Adam's Daughter by Kristy Daniels

the newspapers. How had he missed it? He seldom had time to read every item in the news these days and his ongoing battle with the pressmen’s union lately demanded all his attention. He had missed the story. Willis Foster Reed was dead.
    Adam glanced at Elizabeth. The words “I’m sorry” formed in his head but he couldn’t say them. It wasn’t true. He wasn’t sorry. He was...astonished, confused. Elizabeth was free. She was free and she was sitting here beside him.
    “Why did you marry him, Elizabeth?” The words were out before he could think.
    Her green eyes turned strangely opaque. “I had no choice, really,” she said softly.
    “Yes, you did. There was me. There was us.” The words spilled out without thought.
    “Oh, Adam. That was only one night, a long time ago.”
    The sad finality in her voice made him fall silent for a long time. “It could have been us, Elizabeth,” he said finally. “We could have been together. I was in love with you. I wanted to marry you.”
    Her eyes grew wide with astonishment. Then, abruptly, she looked away. After a moment, her eyes brimmed with tears. “Then why didn’t you fight for me?” she said.
    For a moment, Adam was too stunned to say anything. “Fight for you? I did. I tried to reach you. I tried for so long to reach you, Elizabeth. I called you. I went to your aunt’s house. I followed you to Atlanta. Your father threatened to have me arrested if I didn’t leave you alone. I wrote you letters, dozens of letters. You never answered any of them.”
    “I never got them, Adam,” she said softly. She looked out over the crowd, still coming across the bridge toward them. It was a long time before she spoke. “When I didn’t hear from you,” she said, “I started to think that my father was right. That you were like all the others, that you were only after my money.”
    Adam’s eyes dropped to the ground. He plucked a handful of grass and watched the blades sift through his fingers and drift away on the wind. When he looked up, he saw that Elizabeth was crying.
    “Why are you crying?” he asked softly.
    “Because it might have been different,” she said. “If I had known that you really cared if I hadn’t listened to my father, it might have turned out different.”
    In all the moments he had dreamed of her he had never imagined her crying. It was unsettling. His own emotions were a tumultuous mix —- joy over seeing her again, sadness over the lost years, and a piercing pang of guilt. The money —- it had been a factor then. He had never been able to separate what he felt for Elizabeth from the fact that she was wealthy. And even now, as he looked at her, he couldn’t separate it. Her incredible beauty still stirred him physically. But still, in the back of his mind, was the money. He stared at her, still the symbol of everything he wanted.
    “It wasn’t the money,” he said. “It was you, Elizabeth. Just you.”
    Her eyes were cautious, waiting. “I should have trusted you,” she said. She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and wiped her eyes. “I was so young,” she said with a sigh. “My father always said I was just a wild thing, with no sense. He wanted me to get married. He said I had to marry someone who didn’t need my money. He said it was for my own protection.”
    She frowned slightly. “He kept after me, threatening to send me off to some women’s college. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get out. So I did what my father told me to do —- I protected myself. I married Willis. Needless to say, my father was very pleased with my choice.”
    He stared at her. The wind whipped her red hair into a fan around her profile. “Were you happy with him?” he asked.
    She brushed the hair from her eyes. “Protection can be very expensive,” she said softly.
    The light had left her eyes.
    “I love you,” Adam said suddenly. “I never stopped loving you.”
    She turned to him. “You have a son and a wife. It’s