Always (29 page)

Despite Emily’s vehement protests that she could see herself home, Ross insisted on accompanying her. Except for that fateful night four years ago, it seemed the longest walk of his life.

The sun was setting, casting a wildfire glow from behind the hills on the western horizon. Cornfields lined the quiet dirt road along most of their route. The fertile countryside was quiet, undeniably calming and peaceful, but Ross could find little peace within himself. His mental burdens had increased a hundredfold from that morning.

What insanity had possessed him to touch her again? The last time it had ended their friendship and resulted in disaster. This time seemed destined to end no better. As they walked in heavy silence, she didn’t so much as glance at him. He could only assume that she still regretted the moment of recklessness that had caused her to succumb to his ill-timed seduction.

He waited until they’d covered nearly a quarter of a mile to attempt some sort of awkward repentance. “I’m not in love with Johanna.”

Emily threw him a questioning glance, as if surprised by this declaration—though no more than he now that he’d actually spoken it aloud—but then she set her chin and focused again on the road. “Don’t be absurd. You’ve always been in love with her.”

Ross opened his mouth to refute this, but then closed it again. He hadn’t always been in love with Johanna. Had he? Or had he ever been in love with her at all? Attracted by her beauty, yes. Enticed by her inaccessibility, perhaps, but was that love? Looking back now at all the time he’d spent competing for her against John Butler, it seemed as if he’d never gotten the chance to know her very well before her father had demanded she break off with him to marry John. Then Ross had left for the war and all but forgotten his adolescent obsession with her.

It wasn’t until he’d returned home to find the
Penn Gazette
shut down and Emily living in Baltimore that his interest in Johanna had been rekindled. Ironically enough, it had been Malcolm himself who had set those old fires burning again. After Ross’s articles were published in the
New York Tribune
, Malcolm had approached him with an offer to work for the
Herald
again, and not merely as a reporter but as assistant editor. To sweeten the pie, he’d even invited Ross to dinner, and Johanna had appeared at the table looking more sumptuous than the broiled steaks and hot buttered rolls that were being served.

It had seemed as if Malcolm were dangling in front of him all that he’d ever hungered for as a youth— money, a career as a writer, and acceptance in established society. That was what Johanna had really represented to Ross that night, and crass as it seemed, Ross had a gut feeling Malcolm knew it.

Things had changed from four years before. Ross had acquitted himself well in the war and published in one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country. Irish Catholic or not, he was a journalist with his star on the rise. Malcolm had no sons of his own, and he needed a son-in-law capable of taking the helm of his precious family newspaper.

If Ross had learned anything during his time in hell at Andersonville, it was that life often took everything a man had but rarely gave anything back. If this was his chance to take what he wanted, then what kind of fool would he have been to refuse?

“No further,” Emily said, breaking into his thoughts.

Ross realized that she’d come to a full stop a few steps behind him. They’d reached the mouth of the covered bridge. With an aggravated sigh, he turned back to her. “Em, I said I would see you home, and that’s what I intend—”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I told my family that I was going into town for a few hours. I can handle Henry and Mother’s questions, but if Karen sees me with you, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Ross studied her impassive expression in the fading light. Had he imagined a trace of anxiety in her voice? “Why?” he asked. “Does Karen know the truth about us?”

Emily’s detached expression didn’t flinch, but she averted her eyes. “Yes, but I made her promise not to tell anyone.”

Suddenly, Karen’s cold manner and attempts to keep him and Emily apart when he’d first returned from the war made perfect sense to Ross. How else could she be expected to behave toward the man who had left her younger sister alone and pregnant? In that light, it didn’t even matter that Ross hadn’t known the truth. Emily had been hurt, and Ross was the one who’d hurt her, even if he hadn’t meant to.

“What about your mother?” he asked.

Emily shook her head, still not looking at him. “No.”

“Your father?”

This time she did look at him and all pretenses of composure vanished. “Of course not! Good heavens, how could I? Papa would have never understood!”

