Keep a Little Secret

Book 2: The Tucker Family Series

by Dorothy Garlock

Genres: Romance; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Charlotte Tucker was raised in small-town Minnesota, where the only real company was the people who came to her Aunt Louise’s boarding house. Several years later, Charlotte is a young woman thirsty to get out of her hometown and see the world. She jumps at the opportunity to take a room on John Grant’s ranch in Sawyer, Oklahoma, to begin a new career. She soon befriends Owen and Hannah Wallace, a brother and sister who have come from Colorado following the death of their mother. Abandoned at an early age by a father they never knew, they are set on revenge against the man who left them—a man they believe is John Grant. As the summer heats up and a brutal storm wreaks havoc on the town, a secret is revealed that threatens to change Charlotte’s life—and her new friends—forever.

Release date: March 21, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Longbow, Colorado—December 1938

OWEN WALLACE STOOD ALONE on the ramshackle porch of his family’s small house, staring absently into the falling snow. The storm had come on hard in
the last hour and showed no sign of letting up. Before him, the hood of the doctor’s automobile had already become covered,
despite the heat of the rapidly cooling engine. A swirling, merciless wind cut sharply on the exposed skin of Owen’s hands
and face, but he paid it little heed.


Though the inside of the small house was warm, well heated by the wood-burning stove, Owen felt no need to head indoors in
spite of the miserable weather. Outside, alone with the growing fury of the winter storm, he could pretend that his mother
wasn’t dying, if only for a short while.


Behind him, the door opened, then was quickly closed.


“I’m afraid there is nothing more that I can do for her, Owen,” Walter Calloway, Longbow’s doctor, said in a resigned tone
of voice. “She never woke while I was examining her, but her sleep is far from peaceful.”


Owen gave a slight nod in answer, still facing the falling snow.

“Though it greatly pains me to say it, I believe the day we’ve all been dreading has finally arrived.”

“How much longer does she have?”

“It’s all in the Lord’s hands now,” the doctor answered. “Hannah is doing her best to keep Caroline comfortable, but besides
making sure that the fire remains fully stoked, all we can do now is wait.”


Dr. Calloway’s heavy-lidded eyes, hidden behind thick-framed glasses, gave ample evidence that his concern was genuine. He
looked tired, worn beyond even the many years he had served the town, weighed down by the burden of an illness he couldn’t
hope to cure.


“Thank you for everything you’ve done for her,” Owen offered.

“I only wish that I could have done more,” Dr. Calloway answered, putting a hand on Owen’s shoulder in condolence, before
he trudged through the piling snow to his car and drove away.


For a few moments longer, Owen remained on the porch. Looking out into the distance, he could see only the faintest glimmer of light emanating from a weather-shrouded home; the homestead he shared with his mother and sister had
few neighbors, and now, even in their greatest hour of need, no one offered to help. Whatever was to come they would face
alone, as always.


Reluctantly, Owen went indoors. When he entered, Hannah didn’t glance up from her duties. With determined diligence, his sister
wiped away the beads of sweat that dampened their mother’s brow. Caroline Wallace lay small in her bed, ravaged by her sickness,
her teeth chattering and her tiny, fragile shoulders shaking as if they were leaves caught in the teeth of an April storm.
What beauty she’d once possessed had been stripped away by illness, leaving behind dark and sunken eyes, cracked lips, and
skin as pale as faded parchment.


Soon she would be dead.

Tenderly, Hannah swept back a stray strand of her mother’s grey hair, tucking it behind the sick woman’s ear. With a weak
smile, Hannah whispered words of comfort to the restless woman, but Owen was too far away to hear them clearly. Caring for
her night and day, Hannah did all that she could, although nothing seemed to lessen Caroline’s suffering.


The small, three-room home Owen shared with his mother and sister was sparsely furnished; besides the bed in which his mother
lay, the front room contained nothing except a rickety table, a pair of broken-down chairs, and the dilapidated wood-burning
stove. Their lives had been full of little but struggle. Owen tossed a few more pieces of wood into the fire, following what little advice the doctor
had been able to give.


Eventually, Hannah rose from her mother’s bedside and joined Owen beside the stove. Both weariness and worry were etched across
her face; caring for Caroline in her dying days was a burden they had both willingly shouldered, but a burden nonetheless.


