Her husband drove the buckboard, his visage like a thundercloud ready to explode. Guilt nagged at her. Tell him now and get this over with. If he leaves, he leaves. Her heart twisted at the thought of her husband’s departure. She thought he loved her and couldn’t imagine his leaving, but she had to consider the possibility; she’d known women abandoned for less. Damn Mr. Nash. He had known of her plight. She’d purchased supplies for the coming baby, only to pack them away in a trunk. The doctor worked in the building next to the mercantile, and he’d come to her aid. No doubt gossip about poor Mrs. Dunworth had spread throughout the town, no matter how Samuel might have tried to quell it. Her father had been dead by then. Two hens squawked in their crate. Her neighbors had promised a rooster to celebrate Travis’s return home. Surely the two fowl could be better mothers than she. Caroline forced herself to reach across the wagon seat to take her husband’s hand.
