Page 144 of Head Room

I picked up my device anyway.

I was not a quitter.

Also, I wanted to know what happened.

****

Ransom hesitated at the door, his eyes squeezed shut, though not against the bright sunshine.

When he’d awakened, she’d been gone.And he’d been grateful for the delay in talking to her.

But now, the day more than half done, he was no longer grateful.As much as he dreaded it, he hated putting it off more.

He pushed open the door.

She sat in the chair she favored that gave her good light, her head bent over a froth of white she was sewing.

He sat across from her.The light from the window showed half her face, leaving the rest in shadow.

She looked up at him, her eyes unreadable.

Or was that only to him?Could others read her eyes?

She dropped her head again, returning to her sewing.

It wasn’t going to get any easier by waiting.

“Maggie, what happened last night...shouldn’t have happened...”

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

Enjoy it— Flashes came to him.Sensations, scents, sights.Moments.He couldn’t remember them all...maybe punishment for taking her drunk.When you lost control, losing memories of the pleasures was only a small measure of justice.

“A man doesn’t do something he doesn’t enjoy twice.”He sounded grim to his own ears.“Once might be a mistake, but twice—”

“Three times.”

Jolted, as much by her cool calm as her statement, a flash of memory came to him.Nearly dawn.The gathering light revealing the chafing on her skin from his whiskers, the faint redness on her so-white breasts.Her softness under his tongue...

He cleared his throat.“Three times,” he confessed, “after I told you on our wedding night that you would not have that to expect from me.I broke that vow.But I swear to you.I will show you from now on that you have no such thing to fear from me.”

“Very well.”The needle in her hand never slowed, never faltered.

He should be relieved.

If she didn’t believe him, he accepted that.Only time and him keeping his word would prove to her that she could trust him.

“It’s...I suppose I was glad to be alive,” he heard himself saying.“After the fight with the Indians and...I had too much whiskey, too.And what with being so relieved to be alive.That doesn’t excuse me, I know that.I want you to be sure I know that.”

“Were you?”

“What?What do you mean?”

“Were you relieved to still be alive?Or were you sorry?Were you trying to forget you are alive.”

He had no words, no thoughts.

She waited.Then, slowly, she folded her work, placed it atop the basket she used, then stood, and left the room.