The Wilderness Bride (Oregon #1)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

A shley couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t take it. Not again. He refused to let someone else die.

“What are we going to do now?” Gene whispered.

The rain was coming hard that night. He and Gene were soaked after fleeing their father’s estate. He and Gene found shelter in the barn of some farmer who was fast asleep. Only the animals knew they were trespassing on the land.

“We can’t go back there,” Gene said, his voice mirroring the heightened state of fear Ashley experienced.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Ashley told him. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this. He wasn’t supposed to find us. He was supposed to be at the opera.”

The lightning flashed through the sky, swiftly followed by thunder so loud that Ashley nearly jumped out of his skin.

Ashley threw the knife, razor, rope, scissors, and poker for the fireplace into a trunk. Then he slammed the lid shut and locked it.

No. He was not going to let Lisa do the same thing Gene did. He might not have pulled the rope that hung Gene from the ceiling, but he had been the one who convinced Gene to help him rob their father. Gene’s death was his fault.

But what had he done to Lisa?

“Father wrote us out of his will,” Ashley told Gene as they sat under the canopy at the neighbor’s party on a bright summer day. “He’s giving everything to Clarence. He would rather give his cousin money instead of us. We’re his children.”

“Clarence is responsible with money,” Gene replied. “All we do is squander everything we get.”

“We wouldn’t squander everything if he would be more generous. He’s worth a fortune.”

“He worked for it.”

“None of the other sons born in wealth have to work for their money. That money is our birthright. He owes us,” Ashley insisted.

“Well, what do you want to do about it?” Gene asked.

If only Ashley had let the whole thing end there. But he hadn’t. He had come up with a plan, and poor Gene had been so loyal to him that he went along with it.

“We killed him,” Gene said after the thunder stopped rumbling.

“We don’t know that,” Ashley replied. The barn seemed to be pressing in around him. The unrelenting rain could very well make the roof crash in on them. And they would deserve it. Ashley had to shake the thought off. “We don’t know that, Gene. It was dark”

“But he had a gun. We fought him. It went off. There was blood. Neither you nor I are hurt. It had to be him. We killed him, Ashley. He’s dead. He’s dead, and it’s because of us.”

Even now Ashley could hear the echo of that gunshot as he and Gene fought to get the gun out of their father’s hand.

Ashley could accept the blame for what had happened to their father. He could accept the blame for what ended up happening to Gene. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of a single thing he had ever said or done to make Lisa want to slit her wrist.

He heard the door of the workshop creak open and hurried to hide the key in his pocket. He turned and saw Lisa. She looked small in the doorway, as if she didn’t feel like she had the right to approach him.

“Why?” he asked after a long moment of silence hung in the air. “Why do you want to kill yourself? What did I do?”

She stepped into the workshop and closed the door behind her. “It wasn’t you, Ashley.” Her voice was so low he had to strain to hear her. “I left Vermont because I was in the family way. I couldn’t keep the child. I wasn’t married. My family wouldn’t help me. I gave the child to a couple in Omaha.” She paused and took a deep breath. “When you found me that day, I had intended to jump off the cliff. I got scared and couldn’t do it. I want to have another child so much, but I keep getting my flow. Earlier today, I found out my flow started again. I just wanted the pain of not having a child to go away.” She swallowed then continued. “That’s why I had the knife. But then I saw the clamshell necklace you made me, and it made me think of you and all the things you’ve done for me. I wasn’t going to go through with it, Ashley. You give me a reason to want to live. I love you.”

Relieved, he approached her. “I love you, too, Lisa. I’m willing to help you get a child.”

“I know you are. You were willing to be with me at the stream even though it wasn’t comfortable for you.”

His eyes grew wide. That had been the thing that had scared her the day at the stream? She’d been afraid she’d never conceive if they weren’t intimate there? “We don’t need to be at the stream to have a baby. We just need to be together.”

“But we have been together. A lot.”

“Then we’ll just be together more.”

“It won’t work.” Tears crept into her voice, and she shook her head. “God hates me. He’s punishing me by not allowing me to have another child.”

“Who said God hates you?”

“The preacher. He kept saying that the wages of sin are death and that we reap what we sow. I didn’t wait for marriage. I should have, and I didn’t.”

Ashley placed his hands on her arms. “Lisa, we’ve all done things we regret. None of us are perfect. I assure you the preacher, for all of his bravado, is also guilty of sin. He has yet to learn that God came to save the sinner.”

“How can you know that God doesn’t give up on us?”

“Because of you.” He brought her closer to him. “You are my second chance. It’s not a coincidence that I found you. God brought you here. To let me know He’s forgiven me. Lisa, I’m not perfect. What I did was worse than what you did. At least your sin brought life into the world. Mind took two from it.”