Now that the subject had been raised, Ross knew she was right. He was brought up short, however, by the humbling realization that he’d been so caught up in absorbing the knowledge that he’d lost a son that he’d failed to consider how it might have affected Emily’s relationship with her family. No father would take well to the idea that his daughter had been compromised, but how much worse would it be if that daughter refused to name the man responsible?

He hated to think what Emily’s refusal to betray him had done to the special relationship she’d had with the father she had idolized. The fact that it had actually taken his death to bring her home four years later said it all.

“Emily, if I could change the past, I would.”

“Yes, Ross, I know. It was a mistake. You’ve made that perfectly clear from the begi—”

“I would have come back so that we could have faced your family together.”

It took a few seconds for his meaning to sink in, but sink in it did. Her wary gaze seemed to probe his, to test his sincerity, but to his further frustration, he saw no acceptance. She didn’t believe him. She wouldn’t allow herself. Not yet. But he could sense that some part of her wanted to believe him, and that surely counted for something.

He despised feeling so impotent, but there was nothing more he could say now to change her mind, so he changed the subject. “When I get to the office tomorrow, I’ll check into that write-up about Arnold Gibson. I’ll let you know if there are any new developments, all right?”

“Fine. I’ll be at the shop every afternoon and most evenings.”

“Don’t worry, Em,” he said, turning to leave. “I’ll find you.”

 Chapter Twenty-One

The following morning, Ross was loaded for bear and ready to confront Malcolm over the Arnold Gibson affair, but his managing editor was nowhere to be found. The local intelligence reporter, Virgil Davis, as red-eyed and blossom-nosed as ever, informed Ross that Malcolm wasn’t expected in the office until noon.

After questioning Virgil more carefully, Ross discovered that his hunch was correct. Floyd Gibson had come by Saturday morning to speak with Malcolm, after which the two men had spent a good thirty minutes behind closed doors. Ross knew that the city councilman wasn’t only a business acquaintance of Malcolm’s, he also had a tremendous amount of influence within local political circles. It was Malcolm himself who had penned the second write-up.

Ross soon dispensed with the items that had piled up on his desk in his absence, delegating most of them to other reporters, before settling down to write an editorial piece rebutting Sunday’s “cheerful” acceptance of Councilman Gibson’s version of the matter.

With all of his emotions running so close to the surface, perhaps his pen was a bit more vituperative than normal, but when he finished and read his own blistering words, he felt a prime sense of satisfaction. It was a feeling that had become more and more rare since he’d taken his position at the
Herald
. It was the feeling that he could make a difference.

At eleven-thirty, Malcolm burst into the busy city room in a cloud of cigar smoke, barking orders at two startled reporters as he doffed his top hat and stalked past them to his office. His thunderous expression and curt manner was not unusual. It merely meant that he was ready to get down to business. So was Ross.

Taking his editorial in hand, Ross followed the managing editor to find him chomping on his huge Corona cigar and hanging his coat on a rack just inside the open doorway. “What is it? It better be important.”

“It is.” Ross closed the door behind him and threw the lock for good measure. He wanted no untimely interruptions.

“How’d the Gettysburg trip go?” Malcolm rounded the corner of his desk and began shuffling through a mound of papers.

Ross knew he wasn’t concerned with the weather or his comfort on the train. “I turned in my copy this morning. About half a column. The laying of the cornerstone from a veteran’s point of view.”

Malcolm grunted his approval as he sank into his seat. “Sounds good. That all?”

“No.” Stepping forward, Ross held out the editorial.

“What’s that?”

“Read it.”

The older man grunted again, this time in annoyance, but he took the paper. Within seconds, he tossed it down and extracted the cigar from his mouth. “This matter is closed.”

“Not in my opinion.”

Malcolm resumed shuffling through the papers on his desk. A cue that Ross was being dismissed. “It’s clear that you’ve been misinformed about the facts in this case.”

“Not so. I got my facts from the police log.”

Malcolm stopped shuffling and glared at him. “Not all the facts were in the police log. I thought that was made abundantly clear yesterday.”

“Perhaps they would have been if the councilman and his lawyer would have allowed the chief to question Arnold properly.”

“The boy was in no condition to be questioned at the time.”

“Why? Was he drunk?”

