for me to stay with you tonight?” Nita asked. “I don’t mind. Ace can take care of things at home.”
Longing to take her new companion up on her offer, Meg stiffened her spine and her resolve. She’d stood on her own two feet all her life, and just because things were...different now was no reason to become a namby-pamby. She couldn’t lean on others forever. She raised her chin a fraction and met Nita’s troubled gaze. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
She gave her attention back to her plate, almost missing the look that passed between mother and son. When the meal was over, Meg was surprised to see that she’d eaten almost all the food she’d dished up.
“Being outside did you a lot of good,” Nita said, rising and gathering the plates.
“I guess it did.”
“You’ll be surprised at how much better you feel the more you’re able to be up and around. No one has much appetite when they’re lying around all day.”
Meg hoped it was true. She was tired of being an invalid.
By the time they finished the supper dishes, dusk was settling in. Ace came in from outside and put a couple of eggs into the wire basket sitting on the scarred buffet.
As she watched, he rolled his shoulders and arched his back. “I gave the horse some oats and penned up the chickens and the pig for the night. I think things are fine until morning.”
“The question is, are you?” There was a teasing note in his mother’s voice.
Something that might have been a smile crossed his face. “I’m getting a little stiff,” he admitted. “I haven’t chopped this much wood in a long while, and I’m not as young as I used to be.” He leveled a teasing look at his mother. “Which means you aren’t, either.”
Meg watched the loving interaction between the two. How long had it been since she’d heard that kind of lighthearted banter? Her second thought was to wonder how old he was. Older than she was, for certain, yet he looked to be in his prime, and he was certainly strong.
A wisp of memory floated across her mind, drifting in and out of her consciousness. She was hearing the sound of hoofbeats in rhythm with the steady heartbeat that throbbed beneath her ear, feeling powerful arms around her and knowing without a doubt she was safe.
Her thoughtful gaze found the man who had suddenly come to play such a huge role in her life. She recalled being told he had taken her to Rachel’s. It had been Ace’s arms that held her. Ace’s strength that made her feel safe. Ace’s heart that beat against her ear. Common sense told her that a man who would hold her so gently would not hurt her, but putting aside the wariness her past had instilled in her would not come overnight.
“Well, if there’s nothing else we can do, we’ll go,” Nita said, scattering Meg’s thoughts. The older woman crossed the room and enveloped Meg in a tender embrace. Unaccustomed to displays of affection, she stiffened. Her mother had seldom hugged her—Elton, never—and it had been a long time since she’d seen her aunt Serena.
Nita drew back at once, sensing that she’d overstepped some invisible boundary. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m a hugger. I forget not everyone is.”
Without waiting for Meg to reply, she gave a little wave and slipped through the door. Ace followed, leaving Meg alone with her memories, her sorrow and an aching loneliness. She wished Nita would come back. Wished she could let the older woman hold her in her arms while she cried out all her fears and worries.
Wished she could cry.
* * *
Nita and Ace climbed onto their horses and turned them toward home. “She’s worse than I expected,” Nita said as they rode side by side.
“She’s been through a lot.”
“I know.”
“When I went to fetch her for supper, I saw a twig in her hair and reached out to get it.” His tormented gaze met his mother’s, and his jaw knotted in a familiar way. “She covered her head and shrank away from me.”
“It’s what she knows,” Nita said after a moment. “It’s what she’s come to expect from men.”
“It isn’t right,” he said in a low, savage voice. “It isn’t fair.”
“Oh, my son,” Nita soothed, tipping her head back to look up at the first star of the evening. “You, of all people, should know that much of what happens in our lives is neither right nor fair.”
Yes. He should know. Did.
“Rachel told me today that she’s never seen Meg cry a single tear.”
He never stopped to think that neither had he, though he’d been imprisoned wrongly twice, beaten and even left for dead on one occasion. He considered tears a weakness, something men didn’t indulge in. He was Cherokee, from a people who had suffered more than he ever would. And he was Irish, able to put on a smile when it was called for.
“Some wounds are so great that the only way to survive is to lock them up in a little box and put them somewhere deep inside,” Nita said.
“Do you think she’ll get better?” Ace would rather rely on his mother’s knowledge than that of any other healer.
“Rachel says the mind is a strange thing,” Nita told him. “I pray that she will, in time. We can’t lose heart or patience.”
She looked at Ace with a solemn expression. “I’m proud of you, my son. Though it has taken time, I can say that the things you’ve been through have not destroyed you. They’ve made you the man you are. That’s something we need to try to get through to Meg. And it’s something you need to keep in mind, too, when you think about your role in all this.”
“Killing Elton, you mean?”
“Yes. You’ve come too far to let that destroy your faith and your peace.”
He sucked in a harsh lungful of air and met her tender gaze with one of defiance. “I hate that it happened, but God help me, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Instead of chastising him for the un-Christian thought, his mother asked, “Why?”
“I’d think that’s pretty obvious. He was a terrible human being who mistreated his wife.”
“And you care for her.”
Ace was appalled by her suggestion. Or perhaps he was appalled that his mother had discovered his secret.
“I think you care for Meg Thomerson. I think you’ve cared for her for a while. And I think that’s why you’re happy Elton is dead.”
“Are you saying that you think I did it on purpose?” he asked with a scowl.
“Of course not!” his mother scoffed. “You’re experiencing remorse for having feelings for another man’s wife. Those feelings only increase your guilt for taking his life, even though there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was warranted.
“You are not a killer,
