Spring, 1903
San Jacinto Mountains, California
She jumped and turned, her braid wrapping round her torso, snapping with the force of her startled temper. “You scared me! I’m only checking on Blue.”
Go away.
Felipe looked at the blue roan stallion peering out at them over his stall door. “Looks fine to me.”
“His left hind fetlock was a little tender today. I want to see if it’s worse.” Let him try to find fault in that.
His eyes narrowed, as if he suspected her of lying. But deceit wasn’t one of her habits. He might accuse her of being too impetuous, too rash, too headstrong—and he did, often—but he couldn’t accuse her of that.
“You aren’t planning on sneaking off to catch up with us out there, are you?” Harsh with accusation.
“No.” Her back teeth snapped together. God, why couldn’t he just take himself off to gloat somewhere else and let her brood alone? Bad enough he’d given her that rending look of pity at dinner. “I haven’t done anything like that in years.”
“Don’t.” The last bit of it cracked as it left his mouth.
So that was what he wanted. One last chance to tell her that she couldn’t, that she mustn’t.
Not anything more tender.
Go away.
“I won’t.” She went to fiddle with a harness on the wall, turning her back to him. “You can leave now that you’ve accused me.”
“Franny…” Softer, almost… beseeching.
This was new. She turned her ear toward him.
“You’re upset,” he finished. He’d come closer, his voice lowering.
“Hardly.” She wouldn’t admit it to him, even if this softness was new. And welcome, to her most secret heart.
He took a step toward her, the straw rustling, and her skin prickling with it.
“Being in the house, doing housework—it won’t be so bad.”
She slapped the harness hard against the wall. Easy for him to say. “Would you want to be stuck in the house, cleaning and cooking and mending, when there’s all of the outdoors calling to you?”
He didn’t answer.
“I thought not.” Of course he wouldn’t understand. He’d never been trapped in a life he didn’t want. She sniffled and rubbed at her nose. He had to leave—now—or she was going to burst into tears in front of him.
“Want me to help you check on Blue?” he asked. Still soft. So soft.
She mustn’t be tempted into revealing her vulnerability, no matter how that softness beckoned her.
“No, thank you.” She forced her voice to a polite flatness, even as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “He’ll likely try to nip you.”
Go away.
If only her thoughts alone would drive him away.
“I don’t mind.” He knew about her tears—she could tell from his tone. If he actually mentioned them aloud, acknowledged that they existed, she might fall apart entirely.
He thought her too fragile for ranch work—she couldn’t cry in front of him and prove him correct. She must always be strong before him.
“You do, actually,” she said, keeping her focus on the harness, a quaver shaking her words, “and then I’ll never hear the end of it. Please”—a little fracture there, on that bit of begging—“just go home.”
She’d never begged him before. Never. She’d taken all his irritation, his anger and met it with a steely determination to prove him wrong.
But his gentleness had her begging. If her pleading didn’t send him away, she had nothing left to fight him with.
Silence. She concentrated on forcing the air in and out, trying to blow away her tears with each exhale.
When he spoke, his voice as infinitely pitying as his eyes had been at dinner. “If that’s what you want.”
Finally. Just go.
She swallowed yet more tears, twisted far enough to give him her profile, and jerked her chin once.
“Franny.” Firmer now. She was tempted to melt into the firmness of that voice. “I can’t leave you like this.”
She pulled tight on the harness, throwing her head back. God, his kindness, after all this time, after wishing so hard for it… It was too much. “Go. Away.” Each word was choked with a sob.
He went then, just as she had asked him to, his footsteps rustling through the straw, only slightly louder than the movements of the stock in their stalls. Fading until there were no sounds but the stock and her breathing in the empty barn.
She sank to the barn floor to cry alone, finally given the solitude she’d demanded from him.
Yet all she could think was: Don’t go.