a piece of her.
She brushed past him into the aisle, little more than a slip of a shadow, leaving the scent of snowflakes and roses in her wake. Why such a strong reaction to her? he wondered. Why was being near to her like a bind to his heart? His chest warmed with strange new emotions, and he did his best to ignore them as he let the door blow closed. He was a man with problems, not one in a position to care about a woman or to act on what had troubled him the night through. Best to stick to the plan. He squared his shoulders and faced her. “I was hoping to spare you a trip out into the cold this morning, but I’m too late.”
“The milk.” She glanced at the two buckets by the door and down the long aisle. She tugged her icy muffler from her face, revealing her perfect rosebud mouth and chiseled chin. “And you’ve tended the livestock.”
“The animals have been fed, watered and their stalls cleaned.” He was glad he could do that for her and make her burden lighter, even for this one morning.
“You did my chores.” Delight and surprise transformed her. Her flawless blue eyes were compelling as any lyric, her vulnerability captivating as any poem. She waltzed to the nearest stall, her small gloved hands brushing Flannigan’s nose. “And done well, too. Oh, Ian, thank you. This is wonderful.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t done every morning at home. Or used to.” Sketching her for hours last night had not been enough. He planted his feet, longing to capture the snow glinting like jewels in her midnight-black hair and her shining happiness. “When our stables were full, the morning chores took me from before dawn to noon.”
“My grandmother spoke of your family’s horses.” She swept off her snow-dappled hood. Ice tinkled to the ground at her feet. “I met her when I was a little girl, hardly knee high. She took me on her lap and told me about the thoroughbreds.”
“There was never a more lovely sight than a pasture full of them grazing in the sun, their coats glistening like polished ivory, gold, ebony and cherry wood.”
“We have never owned animals like that. Just workhorses. My friend Meredith’s family has a very fine driving team, some of the nicest in town, and a few of the wealthier families have horses like that. It’s like poetry watching them cross the street.”
“Aye, and to see my grandfather’s horses run, why, that was pure joy.” He ignored the bite of emptiness in his chest, longing for what was forever lost. Failure twisted deep within him, and he couldn’t speak of it anymore. “So as you can see, tending two horses and a cow was no trouble at all.”
“It hurts you to talk of what is past.”
“Aye. Just as it is painful for you to talk about what is to come.” He wished he were a different man, one who knew the right thing to do. Leaving could not be right, but staying could be no solution. Fiona wasn’t his concern, although he’d spent his life hearing of the pretty flower of a girl he was expected to marry. Perhaps that was bond enough. He cleared his throat. “It was hard when we lost the last of our land. We sold off parcels one at a time, but we could not stave off losing all of it. The hardest part was letting go of the good memories that happened in the house where I was raised. Where my ma would bake cookies for me before she passed away and my grandmother would play the piano in the afternoons. When I was working with my grandfather in the corrals, the music would drift over to us on the wind.”
“You are a rich man, Ian McPherson, although I do not think you know it. To have had a family who loved you and memories to hold close like that has to be the greatest wealth there is.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way before.” Material wealth had always been a great source of pride in his family, and the loss of it was a great humiliation that had taken the fight out of Grandfather and weakened Nana’s heart. He had been fighting so hard to restore his family’s wealth, he had not taken the time to consider anything more. But seeing what Fiona had here and how loveless her life was, he saw his childhood with