In Search of Vindication – Extended Epilogue

Three years later

As Lee rode through the ranch gate, he nodded to a few of his men who were near the bunkhouse. He reined Adasi in and headed for the barn. Immediately to his right stood Susan, and Tommy was perched atop a stall gate.

“You didn’t try to lift him up there, I hope?” he said, concerned.

“Nope. He climbed up there all by himself. He wanted to see his new pony.”

Lee dismounted, and one of the men came to take Adasi’s reins.

“Dad!” Tommy said, excitedly. “Sunny is beautiful! When do I get to ride him?”

“How about tomorrow, Tom? It’s getting dark now.”

“Right after breakfast?”

“Right after breakfast. I promise.”

Lee bent to kiss his very pregnant wife.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“Strange,” Lee said. “So, Jones was drummed out as sheriff, apparently there was evidence of some shady dealings, part of which had to do with him ignoring evidence. Imagine that! They’re restructuring McLennan County and changing the position to Town Marshal instead of Sheriff.”

“That is news,” she said.

“But then there’s also the part where they asked me to be the Town Marshal.”

“What?” she exclaimed. Her look of amusement turned to a frown, however. “Lee, you said you didn’t want to be in the line of fire again.”

“I don’t, but Bridgerton is a pretty quiet little town, and I think I might be able to actually do some good. First off, I would establish in the town the same policy you have in your hotel –gun check. There are other things I’d like to do, too.”

“So, you don’t really fancy yourself as the big cattle baron?”

“No, you’ve taken so well to your new role,” he said, “but since you run the business aspects of the ranch, it leaves me little to do other than throw my money around.”

“I never thought I’d hear Lee Palmer complain about having too little to do. Honey, if that’s what will make you happy, then by all means.”

“Nothing makes me happier than my family,” he said, “but I almost think it would be fun to be a Town Marshall.”

“Fun? You have a different standard for fun than I do.”

He grinned and kissed her again, then helped Tommy down from the gate.

“Let’s go in,” Susan said. “I received a very interesting letter today. One of your hands checked the mail when he went for supplies this morning.”

When they went in, the fire in the great room had been built up.

“Will you be ready for dinner soon, Mrs. Palmer?” asked the cook. 

“Give us a quarter of an hour, Lucinda. Then we’ll be ready.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said.

“Here’s the letter,” Susan said, holding it out for Lee to take. 

It was perfumed, and Lee could tell it was a woman’s handwriting.

“Who’s it from?” he asked.

“Rose.”

“Rose? As in …?”

“As in …”

“No wonder you said it was a strange letter.” 

“Mrs. Sanderson,” Susan called to their head housekeeper. When she arrived, Susan asked, “Could you take Tommy to eat with his friends tonight, please?”

“I get to eat dinner with Jake and Randall?”

“You do,” Susan said. 

“Yay!” said Tommy. “They always have the best stuff to eat!”

“The best stuff?” Lee mouthed to her.

“Yes, that means that they don’t have to eat things like steak and pork chops and whatnot. When he goes there, they have things like beans and bacon and fried potatoes.”

“I see,” Lee said, laughing.

When Tommy was out of the room, he handed the letter back to Susan. “Here, you read it to me.”

“All right,” Susan said, pulling the fine sheets of stationery out and straightening them.”

Dear Lee and Susan,

It is with relief that I write you to say that my brother is dead, and I feel as though I have been released from a sort of bondage as it were.

I have been living on my own now for eight months. I am taking in sewing. I used to sew the dresses for all the girls at the saloon, which gave me good skills, and I find I can now make a living. 

I know that Tommy is in loving and capable hands, and that he has a very good life. I am so happy that he is able to have his father’s good name.”

“Do I need to be concerned with where this is going?” Lee interrupted.

“Just hold on and listen, try not to judge, and then we can talk about it,” Susan said.

“Just cut to the chase. What does she want? Money?”

“No. She wants to be able to see Tommy.”

Lee jumped up from his chair. “Absolutely not!” he said.

