The One And Only

After the meeting broke up, Shelby and Amelia lingered over fresh glasses of tea and chatted about the task ahead.

Amelia laughed softly. “Welcome to the newest member of the Historical Society.” She toasted Shelby with her glass.

“I don’t know how that happened,” Shelby admitted with more than a hint of wry humor.

“I do,” her landlady said confidently. “Miss Pickford could get money and a pledge to participate in a Christmas toy fund-raiser from the Grinch.”

“I think you’re right. We need to find out about her early teaching days here,” Shelby said thoughtfully. “She must know tons of interesting stories and anecdotes.”

“Hmm, she could probably blackmail ninety percent of the population over the age of thirty since she taught most of them. My parents had her when the school board opened the elementary school here for one through eighth grades and closed all the county schools.”

A bolt of excitement shot through Shelby. The teacher might have known her parents, too. Her mother could have been a student who got pregnant and went away to have the baby, perhaps living with relatives in South Carolina and giving the baby up for adoption there.

She took a calming breath, aware that she was letting her imagination run wild. One thing at a time.

Amelia snapped her fingers. “Old Doc Barony’s records!”

“In the attic,” Shelby added, following the line of thought perfectly.

“Yes. In your spare time…” Amelia said, giving her a big grin, “maybe you could record the names of patients—oh, and the dates any of them died and any children born—then we could compare those to the county title records to make sure we got everyone.”

Shelby’s heart went into a series of rapid beats. Birth. Death. Names. Dates. Diseases and disorders. Those records might tell her everything she needed to know.

“That’s a possibility,” she said, careful to keep her voice blandly interested.

“You’d have to ask Beau, but I don’t see any reason he’d refuse. I mean, you’re a nurse, so you’d keep everything confidential.”

“Right,” Shelby said. “In fact, I’m going to be working for Dr. Dalton. In the mornings.” She explained all that had happened that day—the canceling of the health classes and her acceptance of Beau’s offer.

“Perfect,” Amelia declared, rising. She glanced at her watch. “Time to start preparing the evening snacks. I have a new recipe for crab-apple dip, as in seafood mixed with fresh chopped apples, that I want to try tonight. Come to the kitchen and we can talk while I cook.”

Shelby followed her new friend into the spacious kitchen. The cook who did the breakfast menu was gone for the day, and the two younger women had it to themselves.

“Here, taste this and see if it has too much chili powder.” Amelia handed her a cracker with a generous dollop of the dip.

“I think it’s delicious. Shall I start on a vegetable tray or something?”

“Sure. In that big refrigerator, bottom drawer.”

After a few minutes of peeling and arranging, Shelby murmured, “This is nice. It makes me sort of miss my mom, though. She and I always cooked together.”

“My mother and I were a disaster together,” Amelia admitted. “She never thought I did anything right.”

“That’s too bad,” Shelby said sympathetically.

Amelia sighed. “She was right about some things. I married a handsome rodeo cowboy I’d known for all of two weeks, suffered two miserable years of marriage, then left him when he actually hit me once. In the meantime, my grandparents died within a few years of each other and I inherited this place. I was glad to tuck my tail between my legs and come here to live.”

“You’ve created a wonderful B and B,” Shelby said sincerely. “You make all your guests feel welcome.”

“It’s because I’m happy. I learned home is truly where the heart is, and this is mine.”

For a minute Shelby wanted desperately to bare her soul to Amelia and to tell her of her own past mistakes and her present quest. She hesitated, the phone rang and the moment was lost.

That was probably better anyway. She didn’t want the information about her search leaking. If her birth mother still lived here, she didn’t want to expose her to the embarrassment of her neighbors knowing about the child she’d given up twenty-nine years ago.

After having her own child and losing it, albeit to death, she didn’t want to cause pain to anyone else. Setting the finished tray in the fridge, Shelby waved to the other woman and went to her room.

She considered the old records in the attic at Beau’s office. They might tell her everything she needed to know without her having to search for a living person.

Tomorrow she would start work for Beau Dalton. She would ask him about going through the records for the Historical Society and volunteer to dispose of them. She considered this plan from all angles and decided it had no problems that she could see.

A picture of intense blue eyes flashed into her mind, eyes that seemed to see right inside her at times. She would have to compose her request beforehand so that she didn’t stumble over the words and arouse his suspicions.

She wondered if he believed her story of finding out about the position here over the Internet.

It was true…as far as it went.

But, of course, it wasn’t the whole story. She’d known exactly where she was going to look for a job.

The town was the only thing she knew about her birth mother. A copper bracelet had been forgotten and left at the birthing clinic. It had been made by a Nez Perce family and sold through a gift shop here in Lost Valley. The nurse had put it with her belongings when her adoptive parents had come to pick her up.

Shelby removed the bracelet from her small jewelry carrier, a velvet roll-up bag with several pockets her aunt, one of her father’s sisters, had given her at graduation years ago. The copper gleamed brightly in the afternoon light from the window. Its polished stones were engraved with intricate symbols, similar to Egyptian scarabs but using birds and plants for models.

She didn’t think her parents had been Native American, but that was a possibility. After considering wearing the bracelet, she reluctantly put it away. She had no idea whether anyone might recognize it, but she wasn’t ready to take that chance. Not yet.

With a rueful smile, she admitted she’d learned caution in her old age. Her birth mother must have learned it, too.

The lines from a poem studied long ago came to her.

I was young, as was my heart;

And I followed where it led—

Followed my heart and not my head,

Those days

When I was young, as was my heart.

Some wistful part of her longed to be that young, confident girl again, excited about life and all that it could hold.

A more cynical part of her scoffed at the idea.

She knew which part to believe.

Chapter Three

S helby didn’t like the way her insides got all in a knot when she parked at the far end of the paved area beside the Lost Valley Medical Clinic. The first day on a new job was always nerve-racking, but she’d worked with many doctors in many situations at the hospital in her hometown. Today was no different from any other.