neck and hugged her close, an affectionate gesture. “I’ll never forgive you if you blurt it out and ruin my plans.”
“It won’t be easy.” The girl rolled her eyes and huffed out a sigh, as if her life were truly trying indeed.
“It seems you keep a lot of secrets. The mud incident, the teacher’s exams.” He swiped rain from his eyes. “It won’t be as easy to hide an entire job when summer comes.”
“Oh, I know. I don’t want to deceive Mama. That’s not what I mean to do. I want my own life is all.”
“I’ve known that feeling.”
“How can you? You’re a man.”
“True enough, but why do you say it like that? Like being a man is a bad thing.”
“Not bad, exactly. I’m just exasperated.” She blew the curl out of her face, but it just sprang back. Did she dare take both hands off the reins? No. Sweetie was as gentle as a horse could be, but doom had a tendency to follow her around. She had no intention of letting anything else go wrong.
“Meredith often gets exasperated,” Minnie explained with a little girl’s seriousness. “Mama says it’s because nothing is quite to Meredith’s liking.”
“That’s not true,” she hotly denied, as she always did. “Okay, so maybe it’s true sometimes. It’s just that boys have it easier. They can do what they want.”
“That depends.” Shane’s voice dipped low, butter-smooth and warm with amusement. “My mother thought I should join my father in business and one day follow in his footsteps. Carry on the family legacy.”
“Drifting from town to town?” The quip escaped before she could stop it. What was wrong with her?
“I wasn’t always a saddle tramp.” Those crinkles around his eyes deepened, drew her closer and made her want to know more.
She shouldn’t be curious, not one bit, not one iota. The dashing, mysterious, slightly dangerous young man was not her concern. Although it was easy to imagine him lassoing wild horses, fighting to defend the innocent or performing some noble act. Beneath the stubbled jaw and traveling coat, he might be full of honor, a real-life hero with the rain washing away the mud on his boots.
She tried to imagine what her best friends would say. Earlee, the most imaginative of the group, would pen him as an intriguing hero of a fantastic tale. Lila, ever the romantic, would compare him to the most handsome boy in their high-school class, Lorenzo. Kate and Scarlet would heartily agree and start dropping hints about the status of their hope chests, the reason they met every Saturday afternoon to sew for a few hours. A sewing circle of friendship and of hope, they tatted doilies, embroidered pillowslips and pieced patchwork blocks for the marriages they would all have one day.
Yes, this chance meeting was going to be a huge topic of conversation come Saturday.
The rain turned colder, falling like ice, striking the great expanse of prairie with strange musical notes. Beauty surrounded her, but she could not take her eyes from the handsome wanderer.
“What did you do in your former life?” Was that really her voice, all breathless and rushed sounding? Her face felt hot. Was she blushing? Would he notice?
“Back home, my father and grandfather are lawyers, although now they have many partners to manage the firm.” He let his horse fall back, to keep pace beside her. “As the oldest son, I am a great disappointment traveling around on the back of a horse.”
“I think it takes courage to follow your own path.” Courage was what she was trying to find for herself.
“Could be courage. My father called it stupidity. My mother said it was stubbornness. She was none too happy with me when I left, since she was in the middle of planning my wedding to a young lady of their choosing.”
“You ran out on a wedding?”
“I never proposed, so I didn’t see as I had an obligation to stay for the ceremony.” Dimples belied the layer of sorrow darkening his voice.
“Your parents had your whole life mapped out for you?”
“Mapped out, stamped and all but signed and sealed.” Understanding layered the blues in his eyes and softened the rugged, wild look of him. “Something tells me your parents adore you. They want the best for you, and that’s not a bad thing, as long as it’s what you want, too.”
“Tell that to Mama.”
“Sounds like our mothers are cut from the same cloth.”
The howl of wind silenced and the veil of rain seemed to vanish as he leaned over in his saddle, close and closer still. The sense of peril returned, fluttering in her stomach, galloping in her veins and did she turn away?
Not a chance.
“No one I know has a mother like mine.” Strange they would have this similarity between them. “Is yours overbearing, impossible, full of dire warnings and yet she’d throw herself in front of a train to save you?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Does she drive you beyond all patience with her meddling and fussing and trying to do everything so your life is easier?”
“That would be an affirmative.”
“And you love her so much you can’t bear to say no and disappoint her?”
“In the end, I did say no and it broke her heart.” No way to miss the regret. It moved through him, deep like a river, reflecting on his face, changing the air around them. “It was hard for her to let go, but I wouldn’t be the man I wanted to be unless I made my own life. She’ll come to see that in the end.”
“So she hasn’t forgiven you?”
“Nope. Not yet. But I’m confident she will come to see I was right.”
“That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.” If only following her own path would not potentially cost her her mother. “I’m praying my experience will be different from yours.”
“Your mother doesn’t want you to be a teacher?”
“She doesn’t want her daughters to work.” She hadn’t corrected his misimpression of her as a simple country girl, so how did she explain her mama’s view of society and a woman’s role in it? “My only hope is that Papa will understand.”
“Then I’ll pray for that, too.” Serious, his words, and so intimate that it was as if they were the only two people on the entire expanse of the plains. Completely odd, as she’d never felt this way with anyone before. It was as if he’d reached out and taken her hand, although they did not touch. A tug of warmth curled through her, which was sweet like melting taffy and enduring in the way of a good friendship.
“Meredith!” She felt a tug on her sleeve. “Don’t forget to turn.”
She blinked, the feeling disappeared and the world surrounding her returned. Wet droplets tapped her face, the jingle of the harness and the splash of the horse’s hooves reminded her that Minnie was at
