“I know. Doc Grubbins has been here twice.” She held up her hands. “You probably think me ridiculous to pay a doctor to come look at a horse, but if there’s anything that can be done to save her, I have to try. The doc says she’s probably ill from the blood loss. He doesn’t think anything else was damaged with the birthing, but you should have seen how much she bled. It just wouldn’t stop.” Charlotte’s shoulders slumped.
“Hey, girl. You’ll stand for us, won’t you?” Daniel rubbed behind Calypso’s ear. “When was the last time she stood?”
“A couple hours ago. The last time Odysseus wanted to nurse, though I’m not sure he got a full feeding. If this keeps up, I might need to bottle feed him cows’ milk.”
Daniel surveyed the beast, beautiful with her bands of strong, sculpted muscles that revealed themselves despite the coat of thick hair covering them. “How do you want to go about this?”
“Let me move by her head, and you go to her belly. If I can get her two front legs up, maybe you can coax her back legs into standing.”
They changed positions, and Charlotte prodded the horse’s head up. Using a series of soft words, she got the beast to open her eyes and raise her head. Calypso bumped the foal’s head with her muzzle, then put her front two legs underneath her and tried standing. She let out a strangled whinny, as though the movement hurt. Daniel stayed by her side, but once she got her front legs up, she didn’t have much trouble moving the back ones.
The moment she was upright, the foal latched on to a teat, and the sound of Odysseus’s greedy swallows filled the stall.
“Thank you.” Charlotte rushed to him and threw her arms around his chest.
His arms wrapped around her almost without thinking and drew her close. Did she feel it? The sense of rightness? The peace that flooded him as they stood entwined?
Evidently not, because a moment later she pulled away and looked back at the horses. “She seems to have a little more strength today than she did yesterday, but she still doesn’t like to stand for long enough to nurse. Hopefully the doctor is right, and all she needs is some time to convalesce before regaining her health.”
“Hopefully,” he croaked, the single word grating against his throat.
“I’m sorry I didn’t send word that I wouldn’t stop by your office. I was so busy with Calypso and Odysseus that it slipped my mind.”
“That’s what I rode out to talk to you about.” He just hadn’t realized it needed to be said until he’d seen Charlotte with her horses. “You need to stop coming to my office, and we need to stop going on picnics together. You’ve been conducting yourself just fine around me, and I think you’ve got a good handle on how to act around Andrew. There’s really not more I can help you with.”
“Oh… I…” Charlotte took a step back from him, her shoulders once again slumped. “It was something I did, wasn’t it? I know I’m not very graceful or feminine, but I thought—”
“No, no, don’t blame yourself. It’s just that these…” What did he even call them? “…These pretend flirtations have gone as far as I can take them. I hope you understand.”
He expected her to square her shoulders and give a stiff nod, to thank him for his time and send him off without giving him a hint of what she truly thought. Everyone in the Westin family held their composure well.
But tears filled her eyes, and she slid to the ground. She bent her knees against her chest, and settled her head atop them, her shoulders shaking with soft sobs.
Had he said something unkind? Surely she couldn’t be that upset about not meeting anymore. This was the same woman who had stalked into his office after Robbie Ashton had been arrested, asked to see him, and then given the boy a tongue lashing so severe the rustler had his tail tucked between his legs for the rest of the day.
Daniel had made no professions of love or promises of marriage. And Charlotte never even hinted that she felt more for him than she did for any man she might pass on the street. So why was she sobbing?
He shook his head. He needed to stay out of it. He was already too involved with her.
But instead of stepping backward, his feet moved forward.
“Charlotte?” He hunkered down beside her, and the faint smell of her filled his senses despite the stronger scents of straw and horse and feed swirling around him.
Sister. Just think of her as a sister.
“Charlotte?” He stroked a messy strand of hair away from her face. A poor decision, because now he could see the soft curve of her cheek.
Sister. Sister. Sister. He’d keep repeating it until he believed it. “I’m sorry if I upset you, but I really think—”
“Pa’s dying.”
“What?”
Though she still rested her head on her knees, she turned it his direction. Watery eyes looked at him from a face etched with pain. “I’m not supposed to say anything. Pa doesn’t even want to tell Wes yet, but first the tuberculosis, then almost losing Calypso, now you. I just can’t… I can’t…”
A fresh round of tears welled in her eyes. “Next thing I know, Anna Mae will be out here telling me she’s fallen in love and is moving across the country. Then Sam and Ellie will decide to move, too. And I’ll have no one. Wait…” She gave her head a small shake. “I’m getting ahead of myself because when I marry Andrew, I’ll be the one moving, not everyone else. And then I’ll be alone all over again.”
She reached out and clutched his hand. “Do you think I’ll be able to stay in Twin Rivers until Pa passes if I marry Andrew?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.” He didn’t even understand what she was talking about, not entirely. Agamemnon Westin V dying? Of tuberculosis? It wasn’t possible. The man had been as healthy as always the last time he’d seen him, which had been at the ball.