“Dr. Calloway said that it’s only a matter of time.” Owen’s words faltered.

“Don’t say such things,” Hannah whispered, her eyes darting to where her mother still fitfully slept. “She’ll hear.”

“She can’t hear us now, Hannah.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“Even if she knows what we’re saying,” he explained, “I don’t reckon she’d fault us for seeing the obvious.”

“It’s just not something that I want to hear.”

“But it’s the truth.”

Hannah’s mouth opened as if she wanted to argue the point further, but instead her gaze wistfully settled upon their mother.
For a long while, the room remained silent save for the crackling of the fire.


“She isn’t going to be able to tell us now,” Owen finally said. “Once she’s gone, we’ll never know.”

“It’s no longer important.”

“The hell it isn’t!” he snapped, the worry and anger he had been holding inside for days, months, and even years finally starting
to erupt. “Are you saying that the knowledge we’ve waited our whole lives to learn can just die with her?”


“What are we supposed to do, Owen?” Hannah pleaded, her eyes growing wet with tears. “Do you want to rouse her and make her
talk? Should I quit making her as comfortable as I can until her tongue finally loosens and she tells us who our father was?”


“But we just can’t… we have to know…” he sputtered, knowing how difficult it had always been to put what he wanted into words.
Frustration burned in his belly. “Goddamn it all!”


Hannah’s hand found his and he turned to face her.

“We need to accept that we may never know,” she said softly.

Owen fought against the meaning of his sister’s words. All his life he had wondered about the man who had abandoned them when
he and Hannah were still in their mother’s womb, who had broken his mother’s heart and left her to fend for herself and her
children… the man who had forced them to accept charity and ridicule from neighbors and who now would not be there to watch
Caroline Wallace breathe her last.


“I can’t do that,” Owen spat solemnly. “I can’t accept it. I’ll tear this place apart piece by piece if I have to. Mother
may have wanted to keep her little secret, to try her damnedest to protect us, but for what that man has done to all of us,
I swear that I will know his name.”


And then that son of a bitch will pay!

Kansas City, Missouri—June 1939

WITH AN OPEN HAND, Charlotte Tucker slapped the well-dressed young man flush across his clean-shaven face, releasing a storm of shock and anger
to darken his handsome features. While her blow clearly hadn’t hurt him, her reaction to his forward and improper advances
had undeniably taken him aback. The sound of her striking him, loud as a gunshot, hung in the air of the train depot.


All around them on the busy station platform, people had begun to gawk. In the instant after Charlotte struck the man, there
had been a deafening silence, hushing the frantic hustle and bustle of travelers scurrying to their destinations. But that
quiet was short-lived. Murmuring voices rose as faces turned, fingers pointing at the source of the commotion.


“How dare you say such things to me!” Charlotte shouted, ignoring the attention she was attracting. “Have you no shame!”


“Miss… I… I…” the man stammered. “I’m afraid that you must have misunderstood me…”

“How could I possibly have mistaken what you said?” she disagreed forcefully. “When a man approaches a young woman he doesn’t
know, has never so much as spoken to before, and asks if she would like to find a hotel room for the afternoon, what could
his intentions possibly be?”


Color rose at the man’s collar, a bright, obvious crimson of embarrassment, in stark contrast to the perfect white of his
starched shirt. His discomfort was worsened by the snickers that rose among the crowd.


“But… but I never said such things!” he argued defensively.

“And now you go and make it worse by lying!” Charlotte accused. “How many other young women have you approached in such a
scandalous way, scheming and lurking in the shadows until you found an easy mark?”


“Ne-never!”

“I suppose you imagined that I would go along with your ridiculous, insulting plans,” she continued, not giving the man a
moment’s pause. “You never imagined you would be exposed, did you?”


“What kind of man says such a thing?” a voice asked from the crowd.

“Must be some kind’a pervert!” another added.

Quickly looking from side to side, the man was uncomfortably aware that he was drawing too much attention to himself. Dropping
the façade of innocence, he stepped closer to Charlotte, reached out, and snatched her tightly and painfully by the wrist.


“You better keep that mouth of yours shut, bitch,” the man threatened, “unless you’re looking to get hurt!”

Instead of shrinking in fear from the man’s threats, Charlotte rose to meet them defiantly, her gaze never wavering, even
as she unsuccessfully tried to disentangle herself from his grip.


