“Hot. How was Ellsworth?”
“Scared the living daylights out of me.” Her eyes narrowed. So he knew where she’d been, and he hadn’t come after her. She stepped up on the porch. She was going to look him straight in the eye and demand to know why he had led her to believe they might have a future together.
He shifted. “So we’ve established that Dallas was hot and Ellsworth scared the living daylights out of you.”
Shrugging, she looked away. Suddenly her accusations stuck in her throat. Truth was, he’d come back and she’d left. Silence followed the exchange until her nerves stretched thin.
“Where are Tucker and Willow?”
“Tucker’s at the mill, and I would imagine Willow’s with Audrey. Those two have been tight as ticks planning the wedding.”
Jealously mixed with resentment. She should have been here helping them plan. Instead she’d been in Kansas sleeping next to a strange, paste-eating, but oh-so-wise aunt and trying to forget the man standing in front of her existed. She spied the bucket of paint in his hand as he stepped around her. “What are you doing?”
“Painting.”
“Painting what?”
“If you must know, painting my house.”
“Your house.” She turned to look at the renovation again.
He nodded, touching the brush to a corner. “That’s what I said.”
Her heart sank deeper than a rock in a well. His house. He had purchased the house, and he and Susan would be living here? With children. He had children! Bile swelled to the back of her throat. He’d deliberately misled her, told her he wasn’t married. She couldn’t bear it; she couldn’t bear seeing him with another woman day after day, year after year. She couldn’t endure him seeing her hobbling around the town like a pitied spinster. She closed her eyes, taking in drafts of air. But she couldn’t, she simply refused to go back to Ellsworth. “You’re planning to live here?”
He stepped down and propped his ladder against the steps, then hung his bucket of paint on a piece of wire hooked around a rung. Her thoughts churned. Audrey and Willow. They must have known that he’d purchased the house, known it all along, and not said a word to her. What had they hoped? That she would go away, as she had, and stay away? That she would never know that Josh was married to his mysterious lady in Dallas and he actually planned to move here? Raise their children here. Oh, she wanted to strike out, hurt him as much as she was hurting right now. This was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to her. And she couldn’t believe her best friends had betrayed her.
Whirling to leave, she discovered her flight blocked by the ladder.
“Move this thing!”
He started to comply but her anger burst. She shoved the contraption aside but it twisted and tipped. She saw the paint begin to spill and reached out to catch it. Instead she only managed to make it lean worse and splash on her face and down the front of her dress. Josh jumped clear, then back to help her. Their eyes locked and Redlin froze.
Drawing a deep breath, she made a few ineffective efforts to brush off the dripping liquid. Then she spun on her heel and started to descend the steps. She could feel his eyes on her back, on the limp. Tears blurred her vision. Confusion overwhelmed her. She felt…sensed that he had feelings for her. Deep feelings. She’d seen it in his eyes the brief instant their eyes had met. How could he be married to Susan and still have feelings for her? She stumbled and suddenly he was there, lifting her into his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder—the sweet, sweet scent of him—and allowed him to carry her to the side of the house where a can of turpentine and cloth awaited. Gently he began to clean the paint off her face.
“You are one hard-to-figure-out woman, Miss Wilson.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie to you. I told you I would be back. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Why indeed. That would be the question that she would take to her grave, but he couldn’t know how devastated she had been when she was first convinced there was another woman. He had a right to happiness, and if he and Susan…She couldn’t bear the thought of him and Susan.
“You left for Dallas the moment you reached Colorado. Why didn’t you at least write and tell me you were married.”
He held her at arm’s length. “Who said I was married?”
“Adele wrote and told me,” she said.
“That I was married?”
“No. That you left for Dallas the moment you got to Colorado. Or shortly afterwards, I’d assume.”
“I told her to write and tell you.”
“Is this a continuation of your game, Mr. Redlin? Have Adele tell me that you were off to see Susan, prepare me for the time you would bring her here?” She caught her breath on a sob. “Well, I don’t blame you. She’s probably perfect, and I’m not. Two perfect people. With how many children? Two? Three? How could you!” She jerked aside and limped away.
“Children!”
“How many, Mr. Redlin? Five, six?”
He caught up with her and led her back to the turpentine. “You just hold on, young lady. Adele doesn’t know my relationship with Susan.” He lifted the rag and started to scrub her face.
“Ouch…you’re hurting me. And she does know. I told her and the other women that you were writing to a woman in Dallas named Susan.”
“But neither Adele nor the other women knew why, and neither did you. Six kids? I don’t have one child. That’s why I warned you against spreading tales you knew nothing about. You’re lucky I don’t turn you over my knee like a willful child and whup you.”
“You and whose army?”
He scrubbed paint out of her hair. “For the life of me, I can’t understand your fixation on Susan.”
“You can’t understand that I would be concerned that the man I love might be in love with another woman? A woman he wrote regularly, married evidently, a woman he went directly to when the journey ended.” She caught back a sob. “You don’t need to answer. Susan is a whole woman, not a cripple like me. But you couldn’t have known I was a cripple, Josh. You didn’t bother to ask the results of my—” She wiped back tears. “And you’ve made me a disgraced woman, a woman who fell in love with a married man.”
He grasped her shoulders firmly. “Stop right there.”
She resisted. “Let me go!”
He pinned her to his side, holding her tightly until the fight went out of her. “Yes I went to Susan first. Now you’ve heard me say it. Are you happy?”
“No. Why would I be happy about your going to another woman, even if she is your wife?”
“You don’t understand. You couldn’t.”
