“I wanted to write the first day I read your name.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because gratitude can become another kind of chain.”
She stared.
He continued:
“You were a child.”
“You gave food to another child.”
“You didn’t sign some promise that I could claim you eighteen years later.”
Her breath caught.
He looked toward the floor.
“I wrote only after I learned about the debts.”
“And even then I nearly burned the letter.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew exactly how the offer would sound.”
He looked at her.
“A man you barely remembered says he’ll clear your creditors if you marry him.”
“I knew what everyone would think.”
“What did you think?”
His mouth tightened.
“That if you said no, I would pay the worst of the debt anyway.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“I had already sent money to the bank.”
Her entire face changed.
He seemed uncomfortable now.
“Not all of it.”
“Enough that they could not take the clothing and personal things listed in your mother’s estate.”
She stared at him.
“I thought the bank suddenly accepted a settlement because of the marriage.”
“They did.”
“But you had already paid part?”
“Yes.”
“Before I agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked confused by the question.
“Would it have changed the debt?”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Then what is?”
She stood.
The movement was slower than it would have been for a smaller woman, but there was nothing weak about it.
She adjusted the burgundy shawl around herself.
“You gave me a choice without telling me it was a choice.”
The mountain man’s brow furrowed.
“I told you you could refuse.”
“You also told me the debt would be settled if I accepted.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me part of it had already been settled.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His answer was painfully simple.
“Because I was afraid you’d think charity was pity.”
She stared at him.
“And marriage wasn’t pity?”
His face changed immediately.
“No.”
The force behind the word almost startled her.
He stepped forward once.
Then remembered himself and stopped.
“No.”
His voice softened.
“Never.”
The woman looked toward the chair.
Her hands were shaking.
Not from fear exactly.
From the exhaustion of discovering that everything she believed about the arrangement had been built from assumptions.
“You had seen what I looked like?”
“Yes.”
“Before I came west?”
“A photograph in the newspaper.”
She gave a humorless laugh.
“The funeral photograph.”
“Yes.”
“The one my aunt said made me look enormous.”
His face darkened.
“I remember the caption.”