Harvest Moon (Borrowed Brides 2)

“If things don’t go as I planned I’ll have to put either you or Coalie on the stand, and the jury will be a lot more sympathetic if they hear the truth from a child.” David tried to smile. “I know you don’t like the idea. But Myra’s testimony is the most damaging.”

“But she lied about everything,” Tessa burst out.

“Not everything,” David corrected. “Almost everything, but she told just enough of the truth to make her statements damaging to us. The jury will believe her. I sent for Lee Kincaid.”

“You want Liam Kincaid to testify for me? Are you crazy?”

“Yes,” David answered. Crazy about her.

“Yes to which question?” Tessa demanded.

David couldn’t prevent the smile that turned up the corners of his mouth. She didn’t miss much, he thought. Might even make a damn good attorney one day, once she learned to read.

“Miss Tessa?” Sheriff Bradley waited a respectful distance away. “I sure hope you’ve got your appetite back ’cause the missus baked a ham this morning for your dinner. I invited Miss Alexander and Coalie, too.” He winked at David. “Do you think you could manage a bite to eat?”

Tessa gave the sheriff a brilliant smile. “Sheriff Bradley, today I think I could eat a horse. By myself.”

The lawman offered Tessa his arm.

She took his elbow and allowed him to escort her to dinner at his house.

David looked down at his tablet as he packed his satchel. What he saw surprised him. He’d filled two pages with the scrawled words “Will you marry me?”

And Tessa hadn’t been able to read it.

Chapter Twenty-two

When court reconvened at two o’clock, Mary sat in the first row of the gallery behind David and Tessa. Lorna Taylor sat next to her. Coalie waited at the sheriff’s house with Jewell Bradley.

The prosecuting attorney, Jeremy Cook, had called his last witness in Myra Brennan. It was time for David to present Tessa’s side of the story. He called his first witness.

“The defense calls Sheriff James Bradley,” David announced.

Sheriff Bradley stepped forward, swore to tell the truth, then sat down in the witness stand.

David’s approach to the questioning process was the opposite of Jeremy Cook’s. Where Jeremy was a showman, David relied on logic. He had great respect for the common sense of the jurors.

“Sheriff Bradley,” David asked, “were you present when Miss Tessa Roarke was arrested for the murder of Mr. Arnie Mason?”

“No, sir. I wasn’t.”

“Who arrested her?”

“Deputy Harris,” the sheriff answered.

“When you first saw Miss Roarke, what condition was she in?” David questioned. “How was she dressed?”

“She was wearing a blanket and her…um…undergarments,” the sheriff told him. “And a man’s coat. I believe it was your coat.”

“Yes, it was,” David agreed. “Sheriff, do you remember if Miss Roarke had shoes on?”

“No, she did not.”

“Do you know what happened to her clothes?” David asked.

“They’re there.” The sheriff pointed. “On the table next to the knife.”

David walked to the table and picked up the sleeveless blue satin dress and held it up for the sheriff and the jury to see. The front of it, from the waist down, was caked with dried blood, and the bodice was marked with splotches. “Is this Miss Roarke’s dress?”