“Calm down and stop shouting. I don’t want him to hear you.”

“That will only cause chaos and confusion. He knows no mother but you. To tell him otherwise at this point would lead to all sorts of drama.”

“Perhaps we could tell him that he has two mothers,” Susan said.

“Oh, yeah, and this other mother just dropped out of the sky after four years? I think not.”

“Would you like to hear my idea?”

He dropped back into his chair and lowered his voice. “Of course, Susan. You have been my guide many times.”

“Why don’t we bring her here, perhaps as Auntie Rose?”

“Ohhhhh,” he moaned. “I can just see this going wrong in so many ways. We’ve never really lied to him because, since he doesn’t know any different, he doesn’t ask. And I can’t really foresee a time when he would. But if we bring Rose onto the stage, and she does tell him, not only will he be confused about her, but he will see us as liars.”

“Okay, then let me propose this. What if we test her to see what she is truly willing to sacrifice to be able to see him once in a while, but without interference.”

“How do you mean?”

“I love being out here. I love being a ranch wife, and I soon will have not one, but two children that will require my time. What if we bring her up, and I teach her the hotel business? She’s run her own business for years, so to speak; she has excellent customer service skills …”

“So to speak …”

She gave him an exasperated look. “I think if we get her away from that element entirely, that you might be amazed at the changes in her.”

“Yeah, and I might not.”

“Ever the pessimist,” Susan said, clucking her tongue.

“And how do you think that will fix things or keep her from telling Tommy what we don’t want him to hear the minute our back is turned?”

“Make her stay and her business dependent upon her keeping quiet, until we say the time is appropriate.”

“Yeah, and when would that be? When he’s 16? 18?”

“I was thinking more like seven or eight.”

“Yes, we could just sit him down and tell him the story of his mommy and daddy, and the bad men, and everything.”

“Don’t you think that would really traumatize him?”

“How about we judge the right time as we go?”

Lee shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

##

Susan wrote back that she was in the final stages of pregnancy, and that she was unable to travel right now, but that once the child was delivered, and she had had her lie in, that they would come and make a proposal to her.

A daughter was born to Lee and Susan Palmer three weeks later, and they named her Delia. As Susan lay abed, she couldn’t help thinking about Meghan and Matthew. How awful it must have been. It would be like her just disappearing with Tommy and leaving Lee to raise Delia on his own. As she kissed her new daughter on the top of her head, she could not imagine what could possibly urge the mother of such a tiny, sweet thing to abandon her.

Three months later, Rose joined them, and moved into Susan’s apartment at the hotel. She familiarized with the workings of everything, by working with everyone from the cook, the housecleaning staff, to the guest manager, to the bartender. By the time Susan joined her a month later to teach her the business aspects, Rose had ingratiated herself with all the staff. Everyone loved her.

##

Sometimes Susan would take Tommy with her when she went to the hotel. She loved to see the affection that Rose lavished upon the boy.

Lee and Susan also invited Rose to dinner and to various events. Tommy always referred to her simply as ‘Rose,’ nothing more. He liked Rose a lot, but he was much more interested in Delia.

Susan and Lee didn’t begin to worry until Rose kept finding frequent excuses to show up at the ranch. She was demonstrative toward Tommy, but not any more so than she was to Delia. 

Susan decided that Rose simply preferred the Palmer’s company to anyone else’s and that she considered Susan her best friend and confidant. She believed it to be a good sign that Rose had no desire to hang around with the kinds of people she had hung around with formerly. She truly was trying to put her past behind her. And why shouldn’t she? Susan had wanted the same thing when she came to Bridgerton, to get away from the gamblers and entertainers on the riverboats. She understood Rose’s desire to do everything the opposite of the way she had always done things.

The Palmers loved to host celebrations, but usually only for friends and for the ranch hands: Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and anniversaries. They offered as much of a permanent life to their hands as they wanted. There was a bunkhouse for the single men, but cottages were being continually built for the hands who married, and they received a pay increase as well. 

For a woman who never had thought she wanted children, Susan’s life was full of them, and she was revered as mother of them all, children and adults alike. 

