The Horseman

by Jillian Hart

Forgive me, Dillon. Guilt assailed her as she padded down the road. She wanted to turn back. With all her soul she wanted to race into his house, fall onto their bed and make binding, passionate love to him. To never let him go. Ever.

  Each step she took was agony. Every breath was torture. What if she did turn back? What would be waiting for her? Dillon’s rejection? Or his love? And how about the future? No, it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t enough. She never would be. And she loved Dillon too much.

  She had to keep going. Although it felt as if she were breaking from the inside out. And leaving little pieces of her heart, of her soul behind her as she went. With every step she took away from Dillon’s home, she lost more of herself.

  She’d figure out a way to survive. She would exist, grow older as time passed. But live? No, it was impossible. She’d left her heart and soul behind, the deepest and most vulnerable part of her, which was somehow a part of Dillon, too.

  She would always love him. Always be grateful to him. He’d given her a gift far more precious than gold. He’d given her love. He’d shown her what true love was. And that she was worthy of it, for one brief time. Being loved had changed her.

  She would be able to get through the bleak days ahead because of him. Because of the memories he’d given her. And the love that still lived inside her.

  It always would.

  Twilight wrung the last rays of light from the day. A somber sunset of storm clouds and darkness descended upon her, oppressive and lonely.

  Dillon woke in the heavy shadows and knew she was gone. He could feel it. He wasn’t surprised to see the wedding ring on the pillow where she’d left it for him to find, as if to prove that he’d been right all along, that tiny fear inside him that could not be silenced. She’d had enough of this life with him and walked away.

  Why was she doing this to him? It was raw emotion that propelled him off the bed. He grabbed the ring, crushing it in his palm, yanking on his trousers and searching in the thickening darkness for his damn shirt. Where was it? He gave up and grabbed a new one from the bureau drawer.

  One thing was for sure. Katelyn wasn’t going to walk away from him like this. Not now. Not ever. She wasn’t going to keep him strung tight like this, full of doubt that she’d leave him. Not after he’d figured she was going to stay. She was settled. She was happy.

  Hadn’t she lain there beneath him, clinging to him while he pleasured her, moved with him as they came together? Hadn’t she given him all she had, all she was, the same way he’d given her? How could she do this to him? First strip him bare and then drive the dagger in when he was as vulnerable as a man could be?

  He didn’t bother to grab tack from the barn. He called to the brown-and-white pinto, whistling a command to her. She lifted her head from the manger, pricked her ears and took out in a full gallop toward him. He opened the gate, grabbed her by the tuft of her mane and mounted in one easy glide.

  Damn, he was angry. So damn angry he couldn’t remember the last time he had been this mad. The dark hid her trail on the snow, but he knew where she was going. Away. Just away. From him and his love for her.

  He pushed the pinto hard as the darkness claimed the land, but he found her anyway. Walking along the road, head down, hands jammed into her skirt. Wrapped in nothing more than a cardigan sweater over her blue calico dress.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the mare’s hooves on the ice-crusted snow. Her jaw dropped, her eyes pinched and she turned toward town and away from him, her head high. But her shoulders sagged.

  What kind of game was she playing? It was likely to kill him, that’s what. He urged the pinto to a skidding halt and dropped to his feet. That Katelyn kept walking without acknowledging him drove his fury higher.

  He breathed deep, gathered his control and marched right after her. “Going to town?”

  She didn’t look at him and kept going. “I didn’t think you would wake up so soon.”

  “That’s the explanation I get? I want a better one. A good one.” He kept stride with her. What was she doing? “I married you. I gave you everything I have. Everything I am. And this is what you do to me? Leave me without even saying goodbye?”

  It wasn’t what she had expected him to say. Katelyn had anticipated a raging fit. She’d gotten used to her first husband and his temper, but Dillon defied expectation. Fury radiated from him with such force it was a wonder he didn’t melt the snow at his feet. And yet he was calm, solid, steady.

  Was he always a good man, no matter what? Always the honorable man he showed her he was, even when he had lost his temper? Shame squeezed like an iron band tightening around her chest. Her decision to leave was the right one. “I thought it was best to leave this way. While I could.”

  “What does that mean?” He raked his hand through his hair. He wasn’t wearing his hat.

  On closer inspection she realized that his shirt was half-buttoned and his jacket was wide open. He wore no muffle or gloves to protect him from the biting wind, the wind she was too broken inside to feel.

