Page 25

A s the hours passed, Rebekah’s mind kept replaying and replaying what had happened in town. She filled two notebook pages with details but found it difficult to concentrate. Ed must’ve sensed her upset, because he’d mostly let her be.

Finally, she’d nodded off against Ed’s shoulder.

And only moments ago, had woken discombobulated to realize they’d almost arrived at the McGraw homestead.

“You all right?” He reached out to place a hand over hers. Almost as quickly, he removed his hand as he turned to pull up on the reins.

His action reminded her of his awkwardness in town. That walk.

Rebekah let her eyes linger on his profile. His protection today went deeper than a promise to Uncle Vess. And that rattled her as much as the shooting had.

“Whoa…” Ed guided the horses to a stop beside the barn. His jaw worked.

As Ed shifted on the seat to get down, a familiar figure caught her eye.

Isaac.

Everything froze inside her, choking her.

His features were as chiseled as she remembered, his stubble rugged as he worked to unsaddle Bullet. He looked up with hooded eyes and hailed them with a single wave.

She waited for the familiar buzzing in her veins.

And felt nothing.

Nothing at all like the way her heart had raced when Ed had held her in his arms in town.

Ed didn’t greet his brother. Suddenly, she was aware of his silent tension. Ed clambered down from the wagon.

Isaac almost looked…dismayed when his eyes flicked her way.

A sense of discomfort surged inside her. Isaac knew about her deception. She’d even proposed to him, but there was no warmth in his greeting.

Her breath caught wrong in her chest. She’d been staring.

Ed was waiting beside the wagon, but he wasn’t looking at her. Just waiting, head down. When she reached out, he took her hand and slowly helped her out of the wagon.

“Hello.” Ed offered the mumbled greeting to his brother without even turning in his direction.

Her greeting for Isaac was laced with determination. “Hello.”

Ed started unloading the wagon, ignoring them both. A gnawing pit formed in her stomach.

That wasn’t the Ed she’d come to know.

Of course. She’d told him she’d written to Isaac, answered his ad. Ed knew things were unresolved with Isaac.

It was time to fix that. Ed disappeared around the side of the barn, and Isaac kept brushing down Bullet, leaving her to stare at his back. She moved closer and then waited.

Isaac didn’t look up. He brushed his horse as if no one in the world were near. As if she weren’t standing there waiting for him to acknowledge her presence.

Maybe this was Isaac’s answer to the question in her letter. She ran her fingers over her hair, hoping curls hadn’t escaped unbidden, then smoothed out the front of her blouse and skirt.

“I haven’t seen you around town. Are you okay?” She leaned around where he worked to move in closer.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” His answer was cool. Lines pulled around his eyes, as if he were haunted by something. He hoisted the saddle from the corral fence, heading for the barn with it.

Rebekah watched him walk away. Ed still lingered out of sight. This was her chance to clear things up with Isaac. Her chance to tell him things had changed.

She lifted her skirt to follow Isaac. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the light inside the barn.

As she stepped behind where Isaac settled the saddle on a stand, he spun and pulled up before he ran into her.

His shirt and pants appeared more worn, less like the polished Isaac she remembered.

Even his signature holster and six-gun were missing.

“I thought you were out there with Ed.” The disgruntled tone in his voice unsettled her.

Rebekah twisted her hands together. “You haven’t been to church lately.”

“No. I haven’t.” He skirted around her, walking back out of the barn, leaving her standing there. Alone.

Her cheeks heated. No heroine in her father’s novels ever had to endure such treatment. Not from the hero. The memory of Ed standing in front of her to block the bullets, wrapping her in his arms, letting her cry on his chest as he held her, intruded on her musings.

Isaac returned, leading his horse. Everything she’d laid bare in those letters…through his silence, it couldn’t be more obvious that he didn’t feel the same way she had.

Hurt throbbed in her chest. And then she thought of Ed, outside.

Isaac shuffled past her and she followed. It had always been like this. Her following him.

“I think we need to talk through things,” she blurted.

“There isn’t anything to talk about.” He cleaned his tack. He didn’t even pause or look at her.

She looked at his face once more. Felt nothing. It made her next words come slightly easier.

“I mean the letters. Especially the last one.” She waited, her heart hammering in her ears.

Ed’s shadow darkened the door. He flicked a glance at her, expression unreadable.

And still her heart responded.

