perfect.
She made a picture with her china-doll face flushed pink and relaxed. Only the fading bruise of her black eye remained. He hated that she’d been hurt, but it would be the last time. He vowed it.
“Uh, Ian?”
He blinked. Austin was waiting, as if for an answer. Embarrassed to be caught watching the lass, with his feelings—he feared—revealed.
“The candles are up. Why don’t you go fetch the last of the ornaments from the girls, and then we will all be done.” Austin cleared his throat, probably trying not to laugh.
Sure, he felt like a sap as his feet hit the polished wood floor. The rest of the men gathered around the tree knew it, and he didn’t miss the choked-back laughter as he walked away. Just wait, he wanted to tell them. Wait until a pretty lass comes along who turns your priorities upside down. Until there wasn’t anything a man wouldn’t give to make her life better.
“Are you glad you stayed to help?” Fiona asked, unaware of how vulnerable she made him with that curve of her smile and her sweet spirit.
“Aye. I haven’t had this much fun since I was in school.” Before Grandfather’s illness had taken him out of the classroom for good. Life had been far too serious.
“You have made friends.” She looked pleased, as if that was her hope. “I mean, if you are going to be staying here, it might be nice for you to know people. So you aren’t so alone.”
His throat closed, and he could not speak. Ah, but her caring touched him and made the losses in his life smaller and the hardships easier.
“That is the last of them.” One of the girls—the red-haired one—shoved the box into his hand. He suspected Fiona’s friends saw right through him to his eternal devotion. To his enduring, lifelong love.
A love that likely would never be returned.
He clutched the box, realizing he still could not speak. He feared Fiona, too, could see far too much. It was for her that he gave a shrug, as if to make up for his silence, and turned away.
“I will take those.” Lorenzo took the ornaments, his manner gruff, although Ian sensed he did not mean to be.
He knew how it felt not to have affection for Fiona returned. He felt an odd empathy with the young man as they stood side by side, hanging the last of the decorations in the uppermost branches.
The chairs were pulled away and all in the room gathered close to admire the tree. Everything passed in a haze for him: the cacophony of movement and noise, the joyful discussions, the call to join hands in prayer. Fiona slipped into line beside him, her soft hand finding his. That surprised him, as did her tight grip. All through the prayer, he did his best to keep from asking the Lord above for what he wanted most. As the group prayed for compassion and peace and for the welfare of others, he did, too.
He prayed for Fiona. Not that he would win her love, but that she would have her heart’s desire. Beyond all that he wished for himself, none of it mattered a bit in comparison with all he wanted for her.
Coziness clung to her and chased away the shocking cold as they sped toward home. The town was a shadow in the falling twilight behind them, and the road ahead ribboned across the gently rolling prairie. Tonight the wind did not whisper to her as she drew the blanket up to her chin. Whatever the world held out there could not be as rosy as what Ian had given her here.
“Do you think you will like staying in Angel Falls?” She felt shy, her voice strangely thin, but she attributed it to the bitter temperatures.
“I like it just fine. This place will be a new start for me, different from all that I knew. Maybe I can find my future here in this land of wide-open prairie and of mountains that hold up the sky.”
“Spoken like a man who is thinking of drawing those mountains.”
“How did you know?”
“You are less and less a stranger to me.”
“I feel as if you never were, lass.”
It was pure kindness, plain and simple, a sign of his compassionate nature, that was all. Fiona fisted her hands inside her mittens, determined to be practical and sensible.
“What kind of start did you have in mind?” Snowflakes sifted through the air between them, perhaps hiding what she really wanted