Romance Classics (39 page)

“I’m not in love with him,” Steve pointed out dryly.

Lynn prepared a sharp protest, but before it could be spoken, her eyes widened and she looked dazed, bewildered, as she turned the accusation over in her mind. And then she glanced at Steve fearfully.

“You mean I am?” she asked at last.

“You’re giving an excellent imitation if you’re not,” Steve told her grimly.

Lynn huddled in the seat, her eyes on the flying landscape that rushed past them; green with the fragile green of early summer. The air that struck her hot face was fragrant with the scent of new-turned earth, and growing, blooming things hid in the depths of the woods or along the fence-rows of the farms they were passing.

Steve glanced down at her, and his mouth thinned.

“Well,” he asked when she showed no inclination to speak.

She turned her dazed face toward him and her eyes were wide and startled.

“I think I am, Steve!” she whispered, and there was the faintest possible edge of panic in her voice. “And I don’t want to be! Oh, Steve, how did it happen? I didn’t plan it!”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Steve told her. “People seldom do plan an electric shock or a lightning flash. You just sort of wake up one day and there it is.”

“I suppose so,” Lynn said faintly, her hands linked tightly in her lap. “I’m not sure I like it. Maybe he won’t feel the same way.”

She made a little gesture of distress, and her voice deepened as she sat erect.

“Oh, what am I saying?” she gasped. “Of course he doesn’t feel this way. Why should he? All the beautiful, glamorous, exciting, alluring women he’s known …”

“Stop it or I’ll smack you,” Steve’s voice was angry.

Lynn turned a bewildered, startled face toward him.

“Stop what?”

“Tearing yourself down, low-rating yourself,” snapped Steve sharply. “That’s the one thing I never expected of you. That kind of humility sickens me.”

Lynn had the crazy feeling that the man who was sitting beside her was a not too pleasant stranger whom she knew not at all.

“If you had a dime’s worth of brains,” Steve stated flatly, “you’d have known any man would fall all over himself with joy to know you care two pins for him. I don’t think you need to worry about McCullers. If you want him, you can have him, and that’s for sure.”

Anger steadied Lynn, and her eyes flashed.

“Well, thanks a lot!” she snapped.

“You’re welcome,” Steve answered grimly. “And I just hope for your sake, as well as his, that the Holland boy pulls through. I’d hate to see you waiting outside of prison gates for your fiancé to serve his time. If he’s lucky, he might get off with twenty years — unless the boy dies.”

Lynn shivered.

“Whether Larry lives or not, Wayde had nothing to do with hurting him, and a good lawyer will be able to prove it,” she said at last.

“Thanks for a glowing tribute to my profession,” Steve said dryly.

“I always thought lawyers were devoted to the cause of justice, and that they were idealistic beings who were determined to see that an innocent man wasn’t unjustly punished,” she managed at last.

“But first we have to be sure the guy is innocent,” Steve answered, and there was the trace of a sneer in his voice. “Only a fool, idealistic or not, will take an unpopular case when he has doubts of the man’s innocence.”

“I think,” said Lynn with a sort of deadly quiet that made her words all the more shocking, “that I hate you.”

“That’s too bad.” Mockery was in Steve’s voice. “I’ll try to bear up under it.”

They were approaching the county jail now, and Lynn shivered as she saw it: a neat, square concrete building two stories high, with all the upstairs windows across the front barred. She shivered as Steve parked the car and turned to her. Was Wayde behind one of those barred windows? It was a thought that shook her badly as she walked up the steps beside Steve and into the lobby of the small, neat building.

Several men coming along the corridors spoke to Steve, eyed Lynn curiously and went on their way. Steve led the way down the corridor to a door that bore the sheriff’s name and opened it, standing aside for Lynn to go in ahead of him.

The office was a good-sized one, and a deputy sat at ease, feet up on his desk, a comic book in his hand. He glanced up, saw Steve and Lynn and got to his feet, dropping the comic book into a wastebasket.

“Sheriff in?” asked Steve when the two had shaken hands.

“Sure. I’ll see if he’s busy,” said the deputy, and walked to a door in the far wall, opened it, thrust his head in, murmured something and, a moment later, turned back to Steve and Lynn. “It’s O.K. Go right in.”

Sheriff Tait stood up as Lynn entered and nodded a greeting as Steve introduced them.

“I know your father well, Miss Carter,” said Sheriff Tait. “Fine man. Everybody thinks the world of him.”

