Chapter 58
Calvin swallowed.
“But none of that made you cruel to me by accident.”
He looked at her then.
“No,” he said.
She had expected resistance.
The absence of it hurt more.
Calvin lowered his gaze to his hands. “No.”
Henrietta continued quietly. “I saved you at the ravine because you were my husband. I went into the office because I would not let Silas take what we had fought for. But I will not remain here because you owe me your life.”
His fingers curled against the blanket.
“I will not remain because my money kept the ranch standing. I will not remain because people would talk if I left. And I will not remain because gratitude has finally made you look at me kindly.”
Calvin’s head came up.
“That is not what this is.”
“Then you must prove it without asking me to guess.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
Then he reached for the agreement.
Henrietta released it.
Calvin unfolded the pages across his lap. His gaze passed over his own handwriting at the bottom—the terms he had demanded, the account of money received, the cold language that had reduced marriage to shelter, name, and obligation.
His mouth twisted.
“I wrote this like I was buying seed.”
Henrietta said nothing.
“I told myself it was better to be plain.”
“You were plain.”
“I told myself you knew what you were agreeing to.”
“I knew.”
“That does not excuse it.”
“No.”
He ran his thumb over the signature line. “I thought if I treated it like a contract, I could not be trapped by it.”
Henrietta’s heart beat painfully hard.
Calvin looked at her. “The truth is, I thought you would despise me.”
She blinked.
He gave a humorless smile. “Chicago heiress comes west and finds a failing ranch, a husband drowning in debt, and a house with a roof that leaked over the stove. I decided what you were before you stepped out of the wagon.”
“And when I disappointed you in a different way?”
His face tightened.
Henrietta did not soften the question.
“When you saw me,” she said, “you looked at me as though the bargain had cheated you.”
“I know.”
“My cane.”
“I know.”
“My body.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“I know.”
She waited.
Calvin opened them again, and there was no defense left in his face.
“I was ashamed,” he said. “Not of you. Of needing you. Then I saw your cane, and I saw how tired you were from the journey, and instead of thinking what it had cost you to come, I thought, God help me, that I had been given another responsibility when I could hardly carry the ones I had.”