She didn’t fight him. In fact, she gripped his shoulders to steady herself. Her glazed blue eyes barely seemed to notice him, but Cade was acutely aware of the pressure of her hands against his shoulders and the feel of her waist under his own hands. Some wild part of his mind wondered what it might be like to pull her close to him.
He let go of her as soon as she felt secure on the ground, mentally berating himself for even entertaining such thoughts when this woman clearly must have meant something to Lucas.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She shook her head, her gaze coming back to focus on him. “What happened to Mr. Harris?”
Mr. Harris. They couldn’t have been that close if she referred to Lucas so formally. Perhaps she’d had feelings for him that weren’t reciprocated. “It was in late July, so far as I know,” he started slowly. “The fellow who came with a delivery of lumber found him. He was . . .” Cade trailed off, smarting before he’d even spoken the truth.
Miss Taylor watched him, her eyes round and sorrowful, and he hated that he had to speak of something so violent to her. Particularly when he could hardly acknowledge it himself.
Cade swallowed, shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and forced himself to say it. “He’d been murdered.”
Miss Taylor didn’t gasp, as he thought she might. He didn’t have to reach out to keep her from crumpling to the ground. She didn’t press a hand to her mouth, and her eyes didn’t fill with tears. Instead, she blinked at him, and then a shadow of fear crossed her face.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I don’t either. I didn’t know until I received word from an attorney in Cañon City. Last I’d heard, no one knew who . . . caused his death.” He couldn’t bring himself to saymurderedagain. Not in front of Miss Taylor, and not to himself either. The thought of anyone taking his jovial, kind brother from this earth was more than Cade could bear sometimes.
Miss Taylor clasped her hands together as the lowering sun set the blonde tendrils of her hair to a bright gold. If Lucas hadn’t paid her any mind when she clearly cared for him, the reason was lost on Cade.
The curiosity got the better of him. “Miss Taylor, I don’t mean to be indelicate, but may I ask how you knew my brother?”
She pressed her lips together as the fear returned to her eyes. “I didn’t. Not in a traditional way. We wrote to each other. I . . . Well, I was meant to marry him.”
Chapter Three
Mr.Harris—theotherMr. Harris—stared at her a moment. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You met Lucas and exchanged letters and . . .?”
Jolie shook her head, loosening a few more of her curls. She must look a fright after riding such a distance from town on horseback, but that was the least of her worries now. “No, we never met. Mr. Harris had written to a lady I met in Boston. Mrs. Crenshaw. She has a matrimonial agency and—”
“Amatrimonialagency?” Mr. Harris raised his eyebrows as if he’d never heard of such a thing.
“Yes. She collects letters from men out West who are in need of a wife, and she finds ladies such as myself who also wish to marry.” Jolie paused. How could such a thing have happened? She knew she ought to mourn the loss of the man who was supposed to be her husband, but the truth was, she hardly knew him. She felt sad about his death—and particularly about the circumstances—but the all-consuming fear of what she would do next was foremost in her mind.
“I’ve heard of such arrangements,” Mr. Harris said, drawing her attention back to him. “But I never thought . . .” He trailed off, and she wondered what he’d wanted to say. “You were meant to marry Lucas?”
She nodded, and the unfortunate situation she found herself in rose like a panic. “And now I don’t know what to do.”
Mr. Harris’s skeptical gaze softened. “Do you have a place to stay in town?”
A lump rose in Jolie’s throat. She couldn’t speak, but she shook her head.
“Where do you come from?” he asked, tilting his head.
“Massachusetts,” she managed to say. The memory of home, of the house she’d shared in the country outside of Boston with Mama and Papa, of family, choked off any further explanation. A year ago, she’d had everything she could have wanted. And now . . . Here she was, somewhere by herself on the frontier, with no family, no friends, and nothing to her name.
Jolie had never felt so utterly alone. A sob wracked her body, demanding to be let out, and before she knew it, she’d squeezed her eyes shut and tears streamed down her cheeks. Tears for what she’d hoped for with this marriage, tears for Papa, tears for Mama, tears for her home, tears for the life she would never have again.
A hand awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. “There, it’s all right,” Mr. Harris said.
He didn’t know. How could he? Another sob made her shake, and before she could react, a pair of arms had wrapped themselves around her shoulders, and she found her face pressed against Mr. Harris’s shirt. She was so hungry for someone to show her some kindness, that she breathed in the leather and campfire scent of him and let herself cry until she had nothing left.
His arms were still wrapped around her when her eyes flew open. What was she doing? She didn’t know this man, and here she was, letting him hold her close as iftheywere the ones to be married.
Jolie nearly choked on her embarrassment before quickly pulling away. To his credit, Mr. Harris dropped his arms immediately.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pressing wayward tendrils of hair behind her ears and swiping at her blotchy face to remove any trace of remaining tears. “I shouldn’t have—I mean, I apologize for falling apart like that.”
