Page 125 of The Formation of Us
“I’ll get her.” Nicholas jogged up the stairs, then returned a few minutes later with Melissa, who looked scared to death when she saw the sheriff and the other men in her living room.
Serves her right for spying and stealing, Adam thought, but after the sheriff questioned her, and her father berated her for being a foolish, inconsiderate chit, Adam felt sorry for her. She was crying so hard it brought her mother rushing into the room. And when her mother learned the truth, her disappointment made Melissa howl all the more.
“You owe this young man an apology,” her father said sternly.
“I’m s-sorry” she blubbered, barely able to look at Adam. “I just wanted you to like me.”
Her crying made her face all blotchy and his head ache worse. All he wanted to do was go home and crawl into his warm bed.
She sniffed, and it made his stomach kind of sick. “Am I going to be put in jail?”
Sheriff Phelps rubbed the back of his neck as if he didn’t know what to tell her. “You’re in pretty big trouble, missy.”
Another gush of water fell from her eyes, and Adam couldn’t stand it. “Why don’t you do what Sheriff Gray—my—Mr. Grayson did with me,” he said, confused about how he should refer to Duke. “Let Melissa work for the jeweler until she makes up for what she did.”
Sheriff Phelps lifted an eyebrow. “That’s mighty kind from the young man who’s been accused of taking these items.”
“But you know the truth now, so it doesn’t matter.” He rubbed the throbbing lump on his head and looked at Duke. “Can we go home?”
At his nod, Adam shot out the door intending to run home, but Duke hooked an arm around his shoulders and walked him across the yard. Then he said something to make Adam feel ten feet tall. “You’re a special young man, Adam, and I was damned proud of you in there.”
o0o
Duke donned a nightshirt while Faith tucked Cora in their bed. “I thought you were putting her in her own bed tonight,” he said.
“I tried, but she woke up crying. She’s afraid.”
Of course she was. Duke looked at his sleeping little girl and didn’t blame her for being scared. But he longed to be alone with Faith, to have their bed to themselves again.
His wife stood uncertainly beside the bed, brushing Cora’s curls off her cheek. “I wish you hadn’t seen the brothel,” she said quietly.
He drew her warm body against his, missing her, needing her. “It helped me understand.”
She rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I thought I’d be escaping with Jarvis, and that everything would be all right because he knew the truth. Instead of being my salvation, he was my first mistake. Lying to you was my worst one.”
“Did you love him?”
She was silent for a long time, but Duke didn’t rush her. He wanted the truth. “Jarvis was the first man who made me feel special, but I didn’t even know him.”
Then she couldn’t have loved him.
“Tell me about the bell.”
Faith lifted her head, confusion in her eyes.
“Why did your mother make you ring a bell?”
A sigh escaped her and she stepped away to fiddle with the hand mirror on her dressing table. “Mama couldn’t have me around while she was working, so she rigged up a bell as a way of checking on me.”
While Duke wrestled his urge to pull her into his arms, she told him about the bells and being left alone while her mother and aunts worked, and how she’d welcomed Adam and Cora as her own babies because she needed them in her life.
“I’ve loved them from the minute they were born,” she said. “I regret hurting you with my lies, but I don’t regret protecting them.”
Duke could see Faith as a little girl like Cora, missing her mother, needing a daddy and wondering why she didn’t have one. How easy it had been to take his parents and the good life they’d given him for granted.
“Do you hate her?” he asked, knowing she had a right to, but hoping for her sake that she didn’t.
“I did. Sometimes. Mama didn’t share herself with anyone. Not with my aunts. Not with her children. Until I read her letter, I didn’t know if she loved me or loathed me.” Her voice broke and she lowered her chin. “I hated her as much as I loved her. I didn’t know she was trapped and couldn’t leave. I thought she was a coward, and that she didn’t love us enough to give us a better life.”
