On the night Ruth became his wife, she expected awkwardness.
She expected silence.
Possibly disappointment.
She had prepared herself for almost anything a twenty-two-year-old woman could imagine after marrying a man she barely knew.
She had not prepared herself for Jonah Clay to carry her trunk upstairs, place it beside the only bed in the room, pick up his hat, and announce that he intended to spend his wedding night with the horses.
Ruth stood in the center of the bedroom in her ivory dress, staring at his back.
Jonah had already changed out of the formal black coat he had worn at the ceremony.
He had removed his shirt because rain had soaked through it during the ride home, and now a thick brown wool blanket hung loosely over one shoulder and partly across his back.
The sight should not have mattered.
It did.
Jonah was thirty-four, broad through the shoulders and chest, his body marked by the hard work of a man who had spent most of his adult life on horseback, hauling fence rails, breaking ice from water troughs, wrestling calves, rebuilding barns after storms, and doing most things other wealthy ranchers paid employees to do.
His abdomen was sharply defined beneath weather-darkened skin.
A pale scar crossed one side beneath his ribs.
Another disappeared toward his shoulder.
Ruth immediately hated herself for noticing.
Then hated herself for believing she should hate herself for noticing.
He reached the door.
Ruth found her voice.
“Where are you going?”
Jonah stopped.
“The barn.”
She stared.
“The barn.”
“Yes.”
He sounded as though they were discussing where to store potatoes.
Ruth looked toward the bed.
Then back at him.
“There are horses in the barn.”
“I’ve met them.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped her.
Jonah glanced over his shoulder.
“The horses won’t mind me.”
The humor vanished quickly.
Ruth tightened her fingers around the lace at her skirt.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
He reached for the knob.
“Jonah.”
His hand stopped.
“Why did you marry me?”
For several seconds, the only sound was the wind pressing against the upstairs window.
Jonah slowly turned.
The blanket remained draped over one shoulder.
His hat hung from one hand.
He looked extraordinarily uncomfortable.
Not frightened.
Jonah Clay did not appear to frighten easily.
But he looked like a man who had just been asked a question he had carefully built his entire evening around avoiding.
“I told you why.”
“No.”
Ruth shook her head.
“You told me what your name could do for mine.”
His jaw tightened.
“That was part of it.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
He said nothing.
Ruth looked at him.
At the man who had stood beside her in front of nearly eighty people that morning while half the valley whispered that he had married damaged goods.
At the man who had not once looked embarrassed.
At the man who had ridden directly to the boardinghouse two weeks earlier and made an offer so strange she initially believed he was mocking her.
Would you rather wear my name than let them keep chewing on yours?
No love.
No promises.
No fantasy.
Only a practical question.
She had said yes because dignity was more valuable than romance when dignity was the thing everyone had taken from you.
Now she was his wife.
And he was leaving.
“You gave me this house,” Ruth said.
Jonah’s expression changed.
“Not exactly.”
“Your name.”
“Yes.”
“A bedroom.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re going to sleep in straw.”
“There’s a cot.”
“Wonderful.”
He almost smiled.
Ruth took one step closer.
“You expect me to believe this is normal?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
His eyes moved toward the floor.
Ruth felt a strange ache.
“Do you regret it?”
His gaze snapped back to hers.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to doubt.
Ruth swallowed.
“Then why are you leaving?”
Jonah’s voice became quieter.
“Because I know what people told you marriage means.”
Her heartbeat changed.
He continued.
“And I know what they told me.”
Ruth waited.
“A preacher signed a paper this morning.”
Jonah looked toward the bed.
“That doesn’t mean I own anything in this room except the furniture.”
Heat rose into Ruth’s face.
“Jonah…”
“You don’t owe me affection.”
His eyes returned to hers.
“You don’t owe me gratitude.”
Another pause.
“And you certainly don’t owe me your body because I stood beside you in a church.”