Chapter 30
"You are the strongest person I know."
My first reaction was irritation.
"Don't."
His eyebrows lifted.
"Don't make suffering sound noble."
He considered that.
"Fair."
"I was strong because there was no one else."
"Fair."
"Sometimes I was frightened."
"I know."
"Sometimes I hated Oscar for needing me."
Adrien's expression did not change.
"Only for minutes. But I did."
"I believe you."
"I burned three chairs and cried over a cow."
"You still have one chair."
I looked behind me.
The mismatched fourth chair.
I laughed.
Adrien sat beside me.
"What should I say instead?"
I thought.
"Say I did enough."
He looked at me.
"You did enough."
Tears came before I could stop them.
He sat quietly while I cried.
He did not reach for me until I reached first.
That was Adrien.
By October, frost silvered the grass each morning.
My work at the ranch dropped to two days a week.
The forty-dollar advance had been repaid by August.
Adrien had protested the final four dollars.
I had paid them anyway.
"You are stubborn," he said.
"So I've heard."
"I may regret this."
"Regret what?"
He only looked at me.
I knew then he was preparing to ask.
He waited another week.
Of course he did.
The morning he finally came, Clover was standing near the same fence where Oscar had held her in May.
The cottonwoods were yellow.
Oscar was in the yard throwing sticks for a dog that technically belonged to Mrs. Talbot but had decided otherwise.
Adrien rode in alone.
He dismounted.
I watched from the porch.
There was something in the way he moved.
Too deliberate.
"You look ill," I said.
"Thank you."
"Are you?"
"No."
Oscar stopped throwing sticks.
His eyes narrowed.
Children smell secrets.
Adrien came up the steps.
He removed his hat.
My heart began pounding.
"Rosalie."
"Adrien."
"I had another speech."
"Is it terrible?"
"Worse."
"I'd like to hear it."
"No."
"Then why write speeches?"
"Hope."
I smiled.
He looked toward Clover.
"That was the first thing I noticed."
"What?"
"Her."
I followed his gaze.
"Not me?"
"No."
"How flattering."
"You were on the porch looking as though you might shoot me."
"I did consider it."
"You didn't have a rifle."
"I could have found one."
"I believe you."
He smiled.
Then his face became serious.
"The cow had a rope around her neck."
I waited.
"But the boy was the one holding her."