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I shook my head, my voice gone.
When two men came out of the saloon directly behind me, Seth took hold of my arm and led me away. I had to walk quickly to keep up with his long legs. By the time he slowed, I had trouble catching my breath. He moved me to a break in the buildings so that foot traffic could move without our interference.
"What the hell were you doing in front of the saloon?" His voice boomed loudly, startling me.
"I wasn't paying attention," I murmured. I'd been distracted by thoughts of him, but I wouldn't let him know that.
His eyes widened. "You weren't...that much was blatantly clear." He removed his hat from his head and ran a hand over the back of his neck. "What if I hadn't been following you? That man wouldn't have been a gentleman."
"I would have screamed," I replied confidently. The main thoroughfare through town was very busy. Any number of persons would stop to help had I made a scene.
"That will not protect you in all situations. You were lucky as to the location of the incident. If it had happened after dark near your house, the consequences would be different."
I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. "I do not need a keeper."
In a verbal battle with this man I could hold my own. In no other circumstance would we be evenly matched.
"Yes, you do," he bit out through clenched teeth.
"Is that why you've been following me?"
"Is your opinion of this the reason you have been avoiding me?"
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"I've been avoiding you because you are an overbearing brute!"
His eyes widened at my veracity. "I have barely said more than five sentences to you before now. I've never laid a hand on you nor pressed my advantage in any way. That man," he pointed over my shoulder, "was the one who grabbed you. How can you consider me a brute?"
"Because you won't leave me alone."
His shoulders relaxed then. He put his hat back on his head and sighed. "That is true. I won't leave you alone."
He didn't want me, had even said he hadn't pressed his advantage, so why did he continue to shadow me? "Why?" I asked.
"I promised Aaron."
That was not the answer I anticipated. Hearing my dead husband's name had me dreading what would come next. I remained silent and waited for him to continue.
"Before you were married I promised him I would protect his wife should anything ever happen to him."
A lead weight settled in my stomach and I looked at the ground, looked anywhere but at Seth. "Then you're following the wrong woman around town. Excuse me." I held up my hand in a vague farewell and moved to walk past him, but he would have none of it. He easily pulled me back to stand before him again.
"Explain," he replied.
I stared at the buttons of his shirt as if they fascinated me. "Julia Lanesport. She's the woman Aaron was to marry. She was the woman he wanted you to protect."
"Aaron married you."
He made everything so simple, yet nothing was. Yes, I'd married Aaron, but for a complicated reason.
"Yes, but as I said, he wanted to marry Julia Lanesport. They were courting."
Seth tilted my chin up with his fingers. "Look at me. You're not making sense."
His voice had softened, but still held that deep timbre that thrilled me to my bones.
"You don't know this story? I'm surprised. Everyone else in town does," I replied, my voice tart. When he did nothing but run his thumb over my jaw, I sighed. "Aaron was courting Julia Lanesport. At a church social, Aaron and I were found in a compromising position and we were hastily wed. Julia Lanesport was the jilted woman, the woman Aaron really wanted. No doubt when he made the arrangement with you it was with Julia's face in his mind."
