It would. It had to. Looking at her shadowy form in the darkness, he turned the question back on her. “What will you do? With your life?”
“I don’t know.” She swallowed. “Bree always talked about sending me to college, but even if we had the money, I’m not sure that’s what I want.”
“Why not? You’d be good at it.”
She gave a regretful laugh. “Bree should have been the one to go. She’s a planner. A striver. Though she dropped out of high school to help support me.” He could hear the self-blame in her voice. Then she laughed again. “But maybe she was glad. She was impatient with school. She’s always had an eye to the bottom line. If not for those old debts threatening us, she’d be running her own business by now.”
“I didn’t ask about Bree’s dreams,” he said roughly. “I asked about you. What do you want?”
She paused. “You’re going to think it’s stupid.”
“Nothing you want is stupid,” he said, then snorted. “Except maybe stealing my horse and riding off alone into the desert.”
“Not one of my best ideas,” she admitted. For a long moment, they lay silently beside each other in the darkness. Kasimir started to wonder if she’d fallen asleep, then she turned in the darkness. Her voice was muffled as she said, “I never really knew my mother. She died a month after I was born. She was supposed to start chemo, then found out she was pregnant. She didn’t want to put me at risk.”
“She loved you.”
Her voice trembled. “She died because of me,” she said softly. “When I was growing up, my father and Bree were always away on their moneymaking schemes. I was mostly alone in a big house, left with a babysitter who got paid by the hour.”
Kasimir’s heart ached as he pictured Josie as a child—even more tenderhearted and vulnerable than she was now—feeling alone, unwanted, unloved.
“And from that moment, even as a kid, I knew what I wanted someday. And it wasn’t college. It wasn’t even a career.”
“What is it?” he said in a low voice.
He heard her shuddering intake of breath.
“I want a home,” she whispered. “A family of my own. I want to bake pies and do piles of laundry and weed our garden behind the white picket fence. I want an honest, strong husband who will never lie to me, ever, and who will play with our kids and mow our lawn on Saturdays. I want a man I can trust with my heart. A man I can love for the rest of my life.” She stopped.
Kasimir’s heart lurched violently in his chest. For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
“See?” she said in a voice edged with tears. “I told you it was stupid.”
He exhaled.
“It’s not stupid,” he said tightly. For a moment, he closed his eyes. Then he slowly turned to face her in the darkness. His vision adjusted enough to see her eyes glimmer with tears in the shadows of the bed.
I want an honest, strong husband who will never lie to me. A man I can trust with my heart.
Kasimir suddenly envied him, Josie’s future husband, whoever he might be. He would deserve her, give her children, provide for her. And she would love him for the rest of her life. Because she had that kind of loyalty. The kind of heart that could love forever.
The irony almost made him laugh. Kasimir envied her next husband. Because even though he was married to her now, Kasimir couldn’t be that man. He wasn’t her partner, or even her lover. Not even, really, her friend.
But he could be.
“After I pay you for the land,” he said, “you and your sister will be free of those old debts. You’ll be able to pursue your dreams.” He ignored the lump in his throat. “Whatever they might be.”
“You’re going to pay me?” she gasped. “I thought our deal was just a direct trade—the land for my sister.”
“And I always intended to pay you full market value,” he lied.
He heard her intake of breath. “Really?” she said wistfully.
No. He’d pay her double the market value. “Yes.”
“You don’t know what this means to me,” she choked out. “We won’t have to hide from those men anymore. We’ll be free. And if there’s any money left after the debts, Bree could use it to start her bed and breakfast.”
“Is that what will make you happy?” he said. “Using the money so your sister can fulfill her dreams?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Yes!” she cried. “Oh, Kasimir...” He felt her hand against his rough, unshaven cheek, turning him towards her. He saw the tearful glitter of her eyes. “Thank you. You are—you are...”