Her Colorado Man

by Cheryl St. John

  “Mariah,” Wes said, urging her to stand.

  She wouldn’t have any part of his comfort this time. “It’s my fault she’s in that hospital.” She was fierce in her pronouncement. She grabbed his forearms and looked him straight in the eye. They were both on their knees in the chaos of the spattered breakfast. “I could have told the truth and stopped her from marrying him. But I didn’t.”

  “And what is the truth, Mariah? How could anything you might have said kept Hildy from marrying him?”

  She deserved this punishing shame. She’d never been so furious. At any moment her skin would burst from the pressure of holding in pain and anger and remorse. If she didn’t let it go now, she would shatter into a million pieces.

  Her fingers trembled on his strong forearms, but she didn’t loosen her grip. And she didn’t look away. “It was Philo,” she said. “We—he—it happened the night before their wedding. He is John James’s father.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shock registered on Wes’s face. He lowered his brows and inclined his head closer as though he might not be hearing correctly. “What did you say?”

  “We had a big party at Patrick and Clara’s—in the barn. There was dancing and a lot of drinking. Hildy was so happy back then. She thought the sun rose and set on that man’s shoulders.”

  Releasing her hold on Wes, she sat back on her heels. “We were just out of school—the both of us.”

  Listening intently, Wes ran a shaking hand through his hair.

  “We danced together, Philo and I. And then later, I left alone to—visit the necessary.” She looked at her hand and noticed blood on the handkerchief Wes had wrapped around her palm. “He surprised me on the way back. Pulled me off a ways…behind a toolshed.”

  As though he knew what was coming, Wes’s gaze shifted aside and he took a deep breath before looking back at her. He let her speak without interruption.

  “I thought he was playing a prank. I think I laughed at first, but then I got anxious and tried to pull away. Philo kept trying to kiss me, and I wanted to leave, but he didn’t let me go. He said…he said I’d wanted it the whole time. He told me a girl shouldn’t behave as I did around men, that I was just asking for trouble. He called me terrible names.”

  Her body trembled, but the words tumbled out, one after the other. “I think I tried to call out for help, but the music from the barn was loud, and he was heavy, pushing himself on me until I couldn’t breathe.”

  When Wes met her gaze again, his lean face was streaked with tears. “He attacked you.”

  She swallowed hard. “He didn’t hit me, but he was so much stronger. Afterward, he told me it was my fault. That I’d been asking for it with the clothing I wore and the way I looked at him. He said I was just a little whore and that it would break Hildy’s heart if she ever found out what I’d made him do.”

  Her tender, even-tempered husband swore inventively, calling Philo every vile name he could think of. He clenched his fists on his thighs. Mariah blinked at the venom he released.

  “I could have told her,” she reminded him. “I didn’t.”

  “Of course you didn’t!” His voice and his lowered eyebrows relayed his disgust. “You were just a young girl. You had a terrible experience, one that made you feel ashamed. You didn’t want anyone to know. He forced himself on you.” He paused, looked toward the ceiling as though composing himself, and then back at her. “He raped you, and then he made you believe it was your fault. There’s a place reserved in hell for a man like that.”

  “But if I’d just been smarter,” she argued. “If I hadn’t been so stupid, I’d have told and none of the rest of this would have happened.”

  “Stop it,” he ordered. “Even if you’d told, what if he’d been convincing enough about what had happened and you’d ended up married to him?”

  “Hildy wouldn’t be dying. Those babies wouldn’t be dead right now.”

  It was plain that she wasn’t listening. “Your baby might have died.”

  That got her attention. Mariah met his gaze and swallowed hard. She might have lost John James!

  “You can’t know what might have happened,” he continued. “And you can’t take the blame for anything he did. You did the best you could. You were scared and humiliated. What he did to you is an abomination.”

  Wes reached to guide her up from the floor. “And Hildy isn’t dying. She woke up during the night and again this morning.”