Any sullen or morose hands that drifted their way didn’t stay around long – too much happiness there.

On Lee and Susan’s seventh anniversary, Lee let it be known that he had a huge surprise for Susan. 

When Susan saw cases of champagne being brought in, she couldn’t begin to guess as to what Lee’s intent was.

They held the festivities outdoors because there was no way everyone would fit in their modest ranch house.

They had requested that guests bring no gifts. They had each other and their beautiful children, and everything they could ever want. Except for one thing, and that was the gift that Lee was going to present to his beautiful wife that night.

Lee stood up and clinked his glass with his fork to get everyone’s attention. 

“I don’t have a great flowery speech to give. You all know our life, and the immense happiness my wife has brought me over the past seven years – you’ve heard me say, most of all, how grateful I am that she puts up with me at all.”

The crowd cheered.

“Tonight, I am giving her a particularly lavish gift in appreciation for the nursing she has done for me, even when I was ‘the world’s worst patient’ she said, how she sat by me day after day after I was shot, and the inexplicable joy she has brought me every day since we began to walk our horses together during my recovery. My darling, this very day I have signed the final papers to procure the Connor ranch for us, and we will very soon have a sumptuous home in which to entertain our guests so that, even when it’s raining outside, we never have to cancel a celebration.”

Susan threw her arms around him and kissed him tearfully. “I couldn’t ask for a better husband, either,” she said, “and not just because he bought a bigger ranch.”

“It would also probably be an appropriate time to tell you, Josh,” Lee said, speaking to his foreman, that, after some remodeling, this house will be yours.”

Josh stood then, thanking Lee and Susan for the gracious gift, and telling everyone that he hoped it was also an appropriate time to propose to the sweetest and most beautiful woman that had ever come into his life. That woman was Rose. Much applause went up into the night and echoed down the Brazos.

For Susan as much as for himself, when they had moved into the Garret ranch, he had the library and the desk moved into another part of the house. The carpet was pulled up in the office, and rugs were lain down. The mudroom door was locked from the inside, and the doors from the office to the rest of the house were permanently closed.

Now, knowing that Josh and Rose were going to occupy it, he was going to tear down that portion of the house, and to the side of the house, he would build a large bedroom for them.

The day that Lee and Susan moved into the Connor house, she told him she felt lighter, that she was happy to be living somewhere there was not the taint of murder. 

Lee felt bad that he had made her wait so long. He could have easily torn the room down before, but she had never mentioned it.

It was such a beautiful house with its glazed and terracotta tile throughout, the upstairs rooms with opera balconies on all four sides of the house.

They auctioned off all of David and Ruth Connor’s things. It was all dark, heavy oak furniture. Susan and Rose made a trip to Dallas where Susan purchased all light oak and brandy-colored leather furniture. Rose purchased her wedding dress – a bright, blushing rose color with white boots and gloves.

Lee promoted Josh from head foreman to ranch manager. He took responsibility for the two ranches. The smaller one, Lee implemented Garret’s own policy that he had given to Tom, of allowing them to build a herd from strays and mavericks.

Susan kept a financial interest in the hotel which paid her a tidy annual sum, but she had brought on a partner who had a similar vision that had first brought Susan to Bridgerton.

At last, she and Lee were free to travel. Their first trip was going to be from Waco up into the Indian Territories to see if they could connect with Ki’Somma again. From there they were going north and west across California until they reached San Francisco.

Tommy was eight by the time they were ready to travel. He was going to stay with Rose and Josh while they were gone, and he was very excited at the prospect.

The night before they left on their travels, Josh and Rose, who was pregnant herself, came for dinner. After dinner, they all sat down in the Great Room, and Susan began by saying, “Tommy, all of us have a story to tell you. Some of it will make you happy, some of it will make you sad, but all of it will surprise you.”

“That’s okay, Ma,” Tommy said. “You told me that not every story has a happy ending.”

“That’s true, Tommy,” she said, “but in this case, the story has a very happy ending.”

THE END

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