Page 23 of A Dangerous Heart
Clare sucked in a breath. Held it as hope rose inside her.
Isaac looked away. A muscle in his jaw jumped. She waited, still not breathing.
“My brothers want to fix me.”
She saw the flicker in his eyes, a long-buried hurt, and let out her breath.
“Do you need to be fixed?” she asked carefully.
A flash of fire lit his usually cool green eyes. “If I bring you back to the ranch, I don’t want them to get the wrong idea,” he said, his tone quiet and serious.
She bit her lip. “Maybe my being on the ranch could be a distraction. Maybe they’d leave you alone.”
He stared at her. She caught a shadow of something moving across his face. He turned his face away momentarily. “Not likely,” he sighed. “What do you have in mind?”
“We could pretend we’re considering getting married. Like we already told—” She swallowed back the name Quade. “It might buy us both some time to figure out what to do.”
He paused. A resigned sigh escaped him as he straightened his shoulders. “All right. I’ll play my part. A man who is considering marriage to a mail-order bride. And you play yours, the prospective bride who hangs on my every word.”
She blinked and choked on a broken laugh.
“I mean it, you’ll do as I say.” He sent her a serious look. “And no more secrets.”
Chapter 6
Isaac pulled in at the front of the lean-to, the wagon full of supplies for Clare and the boys to move into Isaac’s mountain cabin.
Eli coughed.
Ben whispered, “Is that it?”
What little solace Isaac usually found here was absent with the awareness of the three of them in his personal space.
The isolated cabin greeted him like a sickly old hermit. The golden rays from the setting sun illuminated the log-and-mud exterior of the cabin that had become worn, dull, and gray. Loose shingles hung at crooked angles on the roof. The faded boards had gaps that needed chinking. And the hitching post had fallen and lay at an angle.
Drew was right. The cabin was in bad shape. How had Isaac not noticed? He didn’t want to look at Clare and see the horror in her eyes. The tips of his ears burned.
He cleared his throat. “Like I said, the cabin ain’t much.”
“It’s fine,” Clare said.
It wasn’t and he knew it.
He pushed the repairs to the back of his mind, lowering himself from the wagon. She might be safer staying down atthe main house, but there wasn’t really room for her and the boys. His isolated cabin would keep her out of the sight of nosy neighbors who came to call on the ranch.
The river burbled where it widened into a shallow area here. He’d always thought it soothing, but now the noise roared in his ears. Would the boys be able to sleep tonight?
Clare climbed down from the wagon. She halted, her eyes moving from the cabin to the small clearing with the path that led to the river. She didn’t look dismayed. In fact, she seemed almost giddy, pressing her fingers to her smiling lips as if to hold it in.
“I love the sound of the water.”
Ben scrambled down from the wagon.
“Can we go down by the river?” Ben was halfway to the trail that led to the river before Clare could answer.
“Wait, Ben. Wait for Eli.”
Isaac called them back. “The water can be deceptive,” he said seriously. “It looks calm, but it flows faster than you think.”