“I understand why you wouldn’t want to be saddled with someone like me who can never…”
His grip tightened on her shoulders. “Self-pity? Stop it!” His gaze pinned her.
“It’s true—”
He shook his head. “I knew when the surgery was over the chances were you’d never fully regain use of your ankle. Dyson told me, and he wanted to tell you, but I insisted that he allow you hope. Given he was a man who’d had all hope taken from him, he agreed to pray—along with me—for a miracle. There was a small chance the surgery would have prevented a permanent limp, but so small Dyson wouldn’t discuss it. None of it mattered to me. I’d love you if you had no legs, Copper. The question is, will you love me once you know that I’m not the man you think I am? I’m not the Josh Redlin you know. Not even close.”
She stiffened. “Obviously not.” Was he a criminal on the run? A bank robber? What? At this point nothing would surprise her.
“For starters, I’m not Josh Redlin, wagon master, I’m Josh Redlin, preacher. Only problem is, I killed a man. Outright shot him, with his wife looking on.”
Copper caught her breath. “Oh Josh.”
“She came to me for counseling. Her husband was a mild sort, but when he was angered he turned mean. And it seems she angered him a lot. He’d caught her cheating once and nearly beat her to death. The family attended services regularly until the incident, and then he stopped coming. He stayed holed up and got more paranoid every day. She kept coming to me. I did what I could, but she had a heavy burden. God forgave her, but she couldn’t forgive herself. Day after day she showed up asking that I pray with her. One day I told her I’d continue to pray with her, but she’d have to forgive herself before she could put the past behind her. We were walking down the steps of the church following one of our sessions when her husband showed up, drunk and throwing accusations. Claimed we were having an affair. When I tried to calm him he pulled a gun, threatening to blow his wife’s head off.”
“You were unarmed?”
“No. How I wish I had been, but I always carried a pistol. You don’t live in Texas unarmed.” His features tightened. “But I’ve wished a thousand times he’d have shot me. Instinct took over that day. When he shoved me aside and walked up to Susan and pulled his gun and aimed at her head I shot him. In the back.” He paused, rubbing his hand over his chin. “I couldn’t stay at the church after that. All I wanted to do was run. I knew God was aware of the circumstances, but I’d killed the father of four children and I couldn’t forgive myself. I saw clearly the obstacle Susan had faced. That was five years ago. I took to leading wagon trains. I’ve been sending money to Susan and her kids. They’ve had a tough time making ends meet. She recently met a man, and they’re about to be married. I went to Dallas because I knew it was unlikely I’d be back through those parts anytime soon, and I wanted to see for myself that she and the children were going to be fine.” His gaze softened. “That’s why I went to her first. Not out of love, but out of duty. I should have written and told you why, but I didn’t much see how to put something like that in a letter.”
Sweet relief flooded Copper. All this time he’d carried this burden. “Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me about Susan?”
“For the same reason you didn’t trust me enough to stick around. For a long time I didn’t trust anyone. Not even myself. It took a long time to work through the misery; until I met you I hadn’t tried. I’d wallowed in guilt and self-pity, maybe even got a little comfortable there.” He gently pulled her head to his shoulder and held her. “Until I met you, my life didn’t make sense anymore. When I came back and found you were gone, I felt like I did the day I shot Susan’s husband. Sick at heart.”
“You could have told me sooner. I would have understood.”
He eyed her. “Honey, at the time you thought I was Lucifer. If I’d told you then you’d have strung me up by my heels and let wild animals have at me.”
Guilt engulfed her. How certain she had been that he wasn’t trustworthy, that he didn’t return her love. “But apparently you were going to let me stay in Ellsworth. You weren’t coming after me?”
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “I’ve been to Ellsworth—plus the fact that with Audrey and Eli’s wedding coming up, I knew you’d be back any day now. I knew you wouldn’t stay in that town.”
She grinned as he pulled her to kiss him. They exchanged a kiss that rocked her to the core.
With lips still touching, he whispered, “So what’d you think, Miss Wilson? Think a worn-out preacher and a spit-fire can marry and make a good life in Thunder Ridge?”
“If you’re asking me to marry you, yes.”
“I’m asking.”
“I’m accepting.”
She reached to touch his face, his sweet face, her face now. “Forgive me, Josh. I love you so deeply, but I forgot to trust you.”
“I love you, Copper. If I admit when that love happened, I’d have to say the day I first laid eyes on you. It seems we’ll have to both work on trust, but it’s a learned skill.” He smiled. “And we’ll have the rest of our lives to acquire it.”
She turned to look at the house. “You really bought this?”
He shrugged. “I knew the minute I set eyes on you I’d found the woman I want, and I knew there was no way she was going to be her happiest unless she was with her friends in Thunder Ridge.”
He kissed her again with pent-up passion, and Copper knew she would never again let her doubts influence her life. If a limp was the worst this world handed her, she was truly blessed.
Easing back, he smiled. “How do you feel about being a preacher’s wife?”
“But you said—”
He lightly stopped her objections with a finger to her lips. “Reverend Cordell wants to slow down. We’ve talked a lot this week, and he’s convinced me that once a preacher, always a preacher. He’s asked me to take his place, and I’d like to, Copper. I’m ready. I think we’re both ready to put the past behind us, and live life fully.”
Smiling, she lightly traced the outline of his face, the features she loved with all her heart and soul. She didn’t have to pray about the proposal. She had perfect peace with her new future life, and God had already answered all her prayers. She’d be here in Thunder Ridge with Willow and Audrey. And Josh. Wonderful, strong Josh, the man who had shown her the meaning of sacrificial love. The words of the apostle Paul rang in her mind. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
At that moment, Copper couldn’t ask for anything more.