The Love That Saved Him Read online

  The Love That Saved Him

  Sophie Barnes

  Published by Sophie Barnes, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE LOVE THAT SAVED HIM

  First edition. October 2, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Sophie Barnes.

  ISBN: 978-1386273783

  Written by Sophie Barnes.

  The Love That Saved Him

  Sophie Barnes

  Contents

  Also by Sophie Barnes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Sophie Barnes

  Novels

  The Love That Saved Him

  The Illegitimate Duke

  The Girl Who Stepped Into The Past

  The Duke of Her Desire

  Christmas at Thorncliff Manor

  A Most Unlikely Duke

  His Scandalous Kiss

  The Earl’s Complete Surrender

  Lady Sarah’s Sinful Desires

  The Danger in Tempting an Earl

  The Scandal in Kissing an Heir

  The Trouble with Being a Duke

  The Secret Life of Lady Lucinda

  There’s Something About Lady Mary

  Lady Alexandra’s Excellent Adventure

  How Miss Rutherford Got Her Groove Back

  * * *

  Novellas

  The Duke Who Came To Town

  The Earl Who Loved Her

  The Governess Who Captured His Heart

  Mistletoe Magic (from Five Golden Rings: A Christmas Collection)

  Chapter One

  Pierce stared blankly at the rain-streaked window, the blur of gray buildings beyond reminding him of a Grimshaw painting he’d seen long ago. A hand pressed against his shoulder as if to tell him he wasn’t alone. In fact, even now, in the midst of his grief, he was still surrounded by people. He always had been. Not that it mattered. None of them could fill the gaping void consuming his soul. It was like a sinkhole, swallowing every happiness he’d ever known.

  “She’s gone,” he murmured, the words as foreign as the very idea of her absence. No. Not an idea. Fact. As real as the floor beneath his feet and the New York skyline that filled his vision.

  Turning his head, he caught the shimmer in his mother-in-law’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. Her fingers dug against the wool of his jacket while a lonely tear trickled down her aging cheek. A mournful sob choked her words when she spoke again. “I don’t know how to go on without her. She was my only child.”

  Feeling that all too familiar ache in his throat begin to burn, Pierce turned more fully toward her and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t speak. Instead, he simply held on to what was left of the woman he’d loved – the woman he’d meant to grow old with, until death had stolen her from him.

  Time stretched. How far, he could not tell, but eventually a gentle knock sounded, and his hold on his mother-in-law loosened.

  “Jenny.” His father-in-law, Frank, spoke from the doorway. “It’s getting late, and we have quite a drive ahead of us.”

  The moment Pierce dreaded had finally come – that point in time when he would be left alone in a home full of scattered memories. “I thought you should know,” he said as he watched Jenny walk across to Frank, her footfalls heavy against the hardwood floor, “I’ve decided to sell the apartment.”

  A slight pause followed. “That’s understandable, I suppose,” Frank eventually said. He looked as tired as Pierce felt.

  “I need to get away,” Pierce added. “This…” He gestured with his hand, indicating the space around him. “It’s suffocating me.”

  Jenny nodded. “Where will you go?” Her hand clutched her husband’s as if she needed his strength in order to remain upright. It had been three months since the funeral, and somehow they both looked more distraught now than they had back then. Perhaps because they’d finally found the time to face the emptiness left in their lives. Collecting the family albums Caroline had borrowed while working on an anniversary gift for them was bound to have that effect. They’d been putting it off for weeks and Pierce couldn’t blame them, but time was running out, and he didn’t feel right about taking the albums with him.

  He considered them both – the people who’d welcomed him into their lives with open arms when he’d married their daughter, Caroline, six years earlier. He couldn’t imagine what this was doing to them – what his departure would do to them. But he couldn’t stay. He simply had to leave if he was going to survive this. “Whitehorse,” he said.

  A hollow hush swept through the room as they stared at each other. “In Canada?” Frank eventually asked. He seemed more capable than Jenny, whose eyes were misting once more.

  “Caroline always talked about doing something with the land her grandfather left her.”

  “But that’s in the Klondike,” Jenny muttered.

  Pierce nodded. He’d anticipated their shocked expressions. After all, the Klondike was just about as remote as one could get without completely giving up on civilization. “Like I said, I need to get away.”

  To his surprise, neither Frank nor Jenny questioned his decision the way his own parents had when he’d given them the news. Perhaps because Caroline’s parents were the only two people who could really understand the state of his misery.

  “You can’t run from this, son,” his dad had told him right after the funeral.

  Perhaps not, Pierce had agreed privately, but I am bloody well going to give it my best shot. At the same time he would honor Caroline’s memory by doing what she’d always dreamed of.

  “I’ll be building a large log home,” he added, registering the dismay on both Frank’s and Jenny’s faces as they realized how permanent his move would be. “Construction is already underway, and once it’s finished, you’re welcome to come for a visit whenever you like.”

