The Widow's Touch (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella) by Tamara Ternie Page B

before he left. “Once I’m found innocent,” she said, and then Eloda looked at Jack.  “And I will be found innocent,” she firmly added.  “I’ll see to it that you have a chance to prove your worth by offering you a fair wage to work at the ranch as well.”
    The boy ran back to her cage and wrapped his arms around her through the bars.  “Thank you, ma’am!” he said happily, and the boy turned around and ran out the door.
    “ Whether you killed your husband or not,” Jack said as he walked towards her, “I do believe you’re a good woman with a big heart.”
    “Yes, and it’s big enough to overcome any breakage,” she said quietly.  Eloda turned around and returned to her painting, but less bothered that he stayed and watched after her.

CHAPTER SEVEN
                 
                  “The court has ordered that you wear them,” Jack argued, and the manacles in his hands clanked and echoed in the room.
    “I’ll not go to my husband’s funeral in those,” she fervently stated. She turned her back to the bindings and faced Jonathon who came to accompany her to the funeral.
    “Eloda,” Jonathon sighed, “ You must go or else the chosen jurymen are going to get a preconceived notion that you do not care about your dead husband.  It is imperative to your defense that you are in attendance and play the grieving widow.”
    “I’ve seen the jurors,” she scoffed.  “There’s not one that ha sn’t already decided my guilt years ago.”
    “And unfortunately, as of last year, the new law states that we cannot exclude a person for having a pretrial opinion or impression. I tried having the trial moved to another jurisdiction without success.”
    “I shouldn’t be standing trial at al l; it’s a travesty,” she muttered.
    “I’ve argued and tried to invalidate the indictment, Eloda, and that was without success as well.”  Jonathon shook his head. “Th e evidence is straight and clear.  This is going to trial in two days, whether you want it to or not.  Being so, you need to go to the funeral and pray you gain some support and sympathy from your bereavement.”
    “ And how do you propose I do that?  Cry?” she asked.
    “ Cry, wail, fall to the ground in a fit of vapors, whatever it takes,” Jonathon said.  “Until you see a semblance of empathy in the faces of those who come, you haven’t a chance of an acquittal.”
    Jonathon was right.  It was in her best interest to go and show remorse.  Eloda thought hard on how that would be accomplished.  Tears weren’t something easily mustered for her husband, no matter how hard she tried.  In their time of marriage, as well as his death, he had given her more than enough reasons to be thankful he was gone.
    “All right,” she said in resignation.  “I’ll wear them.”  Reluctantly, she turned to Jack and raised her arms in front of her and he placed the restraints around her wrists.
    “T hink of another loss,” Jack softly suggested as he clamped the iron cuffs shut around her wrists.  “Someone you loved and lost; a grandparent or a parent. Think of them today.”
    “My father,” she said, and lowered her head a nd sadly nodded.  “I’ll try to think of him on this day.”  Her father died shortly before her first marriage nearly fifteen years ago, but the pain of his loss was still fresh in her mind.  He was a dear and loving man who raised her alone from the age of three after her mother had died.  Any other man of his elder years would have shirked his responsibility onto someone else, but not him.  He cared for her as well as any mother could, but eventually the infirmities of old age had taken him away.  She missed him greatly but Eloda was thankful he wasn’t alive to see how the town had displeasingly taken to her since his death.
    Jack checked and made sure the manacles were secure d in place and then positioned his warm hands onto hers.  He gently squeezed and her hands