Chapter 21
“You are not allowed.”
“That seems an unreasonable condition of marriage.”
“Then consider it a temporary amendment.”
His eyes closed again.
Henrietta dug her fingers into his shoulder. “Calvin Brooks, if you sleep now, I will drag you all the way home merely to kill you in the cabin.”
One eye opened. “You could not drag me.”
“I pulled you out of a ravine.”
“Fair point.”
“Stay awake.”
His eye closed, but his mouth curved faintly. “You sound like my mother.”
“I shall choose to believe she was formidable.”
“She was.”
Henrietta waited. “Tell me about her.”
The curve vanished.
She thought he would refuse. Instead, after a long silence, Calvin said, “She could ride better than any man within fifty miles and would deny it if you praised her. Said compliments made people lazy.”
“That explains you.”
“She liked roses. Couldn’t grow them here to save her life. Every spring she planted another miserable bush beside the cabin. Every winter it died.”
“Why keep planting them?”
“Because she wanted roses.”
Henrietta smiled into the dark. “I think I would have liked her.”
“She would have liked you.”
The answer came too quickly to be polite. Calvin seemed to realize it and became still.
Henrietta’s throat tightened. She turned her face toward the storm so he would not hear any change in her breathing. “You cannot possibly know that.”
“Yes, I can.”
“How?”
“My mother respected people who refused to be told what they could endure.”
Henrietta said nothing.
Calvin shifted his head slightly. “She would have disliked your father.”
This startled a laugh out of her. “On that point, she and I would have found immediate harmony.”
He seemed about to ask something. Whatever it was, he let it go.
By the time gray light began filtering through the blowing snow, Henrietta’s legs were so stiff she could barely straighten them. Every movement sent fire through her knees and hips. Calvin’s condition was worse. His injured leg had swollen grotesquely beneath the makeshift wrapping, and the exposed toes of his ruined boot looked waxy and pale.
Henrietta touched them. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
She pressed harder.
Calvin’s face did not change.
Her stomach dropped. “Liar.”
He looked away.
“Can you feel this?”
“No.”
She sat back. “We move now.”
His eyebrows rose. “An hour ago I was forbidden to move.”
“An hour ago I could still feel my own feet.”