  “What about your job, Pierce? You can’t just—”

  “It’s already done,” he told them calmly. “I’ve handed in my resignation.”

  “But—”

  “The job no longer matters. At least not to me.”

  Silence fell like plump drops of rain, and as Pierce stood there, waiting for Frank and Jenny to argue, he saw understanding unfold in their eyes. Chemcore International, the pharmaceutical company where he’d worked for the past ten years, had given him some amazing opportunities. After graduating from Columbia with a degree in finance, he’d grabbed the accounting job Chemcore had offered and had diligently worked his way toward the dream that had finally been realized two years ago when the board elected him the new CEO.

  But as much as he’d loved his job, it had also kept him busy and away from Caroline more than he’d ever cared to admit. He saw that now – now that it was too late to make time for that bed and breakfast getaway she’d always talked about. Just one in a series of wasted moments.

  And when they’d realized how sick she was, it hadn’t mattered that his job had provided him with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar salary. The money hadn’t been enough to save her. Nothing had.

  “Time is more fragile than we think,” Pierce said. “It can be snatched away faster than we imagine.” He glanced toward the window, noting that the r
ain had finally stopped. “Out there, our cluttered lives keep us busy, distracting us from the things that truly matter.”

  Nodding, Frank held out his hand, and in that moment, Pierce knew he not only understood, but accepted the choice Pierce had made for his own future. “Promise me you’ll stay in touch?”

  Stepping forward, Pierce grabbed hold of his father-in-law’s hand and met his entreating gaze. “Absolutely.”

  They said their goodbyes, and then the front door closed with a click, plunging Pierce into silence. Turning, he made his way through the hallway on heavy feet. It was as though his entire body was filled with lead, all thought of carrying on, impossible.

  Memories were everywhere – in the silly potpourri he’d meant to throw away but hadn’t, and in the towels Caroline had insisted should be white rather than blue. “They’ll get dirty quicker,” he’d told her. She’d responded with a crooked smile – her version of an eye-roll – before saying, “No more so than the blue ones. The difference is we’ll be able to see it.”

  Going to the kitchen with the intention of grabbing a bottle of water, he paused next to the fridge where a photo attached with magnets threatened to make his chest cave. It showed Caroline at a dog shelter the two of them had visited last year. She’d always loved animals and so had he. The idea of adding a furry member to their family had come naturally, so there she was, perched amid a group of dogs, a warm glow in her eyes.

  Pierce sighed. The recollections clawed at him from every angle until he felt raw both inside and out. He needed sleep to escape, so he made his way to bed and settled his weary body beneath the sheets.

  But his mind betrayed him, filling him with thoughts of Caroline and how pretty she’d looked in a red summer dress that first time he’d taken her out to dinner. He could still see her laughter, reminding him of everything that was right with the world. But would this image of her always be so clear? Or would it eventually fade – carried away by time?

  “You look lovely tonight,” he’d told her, liking the way she’d done up her hair.

  Her eyes had sparkled with mischief when she’d said, “Only because I think you might be worth the effort.” When he’d arched an eyebrow, she’d shrugged her shoulders and casually added, “My last date was shocked when I showed up wearing pajamas.”

  The light and humorous repartee had set the tone for their entire relationship. Reflecting on it, Pierce tried to recall other similar moments. But without warning, his thoughts shifted, presenting a different image – one in which Caroline no longer smiled, her pain so intense she could scarcely speak without gasping for breath.

  Groaning, Pierce glanced across at his bedside table where time was brightly illuminated in green digital numbers. Three a.m. already.

  Damn.

  He passed a hand across his face, frustrated by his inability to forget just long enough for sleep to claim him. Except the truth was he didn’t want to forget. Not really.

  Rolling onto his side, he looked at the clock once more, his eyes falling on another, much smaller picture of Caroline as a child – one in which she was sitting on her beloved grandfather’s lap. She was smiling here too; a happy person by nature until the sickness had stolen that from her.

  Lowering his gaze, he considered the sealed envelope next to the picture. It contained a letter from Caroline he hadn’t yet had the courage to open. Because once he did, she’d have nothing else left to say.

  Closing his eyes again, Perce went through the motions required for sleep – trying to clear his mind of the past just long enough to allow a reprieve – even though he knew that the effort would be in vain.

  The Klondike, thirty miles east of Dawson City

  One year later

  * * *

  Inhaling deeply, Sarah Palmer hung up the phone and met her grandfather’s questioning gaze. At twenty five years of age, she’d been helping him run his business – a small mining operation – long enough to know that nothing was ever certain. “Greenfield doesn’t want to renew our lease for next year,” she said as she swept back a few loose strands of copper-colored hair and tucked them behind her ear. “I think the Boone brothers may have given him a better offer.”