  “Oh!” Mariah almost lost her balance, but caught herself and leaned on Wes. “Oh, thank God.” Her chest shook with dry sobs of relief. Hildy was awake! “I have to go see her.”

  “You can go see her as soon as we’ve cleaned you up and you’ve eaten.”

  Turning, she took in the debris for the first time. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

  Gently he held her arm and guided her to the bed. “No, you won’t.”

  Her chest ached with the weight of a new fear. “Can you still love me knowing the truth?”

  “Mariah.” He stroked her cheek with profound tenderness. “Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you. You’re brave and good, and you love deeply, so you hurt deeply. This is the first time you’ve let yourself feel any of it. All that anger and fear has been bottled up inside you.”

  Without a doubt, she felt as though she’d dropped a burden she’d been carrying on her shoulders far too long.

  “Of course I still love you.” Wes sat on the bed and gestured for her to join him. She folded herself onto his lap and he held her, smoothing her wet hair, stroking her shoulder and back through her wrapper, until a peace settled over her and her mind cleared. At last the trembling in her body ceased.

  “So you found yourself expecting a baby, and what did you do?” She loved the way his voice vibrated in his chest and rumbled against her side.

  “I told my grandfather about the baby. But I didn’t tell him about Philo. He assumed I’d gotten myself that way out of foolishness. He came up with the plan to say I was attending school in Chicago. And while I was gone, he asked his friend Otto to provide him with the name on a mailbox that was rarely used. Even then he was planning for a little baby he’d never seen to have a father. My grandfather meant well.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And it was easy for me to fall into the lie. It prevented questions and suspicions. And no one was ever the wiser. I liked it. I had a husband who was conveniently gone, and I never had to deal with another man after that.”

  “What about Philo? Didn’t he ever ask you about the baby?”

  “Never. He acted as though nothing had ever happened.” She lifted her head and looked up at him. “And that was easy, too. Because the charade was never in question. I was able to pretend it never happened.”

  It was all Wes could do to contain his anger and remain calm and comforting. The driving urge to find that man and make him suffer wasn’t going to be appeased. Philo had to be stopped. But Mariah had entrusted Wes with a monumental confidence. He wouldn’t betray her trust.

  “I don’t think this is a good time to tell Hildy after what she’s been through. But I’m going to have to tell the others,” she said. “Uncle Patrick and Aunt Clara. My parents.” Her voice broke. “But what about John James?” she asked and wept again. “I’ve lied to him. I can’t bear for him to know. He loves you so much.”

  Wes couldn’t see past that lie, either. But he had lied to the boy, as well, and to everyone in Mariah’s entire family who believed he was such a great fellow. He knew only a slim measure of the humiliation she was facing, however. Looking back, regret edged its way into his thinking.

  “Would you really have done anything differently if you knew then what you know now? Maybe Hildy wouldn’t have married Philo, but what would have become of John James?”

  “Of course that’s why I lied for so long,” she replied. “So he wouldn’t grow up knowing how he’d come into the world. But my shame played just as big a part in not wanting to t
ell. I suppose I could have told the truth and then gone away to raise him somewhere else.”

  “Neither one of you would be the same person if you’d done that.” He considered all the times he’d been so grateful to think John James had grown up in a big, loving family. “I only made it more difficult for you,” he said. “By coming here and upsetting your life. Both of your lives. And I probably provoked Philo, because he resents both of us and takes it out on Hildy.”

  “I’m not sorry you came,” she told him. “I’m just sick about what’s going to happen from here on out. But I’m going to tell the truth. Once and for all.”

  “I’ll be right there with you,” he promised.

  She dressed, and he took her downstairs to the dining room for breakfast, slipping currency into the hand of a maid in the hallway as they passed.

  After they’d eaten, he got the buggy. Nervous as she was about going into Hildy’s room and saying what she had to say, Mariah’s breakfast settled in her belly like a rock.

