Out of the Storm (Buckhorn, Montana #1) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,38

that it was something new for her. This woman was confident. He remembered what Earl Ray had told him about her raising her two daughters by herself and not just supporting herself all these years, but thriving. If she’d really been on her own for twenty years, well, she’d certainly managed better than he had.

“We can talk in my cabin,” he said, thinking of her nice clothes. He couldn’t have her sitting on that old stool that Earl Ray seemed to like. “It’s warmer and not as dusty and dirty.”

He led her out the back door, telling himself that once they talked, once she saw the way he lived, that would be the end of it. But he couldn’t help being curious about her. Especially why she was so convinced he was her husband, Danny. But first he had to know about her fiancé.

“That man with you. He’s your fiancé?” he asked as he pushed open the cabin door and stood back to let her enter.

“We only recently became engaged,” she said and stepped in. “I’ve been a widow for twenty years. Sorry, I think I already told you that.”

“You must have married young,” he said as he followed her inside, slipping past her to go into the tiny kitchen area.

“Seventeen,” she said. “My husband was eighteen. We’d been in love since we were kids growing up in Houston Heights. We would have been married twenty-two years this coming summer.”

He slowed but didn’t turn around as he entered the small kitchen. “So you’re thirty-nine. Coffee?”

“I will be. Yes, coffee, please,” she said behind him.

“Have a seat. That rocker’s pretty comfortable by the stove.” He realized that he hadn’t spoken this many words in years. His throat hurt as it always did from lack of use and from the fire he’d breathed in that had burned and scarred him inside and out.

“Did you make this?” she asked.

He turned to see her stroking the sanded-smooth back of the rocker. “Yes.” He felt uncomfortable, but then again he had since the first time she walked into his workshop. She thought she knew him. The way she looked at him was with such love that it embarrassed him. Because of her misplaced adoration, he didn’t like her seeing the way he lived. Even though he’d never cared before what anyone thought.

But this woman wanted him to be someone he wasn’t. Someone he’d never been. Surely she could see that now. He couldn’t imagine though why she could ever think he was her dead husband. A man like him hiding out in an isolated town in Montana? Couldn’t she see by looking at him that he had nothing to offer—even if he’d once been her husband?

That’s why he’d wanted her to see the cabin, even as much as it hurt him to show her. She needed to see the way he lived, see him with all his scars in the bright light of the winter sun coming through the window. She needed to know that he was no one’s savior. Anyone woman could do better, especially this one.

She sat down in the rocker as he brought out two chipped, mismatched mugs, filled them with coffee and handed her one. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him, then quickly down into the coffee as if embarrassed.

He watched her cradle her hands around the mug, still staring down into it, and felt a strange sense of intimacy. Maybe bringing her to his cabin had been a mistake. He worried that anything he did would be a mistake as he took a seat on the only other chair in the kitchen, one he kept pulled up to the small table. He didn’t need another kitchen chair because he never had company. That too she must see.

When she looked up, he met her green eyes and thought he’d never seen anything so wide and bottomless, so beautiful, so trusting, so loving. He felt sick to his soul that he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. He could see the shards of her broken heart in those eyes when she looked at him. His heart ached to take away that hurt, knowing it wasn’t his place even if he could.

“I wanted to ask about your husband,” Jon said to break the unbearable silence. Normally, he loved the quiet. When Earl Ray stopped by, they often didn’t talk, both comfortable without words.

But with this woman sitting in his cabin, he felt anxious. The sooner they got this cleared