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“I’m surprised he’s hung in here this long,” she said. “I’d have been ready to give up on day one.”
Preacher nodded, his smile fading. “He seems determined to keep this job, I’ll give him that.”
Nora didn’t say anything for a moment. Just stood and watched the dirt flying out of the hole.
When she finally did speak, her voice was so low, she could barely hear it. She wasn’t all that sure she wanted anyone else to. “Am I truly so undesirable that spending one’s days doing backbreaking, ghoulish labor would be preferable to being married to me?”
Preacher turned to her, his brow creased. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s pretty evident,” she said, waving her hand at the graves. “Since coming to town, he’s tried and failed a handful of jobs he isn’t remotely suitable for, has no interest in, and in a few cases, actively despises—sorry, but you haven’t seen this man clean his nails or hang his clothes up at night—”
“Wait,” Preacher said. “And you have?”
Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she ignored it. “My bedroom overlooks the barn,” she said, hating to admit that she sometimes spied on her house guest.
“Ah,” Preacher said, his grin returning. “Sorry for the interruption.”
“Yes, well…you haven’t seen how particular he can be about his appearance. The man likes to be clean, neat. Spending his days covered in sweat and dirt, standing in a hole where a dead body will go, can’t possibly be his idea of an ideal life. Yet he seems to prefer that to being married to me. What else am I supposed to think?”
On top of the fact that he seemed to be actively avoiding being alone with her, as if kissing her had been a mistake he wanted to avoid making again. Not that she’d say that part out loud. It was painful enough dealing with it reverberating around her own head.
Preacher frowned for a moment, obviously piecing together his thoughts. If it was anyone other than Preacher, she would have assumed they were trying to come up with some lie to tell her to make her feel better. But that was just Preacher’s way. He took his time with his words, but he always meant them once they came out.
“I think, perhaps, his reasons for avoiding marriage have less to do with you than they do with him.”
She turned back to the hole and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “If you say so.”
Preacher frowned and lightly grasped her upper arms, turning her to look at him. “I mean what I say. I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. The way many men look at you.”
Her eyes widened and she scoffed. “No men look at me, Preacher. Least of all the one I’m married to.”
“Nora…”
“No, it’s all right. Truly. I made peace with the fact that I’d probably never wed a long time ago. But then the Town Council made that rule, and I thought…maybe…but even then…”
She stopped herself and took a deep breath, hating the stammering thoughts she couldn’t seem to exorcise from her head. “I thought maybe someone would be desperate enough to ask. Even if I wasn’t interested, I thought surely…” She shrugged. “But even with the town edict, no one spoke for me.”
Preacher rubbed his hands lightly up and down her arms. “Did it ever occur to you that no one spoke for you because they were all your friends? They all knew you and how you felt about marriage. Knew you wouldn’t want an arrangement with men who you considered friends when they were looking for someone to call wife.”
She looked at him, wanting to believe him. But at the same time… “Some of those men have now left town, Preacher. I don’t know about them, but if I harbored secret feelings for someone and was left with the ultimatum that the Council imposed on them, I would have spoken up. Just in case there was a chance. But no one spoke. No one has ever spoken, even before the edict. And now Adam…”
She looked back over at the hole, swallowing past the lump in her throat. The fact that his place in town was in jeopardy didn’t force his hand…what else was she supposed to think? Especially now that they’d shared kisses—and then suddenly stopped. And she wasn’t so ignorant of men that she couldn’t tell he had been very happy to kiss her at the time. Yet still, he refused to claim her as his wife. He hadn’t given her so much as a lingering glance since then.
So what was so wrong with her?
“I think you and Adam will have to find your own way through this. But I promise you,” he said, giving her a little shake, “he’s not as adverse to you as he’d like either one of you to think.”
She stared at him for a moment and then swallowed hard, looking down until she had the urge to cry under control. Not that she fooled Preacher for a second.
“It’ll work out for the best, I promise,” he said.
Then he pulled her to him and gave her a sweet, brotherly kiss on the forehead.
Not a second later, a shovelful of dirt flew through the air and hit Preacher squarely in the face, forcefully enough to knock him on his rear.
Nora’s jaw dropped, and she stared at where Preacher sputtered on the ground, trying to wipe dirt out of his eyes. The thundering footfalls that sounded next to her were the only warning she had before Adam was beside her, wrapping a huge arm about her so he could pull her to his side.
“Adam, what are you doing?” she asked, pushing away from him so she could help Preacher off the ground.