But that itself was a bit unusual. Mr. Westin was usually in town several times a week, especially since he was on the County Commissioner’s Court. But he’d only come to Twin Rivers a handful of times since his business trip that spring.
Come to think of it, he’d not seen much of the Westin patriarch before that either. Mr. Westin hadn’t gone on the cattle drive last year, but he hadn’t exactly been spending his time in town either. He’d just been up at the ranch working.
At least that’s what Daniel had thought. But what if Mr. Westin had been convalescing instead?
“I’m sorry.” Charlotte sniffled, then wiped her damp cheek with her palm in a gesture that wouldn’t be considered feminine enough to satisfy any of her finishing school instructors. “Look at me. I’ve become an irrational watering pot.”
His arms ached to reach out and draw her close, but he settled for handing her a handkerchief. “There’s nothing irrational about crying over a family member who might die. There’s nothing irrational about crying over the possibility of losing a horse that you paid thousands of dollars for and brought over from another continent.”
She used the handkerchief to dab at her eyes. “So you believe me? About Pa, that is?”
“It seems a little hard to imagine, but I’ve never known you to be a liar.”
“I wouldn’t fault you for not believing me. I wouldn’t believe myself either if I hadn’t seen him collapse on the floor of his office. Then he started coughing. You should have heard him.” She shuddered.
Hang it all. He reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her fully against his side. He could stop himself from comforting her no more than he could stop himself from drawing breath. She curled into him, resting her head on his shoulder as if it belonged there, as if this was one of a hundred other times they’d shared this position and not the first.
He wouldn’t think about how perfectly she fit in his arms, wouldn’t think about the way her scent coiled around him and her hair tickled her neck.
The story of her pa’s illness poured out of her, details about how he hadn’t been away on business earlier that year but had been at a sanitarium. Stories about mounds and mounds of bloody handke
rchiefs that filled entire waste bins.
She sniffed into his chest. “Pa wants to make sure I’m provided for after he dies. That’s why he wants me to marry Andrew so badly. He and the Mortimers have a wedding planned for the first week of September… and… and… I told him I’d marry.”
“You what?” Daniel nearly choked on the words. “Charlotte, you can’t marry Andrew because your father is dying. If you marry him and he’s not the right man, the two of you will have years of suffering ahead.”
“And if he’s the right man, we’ll have years of happiness to share together. There’s nothing about Andrew that makes me think he’s wrong for me. He gave me Duke, after all. If he’s willing to give me such a generous gift, then he must have some feelings for me.”
“If he’s planning to marry you, then giving you that kind of horse isn’t really much of a sacrifice. After you wed, he’ll own it again.”
She looked up at him through teary eyes. “Are you saying he doesn’t care about me even though… even though he’s been kinder to me than any other man my father’s approved of?”
His shoulders slumped. “No, I… I’m sorry. I don’t have the first clue how Andrew Mortimer feels about you, and I shouldn’t have said something so harsh about him.” He didn’t know what he’d been trying to say either. He only knew that it felt like they’d gone right back to that day she’d ridden into town in her sidesaddle, tripped her way into his office, and begged him to help her practice flirting. He’d told her then that she shouldn’t settle for a man she would maybe “come to care about.”
Nothing he’d tried had gotten through to her. Not the tender words he’d spoken, not the way he’d attempted to show her how a man in love should act, not the warnings he’d given about marrying someone she didn’t love.
“How long have you known about the tuberculosis?” he asked.
“I found out two days ago. Then Calypso went into labor.”
“Look at me.” He took her by the shoulders and pushed her away from him enough that their eyes could meet and hold. “If Andrew gets here and it becomes apparent that he won’t treat you well, or that you won’t be happy with him, then you need to refuse to marry him. I know you feel bad because your father is dying, but you’re a wonderful woman. Wonderful and beautiful and fun. You deserve a man who sees that, and who loves you for who you are.”
“No, I don’t.”
“What do you mean?” Everyone deserved that much in a spouse.
“I would have agreed with you before Robbie. But now… Don’t you see? My family has way too much money, which means men will use me to get at that money. Now Pa is dying, and he wants to make sure I’m provided for. That’s not such a bad thing, is it? It’s already my fault we lost those cattle. This will give Pa peace of mind and stop me from making another mistake that hurts the ranch. The Bible says that you reap what you sow. I’m the one who went looking for a husband knowing Pa wouldn’t approve, and this is what I got.”
“The Bible also says God forgives. It says He washes you whiter than snow and separates your sin as far as the east is from the west. That means you don’t have to spend the rest of your life paying for one mistake that you made.”
She looked down and stayed silent.
“You need to tell your family what happened. The truth will set you free, remember?” Though technically he thought Christ was the truth in that verse, and that knowing Him was the part that set a person free. But Christ also taught honesty and trustworthiness to His followers, so he wasn’t doing anything wrong by encouraging her to tell the truth.
Never mind that he was probably the least qualified person in Twin Rivers to be talking to her about the Bible. For whatever reason, God had stopped listening to him right around the time Pa had lost his leg, and God didn’t seem inclined to change that anytime soon.
