The Mystery Man Of Whitehorse

Laci’s imagination was legendary.

The treats Laci had baked she took to the staff at the rest home when she went to visit her grandmother. They all seemed to love her cookies and cakes.

As she came out of the nursing home, Laci was debating what to do with the batch of her famous spicy meatballs she had in her car. They were too spicy for—She collided with what felt like a brick wall, emitting an “ufft” as strong arms grabbed her to keep her from toppling over backward.

“We really have to quit meeting like this,” said a teasing male voice.

She looked up as she recognized the voice from the wedding reception. Actually, from the merry-go-round in the schoolyard next to the community center, where he’d come to her assistance.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, embarrassed.

“Nice to see you, too,” he said and grinned. “Glad to see you’ve recovered from the wedding. Still having trouble staying on your feet, though, I see.”

He was even better looking in broad daylight. He wore a western shirt, jeans and boots. His dark hair curled at the nape of his neck beneath his gray Stetson. She noted that his clothing was worn and dusty as if he’d been working.

She hadn’t taken him for a working cowboy last night—even though he’d been wearing boots with his tux. Apparently he was the real thing. Having grown up in old Whitehorse, she had a soft spot for cowboys. Especially ones as gallant as this one.

“Still rescuing damsels in distress, I see,” she said, cringing inside at the memory of what happened at the wedding.

He smiled and held out his hand. “I don’t think we were ever officially introduced. Bridger Duvall.”

Bridger Duvall? The mystery man of Old Town Whitehorse? Now she remembered why he’d seemed vaguely familiar. While their paths had never crossed, she’d certainly heard about him.

“Laci Cavanaugh,” she said, taking his hand. It was wonderfully large and warm and comforting. There was something so chivalrous about him. She recalled how he’d given her his napkin outside the community center. Also how he’d given her peace and quiet. She’d appreciated both.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, looking into her eyes before letting go of her hand.

“So you’re Bridger Duvall,” she said, feeling more than a little off-kilter considering the way their paths had crossed both times.

“The scurrilous rumors about me are highly exaggerated,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

She cocked her head at him, curious and maybe flirting just a little. He did have a great handshake, and that voice of his was so wonderfully deep and soft. Like being bathed in silk.

“Which rumors are those?” she asked.

“That I only come out at night, that I’m fabulously wealthy and that I’m doing weird experiments in the barn out on the ranch.”

She liked his sense of humor. “And how are they exaggerated?”

Grinning, he leaned toward her conspiratorially. “I do the weird experiments in the basement.”

“That house doesn’t have a basement.”

Bridger laughed as they walked toward their vehicles. “Caught me.”

Laci Cavanaugh. Granddaughter of Pearl Cavanaugh. He felt only a twinge of guilt. It had been no accident running into her today. He hadn’t meant the run-in to be so literal, though. But whatever worked.

“Well, at least now I know which rumors are true,” she said as she moved to her car and started to open the door.

“It was nice seeing you again,” he said, surprised he meant it—and not because of his ulterior motive.

She smiled. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”

As she opened her car door, he was hit with a tantalizing aroma that took his breath away. “What is that wonderful scent?” he asked stepping over to lean past her into the open car door to take a whiff.

She laughed. “Meatballs and spaghetti. I was planning to drop the dish off at the senior center, but I’m afraid it’s too spicy for their tastes.”

Bridger cocked a brow at her. “Well, it is almost dinnertime, and I just happen to know the perfect place to take it. I can assure you it would be greatly appreciated. Just follow me. It’s only a few blocks from here.”

He saw her hesitate, as if worried that the rumors about him might be true, before accepting. If she only knew.

Laci followed his pickup, surprised when he turned into a spot in front of one of the old empty buildings on the main street, and wondered if she hadn’t made a mistake in coming here with him.

“I don’t understand,” she said, looking from him to the building, which apparently was being remodeled.

“You will.” He opened her car door and took out the casserole dish. “Right this way.”

He led her through the front of the restaurant, which was filled with sawhorses, tools, dust and paint supplies, through two swinging doors that led to the new stainless-steel commercial kitchen. Everything but a small table and two chairs was covered with plastic until the painting was finished.

