to make something of himself and whose faith in Christ had helped him through the bad times. He’d seemed so sincere and dedicated.
Now her father’s and Carolyn’s warnings haunted Clarissa, as did old Mrs. Grimes’s hurtful words. If the woman was right, why did she think that whatever Chad might have done was Clarissa’s fault? The thought of somehow being responsible hurt deeply and made her feel painfully inadequate as a woman. She’d married Chad blindly, her heart so full of love and passion that nothing else mattered. In her mind she’d been the best wife and mother she could be. Why on earth would Chad ever want to leave her?
The bell above the front door jingled as someone came inside then, and Clarissa turned to see Margaret Baker, one of the founders of the Light of Christ Church. The woman’s dark eyes drilled into Clarissa as though she’d done something terrible.
“Hello, Margaret.” Clarissa greeted the woman with a smile. She and Margaret’s daughter, Susan, had attended school together and were often involved in the same activities at school and church. “What can I help you with today?”
Margaret came closer, looking so angry that it changed her whole countenance into a stern, stiff, almost witchy air. She raised her chin as she spoke.
“You can bring back my Susan!”
Clarissa frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you can straighten up and be a proper wife so that you don’t drive your husband into another woman’s arms and drive my daughter to sin in the eyes of God!”
A horrible picture began to take form in Clarissa’s thoughts. She felt as though her blood was draining from her brain down and out through her feet. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she answered.
“Don’t you? Where is Chad, Clare? Do you know where he’s gone?”
“He’s…on a business trip.”
Margaret sniffed back tears and handed her a folded piece of paper. “Wake up!” she seethed. “This is from Susan.”
With now-shaking hands Clarissa took the paper and opened it.
Dear Mother,
Please forgive me, but I am totally in love with Chad Graham. Chad loves me, too, and now I am carrying his child.
We have left St. Louis to share our lives together. As soon as Chad can get a divorce, we will be married. I have loved Chad since before he married Clare. Chad will sell the store, and with that money we will start a wonderful new life together.
I know this is right, Mother. I feel it in my heart. Chad has never been happy with Clare, but I make him happy. After we are married and the baby is born, I will let you know where we are. I hope you will come and visit.
All my love, Susan
Stunned, Clarissa felt faint. She handed back the letter. “Why on earth are you angry with me?” she asked Margaret. “Your daughter and my husband have committed adultery! Susan is pregnant by a married man who is currently still married to a woman who used to call Susan her friend!”
“Surely you knew my Susan loved Chad when you turned around and married him yourself!”
“No, I didn’t know!”
“I don’t believe you! And it serves you right to learn that Chad only married you because he needed this store! You threw yourself at him and used this store as a way to catch him, and now he will profit from it!”
A lump began to form in Clarissa’s throat and she turned away. The reality of the kind of man Chad really was hit her like a club slammed into her stomach.
Divorce! Susan said Chad was going to get a divorce! Had he already sold the store out from under her? How could she face anyone in town or at church if she was a divorced woman? What would people think of her?
Such shame! Such utter betrayal! Such deep, deep hurt she’d never known.
“Get out,” she told Margaret.
“Gladly! And I hope you’re proud of yourself, hurting my poor Susan by marrying the love of her life!”
The woman stormed out. Clarissa realized Margaret was defending Susan as a mother would, not wanting to face the sin of what her daughter had done. Still, Clarissa could hardly believe the woman could stand there and spout her daughter’s innocence in the ugly affair. And ugly it was. The realization of what Chad had done even made him seem ugly now! Behind that handsome face and those fetching green eyes lay pure evil, an evil that had cost her her trust, her pride, her means of living and maybe even her faith. Right now she felt God had abandoned her.
She managed to walk to the front door, close and lock it. She turned the Closed sign toward the street and pulled down the shade. She could not face one more customer today. How could she face anyone ever again?
Chapter Two
April 7, 1862, Tennessee
“If there’s a hell on earth, Lieutenant, this is it.”
First Lieutenant Dawson Clements nodded in agreement. He sat huddled behind a mobile cannon with Sergeant Jared Bridger listening to the hideous screams and groans of the thousands of wounded who lay sprawled among thousands more dead soldiers.
“They say Shiloh is a biblical name meaning ‘place of peace,’” Dawson told the sergeant. He shivered, pulling his rubber poncho up over his head against the cold rain. “Pretty ironic, isn’t it?”
Both men were painfully hungry, and neither had slept all night, mostly because of the haunting cries of the unattended wounded and the stench of blood that ran past them in rivulets along with the rainwater. Behind them, thousands more Union soldiers made temporary camp at Pittsburgh Landing, waiting for the arrival of relief troops.
“Grant says Buell will be here soon with a good seventy-five-hundred relief troops,” Dawson told his sergeant. “Come sunup we’ll push those Rebels clear back past that little church and get this over with.” He watched Sergeant Bridger pull his ragged wool blanket over his head and felt bad that rubber ponchos were given only to the higher officers. The fact that he and the sergeant sat here talking alone was not particularly proper army protocol, but nothing about the past twenty-four hours had been normal or proper. They were simply taking advantage of this chance to rest and gear up for what looked to be another bloody onslaught a couple of hours from now, when the sun would rise on the horror in the fields around Shiloh, and General Grant would lead a new march to take back what the Confederates had claimed earlier today.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, sir. In all our battles out west against the Apache, the Comanche, the Cheyenne—none of it can compare to this slaughter. I’ve seen men walking around still alive with their guts hanging out, bodies on the ground with no heads, an arm with no body nearby. It will be a long time before I can go to sleep without the cries of those boys ringing in my ears. I’d rather be back out west.”
Dawson rubbed his eyes. “Well, we’ve got to go where they send us, Sergeant Bridger. That’s what happens when you’re dumb enough to join the army in the first place.”
Bridger chuckled. “I do wonder sometimes why I got myself into this mess.”