  Her palms were damp and she dabbed her forehead with her hankie. “I suppose I should ask them to come out into the hall or maybe we could find a small room.”

  Wes reached over and gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “Your family loves you.”

  Mariah nodded, but knowing that Hildy loved her—and trusted her—made this worse.

  When they reached the hospital room, she thought for a moment that she might throw up. She took several deep breaths to fortify herself.

  Clara and Ina sat with Hildy, and Mariah was relieved to see the women keeping her company, rather than Hildy’s father and brother. The others would know eventually, but at least she didn’t have to say this in their presence.

  Hildy’s face was still swollen and discolored, but her eyes were open and she raised the arm without the cast toward Mariah immediately.

  Mariah hurried forward. She wished she could take Hildy in her arms, but she was afraid of hurting her. She grasped her hand and reached to touch a lock of her dark hair and smooth it over the pillow.

  “I was too ashamed to tell anyone about what was happening,” Hildy told her.

  Mariah pursed her lips and nodded. “I know.”

  “He always says he’s sorry and promises it won’t happen again. If I was a better wife it wouldn’t happen.”

  Mariah’s eyes stung and anger clawed her insides like prickly heat. Hearing Hildy accept the blame shocked her into comparing her own behavior.

  “He loves me,” Hildy told her.

  Mariah leaned back in incredulity. “You are not excusing him.”

  “What else can I do?” she asked. “I don’t have a choice. He’s my husband. He can be convincing, and the law will believe him over me.”

  “What?” Mariah asked in disbelief.

  “Patrick went to the marshal’s office,” Clara confirmed. “The law doesn’t want to get involved in a marital dispute. Philo hasn’t broken any laws in the state of Colorado.”

  In disbelief, Mariah twisted on the edge of the bed to glance at Wes. His return gaze assured her of his confidence in her. Hildy wasn’t to blame for being treated badly. If she believed that, she had to believe what Wes had tried to tell her, as well. Mariah wasn’t to blame for what had happened to her, either.

  If she didn’t tell Hildy now, Philo could get away with this. She looked back at her cousin with determination lighting an indignant fire inside her. “His cruelty is not your fault, Hildy. He can’t be allowed to continue to hurt people. He’s dangerous. There’s something you don’t know. Revealing this will change everything, but that man is not going to get away with what he’s done. I’m not going to let him control us any longer.”

  Hildy’s wide hazel eyes studied her expectantly. And then her poor swollen lips curved into a smile that must have hurt. “You know a way to help me?”

  Mariah’s heart ached at the hope she heard in her cousin’s voice. “What I have to say is going to hurt. I should have told you a long time ago, but I couldn’t. He’s done something that will get him punished.”

  “What is it?” Hildy asked.

  “Do you want us to leave you two alone?” Aunt Clara asked.

  “No,” Mariah answered. “You have to hear this, too.” And then, with her heart pounding and her voice shaking, Mariah unfolded the happenings of that night more than seven years ago. “I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone,” she finished. “And so I’ve lied to everyone all these years.”

  Hildy didn’t cry. She didn’t say anything for a long time, while Clara and Ina blew their noses into their hankies and Wes offered Mariah a clean white kerchief to do the same.

  “Telling the truth might have saved you from this,” Mariah told Hildy. “But I don’t know. He’s good at placing the blame for his bad behavior on the other person. We were both so young. Hearing you take the blame by not being a good enough wife showed me how foolish I was to feel responsible for what happened to you. All I can do now is ask you to forgive me for not telling the truth.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Hildy replied. “You loved me and didn’t want to see me hurt. You’re not to blame.”

  Mariah swiped tears from her cheek. “I’ve never cried so much, not even when that happened, as I have this week. I could have filled buckets by now.”

  “What should we do now?” Aunt Clara asked in a quivering voice.

  Mariah shook her head. “I don’t know. Uncle Patrick should know. And probably my parents, but…”

  “At least you went to Chicago and found Wes,” Hildy said. “That part turned out well.”

