Summer waned. Life settled into a pleasant, relaxing pattern. Jodee even received a letter from her Cousin Addee in Arkansas, announcing her betrothal. Jodee wrote back, detailing her life in Corbet’s cabin. She thought her penmanship, improved in Arkansas with Addee’s assistance, still looked terrible.
In the fall Jodee took the train to Cheyenne City to visit her father's grave. In the paupers’ yard, his was the only grave marked by a stone. She stood in the cold, remembering the desolate day she found his grave for the first time and imagined him laying under the ground in his stocking feet. Her grief had been so intense she hadn’t been able to leave her hotel room for a week, but when she finally gathered her courage, she knew what she needed to do. She had bought her ticket east. By chance, she met a cavalryman’s wife traveling east with two small children. The woman needed a traveling companion and helper. Avinelle’s letter of reference on Ashton Babcock letterhead secured Jodee safe passage with the woman all the way to the Mississippi River.
Leaving a new pair of boots and a buff-colored hat on her pa’s marker, Jodee returned to Burdeen that afternoon. By nightfall, she lay in her bed in Corbet’s cabin, listening to the crackling fire in the fireplace, smelling the cold of winter coming on, and hearing the yip of a coyote far off in the mountains. Wherever Corbet might be, she thought, closing her eyes, she hoped he remembered that she loved him.
Snow came in November. Bailey urged her to move into town for the winter. They had a spare room. Jodee told him she was content alone of an evening, learning to piece a quilt with fabric scraps gathered from several ladies in town who were coming to accept her. Hobie’s brother Warren furnished her with a primer so she could practice reading by lamplight.
That was where Jodee sat, with the wind lashing the door one night when she heard a horse approaching outside. Cedric and some friends had built her a corral and lean-to shed so she could keep a horse. Thinking he had come to insist she move to town, she got up from her rocker and laid her rifle alongside the door. At the window she lifted the heavy shutter and looked out.
There in the darkness came a hulking figure of a man, hat pulled low, slipping in the snow. His horse waited by the lean-to.
Her heart stood still.
For a second Jodee thought Hanna was right. She had no business living there alone. The man might be anyone. When the door rattled with a pounding knock, her heart leapt.
“I got a rifle aimed at your gizzard,” she yelled in a gruff tone.
When she heard nothing more, she backed away, afraid the intruder might try to kick the door down.
“Jodee?” came a flabbergasted voice, thick with astonishment.
With a cry of disbelief, Jodee discovered her hands all a-fumble. She couldn’t lift the plank from its brackets fast enough. When she finally got it free and dropped it to the floor, the door nearly slammed open into her face. Snow blew inside and swirled as far as the fireplace.
There stood Corbet, his face a study in wonder, his dark eyes wide, his cheeks red with cold. “Jodee?”
Was it really him? Jodee couldn’t believe her prayers had been answered.
Corbet lunged forward and grabbed her. He held her close, hard and tight, as if he didn’t believe it, either. “You’re here?” he said, holding her out at arm’s length to gawk at her.
She pushed the door closed against the cold.
Corbet’s lips pulled back over his teeth in that remarkable smile. She didn’t need to wonder. She didn’t have to ask. He still cared.
She grabbed handfuls of his coat and pulled him close. His mouth came down on hers in a fierce, passionate kiss. She staggered back, felt him steady her, then draw her in against him again to lock her mouth with his.
When he pulled back for air, she laughed.
“Tarnation, Corbet! Where the hell have you been? Sometimes I think you must be as stupid as me, going off somewhere without telling anybody where, same as me, when we should’ve been here all along.”
He laughed so hard it almost looked like he was crying. “I went back to the farm where I grew up. I inherited it, but there wasn’t anything for me there, not without you, so I sold the place. How long have you been here?”
“Since summer.”
He looked around. “It looks like home.” When he looked back at Jodee she saw the anguish she knew only too well at having been parted from him for two years. He had felt it, too. “I was nothing without you, Jodee.”
“Are you back to stay?”
“After you left I nearly went crazy. I never should’ve let you go. I realized I didn’t know where you went. I couldn’t guess where to look for you. I didn’t tell you how much I love you. Will you stay? Will you live with me here?”
She nodded.
“As my wife?”
She went up on tiptoe and kissed him with every particle of her being. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with all her might. This time she wouldn’t let go. She had found her way home to love.
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