Jillian Hart - Stetsons, Spring and Wedding Rings

“Thank you, ma’am.” Clara hefted the enormous washbasin from the counter, careful not to slosh dirty soapy water all over the front of her. The scorching sides of the basin seared her fingertips, but she kept going. Suds bubbled and frothed at the basin’s rim, and every step she took, she didn’t take her eyes from the water line. It sloshed with her gait, and a soap bubble lifted and popped in midair.

“Let me get the door for you.” Joseph’s baritone rumbled as if out of a dream.

Not that she had any. No, she had given up dreaming years ago. Her chin shot up, her gaze lifted and her breath caught at his grim expression. He towered over her, taller than she’d remembered, his face dark with shadows and his big, impressive body tensed, as if poised for a fight. This was a side of Joseph she had not seen and had never imagined was there. Gone was his easygoing charm and friendly good humor, replaced by a stoic strength she hadn’t guessed at.

“Th-thank you.” She feared her stuttering and wispy voice betrayed her. Head down, she slipped through the door he held and into the welcoming dark of the porch, but even that disappointed her. There were no shadows to hide in as the door shut with a crisp click. Frost crunched beneath his boots as he followed her to the top of the steps.

She had done her best to avoid being alone with the man. As she scurried ahead of him, her mind wandered. Why had it been him who had happened to be going outside at the same moment she was? How was she going to face him, after leaving him to walk the quarter-mile distance home in the snow?

Shame burned through her like a fire’s blaze, remembering what she had done. Acting more like a spurned schoolgirl than an employee. The water sloshed over the front of her apron, the hot water soaking through her coat, dress and corset to wet her skin. Shoot. She repositioned the basin, wishing she could refocus her concentration as easily. Her every nerve attuned to the man trailing down the steps behind her, his presence as unmistakable as the snowmelt dripping off the roof and onto the back of her neck.

Silence fell between them, uncomfortably loud. It drowned out the singsong dripping of buildings and tree branches. It muffled the watery munch of her shoes on the slushy snow. It penetrated her like an arrow, invading tender flesh. Her hands quaked, sloshing hot water everywhere, as she bent and placed it on the ground. With every breath, awareness of him ebbed through her. Wordless, he halted on the pathway and his big shadow fell across her, hands braced on his hips, emphasizing his magnificent shoulders, and planted his feet, legs spread.

The shadow before her on the moonlit snow drew her gaze, and she upended the basin, hardly aware of the water pooling too close to her shoes. What fascination held her to him? Why couldn’t she pretend he was nothing to her, nothing at all?

“I’m waiting for your apology.” The low notes of his voice struck with displeasure. “You left me standing in front of the other men like a fool.”

She hung her head, feeling the weight of an uncertain emotion, a burden she could not name. Yes, she certainly knew this moment between them would come. Why else would she have avoided him so well the last few days?

Her stomach twisted tight and she straightened, the empty basin banging against her kneecap. She did not feel the bite of that pain, since a greater one grasped her with sharper teeth. Any moment now Joseph was going to say the words she dreaded. The ones that would hurt like nothing she had known. This is what she had wanted to avoid.

“Your being a fool was not my fault.” She faced him, unable to see what was on his countenance, whether it was anger or dislike of her. “Leaving you behind, that was a mistake. I can only apologize. I am sorry. It was wrong.”

“You apologize, and yet you blame me.”

The perfect round of a blinding white moon climbed the velvet black sky behind him, casting him in silhouette. It was a kindness, because she would not have to see that his regard for her had vanished. A regard she had not been able to accept. “You acted as if—”

“As if I were sweet on you? As if I wanted to punch any man who looked at you the way I did?”

His use of the past tense was not lost on her. Pain cracked through her chest. She did her best to ignore it. To draw herself up straight and to pretend she felt nothing for him, nothing at all. “You were acting strangely, Joseph. As if everything you said on that first night were true. We both know it isn’t. It can’t be.”

“I admit I thought you were someone else. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes, thank you.” The crack of pain within her carved deeper into her tender heart. Why was she hurting? It made no sense. She was not sweet on the man. She had not been charmed by him. And if she said that enough times, she was sure to make it become true. “And what is it you wanted to hear, Joseph? That when I met marriageable men like Aiken and Lew, I would try to gain their interest?”

“I’ve hated knowing you were delivering their meals without me there.” A corner of his mouth twitched, but he remained as if in darkness. The only hint of levity was the lilt of his voice. “Maybe I was mistaken. You’ve come back each time without an engagement ring.”

“You’re teasing me now?”

“No. Just myself.” He eased closer, one step at a time, a solemn man of strength with a faint hint of humor crinkling the corners of his eyes. Moonlight graced him, hinting at the straight blade of his nose and his square-cut jaw. “I don’t understand how any man can take a first look at you and not see what I see.”

“What do you see?”

“A cozy fire in the hearth when I come through the front door after a hard day’s work and you waiting for me. A meal on the table and you to talk and laugh with over it.” He pulled the basin from her fingers and tossed it in the direction of the steps. It landed with a distant thud somewhere in the deep shadows.

“You see your own personal maid to tend fires, keep house and cook for you?” Her eyes pinched with honest emotion. “This is why I came for a job, not for a husband. I feel sorry for your betrothed.”

“There is no betrothed. Not yet.” He bit his tongue to keep from telling her the truth. He had already found his bride. Telling that to her only seemed to make her push him away. He laid his gloved hand against the side of her face, and immeasurable adoration glowed within him like the silvered moonlight. “You think I’ve been insincere.”

“Yes. Perhaps you didn’t mean to be.”

“No.” He had been telling her his heart. He let her step away from him, breaking his touch. Nothing could break the emotion glowing within him like an eternal flame. “I haven’t been around a lot of single women my age. I’m short on experience, but you have to know I meant no disrespect.”

“That I do.” Her eyes looked impossibly dark and deep. Her beauty must have enchanted the moon, for its pearled light followed her. “I suppose I can stop trying to avoid you?”

“Good idea, since the house isn’t that large. I might not see you, but I can hear you in the next room. I reckon you can do the same with me.”

“Perhaps.” Noncommittal, she dipped her hands into her coat pockets and pulled out home-knit mittens. She seemed to concentrate overly on the task of fitting her fingers into the warm wool.

Her silence was revealing. A whole range of feelings had moved through him from the moment she had taken Don Quixote’s reins and left him looking like a fool. Humor had been the first one, striking him hard. Impossible not to like a woman who could hold her own against a man. The others had chuckled, calling out advice to him on how to handle a woman, all good-natured stuff about how complicated they were and how smart the city girl was compared to a highcountry mountain man like him.