He marched out of the room. The back door slammed.
She knelt to pick up her shawl and cradled it close to her chest. But instead of rising, her knees dropped to the floor. What if Ben was asking for something she couldn’t do?
Fading starlight still graced the pre-dawn sky. Orange shimmered over the horizon. A lone robin filled the air with its song as Ben tightened the ties on his saddlebags. Was he really going to ride out without saying goodbye to Cora? He’d managed to avoid any private conversation with her yesterday when he and Charlie had returned with the five heifers and the bull.
She’d loaded praise on Charlie as they’d led the animals into the corral for the time being. But she’d only given Ben a scant thank you, with a smile that failed to reach her eyes, and a gaze that traveled every which way to avoid his.
He’d been harsh on her yesterday morning when he’d collected the haversack, but he’d meant what he’d said. He wouldn’t marry a woman who didn’t trust and respect him.
Still, the hurt in her eyes had wrecked him. And what in the devil was she doing in the kitchen still dressed in her night clothes when she knew he might come inside? The thin cotton chemise, with its lacy hem just past her knees…it was more than enough to make a man long for a wedding night. And the red shawl hanging off her shoulders and her chestnut locks cascading down her back had only added to the flame…all at the same time she’d looked at him with those eyes of doubt, throwing an unbreachable wall between them.
He clenched his hand. It was high time he left this place, before he got himself twisted into such a tangled knot of hurt there’d be no hope of unraveling it.
Obviously, his father’s illness had come at a providential time.
With a glance toward the still-dark cabin, he jabbed his boot toe into the stirrup and swung into the saddle. It was better this way.
A door clicked. He held his breath. Cora ran around the side of the house, a sack in her hand.
Chest tight, he dismounted.
She slowed. This morning, she wore her violet dress, the one she’d been wearing the first time he’d laid eyes on her at Coffin’s office. Except today, her hair flowed behind her, barely brushed, and her feet were bare.
“We’ll be praying for your father.” She shoved the sack toward him. “Food for your journey. Ham, potatoes, dried apples, and more.”
His fingers curled around the rough cloth. Unspoken words clogged his throat.
Her eyes gleamed in the not-quite dark. Moisture? She held out her hand, as if he might shake it. He scowled instead.
Lip quivering, she threw her arms around him. His breath stalled in his chest. He stiffened, but she didn’t let go. Slowly, he slipped his arms around her.
“God be with you,” she whispered.
He inhaled. Rosewater with a sprinkle of citrus. She’d put on perfume. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why do you push me away with one hand and hold onto me with the other?”
Her hold tightened, and she buried her face against his shoulder. “My heart is torn.”
He pressed his mouth to her ear. “Cora, I swear to you, I emptied every drop of that bottle into the outhouse hole. I haven’t tasted a drop since I left Pennsylvania.”
Silence, except for Cora’s sniffle, and the pounding of his heart in his ears.
The robin’s song erupted as a faint trace of orange burst across the horizon.
Ben slipped from her hold and stepped back.
Her tear-filled eyes gutted him.
“I have to go.” His voice barely scraped above a whisper.
Riding away was like ripping off skin.
CHAPTER 36
The hot mid-August wind rippled across Cora’s dress and skin, tossing her straw hat from her head and down onto her back where it swung at the end of a string. Prairie spread out in front of her. Indian grass, flopping over with its flowery yellow plumes shooting straight up, brushed against her knees as she loped Sandy through the field.
Summer’s heat had long ago withered the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush, but purple cornflowers and orange Indian blanket blossoms with their yellow tips populated patches not dominated by the grasses. Rolling hills extended south toward the Brazos River, but the line of scrub oak along the creek up ahead was the end of Scott land.
Her land. And Charlie’s. And Ben’s if he ever came back. Why couldn’t she have opened her stupid mouth the morning he rode off? Her silence had guillotined any hope for a future with him.
