“Your Honor.” Mr. Strickland rose. “My clients live out of the area and staying here for five days would place a burden on them.”
“I’m sorry, counselor.” The judge wiped his spectacles with a handkerchief. “Your clients have asserted serious charges. It’s only fair the Hales have the opportunity to defend themselves. If Mr. and Mrs. Belford want to pursue this, they’ll have to either stay here, or come back.”
With a heavy heart, Nate escorted Angel from the courtroom, and walked her in silence to their buggy.
“I need to see the two of you in my office as soon as possible.” Damian slapped Nate on his back.
“Is tomorrow morning all right?”
“Fine. Come by at nine o’clock.”
They climbed into the buggy and started off. “I think we need to talk before we see Mr. Lawton tomorrow.” Nate glanced briefly at Angel as they pulled away from the courthouse.
Angel twisted her hands in her lap. “Yes, I think that would be best.”
“Since we have someone watching the children, I suggest we drive out of town, and find a quiet place where we can talk privately.” Sensing her distress, he shifted both reins to one hand and took her hand in the other.
The ride continued in silence, each deep in thought. They left the town behind, and continued on until they reached an area with nothing but miles of grass and woods in every direction. Nate pulled the buggy to a stop. He turned to face Angel and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I guess I’ll go first.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “About ten years ago, I thought myself in love with a married woman.” He looked up, and not seeing the shock he expected on Angel’s face, continued.
“Emmaline and I had grown up together, and even though we were close, she fell in love with, and later married, a local man. I was young and hea
rtbroken, so right before the wedding, I joined the army, and was sent out West, and never thought to see her again.
“Sometime later, she and Peter—her husband—joined a wagon train heading to Oregon. Shortly after leaving, a tragic accident killed Peter, and the wagon master forced Emmaline to marry another man in the group. I was stationed at Fort Laramie at the time, where the wagon trains stopped for supplies. You can imagine my shock when I ran into her, there of all places, and discovered she had been widowed, and then re-married so quickly.
“At that time, the Army sent two soldiers from the fort with each wagon train for protection. I volunteered to accompany them to Oregon, and I got it in my head Emmaline wanted to leave her husband and go back to Indiana to her parents, and I would be the one to take her.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, and continued. “After we all arrived in Oregon, I contacted an attorney and learned her marriage could be annulled since she had been forced into it. When I told her this, she said she didn’t want to talk about it, so I, ah—”
He stopped and pulled Angel close to him. “So I went to her house one day and took her and her baby daughter,” he said in a rush. “I had arranged with another wagon train heading east to meet up with them in a wagon I had bought and outfitted for the trip.”
She pulled back and looked at him. “Did you hurt her?”
“Of course not! God, no. I thought I loved her. I sprinkled chloroform on a handkerchief, then when she passed out, I carried her and the baby to the wagon.”
He sat forward on the seat, his forearms braced on his knees, his head in his hands.
“And her husband came after her?”
“Oh, he came after her all right. In the meantime, Emmaline found my rifle and threatened to shoot me if I didn’t turn the wagon around. I did. It seemed Emmaline truly loved her husband, and had no desire to return to Indiana, or anywhere else for that matter, without him. They have a horse farm out in Willamette Valley, and I haven’t been near either one of them since.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and continued. “To this day I don’t understand it myself. I still can’t believe I did that. I’d never done anything that strange, before or since. I tried to explain it away a number of times, but I always come up blank.” He shrugged, and glanced at his wife.
To his amazement, Angel wrapped her arms around him, and laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
This could look very bad to someone who didn’t know Nate.
Truly the most kind, considerate man she had ever known. A wonderful husband and father, and crazy about his children. Losing them would be a blow he would probably never recover from.
They sat and held each other, not speaking for a while. Eventually, Angel pulled away. “All right, my turn.
Mine is simply stupidity on my part. When I attended boarding school years ago, an entire group of girls decided I didn’t fit in, so they found ways to torture me. When none of their games and nastiness worked to get me to leave, they hid an expensive necklace in my room, and then reported it missing to the headmistress. So, naturally, they searched the entire school, and there it sat in my dresser drawer.”
“Didn’t you explain it to the headmistress?”
“No. And that’s where I made my mistake, because apparently it’s on my record there. I was also young, and full of pride. But I hated the school, and relieved to have my papa come for me, so I could return home and put it all behind me.”