by Liz Isaacson
“There’s about a hundred and seventy here this morning,” she said.
Marge punched a button on her cash register, and the till popped open. “I can’t wait to see these all displayed at the dance.” She counted out some twenties and handed them to Betsy.
“Thanks.” She folded the money and tucked it in her pocket. “I’m still good to use your trays and stands, right?”
“Of course, dear. I’ll meet you at the community center about an hour before it starts.”
“Oh, I can come get them from you.”
Marge laughed and shook her head. “Nope. I’ll have Culver load them in our delivery van. We’ll see you there.” She looked over Betsy’s shoulder as the bell rang and another customer came in.
Betsy left the bakery, glad she hadn’t had to be there at three o’clock in the morning and then act happy to see people when they came in. Betsy needed a nap, stat.
A few hours later, her bladder woke her, and she stumbled out of her bedroom only to see Knox standing there. He wore his regular farrier clothes, but the apron had been left somewhere else.
“There you are,” he said, holding his position at the end of the hall. She needed to go right to the bathroom, but Knox was on her left, and she was torn. “Taking a nap?”
She ran her hand through her messy hair and tried to laugh. But embarrassment squirreled through her. “Yeah, I was up early this morning.”
“Aren’t we all?” He cocked his head at her, that smile seemingly stuck in place. “Well, I won’t interrupt you. Must be quite the life, napping before ten a.m.”
Betsy felt like someone had poured dry ice down her throat, and it cooled and froze everything it touched. Her vocal chords. Her lungs. Her stomach. She could simply stare at Knox, and blink.
Must be quite the life, napping before ten a.m.
He had no idea that she’d been up late with Georgia as her sister lamented the ill health of one of her potbellied pigs, then up early to get into the pub to practice the cookies. She didn’t need to justify a nap to him, or to anyone.
She retreated inside herself, folded her arms, and forced a laugh out of her mouth. She’d known for about a week how she’d answer his question about what she wanted her futue to look like, but she hadn’t told him.
“I’ll be right back,” she said and started toward the bathroom.
“I was just leaving,” he called after her, and she raised her hand in a farewell wave. Inside the bathroom, she closed and locked the door, her fingers trembling. She pressed her palms flat against the vanity and looked at herself in the mirror.
She was a mess, with half of her hair matted on one side and her skin so pale, she could’ve passed for a zombie.
“Shouldn’t matter,” she said to her reflection. Knox should be able to see her in any condition and find her beautiful. Did he?
She had no idea.
What she did know made her heart ache and tears prick the backs of her eyes. She didn’t want to tell him why she was taking a nap. Didn’t want to include him in the good news that every single cookie had come out perfectly. Didn’t want to share with him that the future she’d seen for herself involved him.
Because now, she wasn’t so sure it did.
Chapter 12
Knox worked in the blacksmith shop, able to juggle hot pieces with his gloves easily. He’d waited in the homestead for at least ten minutes for Betsy to come out of the bathroom, but she never had.
He’d texted her that he hoped he could come up to the homestead for lunch, but she hadn’t responded yet. Maybe she was sick. She hadn’t looked great coming out of her bedroom, and a pang of concern ran through him.
His phone finally chimed, and he glanced at it, expecting to see a Sure, come up for lunch message from Betsy.
Instead he saw, I don’t think so, Knox.
The text was from Betsy, but the response didn’t make sense. He set aside his tools, peeled off his gloves, and picked up the phone.
“I don’t think so?” Instead of sending texts back and forth for the next thirty minutes, he decided to call her. She didn’t pick up, but he got a text from her while the line was ringing.
So she didn’t want to talk to him. Knox may not have had a lot of experience with women, but the messages she was sending were loud and clear.
The physical one she’d sent said, I know the answer to your question now. I know what I want my future to be like, and you’re not in it.
The breath left his body, and he almost dropped his phone just as another text came in.
I’m sorry, Knox.
Her apology seared his eyes, and he didn’t know what to do. If he splashed liquid metal where it shouldn’t go, he knew how to fix it. Reform it. Reheat it. But this pain firing through him couldn’t be quenched with a bucket of water at the end of the bench.
It burned a path through his body, and he seized onto the one thing he thought he could use to get her to change her mind. What about the dance? You asked me to go with you.
He’d pressed his slacks and ordered a black dress shirt and a mask to make him look like the Phantom of the Opera. It wouldn’t be original, but he didn’t care. It was as close to masked as he was going to get, and though Betsy had asked him what his plans were, he’d steadfastly refused to tell her.
I had to be there for the refreshments, she texted. I won’t have time to dance anyway.
What did I do? he asked next, because he had to have done something. Sure, things had been a little strained over the past couple of weeks, but they’d talked them through. Held hands. Went to church together.
Nothing, she sent back.
“Nothing?” he scoffed, the scent of fire and ash choking him. He couldn’t stay here right now, and he hurried to quench the flames and get out of the shop. He marched right back to the homestead, the desire to get a real answer driving him right up the steps and into the kitchen. Betsy sat at the counter with a bowl of cereal in front of her, and she glanced up with surprise when he entered.
