by Jillian Hart
“He’s an ornery one. You come to work him some?”
Thad glanced up at the house, where wide windows glinted with lamplight. “Maybe in a bit. Has Noelle’s last student of the day left yet?”
“Yep. Left a while back,” the young man called over his shoulder before he disappeared with Sunny into the shadowed aisle.
Nerves kicked his stomach. Slushy snow squished and skidded beneath his boots. He clutched the package, going over all the decisions he’d come to. He’d already run it past his ma. Normally he took Aiden into his confidence, but he suspected his older brother was still sour on love and marriage. Best to figure out how this was all going to work on his own.
Ma seemed to think moving into a little cottage next door to him was a fine idea. In fact, there had been no way she could have disguised her happiness at his plans. He knew she was unfulfilled with only gruff Aiden and independent Finn to mother. Hadn’t she been spoiling him too much since he’d come home?
Surely Noelle wouldn’t mind some of that spoiling. The nerves in his gut took another hard kick. At least, that’s what he was hoping. Hadn’t she liked the notion when they’d talked on the ride home last night?
Stop worrying, man. His pulse beat like a runaway train down a steep track with such force, he began to wheeze as he headed up the walkway. The brick stones were wet from snowmelt, as were the steps of the porch.
Noelle. He saw her through the window. She was sitting in an armchair near the hearth with sewing on her lap. Her chestnut hair was loose, framing her lovely face and tumbling over her shoulders. She was beauty itself in a rose-pink dress, looking like spring had come early to this hard land.
His spring.
First off, he had to stop wheezing so hard. He stood on the top step and drew in a calm breath. Now all he had to do was raise his fist and knock on the door and lay his heart, his pride, his dignity and his future on the line. Not a fearsome prospect at all, right?
Just knock. He did it, one knock was all he could manage. He waited, hoping—praying—someone had heard it. He took a step back and tried to buck up his courage for the next difficult event. One thing was for sure, he’d be feeling a whole passel better once she’d said yes and he could relax.
The door swung open and instead of the maid looking up at him, it was his Noelle. “Thad, is that you?”
“How did you know?”
“I recognized your gait and your knock.” She opened the door wider, waltzing backward a few steps, her rose-pink skirts swirling around her ankles. “Come in. My aunt took the girls to town, and Robert is out with Matilda for her first driving lesson.”
He managed to force his feet forward and into the warmth of the house, surprised his watery knees could hold him up so well. “You’re here all alone?”
“Not exactly alone. Sadie’s upstairs cleaning and Cook’s in the kitchen. Would you like some tea? I’ll call Sadie—”
“No.” Had she gotten lovelier overnight? He had never seen her so beautiful, but then he was biased. “No need to go to any fuss. I came to talk to you—”
“About the land sale.” Her smile dazzled him. “Come, sit and warm yourself by the fire and tell me everything.”
“It was good luck mostly.” He closed the door and followed her to the hearth. She moved with grace, as she always did, walking almost as if she saw where she was going. She caught the edge of the chair’s arm with her fingertips and settled into it, waiting for his story expectantly.
He sank down into the chair opposite her. His damp boots squeaked once on the wood floor. Heat radiated over him like his dazzling love for her. His chest cinched so with powerful affection for her, he didn’t see how he was going to be able to get the words out.
Maybe it was best to talk about the land sale, as she’d asked. “It’s a stroke of luck that this section came up for sale. I’ve signed papers too fancy for me to read, and I still don’t believe it.”
“It’s not luck.” She said it with confidence. “That land was intended for you.”
Faith wasn’t what he’d come to talk about, but it was the truth. It had to be the truth. The hard journey of the past five years had led him here, to this shining, shimmering hope. God had been watching over him after all. Knowing that gave him courage.
“I have something for you.” He placed the wrapped package into her hand. “It’s for Valentine’s Day.”
