Page 61 of The Rancher's Wedding

Estelle felt herself starting to tear up. She was just talking now, letting everything come out. If there was a point to the story or everything she was saying, she wasn’t sure what it was, but it was all things she’d never told anybody and she was tired of keeping it all inside.

“I got along with my mother much better than I ever did with my father. In that sense, Iwasorphaned. And I see what my mother meant. My father did the best job he could to love me and give me everything he thought I wanted. He tried to help me live the most comfortable life, but that wasn’t what I wanted. He couldn’t love me just like he couldn’t love my mother. At least, not in the ways we needed to be loved.

“And I don’t know about you, Michael. I think I love you and I think you love me, but what I know is right now, you’re loving me exactly how I need to be loved. I think that’s rare. I think most people don’t ever get that. And it wasn’t from hard work. It was from luck.”

Michael shook his head. “It wasn’t luck, Estelle.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No such thing as luck, if everything has a purpose. We were meant to be together. The things that happen, well, sometimes it’s hard to understand what God had in mind. But with you and me, it’s clear. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

And she felt the same about him.

He leaned forward and kissed her, through her tears. She couldn’t imagine belonging to anybody else.

And, yet, as she held her sobs in, she wondered if that would be the last time they kissed. She tried to savor it. Would he still want to kiss her after hearing the whole truth? Michael was a forgiving person, but even the most forgiving person had their limits.

She let go of the kiss and looked at his face, the look of somebody who was in love with her, and she wondered if she’d ever see it again.

He had to know the truth—that she was engaged to another—but she still feared losing everything by telling him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Estelle ran up to Jacob’s cabin. Time was running out and her future with Michael was up in the air. Her father was coming and there was no telling when he would arrive, but she knew it wouldn’t be more than a few days. Michael already knew a little bit, but he still didn’t know about Ethan and Estelle feared that would be the part that finally broke him.

Not being an orphan surely complicated things, but it didn’t necessarily affect Michael, not directly. With her engagement, Michael was unknowingly involved in a violation of a legal contract and, should her father choose to act, could potentially cost Michael more money than he had. And that could lead to his losing the ranch.

Estelle knocked on Jacob’s door and he opened it.

“I’m not good at secrets,” Estelle said. “I should be happier than I’ve ever been, but the secret is holding it back. Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Jacob said, and gestured for her to take a seat in the living room.

Estelle hadn’t been inside Jacob’s cabin before and had only glanced at it through the window or open doorway. The wooden chair in the living room had a thin layer of dust on it, which she wiped away before sitting on it.

“I apologize for the condition,” Jacob said. “I don’t get very many visitors.”

Aside from the dust, the cabin was tidy. She wondered how Jacob spent all of his days. Perhaps he remained in his room for the bulk of the day, reading letters from Megan and writing back to her, but that wasn’t enough to fill a whole day. She looked at him and noticed the sadness on his face, not because he was particularly sad now, but because he’d been alone for so long that it had engrained itself on him.

Estelle unfolded the telegram from before and gave it to Jacob, who looked at it and read it aloud.

“‘Estelle, I’m sorry. I’m heading to Utah. Your father.’”

“What do you think ‘I’m sorry’ means?” Estelle asked.

Jacob pulled a chair in from the kitchen and sat down beside her. “He’s your father,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Estelle said. “Either he’s coming to bring me back and he’s sorry that he has to do it because he knows it’s not what I want or he’s genuinely sorry that he ever expected me to marry a pathetic excuse for a man like Ethan and is coming out to apologize.”

Jacob pondered the two options for a second. “Why would he come all the way out here just to say what he could say in a letter?” He shook his head. “No, I think he’s got to be coming to try and take you back.”

“But he can’t do that, I’m married,” she said.

“I’m no expert in legal matters,” Jacob said, “but if I know one thing about the law, it’s that the lawyers can make it mean whatever they want. Your father has money?”

“Yes, quite a bit of it.”

Jacob looked at Estelle and said his words slowly. “He wouldn’t come out here unless he was sure he’d be able to get you to go back with him. We don’t have much use for a strict and rigid law out here. We mostly settle things on our own. If somebody steals something from someone, we make ‘em give it back. If somebody breaks something of someone else’s, we make ‘em fix or replace it. We’ve got a jail, but don’t have much use for it. Rules and laws are mostly for city folk.”

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