Chapter 7 #3
Red’s arms tightened. The first tears were for Griff, and those tears flowed faster when she thought of her cowardly decision this afternoon to die, denying her baby life.
The tears deepened into sobs over her fear of Mort and Wade Sawyer and all the men who had touched her.
She wept over her terror of Red’s anger about her bills.
Then her body shuddered from the relief that he hadn’t punished her for them, even though she knew he and every other person in town blamed her for Griff’s financial straits.
She cried until she wasn’t aware enough anymore to know why she was crying.
And always Red was there. He rubbed her back and brushed her hair off her forehead and crooned sweet words into her ear, surrounding her with strength and kindness.
The storm started to wane at last, and she became aware that she was sitting on Red’s lap. Her cheek was pressed against his coarsely woven shirt, and her arms were around his neck as if he was the only steady thing in a reeling universe.
She pulled her arms away from him, ashamed of the closeness between them. Slipping sideways, she tried to stand.
Red didn’t let her go. “Just rest another minute, Cass. You needed to cry those tears. You’ve been through a terrible time. Just let me hold you.”
There was an extended silence while she relaxed back into his arms, ashamed of herself for using his strength when she should have her own.
At last, the trembling weakness receded. “I need to clean the kitchen, R–Red.” She stumbled over his name again. Odd that she was having trouble saying it.
Red tilted her chin up with one finger. “You’re going to sleep, little mother. I’ll clean up in here.”
Cass sucked in a quick breath. “This is my job. I’ll do the?—”
“Do you know how to milk a cow?”
The question struck her as so strange, she didn’t answer.
He smiled. “Would you be willing to learn? And I’d like you to gather the eggs too.
There are a few things left in the garden, some potatoes to dig and a few pumpkins that I left, hoping the frost would hold off and they’d ripen.
I’d be obliged to you if you’d tend to those things, and most of the time, I’ll be thrilled if you clean up after meals.
But I’m used to doing for myself, and when you’ve had a hard day, I’m willing to pitch in. ”
Red had framed his offer to help so perfectly.
It was as if he knew she’d want to do her part, and he was reassuring her that accepting his assistance this once didn’t mean she couldn’t contribute.
The words could have come from her own mind.
They were possibly the only words that would have made her leave the kitchen to Red.
“I’ll be proud to help with the milking, Red. I’ve never done it. We didn’t have a milk cow, but I’d try real hard to learn. I’ll help wherever you need me. I want to be however you want me to be, Red. Just tell me what to do.”
“Right now, I’m telling you to go to bed. We can start worrying about chores tomorrow.”
Cassie nodded and eased herself off Red’s lap.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Red went to the saddlebags he’d brought into the house with him when they’d first come home. “Muriel said you’d need this tonight.”
Cassie looked at the brown paper package and vaguely remembered Muriel saying it was a wedding present. She unwrapped it and found a snow-white nightgown. It was embroidered around the neck and made from the softest flannel Cassie had ever touched, more beautiful than the finest silk.
However, it was not an appropriate piece of apparel to look at in front of Red, and she blushed as she folded it quickly and held it against her chest. She looked nervously at him and expected him to say something about immodesty as Griff would have.
But he was smiling at her as if he were reading her mind and found her embarrassment at looking at a nightgown in front of her husband funny.
Another one of those new rules she needed to learn.
“I’ll go on to bed, then,” Cassie murmured.
Red nodded. “Good night, Cass. Sleep as late as you need to in the morning.”
Cassie hung her only dress on a nail in the bedroom and donned her nightgown quickly in case Red would come in.
She crawled into bed. Her muscles ached as if she had been beaten.
Her eyes were as scratchy as sandpaper from all her tears.
The white nightgown wrapped around her, touching her almost as warmly, not quite but almost, as Red’s hands.
Her husband had been buried today. She’d been married today. Already, her new husband was superseding thoughts of the old, and that must make her as stupid and childish as Griff had always said she was.
The day was finally over, but the guilt and confusion might well last the rest of her life.
This had to be the worst day of her life, but she had survived it.
Tomorrow would have to get better. Tomorrow Red was going to let her help him.
It was something she had longed for with Griff, but he’d never given her the chance to prove herself.
She fell asleep planning a wonderful new life where all her dreams would come true.