The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(128)

Flavio swallowed. Was it any wonder Carina’s heart was lost? There was pain in that thought, but he couldn’t fault her. The fault was his, but even that didn’t bring him to the black place. It seemed sealed off, and other parts of his mind beckoned, parts he hadn’t probed in too long. What power had Quillan’s grasp unleashed?

He sighed, passing through the gate to the barn where he had left his horse, but Angelo DiGratia stood outside it. Flavio stopped before him. He hadn’t known what he would feel looking into that face again, but he looked now. “You know what I did?”

Angelo dropped his chin, but not his gaze. “Both of us know the worst.”

It was true. There were no secrets between them, only guilt. Ti’Angelo had let his papa die; Flavio had tried to kill a man. Yet the one who could have brought Flavio to justice had released him. His papa could not release the doctor. But he could.

At the same moment, they gripped each other’s upper arms and held on. Though they did know the worst of each other, there was no animosity left in Flavio for this man he loved, nor the man’s daughter, he realized, though there was the pain of loss. The grip of her husband’s hand had sealed her from his heart, yet there was no animosity left for Quillan Shepard, either. The terrible strain that had been tearing him apart was gone.

“You’ve made your peace?” Angelo DiGratia spoke softly as the night descended around them.

Flavio nodded. “I’ve made my peace.” The night felt fresh and new, the air rich with moisture and the scent of the barn.

Ti’Angelo’s grip tightened. “Dio vi benedica.” God bless you. He kissed Flavio on both cheeks. It was both welcome and farewell. Though nothing would be the same, they were healed.

“And you, Ti’Angelo.” He kissed the doctor willingly, then took his horse and rode home, not to the house where his parents slept, but to his studio. A canvas stood on the easel, but no paint had touched it. His hand and mind had been paralyzed, though he had sat hour by hour trying to put his skill to it.

Now he mixed his paints and took up his brush. Through the night he worked, forming arches and pools, olive trees and strips of cloud. But in the foreground it was Gesù Cristo, untouched yet by whip and thorns, reaching down to a man on a litter and forgiving his sins.





TWENTY-SEVEN

Forgiven, forgotten, the sins once held tight.

Surrender may render one stripped of one’s right.

But the chalice of malice one drinks quid pro quo, is purged of its scourge when we mercy may show.

—Quillan

QUILLAN CLENCHED HIS JAW in frustration. For two weeks Carina had read him a letter a day. First Joe Turner, opining his fear that the mineshaft named for Carina would stop producing simply because they had run into some bad rock. Her absence, he was certain, would bring the end to his good luck, and couldn’t she consider returning to Crystal? Carina had written back her assurance that the mine was safe and would produce as long as God willed, but no, she was home now and would stay.

Then there was Mae’s, filled with the happenings of a town Quillan no longer had time for, men finding fortunes where his had been washed away, earned again, then carried across the country to be burned. He had smugly believed the money had no hold on him since he refused to depend on it. Now he knew that without it he was trapped. And how was he supposed to restore it as an invalid?

èmie’s letter had brought Carina to tears. Stories of the miners she served at Carina’s restaurant and of the girls who served with her, and news of the baby she would bear in the fall. Quillan had held Carina close, let her tears soak his shirt, and kissed away her protests that she didn’t know why she cried. He knew.

There were other letters from names he hardly knew. One man admitted Joe Turner had offered to pay postage for anyone who wanted to send Carina a letter. She laughed when she read those, describing the men who had come to her Sunday dinners. This one had lost an eye in a drilling accident, that one had seventeen children. How had she come to know so many and care enough to glow when she read their awkward scrawls?

She answered each letter after sharing it with him, but refused to read more than one a day. He suspected it was to help him pass the time that now dragged like overloaded wagons with square wheels. It was her little ritual, and some days it did help.

But today’s letter put him in a particularly difficult mood. Carina had paused when she pulled Alex Makepeace’s letter at random from the stack. Did she debate sharing it before she knew what it held? But she slit the envelope and spread the sheets across her lap where she sat at the end of the couch beside his useless leg.

“It’s from Alex, Quillan. To us.”

But he had already seen the address, and his name was not on it.

“ ‘Dear Carina,’ ” she faltered, then went on. “ ‘The cave we found has proved a great venture. Many people come long ways to tour the limestone cavern. I have attached torch holders to the walls in some places to enable the tours better safety and allow its grandeur to be seen. The stalactites and stalagmites are magnificent in the light. The flowstone on the walls glimmers with greens and browns and streaks of white. I have identified all the minerals, but people don’t seem interested in all that. They do listen to how the cave was formed and seem inclined to remember that much at least. Not many aspire to geological greatness, I fear.’ ”