She didn’t stop until she reached the corral fence and leaned over it, gasping for air.
“Are you okay?” he asked, even though he knew what her answer would be. Maybe someday she’d change her answer.
“I’ll be fine.”
He smiled to himself. She’d varied her reply slightly.
His smile disappeared. “You aren’t going to be sick, are you?”
She spun on him. “Of course not. What do you take me for? I can handle whatever this journey requires.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course you can.”
“I just hope there aren’t fleas.” She made no indication that she might want to walk and he was content to stand near the barn, sheltered from the wind.
He reasoned that this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for and returned to their earlier conversation. “You didn’t get a chance to answer my question before.”
“Really? What question was that?”
He laughed, knowing she knew full well. “I wanted to know what you meant when you said Gordie was all you had left. Seems you gave it as the reason for marrying him.”
She looked past him. “I always thought my mother had died. But Aunt Bea told me the truth. She’d left Pa and me. Only later did she die.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted his hand, intending to pull her close, but the brittleness in her expression made him reconsider.
“Like I said, my pa didn’t have time for me. Taking care of me interfered with looking for gold.”
Nate thought the man might have something to answer for in putting his own pursuits ahead of his daughter’s needs. Besides, if he’d but looked, he would have found the gold right before him—a daughter who longed for love and had so much of it to give. He couldn’t say how he knew that but he did.
Louise continued, still staring into the distance. Slowly her gaze came to his. “Like you, I found a family who cared when I discovered the Porters. And then they were killed.”
Knowing they shared the same sorrowful loss, he pressed his hand to her shoulder.
“Then you left. There was only Gordie, Missy and I. I did what I thought would keep us together.” Again her gaze drifted away. “Then Gordie died. What does a person do when there’s nothing left?” The final words were harsh.
He placed both hands on her shoulders, his fingers clasped behind her neck. He wanted to point out she had him, the baby and Missy, but he understood the depths of her despair. He’d felt it, too, and decided to leave it behind. “You move on. That’s all you can do. Make new plans. Seek a better future.”
Her gaze bored into his. “That’s what you do. I only want something to stay the same. No, that’s not even what I want. I wish people could care enough to stay.”
It was a pointed accusation. But he hadn’t promised to stay. Only to get her safely to Eden Valley Ranch. That’s all she’d asked. Surely it was all she wanted from him.
If she asked for more, would you agree?
He wanted to ignore the niggling voice in his head that asked that question but he couldn’t.
He thought of the land he meant to buy, the work that would require him to be busy every daylight hour and more for more days than he cared to consider. He’d be gone from home much of the time. And as he’d told her, the cabin was far from adequate for a woman and baby.
He couldn’t offer her what she wanted, even if she asked.
“Someday, Louise, you will find that kind of love.”
She jerked from his grasp. “There’s no way you can promise that.”
There was one way...if he was the one to love her and be at her side. Just as he’d vowed before the preacher.
But was that something he could promise?
Chapter Nine
Louise had had enough of fresh air and exercise, even though she’d walked no farther than the corrals. Why had she told Nate she wanted someone to stay? And why had he said she’d find that kind of love? What a cruel promise. Yet it was one she wished would come true.
With someone like Nate?
She knew it wasn’t possible. He meant to move on, make a fresh start, plan a new future. As he’d said, he put the past behind him and looked to the future. She wished she could do the same. It sounded so easy when he said it. But she seemed chained by the past—unfulfilled wishes and dreams, lost relationships and a deep ache that would not let her go.