Page 63 of Brian and Cora
They stood frozen for a moment before Cora, much like Jewel earlier, thrust the drawing at him. “Will you please put this in my lap desk?”
Still looking unsettled, he took the paper.
Cora turned to mount her horse. Standing on the step made it easy for her to place her foot in the stirrup.
Ever the gentleman, Torin kept a hand on her elbow to help her up.
As Torin arranged the reins, she settled in the saddle, checked to see her skirts decently covered her limbs, and took the reins from Torin.
From the porch, Jewel waved so enthusiastically she nearly toppled over, saved only by her father's quick reflexes. "Bye-bye, Cor-a! Bye-bye!"
"Goodbye, sweetheart. Take good care of Sassy Girl for me."
With a last wave for everyone, Cora turned Ole Miss toward the path and kneed the mare forward. At the bend before the stand of forest, she couldn't help one last look back.
Brian stood at the corner of the porch, weight shifted onto his good leg, one hand braced high over his head against the porch’s support post, looking as handsome and vigorous as any dime novel hero.
She froze the moment into her memory.
Then the trees closed around her, and he was gone.
Brian listeneduntil the sound of Ole Miss’s hoofbeats faded completely. Even Jewel and Sassy Girl stood quietly. The silence rushed back, no longer the longed-for peace but an aching absence that seemed to echo in his chest.
Torin pointed his index finger and flicked his wrist in the direction of his house. “How ’bout I take the wild ones with me for the night? Unless you need the pup to keep you company….”
Brian nodded several times. “Sounds good.”
He rested the side of his head against the support post and watched until they walked out of sight—two of the three people who, for the past eleven years, had constituted his whole world—and felt a rush of gratitude for the steadfast support he and Hank and Torin provided each other.
Brian had the solitude, now, which he’d craved the whole time he’d been away from home. However, he’d learned that solitude with a person of compatible habits, no, a friend with compatible habits, provided him with more…more… He couldn’t name the more.
Enough moping, he told himself firmly. You have a book to write.
Going inside, he settled at the table, pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward him, and began making a list of people to interview. Sheriff Granger, Deputy Redwolf, Sheriff Temogen, Dr. Angus…. He listed every member of the posse, plus Sheriff Rand. Each name sparked a dozen questions, a hundred details he needed to capture.
For the first time in months, the words came easily, flowing from his mind to his pen so fast he almost couldn’t keep up. Not fiction this time, but truth—messier and more complex than any adventure he could invent. His imagination skipped ahead to the end of the book—an epilogue, maybe—of a weary, wounded hero returning home to lick his wounds in solitude, only to find….
Brian paused, as if struck by lightning, the knowingness sizzling heat through his body, and tightening his chest until he almost couldn’t breathe. His inner walls exploded. Growing dizzy, he took deep breaths until the realization settled within him. Then, he dipped his pen in the inkpot and wrote down a single word.
Love.
CHAPTER 19
Four months later
The February wind rattled the windows of the doctors' office as Cora finished cleaning the surgical instruments. Her hands moved automatically through the familiar task while her mind wandered—as it too often did—to a rustic cabin by a mountain lake and the taciturn man who lived inside.
She was happy, really she was, living the life she’d dreamed of and worked so hard for. A real nurse, trusted by both Cameron doctors, and sought after by families throughout the area. In the past four months, she'd delivered her first baby entirely on her own, sat by the bedside of a dying child, found ways to manage and calm a senile elder, and learned more about medicine than in all her years of volunteering at the hospital.
Her vocation fulfilled her. But not enough to mend her broken heart.
"Ye look tired, lass," Dr. Cameron said from the doorway. "When did ye last have a full night's sleep?"
"The Hendersons' baby had croup three nights ago," she reminded him. "Then Mrs. Mueller's labor yesterday."
"Aye, and the week before that ye were at the Kowalskis' place for five days." He studied her with those penetrating blue eyes. "Ye can't keep this pace forever."
Yes, I can, she thought stubbornly. As long as it keeps me too busy to think.
