Homespun Bride

chink-chink of the stallion circling his stall clanged like a melody. The wind moaned in the rafters above. Thad’s boot steps added a dependable percussion as he guided her into the storm.
    What was she going to do about the man and her suspicions about the past and about her parents? She did not want to think about the past.
    The symphony of the storm crescendoed as they stepped out into the yard. Snow hailed like shards of ice stinging her face and pinging against her coat. The wind gusted so hard, it blew her a step backward. Thad was there, his hold strong on her, moving to block the cruelest brunt of the storm.
    Yes, she reminded herself, it was respect she felt. Respect that made the spark of caring within her glow a little more brightly. She could feel the change in the air from the lightning strike and the nearly instant strum of thunder. “That was close.”
    “Too close.” His hold tightened on her. “We’re out in the open here. We’ve got to run for it.”
    “In the snow?”
    “Then we’ve got to lunge for it.” He shouted to be heard over another boom of thunder. “Maybe I’d best carry you.”
    “Try it, and I’ll never speak to you again. I’m blind, not incapable.”
    “I knew you were gonna say that.” Standing out in a storm like this was a dangerous notion, so he tightened his hold on her, the only tenderness he was allowed. “Ready?”
    Lightning tore apart the sky, cleaving the dense twilight curtain of snow. Blinding white light sizzled to the right, and an unearthly blast of thunder masked the explosion of the strike. He couldn’t see what had been hit, but it had been near enough that he could smell it.
    “C’mon.” He ran, bringing her along with him. He had a good tight hold on her arms. There wasn’t a chance he would let her fall. They ran together, and he bowed his head against the onslaught. How long before the next strike? And how close would it be? The wind swirled, holding them back like an inhuman force.
    “We’re almost to the house,” he shouted above the roar of the storm.
    To his surprise, she only stumbled once and then, in a blink, they were on the walkway in the lee of the house. She dropped the hems of her coat and skirts, which swirled at her snowy shoe-tops and swiped at the curls plastered against her face. She turned into the wind and let it batter her. “It’s magnificent.”
    You are magnificent. His pulse slowed. His breathing stalled. A terrible pain traced like lightning through the dark sky and tore apart his hard exterior. It was a change that felt more dangerous than lightning, more powerful than the wind, more life sustaining than the rain.
    She was the reason his eyesight blurred. She was the reason his heart stirred to life and why he could not look away. The sight of her filled the empty places in him like the rain pooling on the low places of the earth. He felt whole. He felt healed. He felt at peace with the past. It was like hope and faith creeping back into his soul.
    Her smile brightened as the wind kicked up a notch. “I can almost see the angle of the snow.”
    With the dampness curling the tendrils of her hair and the cold crisping her delicate complexion pink, she looked radiant and rosy. So beautiful it made his teeth ache. It was all he could do to talk past the tight squeeze of his throat. “It’s nearly sideways.”
    “And falling like hail.” She closed her eyes as if she were looking inward for the image. “What color of gray are the clouds?”
    “Right overhead, they’re as dark, and as purple-black as an angry bruise. Can’t see much else, as it’s nearly a whiteout.”
    “I hear another boom of thunder. It’s definitely moving away. I can’t remember the last time we had a storm like this.”
    I can. He sidestepped closer to her and told himself it was to better shield her from the snow’s touch, but that wasn’t the only reason. No, not at all. “You’re shivering, and the temperature is dropping. I don’t want to turn you into an icicle.”
    “I’ve been cold before. Besides, I’m having fun.”
    “That may be, but the last thing I want to do is to get on Henrietta’s bad side. That aunt of yours is a fearsome woman.”
    That made her laugh but it did not make him forget the memory of her and another storm. They’d been at her house in town, standing on the back porch out of sight of any nosy neighbors. They were hand in hand, heart in heart, watching the blizzard blowing down from the