Homespun Bride

duty as our stableman. You’re the kind of man who does the right thing, who works hard, who can always be counted on.”
    “I take my work seriously, is all.”
    “No, you are the boy I fell in love with, and you’ve always been the man you are now. I see you, Thad. All of you.”
    He squeezed his eyes shut. Her words were an answered prayer. If he’d ever had one for himself, it was this. For her to see that he was the kind of man who would never hurt her, who would always do what he could for her greatest happiness. Without condition. Without end.
    He clamped the blade into place on her shoe and checked to make sure it was on good and tight. He ignored the chill seeping through the knees of his denims and the gnawing of regret.
    She reached forward as easily as if she saw him, and her fingertips brushed the collar of his coat, then the scarf at his throat and finally cupped his jaw. “You left me thinking something had happened to you. You left me waiting, stubbornly believing in you. Even after I learned you’d left the county for good, it took me a long time to give up believing that you had to leave for some reason and you would be coming back to me. That’s how strongly I believed in you. In noble, good, unfailing you.”
    My dear, beloved Noelle. He pressed his jaw against the fuzzy sweetness of her gloved hand. Here was the chance he’d always wished for—to tell the truth, to right the wrong and win her back. He gently moved away and climbed to his feet.
    There was nothing more precious to him in all the world, and there never would be. Her loveliness was something he would never tire of, the sight that would refresh his weary heart the most. She was everything good and womanly and rare in this world, and the heart of his deepest dream come true. A dream he would not hurt for any reason.
    Her happiness was more important than anything he could ever want for himself. Maybe bringing her here, where mist swirled around the frozen pond like lost dreams, hadn’t been the best idea. “You might think that breaking my promise to you that night came pretty easy.”
    “It had once been my impression.”
    “I can honestly say it was the hardest decision I ever made.”
    “I understand that now.” She held out her hand, confident that he would take it, that he wouldn’t leave her sitting alone in her darkness.
    He took her hand to guide her. She rose lightly to her feet, balancing easily on her blades, and he tried not to notice the thud of his heart hitting his soul. He loved her more. He’d been a fool to think he had ever stopped loving her. The love he had for her had not vanished. It had simply bided its time, quiet and dormant as the trees in winter, waiting for spring to come.
    The dreams he’d given up on were there, alive after all. He swallowed hard against the pressure building in his chest. “I did what I thought was best at the time. I hate that I left you waiting and hoping. I know what I did came at a cost, but I did what I had to do, what I thought was right.”
    “I know that.” Her emerald eyes, her face, her voice, her manner all shone with that truth. “My father forced you out of town, didn’t he?”
    The blood in his veins stilled. How did she know? Had she guessed? And if she had, if she knew the truth, there was the temptation to tell her the rest of it. But was it the right thing to do? He could not seem to move, although her skirts whispered as she stood, wobbling on the thin blades. He caught hold of her, keeping her steady when he was the unsteady one.
    Forgiveness. It shone in her emerald eyes and radiated in her smile. The way she turned to him, the way she trusted him meant more to him than anything in the world. “I know how you loved your folks, Noelle. I can’t ruin their memory for you.”
    “You won’t. Whatever they did, they did out of love. That’s what you did, too.”
    She understood. An enormous weight lifted from his soul. His throat closed and he could not speak. The burdens of the past, of the wrongs her father had done to him and his family, and the misery he’d suffered melted away.
    She looked like a little drop of heaven—or at least his notion of heaven—full of goodness and mercy and kindness. Mist clung to the gossamer curls caressing her sweet face. “My parents were wrong and misguided and they had no right to interfere, but they’re gone now. And if there’s something to learn from this, then it’s that our time here is so very