“Nothing?” he repeated, holding up his phone. “I don’t believe that.”
She leaned away from her cereal, her hair less matted now though she still wore her pajamas. Several long moments passed before she said, “I don’t want to be a caterer. I don’t want to have my own bakery. I don’t have aspirations to do anything but what I’m currently doing.”
“Okay,” he said.
“No,” she shot back. “It’s not okay. You want me to be more than I am, and for a while there, I thought I did too. But I don’t.” She picked up her bowl, slid off the barstool, and walked over to the sink.
He tracked her every move, wondering when he’d ever given her the impression that she needed to be more than she already was.
“I want to quilt during the day. Or nap. Raise kids. Check homework. Give piano lessons after school.” She wiped her eyes, but her voice remained strong. “The only difference between the future I want and the life I have now is that I need my own house to do it. But I want it to be here on the ranch. I’m going to talk to Rhodes about it today.”
Knox had no idea what to say, so he didn’t say anything.
Betsy lifted her chin. “And I didn’t see you in my future.”
“So you’re going to have a family with someone else?” Knox couldn’t believe he’d asked that. They’d been dating for five weeks, and they hadn’t quite talked about children or marriage or serious things yet.
“I don’t know,” she said, her chin wobbling. “Please, you’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
“Betsy,” he said, feeling very much like he was about to lose control of his emotions. His throat narrowed and closed, and he couldn’t say anything else. The door behind him opened, and Jessie came inside, stamping the snow from her feet.
“Oh, hey, Knox,” she said edging past him. As soon as she saw Betsy, she froze. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Betsy said, her voice much too high. “Knox was just leaving.” She star
ed at him, begging him with those beautiful eyes to just go.
So he did.
That night, Knox stood at his bedroom window and gazed out into the night. It was Thursday night. Second one of the month, which meant Betsy would be in that blasted east stable, playing poker with four other men.
He knew where to find her. He could go see her, demand she tell him what he’d done so he could fix it.
But he didn’t move a muscle, and he knew he wouldn’t be driving back out to Quinn Valley Ranch tonight. Or tomorrow, as he had work at Fern Hollow. His mind flowed over the weekend events, and how everything would be altered now that Betsy had cut herself out of his life.
And what about the Valentine’s Festival? His mask and black shirt had arrived in the mail that day, and they mocked him from his dresser where he’d set the package. Turning suddenly, he went downstairs and around the staircase to the den, practically ripping the door from the hinges he opened it so fiercely.
The dance floor sat in a neat stack in front of him, and he wondered how Logan planned to get it to the community center. He wasn’t home from his job at the library yet, so Knox couldn’t ask him.
Mortie whined at the back door, drawing Knox’s attention away from the dance floor that was a physical manifestation of what he’d lost. He stepped over to the door and let the dog out, Rutabaga trotting over to go with Mortie.
He stood at the back door though it was freezing and hollered at them to hurry up. Mortie had suddenly gone deaf, because the dog took forever to sniff out the right spot and get things taken care of.
Logan’s headlights cut through the darkness as Mortie trotted over, a doggy smile on his face as if he’d done something amazing. “Hey, bud,” his twin said, bending down to scrub his dog. “Hey, Knox.”
“How are we getting the dance floor to the community center?”
Logan groaned as he straightened, bracing one hand against his lower back. “In my truck. You’ll be able to help?”
Knox hadn’t been planning to help, but he wasn’t sure he could go out to Quinn Valley on Valentine’s Day. “Yes,” he said, deciding on the spot that he could take the day off. Rhodes wouldn’t have to know it was because of Betsy, who would also be busy at the community center that day.
“Great.” Logan grinned at him, clapped him on the shoulder, and entered the house, his dog right behind him. “Should we order pizza for dinner?”
Knox closed the door. “Betsy broke up with me.”
Logan spun from the fridge, lowering his phone from his ear. “What?”
“She said she doesn’t see me in her future.”
Logan wore concern on his face, and Knox sure did appreciate it. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “You really liked her, and it seemed like you were getting along.”
“I thought so,” Knox said. “I mean, things weren’t perfect. She made me mad once.”
“Oh, boy,” Logan said. “I can’t even make you mad.”
Knox ignored his brother and said, “Order some pizza. Maybe I’ll be able to think clearer when I’m not starving.”
But the pizza didn’t help. Neither did explaining everything to Logan. And when he went back upstairs to bed, the package with his costume for the masquerade ball continued to mock him.
He lay in bed, wondering if he should simply skip the dance completely. Logan hadn’t been counting on him to help with the floor, and he’d eaten plenty of Betsy’s sugar cookies.
By morning, he hadn’t decided. Sunday, he skipped church so he wouldn’t make a scene in front of all the little old ladies he’d met a few weeks ago. Monday, he worked at Granite Falls, and Tuesday, he managed to spend the day in the stables and blacksmith shop without seeing a single Quinn. He didn’t want to talk about Betsy, and while he wasn’t sure if she’d have discussed their relationship with her older brother, he still stayed in a stall with a horse until Rhodes had left with Flynn.