Malcolm waved a hand through the air. “That’s neither here nor there. I’ll grant you, Floyd’s son may not be a model citizen, but the girl is nothing more than common trash.”

“The girl has a name. Stacy Bliss.”

“Sounds like you know her.”

“Somewhat.”

“Uh-huh.” All at once, a sly understanding crept over Malcolm’s bulldog face. He grounded the cigar out in his brass ash tray. “So that’s how it is.”

“That’s how what is?”

“Let’s be frank, Ross. A man’s private business is his own affair, but you’ll be marrying my daughter in less than two weeks. If you feel the need to dip your wick elsewhere from time to time, that’s no concern of mine, but you damn well better take your business out of town and keep it quiet.” He paused, then leaned forward, lowering his voice and pinning Ross with a steel-eyed warning. “If it ever comes back to me that you’re dallying too close to home, I’ll make sure you regret it. Is that clear?”

For a moment, Ross couldn’t bring himself to react. He’d just received Malcolm’s approval to cheat, albeit discreetly, on Johanna. How much could the man care for his own daughter?

“I said, is that clear?”

“Very. But that’s not what this is about.”

Malcolm sat back in his chair and let out a cynical chuckle. “Oh. Well, then, what
is
this about?”

“Justice. It’s about justice. In this case, it’s clear that we have a difference of opinion. When I agreed to write for the
Herald
you said I would have freedom to express my own views. You never mentioned that those views had to coincide with yours.”

“We have a certain philosophy that we adhere to at this paper. You know that as well as I do.”

“I understand that, but this has nothing to do with political philosophy. This is a case of public safety. More importantly, this is a case of right versus wrong. Stacy Bliss was cut with a jackknife and beaten black and blue. Those are the facts. To my mind, it doesn’t seem unlikely that she might have been raped, too.”

Instead of being moved by the savagery of Arnold Gibson’s acts, Malcolm snorted as if Ross had made a bad joke. “Raped? Be realistic. We’re talking about a girl who spreads her legs every night of the week for the price of a cheap hat. Flip her a couple gold eagles and she’ll be more than happy to call it even.”

Ross had never liked Malcolm Davenport or his political leanings, but he’d always respected the man’s hard-edged knowledge of the newspaper business. Because of that and his engagement to Johanna, Ross had resigned himself to enduring his unpalatable opinions. The raw contempt that rose up inside him now, however, made him feel sick with self-loathing. At what point did his decision to remain open-minded translate to hypocrisy?

Ross had to take a deep breath to control his mounting anger. “I want the piece to run.”

“No.” All traces of tolerance vanished from Malcolm’s fierce countenance. Resting both hands on his desk, he rose to his full height. “When it comes out that the victim is a two-bit whore, we’ll look like fools.”

Ross wanted to state the truth. He wanted to say it so badly that he could taste the words. Malcolm was more worried about offending Floyd Gibson than about looking foolish for daring to champion the rights of an undesirable. Ross managed to hold his tongue, but just barely. “I don’t think it will make us look foolish.”

“Let it go,” Malcolm ordered.

“No. This is important. Either run it as is or—”

Malcolm’s voice lowered. “Or what?”

There was a knock at the door. Neither of them moved. There came another knock, then the doorknob jiggled. This was followed by a high-pitched, feminine voice. “Daddy? Are you in there? Mercy! Whatever can be wrong with this door?”

“Just a minute, Johanna.”

Malcolm hadn’t raised his voice, but each word weighed with authority. He was not a man accustomed to having his decisions questioned, and that was exactly what Ross was doing now.

“Mercy,” they heard Johanna quibble from behind the door. “I’ll be late for my fitting.”

“Or what?” Malcolm pressed Ross again.

“You can put my name to the piece,” Ross said, ignoring the challenge. “Add a disclaimer if you want. I don’t care. Just so it runs complete as I’ve written it.”

Once again, Malcolm’s eyes narrowed on him. He was assessing how far Ross would go. Ross merely held the older man’s hard gaze and waited. He was a little surprised that he felt no compunction at posing the threat his wordless stance conveyed, but he’d offered the only concession he was willing to give. Now it was up to Malcolm.