Harvest Moon (Borrowed Brides 2)

“I do.” The moment he said the words, the doubts were gone. He did want to tell her. He needed to tell her. Tessa would understand.

“Her name was Caroline Millen.”

“Oh.” Tessa wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest. “A woman from your past.”

“No.” David shook his head. He nudged her foot with one of his larger ones, then reached out and grasped her hand. He needed to touch her. To hold her. “A girl from my past. Little more than a child, really. She’d just turned sixteen. I found her, too.”

“Where?” Tessa prompted.

“Outside a theater in Washington.” He frowned. “I’d gone backstage to speak to the actors, so I left by the stage door. It was pouring rain,” he remembered. “I stepped out into the alley and saw her sitting on a packing crate in the middle of a thunderstorm, crying. I went over and touched her. When she looked up, I recognized her.” He gave Tessa an ironic smile. “Her father was Senator Warner Millen. I’d been to their house for dinner; we were acquainted socially. I thought highly of him. In fact, I’d been invited to Caroline’s first adult party and had escorted her to dinner.”

Tessa wondered if it had been a thrill for the young girl to be escorted into the dining room by a handsome man like David. She envied the faceless girl back east. Tessa knew what it was like to be held in his arms. She knew how it felt to make love with him, but she wanted more. She wanted to have the right to sit beside him, even dance with him in public, in front of crowds of people.

“Tessa? Would you like some?”

She turned her attention back to David. He had poured more wine into his glass. He held the bottle poised over hers, waiting.

“Yes, thank you.” She lifted her glass. “Go on,” she encouraged when David seemed satisfied to remain quiet. “You were dining with her in Washington.”

“Only once,” David said. “But I recognized her that night at the theater, and she recognized me.” His laugh was harsh. “That was my misfortune.” He paused to take a swallow of wine.

“What happened?” Tessa sipped her wine, waiting none too patiently for him to continue.

“I offered her a ride home in my carriage. She accepted. I took her home. I walked her to the front door, and I never saw her again.”

“That’s it?” Caught up in the story David had made sound like a fairy tale, Tessa was disappointed with the abrupt ending. It was supposed to have a happy ending or a tragic one. All stories did.

“No.” David managed a wry smile. “A month or so later Senator Millen stormed into my town house demanding that I marry his daughter. She was pregnant, and she had told her parents I was the child’s father.”

“But you weren’t.”

“I’d seen the girl only twice—once at her home and once outside the theater. That’s what I told the senator.”

“But he didn’t believe you, did he?” Tessa understood.

“No, he didn’t. Caroline had named me, and the senator was determined I would pay for ruining his daughter.” David put down his wineglass. “I tried to explain that I’d never had intimate relations with her.” He looked at Tessa. She saw the pain in his eyes, the memory of betrayal. “I thought the senator was my friend. I never dreamed… He was willing to accept me as a son-in-law if I married Caroline, but if I didn’t, he said he’d ruin me—destroy my reputation, my career in Washington, everything I’d worked to gain. I couldn’t believe it.”

“You refused to marry her, didn’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. Tessa knew the answer, knew part of the story’s ending.

“Of course I refused. I didn’t love the girl, I didn’t even know her, and I wasn’t about to marry her.” David sounded frustrated. “But sometimes I think things might have turned out better if I had.”

“Don’t think about what might have been,” Tessa told him. “It hurts too much.” And it hurt her too much to hear him doubt himself. To wonder if maybe he should have married Caroline Millen.

“The senator kept his promise to ruin me. All would have been forgiven if I’d agreed to marry Caroline. Until I refused, I was son-in-law material, a fine, upstanding attorney. After I said no, I was the dirty, no-good half-breed who had raped his daughter.” He gripped her hand tighter.

“I’m so sorry.” Tessa drew in a breath at the raw emotion in his voice. She felt his pain. The pain of being accused of a terrible crime and knowing you’re innocent.

“My career in Washington was over.” David drank the last of his wine, then inhaled deeply. “So I packed my clothes and my shingle and came home to Wyoming.” He scratched the top of Greeley’s head. “That’s how this fella got his name. I was a young man going west, just as the real Horace Greeley had suggested. My cat was going with me, so I thought the name Horace Greeley was appropriate.”

“You came to Peaceable?”

“I opened an office in Cheyenne first, but the city’s growing. It’s full of businessmen and politicians who travel to and from Washington. The scandal followed me. Nobody wanted an attorney with a reputation for seducing innocent girls and abandoning them to the mercy of their parents. I stayed a few months, then bought the office here in Peaceable. I wanted to forget. This town needed another attorney. They didn’t care about the mess in Washington.” David moved the cat to one side. He picked up his fork and poked at his food. “So here I am. End of story.”

“What happened to Caroline?”

“She died,” David answered. “She gave birth to a little girl and gave the baby my last name. She died, still protecting her lover’s identity.”

His words were full of bitterness.