Farm Girl Loves Bad Boy (#2)

Chapter One

“I’d like to call Ms. Snow to the stand.” Shaking from nervousness, I stand up and smooth over my dress. It’s simple white, with very soft pink flowers on it. I wear a beige half sweater to cover my shoulders to make it appropriate for court.

Mrs. Bartlett, my lawyer, pats my shoulder gently and smiles as I walk around her. My legs feel like they’re going to collapse underneath me as I take my seat in the box beside the one that the judge sits in. I don’t know whether the man who walks up to me is Mr. Hastings lawyer, or simply just the man who is hired to question me, but regardless, he seems threatening.

He smiles cunningly as he pushes his round glasses higher up on his nose. “Would you like to tell everyone what happened on the night of September twenty-sixth, Ms. Snow?” His hands are clasped behind his back as he leans forward, waiting for my reply. I remember everything Mrs. Bartlett went over with me for this question.

“It was early morning of the twenty- seventh,” I say quietly out of fear. “And everything that happened has already been covered.” The judge had repeated all the facts exactly as Mary, Emery and I had explained them. Emery sits in the seats behind Mrs. Bartlett, with my parents. He has his own case coming up about what happened to his mother, and isn’t involved in this one except for explanations.

Behind him sits Mary, with her parents. She watches me timidly, and gives a shy smile. This is the first time I’ve seen her in a month, and I don’t know if I will even get the chance to talk to her.

“Very well then,” the man who’s questioning me says. He starts to pace, walking away from me. “True or false, Ms. Snow, you carried the shotgun into the barn.”

“False,” I tell him. It’s a fact that Emery did, and the whole court knows that. So why am I being asked silly questions. “Emery did.”

“Emery shot you?” My face twists in confusion. His fingerprints had been found on the gun, but that was only because he took it away from his father. Our family shotgun that had been passed down for generations had been taken in as evidence, and we don’t know if we’re getting it back or not.

“False, his father shot me.” Tears threaten to fall. My voice sounds calm and collected, but inside I’m torn apart. In the box that I sit in, no one can see me from the waist down. So just under the right side of my dress, my fingers pinch my skin whenever I feel like I’m going to cry. It hurts, and there will be small bruises, but it prevents me from sobbing in front of tons of people.

“You shot Emery’s father, Silas Hastings.” The man stops in front of me and stares at me, waiting for an answer. I open my mouth to respond but the judge cuts me off.

“Where are you going with this, Mr. Brown?”

Mr. Brown adjusts his glasses nervously. “If you could just give me a few minutes, I will show you, your honour.” The judge sighs and nods before Mr. Brown turns back to me. “Ms. Snow? We’re all waiting for an answer.”

I can’t control my voice. “T-true.”

“Ms. Snow, true or false,” Mr. Brown stands facing the audience made up of my friends, family, and a lot of people I really don’t know. His hands are still clasped behind his back, and I watch them fiddle uneasily. “It was in self-defense.”

Mrs. Bartlett had gone over this question with me, and I now know where Mr. Brown is going with this. No, I didn’t think Emery’s father, now known as Silas, was going to kill me. It wouldn’t be self defense, but it was to save Emery’s life.

I pinch my right thigh as hard as I can so my voice doesn’t choke up when I speak and tears don’t fall. “False, I did it to save-“

“There you have it!” Mr. Brown’s voice booms throughout the court house as he cuts me off. “Ms. Snow didn’t kill Silas Hastings in self-defense, it was merely in spite!”