Shadow of Legends by Stephen A. Bly Page B

lives in Chattanooga.”
    â€œWere the two of you . . . ?”
    â€œMarried? Oh, yes. Dr. and Mrs. Philip Gordon Jr.”
    â€œDoctor?” Rebekah couldn’t keep her hand from flying to cover her mouth. “Your husband was a doctor?”
    â€œRebekah Fortune, you do look shocked. He’s a doctor. But he’s not my husband anymore. He divorced me when I ran off with Amber.”
    â€œYou ran off? Did he mistreat you?”
    Abigail looked away. “This is getting personal, isn’t it?”
    â€œHow good a friend do you want me to be?”
    â€œHe didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.” This time she stared Rebekah in the eyes. “After the first few months, he just ignored me completely. In a big house full of servants I was consumed with loneliness and boredom. I’m an actress. He knew that when he married me. He wouldn’t even let me go to a theater.”
    â€œSo you just left him?”
    â€œI cried, begged, pleaded, prayed, and threatened to try to get him to change. He would call me immature, unreasonable. About a year after Amber was born, we left.”
    â€œThere was no way to reconcile?”
    â€œWhen he started bringing women into our home for ‘consultations’ and locking the study door behind them, I decided we should leave.”
    â€œHave you seen him since?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHas Amber?”
    â€œNo. He doesn’t even write to her or anything.”
    â€œWhat do you tell her about her father?”
    â€œWhat can I tell her? If she asks, I lie. I say he is a kind man who has many important things to do, but we’re not one of them.”
    â€œYou’ll have to tell her the truth someday.”
    â€œI know, and God help me when I do.”
    â€œHe’ll help you, Abigail.”
    â€œI know that. God has never run away from me, no matter how many times I’ve run away from Him.”
    â€œI do believe you and I can be friends.”
    â€œWhen do you want me to send up this dress?”
    â€œWhenever it’s convenient,” Rebekah said.
    â€œYou might want to stitch it in a place or two,” Abigail offered.
    â€œWould you mind?”
    â€œA good friend like you?” the actress grinned. “Of course not.”
    On some days the seventy-two stair steps from the end of Wall Street straight up the gulch to Williams Street seemed hardly a challenge at all to Todd Fortune.
    This was not one of those days.
    A sharp sting blazed up his right leg. It originated at his ankle and concluded with a knotted muscle in the back of his thigh. Each step began the cycle again, and by the time he reached the front door of his Forest Hill home, he was ready to collapse. The sun had long since dropped behind the hill. It was hot, but scattered clouds stacked up in the west and teased of a lightning storm. Kerosene lamps flickered up and down the gulch as he glanced back down the steps and caught his breath.
    Rebekah’s right about one thing. Rapid City is a lot flatter. I’ve almost forgotten what it would be like to walk home on level ground. ’Course, a ranch in Texas would be fairly flat, and I wouldn’t have to do much walking.
    Rebekah swung open the front door. “Are you going to just stand at my door, waiting like a teenage boy who doesn’t have nerve to knock?”
    â€œEvenin’, Darlin’.” Todd pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his light-brown hair. “Guess I was catching my breath.”
    â€œMy goodness!” she gasped. “What happened to you? Your coat is torn! You’re covered with dirt! You didn’t get run over by a stagecoach, did you?”
    He jammed his boot heel into the black iron bootjack shaped like a giant beetle and pulled off one boot, then the other. “I took a tumble when we captured those stagecoach outlaws. Then I strained my leg when we unloaded those freight wagons.”
    Rebekah