Page 86 of A Forgotten Heart
“Nick, wait!” Her boots thumped against the boardwalk, running toward him.
He’d passed Mr. Thomas sweeping the rug in front of his shop when Elsie tugged his arm.
“Nick, please!”
He let her tug him to a stop, faced her even as his heart clamored behind his ribs. “Something you forgot to tell me?”
She flinched at the vitriol in his voice.
She glanced at Mr. Thomas, who was clearly listening. Nick didn’t care. She’d stopped him, so they could have this conversation now.
“It’s not what it looks like.” Her mouth trembled as she panted out the words.
He glanced beyond her toward Nelson, still standing where she’d left him, watching.
“He was holding your hands, Elsie. He has a ring.” He hadn’t meant for her to hear the hurt.And you didn’t tell him to go away.
She reached for Nick, but he jerked away, and she hugged her waist instead.
“Arnold has been a friend for a long time,” she rushed to say. “It’s not serious between us.”
Guilt shadowed her face. She wasn’t telling the whole truth.
“When a fellow offers a ring, Elsie, it’s serious.”
Her eyes slid closed, releasing tears to cascade down her cheeks. “My parents introduced us. I should’ve said no when he asked to write me. My mother?—”
He knew how her mother used guilt as a weapon, manipulated Elsie’s emotions. But even so, Nick found himself asking, “Why didn’t you tell your mother you wanted something different? Why not tell him to stop writing, if you didn’t want him?”
He knew he was being unreasonable.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d sent off for a mail-order bride?” Her eyes flashed, hurt clear in her words.
Her breath shuddered as she went on. “You don’t know what it’s like to be an orphan, Nick. To be worried every day that you’ll say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and be sent away.”
She drew a shaky breath, and he felt a pang for that little girl Elsie had once been.
“If I tell my mother I won’t see Arnold, she won’t—”Love me anymore.
She didn’t have to say the words for him to understand. His heart sank. Because where did that leave him?
“So you’ll marry him, then?” he asked bitterly. “Just because your mother wants it?”
How could he blame her? Mr. Fancy Suit could provide for her much better than Nick, a failed schoolteacher, could. Ranching was difficult work. Some seasons offered no return.
The fact that she’d led Nick on, let him believe there was a future for them, hurt more than anything.
Still, he had to ask. Give her one last chance to choose him. “Are you going to tell him no?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. And her silence shattered Nick’s heart.
“I wish you had stayed forgotten.”
He turned and strode away.
Chapter 17
Just before dusk, the blackened ruins of the bunkhouse came into view as Nick rode onto McGraw land. It looked how Nick felt hours after riding away from town. Gutted. Nothing left but an empty shell.
