Terri Reed - The Deputy’s Duty

“You know, I thought I would come home to hear about how you were a wife and mother, happy with your life.” Joe looked hard at the night instead of at her. “How come you never married?”

The lemonade turned bitter on her tongue. How did she tell him the truth? How did she tell him that deep down she had been secretly waiting all this time? For him to come back to her. For him to love her again. For the chance to love him.

She steeled her spine-there was nothing to tell him but the truth. “No man managed to catch my fancy.”

“I imagine a few tried.” His smile was infectious and made her feel valued.

“There were a few,” she admitted. But they were not you. She held the words back. Too much truth. Too much vulnerability. She did not want to get hurt. What were his feelings for her? Caring was one thing, but she could not mistake the fondness in his manner for anything more.

But was it more? She could not assume that it was. She shrugged one shoulder. “Romance for me simply never happened-and then my stepfather fell ill and our lives changed.”

He nodded, as if he were considering what she’d said.

She took a sip of the lemonade, savoring the sweetness. Her blood thundered in her ears, but somehow she dared to ask the one question she needed to. “Why aren’t you married, Joe?”

“Because deep down, part of me was hoping to come home to you.”

Lanna felt the floor tilt and the cup slip from her fingers. Joe’s firm grip curled around the glass cup and cradled her hand. His words echoed within her. Because deep down part of me was hoping to come home to you. It seemed impossible. Unreal. Too good to be true.

And yet this was no dream. This moment was real. His touch was as tangible as the cool crystal against her. Suddenly, possibility glittered like the frosted snow outside. Joe had come home to her.

“I know a lot of time has passed.” Joe lifted the cup from her trembling hands and set it on the windowsill. “We’ve grown up, you and I. We’re both different than we once were. We should be strangers.”

“Yes, we should be. Yet we aren’t.” She knew exactly what he was trying to say. “When we’re together, it is as if time forgot to pass us by.”

“Yes!” But then Joe’s excitement seemed to dim, and he turned to look hard at the night, instead of at her. “I wrote you. You didn’t answer my letters.”

“I was a farmer’s daughter, Joe. You were the new governor’s son.”

“I don’t see how that mattered.”

No, she could see he didn’t. That was her Joe, so sincere and true, always seeing people for what they were.

Except, maybe, for his mother. She could still hear Geneva’s voice, sharp and confident as ever, on Lanna’s first day of work for her. Joe will forget you entirely, you’ll see. He has his choice of some of the finest young ladies our territory has to offer. He’s actually currently quite smitten with a general’s daughter.

She had only been sixteen. She hadn’t been able to understand that Geneva may have been lying to her-that she may have been feeding on a schoolgirl’s most vulnerable fears. But how did she tell Joe about how vicious his mother had been? She tried to explain why she had not written in another way. “You had many new opportunities, first in Helena and then away at school.”

“And you thought I wouldn’t be interested in a country girl like you?”

“Maybe. I was afraid of what would happen. Of how busy you must have been, and that there would be more and more time between your letters. That one day you would forget to write at all. I decided it was better to lose you all at once than one day at a time.”

It was hard to read his reaction. His was a strong face with the proud, high cheekbones and a granite jaw of his heritage. His nose was a straight blade that was almost hawklike, and his generous-cut mouth was bracketed by two dimples that flashed whenever he smiled. On another man his features would have been severe, but the twinkle in Joe’s eyes and his quick grin gentled his face and revealed his emotions, tender and true.

He nodded slowly. Then he turned to face her again, taking her hands earnestly in his. “None of that matters now. We have another chance.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Is there a possibility,” he asked, “that you would allow me to court you?”

“Every possibility in the world,” Lanna replied, as joy uplifted her. It felt right to stand beside him. She felt hope creep back into her soul. Being with him made her spirit shimmer like the thousands of sparkles on the dark snow. She wanted to gather up her dreams like those sparkles and hold them so she never lost them again.

As the sonata came to an end, Lanna took the last step of their last waltz together. “I have to go home.”

“But it’s not even nine o’clock. We’ve had only three dances together and a cup of lemonade.”

“I wish I could stay.” The thought of having the chance to twirl to the music just one more time-or even the chance to simply talk with Joe-sounded like an answered prayer.

But she was the main provider for her family and she had to earn the money they needed to survive. “I have work in the morning. You know how strict your mother is about tardiness. She is unforgiving.”

“You’re working here tomorrow?” He took a step back. “Of course. To clean up after this party.”

“It’s extra hours for this paycheck and we will be particularly grateful this week, as tomorrow our rent is due. My parents depend on me.”

“They are blessed to have a daughter like you. Someone they can always count on.” Joe stopped, fearing he was about to say too much. So much about Lanna had not changed. Her sense of goodness, her sense of duty and her devotion to those she loved. He had been one of that treasured few once. There was nothing on this earth he wanted more than to have her love again.

“Are you mad?” Lanna asked, searching his face for any signs of it. “I know the party has hardly started.”

“Have I ever been mad at you?” Joe thought back through their time together, sifting through one memory after another. He could almost feel the soft press of her body beside him on all of those sleighs and buggies and hayrides. Picking berries with her and talking at ice cream socials and church picnics. There had been nothing but the easy way they always shared-even when they disagreed they had laughed about it.

He brushed a stray silken curl from her face. “I could never be truly angry at you.”

“It feels as if nothing has changed between us, but I have to remind myself that we aren’t in school anymore,” she said. “There is much that has not stayed the same. We aren’t the same.”

“But what matters is still the same.” He could feel the truth in his heart as surely as the floor at his feet-Joe wanted to do more than court her. He wanted to laugh with her again. He wanted to devote the rest of his days to her. He wanted to make her his wife. All he needed was the opportunity to convince her. “Let me take you home.”

Lanna suddenly looked down at her hands. “It’s cold outside. You should stay here where it’s warm.”

“I’m tough. I can handle the cold.”

“I know, but-” Lanna thought of her tiny home in town. What would Joe think if he saw it? Then she realized this was Joe. Still, she found she couldn’t face him when she explained her situation. “I’m afraid the grand ranch house is long gone, just like the thousands of acres of land and cattle.”

“Those things do no matter to me, Lanna. You do.” At that, she looked up at him and Joe reached out to brush a curl from her eyes. It was a tender gesture and matched the solemn emotion in his voice. “I’ll send word to have the carriage readied.”