CHAPTER
5

“You’re not the reason I spend time with Lewis. He’s worth my attention all on his own.”

Tori couldn’t get the words out of her head. Or the earnestness with which they’d been spoken. They haunted her the rest of the morning as she and Ben stopped at house after house.

She dutifully went through the motions, smiling at the people she met, conversing, selling. She collected orders for future supplies, sold a few small items from her wagon stores, and in two cases, graciously accepted the owners’ wishes not to be visited in the future. She’d known such requests would come. It would be unrealistic to expect success at every stop. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a small ding to her pride each time her business was rejected.

The one request that truly got her dander up, though, came from the rather odiferous bachelor farmer at their last stop. He’d been more than willing to allow her to deliver goods to him if she left her boy at home and drove the wagon herself. The leer accompanying his words left no doubt as to what he intended to buy. She’d briefly fantasized about shooting the lecher with her pocket pistol strictly on principle but decided that having a mother in jail would not be good for Lewis. So instead, she’d marched back to the wagon, ordered Lewis inside, and waited for Mr. Porter to return to the wagon and whisk her away.

Ben had lingered behind, however, waiting until she and Lewis were out of earshot. Then he had a few choice words with the foul fellow. The freighter’s back had been to the wagon, so she couldn’t gauge his expression, but she could certainly gauge the effect his conversation had on the farmer. The man’s expression transformed from one of bawdy amusement, to outrage, to blanching panic. He visibly flinched when Ben raised a hand to tip his hat, obviously expecting a much more violent intent from the motion.

Neither she nor Mr. Porter said a word about the incident as they made their way back to the road. Truth was, they hadn’t spoken much at all since her earlier recriminations. Somehow that made his actions all the more heroic.

He’d defended her. Even after she’d lashed out at him, he still protected her. Whether it was because he cared for her personally or just for women in general she couldn’t be sure, but either way, his actions spoke well of him—further proof that she’d been out of line with her accusations. She’d let her prejudice influence her judgment, allowing her distrust of men to overshadow the truth she’d gleaned with her own eyes over the last year. Ben Porter was a man of honor.

Dependable. Kind. Trustworthy. He’d done nothing to deserve her censure.

“I’m sorry.” She blurted the apology as the wagon dipped into a rut. The jarring motion squeezed the end of the statement into a high-pitched squeak.

Ben glanced her way, his brows lifted. “What was that?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, taking care to enunciate each word, wanting him to hear her sincerity. “For the things I said earlier.”

He made no response, just kept looking at her with an unnerving level of intensity.

“I . . .” She swallowed hard then forced herself to form the words. “I’ve learned to be guarded around men, and sometimes that guardedness leads me to suspect dishonorable motives where there are none.” She dropped her gaze to her lap, his attention too unnerving. “Over the past year, you’ve been nothing but kind to Lewis and to me. I had no reason to accuse you of deception and trickery.”

He remained quiet for a long time. Even turned his attention back to the road. Tori bit her lip. Was he still so angry that he’d refuse to accept her apology? Or had her unthinking words injured him more than she’d thought possible? The man was so large, it was hard to imagine anything as puny as a few words inflicting damage. Yet she knew better than anyone how barbed comments could zing past one’s defenses to slice into the tender places inside.

Contemplating whether or not she should try again to gain his forgiveness, she nearly missed the quiet offering that rumbled between them.

“Thanks for that. The words, I mean. I’ve . . . waited a long time.” He glanced her way, and the raw emotion in his gaze obliterated her well-constructed shield as if it were no more substantial than papier-mâché.

He’d waited a long time for what? Not an apology, surely. She hadn’t wronged him like that before. Recognition of his kindness, perhaps? She shifted uncomfortably on the bench. Had she really never expressed appreciation to him? Surely, she’d commended him on his timely deliveries or thanked him for his efforts in opening new markets for her goods at the very least. Hadn’t she?