  Had he been frantic? She remembered all the times he’d come looking for her, with an edge of panic in his voice, afraid that she would reject him. Did he understand? Was he going to make her say the words that would drive him away from her forever?

  “I thought you loved me.”

  “I love you more than anything, don’t you see?”

  “No, I guess I don’t. All I see is you running off and leaving me because you’re, what, tired of being a horseman’s wife?”

  “Not tired. No.” This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to let her go quietly. He wasn’t supposed to charge after her and make her look into his eyes and see his pain. “I’ve hurt you. I can see it.” She laid her hand to his cheek, rough with the day’s stubble, as she’d done before she’d walked away.

  If there was any way this could work…she would do anything. Anything.

  “Hurt me? You’re killing me. You may as well have shot me straight through the chest. If I’m not good enough for you, then you should have the courage to say it.”

  “It’s not you, Dillon. Can’t you see?” She swiped at her eyes and hated the wetness she found on her fingertips. “You’ve made me cry. And I can’t cry. Because if I do, then I’m going to feel how much this is tearing me apart, and if I feel that, then I’m going to feel everything else, too. Like how I love you with everything I am. Everything I will ever be. That walking away from you is killing me, too, and I have to. I have to leave.”

  “What are you talking about?” He sounded angry and caring all in the same moment, pulling her close to his chest so he could cradle her to his heart, where she was safe.

  So safe. Where she would never belong again.

  “Darlin’, why do you have to leave?”

  “Because.” She tried to push away from him, but he held her firm. Not cruelly, but gently. As if, even when she was breaking his heart, he kept his vow to take care of her, to never let her go.

  She had to tell the truth. “I can’t give you a son.”

  He froze, his muscles turning to steel. Here it comes, she thought. Could she survive hearing his rejection? Could she endure it if he didn’t cast her aside?

  “My sweet wife, when I married you, I wasn’t looking for a broodmare, some female to breed with.” He cradled her face, holding her so their gazes locked, so she could look into his eyes and down into his soul and feel what he felt for her. “The first time I saw you, I loved you. Just like that. The way the stars shine, just because they do. The way the wind blows, because it has to. I love you and nothing will ever weaken that. Not disappointment, not hardships, not death.”

  “But you’ll come to resent it.” Her hands wrapped around his, trying to break away from his grip. “Time will pass and when there’s no son, you’ll start to blame me. Start to love me a little less. And I can’t stand that. I won’t ever be able to have a child, and so it’s better if I leave now. And you can find someone else, and we
can spare each other all that heartbreak and sadness-”

  “Darlin’, I’m a horseman. I’ve helped with foaling since I was a little boy. I know the way of things, and I figured there was a chance you couldn’t have a child. Why didn’t you come to me with this? Katelyn, I know this is a great sadness to you, but you walking down this road away from me has nothing to do with not being able to have a baby. It has to do with your lack of faith in me.”

  She tore away from him, and he let her go, stumbling on the snow to catch her balance.

  “Oh, that you’ll sacrifice your happiness for mine, is that it?” Oh, he was angry. He felt cut to the center of his soul, and she’d done this to him. The woman he loved. “I have stood by you. I’ve been patient. I’ve been loving, I’ve shown you over and over the man I am.”

  “You’re a good man, Dillon. But trust me, time is going to change things. You want a son, you can’t deny it.”

  “I don’t deny it. I’d like a child. But maybe I’m a man with a big enough heart to love you more. When are you going to realize that? I am one-hundred percent committed to you. Now. Forever.”

  He’s too good to be true. But he was. He was a flesh-and-blood man strong enough to love her without condition. Without end.

  “You can walk out on me, you can take the train far from here but you can’t break this love I have for you. I’m not going to put this marriage aside. I am not going to find another woman to love. It will be you or no one for the rest of my life.”

  “But what if-”

  “No ifs. I will love you through every trial and every sorrow and every happiness to come. But will you? I can’t make you love me, damn it. I’ve done everything I can, and I’ve been wrong. It comes down to this. You either trust me to love you or you don’t. And looking at you, I think I know what your answer is.” He put his hand to his face, as if he were in the greatest agony.

  I’m hurting him. How could that be? Could it be possible that he wanted her that much?

  Why couldn’t she believe him? He was right. It wasn’t his failing.

  It was hers.