  “Then we’ll just have to look elsewhere. Greenfield isn’t the only land owner around here.” Her grandfather pushed a newspaper across the desk in front of him, tapping it with his index finger. “Have a look at this. It might be a good deal for us.”

  Crossing to his desk, Sarah looked at the ad he’d pointed to, noting the address. “This is Murphy’s old property. Isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed,” her grandfather said with a smug grin on his narrow weather-worn face. “And we finally have a shot at it. Place has a new owner now.”

  “Really?” She could scarcely believe it. None of the mining rights there had been renewed since Murphy’s passing three years earlier, and as far as she’d known, not a single new one had been issued either. Apparently that had now changed.

  Her grandfather nodded. “It’s a miner’s dream if we can get our hands on the part I’ve been eyeing.”

  A cold shiver darted its way along Sarah’s spine. She knew precisely what her grandfather was referring to. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know perfectly well why not!” Taking a breath, she made an effort to temper her tone before saying, “You’re after the only place up there that has never been touched, but you’re forgetting that there’s a good reason for that.”

  “The ridge,” he said, confirming her worst suspicions.

  She shook her head, realizing she had to be the responsible one. “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I know it’s not without risk, Sarah, but take a look around you. If we wanted something safe to do, we wouldn’t be mining for gold in the Klondike. We’d be sitting in a comfortable office, pushing paper for a living.” Leaning forward, he placed his knobby elbows on the desk and looked up at her with a pair of piercing green eyes that mirrored her own. The only difference was that his were topped with thinning grey brows. “In order to make it big in this field, risks must be taken. All the easy pickings have been pocketed long ago. You know that as well as I.”

  “Agreed, but that doesn’t mean we have to hang off the side of a cliff in order to strike it rich.”

  “Doesn’t it?” He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, the leather squeaking against his movement. “I remember when I was a lad, and my own grandpa worked up here. It was tougher back then without the machinery we have today, but at least the gold was closer to the surface. That’s no longer the case.”

  “We did okay for ourselves last year,” Sarah argued, reluctant to let him talk her into something that went against her better judgment. “Everyone got paid a decent salary.”

  “True. But I’d like to do better than that before I draw my last breath.”

  “Grandpa—”

  “I want to be sure you have enough to get by on once I’m gone.” He flattened his mouth and frowned before saying, “After all, Billy doesn’t seem to give a damn.”

  “Billy doesn’t owe me a thing, and you know it.” Angry that he’d brought her ex-boyfriend into the conversation, she marched to her own desk and sat. “I’ll give this number a ring if you like and see if I can set something up, but I’m not happy about it.”

  “I know.” He offered a reassuring smile. “But if my instincts are right, you will be.”

  She could only hope so as she picked up the phone and dialed the number printed in the paper. It rang for what seemed like forever before a man finally answered. “Hello?” His voice was low and warm, perhaps even a bit tired, which made it sound surprisingly pleasant.

  “Err…yes, hello,” Sarah said, composing herself as she darted a hasty look in her grandfather’s direction. She wasn’t the sort to be easily flustered by anything, yet here she was, pulse leaping, and all because of a voice. Ridiculous! “I’m calling about the ad in the paper?”

&nb
sp; A slight hesitation, and then, “What about it?”

  “I, err…” A wave of heat swept over her, teasing her skin until it tightened. Get a grip. It’s just a voice. “Are you the owner?”

  He cleared his throat with a low, vibrating sound that made her shiver. “I am.”

  “Right. Well then, if it’s still available, my grandfather and I would like to lease it for the coming season.”

  “Only if the ridge is included,” her grandfather said from across the room.

  Sarah sighed. “As long as the ridge is included,” she repeated into the phone.

  A pause followed until the voice at the other end spoke once more. “Why don’t you come up tomorrow and have a look? We can discuss the spot you’re after then.”

  Sarah nodded, realizing belatedly that the man she was speaking to couldn’t see that. “Fine,” she blurted. “What time?”

  “Let’s make it one o’clock. Does that work for you?”

  “Yes. Thank you. We’ll see you then.” The phone went dead. With trembling fingers, Sarah lowered it back into its cradle, confused by what had just happened.

  “What on earth was that about?” Her grandfather asked. “It’s as if you’ve never talked on a phone before.”

  Blinking, she got to her feet, pulled her coat off the hook on the door, and began pushing her arms into the sleeves. “I don’t know, but I think I need to get some fresh air.”

  Her grandfather frowned. “Was he rude to you in any way?”

  “What? Err…no…he was pleasant enough.”

  “And his name?”

  Sarah stilled. “He never mentioned it.”

  “And apparently you forgot to give him yours as well.” Shaking his head, her grandfather muttered something inaudible as she opened the door and stepped out into the frosty air. Her boots squeaked loudly against the thin layer of snow now covering the path they’d shoveled that morning. Life in the Klondike was anything but easy, and there were many – especially those from her own family – who were skeptical about her ability to make it work. She was too young and too slim, they said.