“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
“It’s all right.” She smiled again. “It’s only that you caught me by surprise.”
Nate stiffened a little. Itwasout of character for him to ask so many questions, or, for that matter, speak so much. He hadn’t wanted to, not for years. His mind couldn’t piece together how to conduct a regular, innocuous conversation when so many horrors played through his head.
But there was something about Ruthann that made him feel . . . light. The awful things he’d seen were still there, but they felt further away. As if it had become harder for them to touch his life here, with Ruthann.
He swallowed, trying not to feel self-conscious about it all, and raised his eyebrows as if there were nothing else on his mind other than Ruthann and her previous suitors. “Well?”
“Well,” she repeated, her sewing forgotten now. “I was fortunate to have more than one gentleman come to visit me.”
An irrational, intense dislike of every single one of those men shot through Nate.
“They were all decent and kind men. Perfect for any woman, but not for me.” She drew in a deep breath and looked at their intertwined hands.
Thatpiqued his curiosity. “Why is that?”
“Not a one of them quite measured up.”
“Measured up?” He turned the words over in his mind, trying to discern their meaning. “To what? Or whom?”
She raised her eyes then, capturing his immediately. When she spoke, her voice was but a whisper. “To you.”
Chapter Thirteen
THE FOLLOWING DAY FOUNDRuthann scrubbing linens with more gusto than she could have ever imagined she’d pour into routine washing. And yet the constant back-and-forth motion and the ache in her arms helped ease her mind.
Since the night before, she’d been plagued by thoughts that swung wider than a clock pendulum. First, she would be relieved that she’d finally confessed her true feelings to Nate. The next moment, embarrassment took over, and she could hardly believe she’d bared a corner of her soul in that way—particularly since Nate hadn’t responded in kind.
In fact, he’d abruptly ended the evening soon after and had barely said a word to her at breakfast that morning.
But she’d told him. And honesty was good . . . wasn’t it?
Ruthann didn’t know. It was all so confusing. She only wished she knew his thoughts, but Nate had folded up like a stubborn child, reverting right back to the man he’d been when they wed. And for a brief moment last night, things had felt so very normal. As if no time had passed, as if Nate had never left, as if his time away hadn’t changed him at all.
It was wishful thinking to imagine him that joyful, open, carefree boy again. Ruthann knew that. But for the tiniest of moments last night, it had certainly felt that way. Perhaps that’s why she’d been moved to confess why no other man had caught her attention.