Good heavens. Shame lashed her. All this time, she’d been so set on protecting herself, she’d never once considered how prickly her armor made her. Politeness wasn’t the same as kindness. Over this past year, Benjamin Porter had repeatedly bent over backward to help her—offering protection when their town had been threatened by outlaws, seeking new customers when her largest account refused to do business with her after Harper’s Station agreed to take in Stanley Fischer’s runaway mail-order bride. Time and again Ben Porter had gone the extra mile for her, and what had she offered in return? A smattering of porcupine quills in the face every time he came too close.

Why in the world did he wish to court her? He should brush her aside and find a woman who wasn’t so emotionally barren.

An odd moisture gathered in the corner of her eyes. She almost didn’t recognize it. She never cried. Ever. Tears were a weakness that failed to solve problems. But this wetness felt different. The tears blurring her vision hadn’t emerged in response to something that had happened to her, as the pointless tears she’d wept in her youth had done. No, these had spawned from contrition, an altogether different source. And one that apparently had not been drained completely dry within her.

Tori blinked. Again. And again. Desperate to rid her eyes of the moisture that threatened to crest the spillway. Her heart thumped a wild staccato beat against her ribs.

Get yourself under control. You’re out in the middle of nowhere. You can’t afford to be this vulnerable.

Yet a secret longing deep inside urged her set aside her rigid habits. To let her guard down just for a moment and remember what it was like to live without the constant weight of her self-imposed armor.

“I know you’ve been hurt in the past, Tori.”

She closed her eyes against the compassion radiating from the man beside her, fumbling for the shield that used to fortify her so well. She couldn’t relive the past now. Not when her emotions were closer to the surface than they’d been in years.

“I know you’re afraid of being hurt in the future.”

She could feel him looking at her. Feel his gaze like a caress against her sleeve. Her cheek. Her hair.

“I’ll never ask you for details,” he continued, and a tiny coil of tension unwound inside her. “Your secrets are yours to keep or to share as you will. But know that whether we remain simply business partners or someday move to a more personal relationship, I will never think less of you for what you’ve gone through. Whatever happened, you will always hold a place of highest esteem in my eyes.”

The prickle along her arm dissipated, and she knew he’d looked away. She cracked her eyes open just enough to stare at her lap, the sensible taupe fabric of her skirt offering a much-needed anchor to the flamboyant thoughts and feelings splashing about in her mind.

Whatever happened? Ben might think he wouldn’t think less of her, but if he knew the truth, he’d change his mind. How could he not? Her past was ugly. Slashed red with selfishness, disobedience, and willful stubbornness. Sprinkled with a healthy dose of youthful folly and naïveté. And over it all, smeared black with evil. With pain. With betrayal and abandonment.

The only purity that escaped the blackness of that time came from Lewis. She was sure she would have lost her faith entirely had God not seen fit to bless her with a child. Through Lewis, the Lord had proven he really could bring beauty from ashes.

As they drove on in silence, Tori prayed. Prayed that she not be so consumed with protecting herself that she failed to see the needs of others. Prayed that the man beside her would be showered with blessings in reward for his faithful kindness to her and her son. Prayed that somehow the pain that had kept her prisoner for so long would finally release its hold.

The wagon rocked, its rhythmic sway lulling Tori into a semi-doze. Her prayers gradually faded, her mind instead filling with the verses she’d memorized the day Lewis had been born.

“. . . he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound . . . to comfort all that mourn . . . to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”

She believed with all her heart that God had sent Lewis to her for just those reasons—to bind her broken heart, to provide comfort, to turn her ashes into something beautiful that she could be proud of, to plant her firmly back in the Lord and allow her the chance to live righteously moving forward. And with God’s help, her beautiful boy had done just that.

Or she thought he had.

So why did she still feel imprisoned?

Tori slanted a hidden glance at the man beside her. Could it be that God had sent her another messenger to finish the job? A rather handsome, overlarge freighter with kind eyes and a patient spirit?

A little shiver coursed through Tori’s midsection. She named it dread, but that quiet voice deep inside whispered a different label—anticipation.