Chapter Thirteen
Astrong breeze blewas Faith arrived at Aaron’s final resting place. Well, it wasn’t really his final resting place—that was out somewhere on the plains. But this little place by the fence in the church cemetery had a lovely carved cross, and it served as a fine memorial to an even finer man.
Faith stood in front of the cross. A year ago, she never could have imagined any of this—losing Aaron, running the post and telegraph office on her own, a lonely winter with little to eat, and . . . Beau.
Celia was right, she’d decided. Aaron never would have wanted her to live the rest of her life alone, mourning him. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted that for him if it had been her who had perished in that blizzard instead. Her reticence to allow Beau into her life had been something else. Grief, of course, but also fear that accepting him would mean Aaron was truly never coming back. Perhaps guilt at having survived when he hadn’t. And the sense she was betraying his memory if she had feelings for another man.
Aaron had been sogood. He always saw the best in people, never held a grudge, and when the town needed men to create a search party for those who had been out hunting when the first blizzard struck, Aaron hadn’t hesitated to volunteer himself. His giving nature had been what killed him.
For months after his death, she’d asked God why he’d taken someone so thoughtful, so caring, and so generous. He should have taken her instead. Faith tried to be as kind as Aaron, but if she’d been a man, she never would have volunteered for the search party. She would have pleaded her selfish duty to the telegraph instead. Before his death, folks saw her as friendly and vivacious, but in her heart, Faith was often skeptical of people she didn’t know well. While Aaron would offer the town drunk, Otis Ignatius Graham, a warm meal, Faith would secretly wonder why the man simply couldn’t put down the bottle and earn his own meals.
She prayed to be a better person, but never more so than after she lost Aaron. Perhaps this was her opportunity. Beau was not Aaron, but he was a good man. And he cared for her. She would always miss Aaron, but if she tried, perhaps she could set aside her guilt at his death and instead work to be more like he’d been. Thoughtful, giving, open. She could be a good wife to Beau if she let herself.
“Faith?”
She turned and saw Josie standing behind her. Faith’s friend wore her usual long braid and rumpled men’s clothing. She carried a bunch of wildflowers in her hand.
Faith smiled at her. “I thought I’d come visit Aaron for a while.”
Josie pulled away half the flowers from her little bundle and handed them to Faith. “For Aaron. I brought these to lay on Vincent’s memorial.”
Faith took the pretty blue and yellow flowers gratefully and bent to lay them against Aaron’s cross. “Thank you,” she said, laying her hand on the cross. She wasn’t certain whether she was speaking to Josie or to Aaron, but it didn’t matter.
Josie took a few steps toward the cross that memorialized her late husband and laid the remainder of the flowers against it.
“It’s very thoughtful of you to remember him,” Faith said, nodding at Vincent’s cross.
“Someone should. As much as I didn’t care to be married, he wasn’t unkind. And it certainly wasn’t his fault he had the misfortune to die in a place where no one much knew him.” Josie shoved her hands into the pockets of her trousers as she looked at the cross belonging to the man she’d only known—and been married to—for a couple of weeks. “He was a good person.”
They all were, Faith thought. She stood for a time in silence with Josie, each lost in their own thoughts. As much as she hadn’t expected, or even wanted, Beau to come here, he’d breathed new life into her. Each morning, she’d gradually found herself looking forward to the day rather than wishing she could go back to the blissful unconsciousness of sleep. She took an extra moment to fix her hair and bothered to add various herbs and seasonings to the food she made, rather than pinning her locks into a chignon without bothering to look in the mirror and cooking merely for sustenance rather than enjoyment.
Beau had given her life again.
She wished she could do something so extraordinary for him in return. Perhaps she couldn’t, but she could be more purposeful in her quest to be a better person—starting with him.
And she had just the right idea to help assuage his worry and, she hoped, bring him some happiness.