Clearly this was where he’d been working. He put the casserole on the round table and dug under the plastic to open a cabinet and bring out dishes.

“I have some leftover bread and a salad I’d planned to eat for supper,” he said, setting both on the table.

“What is this place?” she asked, looking back toward the front of the building as he began to cut thick slices of the bread.

“It’s a restaurant. Well, that is, it will be once it’s finished,” he said with obvious pride, and she realized he worked here.

“Opening a new restaurant in Whitehorse?” She hadn’t meant to sound so disbelieving.

“I know it’s risky—”

“Risky is one way of putting it.” She wondered who’d take such a risk, since the last restaurant in this building hadn’t lasted six months.

She lifted the lid on the casserole, and he groaned and breathed in the rich scent with obvious pleasure. She couldn’t help but smile with pleasure of her own.

“If that tastes half as good as it smells…”

She laughed as she dished him up some of the meatballs and spaghetti hiding beneath the sauce and waited as he sat down and picked up his fork.

He took a bite, closing his eyes and savoring the wonderful flavors. His eyes flew open. “Who made this?”

“I bought it from some woman cooking beside the road,” she joked, thinking he must be doing the same, as she filled her plate and took a bite of his salad. “This salad is wonderful. Did the restaurant’s cook make it?”

He grinned. “Yeah, you like?”

She nodded, looking surprised as she took a bite of the bread. “Yum. Homemade bread. Maybe this restaurant will do all right after all.”

“Maybe, if it has these meatballs on the menu,” he said and took another bite. “I’m serious,” he said between bites. “I’m hiring whoever made this.”

“Hiring them to do what?” Laci asked.

“Cook, what else?”

She glanced toward all the stainless steel in the kitchen. “This is your restaurant?”

It hadn’t dawned on her. For some reason, she’d just assumed he was doing the construction on the place—not that he owned it—given how he was dressed.

About then she noticed that he was looking at her oddly. “You made this?” he asked, sounding as surprised as she’d been about him.

She bristled. “Don’t I look like someone who could have made this?” She realized her skin was a little thin since her catering business had gone nowhere fast.

He still looked stunned, and she realized he had to be regretting saying he wanted to hire whoever had made the meatballs now that he’d found out it was her. “Is this about the job offer? Because if it is, I’m definitely not looking for a job.”

“Sorry, it’s just that…” He shook his head. “Can you cook anything else?”

She bristled again. “Of course. I can cook anything.”

“That’s big talk,” he said, his tone challenging. “I assume you’re willing to back it up?”

She glared across the table at him. “Name your terms.”

He grinned. “I can have the kitchen ready tomorrow. Say 9:00 a.m.? You don’t mind a little friendly competition?”

“You mean from your chef?”

He nodded, looking pleased with himself.

Not that she had to prove anything with her cooking. But damn if she wasn’t going to show him. She smiled across the table at him, wanting to cook something that would knock this cowboy and his chef on their ears.

They ate in a strangely companionable silence. She couldn’t remember a meal she’d enjoyed as much. After they’d finished, she started to pick up her casserole dish, but he put a hand over hers. There were only two meatballs and just a little sauce and spaghetti left.

“Mind if I finish that off later? I’d be happy to get your dish back to you tomorrow.”

She looked into his dark eyes, surprised that she hadn’t noticed before the tiny flecks of gold in all that warm-brownie chocolate. What was she thinking taking a cooking dare from this man?

She didn’t want a job in a restaurant. She was determined to make Cavanaugh Catering a success.

But she couldn’t let him think that she was a one-dish cook. No way. Her pride was at stake here.

And not just that, Laci realized as she left and headed home. Bridger Duvall had taken her mind off worrying about Alyson for a while. And for that she was thankful.

But when she reached home, she knew that she couldn’t put off calling her friend any longer. She dialed the number Alyson had given her for the hotel where they would be staying in Hawaii.

“I’m sorry, we have no one by that name registered here,” the desk clerk informed her.

“But that’s not possible,” Laci said. “Mrs. Spencer Donovan gave me this number.”

