LITMIR.BIZ

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she pleased. A pretend husband had been an easy solution.

      “Alaska is at the edge of nowhere,” he said. “I never dreamed anyone in Colorado would hear Burrows’s name.”

      When he’d shown her the first letter from this make-believe father, he had suggested that his friend would write and send a few letters so John James could believe his father loved him. “A boy needs to believe his father cares for him,” he’d told Mariah. She hadn’t been able to disagree with that. And the truth would never pass her lips. “All along I thought Otto made up a name to use,” she said.

      “We should have simply rented a box in a fictitious name,” her grandfather said. “Or we should have said your husband died like we talked about, but John James loved getting those letters. Telling him that would have been like actually killing his father. He believed the man was real. At the time there was no harm in allowing the ruse to continue.”

      “I’m as responsible as you are for that,” she said. “But what about the name that I’ve been using—the name I gave my son? This Burrows is a real person?”

      “He is.”

      The information was too much to absorb. Thinking back, she had noticed a difference in the letters. She hadn’t read all of them, but she read a few here and there for John James’s safety. She’d read more than usual lately because she’d been intrigued by the writer’s stories. “Who are the letters really from?”

      “The real Mr. Burrows. Initially he wrote to me because I always help John James with his letters. He asked me to explain why his post box was filled with mail from a child he didn’t know. I made it clear how much the dear boy longed for a father.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “I may have suggested that no harm would come if the charade continued a while longer. And soon this Burrows fellow was writing letters to John James.”

      Mariah wiped a hand over her eyes as if that might clear the confusion and concern. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

      “I did.” He frowned and his gaze fell to the desktop. “Or at least I thought I did.”

      Her heart beat hard and fast at the thought of this stranger coming to expose their lie to her son. John James’s heart would be broken. He would despise her for the lies she’d strung out for so long. A tight knot formed in her stomach at the thought, and suspicion straightened her eyebrows in a skeptical frown. “Why does this man want to come here? What does he expect?”

      Louis unlocked his top desk drawer and took out an envelope. He tapped it against his other palm thoughtfully before placing it on top of his desk and pushing it toward her. “It’s all here.”

      With trembling fingers, Mariah reached for the envelope. Her grandfather’s name had been written in sprawling black script. She slid out the stationery and unfolded the paper.

      Mr. Spangler,

      I do not know if you are going to understand what I am about to do. I do not know if I understand it myself, but I am leaving Juneau City at the end of the week and will be heading to Colorado.

      For the past six years, I have been traveling between tent camps and post offices. There is money to be made in this land, and I have spent my youth acquiring it. I have witnessed plenty of men getting mail from home, and I have often wondered what it would be like to have family waiting for me, wishing I was with them.

      Before I was a mail carrier, I worked aboard a whaling ship. I once tried my luck at gold mining, and I have traveled half the world. In all that time I never felt attached to a place. I never had a yearning to settle until I read the lad’s words about the Spangler family. He writes about his mother and you. I feel as though I have been to Ruby Creek.

      It makes no sense, but lately I have been homesick for a place I have never been and I have been missing a boy I have never seen. The yearning I read in John James’s letters is the yearning I have felt my whole life. It is a need to be important to someone. And I aim to be that to him if I am able.

      I have had some time to reflect on my life these past weeks, and what I now see is that above all I want to make a difference in this world. I want to make a difference in your great-grandson’s life. By the time you get this, you will not be able to reach me, and you could not have said anything that would have changed my mind anyhow. I am on my way to meet John James.

      You have my word that I shall not embarrass or hurt the boy. Neither do I intend to disrupt your life or your granddaughter’s. This is something I need to do. I want your great-grandson to have what every boy deserves—a father who cares about him.

      Sincerely, Wesley T. Burrows

      Hot tears stung at the backs of Mariah’s eyes. Fear and resentment welled up strong and fierce. The words written in black ink blurred in her vision. Blinking, she folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. “This is absurd. We don’t know this man. What right does he have to come galloping in here like a savior on a white horse and weasel his way into our lives?”

      Standing, she tossed the envelope back on his desk and walked behind her chair. She grasped the leather in both hands in an attempt to stop her violent trembling. “What are we going to do?”

      Her grandfather stood and made his way around the corner of the enormous walnut desk. “There’s nothing we can do. We used his postal box for several years without his permission. He’s caught us in a lie.”

      “Which gives him the power to come in here and ruin our lives?” she exclaimed. “What if he’s coming to blackmail us? What better reason could he have to travel across a continent to intrude on our family?”

      “Blackmail? That’s a pretty big leap. I’ve read his other letters to John James, and I don’t believe he means us any harm. We’ll deal with anything that comes up when the time arrives, Mariah. There’s no call to jump to conclusions.”

      “No.” Panic rose in her chest. “You can have someone stop him before he gets here.”

      “Who would I ask to deter him? Your brothers? Your nephews? Just what would I tell them? And what would we do with Burrows once we’d stopped him? He’s not breaking any laws by coming here.”

      Mariah didn’t like feeling trapped, and she didn’t like anyone having the control over her that this Wes Burrows had at the moment. The man was up to no good. “No one has ever seen him,” she said. “When he gets here, we’ll say he’s an imposter.”

      “Mariah, that would—”

      “I know—it would raise too many questions and still create a scene for John James.” She paced several feet away and then walked back to face her grandfather.

      “I’m going to take his words at face value,” Louis said. “He wants John James to know he has a father who cares about him.”

      “He doesn’t have a father who cares about him,” she said in a tight voice. “I’m not blaming you for anything.” She took a step forward and leaned to rest her hand on his shirtsleeve. “When I came back with a baby, I was relieved that you’d already told everyone the story about a husband. It spared me the embarrassment of making explanations. I accepted the lie because it was convenient. And even when Otto sent those first letters, I could have stopped you from giving them to John James, but I didn’t.” Her throat burned with the truth and the scalding honesty. “I wanted him to believe he had a father.”

      She swallowed hard and a trembling began in her knees. “This man coming here is taking the lie too far. Even if his intent is harmless, and he pretends to be a father, he’ll leave eventually. Desertion will only hurt John James more in the end.”

      Louis moved his arm to grasp her hand and hold it between both of his. “Let’s say he visits for a few weeks. And then he goes back where he came from. Things will go back like they were and John James will have had a father like all the other children.”

      “But it’s always been a lie.” She couldn’t push her voice past a whisper because her chest ached too

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