Chapter 41
Belton, Texas; Two Days Later
Yuri tilted his head toward the ceiling of the boardinghouse room and drew in a breath.
The telegram sat unfolded and open on the desk beneath the window.
But he didn’t need to look at it again to remember what it said.
He’d memorized it when he’d stopped partway into town to read it after leaving Rosalind at the Woman’s Commonwealth yesterday.
P. Caldwell arrested and in jail. Awaiting trial without bail. Warrant issued for S. Caldwell’s arrest. I’m new governor. –A.
Yuri still didn’t know what to think of the last sentence, only that he was sorry he’d missed whatever had transpired to cause the secretary of the interior to offer Alexei the governorship.
As for the rest of the telegram, he needed to tell Rosalind.
The stage would be here just after two that afternoon, which gave him about six hours to ride out to the Commonwealth and give Rosalind the news.
She’d said she wanted to know the instant her father was in jail, and she’d said she wanted to stay married to him too.
But did she really? She might have changed her mind over the past two days.
That’s why he hadn’t turned around and ridden back to the Commonwealth after opening the telegram.
If she was going to choose him and living in San Francisco over spending her days on a peaceful farm surrounded by kind women who’d understood what she’d gone through, then he wanted to make sure she fully understood the choice she was making.
He refused to pressure her into any kind of choice she might regret later, and that included staying married to him.
He’d watched the way her eyes had lit up when they’d turned into the drive at the Commonwealth and noticed the way she’d looked around, as though wanting to explore every inch of the property.
He’d seen the eagerness on her face when Mrs. McWhirter had offered to introduce her to the other women too.
There was no question the Commonwealth was the right place for her, but he still needed to tell her what the telegram said. And she’d wanted him to come say good-bye anyway.
Dear Father, give me strength. This is going to hurt. It wasn’t the type of situation he could smile or joke his way out of. It was the type that called for Alexei’s version of seriousness.
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
When he’d first befriended Rosalind and God had given him that verse, he’d had no idea how far God would ask him to go to deliver her from her father, or how deeply he would fall in love with her along the way.
But the verse was still true. He wasn’t sorry that he’d helped her. He was only sorry that he now needed to say good-bye.
But Rosalind was safe and making her own choices and no longer living in fear. She’d stood up to the solicitor in Washington, DC, and found her father’s seal-harvesting ledgers, then turned them over to Yuri to give to Jonas. She’d made so much progress.
That was what he needed to think about as he said good-bye. The good things God had in store for her future, not the things he would lose by not having her in his life.
He grabbed his hat from the hook on the wall and settled it on his head, then latched his suitcase. He could leave it at the livery for a few hours while he rented the horse and pick it back up before the stage came.
He picked up the suitcase and headed toward the door, but knocking sounded on it, followed by the sound of a familiar voice.
“Yuri? Are you in there? Can you open up?”
Rosalind? He wrenched the door open.
“I can’t stay at the Commonwealth.” She brushed past him and stalked into the room. “I mean it.”
He scratched his head. “Is something not to your liking? If someone treated you poorly I’ll ride out to the property myself and give Mrs. McWhirter a piece of my mind.”
“It’s not that.” She spun and faced his direction, and she was a mess.
Her shirtwaist was crooked where it tucked into her skirt, her updo was disheveled and sliding to one side, and golden whisps of her hair poked up every which way.
“The Commonwealth is lovely, really. It’s a nice, peaceful place for women who need a better life. ”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You’re not there.”
“I’m not—” His throat closed, and any words he had shriveled on his tongue. “Are you saying . . . ”
“I’m saying that I still want to stay married to you.
” Her voice grew hoarse, and moisture crept into her eyes.
“I know you must hate me for what my father did to your family. I know you can barely stand to look at me and will probably turn me away. But I also know that the coach comes this afternoon, and I had to tell you how I felt before you left. That I can’t imagine my life without you, nor do I want to.
So if you can find it in your heart to forgive me for what my father did, then I want to be by your side.
I don’t care where we go or what we do.”
He dropped his suitcase to the floor with a thunk. “Is that what you think? That I don’t want to stay married because of your father? I don’t blame you for what he did, Ros. Those were his actions, not yours.”
“You don’t?” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Then why did you pull away when I kissed you? Why have you been so distant from me?”
He reached out and pulled her into his arms, then dropped his forehead down until it touched hers.
“Because I was worried about your father finding you if we stayed married. And because I wanted you to see the Commonwealth. I wanted you to know what your choices looked like, not blindly choose me. I can’t offer you much more than a rented apartment in a dirty city while I work far too many hours trying to get my family’s new shipyard operational. ”
“You’ve offered me more than that from the very beginning.
” She reached up and rested a hand on his cheek.
“You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met, and I love you for it.
Just like I love you for the way you helped me with my charity letters even though you barely knew me when we started, and for the way you insisted on naming the library after my family to try to protect me.
For the way you asked me to leave Sitka and go somewhere safe time and again, and for the way you sat by my side the day after I was injured.
