The revelation made his neck muscles tense. “I have no idea.”
Winnie lapsed into silence, observing the final passengers as they boarded. “Is your uncle playing a game as well?”
“What do you mean?” he asked carefully.
“That day at Pioneer Square, my friend Rhoda made a comment about the McEntire men not being entirely honorable. Could the two be related?”
He blew out a breath. She had no idea how close she was to the truth. “My uncle was caught taking bribes a few years back, but his contacts at the police department let him off easy. It’s not uncommon.”
“Could he be involved in that again, and Mr. Anderson is helping him?”
Mack couldn’t deny the idea’s merit. In his dogged attempt to keep his head in the sand until he received the inheritance, had he ignored illegal activities right under his nose? He rubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t say for certain. But now that you mention it, every time I’ve walked in on the two of them in the past month, they clam up or change the topic.”
“That didn’t strike you as suspicious?”
“It’s no secret that we constantly disagree on how to manage the paper. I assumed that’s why they didn’t wish to engage with me, but now I don’t know.”
She leaned back and examined him from beneath the brim of her hat. “You wouldn’t get caught up in any of that, would you?”
“In bribes? Not a chance.” His answer was automatic, but it wasn’t entirely true. His deal with Horace could be interpreted as a bribe—he was positive Winnie would view it that way. “I told you that I am set to inherit the newspaper, but that’s only if I fulfill my uncle’s demands. I must admit I’ve made some shameful decisions I’m not proud of.”
She tapped a finger on her chin in thought. “Your desire to inherit the paper is admirable, but you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your morals to get it. Have you thought about starting your own instead?”
He ignored the quiver in his stomach and revealed something only Jude and Aunt Jenny knew. “I can’t start my own. I promised my father on his deathbed that I would usher in a new era of journalism—starting withThe Puget Sound Post.”
They were interrupted by the clang of horns as theWhidbyleft its moorings and slid into the sound. Winnie joined the passengers waving to their friends and family on the shore until they were out of sight. She turned and leaned on the painted railing, the wind lightly ruffling the purple ribbon in her hat.
“I have to admit I’m intrigued by your father. This promise sounds quite unusual, and I couldn’t help but notice it upset your aunt to bring him into discussion. Would you tell me more about him?”
He hadn’t talked about his father in years, and already the bile was forming in his gut. But she deserved to know,neededto know about his father. Learning about his past would explain his current actions and why he had been willing to betray her. Hopefully, it would be enough for her to forgive him.
“He was my hero. We read together every night—we were obsessed with Mark Twain—and he encouraged me to take up writing instead of studying law, as my mother wanted. He even convinced my mother to let me work as Horace’s errand boy. He knew I would love being around newspapermen, and he was right. I owe him my thanks.”
He paused to gather his thoughts, and Winnie touched a gloved finger to his on the railing. “He sounds like a good man. I can see why his death was so hard on you.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
“His death wasn’t an easy one. My father was a dreamer on the best of days and a fool on the worst. He fell prey to scheme after scheme, and he was already on the brink of ruin when gold was discovered in the Yukon. He thought it was a sign from God.”
“Oh no.”
“He wanted to leave at once. I was only sixteen, but even I knew he wasn’t prepared for such a journey. We tried to convince him to wait a couple months, to raise more funds before he spent it on the required resources—a thousand pounds of goods, you know.”
“A small fortune.”
“It took all his money, plus some he borrowed. He could not be deterred. Every night, I watched as he pored over the recent newspaper reports. They made the Klondike sound like a romantic adventure, a rainbow with a giant pot of gold at the end. And he ate it up. Of course, by that time, the major veins had already been claimed. But no newspaper reported on that. The goal was to bring as many people to the west as possible, and sensational articles continued to pour forth.”
“If you recall, I was also swayed by similar articles,” Winnie said. “To heed the calling of ‘The Spirit of the West.’”
“You have no idea how relieved I am that you were.” He stroked her palm with the pad of his thumb. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
A pretty flush rose to her cheeks. “I—I feel the same.”
Her confession filled his chest with warmth and gave him the strength to continue his story.
“My father’s adventure in the Klondike was short-lived, and he returned a broken man. The sparkle had left his eyes, and his hands trembled all the time. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he stepped into our home—a three-story mansion at the time—and realized my mother had been forced to sell anything that wasn’t visible to the public eye. He learned of my double shifts at the paper, of Horace’s loans, and the guilt ate him alive. An obsession with the newspapers developed; he blamed them for his gullibility.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Winnie said. “One must be critical when digesting news of any kind.”
