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Miserable, she leaned against the closed door to her new bedroom as if it could keep all of the ghosts away. She’d had such high hopes of finding happiness in this wild place. Memories of her childhood home were ones she’d breathed for in the darkest days of Aunt Elizabeth’s care. It had taken years to carefully tend and grow the courage that led her to escape society and seek out a relationship with Roy again. She’d dreamed of how this time would be, and within days all her hopes had tumbled into the mouth of an insurmountable confusion.
Roy was healing somewhere out of her reach, and now she was married to a cold and callous stranger. The war between the memories of her childhood friend and the man Garret had become weighed on her heart. She felt so sassy and argumentative around him, almost as if he drew out the very worst in her. And she suspected she drew out the worst in him as well.
Marriage wasn’t supposed to be like this, surely.
He wouldn’t care that she’d chosen a different room. He’d made it clear he wouldn’t enjoy sharing her marriage bed. How could he enjoy intimacy with someone he loathed? A combination of worry for Roy, fear of an uncertain future, and anger at an unwanted marriage to someone who would surely break her where Aunt Elizabeth had failed turned her stomach into knots.
Biting her lip against tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, she finished unpacking her belongings in an empty chest of drawers, then lay on her new bed to quietly overthink herself to sleep. This life was raw and surreal, and certainly not what she’d thought it would be.
She’d made a mistake in leaving Boston.
****
Eliza opened her eyes to darkness. Her ears prickled with the eerie silence of an empty house. Garret could be sleeping, but more likely, hadn’t come back from the ranch’s frantic attempt to ready everything to drive the cattle in the morning. Cookie had told her this was Garret’s first time heading up the drive, and a lot rode on it since this would be the first step in saving the ranch. If it didn’t go well, or they didn’t get the price they needed, the ranch ran the risk of going under. And fast.
Seated at the small desk in the corner of Garret’s den, she lit the wick of a candle that waited readily upon it. She guessed she could call it her den as well, which seemed bizarre.
My dearest Uncle,
I hope this letter finds you in good health, even though I know you are missing me terribly, as I’m sure there has been absolutely no entertainment since I left. Who will you secretly tease and laugh at in my absence? All fun aside, this letter will shock and sadden you, and then shock you again. Don’t worry if you get halfway through and feel you cannot go on. The story has a somewhat happy ending, just like the books I know you so love.
I have arrived safely in Rockdale, and though I have a considerable amount of adjusting to do, Roy met me mostly with open arms and made me feel right at home once again. I feel a freedom here, Uncle. From the moment I stepped off the train, I could inhale fully for the first time in a long time. I have met a girl here named Lenny who I have decided I was meant to be bosom friends with. She is wonderful, beautifully exotic and intelligent. She doesn’t speak much English, though I suspect she understands it just fine.
Now for the saddest part of this story. Roy was gravely injured a day after my arrival, to my heartbroken regret. He is healing somewhere under a stranger’s care, and I have been left out of the tending process. Some parts of me understand, as I am not trusted here yet, but more of me is angry at being cast off. How is it that I am to have only one day with him? It seems eternally unfair to me. I am counting down the hours until he feels well enough for a visitor. I have to wonder though, did I bring this bad luck to Rockdale?
And now, take heart. I’m no longer Miss Flemm, bastard child of ill repute. Oh, cease your sputtering, my dear uncle. You and I both know it was the most common name thrown about when I was in town. I am now Mrs. Shaw, first lady of the Lazy S Ranch. Are you impressed by my fortitude in securing a husband so quickly, when years in society didn’t produce such a miracle? I am surprised and impressed right along with you. Don’t worry about me, Uncle Frederick. My husband is handsome, and honorable, and terribly arrogant, but I suspect all of you men are at this age, am I right? I’ll write again soon.
Eliza Shaw
She’d made the letter sound as if she were happy and well-adjusted. So what if that couldn’t be further from the truth? It wouldn’t help anything to have Uncle Frederick worry about her, or to have Aunt Elizabeth spouting I-told-you-sos.
The pen cleaned and set in its holder, she sat back in the desk’s wooden chair. She wasn’t tired, and had woken up with a desire to talk to Garret about the situation they had found themselves in. Preferably in a civil manner, but one could never tell how any discussion would go with that insufferable man. More likely than not, the conversation would end with her wanting to choke the life out of a fence post, but she was willing to give talking a try, especially since she would soon spend many days away from him.
She had one of those overthinking brains that would torture her while he was away, while Garret would probably not even spare a second of thought for her. Garret probably was staying out on purpose to avoid confrontation.
She took the candle into her room, left it there, and picked her way carefully through the unfamiliar house. In the chair in the den, she waited. Sure enough, within minutes, booted feet clomped on the porch. The door slowly creaked open, and a slash of moonlight and the slight glow of the candle from the bedroom revealed Garret’s tall form.
“Ha!” she said, victorious.
Garret jumped like a jackrabbit and scowled at her. “You scared me near to death, woman. What are you doing, sitting there in the dark?”
“Waiting for you, naturally.” She tried not to smile, but scaring him made her feel better. “I think we should talk.”
With a sigh, he dropped his hat on the table. “No.”
When he tried to sidle past her to the bedrooms, she sidestepped and stood in front of him, arms crossed. She hadn’t waited around all these hours to give up so easily. “No, you won’t even talk to me? I am your wife, Mr. Shaw. You don’t like me. You have made that abundantly clear. It doesn’t, however, pardon you from showing me the respect of a conversation about your intentions.”
“Look here, Miss Flemm—”
“Eliza.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. She couldn’t see well in the dark, but his eyes were glowing bright blue. The candle in her bedroom offered little in the way of illumination. “Eliza, I have to be up to drive those cattle in a few hours. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and in no way up to fighting you tonight, so please...” He gestured for her to scoot aside.
Compromise it was. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll talk on our way into town tomorrow, then?”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, no. There is no way you are coming with us on this drive. I saw the way you ride a horse, and I can’t be saving you every two minutes. You’ll stay here. I’ve already talked to Lenny, and she has agreed to stay with you. She’ll show you around.”
Oh, sod it all. She couldn’t compromise with a rattlesnake. “When will you be back?”