“What? No, this can’t be—”
“It’s for you.” She sure looked surprised. “Go on. Open it.”
“But, Thad I—”
“No arguments.” He was out of words, so he knelt before her. “Aren’t you curious about your present?”
“All right.” Her fingertips inched across the spine of the volume. “Is it a book?”
Thad lifted it for her, because it was heavy. “You’re thinking, this is an odd gift since you can’t see to read, am I right?”
“I can have Matilda read it to me.” She unfolded the paper to reveal the black leather cover.
“No need for that.” He opened the thick vellum pages with care and slid the book onto her knees. “This is one book you can read. It’s raised print. Go on, you can feel the title.”
“It’s the Book of Psalms.” She turned toward him and it wasn’t only tears that stood in her eyes. He saw her heart and her soul, all she was, all wrapped up in surprise and joy. “I love the psalms.”
“You always did.” It did him good to see her so happy. He loved her without end. He would do anything for her. The need to cherish and protect her left him iron-strong. Now all he had to do was ask the question, and she would be his. His intended, his fiancée for all the world to see, and soon enough, his wife.
His wife. That would have brought him to his knees, if he wasn’t there already. “I remember how much you used to love to read, especially your Bible.”
“This is extremely thoughtful. And expensive.”
He brushed the tendrils away from her sweet face. “Go on, give it a try.”
Her sensitive fingertips skimmed over the top of the page and found the raised numeral. Her face brightened until all her heart shone sweetly. “It’s the twenty-third psalm. I can feel the letters. Why, I can read them. ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.’”
“How does it feel to be reading again?”
“It’s an answered prayer.” Happiness filled her completely. “‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.’”
“Glad you like it.”
“Like it?” This is—” She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what it is. It’s—just. Thank you.”
Those tears broke him open completely.
God, if you’re listening, a little guidance would be a help. Thad swallowed, not expecting to be heard for he knew the Lord was busy, but he asked anyway. He covered her hands with his, psalm book and all.
Noelle leaned closer to him, her unspoken question on her face. The soft gray daylight kissed her sweetly, or maybe it was his own love for her making her seem so dear, so perfect in all the ways that mattered.
“Noelle, some things have changed an awful lot in the five years since I’ve been gone. Surely both of us have.” He had to take a pause because his heart was beating as though he was running on a steep uphill slope.
“Thad, you sound so serious.”
“That’s because I’ve never been more serious or more sure.” Nothing had mattered so much before this moment. He gathered up his strength and kept going. “I want the job of making you happy for our lifetimes to come. I want to be with you in those green pastures. Marry me.”
“What? What did you say?”
“Marry me, Noelle.” His tone was complete love and pure wonder. “Be my wife.”
“Wife?” She repeated the word blankly. Her mind was like a midnight fog. Nothing seemed to penetrate it. “You want to m-marry me?”
“You needn’t sound quite so horrified,” h
e quipped. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Isn’t that what we talked about last night?”
“What talk?” Panic crept up her spine like hungry ants at a picnic. Noelle vaguely felt the book slide off her knee and heard the distant thunk as it hit the floor at her feet, but it was hard to notice anything beyond her fears. “Do you mean our talk on the sleigh ride home?”
“That would be the one.” His hands were comforting, his voice soothing. “I don’t want you to be so distraught, sweetheart.”
“I—I—” She couldn’t make any words come. The panic was crawling into her throat now, and a horrible sorrow taking root in her chest. A dark, agonizing sorrow.
“I love you.” His baritone broke through the sorrow. “Surely you know that I do.”
His love for her made it worse. She could hear Shelton’s words echoing in the chambers of her mind. You’re damaged goods, now. What use are you? Henrietta’s loving reassurances after she’d woken up from the buggy accident. I’ll take care of you now. I’ll never consider you a burden. Well-intended words, but even Henrietta, her own father’s sister, had used the word burden.
“I was hoping,” Thad was saying, “that you’d come to love me, too.”
