Chapter 12
She looked at him.
“If the storm eases,” he continued, “you go back to the ranch. Take the rope. Find the horse if you can. Ride for help.”
“And leave you here.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Henrietta.”
“No.”
“I am not asking this time.”
“That is fortunate, because my answer would embarrass you.”
His temper returned in a flash. “I may lose the leg if we sit here.”
“And you may lose your life if I leave.”
“If you stay, we might both lose ours.”
“Then we shall be economical and do it together.”
“Stop that.”
“What?”
“Making light of it.”
Her anger rose again. “Do you imagine I came four miles through a blizzard because I found it amusing?”
“No.”
“Do you imagine I do not know what this costs me?”
“I know exactly what it costs you now.”
“No, Calvin. You are beginning to.”
That silenced him.
Henrietta leaned her head back against the rock. Her breathing hurt now. Every inhale felt edged with cold.
Calvin watched her.
“I misjudged your strength,” he said.
She closed her eyes. “We have established that.”
“No. I mean it.”
She opened them.
His face was turned toward her, stripped of its usual reserve.
“I thought strength looked one way,” he said. “A man who can break a horse. A hand who’ll work through fever. My father riding fence with three cracked ribs because there was nobody else to do it.”
Henrietta said nothing.
Calvin rubbed one gloved hand over his jaw. “I looked at you and saw the cane.”
“And the rest of me.”
His gaze met hers.
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt.
But he did not look away.
“I saw you step down from that train,” he said, “and I thought your father had made a fool of me.”
Henrietta’s mouth went dry.
“I thought you’d last three days,” he continued. “Maybe a week. I thought the first cold night would send you running home.”
“You seemed disappointed when it did not.”
“I was.”
“Why?”
He laughed bitterly. “Because every day you stayed made me look more wrong.”
There was something so perfectly Calvin in the admission that Henrietta almost smiled.
Almost.
He stared toward the storm. “Then you fixed the stove damper.”
“You nearly smoked us to death with it.”
“I knew how to use the damned stove.”
“You plainly did not.”
“You found the feed-store overcharge.”
“It was obvious.”
“It wasn’t to me.”