“I am.” He had only the one small frying pan, which now held sizzling beef over the coals. Miss Taylor leaned over the fire and flipped the meat with an expert touch.
“So how was this supposed to work? Your arrangement with my brother, I mean,” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him as he settled himself on the ground.
Miss Taylor sat back, kneeling beside the fire. She smiled wistfully. “I don’t precisely know. Mr. Harris was to meet me at the depot. Then I suppose we would have gone directly to the minister or a judge.”
“But instead you arrived to find no one there to collect you.” Cade’s heart smarted at the thought of Miss Taylor’s assured nature faltering upon learning her intended hadn’t come to retrieve her. He watched her as she speared the meat from the pan, setting it onto his single tin plate, as the tendrils of her hair hid her expression from him. “Most women would have assumed the fellow had changed his mind and gone to the nearest reputable boardinghouse.”
She looked up at him then. “I am notmost women, Mr. Harris.”
“I can see that,” he said before thinking. “I apologize, I meant that as a compliment.”
Miss Taylor smiled. “And I took it as such.” With her cloak wrapped around her hand, she removed the pan from the fire. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll save this grease to fry up cornmeal for breakfast.”
Cade was hardly going to complain about that. After she set the pan aside, Miss Taylor picked up the single plate with its accompanying fork and knife and handed it out to him.
Cade held up his hand. “You eat first.” He was ravenous, but he wouldn’t be caught shoving food into his mouth while a lady sat hungry.
“Thank you.” Miss Taylor began to slice the beef.
As she ate, he stretched his legs out and looked up at the stars that were beginning to show in the night sky. The stars had always fascinated Lucas. At one point, when they were children, he’d borrowed a book from a teacher at school and committed many of the constellations to memory. The only one Cade could remember was Ursa Major, the bear. And the North Star, which he figured didn’t exactly count as a constellation since it was only one star.
“I believe the stars are brighter and more numerous here,” Miss Taylor said, interrupting his reverie. “Orion is spectacular enough to light up the entire sky.”
Cade looked back up, uncertain which group of stars made up Orion.
“Right there. Those three make up his belt.” She pointed slightly off to the right before taking a bite.
The picture formed in his mind, and Cade smiled. He could picture his brother looking up at the same sky from this very spot. It was oddly comforting instead of sad.
“And Cassiopeia looks lovely tonight as well.” Miss Taylor pointed again at a set of stars that made up a sideways letter W.
But Cade found his gaze wandering back to her. “How do you know so much about stars?”
“I find them fascinating,” she replied. “And so I’ve studied them.”
Cade furrowed his brow, but she didn’t elaborate. Miss Taylor took a last bite of beef before handing the plate and fork to him. Cade made short work of what was left.
As he set the plate down, Miss Taylor had her face turned up to the stars again, and he wondered what she was seeing now.
But there was something more pressing on his mind.
“What will you do now?” he asked.
She tilted her gaze back to him, and a frown tugged at her lips. “I don’t know.”
He waited for more, but she rested her chin on her knees and looked off into the distance.
Cade paused, and then pressed on. After all, he could hardly see her off back to town tomorrow without knowing her circumstances. “Do you have a home to return to?”
Miss Taylor sighed. “I do not. My mother has joined her cousin’s family in New York, and I fear there wouldn’t be room enough for me. Although I suppose I could stay a short while, at least until I found work enough to pay for room and board elsewhere. Of course, none of that matters right now.”
She said nothing for a moment, and Cade finally understood. “You don’t have the funds to return back East.”
Miss Taylor nodded before resting her chin on her knees again. “I can write to Mrs. Crenshaw for help, but I have only enough for a night or two at a boardinghouse.”
“Because you intended to be married and live here.”With my brother. Cade found his gaze wandering back to the partially finished house. If Lucas had lived, it would have been finished in time for Miss Taylor’s arrival. In need of finishing touches, of course, but with solid walls, floor, and roof. A place to begin a life together.
Grief clawed at Cade’s heart, and he swallowed it down. Miss Taylor’s situation was dire enough. She hardly needed him mourning his brother in plain sight. Instead, he stood and dusted off his trousers.