But someone needed to show her the truth that was sitting square in front of her.
“I can’t tell them.” She shook her head. “They’ll hate me.”
“Charlotte.” He growled her name. There were so many secrets. Wes and Mr. Westin didn’t know about Robbie. Charlotte had only found out about her father’s consumption by accident, and Wes still didn’t know. How many more secrets could the Westin family try keeping from each other?
Then again, maybe he wasn’t any better. How long had he been keeping his feelings for Charlotte secret? Would telling her set him free?
No. The Westins were hurting each other with the damage their web of secrets was causing, but he was keeping his secret as a way of helping. Spouting his feelings would only cause Charlotte more pain and indecision, and likely bring the wrath of Agamemnon Westin V down on them all.
Daniel cleared his throat. “Your father and brother have a responsibility to forgive you after you tell them.”
Like he had a responsibility to forgive Cain for what happened to his own father? Daniel sucked in a breath. Why did he keep comparing himself to Charlotte? They were in two completely different situations, and there was no question in his mind about what needed to happen between her and her family.
“But what if they don’t forgive me?” She twisted her hands together on her lap. “What if Pa goes to his death bed angry at me? Three thousand head of cattle. Do you know how much money I cost them? I never meant for it to happen. I swear I didn’t. I had no idea.”
“God’s grace will be sufficient.”
“What?” She blinked up at him.
“‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.’”
He wasn’t quite sure where the verse came from. Maybe from a group of sermons Preacher Russell had given a few years back. But it certainly applied to Charlotte. “If you tell them what happened, and they don’t forgive you, God’s grace will still sustain you through whatever your father and brother say or do.”
She sniffled. “I supposed you’re going to tell me Paul was in a far worse situation than me when he wrote that.”
“I don’t know.” It was certainly possible Paul had been in prison when he’d written II Corinthians, but he wasn’t a Bible scholar. “But I can promise that whatever happens after you tell your family, God will give you the grace to handle the situation.”
She pressed her lips together and stared blankly at the stable wall.
Could he blame her for not telling them? His parents had taught him and Anna Mae the principles of repentance and forgiveness from a young age. He remembered breaking a clay plate his mother had. Her grandmother had made it decades earlier when the family had lived deep inside Mexico, and she’d painted a lovely scene of a river with mountains rising above it on delicate clay before applying a smooth glaze. It was the only thing Ma had to remember her grandmother by. He and Wes had been sword fighting with sticks in the parlor, both of them ignoring his father’s warning to keep their rough play outside.
He still remembered the sound of the clay plate shattering on the tile floor, still remembered the look of loss on his mother’s face and the tears that had welled in her eyes.
Still remembered his father’s words. We both forgive you, son.
Just like that, both Ma and Pa had forgiven him. No bringing it up later that night or the next day, no making him feel guilty about it for weeks or months or years to come. Just forgiveness, pure and simple.
But Charlotte had never known that type of forgiveness, and Wes probably hadn’t either.
“The apostle Paul must have been a better Christian than me, because I just can’t tell Pa and Wes.” Though quiet, her voice emerged determined. “But as long as I make sure something like what happened with Robbie doesn’t happen again, I don’t need to tell them. The best way to do that is to marry an honorable man. And the best way to give my fa
ther peace before he dies is to let him see me settled with a suitable husband. Andrew Mortimer is the solution to both those problems.”
She was only going to bring herself more pain and sorrow by keeping everything to herself, but it wasn’t his fault she was too all-fired stubborn to listen to reason.
“Did you know Pa has three different wedding dresses for me to choose from hanging in his closet? It never occurred to him that I would say no.”
That sounded exactly like Mr. Westin. “Has he sent out the invitations, too?”
“No invitations. The wedding itself will be a small family affair, probably because he’s so sick.”
Hopefully “family affair” meant only family so he wouldn’t be invited. He couldn’t bear to watch Charlotte pledge her life to another man, especially one she was marrying out of duty more than love.
“Don’t do it, Charlotte. Please,” he rasped.
She drew herself up onto her knees, then reached out with both hands, placing a palm on either side of his cheeks and tilting his head so that he was forced to meet her gaze. “When I look at the choices I have, I feel like this is the best one. Please try to understand.”
A sharp, stabbing sensation knifed through his heart. She thought Andrew was a better choice than him? Or maybe she didn’t think he was a choice at all. After all, he hadn’t voiced his feelings for her. And considering he couldn’t marry her, that was probably good.
So why did her determination to marry Andrew hurt so much?
The warmth of her skin left his face, and she curled back onto his lap, resting her head on his shoulder.
She wanted him to try to understand, but he understood too much, that she might end up unhappy with Mortimer after all, that he couldn’t keep seeing her even if she decided not to marry the wealthy heir, that even now he shouldn’t wrap his arms around her and pull her closer.
But his arms worked themselves around her anyway, settling into the warmth and softness that felt too perfect.
A few more minutes, he told himself. He couldn’t bear to let her go just yet.
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