I hesitated. “Oh, I should—”
“Just stay.”
And so we cooked and ate, talking of what to plant this next week and his thoughts on how to take my fence before the wildwood. He updated me on plans for rebuilding the Browns’ barn and had me tell the entire tale of the saloon, each and every facial tic of the marshal and the outlaws, and then, before I knew it, we’d spent all twilight before the fire, in his home, with such a natural ease and rhythm. Far into the night, he helped me into my slicker. Behind him, his saddle-brown leather bag slumped on the raw oak planks, a train ticket slipped in a side pocket. He’d already planned when to go pick up his new family. My inhale caught inside my chest. The air tinted golden brown, like a blur of linseed oil varnish swept across an oil landscape. That dusk after Magnolia’s wedding the forest was sepia. Crispy, saddle-brown bur oak leaves clattered above, the sun too low to shine through the branches, the forest lifeless and dull. The delicate bones of Magnolia’s wrist as she climbed onto the buckboard, her translucent white veil coiling in the air; the tiny, embroidered bluebells along her wool cape shivering above her spotless white boots. On the bench, Lark had snapped the reins, his lopsided grin tentative, and then they’d left, the buckboard off down the path, my two closest friends forever chasing a different sort of world. I blinked. Back in Stot’s home my gaze fuzzed, his sable bag and train ticket blurry. I didn’t know Magnolia anymore, besides a memory.
“Minnie?” Stot stood before me, straightening my slicker.
“I know how to put on a blasted jacket.”
His hands rested on my top button. “Can you just leave it—it was a nice evening.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. I couldn’t leave it easy and calm, this rhythm that postured as family. Couldn’t let Stot traipse all over my heart, spurs and all. I couldn’t lose another friendship, couldn’t walk that line between destruction and ecstasy. Couldn’t lose ahold of any more pieces of my heart. Before, my heart was playing with a boy. But Stot was a man from his Stetson to his black boots edged in mud. He had strength I’d never encountered before—he was brave andresilient and handsome as the dirt is deep. And I couldn’t even conceive of the capacity at which he could destroy me.
“I can’t do this,” I said, unable to look at him.
He threaded his fingers into the hair at my nape. “What, exactly?”
“Any of it.” I stepped back, hands pressed against the door.
His gaze ran over my face, his expression contemplative. “There’s no hurry, for anything.”
I crossed my arms, held myself together, an ache plummeting in my stomach. How could he say such things, when a train ticket to pick up his soon wife and children waited in his saddlebag? It wasn’t fair to Clara and the children, or to me. I tugged open his door, fled into the atmosphere which just wouldn’t shake free of winter. I strode to the barn, my life speeding forward, as stories do, spiraling into the deep of night like smoke.
Stot caught up with me before the barn, the oil lantern flooding the ground round his boots. He slipped an arm about my waist. “May I follow you on home, confirm no outlaws are waiting?”
I could feel his heat, smell his scent of nutmeg and evergreens. I pushed off his arm, stepped sideaways. “You’ve gotta stop touching me like that.”
“I thought we were taking it slow?”
“That’s what you said.” I held my shoulders. “I said none of it.”
He took off his hat by the crown, scraped his fingers through his hair, sending the black waves askew. “I don’t understand.”
I scoffed. I couldn’t make sense of him toying with me. It wasn’t like him. My heart withered and cracked.
“You’re quick-witted enough to figure it out,” I said. “I’m not fixing to be shucked.”
He pressed his hat back on, closed the distance between us. “Now, you know I don’t take to being spoken of as a scoundrel.”
“Then don’t mislead me.”
He leaned down, the rim round his green eyes gray. “I feel as if I’ve been forthright, with what I want with you.”
I gasped, clutched the barn’s ring doorknob. “When are you marrying Clara?”
“What?” He squinted at me.
“I saw the train ticket, in your satchel.”
He gasped something like a cruel laugh. He scanned the pasture, the faraway black distances. “You’re jealous.”
“You insufferable ass.” I made to yank open the door, but he caught my waist and tucked me up against him. “I said, stop grasping at me all the time.”
He gripped my chin, halting me. “You understand I’m not marrying her?”
Everything paused. “How would I know that?”
“We’ve been together. Far as I’m concerned, you’re mine.” His fingers ran along the line of buttons up my back, sweeping over skin then linsey cotton then skin.
