“My father’s a state senator.”
“Then why isn’t he in Jefferson City?”
Jesse frowned. “Has teaching history also gone out of style in the twenty-first century?”
Diamond bristled. “I studied the Civil War, but don’t remember everything. Missouri is a border state, right? Some of its citizens supported the South, but it never seceded.”
“The legally elected Missouri legislature voted to leave the Union, but since the state’s under Union control, it forced them to evacuate. First, they went to southwest Missouri, where sympathy for the Confederate cause is high, but then they had to leave the state altogether.”
“I don’t want to live in the South, since they lose the war and everything.” Even though no one was around, she lowered her voice. “Things get bad before the end. Food shortages, cities and homes burned.”
“Unless you think the Pooles would take you in, your only other choice would be to come with me, following the army and working as a nurse or laundress.”
“I’m not trained as a nurse and I don’t know how to do laundry without a machine. Will your father accept me?”
“He won’t turn his back on family, but you will clash if you don’t moderate your attitude. He’s old-fashioned.”
“Great.”
“It will only be until the war is over. Then we can build our own house.”
“This may all be a waste of time. Bryce doesn’t like me. He may refuse to give me a dowry.”
Jesse took her arm. “Let’s head back to the hotel. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
* * *
Three days after their discussion by the former pond, Diamond sat in her hotel room gazing in her mirror. She was getting married. It didn’t quite seem real. As a young girl, she had assumed she would marry, and as a teen, she had flipped through bridal magazines choosing her favorite gowns. She’d dated a guy in college, but their relationship had fallen apart when he transferred to another school. After graduation, she’d focused on her career, rarely finding the time to date and even when she did, she found her dates rather shallow. Most seemed more interested in dating a TV personality than who she really was.
Her last, and most serious, relationship had been with a Memphis police officer. They had even moved in together. He worked rotating shifts and her hours varied, but since they were both dedicated to their jobs, they didn’t fight about their schedules. Brett sometimes took her on stakeouts and found it amusing that she thrived on long, dull hours spent in a car.
But when she’d used her connections to break a story about a bank robber, Brett had been furious. He’d accused her of using him to further her career.
Diamond wrapped her fingers around her right wrist. There was no trace of the break on the outside, but the bone still ached in the cold. He’d grabbed her and yanked her back when she tried to walk away. She didn’t think he’d meant to hurt her, but it wasn’t the first time he’d shown signs of a temper. She left the hospital with a purple cast and never went back to their apartment. One of Brett’s buddies on the force had brought her things to her new place.
This time she had it in writing. Lawyers had drawn up the contract. If Jesse ever touched her, she walked away and kept her dowry. She would leave him and never look back, just as she’d done with Brett.
If she had to marry someone, she thought it might as well be Jesse. She had thought him gorgeous from the moment she first laid eyes on him, slumped on the path, the bandage around his head stained with blood. She had feared he was dead, and upon learning he wasn’t, had been almost as determined to keep him alive as she was to find a way home.
She would never go home now. The career she had worked so hard to achieve was over. Never again would she pursue a story, dogged and determined to uncover the truth. Her colleagues and her mother would think she was dead. By now, they would have found her abandoned ATV and had probably searched the area. They would find nothing, not even her body. She and her mother weren’t close. They hadn’t been for years, but her mother would grieve for her and always wonder what had happened to her only child. Diamond wouldn’t wish that fate on anybody, especially not the woman who had raised her and whom she still loved despite their differences.
She wished her mother could have been here today. She would have been happy to see Diamond marry. Although she’d been proud of her daughter, the TV star, she had tried to steer Diamond away from journalism, the career that had taken her husband’s life. She’d wanted Diamond to pursue a traditionally female career such as teaching or nursing. It wouldn’t bother her, as it did Diamond, that her daughter would now be nothing more than a housewife. And a mother, assuming they had children, which they probably would since there weren’t any reliable methods of birth control in this century. Diamond had never given much thought to children, too wrapped up in her career to hear the ticking of her biological clock.
Even more than her mother, she longed for her father. If only he could walk her down the aisle and give her away. He would have reveled at the chance to cover the Civil War, eagerly following the army as he had in Afghanistan. And perhaps with equally lethal results. The war would last three more years. Jesse fought for the losing side. Her chances of being a widow eclipsed those of being a wife.
Diamond thrust the thought aside. It was bad luck to think of becoming a widow on her wedding day. The Pooles had provided her wedding gown and trousseau. As she gazed into the hotel mirror, she thought she
