family had questioned his investigation, blamed him for her murder as if he hadn’t already been weighed down by it.
“So what do you think? Who do you believe is a suspect?”
“Hard to say at this point. The fact she has a wealthy family could be motivation for murder.”
“But how if she’s been disinherited?” David asked. “There has to be more to the story.”
“There always is.”
* * *
Meral had gone down to the kitchen to get Jewel a cup of green tea. Jewel was glad to have a minute of relative privacy. She was glad that she had people who cared about her enough to want to help her, but the hovering was already starting to feel overwhelming.
She definitely didn’t like being confined to her room, even though her body was sore and she needed to recover from her injuries. Not to mention she had guests to attend to, but neither could she let any of them see her like this. She’d give it a day or two, leaving running the B and B to her staff, and hope it didn’t take a week for her bruised body to heal. Jewel would give anything to forget about the fall and her injuries and to go back to life as usual. She needed normalcy. To get that, she would have to stop taking the painkillers. They made her groggy, and she couldn’t think straight.
When she sat up, dizziness swept over her. She made the mistake of glancing in the mirror over the dresser, and her mouth dried up.
Chief Winters saw me like this?
She shoved thoughts of what he must think of her out of her mind. His opinion shouldn’t count. She couldn’t care about that. After Silas’s death, she almost hadn’t survived the heartache. She’d given up her life and family to be with him, and now all she had left of that life were memories and heartache. The price of loving someone was too high.
She couldn’t survive that pain again.
So for now she had to focus on other things until the unwelcome feelings in her heart went away.
One question nagged her. Why would someone want to kill her? Had it simply been random? Or had she been targeted? Jewel had no enemies that she knew about. No reason for someone to push her over.
Unless...
My secret.
Jewel pressed her hands over her heart. God, please no. She needed the secret to remain dead and buried. She wasn’t the same young woman who had made that mistake. Besides, no one knew about it, so no. That couldn’t be it.
She was back to her question. And she didn’t know why someone would try to kill her. When she was a child, her parents had taught her to be on her guard, not to trust easily, because there were too many people in the world who might try to hurt her or kidnap her because of their money. But it had been years since that had been an issue for her. No one in Alaska had even known she’d once been wealthy. Until Meral and Buck arrived a few days ago.
Now suddenly her life had been threatened.
Could the two incidents be related?
And what of Meral’s new husband, Buck? What did Meral really know about the man?
Jewel should be ecstatic that she had a second chance with the family she’d given up to come to Alaska. She thought she’d gotten over that hurt, too, until Meral. She wanted to be happy to see her sister, who had only been fifteen when Jewel had left. In fact, she had not known how much she’d missed her family.
But something was wrong. Very wrong. She should thank Buck Cambridge for bringing Meral—a wedding gift, he’d said. He’d found Meral’s long-lost sister. But Jewel wasn’t sure she really wanted to be found.
Something about Buck disturbed her. He didn’t look at Meral the way Jewel’s husband had looked at her when they’d fallen in love.
But who was Jewel to judge? How could she bring up her misgivings about Buck with Meral, a sister she barely knew? They were only just reconnecting. Getting to know each other again. It wasn’t her place. She wouldn’t do anything to destroy this chance at having her family again. If Jewel questioned her sister about Buck, then she would sound just like their parents had sounded when Jewel had fallen in love.
Those