Lynn stammered her thanks, and Sheriff Tait looked questioningly at Steve.

“It’s about the McCullers case,” Steve began.

“Oh, now look here, Steve, you’re not going to get messed up in that,” protested Sheriff Tait.

“No,” said Steve so firmly that Lynn felt her spirits drop even lower. There was no hope, judging from Steve’s tone, that she could persuade him to change his mind. “Miss Carter would like to see McCullers. Think that could be arranged?”

Sheriff Tait looked startled, then glanced at Lynn’s white, pleading face and nodded reluctantly.

“Well, I don’t see why not,” he answered, and opened the door, calling to the deputy, “Bring McCullers down, will you, Pete?”

He came back to his office and looked down at Lynn with a smile.

“We’re right proud of our new jail, Miss Carter,” he told her. “But we got a few guests upstairs I don’t think you’d care about meeting. So you’d better see McCullers here. Steve, I’d like a word with you outside.”

They went out, and Lynn waited. It seemed to her that the seconds were minutes long. She looked about her and shuddered. Poor Wayde had hated the big old gray house on the Hill; he had thought it looked like a mausoleum. What must he think of this grim, ugly place?

She was so lost in her bitter thoughts that when the door behind her opened, she gave a small, choked cry and turned sharply.

Wayde was standing against the closed door. In shirt-sleeves and slacks, his sleeves rolled up and his collar open against the heat of the day, he, too, for a dreadful moment was like a stranger. His eyes took her in hungrily, yet there was a shame in them that hurt her.

“Oh, darling,” she gasped, and was in his arms.

Startled by her sudden rush to him, his arms for a moment remained at his sides, and then they gathered her close and held her as though he would never let her go. His cheek was hard against her hair, and his voice was low, choked, as he said her name over and over again.

When at last she could master her emotion and draw a little away from him, he looked down at her, seeing the tear stains on her cheeks, her tremulous mouth, and said huskily, “This isn’t exactly the way I’d planned it, but will you marry me?”

“Well, of course,” answered Lynn.

There was a blessed interval when his arms tightened about her again and his mouth sought and claimed her own; and then once more he glanced about the bare, cheerless office, and his smile was touched with bitterness.

“Like I said,” he mocked himself with something of his accustomed flippancy, “this is scarcely the place I’d have chosen to proclaim my love. And under the circumstances, I have one terrific amount of gall to ask you to marry me. Perhaps I should have asked if you’d wait for me! I am told I stand a fine chance of being put away for quite a while.”

Lynn put a shaking hand over his mouth.

“It’s all some horrible mistake, darling,” she told him. “I don’t know what happened to the Holland boy, but I do know you had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t, of course.” Obviously Wayde had felt it unnecessary to ask for her faith. “I wasn’t even at home. I’d driven over to Jacksonville, on certain business.”

“Oh,” said Lynn radiantly, with acute relief. “Then you have an alibi.”

“Unfortunately, no one will believe it,” Wayde destroyed that relief with a merciful brevity. “I saw no one who could swear to my presence there at a specific time. And the Holland boy was found some time after he was injured, and seems to have no idea when it happened.” He spread his hand in a gesture that admitted the futility of such a defense. “I’m afraid my chief hope is that Steve and the Judge can perform a miracle.”

Lynn’s face went blank and she turned her eyes away from him.

Wayde put his hands on her shoulders and turned her about so that she had to look up at him.

“What is it, darling?” he asked quietly.

“Dad’s not strong enough to fight a case like this,” she managed with difficulty.

“Of course. I should have realized that,” said Wayde. “And Steve?”

“I’m afraid not. He — well, he—”

“He doesn’t want to get involved because he’d be taking up for me, a stranger, against the people he has known all his life,” Wayde finished for her, and smiled faintly. “Well, never mind, honey. I’ll find somebody.”

Suddenly he laughed, but it was a laugh entirely without mirth.

“Funny, all the lawyers I’ve had contact with were corporation lawyers and the like. I don’t believe I know a single solitary criminal lawyer — and he’d have to be a good one to get me out of this,” he admitted. “It’s the darnedest thing, Lynn. I can’t make myself believe that it’s really happening. Why should that kid make such an accusation? I’ve never done anything to him, except to let him off for trying to steal my car.”

Behind them the door opened and Sheriff Tait came in, with a faintly apologetic smile.

