He caught her arm gently. “Come with me. Get away from the city. The country is beautiful, Caroline. The sky goes on forever. It’s the kind of place that puts everything in perspective. Emma and I would love to spend time with you. You could go riding, let loose without worrying about what society thinks of you.”
As though on cue, guests started exiting from the front of the church. They walked in groups with their heads together. No doubt already gossiping about what they’d seen. Who could blame them? If she’d been a guest at such a wedding, she’d talk about it, too. The gossip in Austin was going to be unbearable for the next few weeks. Besides that, she and Nico had made memories all over town.
Someone spotted her. The society reporter from Austin’s most widely read newspaper. He veered her way. Caroline tensed. Her voice came out kind of wobbly. “Matt, get me out of here.”
Within minutes she was in the carriage beside her brother and sister-in-law. They went back to their parents’ house, where Caroline changed into her traveling clothes. Her trunks were already packed. Having said goodbye to her parents at the church, Caroline was on a train headed toward Little Horn in less than an hour.
Relief filled her as the train lumbered into the station at Little Horn after what felt like an eternity. Soon she would be tucked away at her brother’s ranch, where she might be provided some modicum of privacy.
As they stepped onto the train platform, Emma placed a hand on her rounded stomach. “I hate to say this, but the baby and my stomach are both doing flips. I think I need to eat something now before it gets any worse.”
Matthew placed a comforting hand on his wife’s back. “We’ll stop at the café before we head home.”
Caroline realized she should be ravenous. She’d been too nervous to eat before the ceremony and had had nothing since. Yet food didn’t interest her, and she wasn’t sure she could hold her emotions together long enough to eat an entire meal at the café. A hand reached through the fog to give hers a light squeeze. Caroline met her sister-in-law’s understanding gaze. “Would you like to take a walk first and meet us there when you’re ready?”
“Yes,” Caroline agreed almost desperately even as Matthew protested.
Emma ignored her husband. “Go right ahead, Caroline. The church is around the corner and across the street. You might be able to find some privacy there.”
“Thank you.” Caroline wasted no time in finding the church, but she stopped just shy of entering. She followed the walkway between the church and what seemed to be the parsonage, hoping it might lead exactly where it did. The path opened into a small sort of...well, park would a generous term. It was really just a field. Though the wildflowers and grass were all but dried up, the space was blessedly empty.
A few tall live oaks provided refuge from the sun. She sank to her knees at the base of one. She opened her hand to stare at the small gold wedding band she’d carried all this way. She should have thrown it out. Yet when she’d removed the silly thing, she’d been unable to let it go.
Now it gleamed in the bright Texas sun, mocking her, berating her, teasing her with the reality of what her situation might have been had she gone through with the wedding. Not the roses, cake and laughter she’d expected, but robbery, ruination, abandonment. Closing her eyes, she clenched her hand and let the metal bite into her fingers. “How could I be so utterly stupid? So ridiculously foolish? How did I not suspect anything?”
She lowered her head to bury her fingers in her hair and fought against the tears filling her eyes. The sound of approaching footsteps made her still. She stared through blurry eyes at the man who’d stopped some distance away. He removed his hat in a gesture of respect, then went down on one knee as though purposefully making himself smaller. His broad shoulders and muscled form could be deemed intimidating. Yet there was no mistaking the gentleness or concern in his drawl. “Ma’am, I don’t mean to intrude, but I couldn’t pass by without asking. Are you all right? I mean, are you sick? Should I get a doctor?”
A doctor would be of no help to her. Still, it was a sweet gesture. A wobbly smile tilted her lips. “No, thank you.”
There was a moment of silence. He was probably trying to figure out what to do next. Was there a polite way to ask him to leave? There had to be.
She blinked several times to clear her vision. Everything blurry came back into focus. He was handsome. So handsome that the gentle dismissal she planned to deliver died even as her lips parted to speak.
She wanted to look away, but his gaze held hers in place. More than that, it seemed to peer deep inside, where he had no business being. Then something flickered in his eyes. Recognition. Kindness. An odd feeling of kinship stretched between them as if he understood her pain and, in his own way, had felt it, too.
This time there was no question in his voice. “You are hurt.”
She wanted to deny it, but her heart wouldn’t listen. The ache in her chest reopened, becoming a chasm too wide to run from. Her tears would no longer be denied or controlled. They flooded her cheeks. Sobs broke free, along with more shame and self-recrimination than she’d ever felt before. She no longer cared that she had an audience. What was one more person when so many had already witnessed her humiliation?
* * *
David McKay wasn’t afraid of a woman’s tears. His late wife had been a crier. Anytime he’d disagreed with her or displayed the slightest displeasure over her wandering eye, she’d cried until he turned to putty in her hands. That had lasted until his mother had oh so casually mentioned she’d heard Laura instructing a friend on how to make herself cry. After that, he’d let Laura cry as often as she wanted. She’d eventually realized her tears wouldn’t sway him and saved her energy for other ways to torment him.
Then his pa had been fatally gored by a longhorn. Nothing David did could stop his mother’s tears. All he could do was offer a shoulder and a handkerchief to mop up her tears when she was done. She’d gone on and on to her friends about what a comfort her son had been in her grief. That was when he’d learned a secret about women strange enough to boggle any man’s mind. They wanted to cry. The sooner a fellow let them do it, the sooner they’d stop on their own accord.
Of course, the difference was that the woman crying now was a complete stranger to him...and a beautiful one at that. Yet he couldn’t leave a woman crying in the dirt without trying to offer at least a little comfort. He approached her as he would an injured heifer, hoping not to frighten her. She didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She just kept crying in heartbreaking sobs that shook her whole body.
He tentatively put a comforting hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. She didn’t flinch away, so he left it there. Her shudder seemed to travel up his arm. She began to talk. David knelt beside her to listen to her quiet confession through her sobs. “I loved him. I really did.”
His eyebrows rose, though he couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d suspected she was a victim of heartbreak by the pain he’d seen in her eyes.
“I never imagined he had a wife.”
Everything within him stilled. He swallowed down the instinctive aversion he had for anyone who played fast and loose with fidelity. He’d had more than enough of that from his late wife.
“How stupid can one person be? To be taken in like that? To believe every lie and ignore any sign of the truth?”
All right. She’d been lied to. That didn’t exactly excuse it, but it did explain it. It also made her the injured party here. Her and the man’s wife. He’d been in that situation one too many times not to feel compassion for her.
With a sigh, David settled in the dirt beside the woman and put his arm around her shoulders. He was kind of hoping she’d get all offended and push him away. She leaned slightly into him instead. He gave in to the moment, as crazy as it seemed, and pulled her a bit closer. Her cheek landed on his chest, allowing warm tears to spill onto his shirt. He ran his right hand