Edge of the Wilderness - By Stephanie Grace Whitson Page 0,29
thing as marriage.” He swallowed hard and plunged ahead, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. How could I have thought—” He stopped abruptly and brushed his open hand across his head. “I’ve lost nearly all of what little hair I ever had. The remains are turning gray, so that I look older than I feel. My nose is too big. My eyes are too small. I’ve failed more than once in various aspects of life, and have little to show for my thirty-some years of life other than my children and Hope.” He gripped the leather strap connecting his saddlebags so tightly his knuckles turned white as he rushed to say what had been on his heart for weeks. He sighed and shook his head, “I keep my distance because I promised you I would. Because it would be ridiculous for me to expect a woman like you to feel anything for this—” He hit his chest once and looked away again. He laughed sadly. “I’m not the kind of man women like you fall in love with, Genevieve.” He blinked and then looked back at her, smiling kindly. “But I am grateful to you for making an attempt at friendship.”
Gen clenched her fist and gently pounded on his chest. “I do want to be your friend, Simon. But—but friendship isn’t enough. I don’t want a marriage of convenience. I don’t want us to marry simply because it’s the right thing to do for the children. It is the right thing for the children. But I want it to be right for us as well.” She looked up at him. “I want passion in my life, Simon. We are going to be man and wife long after Aaron and Meg and Hope grow up and leave us to each other. I don’t want to look across the breakfast table the morning after Hope’s wedding and wonder who that stranger is. I don’t want either of us to think the reason for our marriage has expired once the children have lives of their own.”
Her voice gentled as she continued. “What if you aren’t the most handsome man in the state? So what? When you take Hope or Meg on your lap and snuggle with them, it’s completely charming. Your voice has taken on a depth—a tone that I love. You aren’t scrawny, as you put it when you proposed to me. You’re—wiry.” She caught one of his hands in hers. “And I like your hands. They used to be soft and almost feminine. But after your time with the army and driving relief wagons all over the countryside, they’ve become callused and rough—and I like it.” She didn’t let go of his hand when she looked up at him. “And women don’t mind bald heads nearly as much as most men think.”
She reached up and turned his face back toward her. Searching his eyes, she finally saw the feelings he had tried so carefully to hide.
He surprised her by bending down and touching his lips to hers. She closed her eyes. As quickly as it had begun, the moment dissolved. Simon pulled away.
“I’m sorry, my dear—I didn’t mean—”
But Gen reached up and, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulled him toward her. She kissed him again and still didn’t release him, but instead laid her head on his chest. “You proposed marriage and then it seemed you moved away. I needed to know—”
“Well now you know. I love the way your hair glistens in the firelight when you sit in the parlor reading to the children. I love the sound of your laughter.” Simon chuckled and held her close. “You are, all in all, a terrible distraction for this old missionary.”
Gen looked up at him. “Miss Jane said I should wait and pray. I’ve been praying. Obviously I’m not so very good at waiting.”
“And this trapping me into a blatant display of my carefully concealed emotions,” he asked, “whose advice was that?”
“If you’re talking about one-and-a-half kisses, Reverend Dane,” she answered, “I came up with that on my own.”
He smiled at her and cupped his hands around her face. “If that’s the case, my dear Miss LaCroix, I’d say you should take your own advice more often.” He sighed. “And now I don’t want to go to Camp McClellan.”
“Nina said that hers and Mr. Whitney’s courtship was con-ducted almost entirely through the mail.”
Simon cleared his throat nervously. “I’m not very good at courting, Genevieve.”