Proposing to Preston (The Winslow Brothers, #2)(19)

“Indeed,” replied Mr. Fischer, turning back to Elise. “I want the scene toward the end. Ethan is driving Mattie to the train at Zeena’s request. They’re both heartbroken, but they’re also trapped. I want to feel your frustration, Miss Klassan. I want to feel Mattie’s desperation. Here.” He thumped once on his chest, over his heart, for effect.

“I understand.”

“Steve, we’ll start with Ethan’s line, ‘Matt, what do you mean to do?’ and go from there. Got it?”

Steve nodded at Mr. Fischer, then turned to Elise. He had kind brown eyes and winked at her, offering her an encouraging smile before asking, “Ready?”

She took a deep breath. This was it—the biggest audition of her life. Was she ready?

“Yes.”

Steve waggled his head from side to side, loosening up as he opened his script to a dog-eared page, and looked at Elise.

“Matt,” he asked. “What do you mean to do? ”

Elise swallowed, hearing the twang of a New England Mainer accent in her head and focusing on it before answering softly, infusing her voice with heartache, “I'll try to get a place in a store.”

“You know you can’t do it. The bad air and the standing all day nearly killed you before.”

“I'm a lot stronger than I was before I came to Starkfield,” she insisted.

“And now you’re going to throw away all the good it’s done you!” exclaimed Ethan.

Elise looked up at him, surprised that he no longer looked like Steve, the Assistant Stage Manager, but like Preston Winslow, dressed in a homespun, band collar shirt, his thick black hair hidden under a wool-felt brimmed farmer’s hat. Her heart leapt, making her pulse race as she dropped his eyes.

“Isn’t there any of your father’s folks could help you?” asked Ethan.

She shrugged. “There isn’t any of ‘em I'd ask.”

“You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you if I could.”

Her heart caught, and her voice broke just a little. “I know there isn’t.”

“But I can’t. Oh, Matt,” he broke out, his green eyes desperate as he reached for her, then pulled away, just short of touching her, “if I could ha’ gone with you now I’d ha’ done it—”

“Ethan,” she said, pulling a paper from the warm skin between her breasts and unfolding it slowly, her eyes beseeching his. “I found this.”

Ethan knew what it was: a letter he’d started writing to his wife, to tell her that he was leaving with Mattie. And Mattie knew why he’d never sent it—because Ethan was too good and too honorable to leave his invalid wife behind.

“Matt,” he cried, “if I could ha’ done it, would you?”

“Oh Ethan, Ethan,” she sobbed, pressing her palm to her forehead. “Whats the use?”

“Tell me, Matt! Tell me!”

She gulped, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

“I used to think of it sometimes, summer nights, when the moon was so bright I couldn’t sleep.”

“As long ago as that?” asked Ethan, his face hopeful, his green eyes thick and glassy with longing.

“The first time was at Shadow Pond.”

“Was that why you gave me my coffee before the others?”

She giggled softly, recognizing the sad, foreign sound as her own sorry voice. “I don’t know. Did I? I was dreadfully put out when you wouldn’t go to the picnic with me; and then, when I saw you coming down the road, I thought maybe you’d gone home that way o’ purpose; and that made me glad.”

He reached for her hand, clutching it in the warm strength of his. Her hand molded perfectly to his just like she knew it would—like they were made for each other.

“I’m tied hand and foot, Matt. There isn’t a thing I can do.”

She pulled her hand away, because his touch didn’t belong to her, and it burned her skin. “You must write to me sometimes, Ethan.”

“Oh, what good’ll writing do? I want to put my hand out and touch you. I want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when you’re sick and when you’re lonesome.”

Her heart clutched, but she mustered her strength to reassure him. “You mustn’t think but what I’ll do all right.”

“You won’t need me, you mean? I suppose you’ll marry!”

She gasped, the terribleness of another man but Ethan ever touching her almost making her sick. She belonged to him. She was his. “Oh, Ethan!”

“I don’t know how it is you make me feel, Matt. I’d a’most rather have you dead than that!”

Face to face with losing the sweetness of him in her cold, bleak life, she wondered if death would be better than any life that didn’t include Ethan. With sudden clarity, she knew it was true.

“Oh, I wish I was, I wish I was!” she sobbed, watching his face turn away to look out over a meadow, toward the dying light of the setting sun.

“Don’t let’s talk that way,” he finally whispered, reaching for her arm.

Her voice was low and destroyed, a sob and moan and keening desperation rolled into broken words. “Why shouldn’t we, when it’s true? I’ve been wishing it every minute of the day.”