“Let go of me this instant!” she cried.

Before the sound of her angry voice could fade into the depot, the man suddenly raised his hand as if he meant to strike her,
a blow that would have hurt more than the one she had struck. Still, Charlotte never flinched, facing her would-be attacker
with steely determination. But before the man could follow through with his intentions, a voice cut through the relative quiet
of the platform, startling all those who watched.


“Now what seems to be the matter here!” a deep baritone bellowed. “That ain’t no way to treat a lady, fella!”

Charlotte turned to see a squat, frowning policeman waddle over menacingly to where she and the man stood, his watchman’s
stick clutched tightly between calloused, thick fingers. He looked ready to act and broach no disagreement. At the sight of
him, the man released his grip on Charlotte and took two hesitant steps backward.


With his arrival, the crowd began shouting in explanation, a jumble of voices where only bits could be heard.


“… and then that man laid hands on her…”

“… was only defendin’ herself!”

“… and it’s just like she done said, ’cause I seen the whole darned thing!”

“Now, now, now, let’s everybody quiet down!” the police officer shouted, putting a quick end to the rising chatter. Turning
to Charlotte, he asked, “Is what these here people is sayin’ true, miss? Was this chap botherin’ you?”


Charlotte nodded, explaining the man’s repugnant suggestion that they find a hotel room. “And that’s when I slapped him,”
she added.


The police officer laughed heartily. “Can’t say I blame ya for it!”

“But… but… but what she’s saying isn’t true, Officer,” the man protested, assuming the innocent look he had unsuccessfully
used just after Charlotte slapped him. “I’d never so much as spoken a word to her before she walked up and slapped—”


“Now why don’t you and I head on back to the depot office,” the officer said as he clamped a vicelike grip on the man’s wrist
while wiggling his watchman’s stick threateningly. “That way we can have ourselves a little chat ’bout the whole thing.


“Sorry for the problem, miss,” he added to Charlotte as he led the man away.

A small smile crept across Charlotte’s lips at the satisfaction of having the disgusting man led away to his just punishment, but just as she was feeling smug about her victory,
she glanced up at the large clock at the far end of the depot, and realized that she was about to be late. Snatching up her
bags, she turned on her heel and dashed toward her rail line.


She had a train to catch.

Settling breathlessly into her seat, Charlotte thanked her lucky stars that she hadn’t missed her train. Out on the platform,
the conductor shouted, “All aboard!” Moments later, the engine’s shrill whistle pierced the air of the busy depot and the
train began to pick up speed and head toward its destination.


“We’re moving, Mommy! We’re moving!” the little girl in the seat ahead said in excitement.

“Yes, dear, we sure are,” her mother answered.

Charlotte smiled and settled into her seat.

Outside her window, the hustle and bustle of Kansas City, the cars and trucks and trolley cars, the buildings and construction
that strained upward toward the summer sky, soon began to fall away, replaced first by houses and then by tall stalks of corn
and endless fields of cattle as the city gave way to the countryside.


Removing her white hat, Charlotte pulled a small mirrored compact from her purse and began fixing her long, tousled blond
curls. For a moment she paused, examining her bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and pert nose. Accepting compliments, welcome or otherwise, had always been difficult for Charlotte, even if she knew she had some beauty.
All her life, she had been told that she was the image of her mother, Alice, who had died while giving birth to her.


With a sigh, Charlotte closed her compact, smoothed the soft fabric of her white blouse and dark blue skirt, and settled back
into her seat, thankful that her ordeal on the platform was over.


I’ve come a long way from Minnesota…

In her purse, folded carefully, was the telegram sent to her from Sawyer, a small town out in northern Oklahoma, hiring her
to teach in their school. Her hands had shaken, with equal parts of excitement and nervousness, when she stood in the telegraph
office at Lancaster College to send her acceptance. From that moment to now, traveling to her brand-new job, she had walked
on air.


All her life, Charlotte had wanted to get away, to see what the world had to offer her. Growing up in Carlson, Minnesota,
little more than a hiccup of a town north of the Twin Cities, she’d spent her childhood days playing in the woods that lined
the shores of Lake Washington. But even before she went away to teachers’ college, she had yearned to see more of the world.


