Chapter 26
“Cora.”
She lifted an armful of wood.
I caught her wrist.
Not hard.
She looked down at my hand.
I released her immediately.
“Sorry.”
She waited.
I struggled for words.
I had built cabins easier.
“I said something stupid.”
“Yes.”
“You could help by pretending otherwise.”
“No.”
“Right.”
Snow drifted between us.
“I don’t want to manage again.”
Her expression changed slightly.
I forced myself onward.
“I can.”
“That is not the same.”
“I know.”
I took a breath.
“I don’t need you because I’m helpless.”
She said nothing.
“I need you because…”
There are things a man can face easier than honesty.
Bears.
Winter.
Guns.
I looked at her.
“Because when you’re gone from a room, I notice.”
Her eyes softened.
I continued.
“Because I listen for your steps outside. Because I buy books I have no interest in reading. Because the cabin feels wrong when you go to town without me.”
Her lips parted.
“I don’t know when it happened.”
I laughed nervously.
“Probably while you were boiling my blankets.”
She looked down.
I stepped closer.
“I spent years believing survival was the same thing as living.”
My voice became rough.
“It isn’t.”
Her eyes shone.
I had gone too far to retreat.
“I don’t want a wife because I’m afraid of breaking my leg again.”
Silence.
“I want you.”
Cora looked at me for so long that my courage began dying.
Then she said, “That is very inconvenient.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“I had prepared several sensible reasons for leaving in spring.”
My stomach dropped.
She continued before I could speak.
“And now you have made them difficult.”
I stared.
“Are you leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty hurt.
But I had demanded honesty from her.
Now I had to survive it.
She set the firewood down.
“I thought coming here would make me safe.”
I nodded.
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“I thought being married would make Elias stop.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
She looked around at the snow, trees, cabin.
“Then I realized something.”
“What?”
“I kept choosing my life based on him.”
Her voice strengthened.
“I ran because of him. I crossed the country because of him. I married because of him.”
She looked at me.
“I don’t want to stay because of him.”
My chest tightened.
“I don’t want to leave because of him either.”
“Then don’t.”
“That is not a decision.”
“It sounds like one.”
She almost smiled.