Love him? Love was too pale a word for the deep abiding devotion she held for him. “Y-you are supposed to marry someone else. Someone b-better.”
“Who could be better than you?” He said those words as if he could not see the problem.
Her dear, sweet, good-hearted Thad. Did he truly not understand? What did she say? She longed to throw caution and her very real concerns to the wind. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, accept his proposal and spend the rest of her life as his wife.
His wife. Her soul soared at that very notion. Having the privilege to love and cherish and honor him day by day, year by year for the rest of her life felt like her heaven on earth. Sweet longing filled her with such force, it threatened to lift her right out of the chair.
And what about what Thad wanted? Her joy faded. Her longing vanished. She had to keep her feet on the floor and tight hold of her common sense. A marriage between them would never work. Not if he wanted to realize his dream of running a ranch. She could not help him with that, not the way she once could.
That’s what he hadn’t realized, she thought. He was acting on his past feelings for her. He still viewed her as he did five long years ago when the world seemed full of possibilities and their love unshakable.
She knew better now. She was wiser. If her heart cracked into a million pieces, she had to ignore the pain of it. She had to do the right thing. The best thing for Thad.
And, yes, for her.
He broke the silence. “It shouldn’t take you this long to say yes to marrying me. Not if you want me.”
She withdrew her hands from his—and her heart, too.
“You do love me, darlin’. Don’t you?”
“Love isn’t the question, Thad.” She sat very still, gathering up every bit of might she had and yet it wasn’t enough.
“Then what is the question, darlin’?” So tender his words. So loving.
Sorrow dripped through her. “I c-can’t marry you.”
“You sound so sure about that. Why not?”
Because I won’t trade my dreams for yours, she ached to say. Because I don’t want to be a burden to the one man I love beyond all else on this earth.
Her soul squeezed with pain, making every inch of her ache. She covered her face with her hands, unable to say the truth. Unable to bare herself so fully.
Not even Thad would understand. He would say all the right things, about how her blindness didn’t matter to him, and that was not the truth. It couldn’t be the truth.
She swallowed hard against the burn in her throat. He hadn’t seen her real limitations yet. She had worked extremely hard to adapt to the constraints of her blindness, but he didn’t know that. He only saw what she could do and not what she couldn’t. She had to do the right thing for them both.
“Noelle? Are you crying?”
“N-no.” She would make that the truth. She set her chin and blinked hard against the heat behind her eyes. “I don’t know what else to say to you, Thad. I c-can’t marry you.”
“You haven’t told me why, darlin’.”
His tenderness tore her apart. Fear left her helpless. Truly in the dark, she reached out in prayer. Help me, Lord. Don’t let my words hurt him.
There was no answer, not one in her heart, not one in the darkness. Outside the house another gust of wind slammed against the house, rattling the windowpanes, jarring her soul.
“Tell me, sweetheart, just tell me the truth.”
“Which truth?” She squeezed her eyes shut. Torn, so torn. Saying no to him was like ripping out her soul. “We’re simply not suited, Thad. Not anymore. You said it yourself. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. It’s too l-late.”
“No. No it’s not. I won’t believe it.”
“Please, I—I can’t marry you.”
“But this is our second chance.”
Her eyes were luminous and her face filled with such sweet longing that for one blissful moment he thought she was going to say yes. To tell him that she loved him truly and forever, as he loved her.
He knew he’d thought wrong when she seemed to withdraw from him. The longing slid from her face, her lovely expressive face that would always be so dear to him.
“No.” Her rejection came quietly. Tenderly. She bent forward and her hair fell in a curtain to hide her face and her emotions.
They were not secret to him.
The psalm book lay on its back on the floor between them. He lifted it carefully, dusted it off so it was as good as new and laid it on the small table beside her chair. Although she’d said no to him, the great abiding love he had for her did not fade.
It would never fade.
