Homespun Bride

snow had turned to rain, soaking him down to the bone. She’d said no to him. He had to respect that, although it tore out his heart.
    “C’mon, Sunny. Take us home.”
    The mustang obliged, heading swiftly down the road. Lucky thing, since the sorrow was setting in. It wasn’t easy riding away from his dreams a second time.
    * * *
    Noelle listened to the rain sing against the parlor window. The wind lifted and fell like a cello’s haunting tones. The limbs of the hawthorn tree outside the window rubbed against the eaves with a tuba’s low notes. The fire in the hearth crackled in counterpoint to the gusts of wind and beat of rain. It was a haunting symphony, one that spoke of sorrow and regret.
    Regret for the lost years between them. Regret that she never had a voice in Thad’s decision to leave. Regret at the years she’d wasted. Regret that there would be only wasted years ahead without real love.
    She swiped the last of her tears from her eyes. She knew for certain that she would love only Thad forever. I’m hoping for a wife one day. Someone who sees life the way I do. You work hard, try to do what’s right and at the end of the day rest up for another hard day on the ranch. Her blindness separated them more successfully than her parents’ had. There was no solution to that.
    She heard her cousin’s hurried gait well before the door opened on a chorus of wind.
    “That rain is cold.” Matilda shut the door behind her, dripping water on the floor. There was a rustle as if she were shedding her sodden wraps and her shoes squished wetly on the floor coming closer. “I need to sit by the fire and warm up. Papa said maybe we’re in for a spot of good luck. This could be a warming spell that brings us an early spring.”
    “I hope so.” Noelle prayed her voice sounded normal and feared that it didn’t. “Then you can take me for rides in the buggy. How did your driving lesson go?”
    “Fine. We rode up to the waterfall and back. It’s roaring with all the snowmelt and rain.”
    “The waterfall has never frozen in the winter, not in my memory.” Her love for Thad was like that, she realized, never ending, always replenished. Alive in her heart when it was the last thing she needed or wanted. “Would you like me to bring you some tea?”
    “Please. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this cold.”
    Tea. Yes, that sounded like something soothing to do. She rose from her chair, ignoring the ache that burned her eyes and tightened her throat. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even to Matilda, about Thad’s proposal. They would pity her, and that was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she needed.
    She skirted the end table and headed across the parlor. Grief lodged so tightly within her she could hardly function. Her pulse thudded in her ears so loudly that the strike of her shoe on the floor muted. There was Thad at the edges of her memory and glued to her soul.
    Who could be better than you? he’d said with complete sincerity. I love you, he’d said with utter honesty. This is our second chance. His tender plea filled her mind again and again. This is our second chance.
    If only it could be. She had to stop thinking about this. About the tender love in his voice, even when she turned him down. And the defeated cadence to his gait as he walked away from her. What she could not think about was the future without Thad in it. Without a prospering ranch, and happiness, buckets of happiness. She could almost see it, vivid, so vivid, those fields of green dotted with grazing horses. The two-story house where drying laundry snapped on a clothesline and children played in the yard—
    She froze in midstep, confused. Where was she? She’d forgotten to count her steps. She didn’t know if she was about to walk into the window or if she was on a collision course with her aunt’s whatnot shelf.
    “Where did you get that book?” Tilly broke the silence.
    “I-it was a gift.” Outside the symphony of the rain crescendoed to a roar, confusing the sounds in the room, confusing her.
    “From whom?”
    She turned toward Matilda’s voice, using it like a compass. “Just someone.”
    “Thad came by, didn’t he? Angelina was right. Too bad he didn’t propose, too. Wouldn’t that have been something?”
    A rush filled her ears. The sound of her heart breaking all over again. She spun on her heel, careful to keep track of her orientation. She guessed how many steps would take her