The Art of Love: Origins of Sinner's Grove by A.B. Michaels Read Free Book Online Page B

dressmaker’s, Gus hailed a hackney and went straight over to the train station to book a ticket for Los Angeles the following day. As luck would have it, the railroad had put in a spur to Temecula, so he reserved a seat all the way through. He headed back to the Madison Hotel where he was due to have dinner with C.J. and Ethel. They were expecting Mattie to be with him and it was going to be damn embarrassing to tell them he had to go all the way down to Los Angeles to fetch his wife. But it had been so long that a few more days wouldn’t matter, he told himself. In the meantime, he’d talk to C.J. about an idea he’d had regarding using steam to melt the permafrost. Maybe they could work together and manufacture some kind of contraption that would speed up the digging process.
    Then there was John Anderson. He was thinking John might want to partner with him in some business that supplied the miners who’d surely be heading back up north. By the looks of the crowds on the waterfront, the demand for those goods—and the means to transport them—was going to skyrocket. He had a lot of ideas and a lot to think about. Maybe it was actually better he had a few more days before picking up Mattie and Annabelle. He told himself that, but he didn’t really believe it.

CHAPTER SIX

    T he Double J Ranch sprawled over several hundred acres in the Temecula Valley, and as far as Gus could tell from the seat of the horse he’d secured to find the place, the Jones family was doing fairly well. It looked like they raised wheat and other crops as well as ran cattle. The man who managed the stables in town had provided decent directions and Gus found the place easily. After tying his horse to a nearby post next to a small watering trough, he knocked on the front door of what looked to be the main residence. It looked more like a Spanish hacienda than a typical farmhouse, but that was the case with many of the buildings in this part of the state.
    After several minutes and no answer, Gus walked around the back of the house to see if maybe someone was outside and hadn’t heard his knock. He found a young woman with long reddish-blonde hair working in what looked to be a kitchen garden. She had a basket next to her that was half full of just-picked vegetables—tomatoes and cukes, lettuce and radishes and green beans. Gus hadn’t seen such fresh produce in a long, long time.
    “Excuse me, ma’am?” He stayed at the edge of the plot in case she spooked easily. “Uh, Miss Bethany Jones?”
    The young woman glanced over her shoulder and scrambled to her feet when she saw him. “Oh. Yes, that’s me.” She wiped her hands on her apron and looked around as if searching for reinforcements. “May I help you?”
    “I hope so, ma’am. I’m looking for Mattie Wolff. I understand she moved here with you from Seattle. I’m her husband, Gus.”
    The woman stopped moving and stared at him as if he had just dropped his trousers. She took so long to answer that Gus was afraid she’d had a mental fit of some kind. “Ma’am?” he prompted.
    Miss Jones closed her eyes briefly as if to collect herself. Finally she spoke. “Uh, um. Mr. Wolff. Why don’t we go inside?” She gestured for him to precede her and waited while he walked up the back steps and into what was the sun porch of the house. “Please, sit down,” she invited, pointing to a grouping of chairs around a small wooden table. “May I get you something to drink?”
    “No thanks. I’d really just like to see Mattie and Annabelle. Are they close by?”
    The young lady sat down across from Gus and looked at the table for a minute before sighing and meeting his eyes. “I haven’t seen Mattie or Annabelle in quite some time,” she said.
    The cold sensation that Gus had felt at the rooming house returned, accompanied by an inner alarm that told him something was definitely out of place. “What are you talking about?”
    “I—” the young woman started to cough and