For The Roses - One Red Rose Part 23

"Let's go, sweetheart."

She wiped the tears away from her face with the back of her hands and stood there smiling up at him with a dazed look in her eyes.

"Now what?" he asked gruffly.

"You called me sweetheart."

"Yes, I did," he said. "Now move it."

He tried to lift her up into the saddle. She backed away. "My bedroll," she explained.

She turned around and picked it up from the corner of the stall where she'd dropped it, but Adam was quicker. He grabbed one end and swung the bedroll up behind the saddle.

Then he froze and watched in disbelief as a hundred-dollar bill slowly floated down from the bedroll to the floor. It landed between his feet.

He stared at it for several seconds and then bent down to pick it up. He didn't say a word to her, and his expression showed only mild curiosity as he turned to look at the bedroll again. Before she realized what he was going to do, he untied the rope holding the bedroll secure and then flipped it open in front of him.

Hundreds of bills poured down like rain on his feet until he was standing in a pyramid of money. He was pretty certain he knew how much was there, but he decided to find out the exact amount anyway.

His gaze slowly moved to hers. "Four thousand?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "Close to five," she said. "Four thousand seven hundred and three dollars, to be exact."

"Ezekiel's money, I a.s.sume." His voice blazed with anger.

He was so furious with her he could barely speak, yet he couldn't help but notice she didn't look the least bit guilty or contrite. She didn't appear to be at all worried either.

"Care to explain, Genevieve?"

She folded her arms across her waist. "I didn't steal Ezekiel's money."

He glanced down at the pile and back up at her. The evidence was d.a.m.ning.

"Adam?"

"What?"

"You will believe me."

Chapter Ten.

From the moment he'd met her, she'd done nothing but lie-or so it seemed-and there was absolutely no reason to believe she was telling the truth now. And yet he did believe her. He was either the most gullible man in the world or just plumb crazy. Regardless, he trusted her.

She wasn't a thief. Therefore, there had to be a logical explanation for why she just happened to have all that money with her, and just as soon as possible, he was going to sit her down and demand that she tell him everything.

He didn't speak to her again until they made camp about twelve miles south of Gramby. He asked her to get a fire started while he backtracked to find out if they were being followed. By the time he returned to the campsite, she had the bedrolls laid out and a pot of coffee brewing over the flames.

She waited until after he had taken care of the horses and had eaten his supper to bring up the topic she was sure would give him indigestion.

"I don't think it's a good idea to keep the money in my satchel, because that's the first place Ezekiel will look for it."

"Hopefully he won't get close enough to look."

He glanced around the campsite. He remembered dropping the satchel next to the bedrolls, but it wasn't there now.

"What'd you do with the money?"

She pointed to a jagged boulder about twenty feet away from where she was seated. "I hid the satchel behind that rock under some bushes."

He dropped down beside her and added some twigs to the fire. She offered him an apple, and when he shook his head, she put it back in her lap.

"Could you tell if Ezekiel was following us or not?"

"No," he replied. "The clouds were already moving in. If he is, he's going to have a h.e.l.l of a time seeing our tracks."

"Won't he see the smoke from our fire?"

"With all this mist? No, he won't see it."

"Why is it so damp here?"

"We're close to Juniper Falls," he replied. "Genevieve, what could you have been thinking, carrying all that money? My G.o.d, you left it in the stable with the horses."

"No one ever steals an old bedroll," she said. "It was safer there than in the saloon."

He was trying to keep his temper under control. "I think you'd better start explaining. If you didn't steal the money from Ezekiel, then where did you get it?"

"Oh, I stole the money from him all right."

His mouth dropped open. "You what?"

She put her hand on his knee in an attempt to calm him. "Don't get mad until you've heard everything. I did take the money from Ezekiel, but it never belonged to him. I guess you could say I stole from a thief. Yes, that's exactly what I did," she added with a nod.

"Start at the beginning and try to make sense."

"I just hate it when you snap orders at me like that."

"Start talking, Genevieve."

His impatience irritated her. She put the apple back in the burlap sack and folded her hands in her lap.

"I was duped, just like everyone else. I remember telling you that I attended the same church your mother had joined and that I sang in the choir," she said. "Once a year, on Palm Sunday, an a.s.sembly of preachers would join the congregation and one would be chosen by our preacher to give the sermon. On one such occasion, the Reverend Thomas Kerriman spoke. He was begging for our help and told us that he was going to lead a large group of families to Kansas to join a settlement there. The families were in a hard way, Adam. They didn't have money or clothes or food, but what they did have was a will to start over again and build a new life. Reverend Kerriman was their Moses."

"And was he like Ezekiel Jones?"

"Oh, no, he's the complete opposite. I knew Thomas before he became a preacher. We grew up together in the same parish, and I know for a fact that he's a good and decent man. He would never dupe anyone."