Edge of the Wilderness - By Stephanie Grace Whitson Page 0,15
and managed to learn very little. Only Ellen’s death had ripped him out of himself and down to earth where he could forge a real relationship with his orphaned children and a new life as a true shepherd among the Dakota. And that, he owed to Genevieve. He longed to cross the room, to reach out and run his hand through the torrent of dark hair. He loved the two narrow streaks of white that had appeared at her temples during the weeks of her captivity. She had earned them protecting his children. Every time he saw them, his heart swelled with gratitude and love.
He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the emotion that had overwhelmed him when, after weeks of uncertainty, he saw her, unhurt and healthy, safe at Fort Ridgely with Meg and Aaron; holding a blonde baby in her arms that she and Daniel Two Stars had found, miraculously alive in a ruined cabin. They had named the baby Hope and to Simon she had become almost a symbol of the future family he hoped to create with Gen.
This will not do, Simon said to himself sternly. He jerked his head out of the room and closed the girls’ door firmly, standing with his head bowed for a moment while he tortured himself with memories. After being reunited at Fort Ridgely, Simon had taken his family to St. Peter for a few weeks. Aaron read the paper the day after Christmas and saw Daniel Two Stars’s name on the list of the condemned. Screaming “No!” Gen leaped on Simon’s horse and tore across the country to try to stop it. But she arrived too late. He found her, pale and trembling, seated on a boardwalk, her head in her hands.
Simon had never seen grief like that before. It nearly killed her. In the weeks that followed she grew so thin her clothes hung on her. She trembled with weakness and fear at every loud noise. Once, he found her hiding between the bed and the wall, her hands over her ears, her face streaming with tears.
And then . . . and then they had come to St. Anthony, been reunited with the other teachers, and slowly, over the past few weeks, Gen had come back to him. She began to smile again. She began to eat. Her slim figure filled out. Her blue eyes shone with health and a newfound peace. She laughed as she worked with the children.
Sighing, Simon ran his hands over his face and headed down the hall to the room he and Aaron shared. Genevieve. He whispered it aloud, listening to the beauty of the French name as it floated into the night air. She had been there when Ellen died. Had loved his children and waited patiently for him to recover. And when, instead, he sank deeper into self-pity and grief, she had pulled him out. She had set him straight and pushed him toward his children. How he loved her for it. Loved her for crying in his arms when overwhelmed by her own grief, loved her for listening as he read the Psalms to her in a desperate attempt to help her.
Simon crept into his room. Disrobing in the dark, he once again made the case for why Gen should marry him. They shared so much. And yet, Simon thought as he laid his head on his pillow and turned his face to the wall, he knew that Genevieve LaCroix had never once looked at him the way she had looked at Daniel Two Stars. Perhaps she never would. He punched his pillow and closed his eyes. He would not pressure her. He would give her time. By God’s grace, he would be patient.
But dear God in heaven, he prayed, how he loved her. How he longed to—This will not do.
Just before he fell asleep, Simon decided. He would go to Davenport.
Four
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.
—Proverbs 12:15
“Are you out of your mind?!” Major Elliot Leighton nearly jumped out of the seat he occupied in his mother’s opulent New York dining room.
Margaret Leighton glared at her son and glanced meaning-fully toward the massive cherry-wood sideboard where the kitchen maid was preparing their after-breakfast coffee.
Elliot grabbed the gold damask napkin off his lap and dabbed at his mouth. He smoothed his black mustache around the sides of his mouth. “Aren’t you finished with that coffee yet, Betsy?” Elliot watched with satisfaction as a blush spread