“Sorry, Miss Carter, but time’s up. It’s supper time, and we like to feed all our prisoners at the same time,” he announced, and Lynn shivered at the thought of Wayde being lumped with the other prisoners in the jail.

“Thanks for dropping in, Lynn.” Wayde’s tone and manner were quite formal beneath the sheriff’s and Steve’s eyes, but the look in his eyes as he smiled down at her was a caress.

“Is there anything you need, Wayde, that I can bring you?” Lynn asked huskily.

“Thanks, dear — thanks, Lynn, but no. Sheriff Tait and his boys are taking splendid care of me,” Wayde answered, and turned to the sheriff. “Any further news about the boy?”

“Holding his own, but that’s the best they can say,” answered Sheriff Tait, and his tone was curt. “Better get along upstairs, McCullers, if you don’t want to miss your supper.”

Wayde looked down at Lynn, smiled, glanced at Steve without smiling and followed the deputy out of the office.

There was a brief, uneasy silence after he had gone, and then Lynn turned impulsively to Sheriff Tait, no longer able to control her tears.

“Sheriff, he’s not guilty. You must surely know he’s not guilty. Why, he wasn’t even at home,” she stammered. “He’d gone to Jacksonville.”

“Did you go with him, Miss Carter?” asked Sheriff Tait quietly.

Lynn caught her breath and her shoulders straightened.

“Well, no,” she admitted reluctantly, wishing frantically that she dared to lie about it, and too much her father’s daughter to take the chance.

“Then how can you be so sure he went, Miss Carter?” Sheriff Tait asked.

Lynn’s tear-stained face was white.

“Because he told me so!” she flashed hotly.

For a moment the two men studied her, their faces inscrutable, until Steve broke the tension.

“We’d better get home, Lynn,” he said without expression. “Thanks for everything, Sheriff.”

“Pleasure, Steve,” Sheriff Tait answered bluffly, and stood aside as Lynn, head lowered, avoiding his eyes, brushed past him and out of the office. “You’ll remember what I told you, Steve! Let it alone!”

“Oh, don’t fear, Sheriff. I’d made up my mind before I got here, but what you’ve told me cements my intention!” Steve told him, and followed Lynn out of the office.

As Steve drove away from the county jail, Lynn lifted her eyes to the row of barred windows across the second floor and caught her breath on a strangled sob.

“I can’t bear to think of him up there, like a caged animal,” she burst out, and sobbed bitterly.

Steve said nothing. There was no comfort he could offer her, and his stern, set face looked as though he wanted to find none.

“Oh, Steve,” she stammered after a few miles when she had herself under some measure of control, “we’ve got to do something.”

“Like what?” suggested Steve grimly.

“Proving his innocence, of course,” she flashed. “That horrible boy is lying. I know he is! We’ve got to prove it.”

“That’s going to take a bit of doing, Lynn,” Steve reminded her. “The evidence against him—”

“Is all lies,” Lynn cried hotly. “I won’t believe anything else. We’ve got to make the Holland boy admit it.”

“You do that, Lynn,” said Steve dryly, “and we’ll have your boy friend out of there in two shakes. But he’ll have to leave town in a hurry. His life won’t be worth a plugged nickel once he is out of Sheriff Tait’s protective custody.”

Lynn stared at him in mounting horror.

“You mean if the Holland boy admits he’s lying, people will still hate Wayde?” she gasped incredulously.

“Well, he’s been none too popular from the beginning, Lynn.”

“But if Larry Holland admits that he lied, that it wasn’t Wayde who shot him—”

“Then we’ll have to find out who did, won’t we?”

Lynn could only stare at him, speechless.

“Sheriff Tait told me, Lynn, that he talked to the boy himself,” Steve told her levelly. “Larry was pretty weak and in pain; he was just out of emergency and ready to be taken to the hospital from the clinic where they gave him first aid. But Sheriff Tait said the boy told a simple straightforward tale which Sheriff Tait believes.”

Lynn moistened her dry lips before she could ask fearfully, “And what was his story?”

“That he’d gone into the woods with his slingshot to shoot birds,” said Steve. “He was playing hooky from school and wanted to be out of sight of the truant officer. He came face to face with McCullers, who ordered him off the property. Larry was, he admits, smart-alecky. Nobody had ever forbidden him to hunt on McCullers property, and he saw no reason anybody should. And he says McCullers gave him until the count of three to get moving, and when he didn’t, McCullers shot him.”