A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(98)
She searched the falling darkness of the empty schoolyard for RJ, then saw the shadow of Captain riding away with a familiar figure on his back.
Disappointment panged sharp. But he had no reason to stay to say good-bye. They had no understanding.
Another thought blasted her. In her contract as a schoolmarm, she couldn’t even consider marriage as long as she was teaching. She puffed out a breath and headed for the wagon where her sisters waited. The idea probably hadn’t even crossed RJ’s mind.
But logic did little to ease the longing ache in her heart.
Lord, do I . . . do I love RJ Easton?
29
He was in love with Delphinium Nielsen.
RJ let Captain have his head across the darkening prairie, hardly feeling the November wind whistle past his ears and beneath his eye patch. He’d told Adam and Forsythia he needed to let Captain get some exercise after the school raising tonight, but in truth, it was RJ who needed the ride. Time alone with only his horse, the night air, and God. To think, to pray—he was glad he’d learned to pray again in this healing little town amid the wilds of Nebraska.
To try to make sense of the emotions swirling around his heart.
When had it happened? He reined Captain in a bit, not wanting the horse to stumble in the darkness. When had she gone from being an infuriating woman whose mind he couldn’t make heads or tails of to one who seemed the very heartbeat of his soul? With Del he felt like himself again, whole despite his missing eye. He had gotten to know her, that’s all—the real Del, who poured herself out for her students, who gave selflessly to others, whose passion for teaching went far beyond that required by her job. The Del who stayed after school to help Timothy when she had twenty other students’ work to grade and two family businesses to help run. The Del who cleaned up a drunken father’s mess and spooned stew into his ailing wife with as much care as she gave to each of the children entrusted to her teaching.
The Del who had looked at him tonight with her heart in her eyes and tears on her cheeks, until it took all that was in him not to catch her in his arms and kiss those tears away.
He’d never known Francine like this, he realized with a twist in his chest. Odd, since they’d grown up together. But it was a parallel life, not one that entwined minds and hearts. They hadn’t eased the suffering of others together or even shared their own. Francine hadn’t had suffering, far as he knew. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t been able to handle the news of his injury and shifted to something easier—someone easier. And thus showed him he’d never really known her at all.
Not that he’d pretend to know Del fully yet. The mysteries of a woman weren’t to take lightly, his pa had told him once. But he wanted to . . . Lord, I want to.
Stars pricked cold overhead, the wind shifting and temperature dropping still more. RJ wheeled Captain around to head back toward town, wisdom dictating he shouldn’t stay out too long in this weather.
What to do, then? Custom would dictate approaching her father, but she didn’t have one. Anders, then—if only he weren’t hundreds of miles away.
RJ sighed and bent his head over his horse’s patient neck. Lord, I’ve spent enough time following my own stubborn head over things. Show me the way here. And if this is my will only and not yours . . . He paused, swallowing back the rebellion. Surely he’d learned by now it wasn’t worth it, not in the long run. Then your will be done. But if you would make a way for Del and me, please, show me what it is.
That Saturday, while finishing the roof of the schoolhouse with William and Jesse and some of the others, an answer came so suddenly that RJ dropped his hammer, which clattered down the shingles to fall to the ground below.
“All right up there, Mr. Easton?” William craned his neck to look up at him.
“Sorry.” RJ’s neck heated. He never dropped his tools. It was a pure mercy it hadn’t hit anyone. “I guess I’m getting clumsy.” Or woman-addled. If this was a sample of his brain on love, heaven help his employees.
As evening approached, RJ headed to the train station. He stepped into the telegraph office operated by Edward Owens, a lanky man who had been a supervisor on the railroad but decided a quieter job was more to his taste. He managed the mail now too.
“To whom?” Mr. Owens asked, peering at RJ from behind the counter.
“Anders Nielsen, Linksburg, Ohio.” RJ hesitated. “You have paper I can write the message on?”
Mr. Owens pushed a small sheet across the counter to him.
RJ chewed his lip a moment, then bent over and wrote.
Dear Anders STOP I want to marry your sister STOP
He halted. He better specify which one.
Delphinium STOP Requesting your permission to court her STOP Please reply immediately STOP Robert Joseph Easton
There. RJ blew out a breath and passed the paper over, grateful Mr. Owens appeared to be a discreet fellow—or at least largely uninterested in anything but his own affairs.
Now he had only to wait for Anders’s reply.
It still had not come Monday, when RJ helped the Nielsens and a number of other Salton families move the desks, benches, and books into the new schoolhouse, ready for their first day of classes in the new space.
Wednesday afternoon, RJ stopped again at the telegraph office before the Thanksgiving program. It would be held at the school in honor of tomorrow’s holiday and in celebration of the new building.