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“Yeah. Unless you changed your mind?” she said, and insecurity laced her words.
“No. Absolutely not. I said I would, and I meant it, and...even more than that,” he hurried to add, when she opened her mouth. He thought she was going to say that him doing something out of duty wasn’t the same as him doing something because he wantedto. He understood the distinction between those two things. After all, he didn’t want her to do anything for him out of duty. He wanted her to do it out of... Love.
He tucked that thought away to think about later, or never. Because he hadn’t really thought that he was susceptible to the idea of love, but he found himself wanting something more than just duty from Alaska.
“Even more than that, I want to. Now that we’ve talked, I want it more than I did before we did. I’m glad you made me.”
“I didn’t make you. You came out here and sat down.”
“All right. I’m glad we did too. I feel a lot better.”
“Had you been scared?” He kinda thought that maybe that would be a natural feeling, although it wasn’t one he felt.
“No. I wasn’t scared. I was... Feeling like I should do the right thing and call it off, because a woman like Sondra is the kind of woman that I would expect a man like you to be with.”
“I would expect that I should be with the woman God wants me to be with. I think that’s you.”
She closed her mouth and didn’t say anything more. Maybe he’d been too strong for her. Maybe she didn’t like the idea that he thought that God was putting them together. Maybe that was too woo-woo for her. He definitely had a line where things got too woo-woo for him.
“I need to change, and then I’m ready to go.”
“All right. I suppose I’ll go... Wash my hands. I don’t have a dress.”
“You don’t need one. You look fine in what you’re wearing. I smell like cows, and I’m dirty, too, or I’d wear this. What I put on is going to be just like this, only probably a different color.” He pointed to his shirt.
She laughed. “You mean you don’t have a deep wardrobe full of expensive suits that you can just yank out any time you decide to get married?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Good. Because you better not decide to get married again.”
“I think I might have mentioned this will be the first and only time.” He supposed that if, God forbid, something would happen to Alaska, he might get married again, but he doubted it. He was most definitely a one woman man kind of person. He knew a person should never say never, but for him, one woman in a lifetime was enough.
“All right, is ten minutes enough time?” he said, standing, and holding his hand out for her to help her up. She looked at it for a moment, and then put her hand in his. “Plenty of time,” she said, sounding calm. Although maybe a little breathless. Whether it was from standing, or whether it was from nervousness that she was hiding, he wasn’t sure. Or, maybe standing so close to him had a similar effect on her as it did on him. He... Wanted to be closer, and at the same time felt nervous and a little uncertain.
“I guess I need to ask you where my clothes are. I noticed last night that you’d taken everything except for this outfit that you left on my dresser. I assume the rest of them are over there?” he said, nodding his head at the little house.
“Yeah. You told me to move everything, so I did. But I wasn’t sure where you were going to sleep last night, so I left an outfit for you just in case.”
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I’ll be in the little house tonight, although... I figured I would sleep on the couch.”
“You don’t have to,” she said quickly.
“I guess we can talk about it.”
While he felt it was important for them to get married so that she would have the protection of his family, and have the safety of the ranch, he didn’t know that their relationship necessarily had to go that fast.
There would be plenty of time to talk about that both on the way to Rockerton and on the way home, so he didn’t say anything more. But, he lifted his hand and held it out, and she looked at it for a moment before she slipped her hand back into his, and theyheld hands as they walked to the little house. It was a start. A good one.
Chapter 16
Alaska sat beside Ezra in his truck, her fingers twisting in her lap. She did feel a lot better since he had taken the time to sit down with her, and just chat. In her experience, men didn’t typically want to waste time chatting. They either wanted something physical, or they wanted to do something, not talk. The fact that Ezra just casually sat down, and did something that was hard for him, for her, and that was the only reason. Just because of her. It almost made her forget that he had been engaged yesterday, and that she had been confronted by his jilted fiancée that morning.
It was the kind of drama she wouldn’t have expected from a man like Ezra. It had made her question everything she thought. Not that she wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth, because she knew Ezra was giving her far more than she deserved. And she wasn’t quite sure why.
From talking to him, she almost felt like he wasn’t sure why, either. That’s what he had said before, but she kind of believed it now. He wasn’t a man who was used to doing things based on what he felt, but he was a man who tried to do what God wanted. And that was the key. For some reason, he felt that God wanted him to marry her, and so he was doing it, but he hinted that he wanted to. Because she didn’t want him to do something just because he felt he had to. Not for her. She wanted more. Even as she recognized that it was ridiculous. She should be grateful for what she had. Thankful that he had given her as much as what he had, and not demand more.
And for some reason, that made her remember something she needed to do. She already didn’t feel worthy of Ezra, or what he had offered her, but she felt especially guilty when she thought about her past actions, and how they impacted other people’s lives. Including her children’s.
