Homespun Bride

She stood, holding her heart still, banishing all thoughts of Thad as she briskly folded the length of wool and tossed it somewhere on the couch—she heard it land with a whisper. She couldn’t sense much beyond the roiling longing in her heart and the wishes she could not let herself give voice to. How did you stop remembering what had hurt so much? And what had, once, brought her so much joy?
    This is not good, Noelle, you must stop this. She felt as if she were suffocating and could not get air, so she headed straight for the door. Careful not to make any noise to wake the house, she grabbed her cloak on her way out the door. Cold air hit her with a bitter force, sapping all her warmth and chilling her feelings like a sudden freeze.
    Ice crunched beneath her shoes. The cold moan of the wind swirled around her and filled in the lonely, empty places where her future and her dreams used to be. She pulled a pair of mittens from her pocket and tugged them on.
    The wind was picking up, bringing with it the promise of more snow. Winters were long by tradition in Montana Territory, and she knew it, so why then was she longing for spring? She breathed in the heavy scents of wood smoke and dormant trees and ice. The temperature was falling, and she breathed in the air cold enough to burn the inside of her nose and tingle in her chest. Today the world was especially dark to her, and she sorely missed the colors and look of things and the comfort in them.
    The rail was thick with ice and she curled her hands around the thick board. The wind was against her left side, so she knew she faced westerly. The great rim of the Rocky Mountains should be straight ahead of her. She remembered how they speared upward from the prairie’s horizon. Night was falling, and the air smelled like falling snow. She knew how the sky would look—thick clouds, white with snow and dark with storm, spiraling together.
    What she could not know was the look of this sky at this moment and the exact shade of the mountains as they changed to match it. She hadn’t realized how her memory of color was fading with time. Was the sun still out? She strained to feel its cool brush against her cheek and felt none. Had it already sunk behind those oncoming clouds, and what colors had the sun painted them? She tried to imagine it, could not.
    Thad. Why was it that when she was with him, she could? She couldn’t explain it, so she breathed in the feel of the late afternoon and listened to the near silence of the plains.
    Memory took her over in a sudden wash of color and light. A late-winter’s afternoon much like this one with the promise of a storm. The sky was a hue of fluffy dove-gray. Every shade of white spread out in the landscape around her. Sunshine glossed the polished miles of snow like a hundred thousand diamonds. Thad had taken her hand to help her into his little red sleigh. At a gentle slap of the leather reins, his gelding carried them forward across the jeweled snow with a twinkle of merry sleigh bells.
    She realized that the musical clink of steel shoes on ice wasn’t in her thoughts. Someone was riding up to the house from the stables. Thad. If she looked into her heart she could see him, the way his head was down and his eyes low. He always sat his saddle straight and strong.
    “Howdy, there.” His baritone could warm every sliver of ice away. “Isn’t it a little cold for you to be just standing there?”
    “It’s not any colder out here for me than it is for you.”
    “Yes, but I have a sheepskin-lined coat.”
    “My shawl is warm enough for now. You needn’t worry about me, Thad.”
    “Sorry. Can’t help myself.”
    He didn’t sound sorry at all, and she ought to be upset about that. She didn’t know why she wasn’t. “Are you going to town on errands for my aunt?”
    “Yep. Got some business at the feed store, and then a stop for a few supplies the doc recommended. Your uncle’s looking better.”
    “Is he? I haven’t seen him recently. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa instead of going upstairs to sit with everyone.”
    “The way I hear it, you were up all night with Henrietta. Robert’s still as gray as ashes, but he’s looking better. He ought to be riding green-broke horses in a few weeks’ time.” The saddle creaked as if he’d shifted in it.
    Had he been in the house while she was napping? Had he seen her sleeping? Remembering the afghan and how she’d woken up with thoughts of him in her heart, she