Ruth stared at him.
“Harder?”
He nodded once, as though the matter had been settled.
She gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “You believe that leaving me alone on our wedding night will make this easier?”
“No. I only thought—”
“You thought I would be relieved?”
“No.”
“You thought I would prefer to sit here with my suitcase while you go to the barn?”
His jaw tightened.
“I thought you might need time.”
Ruth looked down at the suitcase. Its battered leather handle had pressed a red mark into her palm.
“Time for what?”
“To settle.”
“I have been settling since the day I boarded the train in Boston.”
He looked at her then, fully.
She had never seen Jonah’s face so unguarded. The restraint that usually held him together seemed to have cracked, revealing an exhaustion deeper than the long journey of the day. For a moment, she glimpsed not the stern rancher who had met her at the station, but a man who had been carrying a private burden for so long that he had forgotten how to set it down.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
It was sincere. That almost made it worse.
Ruth had been prepared for indifference. She could have met coldness with dignity. She could have met cruelty with anger. But Jonah’s sorrow left her with nowhere to put her own.
“Did you regret marrying me?” she asked.
His head came up sharply.
“No.”
“Then look at me and tell me why you cannot stay.”
He did look at her. His eyes moved over the lace at her shoulders, the pearls at her throat, the carefully arranged curls that had begun to loosen around her face. His gaze lingered for one brief, unmistakable moment on her mouth.
Then he looked away.
“Because I don’t know how to be what you deserve.”
Ruth’s fingers tightened around the suitcase handle.
“You could begin by being my husband.”
“I am your husband.”
“Only in the eyes of the law and the preacher, it seems.”
He flinched.
She wished she could take the words back, but she could not. They had risen from the very place where she had been trying to hide her hurt.
Jonah removed his hat and held it against his chest. His hair was dark and slightly tousled, as if he had run his fingers through it too many times. There was a small white scar near his left temple, and another, nearly hidden, along his jaw. Ruth had noticed both when they first met. She had wondered how he had received them, and whether he would ever tell her.
“I don’t regret marrying you,” he said quietly. “I regret that I don’t know how to give you the kind of beginning you ought to have had.”
Ruth stared at him.
“Then let me decide what kind of beginning I want.”
He said nothing.
“Jonah, I did not come here expecting a grand house or a life without hardship. I knew about the ranch. I knew about the winter storms and the distance from town. I knew you had a daughter and that your first wife was buried on the hill behind the orchard. You told me all of that in your letters.”
“I know.”
“And I still came.”
“I know that, too.”
“Then why do you keep treating me as if I have made some terrible mistake?”
He looked at the hat in his hands.
“Because I’m afraid you have.”