Her Dearest Enemy. Elizabeth Lane

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СКАЧАТЬ baby who was her own flesh and blood, as well as Brandon’s, be raised by strangers, without ever knowing its true family?

      Early in their journey, before they’d run out of civil things to say to each other, Brandon had told her about his plan to send Jenny back east to give birth. His sister, who’d evidently married well, would keep Jenny’s condition a secret and turn the baby over to a church adoption agency. After a year or two of finishing school, the girl would be introduced to Baltimore society, where, in due time, she would choose a suitable husband from among her suitors.

      Suitable. The word rankled like a burr. Will was suitable. He was honest and kind and hardworking, and he truly seemed to love pert little Jenny. Was it so wrong that they should marry and become a family?

      Struck by a gust of icy wind, Harriet tightened the shawl around her head. What on earth was she thinking? If Brandon’s plan succeeded, her brother would be free of any obligation. He could carry on as if nothing had happened—go to college, have a successful career, even travel abroad. In time he could marry a fine woman, one who’d be a helpmate and companion, not a spoiled little doll who would demand to be pampered and coddled every day of her life.

      With the passing of years the hurt would heal, Harriet promised herself. Will would have other children, beautiful, happy children, to fill his life with love and laughter. Perhaps, in time, he would even come to forget that somewhere there was another child with his blood and his features. His firstborn.

      The child he would never know.

      Harriet blinked back a surge of scalding tears. All her life, she had believed that there was a clear line between right and wrong, and that good, moral choices led to good consequences. But there was no good choice here—only the leaden weight of one heartache balanced against another.

      Beside her, as immovable as a granite boulder, Brandon sat hunched on the seat of the heavy black landau. From the shadows of the shawl, Harriet studied him furtively. Cold anger lay in the taut line of his mouth, in the set of his jaw and the white-knuckled grip of his hands on the leathers.

      He was as resolute as the march of time, she thought. Untroubled by the conflicts that tore at her, he was driven solely by the need to put things right— to avenge the ruination of his daughter and to erase the damage to her young life—if such a shattering event could ever be erased. Brandon wanted everything on his own terms, and he was a man accustomed to getting his way.

      What would he do if he didn’t get his way this time?

      Straining to see into the darkness, Harriet brushed the snow from her cold-numbed face. Not far ahead the road entered a steep-sided narrows where the creek had gouged a deep cut through the foothills. Last summer, she recalled, she and Will had come this way in the preacher’s wagon when they’d attended a church picnic at a popular canyon grove. Even in good weather the road along the creek was treacherous—prone to slides and cave-ins and so narrow that in many spots it was little more than a ledge. She could only imagine what it would be like in a winter snowstorm.

      “There’s no other way they might have gone?” She spoke more out of nervousness than doubt.

      “Not if they planned to get married.” Brandon’s taut voice echoed faintly as they entered the narrows. The granite cliffs that rose on either side of them offered shelter from the wind and snow, but the cold was intense, the silence almost unearthly. “Since we’re not seeing their tracks, they most likely left town ahead of this ungodly storm. They could already be in Johnson City by now. Or they could be stuck in the snow somewhere, unable to go on. I know it’s miserable out here, and you’re suffering, but it was your choice to come along. We can’t turn back till we find them.”

      “I wasn’t suggesting we turn back,” Harriet retorted. “And I never said I was suffering. Have you heard one word of complaint from me, Mr. Calhoun?”

      Brandon muttered something under his breath, but did not voice an answer. They were entering the narrowest part of the canyon now. On their left was a sheer rock face. On their right, a mere handbreadth from the wheel rims, was a five-foot drop-off to the rushing creek below.

      Harriet held her breath as he guided the horses around a hairpin curve. A fist-size rock broke loose beneath one of the outer wheels. She swallowed a gasp as it skittered down the steep slope and splashed into the creek. Brandon would have had easier going alone, on horseback, she realized. But she had blackmailed him into bringing her along and, because she was in no condition to ride, he had hitched the team to the sturdy landau. If they slid off the road or broke an axle on this treacherous night, it would be, in part, her own fault.

      The thought fluttered through her mind that she should apologize. But no, she had done the right thing. Whatever the risk, she needed to be there when Brandon caught up with Will and Jenny. Lives could depend on it.

      As she remembered the pistol Brandon had loaded and buckled at his hip, a dark chill rippled through her veins. Even if she was there, she might not be able to stop a confrontation between Will and Brandon. With both of them roused to fury, it would be like trying to separate two charging bears. And with guns involved…

      Harriet shuddered as the ghastly montage of events passed through her mind—Will’s body bleeding in the snow, or perhaps Brandon lying dead and Will in handcuffs, or Jenny darting between them, her body stopping a hastily fired bullet.

      Somehow she had to defuse the situation before tragedy struck. And the only way to do that, short of knocking Brandon out, was by careful persuasion.

      “Have you given any thought to the baby?” Her voice echoed in the silence of the narrow canyon.

      “What kind of a question is that?” His gaze remained focused on the road ahead, but his jaw tensed visibly.

      “Jenny’s baby will be your grandchild. Your own flesh and blood. How can you be so heartless as to pass it off like an unwanted puppy, to be raised by strangers?”

      His eyes shifted toward her, narrow and cold as he weighed her question. “It’s Jenny I’m thinking of,” he said. “If she gives the baby up, she can still have the good life she deserves—a place in society and marriage to a respected man who’ll provide well for her and her future children. If she keeps the baby, it’s all over for her. She’ll be branded a fallen woman, an outcast for the rest of her life.”

      “Not if she marries her child’s father,” Harriet responded with sudden conviction. “Lord knows, I’ve had dreams for Will, too, and I’m no happier about this mess than you are. But we have to do what’s right for the baby!”

      “My sister will see that the baby goes to a good home,” Brandon snapped. “Now put it to rest. You’re only making things harder.”

      “That’s because you know I’m right! But you’ll never admit that, will you, Mr. Calhoun? You’ve too much stubborn pride to see anyone’s point of view except your own!” Harriet was trembling now, her plan of a calm reasonable approach shattered. “Those two poor, foolish children ran off in the night because neither of us was willing to listen to them! Neither of us could face the fact that Will and Jenny are the only ones who have the right to decide their future and their baby’s future! We drove them to this desperate act, and if something terrible happens tonight, I’ll never forgive myself—or you!”

      You…you…you. Harriet’s last word echoed off the rocky ledges as Brandon glared at her through the falling snow. The landau was inching along СКАЧАТЬ