His quiet words were so unexpected that Julie was incapable of replying. She sucked in a breath and tried to keep from shaking. Words formed in her mind and refused to pass her frozen throat. She closed her eyes. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

“Have I shocked you?” he asked after a long moment of silence.

“I…I don’t know what to say.” Her voice wobbled.

“You don’t have to say anything. I thought it only fair to let you know how I feel.” He moved his arm around her shoulders and pressed her to him. She went willingly and rested her head against him.

They sat in silence while his hand moved over her hair. When she spoke, it was in a soft whisper and her voice barely reached him.

“Evan, I … love you, too.”

He held his breath until his chest hurt, then let it out in a long sigh of relief.

“Sweetheart. I didn’t dare hope— Say it again. Are you sure?”

His arms tightened until she was crushed against him.

“I love you,” she said very carefully so that he would know that she meant it. “I’m sure of it.” She tilted her face to look at him and her arm crept up around his neck.

“Thank God!” he whispered fervently and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her without demand: her bottom lip first, then the upper one, his tongue stealing out to trace the sensitive curve. He kissed her again and again, not hard, not long, but gently, reverently, keenly aware of every lovely curve of the body pressed to his.

“Sweet, darling, beautiful Julie,” he murmured when he could speak again. “I never expected to ever find such a treasure as you and to have you love me.”

“Why not? You’re a wonderful man. I can’t believe you’d want me.” She wanted to wrap herself around him. The feelings he awakened in her were so delightful they were almost scary.

“You’re what I’ve looked for and was almost sure I’d never find.”

He held her, warm and soft and infinitely dear, against him, lightly kissing her parted lips. Her breath was sweet on his mouth. There was no woman to compare with her. He laughed low and tenderly, unable to contain his happiness.

“I want to tell you everything about me. I want to know everything about you.”

The hand caressing the back of his head stilled and then her fingers slid around to cover his mouth.

“No secrets tonight, Evan. Please. I just want to enjoy being here with you and hearing you say that you love me.”

Her lips replaced her fingers and she kissed him urgently, almost desperately, while her fingertips stroked his cheek. When she freed his lips, he moved them over her face to her closed eyes and found the tears she was trying to blink away.

“Darlin’ girl.” He rocked her gently in his arms and kissed her tear-wet eyes. “Sweetheart, don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.”

“You are. Are you afraid to tell me about Joy?”

Julie thought her heart would stop. She felt as if the bottom had fallen out of her world.
He knew.
When she was able to speak, the words came out on a sob.

“How did you know?”

“My mother wrote often to me while I was in school and later when I went to France. She was terribly upset about what happened to you. Your mother had confided in her. She told me that at fifteen you’d had a terrible thing happen to you and that you had come through the experience with your head held high, not whining, but doing what had to be done. When your baby came, you were out in the barn all alone. Your mother passed Joy off as hers. She admired your mother and father for the way that they had handled things and you in particular. She never dreamed that I would come back here and fall in love with you.”

“You’ve known all the time.”

“I’ve never told a living soul, sweetheart.”

“Joy may be … could be—”

“Walter’s? My mother intended to tell you that it couldn’t have been Walter who made you pregnant. I guess the time was never quite right. Because of an injury, Walter isn’t capable of … the act it takes to father a child. He likes to talk dirty and threaten people. Trying to make up the loss of his manhood may be why he’s so disgusting at times. I think he loved my mother as much as he could love anyone. He was decent to her and only to her.”

Julie was very still, her mind flooded with unanswered questions. If not Walter Johnson, then who had attacked her in the woods, put the cloth over her eyes and thrown her to the ground? The threats he had whispered in her ear after he’d had his way with her had terrified her.

She had told only her mother. Then, when it became known to both of them that she was going to have a baby, they’d had to tell her father. That winter she’d stayed home on the pretext of caring for her ailing mother. It was a long, hard winter and they’d had few visitors, with the exception of Mrs. Johnson.

During the last month of Julie’s pregnancy, her mother had taken to her bed with an ailment resembling influenza; and shortly after Joy was born, she had died. The general assumption had been that she died from complications of childbirth.

Joe had been fourteen at the time and Julie was sure that he knew her secret, but he had never mentioned it.

“Julie, honey. If I knew who it was that caused you so much pain, I’d kill him. I would never hurt you like that. You believe me, don’t you?” His fingers lifted her chin so that he could look into her face.

“You…still want me?”

“Want you? God in heaven! I want to marry you and live with you for the rest of my life. I’d walk through fire to get to you if you called me.”

“Evan …I never thought anyone would want me if he found out about Joy.” Tears rolled from her eyes and wet both their cheeks.

“Ah, sweetheart. Don’t cry. That little girl won my heart, too. I’ll love her as if she were my own.” He cupped Julie’s chin in his palm and kissed her mouth, her wet cheeks.

“Hush, now, and listen. I have things to tell you. I want no secrets between us.” He waited for her to become aware of the gravity of what he was about to say before he continued.

“Walter isn’t my father.” He watched her face and saw her mouth form a silent O, before she gasped.

“Oh, Evan!”