“When were they to arrive?” the clerk asked.

Laci told him and waited while he checked.

“Apparently Mr. Donovan canceled those reservations.”

Laci stood holding the phone, dumbstruck, her fear spiking. Spencer had canceled the hotel reservations? Why?

So Laci couldn’t warn Alyson.

AS BRIDGER HEADED out of town toward the ranch he rented outside of Old Town Whitehorse, he spotted the nursing home marquee announcing one of the resident’s birthdays. It was later than usual, but still he turned into the lot.

It had become a ritual, stopping by every day to pay Pearl Cavanaugh and the other elderly Whitehorse Sewing Circle women a visit. He’d been told by the nurses that Pearl had been quite the woman before her stroke.

While her mother may have started the quilting group and possibly the adoptions, there was little doubt that Pearl Cavanaugh had been the ringleader during the time that he and Eve were adopted.

He stuck his head in Pearl’s room. Her husband Titus visited every morning and early in the afternoon. Bridger made a point of making sure their paths didn’t cross. He’d attempted to ask Titus about the adoption ring but had been quickly rebuked and threatened with slander. If Titus knew anything, he wasn’t talking. Just like the rest of them.

Pearl was lying in bed, her blue eyes open and fixed on the ceiling.

“How are you doing today, Pearl?”

No response. But then, he hadn’t expected one.

He pulled up a chair beside her bed and looked into her soft-skinned wrinkled face. It reflected years of living, and yet there was a gentle strength about her. He wished he had known her before the stroke. Guilt consumed him since he felt he was partly to blame for putting her here. If he hadn’t come to Whitehorse looking for answers, maybe she wouldn’t have had the stroke.

He took her frail hand. The skin was thin and pale, lifeless. Her eyes moved to him. “Remember me? Bridger Duvall. I’m one of your babies.”

Did something change in her expression? He could never be sure as he told her—as he always did—about his adoptive parents, about growing up on a ranch outside of Roundup, Montana.

“I loved my parents and miss them terribly, but I still want to know who my birth mother is. From what everyone has told me about you,” he continued, “you have to have known that some of the children you adopted out would come looking for their birth parents. You would have kept a record.”

He thought he saw something flicker in her pale blue eyes—eyes the same exact color as her grand-daughter Laci’s. He was more convinced than ever that Pearl was in there, just unable to respond.

“You know who she is, don’t you?” He looked down at her hand. It was cool to the touch, the skin silken and thinly lined with veins. He stroked it gently.

“How to get that information out is the problem, huh? Don’t worry, I’ll be here every day to see you, and one of these days you’ll be able to tell me.” He smiled at her. “You’re going to get better.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and for a moment he thought she’d squeezed his hand just a little as he placed it carefully back on the bed.

As he rose, he saw that she was no longer looking at him but behind him. He spun around expecting to see Titus in the doorway, but it was another elderly lady he’d seen around the nursing home.

The woman was tall with cropped gray hair and a permanent scowl on her face. She quickly turned and took off down the hall.

As he started after her, a nurse appeared in the doorway. “Everything all right in here? I just saw Bertie Cavanaugh take off like a shot. She wasn’t bothering you, was she?”

Bridger shook his head. The nursing staff had been very kind to him. At first they’d been suspicious, but after a while seemed thankful for his visits to the patients.

“Bertie Cavanaugh?” he said. “Any relation to Pearl?”

“Everyone from Old Town Whitehorse is related one way or another,” the nurse said with a laugh. “I think they might be second cousins through marriage.”

Another elderly woman from Old Town. Had she belonged to the sewing circle? He’d have to find out. He tried not to get his hopes up. One of his first leads was a woman who was deeply involved in the illegal adoption ring, Nina Mae Cross. Unfortunately Nina Mae had Alzheimer’s and was of no help at all to him, even though he continued to visit her, as well.

“See you tomorrow, Pearl,” he said as he left. She was staring up at the ceiling again, but he had the strangest feeling that seeing Bertie Cavanaugh had upset her.

Or did she fear that Bertie had overheard what they’d been talking about? His adoption.

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