  He stood like a warrior of old, after the battle was done. Head down, hands clasped behind him, shoulders straight, legs apart. He was like the night, dark and without hope. A man who had lost everything.

  She placed her hand in the center of his back. There were heroes in real life, men of both strength and kindness. How could she not have faith in him when he had so much in her? Maybe that’s what true love was, a leap of faith. Like swimming out into the ocean and trusting the waves to bring you back to shore.

  It was the hardest thing she had ever done to open her heart, to expose the most tender of places and love this man more than she could ever love herself. To love him beyond doubt and fear and uncertainty. To love him as far as her soul could reach.

  As if he felt the change in her heart, Dillon pulled her tight to his chest, where she belonged for the rest of her life.

  The silvered light of a sickle moon peered behind the edge of a cloud to polish the dark prairie. Snow sheened like a black pearl for miles in every direction, broken only by a dark majestic form watching on a rise.

  “Look,” Dillon murmured, against her lips. “The stallion. He approves.”

  The Spirit Horse lifted his nose, his mane rippling in the restless wind. It was as if he called for the snow to fall in tiny crystal flakes straight from heaven. They whispered like grace over the land and over the two lovers standing hand in hand.

  The horseman saluted him as the horse disappeared into the wind and the night.

  Epilogue

  Seven years later

  Dillon didn’t think he’d ever felt more relieved than when he heard the tiny mewling cries, faint and muffled but strong. Healthy. Was Katelyn all right? And the baby? Did he have a son or a daughter?

  “Stay calm, brother,” Dakota advised as he left his wife’s side to put wood on the dying fire. “Doc Haskins knows what he’s doing.

  “He’d better.” Dillon paced the floor in front of the stairs, back and forth. Damn it, he was a patient man but he’d waited seven years for this moment. He was likely to explode if this went on much longer.

  The instant he heard the bedroom door open, he shot up the stairs and pushed the doc out of the way before the man could speak. Girl or boy, it made no difference as long as Katelyn was all right.

  The first thing he saw was her face, radiant and smiling in the golden lamplight. She was more beautiful to him with every day that passed. Relief left him quaking all the way to the bed, where he went down beside her on both knees. His wife, his beloved wife, was safe and well. The fear knotted up inside him began to unravel. He wanted to bury his head in her lap and give thanks.

  “This is your daughter.”

  His daughter. A pure love so strong it could outshine a summer sun at its height blazed through him.

  Overwhelmed, choking with tenderness, he dropped to his knees beside the bed, gazing at his wife and his daughter nestled in her arms. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

  “Are you disappointed?” A faint wrinkle burrowed into Katelyn’s porcelain brow.

  Still, she had worries? After all this time? Tears stood in his eyes. Love for her brimmed over in his heart. “I’m overwhelmed. More grateful for this miracle than I know how to say.”

  “She is a miracle. I can’t believe after all this time. How lucky we are.” Katelyn leaned the curve of her face into the palm of his hand as he touched her. Sighed with fulfillment when he kissed her tender and true. “I can’t believe this is real. The doctor said long ago this was impossible.”

  “For seven long years, he was right.” Dillon swiped the dampness from her eyelashes before her tears could fall. Happy tears, he knew. Thankful beyond measure. It was how he felt, too. “Sometimes love can make miracles.”

  “You are my miracle.”

  “Nope, darlin’, I’m simply a man.”

  “A good man. My man.” Katelyn kissed his cheek.

  The love she felt for him was endless. He had loved her faithfully and truly for the seven happy years of their marriage. Every day had been better than the last. True to his word, he’d loved her with everything he was, everything he had.

  And she had loved him in return the same way, with her entire soul. Their love together had been enough.

  The doc had been clear. This child was miraculous, and they would have no more. This little girl she cradled in her arms was more than a dream she’d never thought would come true. This newborn with her curls and angel’s face was Dillon’s child. Love, sweet and strong as eternity, glowed within her, for this man and now this daughter, for both were her entire life.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” She paused, savoring his sweet, tender kiss. “It means now we are really going to live happily ever after.”

  “That, darlin’, is a certainty. Because we already were.”

  Dillon eased onto the bed beside her and his solid, wonderful presence stirred her soul. As he always did. As he always would.

  Katelyn savored the comfort of his arm around her shoulder, the closeness of his cheek against hers. And the gift of his love that would shine forever.

  Jillian Hart

  ***

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