The memory of what had just happened by the creek rose to the surface. It smarted worse than any physical sort of injury.
“Benton?” Carlisle’s full attention was on him now.
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly.
“That look you gave says otherwise. Normally I’d leave it be, but you’re right. I need the distraction. What’s wrong?” He picked up a saddle hanging over the fence and handed it to Merrick.
He took the weight gratefully. Having something in his hands made it easier to think. Carlisle had married Clara as a mail-order bride. They’d started from nothing and built a life together. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get some advice.
“I don’t know that she thinks much of me,” he finally said, following Carlisle back into the stable.
“You’re wrong. I’ve seen the way that woman looks at you.” He held the door open to the tack room.
Merrick swallowed as he set the saddle down. He’d thought those gazes had meant something too. He turned around to see Carlisle holding out a couple of brushes.
“Take one. Horses can’t do this themselves.”
Merrick chose one, and Carlisle led the way back outside. Scanning the corral, he singled out a horse, led it out of thecorral, and tied it to a nearby post. They went to work with the brushes, and the words tumbled from Merrick’s mouth.
“Hmm,” was all Carlisle said in response.
“I don’t know why I thought this would work. She’s too good a woman for me. It’s no wonder she wants out.”
“It’s not that,” his friend said with absolute certainty.
Merrick frowned. Of course it was. He’d gotten his hopes up for nothing.
“You’ve been married for what, a month?”
“Month and a half.”
“It takes time,” Carlisle said. He straightened and looked back toward his house. “It took Clara and me some time. I was half ready to send her back home.”
“Because of the rustlers,” Merrick reminded him. It wasn’t as if Clarawantedto leave. She was head over heels for her husband. And of course she was. He was everything Merrick wasn’t.
“Right,” Carlisle conceded. “But it still took time. Look at Jeremiah and Deirdre.”
“That girl was pining over him for months beforehand,” Merrick said. “A man would have to be blind not to see that.”
Carlisle laughed. “That goes to show you all situations are different. Mrs. Benton’s expecting a baby, too. A baby she would’ve raised with her first husband, if he’d survived. That’s got to be something she thinks about sometimes.”
Merrick pressed his lips together as he ran the brush over the horse’s hide. There was probably some truth to that statement. But how much? And what could he do about it? He wasn’t her first husband. He couldn’t take the man’s place. And besides, it wasn’t as if Eleanor had seemed terribly troubled over his loss. “I don’t know if that’s it. Given how quickly she came here afterward.”
“People grieve in different ways. Maybe it wasn’t a big loss to her, or maybe it was. Have you asked her about it?”
Merrick shook his head. “Didn’t think it was my business to pry.”
“You won’t know unless you ask,” Carlisle said.
Did he want to know? It made no sense, though. If a lady was grieving her husband, wouldn’t there be tears and such? Today was the first time he’d seen Eleanor look even remotely tearful.
He was pretty certain it had more to do with him than with anyone else.
