Chapter 59
Henrietta’s eyes burned.
He continued before she could speak. “That thought lasted perhaps ten seconds. My treatment of you lasted months. I cannot blame ten seconds for months.”
Her hand tightened around the head of her cane.
Calvin looked at the agreement once more.
Then he tore it in half.
Henrietta startled.
He tore the halves again.
And again.
The paper made soft, dry sounds between his hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Ending the bargain.”
“You cannot erase the marriage by tearing a private agreement.”
“I do not want to erase the marriage.”
The scraps fell across the blanket.
Calvin’s voice roughened. “I want to erase the price.”
Henrietta could not speak.
He gathered the pieces and dropped them into the cold stove beside the bed. “When the rail company pays for right-of-way, you get your five thousand dollars back first.”
“No.”
His eyebrows drew together.
She almost laughed at the familiar indignation. “You do not get to make restitution by issuing orders.”
His mouth opened.
Then closed.
He looked down at the torn paper.
“All right.”
It was perhaps the first time she had ever heard Calvin Brooks surrender a command voluntarily.
He tried again.
“When the right-of-way payment comes, may I repay you?”
Henrietta’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
His shoulders lowered.
“Thank you.”
The words were so simple that for an instant she thought she had imagined them.
Calvin went on. “Not only for the money. For the books. For the ranch. For the ravine. For the fire.”
Henrietta shook her head. “Do not turn this into a list of debts.”
“I am trying not to.”
“Then stop counting what I have done for you.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“All right.”
She waited.
He swallowed.
“I was cruel to you.”
Henrietta’s breath caught.
“I humiliated you at our wedding. I made you feel unwanted in your own house. I took your work and acted as though acknowledging it would diminish me. I let you believe your body made you less worthy of tenderness because I was too proud and too frightened to admit how badly I needed anyone.”
His voice faltered.
He started again.
“When I struck Silas for insulting you, I wanted to tell myself it was about the Brooks name. That sounded safer. But the truth was, I heard him speak about you and wanted to break his jaw before I even knew I had moved.”