Valentine’s Day dawned with snow drifting down to the ground, and Knox was glad he didn’t have to drive out to the ranch today. The weather canceled the work on the expansion of the library too, and the brothers enjoyed pancakes and eggs for breakfast.
“Are you going to go tonight?” Logan asked.
“That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?” Knox sighed and speared another wedge of pancake. “I don’t know.”
“I think you should. Everyone will be masked. You haven’t told her who you’ll be. You could ask her to dance.”
“She said she wouldn’t have time to dance.”
“And so that’s it,” Logan said, an undercurrent of disgust in his voice. “You’re just going to let her go?”
“She’s a grown woman. I already went and talked to her,” he said. “That worked for you and Georgia, but it didn’t work for me.” Knox stabbed at his eggs, wishing they were his brother’s fingers.
“She asked me not to tell you this, but….”
Knox looked up, morbid curiosity running through her. “What?”
Logan wouldn’t look at him, and that only drove Knox closer to madness. As if the past week hadn’t been a spectacular kind of torture, with nothing but frustration and no way to release it.
“She asked me to build her a house,” Logan finally said. “I guess Rhodes gave her some land across the street from the cabins just inside the entrance.”
Great, Knox thought. Now he’d have to drive past her house every time he went to work. “Are you going to do it?” he asked.
“I was going to talk to you first.” Logan swallowed, his nerves clear. “I don’t really want to build houses or work on library expansions. Georgia and I have been talking, and I want to buy a ranch of my own.”
Shock moved through Knox like a sonic boom. “A ranch. Wow.”
“I think you can afford this place on your own,” he said. “Right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” His farrier salary was more than enough to pay the mortgage. That wasn’t what he was worried about.
It was the utter and complete loneliness he’d have to endure once Logan moved out.
In that moment, he decided to go to the Valentine’s masquerade ball, and he decided sending up a prayer that he could find another way to get Betsy back would manifest itself before then.
Chapter 13
Betsy sat at the sewing machine, her shoulders aching from the hunched position she’d kept them in for so long. If she let her mind think about anything but the next step in making this dress, she’d deviate to Knox.
She pulled back on the tears as she thought about how he wouldn’t even see this dress. She’d been designing and planning it for the Valentine’s ball for weeks. Now she just needed to get all the pieces put together.
She felt like her whole life had shattered into a million tiny pieces since Knox had walked out the back door three days ago. She’d skipped church that morning, something she knew would have her whole family bunched together in whispered conversations. She expected a visit from her mother and Granny later.
But for now, she just sewed.
The homestead was quiet, only the whir of the furnace kicking on from time to time, and she enjoyed the peace that came from being alone. At the same time, her heart wailed that she’d always be alone now. That she’d had her perfect cowboy’s hand in hers, and she’d cut him loose.
She exhaled and straightened, using the scissors to cut the thread as easily as she’d sliced Knox from her life.
“Stop it,” she whispered to herself. She didn’t want to live her whole life on eggshells, wondering if her husband resented her for simply getting to stay home and “do nothing.” Even if her perspective on that was different—even if she saw homemakers as the hardest job with the least respect, even if she knew mothers held the home together—she couldn’t make Knox see things her way.
He’s never said that, she told herself as she looked at the panel she’d just sewn. The fabric was the color of eggplant skins, deep and dark and mysterious. She wanted it to feel romantic and light
at the same time, so she’d bought cream lace to soften it up a little bit. Her mask covered the top half of her face and extended up into her hair to make an elegant pair of rabbit ears. They too, boasted a deep purple color with cream fur for the inside of the ears.
She’d been so excited about her costume, mostly to see Knox’s reaction to her wearing it. But now, it only made her cry.
She set aside the panel she’d just finished and picked up the next pinned piece. The machine whirred. She kept her focus razor-sharp on the line she needed to stitch, and she didn’t stop until she heard her sisters arrive home from church.
Only then did she line her pieces up along the six-foot table in the multi-purpose room she shared with Jessie. When she went into the kitchen, she found Georgia, Cami, and Jessie pulling boxed cereal out of the cupboards, along with spoons and gallons of milk.
“What are you doing?” she asked, joining them.
They froze, almost as if they hadn’t been expecting her to be home. “Getting something to eat,” Georgia said, exchanging a glance with Jessie.
“I have pizza,” she said. “I just need to bake it off.” She nudged Cami away from the fridge, gently taking the gallon of milk from her sister and setting it back in the door. She grabbed the two pizzas she’d made that morning and backed up. “See?”
“We weren’t sure,” Georgia said. “And you shouldn’t have to cook for all of us all the time.”
Fear stabbed right through Betsy. “I like cooking for all of us all the time.” They couldn’t take that away from her. If she couldn’t feed people, what was her worth? Tears sprang to her eyes and she stepped over to the stove to set down the pizzas.
Her emotions would not be tamed, and she sucked in a breath that sounded dangerously like a sob.
“Oh, Betsy,” Cami said, joining her. She put her arm around her, and Betsy’s vision swam with tears as she set the oven temperature.
“It’ll just be a half an hour,” she said, her voice high and tight.