Page 55 of Montana Bride By Christmas
“Let is the wrong word. I came home one day, and she was gone.”
“Did you try to find her before you came here?”
He might as well tell her the whole story. That way, she’d understand why he was not the man for her. “I admit I licked my wounds for a few days, believing she would come back.” He let the truth come through in his own mind. “I suppose I knew from the first that she wouldn’t. I had failed to live up to her expectations. Just as I have always failed.”
She studied him silently for a moment. He could not look at her but stared at the flames as they twisted and turned...much like his thoughts.
“What do you mean, you have always failed? Are you saying Bernice wasn’t the first time you felt this way?”
He watched her reaction out of the corner of his eye. “I had a brother. Kenny. He was five years older, and I suppose he was like a father to me seeing as our pa was gone. Seems he preferred hunting and wandering to taking care of his family. It was Kenny who taught me to ride, to braid a rope, and to fix things around the place. It was Kenny who taught me how to play games.” He stopped as memories of Kenny washed over him. “A boy couldn’t have asked for a better brother.” He didn’t know if he’d reached out for Annie’s hand or if she’d reached for his, but he was grateful for the comfort her grasp offered.
He drew in a steadying breath so he could go on. “Then came the winter I was eleven. Kenny went to town, and I stayed home to tend the fires. Ma would often forget, and we’d come home to an icy house. Kenny said it was too cold to leave her without heat.”
His throat tightened, so he had to stop for a moment. “Kenny never came back.” He would not let the wail clawing at his teeth escape and forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. “The preacher brought us the news he had slipped on the ice and fallen under the wheels of a loaded wagon. He didn’t suffer, the preacher said by way of comfort. I tried to talk to Ma, but she acted like she didn’t hear me. We buried him in town next to the church. To this day, I find funerals hard...to hear the sound of the dirt peppering onto the coffin—” He shuddered.
Annie edged closer and rubbed his arm.
He closed his mind to everything but the story he must tell. She had to know what sort of man he really was. “I tried to take Kenny’s place. About two months after Kenny’s death, Ma fixed supper. I was so grateful for this return to normal. I told her I would do my best to look after things like Kenny had. She put the big spoon down with a thunk. Boy, don’t you ever think you can take Kenny’s place. You don’t hold a candle to him. You’ll never be good enough. She marched from the kitchen and left me alone.”
He did his best to still the shudder those words still had the power to trigger.
“After that day, she never again sat at the table with me and got out of bed less and less.”
The pain inside was too great to hold, and he sprang to his feet and moved closer to the fireplace to stare at the licking, leaping flames, wishing they would consume the clawing memory.
When he could continue without his voice breaking, he did so. “Pa returned once and learned that Kenny had died. He saw Ma huddled in her bed. He said, Well, that’s that, and left the next morning. Didn’t even say goodbye or ask if I needed anything. I learned later that he had died in a mine accident.” He eased breath between his teeth. “Ma died a few weeks later. I was too young to be left alone, the preacher said, and he took me home with him.” This part of his tale contained less pain, and he hurried on. “He and his wife treated me good. Preacher was kind and often read to me from the Bible and explained verses to me. He made such a difference in my life I knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps. And so here I am today.”
Annie rose and stood beside him, also staring into the flames.
What was she thinking? Did she see him for the failure he was? Did she see how much the admission...the acknowledgment...burned at his insides? Would she now realize why she shouldn’t marry him?
She confronted him, her face turned up to his. So close he could see the flames dancing in her eyes, see the tiny white lines at the corners of her mouth. Feel the promise of her personality.
“Hugh Arness, why would you believe such awful things about yourself? Don’t you know that you are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’? That God does not make mistakes?”
He swallowed hard at her challenging look. “God’s creation was perfect until sin entered. Now, it’s flawed. People bear a marred image.”
“That’s so. Yet it seems to me you are more willing to believe what your mother says about you than what God says.”
“I am?” The idea both surprised him and startled him. He saw the flicker of truth in her words. “Are you saying my mother was wrong?”
She chuckled. “You know she was.”
“How do I know?” He searched her gaze for more of those cleansing words.
“Because you know what the Bible says.”
“Well,” he said with some modesty, “not everything. In fact, I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“How about the verse in Second Corinthians that says, ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ Or ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.’ Aren’t you thinking your mother was right when you know God doesn’t agree with her?”
He wanted to argue, to say he didn’t doubt God, but neither did he disbelieve his mother. Annie’s gaze was so tender, so giving, so believing, he couldn’t pull the words from his insides.
“Do you want Evan to believe that the way he was treated before you found him is the way he deserved to be treated?”
“Never.” The word exploded from him.
“Nor does the way your mother treated you and talked to you mean it’s who you are or how you should be treated.” She pressed gentle fingers to his cheek. Her gaze poured into him until he felt as if some healing balm had been applied to his insides.