“I have his name because he married my mother before I was born. The man, or rather boy, my mother loved was killed before they could marry. Her parents got Walter to marry her to save her from disgrace. He was a poor fellow who had never dreamed he’d have a farm. They gave him the farm, which had been in the family before the Civil War, for as long as he lived, then it goes to me. Mother told me when I was ten years old and gave me a picture of my father.

“Ah, honey,” he whispered and cuddled her close. “We’ve each got something to hide.”

“You’ve had to pretend that he was your father all this time, and I’ve had to pretend that Joy was my little sister.” Her arms hugged him to her.

“I’ll not shame my mother’s name by denouncing him now.”

“Of course not!”

“Julie … guess what my real father’s name was. James T. Jones,” he said before she could speak.

“Could he have been related to my father?”

“No. He was from England. I looked the family up while I was there. They were a family of modest means, highly respected in their village.”

“I worry that if someday Joy finds out that I’m her mother, she’ll hate me.”

“She won’t,” he said positively. “Jethro wouldn’t tell her, would he?”

“No! He dotes on her. I think he loves her more than any of us. It may be because while my mother was so sick that I had to be with her, he took care of Joy.”

“Will he let her go with you when you and I make a home together?” His words caused Julie to catch her breath.

“I’m sure he will, but it can’t be anytime … soon.”

“I know, sweetheart. I wouldn’t ask you to come live with me while Walter is there. I plan to give him money to sign the farm over to me. A part of my grandparents’ deal with him was that he could have the farm for as long as he lives. If I give him enough money, he might move somewhere else.”

“I can’t go and leave the kids. If Papa marries Mrs. Stuart, Joe and Jack and I plan to take them … someplace.”

“Honey, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Mrs. Stuart staying much longer. What I worry about is what lasting influence her time here will have had on Jethro.”

“Oh, I hope she goes soon. Evan—”

He put his finger over her lips. “Enough about everyone but us. Sweetheart, this is the happiest night of my life. It’s going to be hard to wait to make you mine.”

“I’m already yours, my love,” she said and lifted her face for his kiss.

“I’ll be so gentle with you, honey. Will you hate being with me as my wife?” His hand slid down the side of her breast and over to cover its softness. “Considering what you’ve been through, I’ll understand if you are afraid.”

“My mother loved Papa. She told me that being with the man you love is one of God’s gifts. She said that someday I would meet a man who would fill my life with his presence. I would love him and together we would have children. She didn’t want what had happened to me to make our coming together as husband and wife an ugly thing.”

“Julie, my sweetheart, my love, I’m overwhelmed.” Joyous relief washed over him. “I thought that if I was lucky, you’d like me. And after you got to know me better, I might have a chance that you’d even love me.”

She laughed happily. “You silly man. You made my heart flutter the night you came with Joe to play cards and caught me licking the fudge knife.”

He laughed, and she felt the movement in his chest and placed her palm over his heart. They sat quietly holding each other, reveling in their newly revealed love. Finally Evan stirred and she lifted her head from his shoulder.

“I’d better check my watch and see what time it is. The moon went down a while ago.”

“It did? I didn’t even notice.”

They sat for a while longer, exchanging lingering kisses and enjoying the miracle of loving each other. Then, reluctantly, Evan started the car and drove slowly down from the bluff.

* * *

It was an hour after midnight. Otto Bloom sneaked into the bushes beneath Amos Wood’s bedroom window. He had several pebbles in his hand and tossed one of them at the windowpane. After three or four throws, the window slid up and Amos Wood motioned Otto toward the front porch.

“What’s happened?” the banker said as soon as he stepped out onto the porch in his nightshirt. “This isn’t the night the shipment comes down.”

“No, it isn’t th-that,” Otto stuttered. “I need to borrow your car, Mr. Wood.”

“What the hell for?”

Otto stepped close and spoke into the banker’s ear for a minute or two. When he finished, Amos moved away from him and, in a low, angry voice, called him every obscene name he could think of.

“You’re a goddamned fool!” he exclaimed. “I should have let Appleby keep your ass in jail until hell froze over. Take the car, damn you. And don’t you forget that I will never admit to allowing you to take it. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. I understand. There’s nothin’ for ya to worry about, Mr. Wood.” Otto bobbed his head up and down. “I know what to do.” His head was clearing up fast, but he was still unsteady on his feet.

“You’d better. Now get on and do what you have to do, and get that car back here in an hour. Hear?”

Otto pushed the car out onto the street before he got in and drove away without turning on the headlights.

Chapter 23

J
ULIE LAY IN BED BESIDE JOY
and hugged the little girl to her. What had happened tonight seemed unreal. Knowing her secret, Evan had fallen in love with her. It made him all the more dear to her. It was such a relief. Lord bless Mrs. Johnson for telling him.

What a shock it had been to learn that Evan was not Wallter Johnson’s natural son, as everyone believed. All this time she had thought that it was Walter who had come up behind her in the woods and violated her. If, as Evan had said, Walter was unable to perform the act that made her pregnant, then it had to have been someone who knew she came home from school through the woods that time of day. But who?