“Go, Abby.” She looked so hurt. Had she been another kind of woman, she might have realized that it wasn’t because he didn’t want her—quite the opposite.
“I thought we could—”
“No. You need to go.”
She nodded, head down, shoulders bowed. This wasn’t the woman to play around with, and he certainly had no intention of being her gateway to temptation or earthly pleasure or whatever he was to her.
After she’d taken a few steps up the slope, she turned and said, “I won’t see you tomorrow. We’re one short for the market, so, much to Isaiah’s annoyance, I’ve got to fill in.”
He nodded and waved good-bye, wondering if this was a lie—her way of saving face, maybe.
The funny part was that he bet he’d suffer the most from cutting it off. Because while she may be experimenting or sowing her wild oats or whatever, he was on his own, stewing in the mess she’d leave behind.
He didn’t watch her stomp up the hill with Le Dog by her side. Instead, he turned to clip listlessly at his vines. But once he was sure she’d made it to the crest, he turned and caught sight of her getting down on hands and knees to crawl through the fence. The animal, who appeared to enjoy the game, followed her progress with high, curious ears, his tail a wagging blur.
She’d cut through, hadn’t she? Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? The cult people hadn’t sent her. In fact, now, he’d bet they had no idea she was coming here. To him.
He gave her a few more minutes before heading up the hill to where Le Dog stood by that tear in the fence. It was tiny and jagged. How had she not cut herself on those edges?
And wouldn’t they catch her sooner or later?
* * *
The air on this mountain was too thin for Abby. She trembled as she made her way home, rain and wind battering hard at a body that felt anchored to nothing, flyaway and unsure, as the clouds scuttled madly across the darkening sky.
Breathless, she arrived beside Isaiah’s cabin, unaware of how she’d gotten there so fast.
The door opened, and Mama looked out, as if she’d been waiting.
Abby blinked at how crisp everything was, especially Mama, whose bright eyes were almost blinding.
“Heavens, what’s got you so worked up?”
How on earth could her mother tell from a single look?
“Nothing,” she said, although words burned the inside of her mouth, trying to get out. Questions begging for answers.
“Come on in and help me make dinner,” Mama ordered with that look that said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Abby followed her inside. And then, because she couldn’t help it, she asked, “What was it like for you? When you first met my father? Or Isaiah? Was it special?”
Mama set down her knife and covered the onion bowl with a towel before focusing on Abby. She set her hands firmly on the table, head tilted at an odd angle.
“Why do you ask?”
Abby should have guessed, from the stillness in the air and the forced quality of Mama’s voice, that things were not as simple as they seemed.
She forced a shrug. “I was… Now that Hamish is gone, I was thinking about who I’d be joined with next. I wondered if—”
“You wondered what, Abigail?”
Abby blinked, surprised by the edge to her mother’s tone.
“I wondered how it would feel tochoosea husband.”
“Choose?” Mama’s face puckered in confusion.
“Well, like you picked my father and—”
