High Country Bride

High Country Bride by Jillian Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: High Country Bride by Jillian Hart Read Free Book Online
Authors: Jillian Hart
a repayment, but it was all she had to offer.
    The back door swung open and there was Aiden, leaving his boots behind in the lean-to and staring at her with shock on his stony face. The kindness she’d come to see there vanished, replaced by a cold blast of anger.
    “What are you doing?” His voice was loud enough to echo around the room. He came swiftly toward her, with raw fury and full power. “Get out of my kitchen.”
    She’d expected him to be happy that she’d cooked for him, saving him the chore. She kept stirring the eggs so they wouldn’t congeal. “In a moment. I’m nearly done here. I didn’t mean to intrude. I know it was forward of me, but—”
    “I want you out.” He drew himself up as if ready for a fight.
    Yet she was not afraid of him. She heard Daisy crying quietly at the table and James hop off his chair to come to her aid.
    “Outside, both of you.” She laid down the whisk. “Aiden, the biscuits are ready. Let me take them out of the oven.”
    “Now, Joanna.” The words came out strangled.
    He was not angry at her, she realized. There, behind his granite face, she thought she caught something terrible—grief and sorrow—before that glimmer of emotion faded from his eyes. He stared at her, cold and imposing. He did not have to say another word. His face said it for him. She was not welcome here. Coming had been a mistake. An enormous mistake.
    Miserable, she turned away. She had to detour widely to avoid bumping his arm with her shoulder, for he’d planted himself in the middle of the kitchen. Shame made her feel small as she hustled to the door, where her children waited, wide-eyed and silent, in the lean-to.
    So much for her brainy ideas. She took James with one hand and Daisy with the other. They tumbled into the blinding sunshine together. Dust kicked up beneath their shoes as they hopped off the last step and into the dry dirt. To the right lay a garden, the vegetables small and stunted, wilting in the morning sun. Duty cried out to Joanna to water those poor plants, for their sake as much as for Aiden’s. She glanced over her shoulder, remembering the awful look on his face.
    She could see him in the shadows of the kitchen, standing where she’d left him, his shoulders slumped, his hands covering his face.
    She’d never seen a man look so sad. Her feet became rooted to the ground, even though James was tugging at her hand. Something held her back. Something deep in her heart that would not let her leave the man behind.
    He’d loved his wife. He really had. Joanna stared at him, transfixed by the shadows that seemed to surround him, by the slump of defeat of his invincible shoulders and the hurt rolling off him like dust in a newly tilled field.
    She could see as plain as day what she’d done. Had there been another woman in this lovely house he’d built for her since her death? Probably not. He’d simply walked with no warning into the kitchen from his work in the barn to see a woman standing where his wife had once stood, cooking his breakfast.
    Sympathy flooded her. Joanna hung her head, staring at her scuffed and patched shoes dusty from the dry Montana dirt. What she’d done with the best of intentions must have cut him to the soul.
    How did she make this right? Would it be cruel to try to stay and work off what she owed him, and put him through this kind of remembering? Or was it better to pack up the children and leave? Which would be the best thing to do? There had been a time in her life when she would have turned to the Lord through prayer for an answer.
    Now, she merely felt the puff of the hot breeze against her face and the muddle of agony in her middle. It was strange that Aiden’s hurt was so strong she could feel it as easily as the ground beneath her feet.
    “Why’s he so mad, Ma?” James asked quietly, his hand tight in hers.
    “He’s had a great loss.”
    “Oh. Does that mean he had a funeral?”
    “Yes.”
    “He’s sad. Like I was when Pa

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