  Mariah lifted her gaze to Wes’s. The time of reckoning had arrived. She could agree, nod her head and say it had been good fortune. Or she could tell the truth. She’d been buried under lies far too long. Lies led only to more lies, and it took more energy than she possessed to keep up with them forever.

  “I was already pregnant when I went to Chicago. I went there to give birth to John James and return home with no one knowing.”

  With a groan, Hildy raised up on one elbow. “Philo is John James’s father?”

  “Yes,” Mariah confessed.

  Hildy blinked as though the action would help her focus her thoughts. “Does he know?”

  “No. From the moment I returned, he pretended as though nothing had ever happened. I’m convinced he believes the story about me marrying Wes.” Mariah gave each of them, her cousin and her two aunts, a stern look. “He can’t ever know.”

  Clara got up and placed another pillow behind Hildy to help her sit. She smoothed the covers over Hildy’s legs.

  Hildy’s gaze lifted to Wes at the foot of the iron bed. “Who are you, then?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  So Wes explained what he’d done after finding John James’s letters.

  Mariah’s aunt Ina got up. “Then you two aren’t actually even married?”

  “We got married the morning before we found out what had happened to Hildy,” Wes told her. “I love Mariah and John James, and I intend to be here for them.”

  “What does my father think of all this?” Ina asked, referring to Louis.

  Mariah explained his part in it. Wes told them about the old man’s confusion regarding Wes, and how he hadn’t thought it wise to add this problem to his challenged thinking.

  “I agree it’s better not to tell him,” Clara said. “But there are others who need to know about this so Philo can be dealt with. His crime isn’t only against my Hildy now.”

  “A meeting is in order,” Mariah decided. “But only Marc and Uncle Patrick and Papa,” she said.

  “Not everyone needs to know,” Clara insisted quickly. “We have to protect John James. Philo is too dangerous.”

  Amazed and more than relieved that Hildy and her mother weren’t holding her silent fear against her and that they were thinking of John James’s welfare, Mariah accepted hugs from her aunts.

  “I’ll arrange something right away.” Wes held Mariah briefly, kissed her
and headed out.

  By that evening, those who’d needed to know had been told. Mariah’s father had been shocked, and he’d apologized to her for not protecting her.

  “One of the many things I’ve come to see through this,” she told him, “is that we need to stop blaming ourselves and put the responsibility squarely where it belongs. We are the ones wronged, Hildy and I—the whole family, and Philo is the one responsible.”

  “It’s hard not to look at where I might have failed in all this,” Friederick said. “But you’re right.”

  He seemed to think things over for another moment, glancing once at Wes. “So Wesley is who and what he says he is. All those stories are true and he’s on the level—except that you never laid eyes on him before your grandfather’s birthday party.”

  “Exactly so,” she answered.

  “I don’t think John James needs to know this,” Friederick said.

  “All I can do is hope and pray the information stays with us and he never learns the truth.”

  “That’s what I want, too,” Friederick said. “It’s our priority to protect him.”

  Mariah reached for Wes’s hand and he squeezed hers reassuringly. The burden she’d carried for so long could no longer weigh her down now that she had people to help her carry it. She knew a sense of freedom she hadn’t experienced since she’d been a young girl. The situation wasn’t over, but she was no longer alone with it.

  Glad to be on an even footing with Friederick, Marc and Patrick, Wes joined them in perusing the gaming halls and saloons that evening. It was a relief that they knew the truth about him.

  They had developed a pattern. So that they didn’t stand out, only one went into the establishment while the others waited outside. After a thorough search of the place, that person returned and another entered to ask the bartender and other employees if they’d seen anyone matching Philo’s description.

  Wes and Friederick stood in the shadows outside a noisy saloon in a disreputable area of town. Patrick waited across the street and Marc exited the building and they gathered to hear the first good news they’d had.