He prepared the wagon.
She watched.
Finally:
“I’m coming.”
He looked surprised.
“Okay.”
“That’s all?”
“What else?”
“You could say you’re pleased.”
“I’m pleased.”
She smiled.
Town was worse than expected.
People stared.
Not everyone.
Enough.
A woman outside the mercantile whispered something to another.
A man near the stable looked at the wagon seat, then the widow, then smirked.
The old shame returned instantly.
Her husband noticed.
His shoulders changed.
She touched his arm.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t.”
He understood.
They entered the store.
The merchant greeted him.
Then the widow.
His eyes lingered.
Not cruel.
Curious.
She hated that she could not always tell the difference.
A group of women near the fabric counter recognized her as the new mountain wife.
One smiled too brightly.
“So you’re the Baltimore widow.”
“Yes.”
“We’d heard you were…”
The woman stopped.
The widow waited.
“From the East.”
Coward.
The widow smiled.
“So I am.”
Another woman asked:
“Is mountain life difficult?”
“Less difficult than some people promised.”
Her husband pretended to inspect nails nearby.
He was listening to every word.
The first woman glanced toward him.
“You’re fortunate.”
The widow felt the old phrase.
There it was.
Fortunate any man would take you.
Before she could answer, the woman continued:
“He built you quite a fine home from what we hear.”
The widow realized perhaps she had assumed the insult.
Not every sentence belonged to her aunt.
That recognition unsettled her.
She softened.
“He did.”
Then a male voice behind them ruined everything.
“Built the door wider too?”
Laughter.
The widow froze.
Her husband turned.
The man who spoke was a ranch hand she had never met.
Young enough to know better.
Drunk enough not to care.
Her husband walked toward him.
The widow’s heart pounded.
Violence.
Her first husband had loved public confrontations when pride was injured.
Men bleeding because someone said the wrong thing.
Then he blamed alcohol.
The mountain man stopped in front of the ranch hand.
The store became quiet.
The ranch hand swallowed.
The mountain man was enormous.
He could have broken him.
Instead:
“Explain the joke.”
The man looked around.
“What?”
“Explain why it’s funny.”
No answer.
The mountain man waited.
The ranch hand looked toward the widow.
Then the floor.
“Wasn’t anything.”
“Then don’t say it again.”
That was all.
He returned to the nails.
The widow stared.
Later, in the wagon, she asked:
“You wanted to hit him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
The mountain man looked toward the horses.
“Would it help you?”