He led the horses inside.

“I put your stuff on the porch,” he said as he brushed past her. He quickly loosed the horses into their stalls, then passed by her again, not looking back as he left the barn.

Her eyes followed Ed as new determination flowed through her. She marched up to Isaac.

He dropped his hand from where he hung the bridle on the barn wall to half turn in her direction. “Those letters.” He kept his head ducked. “They never should have happened.”

She thought of the beautiful, romantic words he’d penned. For one moment, she was torn. She wanted to know whether his feelings had changed when he’d learned of her deception. But it didn’t matter.

This was her answer.

She left the barn. The flare of embarrassment lasted only as long as it took for her to glimpse Ed striding across the field toward a smaller building in the distance.

She hurried after him.

“Ed.”

The breeze blew the words back at her as she hurried after him. Cows lowed from somewhere nearby.

Almost frantic, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Ed!”

As he reached the small porch of what must be his house—she’d never been invited—she saw him go still. He must have registered she was following him.

He glanced over his shoulder, but he was still yards away, and she couldn’t read his eyes. He went inside, and for a moment, her stomach dipped.

But he left the door ajar.

Stepping onto the porch, the rough scratching of sandpaper filtered through the doorway to meet her. She paused at the threshold to catch her breath. In the center of the main room, she spied Ed, muscles working in his arms as he shoved the sandpaper forward and back. He stood amongst the sawdust.

Awkwardness descended on her as he kept working without acknowledging her presence.

She took a moment to catch her breath. And look around.

Neatly stacked planks of wood lined the back wall of the cabin, with a cot along the wall to her right.

The patchwork blanket covering the cot had been pulled up and smoothed over.

To the left of the door, an oak cabinet ran along the wall.

Not far from the cabinet sat a wood stove with a pan hanging on a peg above it.

A basin sat beneath the window, where Ed kept his razor and a bar of soap.

This wasn’t just Ed’s workshop. This was his home.

Warmth spread through her. A warmth that had gone missing when she’d talked to Isaac. All those years, she’d been wrong. It wasn’t Isaac she wanted.

All of it rushed forward inside her. The kiss. Ed protecting her.

She stepped into the room.

The sanding stopped as Ed straightened. When he finally met her gaze, his face wore a resigned expression.

And a bout of shyness hit her.

* * *

Was Rebekah about to let him down?

Ed watched her warily as she stood just inside the cabin. He’d seen the eagerness, the way she’d looked at Isaac when they’d pulled up in the wagon.

Ed had been prepared to spill it all. Because that kiss had made him hope.

Why hadn’t she said anything yet? Her eyes darted to him and away as invisible tension stretched between them.

She moved to his worktable, not far from where he’d been sanding, and gently touched some of the unfinished pieces there.

It wasn’t like Rebekah to hold back. He steeled himself for what she would say.

“I’ve been wanting to see your cabin since it was built.”

He got distracted for a moment by the strands of hair that had come loose to tumble around her face and shoulders. Her words registered as her head turned.

“It’s nice.”

Her skirt swirled through the sawdust as she moved to his bench of tools, leaving a pattern across the floor. He was conscious of the mess, wishing he’d swept up. But she didn’t seem to mind it. Her fingers ran over some of the chisels he used. She sent an admiring but quizzical look to him.

What had happened back there? Had Isaac had a change of heart? Ed couldn’t seem to find his voice, too afraid to ask.

“You don’t mind if I move these tools to look at them, do you?” Rebekah pointed to a pile of clamps.

“You can’t hurt anything. Watch out for the blades.” He stepped over to lean past her, moving them away from her delicate fingers. Just as quickly, he shifted back to settle himself back on his stool.

“What do you use this for?” She held up a chisel.

“It has a lot of uses.” He was so twisted up inside that he didn’t know how to tell her about a chisel and when to use it any more than he knew how to tell her the truth about the letters and his feelings for her.

His glance skittered to his bed in the corner, hoping the letters’ hiding spot underneath the cot offered enough concealment.

He’d stuffed all the ones she’d written there after his confrontation with Isaac.

Rebekah seemed oblivious to the tension vibrating through him. There was only a gentle curiosity in her voice when she asked, “How do you have time to work on pieces like this with all the ranch work?”

She walked to the other side of the cabin and pointed to the chair he’d been working on in hopes of getting the other job at the bakery.