There was a time when he would have tried to talk his way around it, when he might have even married the woman beside him without telling her the truth and let her discover it on her own after a year or two.
But he was done hiding his secrets. Done insisting he could do everything on his own without help from anyone else—even God. Alexei’s words in the jail had triggered something inside him. He’d spent too much of his life trying to do everything on his own, and he refused to carry that kind of burden anymore.
“I don’t understand,” she said as they rounded the house. “Why can’t you read my letter?”
He led her up the front steps, away from the kitchen entrance where Inessa was sure to be lurking, then opened the door.
Warmth enveloped them as they stepped inside. He helped her out of her coat, then guided her into the parlor, where he hoped to have at least a bit of privacy—until Ilya or Inessa discovered where they were.
He closed the door behind them, then drew in a breath and turned to her. “Because I can’t read. At all.”
“What?” The smooth patch of skin between her eyebrows furrowed again.
“I have something called word blindness.” He reached out and took her hand, settling it in his larger palm. “Doctors don’t understand it fully, but they know that with some people, the letters move around when they look at words, and it makes reading nearly impossible.”
“Does this word blindness happen all the time or just sometimes?”
“All the time.”
“So you can’t readever? Not even a little bit?”
He nodded, waiting for the familiar feeling of humiliation to climb into his chest. But for some reason it didn’t.
“So when you read my journal in the wilderness?—”
“I only pretended to read it that first time. The next time you brought it out, I asked you to read it to me. I said I wanted to hear your words in your own voice, remember? It wasn’t exactly a lie. I did want to hear it in your voice, but my main reason for asking was because I couldn’t read the words myself.”
He didn’t know how he expected her to respond. He knew her too well to think she’d mock him or want nothing to do with him, but he didn’t expect her to cry.
But tears filled her eyes anyway. Then she reached up and rested a hand on his cheek, the warmth from her palm seeping into his skin. “It must be terrible not to be able to read.”
“It is terrible. It’s my biggest weakness by far, and if there’s anything about myself I wish I could change, it’s that. But I’ve learned recently that I don’t have to be strong all the time, or perfect. I just have to be willing to let others help when I need it. After all, even Christ needed help carrying his cross, so I suppose that puts me in good company.”
He nodded toward the letter she’d set on the small table beside the window. “If you want me to know what it says, either you can read it to me or I can ask Kate. She’s the one who usually helps me with my reading and writing.”
She dropped the hand from his face, and a flush stole over her cheeks. “No, ah... I think we can do this without Kate. The letter might say a thing or two about you that I’m not sure I want your sister reading, but it mainly just talks about how I don’t want to leave Alaska.”
A smile crept over his face. “That’s good. I don’t want you to leave either.”
“You said that earlier, but on the ship you said that you would write a publisher for me, and I thought that meant?—”
“That I wanted you to move thousands of miles away, where I can’t see your smile every day or watch your hair tumble around your shoulders?” He reached out and fingered a strand of hair that had fallen from her lopsided coiffure. But even as cute as the slanting bun looked atop her head, he missed how she’d worn it in the wilderness, wild and free.
“Where I can’t sit with you at night while you sketch landscapes and write in your journal?” he continued. “Where I won’t know if your brother and father are treating you well or if you’re getting paid the way you should for your writing and the cataloging you do for your father? Where I won’t know if some snake is trying to court you with the full intention of stealing your work and making money off it?”
His throat closed, and when he spoke again, he barely recognized the sound of his own voice. “No, angel. I don’t want you anywhere other than here, with me, as my wife.”
He dropped to one knee, then reached out and took her hand. “Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Mikhail.” Her cheeks turned the prettiest shade of pink. “I want nothing more.”
He stood and crushed her against his chest, his face hovering just above hers. “Even though I can’t read?”
“I don’t care that you can’t read.” Then she pressed up onto her tiptoes and fused her lips to his.
He sank into the warmth of the kiss, into the smell of lavender water wafting from her skin and the feel of her body through the thinness of her dress. He held her such a long time that he was certain he’d forever remember how it felt to take her in his arms.
Finally he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”