And that telegram from Oklahoma promised the opportunity to be independent in a new environment.

But excited as she was over what lay ahead, she knew that there were things she’d miss about the life she was leaving behind.


Saying good-bye to her family, especially her parents, was hard. They were in tears the whole way to the depot. For Rachel,
her mother’s younger sister who had raised Charlotte and then married her father, the separation was particularly painful.
Though there was no doubt that Rachel wanted her “daughter” to go out in the world and succeed, she still felt as if she were
losing her little girl. Leaving her father, Mason, brought back some of Charlotte’s earliest memories. For her first six years,
she had believed, as had the rest of Carlson, that her father had perished on some unknown battlefield in France during the
Great War. When he finally returned, his face terribly scarred by an exploding shell, Charlotte had been the one to find him,
deathly sick in a shack in the woods. To have him returned to her life, to watch as he smiled over her accomplishments and
he worried at her failures, was a greater joy than she could ever have imagined. Seeing him at the depot, his dark hair growing
white at the temples, affection beaming from his face, was a memory that Charlotte would carry with her to Oklahoma.


Even her grandmother, Eliza, who had helped Rachel raise her, had come to the depot to see her off. She had often chastised
Charlotte for the troubles she caused as a child, but Eliza was now proud at what her granddaughter had achieved.


The hardest person to say good-bye to had been her half sister, Christina, younger by seven years, and her closest friend.
There were many differences between the two of them physically; Christina had black hair and piercing green eyes and an even
temperament while Charlotte was far more prone to fly off the handle, but the bond between them had always been unshakeable.
All the hours they spent together, talking about their dreams and hopes, seemed to have passed by in an instant. To watch
her older sister set off on the course of her life had prompted Christina to count the days until she could do the same.


And so, two days earlier, the twenty-year-old Charlotte Tucker had waved farewell to all that she had known. Through tears,
she imagined that those who had passed away from her life—her mother, old Uncle Otis who had died one night in his sleep with
a beaming smile across his face, and even Jasper, the mangy mutt who used to follow Charlotte on her many adventures around
Carlson—were all watching down approvingly from Heaven above.


What lay ahead Charlotte couldn’t know, but she couldn’t wait to get to Oklahoma and begin her new life. Whether it was teaching
schoolchildren, seeing new sights, meeting new people, or even, as impossible as it was to imagine, falling in love, she was
ready to enjoy every step of the way.


As the reddish yellow sun, as full as a saucer, began its descent on the far distant horizon and stars crowded the edges of
the sky announcing the coming of the night, Charlotte closed her eyes, relaxing with the gentle rocking and swaying of the train car, and slowly drifted to sleep.


One of the first days of the rest of her life was finally drawing to an end.

Charlotte awoke to bright rays of sunlight streaming through the window onto her face and the sounds of her few fellow passengers
as they began to stir. Her sleep hadn’t been peaceful; a man’s snoring had wakened her and she had the vague memory of gazing
out her window upon the shimmering surface of a slow-moving river silvered by moonlight. Fortunately, she’d been able to fall
back to sleep. She rubbed at her neck, stiff from the discomfort of having to sleep sitting up.


Outside, the landscape had changed as the train sped through the night; gone were the gently rolling hills of prairie grass,
replaced by a mostly flat scrabble occasionally spotted by squat, clumpy hills of much-redder soil than any she had ever seen
before. Tufts of buffalo grass sprang up here and there, far taller than the rest of the short, parched-looking grass. Trees
were few and far between, with bunches of scrub bushes scattered about.


Having grown up on the shores of a large lake, surrounded by majestic maple, elm, and pine trees and the thick woods full
of wildlife, Charlotte found the many differences of the Oklahoma landscape startling, yet beautiful at the same time. She
wondered whether the people she would meet in Sawyer would be so different from those at home.


Suddenly, Charlotte spotted one of them. Up on a rocky rise, sitting atop a tan and white horse, was a cowboy. When he caught
sight of the passengers looking up at him, he took off his dusty hat and gave them a hearty wave. Charlotte managed to wave
in return, but only after the train had moved on and the cowboy had fallen from sight.


At the front of the train car, the door opened and in walked the train’s conductor, a portly man with a thick, bushy white
mustache wider than the small hat sitting atop his head. Checking a pocket watch connected by a chain fob to his vest, he
nodded to passengers as he made his way down the narrow aisle.


