But that look had faded as the days went on—until now.
Whatever that man had said to him, it had brought Nate right back to where he’d been. And she couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with the man’s threat—the one Sissy had repeated to her in the general store.
Ruthann opened the door at the top of the stairs. Nate wasn’t in the parlor, but a noise from the kitchen drew her attention. Closing the door, she made her way to the rear of their little apartment.
“Nate?” she asked when she entered the kitchen.
He stood over the table, a hunk of cheese sitting uncut before him. “I thought I’d find us something to eat.”
Ruthann drew out a chair. “Why don’t you sit, and I’ll do that?”
Silently, he sank into the chair. Ruthann found a knife and began slicing the cheese. She retrieved the remainder of the bread she’d baked that morning, along with some butter and jam. “Tomorrow I’ll make something warm and filling,” she said as she slid a plate in front of Nate.
“This is fine.” He picked up a slice of bread, but he didn’t bite into it.
Ruthann sat, but any hunger she’d felt was gone too. She pushed her plate aside and gathered her hands into her lap. “May I ask what happened? When you went after that man?”
She held her breath as Nate set his bread down. When he looked up, he seemed to look right through her. Ruthann said nothing else; she waited patiently for Nate to speak.
“I brought him down and took that pistol from him. But then he got away.”
It was more than that. The inkling Ruthann had earlier grew into something more certain.
She swallowed, twisting her hands together as she tried to figure out how to relay the threat to him. “When he grabbed hold of me by the gunsmith’s, he mentioned something about the entire town finding out what sort of person you were.” She spoke quietly, and Nate closed his eyes in response. “Is that what he said to you too?”
He nodded, his eyes going to his plate.
“I assumed it was something he’d made up to appear more threatening, or that it was foolish gossip Sissy had started and he’d heard.” She trailed off, hoping he might agree.
But instead he pressed his lips together as he looked back up at her, and she could see in his eyes that the man had said the same to him.
And that he knew why.
Ruthann unclasped her hands. Gently, she reached out and laid one hand on Nate’s. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
Her heart ached for him. “Was it something that happened while you were in the cavalry? Was it losing Apollo?” She couldn’t imagine how much losing his horse would have hurt him.
He shook his head. “It’s nothing for you to worry over. What’s done is done, and it isn’t something fit to discuss.” With that he pulled his hand away and stood.
Half alarmed at his brusqueness and half frustrated with his insistence upon keeping it to himself, Ruthann rose too. “I’d like to know. Please tell me about it.”
He gave one decisive shake of his head. “It belongs in the past. I did nothing wrong—far from it, in fact—and that’s all that matters.”
“Of course you didn’t. I know the man you are, Nate Harper, and you’re nothing if not honorable and brave.”
He winced, and Ruthann paused. What had she said to make him look as if she’d wounded him? She pressed her hands against her skirts and decided to come about it another way. “Sissy said something similar to me in the general store the other day. That’s why I thought she might have been sharing some rumor she’d devised about you. Why do you suppose she would say something like that?”
“I don’t know.” Nate ran an impatient hand through his hair, hair that Ruthann normally would have longed to touch, but now she felt . . . distant. As if he’d put up a wall between the two of them, one designed to keep her out.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sighing as he dropped his hand and saw the look on her face. “I imagine Sissy picked up on some gossip and was simply repeating it.”
But where had she heard such a thing?The unanswered question hung between them.
“Perhaps he’s a drifter, coming down from the mountains.” Nate shrugged, but he still wouldn’t meet Ruthann’s eyes. “Can you set that aside for me?” He gestured at his plate. “I’d like to get some work done.”
It was possible that the man was a drifter, Ruthann thought as the door closed behind Nate. And he’d simply picked up on some awful story being told among soldiers who’d known Nate.