She blinked in surprise. “What did you do?”

This wasn’t going to be easy. It required him to go back to a time in his life that he had struggled to put behind him, but if it made her feel better about her own choices, then he needed to share it. He slipped his arm around her waist and brought her to a chair.

He sat down and urged her to sit on his lap. He rubbed her back for a moment then began, “Years ago—about six of them now, I was a spoiled and selfish young man. I had a younger brother. His name was Gene. I led him down the path I was on. We grew up in luxury but didn’t appreciate the work our father did to make the money. Our father wrote us out of his will. I talked Gene into trying to rob him so we would start a life somewhere else.” He let out a sigh. “Many times since then I replayed the night in my head, especially when the nights got long and sleep eluded me.”

“I know what that feels like.”

He looked up at her and realized she did know the pain that came with playing out all the ways things could have gone differently. In a strange way, that was comforting. He rubbed her back again.

“I talked Gene into sneaking into our father’s home when he was supposed to be at the opera,” he continued. “We knew where he kept some money. Our father opened the door while we were filling our bag. It was dark, but Gene and I could make out the gun our father was holding. We tried to take the gun from him. We weren’t trying to kill him. We were afraid he would shoot one of us. A fight ensued. The gun went off. At first, we didn’t know what happened, but then there was blood on us. We didn’t think. We just ran out of there.”

He took a deep breath and released it. “I have no idea who pulled the trigger. Gene didn’t know, either. But we were scared. We fled into the night. We had no destination in mind. We just wanted to get out of there before anyone saw us.

“It started to rain. The lightning and thunder came. We ended up on a farm and hid in a barn. Early the next morning, we made it to a trainyard and snuck into one of the cars. Gene kept asking me what we were going to do, and I couldn’t answer him.

“Then a few days later, we found a large town in Ohio where we could blend into the crowd. And we did the very thing we never dreamt we’d do while we were in Rhode Island. We worked. For the first time in our lives, we did honest work. It was at a factory. The days were long and hard, but it helped to drive out the guilt that plagued us.”

He stopped then amended. “That plagued me. No amount of work helped Gene. Even drinking didn’t help him. I knew what happened with our father bothered him, but I didn’t know what to do about it. He was my little brother. Every other time in our lives, I had the answers, and this was the one time I didn’t.” He made eye contact with her. “The worst part is that I was the reason he ended up there with me. He didn’t want to rob our father. I’m the one who pressed him into it.” He lowered his gaze. “And the guilt got to him. I came off of a shift late one night and found him in our apartment. He’d hung himself with some rope.”

Gene’s face had been so blue, and his body had been so stiff and cold as Ashley struggled to pull him down from the rope. It had been too late to save him, of course, but in his panic, Ashley didn’t think about how long Gene had been hanging there.

It took Ashley a moment to bring himself back to the present, and when he did, he was relieved to see that Lisa didn’t hate him for what he’d done.

“Carver,” she whispered. “I remember hearing something about Clarence Carver in Rhode Island. He owns Carver Dining. My family purchased sterling silverware from that company.”

Ashley was surprised she’d heard of the family business. “You said you came from Vermont?”

She nodded. “Foxhorn. That was my last name before I married you.”

His eyes grew wide. “I heard of the Foxhorns. They are in furniture, lumber, and the newspapers.” Now that he thought about it, there had been some talk about the young Foxhorn heiress who, many had speculated, would be highly sought after when she came of marrying age. “Are you the Foxhorn heiress who was said to be worth seventy thousand dollars?”

“Yes, that was me.” She cleared her throat. “I never said my last name because I figured you would recognize it.”

“It’s one of the most prominent ones in the country.”

“That’s why my parents quietly got rid of me. They couldn’t have it known that their daughter conceived out of wedlock. And Preston Winthrop wasn’t about to let it be known he was the reason for the conception.”

He recognized the name Winthrop, though it was nothing compared to the name Foxhorn. “I’m surprised he didn’t offer to leave Vermont with you.”

“He would have lost his inheritance like I did. I wasn’t worth anything without the money.”

“That’s not true, Lisa. You’re worth everything to me. I need you.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she caressed his cheek. “I need you, too, Ashley.”

He urged her to lower her head and kiss him. Afterward, he whispered, “Promise me that if something is bothering you, you’ll come to me about it. Whatever it is, I’ll help you through it.”

With a nod, she whispered back, “I promise.”

Feeling much better, he added, “We’ll keep trying for that child you want so badly. We haven’t been married for long. Sometimes it takes longer than you want to get something, but when you get it, you appreciate it much more when you get it.”

“I’m afraid to get my hopes up anymore, Ashley.”

“Then I’ll hope for both of us.” Since she seemed content with his response, he kissed her again, and he didn’t stop kissing her for the longest time.