“How much longer until the train arrives in Sawyer?” Charlotte asked.

“Next stop.” He thumbed in the direction the train was heading. “By my watch we should be there in just under twelve minutes.”

The first signs of Sawyer soon began to come into view. There were ranches with enormous steers and dozens of horses all lazing
behind sturdy fences. As the train passed by one ranch, a battered pickup truck pulled out and followed alongside Charlotte’s
car, its tires kicking up enormous plumes of dust, before finally turning away just short of town.


Craning her neck out the window to get a better view, Charlotte could see the center of town ahead. Except for its water tower, it didn’t appear to be much different from Carlson. Businesses lined the main street, their signs and awnings
announcing their wares, as people milled about on their daily business. On the far side of town rose a church spire, stark
white against the brilliance of the blue sky. A group of children, with a yapping dog in tow, did their best to keep up with
the train as it slowed. Near the small train depot, its iron wheels screamed against the iron tracks. With another blast of
its whistle, it shuddered to a stop.


Gathering her things, Charlotte hurried into the aisle, scarcely able to contain the nervous excitement that coursed through
her. Up ahead, a man groaned exhaustedly as he heaved himself out of his seat, planted his cowboy hat over his sun-burned
head, and headed for the door, stopping when he saw Charlotte approach.


“Ma’am,” he said with a nod of his hat, letting her go by.

“Thank you,” she replied.

Once she had passed, Charlotte stifled a smile at the thought that the man looked as if he would have been much more comfortable
on the back of a horse than inside the train. She wondered if he wasn’t the source of the snoring that had woken her in the
night!


Finally, she was before the door. Pausing until a box was placed beneath the steps, Charlotte took a deep breath, accepted
the assisting hand of the conductor, and stepped out onto the platform.


THE EARLY AFTERNOON summer sun felt warm upon Charlotte’s skin as she futilely tried to shade her eyes from the bright glare. A sniffing wind
swirled the scattered dust at her feet. The air felt dry and heavy, a far cry from the oppressive humidity of Minnesota, but
no less hot.


Sawyer’s train platform lacked the activity of the depot in Kansas City; besides the cowboy who had nodded to her, the only
other passenger who disembarked was an older woman, her shoulders hunched low from the weight of the pair of heavy bags she
carried.


At first glance, Charlotte saw no one waiting for her.

“Miss Tucker?” a loud voice asked, startling her.

Charlotte looked up as a middle-aged man, well-worn cowboy hat in his hand, strode toward her from deep shadows inside the
depot. Trailing behind him was another man.


“Yes?” she replied cautiously.


Smiling broadly, the man stretched out his hand in greeting. “I’m John Grant. You’ll be stayin’ at my ranch while you’re here
in Sawyer.”


Immediately, Charlotte felt at ease. She had received a letter weeks earlier from Mr. Grant, offering her a place in his home
on a horse ranch. Apparently, he rented out a couple of rooms in much the same way her grandmother had at her boardinghouse
in Carlson. Having grown up in such an environment, Charlotte had readily accepted his offer.


“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Grant,” she answered.

“Now, the only men I ever knew that went by ‘Mr. Grant’ was my pa and my grandpappy before him, and since I ain’t half the
man either one of them managed to be, it just don’t seem right for me to be takin’ their names. I’d like it best if you’d
call me John.”


“Only if you call me Charlotte,” she replied, taking his offered hand.

“Then you got yourself a deal.”

John Grant made a strong first impression with his neatly combed, snow-white hair, his deep-set, sparkling blue eyes, and
his broad, welcoming smile. But the ruggedness of a rancher was hard to disguise. The many lines and wrinkles on his weathered
face, his hands worn and calloused, and his bronzed skin were the result of his days spent working beneath the hot Oklahoma
sun. With his shirt, pants, and boots caked with dust he would never be mistaken for a banker or lawyer.


“This is one of my men, Del Grissom,” John explained, introducing Charlotte to the man who had followed him from the depot.


“Nice to meet you,” Del offered with a tip of his dusty hat. He was much younger than his boss; his thick coal black hair
fell from beneath the hat’s brim and framed a worn, narrow face. Occasionally, his left eye gave a sort of nervous tic, all
of its own accord. . . .