Chapter 21
The question tightened my chest.
“Then I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“You would?”
“You’re my wife.”
She gave me a sad look.
“That sounds like ownership.”
“No.”
I thought carefully.
“It means I made a promise. Even if we decide the promise changes.”
Her eyes filled with something she quickly blinked away.
Before she could answer, Elias shouted from outside.
“Cora!”
She went rigid.
I stood.
Anger returned with startling speed.
I opened the door.
Cold air rushed in.
Elias sat against the porch post, pale and exhausted.
His ankle had swollen badly despite the wrapping.
He looked less like a gentleman now.
More like what he was.
A man who had gone into another man’s wilderness believing money made him untouchable.
“What?” I said.
“I need water.”
I brought a cup.
Not because I liked him.
Because I refused to become him.
He drank.
Then he looked past me at Cora.
“She’ll leave you.”
I almost laughed.
“You set my shed on fire and got your leg caught in a trap. I’m not taking marriage advice from you.”
“You think she chose you?”
That struck where he intended.
“She chose isolation. Weakness.”
His gaze dropped to my cane.
“Someone she could manage.”
Cora stepped into the doorway.
“Stop.”
Elias smiled.
“Did you tell him?”
“Enough.”
“You chose him because he was broken.”
I felt the words.
Of course I did.
A crooked leg does not prevent a man from having pride.
Sometimes it gives him more of it.
Cora moved down one step.
“No.”
Elias looked pleased.
“Then why him?”
She looked at me.
For one awful second, I wanted her to lie.
To say something noble.
Something that would repair the wound.
Instead, she told the truth.
“At first, because he was far away.”
Elias smiled wider.
“And injured.”
“Yes.”
My jaw tightened.
Cora continued before he could speak.
“I thought a man who had nearly died alone might understand what it means to need another person without owning them.”
I stared at her.
She stepped closer.
“I did not know if I was right.”
Elias’s smile faded.
“But I am beginning to think I was.”
Something inside me shifted.
Quietly.
Permanently.
Elias saw it.
His face hardened.
“You think this ends because some crippled trapper pointed a rifle at me?”
I crossed the porch.
Cora touched my arm.
I stopped.
Elias looked up at her.