“Guess I’d best get going, then.” While he didn’t say it as a question, he meant it as one. He watched her carefully. She nodded once, that was all, as if trying to shield her heart from his.
He climbed to his feet, holding his soul still against the pain he knew was coming. Like a lethal blow, there was no pain at first, just the shock filtering through him like cracked ice in his veins. He took a step backward, waiting, hoping, praying she would reach out to him. That she would stop him before he made it to the door.
She didn’t. He opened the door and forced his feet across the threshold. It took all his self-restraint to keep from looking back at her one last time. To keep from reaching out to her when he knew she was hurting, too.
How had this all gone so wrong? He closed the door with a click and let the wind batter him. Snow lashed at him like a boxer’s glove, and still he could not move off the porch. He’d left his heart behind in that room, and he couldn’t leave without her.
What was he gonna do? Stand here forever? He had to get moving before the shock wore off. Before the pain set in and the sorrow with it. It was bound to be bad—he’d experienced this before. He’d ridden away from her once, and he knew the emptiness of living his life without her love. How was he going to manage it a second time?
He started down the stairs, and her words stuck with him. We’re simply not suited, Thad. Not anymore. Not suited? And what did that mean, anyhow? His boots crunched in the slush and snow on the walkway. Big, fat flakes fell from a gray sky as he crossed the yard to the stable. You said it yourself. You’ve changed. I’ve changed.
I haven’t changed that much. He stopped stock-still between the house and the stable, realizing that wasn’t true. Not true at all. How about that? The hardness from years of unhappiness and a tough life on the trail had fallen away somewhere, sloughed off him like a too-large, worn-out coat.
He was no longer bitter and unbelieving. He was no longer thinking God had stopped noticing the troubles of an average man. He no longer believed life was about hard work and that relationships ought to be, too. He’d found himself again—the man he used to be—beca
use of Noelle. Because of her love and God’s grace.
Why had she said no? Why had she turned him down? He’d thought she’d loved him. He’d thought she wanted him to love her.
“Hey, Thad!” Eli called above the rush of the storm. “I saw you comin’. I’ve got Sunny for you.”
“Thanks, Sims.” Thad seized the reins from the younger man, nodding. “You’d best get inside before this gets much worse.”
“Will do. Looks like we’re in for a hard blow.” Eli waved his hand and took off.
Sunny wheeled around, eager to get home and out of the weather. Thad grabbed the saddle horn, ready to mount up, and realized the house was in his view again. There she was, standing in the window, veiled by the bleak snow. His heart turned over. His soul filled with longing.
It’s too late, she’d said.
Too late.
Swift pain like a dagger’s tip to his heart stole his breath and weakened his knees. He took a stumbling step, leaning on the horse’s shoulder for support, and somehow he scrambled into the saddle.
The wind gusted, driving cold that hit like bullets. The snow had turned to rain, soaking him down to the bone. She’d said no to him. He had to respect that, although it tore out his heart.
“C’mon, Sunny. Take us home.”
The mustang obliged, heading swiftly down the road. Lucky thing, since the sorrow was setting in. It wasn’t easy riding away from his dreams a second time.
Noelle listened to the rain sing against the parlor window. The wind lifted and fell like a cello’s haunting tones. The limbs of the hawthorn tree outside the window rubbed against the eaves with a tuba’s low notes. The fire in the hearth crackled in counterpoint to the gusts of wind and beat of rain. It was a haunting symphony, one that spoke of sorrow and regret.
Regret for the lost years between them. Regret that she never had a voice in Thad’s decision to leave. Regret at the years she’d wasted. Regret that there would be only wasted years ahead without real love.
She swiped the last of her tears from her eyes. She knew for certain that she would love only Thad forever. I’m hoping for a wife one day. Someone who sees life the way I do. You work hard, try to do what’s right and at the end of the day rest up for another hard day on the ranch. Her blindness separated them more successfully than her parents’ had. There was no solution to that.