Epilogue #3
Ruth laughed and gathered her shawl, making her way out into the hall, where she found Henry waiting by the front door in his good coat, turning his hat over and over in his hands with a restlessness she hadn’t seen in him since the very first night she’d arrived at this ranch, nervous and uncertain in a parlor full of strangers.
“You look as though you’re about to face Gideon Walker all over again,” she teased gently, coming to stand before him.
Henry huffed a short laugh, though it did little to smooth the tension from his shoulders. He glanced at the road that led to the church, visible through the open door, and then back at her, something raw and unguarded in his expression.
“I’ve stood before Pastor Luke once already and made vows I didn’t fully understand the weight of at the time. Today, I understand exactly what I’m promising, Ruth, and exactly what it will cost me if I fail to keep it. That frightens me a good deal more than any duel on a dark road ever did.”
Ruth’s heart softened entirely. She reached up to smooth the collar of his coat, taking her time about it, letting her hands linger against his chest a moment longer than strictly necessary.
“Henry Foster,” she said softly, “I have lied to you, deceived you, brought danger to your very doorstep, and still you rode into the night after me without a moment’s hesitation.
If that isn’t proof enough of what you’re capable of keeping, when it matters most, then I don’t know what more proof either of us could ask for. ”
“That’s precisely what frightens me,” he said, quiet and honest. “Loving something enough that losing it would undo me entirely. I spent years making certain I’d never feel that kind of fear again, after Samantha and Thomas.
And here I am anyway, more afraid of losing you than I have been of anything since I came home from the war. ”
Ruth rose up onto her toes, then, and kissed him. Gently, unhurried, with none of the desperate urgency of the jailhouse boardwalk, but something steadier instead, a promise offered quietly rather than declared.
“Then we’ll be afraid together,” she murmured against his mouth, “and trust that whatever we’re promising today, we won’t be asked to carry it alone. Isn’t that what faith is, in the end? Not the absence of fear, but trusting God with it anyway.”
Henry’s hand came up to cup her face, his thumb tracing gently along her cheek, and something in his expression eased at last. The tightness of nerves softening into something closer to wonder.
“Charity beareth all things,” he said quietly, echoing words she recognized instantly from her own worn Bible, words she hadn’t realized until this very moment he’d taken so fully to heart.
“Believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.
“I mean to spend the rest of my life proving I understood that verse rightly, Ruth. Starting today.”
From the doorway, James cleared his throat loudly, Lola bouncing impatiently at his side in her Sunday best. Her hair was carefully braided, a small bouquet of wildflowers already clutched in one determined fist.
“Are you two going to stand there all morning,” James said, though his grin gave away how little he minded the delay, “or are we going to church?”
Ruth laughed, tears prickling unexpectedly at the corners of her eyes—happy tears, this time, the kind she was still learning to trust after so many months of the other kind. “We’re going,” she said, taking Henry’s offered arm, and together they stepped out into the bright Sunday morning.
Lola skipped ahead of them down the porch steps with her flowers, James following behind with the satisfied smile of a man who’d waited a long while to see his family whole again.
The ride to town passed in comfortable, easy silence, broken only by Lola’s excited chatter about the flowers she meant to give Ruth.
By the time the small white steeple came into view against the pale morning sky, Ruth found that whatever nervousness had lingered in her own chest had settled entirely into something calm and certain instead.
A while later, they drew up outside the church and she caught sight of Pastor Luke, waiting on the steps.
He was already dressed for the service with his Bible tucked beneath one arm and unmistakable joy written across his weathered face.
As she saw him, she thought of a verse he had once read to her.
Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
She understood it now, in a way she hadn’t been able to then. Every frightened choice, every borrowed name, every sleepless night of guilt and prayer had led her here. To this small church, this good man beside her, this family waiting to make her vows true at last.
“Ready?” Henry asked softly, offering his hand as she stepped down from the wagon.
Ruth took it without hesitation, threading her fingers through his, and smiled up at him with everything she no longer needed to hide. “Ready,” she said, and meant it fully, for the very first time.
THE END?
(turn the page)