Or how you dropped everything to take me to Washington, DC, and then here, never mind that you’re supposed to be in San Francisco right now helping your family.
You promised to love and honor and cherish me on our wedding day.
But the truth is, you were loving, honoring, and cherishing me long before we got married, and I’m taking you up on that promise in earnest. I won’t let you get out of it so easily. ”
He opened his mouth, then closed it, not quite sure what to say. “I’d hardly call what we had a wedding day. You didn’t have much choice about marrying me.”
She blinked. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?
That I married you because I felt like it was my only choice?
I wanted to marry you. Back in Sitka. I didn’t agree to a rushed wedding because of my father or Leeland or my ribs.
I agreed because I was already in love with you, and I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life by your side. ”
Once again, his mouth opened, but no words came out. Had she truly felt this way about him? All this time? “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you didn’t want to marry me.”
“Not want to marry you?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why would you think that? Wait. Was it because of the things your father tried to do to my family?”
“Of course. Like I said, I can’t blame you for not—”
He stepped close to her again and pressed a finger to her mouth. “That was never it. I never blamed you for what your father did. Not once.”
She stepped away from him. “But you didn’t even have to think before you shot down Alexei’s idea that we get married. You told him no before he even finished talking. Then you left the room to talk to him, and when you came back, it was with a plan for a temporary marriage.”
He’d never meant to give her that impression. All he’d done was set his own feelings aside and try to protect her first and foremost.
But he’d been so fast to quash Alexei’s initial suggestion that they marry. If she’d had feelings for him—if she loved him—how must that have looked to her? And then when she’d asked if they could stay married in Washington, DC, he’d been fast to tell her no again.
But he’d left her at the Commonwealth for two days, and somehow she’d found a ride to Belton and sought him out entirely on her own.
He’d just been praying that God would give him strength while he said good-bye to her a final time, but then she had appeared before he could even rent a horse, answering his prayer in a way that was entirely different from what he’d expected, and telling him that she was choosing him freely—not out of fear or duty or obligation.
He reached out and stroked one of the wayward wisps of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Are you sure you want to stay married and come to San Francisco with me?”
“San Francisco, Sitka, Juneau, Washington, DC. I don’t care where it is. I just want to be with you.” She reached up and laid a hand on his cheek, their faces so close that their breath mingled. “I love you, Yuri Amos.”
“I love you too.” He pulled her into his arms, savoring the familiar way she fit against him. “I’ve loved you for years, ever since you moved to Sitka, really.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she sniffled. “Then why did you tell your brother no when he first suggested we marry? Why did you insist on an annulment?”
He leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. “Because you’re the only person who should get to decide your future, and I didn’t want you to feel trapped for the rest of your life.”
“And you set up things so we could get an annulment so that I’d have a choice about marrying you in the end?”
“I wanted to bring you to the Commonwealth. I thought you’d love it.
I assumed you’d want to stay and . . .” He shook his head.
“I suppose that wasn’t fair of me, was it?
Even though I said you could have your own choice, I assumed you’d want to stay here with women who’ve been through similar things. ”
“I’m glad you brought me here. I mean, Mrs. Mc— Martha had written me about improvements they’d made to the property with my donations, but seeing it and meeting the women I’ve helped was so much better than I could have imagined.
I hope my investment accounts do even better next year, simply so that I can raise the amount I donate every month. ”
Of course she’d say that, this dear, sweet, generous woman God had given him. He couldn’t stop his lips from forming a gentle smile. “I hope that happens too.”
“But none of what I saw here makes me want to stay. I still want to be your wife, but do you think San Francisco will be safe for me?”
He released her, but only so that he could pick up the telegram from the desk.
“Very safe. The envelope Mrs. McWhirter gave me when I dropped you off was a telegram from Alexei. Your father is in jail awaiting trial, and I can’t imagine Leeland will want anything to do with your family after a scandal as big as this. ”
He handed her the paper. She took a moment to scan it, then squealed and launched herself back into his arms. A moment later, she pressed up onto her tiptoes and settled her lips on his.
He moved his hands up to frame her face, then brushed the tear tracks on her cheeks with his thumbs as he deepened the kiss.
She melted into him, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
He tasted salt, whether it was from her tears or his own, he didn’t know.
All he knew was that he kissed her until the taste of salt faded, then rained kisses across her cheeks and neck before finally dragging his mouth back to hers.
When he finally pulled away, she looked at him through wide, shining eyes. And then she smiled. A real, true smile. The kind that could only come from having a merry heart. The kind of smile he’d been waiting to see on her face for years.
Bear ye one another’s burdens. Do justice to the afflicted. Fear thou not, for I am with thee.
All three of those verses were coming together in the woman before him, a woman he’d almost missed out on making his.
“I love you so much,” she whispered.
He planted a kiss on the soft place where her neck and shoulder met. “And I love you just as much, maybe even more.”
And he planned to spend the next fifty years of his life making her smile.
But he wasn’t going to tell her that. He was going to show her. Every day. Until she figured it out for herself.