Chapter 14 #3
“Emily has made all your favorites,” Gram added.
“I ’elp,”Mikey said with such forcefulness that Jesse laughed. His questions would spoil the mood. He’d eat first and then deal with his doubts. “Can I wash up first?”
Emily stepped back to allow him to do so. Mikey clung to his leg, getting a bouncy ride across the kitchen.
Despite the questions crowding his mind, Jesse laughed again.
The meal was, indeed, all his favorites—ham, baked beans, cornbread, and baby carrots, followed by thick slices of chocolate cake.
He leaned back and patted his stomach. “That was excellent. Thank you, ladies.”
“It was entirely Emily’s doing.”
“Thank you.” He met her gaze and held it. How could she be so warm and welcoming here and yet kiss a man on the street? “Can we talk?”
He knew by the way her expression changed that she expected he had good news for her.
“You two run along. Mikey and I will do the dishes,” Gram said.
Emily was on her feet in a flash, waiting for him to lead the way.
He nodded toward the back door. He didn’t want the conversation to take place publicly. Outdoors, he turned toward the bench at the side of the house, where he could count on a little privacy. However, he didn’t sit.
She remained standing, as well. “You have news?”
He didn’t look directly at her. “I saw you this afternoon.”
“I saw you, too, and was so relieved to see you back safe and sound and with those three men caught.”
“You didn’t look like you cared much.”
She grew still. “What do you mean?”
“I saw you kissing that man. Who is he?” He looked at her but kept his feelings banked. He would not let her know how hurt he was.
“You’re mistaken.”
“Are you telling me—?”
She interrupted his question. “I was most certainly not kissing him. He kissed me as bold as if he had the right.” She shuddered.
“He says his name is Fred Ellesworth, and that we were engaged. I don’t remember it, and I don’t believe it.
I would never promise myself to a man of such low moral standards.
He treated me like—” Her eyes narrowed, and she sucked in a breath.
“With utter disregard for my reputation.” She shuddered again, and her eyes filled with darkness.
He wanted to believe her. More than that, he wanted to comfort her. Was she telling the truth? “You don’t remember him?”
“No.” she twisted her hands. “Can he really know me from before, or is he playing some kind of con game?”
The agony in her voice and the sight of her twisting hands erased all doubt from his mind, and he opened his arms and pulled her to his chest. At least they were sheltered from the public, and his actions weren’t jeopardizing her reputation.
“I don’t know who he is, nor if he knows you, but I will be keeping a close eye on him.”
She clung to him. “I’m so glad you’re back and have those men behind bars.”
“I’ll be staying close to home until the judge comes.”
“Then what happens to them?” She shifted so she could turn her face up and watch him.
“Then they will likely go to Great Falls, and the law will deal with them according to their crimes.”
She was silent a moment. “I’m glad that they won’t be responsible for any more killings.”
They sat on the bench, and he told her about following the trio into the mountains. “I knew eventually they would make a mistake, and I would find them. This time they left a trail—a broken branch and cigarette butts. They’d grown overconfident.”
She studied her hands. “We all missed you.”
“Yeah?”
“Mikey kept going to the door to ask for ‘Yesse.’ He fussed at bedtime.”
Jesse glanced at the sky. The sun had dipped into the west, giving a golden edge to the mountains. “Speaking of which, we better go in and put him to bed. I’ll read to him tonight and tuck him in.”
“He’ll love that.”
“No more than I.” He paused at the door.
“I’m going to miss that little guy when he goes.
” And Emily, too. Even though he’d decided to ask her to consider staying, seeing her with Fred Ellesworth had given him cause to reconsider.
He knew she would say he needed to know her past before she could make any plans for her future, and maybe he did.
He had no wish to dread people from her former life showing up.
She lowered her head as if something on the ground demanded her attention. “I suppose once I hear from someone at Alliance, I will need to go back, if only to find out who I am and what I’ve done.”
He tried to ignore the tremor in her voice, knowing his doubts about seeing her with Mr. Ellesworth had triggered her fears that she had a dark cloud of shame in her past. But he couldn’t do anything to relieve her concern.
He cared about her but intended to guard himself from acting prematurely and unwisely.
They went indoors. He played with Mikey and Muffin, then read a little picture book over and over until Mikey couldn’t stop yawning.
“He’s just delaying,” Emily said.
“I know, and I’m going along with it to make up for lost time.
” And to create moments to cherish in the future.
He’d convinced himself he’d never marry, but he’d hoped Emily would see him differently.
He’d thought she did. But what if she got her memory back and forgot him?
Or if her past revealed something he wasn’t prepared to deal with? All good reasons to wait.
