Nate shut the door, and when he turned, Ruthann was watching him.
“Are you certain you want to go?” She asked the question in the most careful, loving manner possible. There was no hint of reproach or skepticism.
And instead of letting himself pretend that everything was fine, he let out a breath, closed his eyes for a second, and said, “I’m not, at all. But I have no choice.”
Ruthann nodded. “I’d rather you not, but I understand.”
Nate swallowed. He didn’t deserve her. Never in a million years would someone like him deserve a woman like Ruthann. Yet here she was.
He led the way back upstairs. She waited in the kitchen while he changed and retrieved the guns he’d brought home from the Army. They felt foreign in his hands, and the bile rising in his throat when he touched them almost made him give this endeavor up altogether. Only the thought of the entire town laughing at him made him slide the pistols into their holsters.
He could only hope he wouldn’t need them. He’d be fine otherwise. Or he could at least pretend as though he was.
When Nate entered the kitchen, Ruthann pressed a small wrapped bundle into his hands.
“Food. I don’t know how long you’ll be out there, and I don’t want you to go hungry.” She gave him an encouraging smile.
“Thank you.” He added the food to the saddlebag he’d slung over his shoulder. “I ought to go.”
Ruthann wrapped her arms around herself, and Nate wished she’d wrap them around him instead. But he’d put something between them, and he couldn’t push through it, not now. And he feared he never would unless he told her more of what she wanted to know.
But how could he do that? It took everything he had right now to suppress it so he could get through the day. Bringing it out into the open . . . the prospect yawned like a never-ending fall off a cliff. It didn’t deserve the light of day.
Besides, he didn’t know if he could handle the way Ruthann might look at him afterward. What she might truly think of him.
Coward.
The word lurked around the edges of his mind. But he hadn’t gone yellow. He knew that . . . didn’t he?
It was more than he could think about right now. And so with one last look at Ruthann, standing alone with her arms wrapped around herself and her beautiful eyes glowing with a sadness he hoped he hadn’t put there, he slipped out the door.
Chapter Twenty-three
WITH A SUDDEN START, Ruthann awoke.
She lay in bed, her eyes wide and her heart pounding faster than a train across the plains. What had woken her? Perhaps it had been a dream.
