“I plan to build a ranch here. It’s an ideal place. Close enough to the railroad, but with its own water source. Near enough to town for necessities, but far enough away to give the cattle room to graze.”
Sophia nodded as he spoke. She didn’t know the first thing about ranching, but listening to him talk about it, she wanted to know more.
She furrowed her brow as he discussed how he planned to slowly build the ranch. Was this why he’d brought her here? To explain his dreams? Perhaps he wanted her to see the place in order to better convey his plans to the ladies who wrote to him. Did that mean he wished her to write the letters, then? She hadn’t intended to do that, and her stomach twisted in a strange way at the thought of trying to convince some stranger to agree to marry this good-hearted, kind man.
“Sophia?” His voice broke into her thoughts as the bird in the pines took flight, feathered wings flying so close that Sophia thought she could reach out and touch their softness with her fingers. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I am. But Matthew . . . Why did you bring me here?” It was best to get to the point immediately. If he wished her to be the letter writer, she’d need to learn more about what precisely he hoped to find in a wife. Even if the idea left her feeling as if she were smothering.
He drew in a deep breath, his chest expanding—and oh, heavens—why was she looking at his chest? Sophia forced her eyes to his face, but that wasn’t much easier, because all she could think then was that some woman from Wisconsin or Connecticut or wherever wouldn’ttrulyappreciate how the deep blue of his eyes looked like the Colorado sky at twilight.
He turned to her then, took another deep breath, and then said, “I brought you here to ask you to marry me.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE SECONDS AFTER HEasked the question seemed to stretch on for a day. Matthew began to think that Sophia hadn’t heard him when she finally spoke up.
“I can’t do that,” she said softly.
He swallowed as despair rose up his throat. This was awkward enough, asking a woman he’d only known for days to marry him, but now she was turning him down, and—
No. She couldn’t turn him down. He hadn’t yet explained himself. Matthew pushed down the utter disappointment he hadn’t expected at all.
“Please, hear me out.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. It felt so natural, cradling her smaller hand within his. He forced his mind away from that thought to what he needed to say. “This is for the best. And I confess I was remiss in not thinking about the repercussions myself. My parents were the ones who brought it up, and I fear they’re right.”
“Repercussions?” she repeated, her eyebrows furrowing.
“To our journey across the desert together.” He waited a moment to see if she understood.
And she did, judging by the way her lips formed a small “o” and her eyes widened. “But you told them nothing happened . . .”
He nodded. “Of course I did. And they don’t doubt me. But what they fear is that as our story makes it way out and travels through town, others might think differently.”
“I told a couple of the girls about it all today, over the noon meal,” she said in a quiet voice. Then she closed her eyes. When she opened them, it was as if recognition had dawned. “I heard them whispering when I left, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“My parents fear for your reputation. And to be honest, Sophia, so do I.” That hardly conveyed the white hot anger that singed his insides whenever he thought of someone saying something untoward about Sophia.
