Chapter Twenty-Nine
She had agreed to go with him. Ruth told herself that, over and over, as Walker’s men closed rough hands around her arms and hauled her up from the table. She had agreed. This was the bargain she herself had struck, the price she had chosen to pay.
And yet, knowing it did nothing to quiet the instinct that rose in her the moment those hands closed around her, some deep animal part of her that understood only danger and fought against it without asking permission from the rest of her mind.
“Let go of me.” She twisted hard against the grip on her arms, her heels dragging uselessly against the sawdust floor as they pulled her toward the swinging doors.
“I said I’d come. There’s no need to—”
“Careful, Miss Turner.” Gideon’s voice followed her, unhurried, almost amused. “A struggling bride draws attention. And attention is the very thing we’re trying to avoid tonight.”
The words did more to still her than any grip could have. She forced her body to go slack, though her heart continued to slam against her ribs, and let his men march her out into the cool night air and toward a string of waiting horses.
They lifted her bodily onto Gideon’s own mount before she could protest, settling her in front of him in the saddle like a parcel to be delivered. His arm closed around her waist a moment later, holding her in place with a casualness that made her skin crawl.
“We ride for Millbrook,” Gideon announced, as his men swung up onto their own horses. “There’s a pastor there who understands the value of discretion—and of a full purse.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Imagine. A man of God, turning down coin for a simple ceremony. I’d never encountered such foolishness in all my dealings.”
Ruth said nothing, staring straight ahead into the dark road unwinding before them, and tried not to think of Pastor Luke’s kind, weathered face, or what it would have cost him to refuse a man like Gideon Walker outright.
They rode in silence for a time, the horses’ hooves striking a steady rhythm against the packed earth, the town’s lights shrinking behind them until only darkness remained on every side.
Ruth’s mind circled, unbidden, back to the one question she had not yet found the courage to ask.
“How did he die?” she said finally, her voice barely audible over the creak of the saddle. “My father.”
“Ah,” Gideon said nonchalantly, as though she’d asked him about the weather. “Fell ill, from what I understand. The drink had already ruined what was left of him. His heart simply gave out one evening, and no one thought to look in on him until the smell gave it away.”
He said it so plainly, so utterly without weight, that Ruth felt something cold settle deep in her chest. “A rather undignified end, though I confess I can’t say anyone will mourn him greatly. He was, in the end, only useful to me as a means of collecting what I was owed.”
A means. That was all her father had ever truly been to this man. Not a debtor to be pitied, not even an enemy worth hating. Only a means to an end, the way she herself was now only a means to whatever satisfaction Gideon still believed himself owed.
Ruth closed her eyes briefly, grief and something that was not quite grief tangling together in her chest, and found she had no strength left to examine either one too closely.
Not now, she thought. Not with the road still unwinding ahead of her and Millbrook waiting somewhere in the dark with its bribed pastor and its false promises of a marriage no more legitimate than the one she’d already fled.
Lord, she prayed silently. I have nothing left to bargain with. No name of my own left to hide behind, no coin left to offer, no plan left to save myself. I have only You.
She thought of Esther, trembling before a king who could end her life with a single word, going forward anyway because there had been nothing left to do but trust that her steps, however frightened, were not unwatched.
Give me strength to endure whatever comes, she prayed.
And Lord—watch over Henry. Watch over Lola.
Let my leaving be enough to keep them safe, whatever becomes of me tonight.
“It won’t be so bad,” Gideon said, breaking into her thoughts, his voice low against her ear in a way that made her stomach turn. “You’ll want for nothing, so long as you understand your place in it.”
His arm tightened fractionally around her waist. “And your marriage to Foster may in fact have been to my advantage in some ways,” he continued thoughtfully.
“After all, you’re now well-versed in cooking and keeping a house in order.
Although, I imagine my standards are much higher than that rancher. ”
Ruth said nothing, staring fixedly at the dark road ahead, and prayed harder.
“In time,” Gideon went on, apparently untroubled by her silence, “you may even come to be grateful for it.” He laughed softly to himself. “Funny, isn’t it? All that running, all that scheming with another woman’s name, and here you are regardless, exactly where I always intended you to be.”
No, Ruth thought, fierce and silent beneath the fear. Not exactly. I chose this. Whatever else you believe, Gideon Walker, you did not win. I gave myself to save them, and that is not the same as being caught.
It was cold comfort, riding through the dark with his arm locked around her and Millbrook drawing steadily closer with every stride.
She clung to it all the same, the way she clung to the small silver cross still resting beneath her collar, its familiar shape the only steady thing left in a night that had taken everything else from her.
The road curved gently, following the line of a dry creek bed. Something made Ruth turn her head. As she did, beneath the pale moonlight, Ruth thought she saw something in the far distance behind them.
A shape, low and fast against the pale road, gaining ground with a speed that no idle traveler would have troubled himself to keep. Her heart stuttered painfully in her chest. It’s nothing, she told herself. Even though hope, foolish and unbidden, rose hot and sudden in her throat.
He does not know where you’ve gone. He cannot know. And yet, she found she could not look away from that distant shape, could not stop the small, desperate question forming again and again beneath her prayers, refusing to be silenced no matter how firmly she tried to bury it.
Could it be him? Could Henry have come for me after all?