The Bridal Veil Read Free Page B

color and heat
rising to his face. Her explanation didn’t do much to relieve his
embarrassment. He groped around in his memory, trying to remember
if he’d said anything very personal in those letters. He didn’t
think so. He certainly hadn’t bared his soul to Alyssa Cannon, but
the mail had been private, or so he’d believed. His reply was
blunt. “They were meant for her. So was the train ticket I sent to
her. I planned to marry your sister, Miss Cannon, not you. I
asked her to come,
not you.”
    Emily dropped her gaze to the
tabletop, sat back, and folded her hands in her lap. She looked
like a dog that had been kicked from here to the river and back
again, and Luke’s conscience gave him a swift kick as well. God, he
even thought her chin quivered once.
    “ I know that I’m not Alyssa,
Mr. Becker,” she murmured. “But I believe I would suit. I’m not
expecting romance, merely companionship and a chance to
help.”
    Luke said nothing and the silence
stretched out before them like a long, dark tunnel.
    Emily thought about the disheveled
girl and considered her grim-faced father, and wished she could
shut her eyes and wake up to find herself back in her rooms in
Chicago. She wished she could turn back time to the days before all
the bad things had happened, before Alyssa’s accident and the
demise of Miss Wheaton’s school, back to a time when Emily had been
just a teacher, innocent and ignorant.
    She felt like the worst fool God ever
allowed on the face of the earth. Coming here had been a horrible
mistake—she must have been out of her mind when she’d made the
decision. She had suffered many humiliations in her life, large and
small, but none like this. How she yearned to be back in her
classroom, in charge, in control. Not at the mercy of her own
feckless judgement, and subjected to a girl who should be taken in
hand for her abominably smart mouth and unacceptable
behavior.
    But with Alyssa’s death and the
closing of Miss Wheaton’s, Emily had felt so lost in the world, the
idea of staying in Chicago became intolerable. She had no classroom
to return to, nothing to take charge of. She was adrift and without
employment. Her impatient landlady had threatened to evict her for
back rent that Emily had no means to pay. And so she had come to
Oregon in her sister’s place.
    Once again, though, Emily had fallen
short of lovely Alyssa’s charm and beauty. It had happened so many
times over the years—now that her sister was dead, Emily felt
vilely disloyal even thinking about it. Except it was true. She’d
loved Alyssa with all her heart, but Alyssa had been everything
that Emily was not: small, dark-haired, popular.
    “ I’m sorry I wasted your
time, Mr. Becker,” Emily said, shaking off the painful memories. “I
will return to Illinois. If you’ll just escort me to the ticket
office so that we can buy my passage to The Dalles, then I’ll get a
train back home—”
    Luke put an elbow on the table and
leaned forward. “Do you have the money to make the
trip?”
    His blunt question brought Emily up
short. Not only was it unseemly to discuss finances, it forced her
to reveal her reduced circumstances. Her small savings had gone to
giving Alyssa a proper burial. And none of the sentimental things
in her trunk had any monetary value. Even her landlady had said as
much when Emily had offered them in exchange for the back rent.
“Well, n-no, I don’t.”
    His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Neither do I. Farmers don’t earn a lot of cash, Miss Cannon. If I
see more than a hundred dollars a year, I’m lucky. I spent the
little I could spare on the train ticket you used to get
here.”
    The pit of Emily’s stomach seemed to
drop to her knees. She’d long ago become a careful person, weighing
her actions and the possible outcomes from every angle. But when
she’d finally decided to come to Oregon, she’d closed her eyes and
jumped, refusing to give any thought to what might happen if