Marshal’s Law #10: It doesn’t take a very big person to carry a grudge
“Let me stay tonight,” he whispered against her lips.
Outside her door, they kissed. His arm locked around her back and his fingers threaded into her smooth curls, she was pliant in his arms. Hot strokes of her tongue met his. Her leg rose over his pants. They aligned and he groaned.
“I can’t believe I’m losing you, too," she said against his lips. The words were like ice water. Forehead to forehead, he stopped the kiss. Eyelash to eyelash, he panted. What did she just say? “Why didn’t I see this sooner?" she said. "Why couldn’t we have just enjoyed this? For just a little while before it all had to end . . .”
“We’ll only be separated for a little while,” he said. “Just let me get things settled first.”
In the porch’s pale yellow glow, her eyes blanked, as if she hadn’t understood him. “And then what?”
What did she mean ‘And then what?’ He felt like something was lodged in his throat. “And you and the kids can join me.”
When she blinked again, the tears were swimming thickly over those lavender-blue eyes again. They pearled onto her thick, dark lashes. “Oh, Marshal, no. We can’t.”
A kind of frost stole over his skin. Had it escaped her attention that he’d asked her to marry him tonight? Except that he hadn’t. Kay had interrupted them. He’d never actually managed to say the words. Either time stopped or his brain was spinning out, cause he couldn’t track thought or seconds. All he could consider was that he’d just found her . . . and with her, his smile, his laugh, his reason to pull his stiff body out of bed every morning.
Overhead, the stars blurred in his sights. False promises bloomed behind his lips. He’d find a way. They’d keep the farm. It would be just like before. It would be better. But the words wisely died before he could say them.
“Yes we can,” he said instead, keeping his voice low and steady. Their eyes locked, he tried to show her the truth of it.
“How can we? You’re leaving Marshal. Moving I-can’t-even-count-how-many states away . . .”
“But you said it was time for a new dream, a new life.”
“For you,” she said emphatically. “Marshal, I can’t start a new life. My great-grands lived in this area. I was born on just the other side of the Colville Bridge and I’m going to be buried in the cemetery right off of Main Street, beside my husband. You think that I can just up and leave? Tear my children away from their roots? That’s like ripping up an oak.”
Marshal stared at her as if the words were slow to his ears. “You don’t trust me, do you? Like Kay said.” Disbelief charred his voice. A cold autumn wind rustled his hair.
“Of course I do.”
“That’s not the way it looks from my front porch.” He’d managed a few backwards steps and gotten some distance between them. It didn’t stop his thoughts from spinning like a gal-dern top.
“Of course I trust you,” she said and reached to touch him. “I couldn’t let . . . I didn’t want anyone but . . . oh, Marshal. You’ve opened my eyes to so much and we’ll always be friends.”
“Friends?” he echoed and he fell back another step, out of the reach of her hand. “And, what? I’ll listen to your exploits with all your other ‘friends’?” He sneered the word, the anger building until the vein in his neck pulsed. “No thanks, darling. I’ve been through enough hell for one lifetime.”
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Marshal's Law
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