But the thought left him aching clear through.
“Come on, little cowboy, get on my back, and I’ll give you a horsey ride to bed.”
Mikey eagerly jumped on his back, and Jesse trotted upstairs, making all the appropriate noises. He helped the boy say his prayers and tucked him under the covers. Mikey insisted on several noisy kisses.
As Jesse tiptoed toward the door, Mikey sat up. “You no go `gain?”
It took a minute for Jesse to realize the little guy was afraid Jesse would go away. He hadn’t been much older than Mikey when he began to ask his mother not to go, but she always did, leaving him alone and bereft, and feeling like he didn’t matter to her.
He returned to sit on Mikey’s bed and hugged him to his side. “If I have to leave, I will let you know. Okay? And I will always come back.” But who would promise Mikey the same once he left?
He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t face the pain he felt.
“’Kay.” Mikey allowed Jesse to cover him up again and snuggled into his pillow.
Jesse waited a few minutes to make sure he’d settled, then went downstairs.
Emily took one look at his face and set aside her book. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. No. Gram, do you mind listening for him? I need to talk to Emily.”
“Go ahead.” Emily did not ask what was bothering him, even though it was obvious something was. Her eyes were wary as if suspecting he meant to pursue her encounter with Mr. Ellesworth.
Wanting to provide a touch of reassurance, he reached for Emily’s hand and drew her out the back door. The garden breathed a sweet flower scent. The evening air had cooled, and they sat against the house.
“Jesse, what’s wrong?”
“I just realized how much Mikey is like me. Oh, I don’t mean in looks, but his circumstances.
” He launched into telling how he’d felt sitting on Mikey’s bed.
“He wanted to know if he could count on me. Do you know how many times I asked my mother to stay? I wanted to count on her. I suppose, with her occupation, it was a good thing she left me with my grandmother. But to this day, I wonder why she didn’t care enough to change who she was.
Her reputation about ruined my life. It would have if Grandfather Marshall hadn’t stepped in and brought us out here.
” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.
“In my estimation, people should live honorable lives and avoid even the appearance of evil for the sake of those they care about.”
She took his hand. “I am so sorry about your past. I can’t imagine how much it hurts. I suppose it’s what makes you a good sheriff.”
“I’m a good sheriff?” He figured he was, but wanted to know why she thought so.
“Yes, you are. You have high ideals and allow no compromise. I suppose you see things as black and white.”
“There are no gray areas in my job.” He couldn’t see himself allowing such in his personal life either.
“I am a gray area.”
He stared at her. Did she have something to confess? Had that man—Fred Ellesworth—compromised her in any way? If he had, he would pay for it. “What do you mean by that?”
“I can’t remember my past, so I could be anything. Good or bad.” Her voice grew so soft he had to lean forward to catch the final words.
He cupped her head with his hand and turned her to face him. “I haven’t seen any wanted posters with your likeness on them, so I’ll assume you haven’t broken the law.”
Eyes as dark as the evening sky met his. “There are other ways of earning that label.”
He thought of his mother and the label she had earned and the one she had left him to bear. “Like being illegitimate?”
She caught his hand as he pulled away from her. “That’s not a fair label because it’s not one you earned.”
For the first time that he could remember, he realized the truth of her words. It had been someone else’s actions and choices that gave him the label, not anything he’d done. It was a freeing thought.
“I guess that’s so.”
“Like I said before, perhaps you ought to forgive your mother.”
“Why would I want to do that? Why should I?”
She tipped her head to one side and considered him. “Because until you do, you carry her label with you. It’s an unnecessary burden.”
“I cannot forgive her for the choices she made and how they affected me. A fallen woman should be punished.”
She blinked as if having to force herself to meet his gaze. “I expect she was.” Seeing his stubborn disbelief, she continued. “She would be shunned by so-called decent company. She had to leave her son behind in order to give him a decent life.”
“You want me to believe she left me for my own good?”
“It’s a possibility.”
He wanted to refute it. But he couldn’t disagree with her when she held his hand and looked at him so intently.
Her gentle smile was his undoing, and he pulled her into his arms.
“Think about it,” she said.
He promised he would, though he couldn’t see what difference it would make. He’d learned to live with his past.
Maybe she could learn to live without a past.
“Would you be able to forgive me if I turn out to be a fallen woman?”
Her question threw back the dark curtain he’d pulled into place when he saw her kissing that man in plain view. He had to answer honestly. “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough.” She slipped into the house, and when he finally forced himself to move and stepped inside, she was gone. He could hear her moving about upstairs.
Was this what she had feared since her arrival?
Why hadn’t he guarded his heart more carefully?