She gave Dwight his medicine and put on a fairly convincing act from then on. But when she was alone in her room, she cried until she thought her heart would break. She was paying a very high price for the one indiscretion of her life, and learning a hard lesson about how easy it was to tarnish a heretofore spotless reputation. She thought about how hard her parents had worked to invest her with a sense of morality, and she’d let them down so badly. Maybe it was as well that they’d never have to know about her downfall. But she could have talked to her mother about it, and there would have been no censure, no condemnation. Her mother was a loving, gentle woman who always looked for the best in everyone. She cried all the harder, missing her.
For the next few days, she didn’t go outside at all. But inevitably, Winnie noticed it and asked why. Allison made up a story about not wanting to be out of earshot of Dwight. But Winnie told Marie. And Marie told Gene.
He alone knew that Allison might simply be avoiding him. But he’d been away from the ranch for a couple of days on business, and that wouldn’t explain why she was staying inside while he was gone. He almost said something to her about it. Her abrupt departure from any room he entered stopped him. She obviously wanted no part of his company, so he forced himself not to invade her privacy. All the while, he was cursing himself for what he’d done to her. Even he, a relative stranger, could see the change in her since that night in the line cabin. She was almost a different person, so quiet and shy that she might have been a mouse. She never entered into conversations with the rest of the family, or laughed, or did anything except be professional as she charted Dwight’s progress and talked to the doctor who checked on him several times a week. She didn’t look at Gene or speak to him, and when he tried to make conversation with her, she found a reason to go somewhere else. His pride and ego took a hard blow from her attitude, even if he understood it. Women had never avoided him. Quite the contrary. Of course, he’d never hurt anyone the way he’d hurt Allison.
Winnie and Marie finally browbeat her into going into Pryor with them to shop. She felt fairly safe about going there, sure that she wouldn’t run into anyone who knew her.
She was wrong. Dale Branigan was shopping, too, in the boutique where Marie and Winnie took Allison. She caught sight of the older woman and with a purely cattish smile, Dale maneuvered closer.
“Nice to see you again, Miss Hathoway,” she said. “Ben’s doing nicely, thanks to your quick thinking at the bar that night.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Allison said pleasantly.
Dale gave the other woman’s gray dress a demeaning scrutiny, shrugging when she realized how much prettier she was in a pink sundress that flattered her figure.
“I hear Gene’s gone off you after that one night,” she said out of the blue.
“I beg your pardon?” Allison asked reluctantly.
“After he slept with you in the line cabin,” she said carelessly, smiling at Allison’s gasped shock. “Didn’t you know? It’s all over town. You can’t expect a man like Danny Rance to keep his mouth shut. He’s a bigger gossip than most women. He really laid it on thick about you and Gene. Too bad. You should have held out for a wedding ring.” She sighed theatrically. “By the way, there’s a reporter in town. He’s looking for some woman missionary who escaped from Central America in a hail of bullets. Someone said she’d left a trail that led here.”
“Really?” Allison’s hands were shaking. “Well, it could hardly be me, could it?” she asked huskily.
Dale laughed. “Not if you’re giving out with Gene, it couldn’t,” she said mockingly. “Hardly a missionary’s nature, is it?”
“Hardly. Excuse me.” Allison went out the door and got into the car without a word to Marie or Winnie. She sat in shock, her body shaking, her face paper white as she tried to cope with what that malicious woman had said to her. She was branded. Really branded. She’d never get her job back. She’d have no place to go. Her family was dead, and now she was almost certainly going to lose the only work she’d ever wanted to do. It was inevitable that the reporter would track her to the Nelson place, inevitable that Dale or someone like her would relate the whole sordid story of her one-night stand with Gene. She’d given in to temptation and lost everything. If she’d had a lesser will, she’d probably have gone right off a cliff. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Oh, please, God, she prayed silently. Please forgive me. Please help me!
Winnie and Marie belatedly noticed her absence and came looking for her.
“Are you all right?” Winnie frowned. “I saw Dale Branigan talking to you. What did she say?”
“Something about Gene, no doubt,” Marie said heavily as they started the drive home. “She’s so jealous it’s sick. I’m sorry, Allison, I should have hustled you out of there the minute I saw her.”
“It’s all right. She was just...telling me something I already knew.”
“There’s a reporter in town,” Winnie said uneasily. “That was what she said, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I may have a few days before he finds me,” she said with defeat in her whole look. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have anything left to lose.”
“What are you talking about?” Winnie demanded. “You’ve got your job, your future...!”
“I don’t
