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“See, I rebuilt the nesting boxes here,” he said, pointing to where they were lined up on a shelf along one wall, “and reinforced the shelving, so it shouldn’t collapse again no matter how fat the fluffy little cluckers get.”
She snorted and followed along behind him as he showed her the new sliding door that would make it easier to let them in and out. Then he pulled her back outside, where he’d crafted a chicken run that ran out through a hole in the barn wall that could be closed off at night.
“And the coop outside has been patched up as well. But this one will do nicely during the winter when the heavy snow hits.”
She took everything in again and nodded, giving him a smile that lit up his whole soul. Nora smiled a lot. She laughed with her friends, cracked jokes, made sarcastic comments, and generally seemed to enjoy life. But he’d come to discover, through way too many hours of watching her when he didn’t think she’d notice, that despite her outward show of general joviality, Nora was actually…sad.
Her smiles always seemed to be lacking something. Some inner light that didn’t quite reach out. So when she truly, genuinely smiled, as she just had…it was a gift that he’d commit any number of sins to make happen again.
He took her hands in his and brought them to his lips, pressing a kiss to each of them.
“Why were you looking for me?” he asked, pulling her closer.
“Oh. Yes.” She frowned and pulled her hands from his grasp. “Did you move any of the papers that were in my father’s study?”
His brow creased. “No. Has something gone missing?”
She nodded, chewing at her bottom lip.
“Something valuable?”
She nodded again, and he took a step back from her. “And you assumed it was me.”
“No.” She rubbed her hand across her forehead. “Not really.” She sighed and plopped down on a rickety milking stool. “To be honest, I hoped that itwasyou.”
He raised a brow at that. “You hoped that I’d stolen from you?”
“Yes.” She let out a little laugh, though there was no humor behind it. “If it was you, at least you were still here. I could confront you, get everything back, or at least find out what you’d done with everything. The only other explanation is that my father took everything and…”
“Ah,” Adam said, squatting down beside her. Mr. Schumacher had disappeared again. He put a hand on her knee and squeezed. “What can I do?”
Her eyes flashed to his. “I accuse you of stealing and you ask how you can help me?” She let out another laugh. “God, I’m truly a horrible person, aren’t I?”
He gave her a tender smile, wanting nothing more than to wrap this woman up and carry her off where nothing would ever put that worry in her eyes again. “No, you’re not. You are an unimaginably strong woman carrying way more than any one person should ever have to carry on their own, and you’ve done it with more grace than most people are capable of in a lifetime.”
She blinked suddenly shiny eyes, and he drew a finger across her cheek, then dropped his hand and shrugged. “Of course, there is that whole matter of you tricking me into marrying you and hounding me from one end of town to the other about those damn papers, but no one is perfect.”
Her jaw dropped, and he grinned at the fire that sparked in her eyes. Anything was better than that aching sadness.
“I did no such thing!” she said, pushing at him. “All right, fine, I’ll admit to the hounding about the papers, but I did not trick you into anything. I was just as surprised by that little turn of events as you were.”
“Hmm, so you say,” he teased.
“I do say.” Then she looked at her feet. “Though maybe I wasn’t as horrified by it as you were.”
She’d spoken so quietly, he almost missed what she’d said, and his heart cracked right down the middle.
He grasped her chin and raised her face so he could meet her gaze. “I told you my reasons. And they have nothing,nothing,” he said, keeping her face turned to his when she tried to look away, “to do with you. Any man would be lucky to have you.”
She let out a little snort and jerked her face out of his grasp. “There’s a whole world full of men out there who would disagree with you. Including you, by the way.”
She stood and brushed off her pants. “I’ll let you get back to whatever you were going to butcher next.”
“Nora.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her to a stop before she could leave. “What do you mean, including me?”
She huffed out a mirthless laugh. “You’re really going to make me say it? Fine. You have me. We’re married. Maybe not according to the courts of the state, but in the eyes of God and the rest of the town, we are. And yet, aside from a few moments of ill-advised recklessness, you’ve made no secret of the fact that you want nothing to do with me. Can’t wait to be rid of me. Hell, you’ve destroyed half the town trying to get away from me.”
“I have not destroyed half the town. But while we’re on the subject, let me remind you that you’ve also made no secret of the fact that you can’t wait to be rid of me. Yes, you want me to sign the damn papers, though you won’t share your reasons. And I’ve told you why I can’t do that. But despite going to truly ludicrous lengths to convince me to make this legal, you’ve told me repeatedly that you have no desire for a husband. Which makes no damn sense at all, but you refuse to explain.”
