A Chance In Time (5 page)

When he returned to the house, she was
stirring the pot. He took a moment to study her. She had her back
turned to him. The blue dress she wore had faded flowers on it and
was frayed at the edges. He sighed. Not only did she need a better
house and barn, the poor woman needed clothes that could sustain
the elements of life out here, in the middle of nowhere. Her
mattress was thin, and despite the discomfort, she didn’t voice a
single complaint. He actually preferred his blanket on the floor.
She needed a good quality bed. It didn’t have to be fancy. Then his
eyes took in the single pot. What woman wouldn’t want more cooking
supplies? He examined the whole cabin and shook his head. There
seemed to be no end to the things she needed. But with enough gold,
her problems would be solved.

She peered over her shoulder and
frowned. “Are you feeling ill?”

“
No. I feel fine.” But, in
a way, that was a lie. He did get sick to his stomach when he
thought of how she’d been living over the past year. He lumbered to
the chair at the table and sat down. “Penelope, can I ask you
something?”

“
Yes.”

“
When your husband died,
didn’t any men come by to see you?” It seemed to him that as soon
as the bachelors discovered her availability, they would have been
beating down the door to marry her.

She shrugged and kept her eyes on the
stew. “Men wish to have children to carry on their name. I had an
accident when I was a girl. I can’t have children.”

He noted the sadness in her voice and
the slumping of her shoulders. “Even so, I’m sure you had some who
were interested,” he softly said.

She shook her head.

“
Then why did your husband
marry you?”

She didn’t respond. Instead, she
continued to stir the pot.

“
Penelope?”

Sighing, she touched her cheeks with
her free hand, and he wondered if she was crying. She took a deep
breath. “I didn’t tell him.” She spoke so low that he could barely
hear her.

“
But you told the other
men?”

“
I hated myself for lying.
I couldn’t do it again.”

“
And when none of them came
to see you, did you wish you hadn’t told the truth?”

She softly laughed. “No. I felt better
having been honest. It was hard keeping it from Randy.”

So that was her husband’s name. Not
that he cared. He rather preferred to think of Randy as the unnamed
man who’d long since been removed from her life. He chastised
himself for such thinking. Shifting in his chair, he cleared his
throat. “You never know. One of the men might come to see you
someday. Not all men value a woman based on whether or not she can
give him children.”

She looked at him, and he quickly
lowered his eyes. A moment of tense silence passed before she
spoke. “I can’t open the jar. Will you do it?” She motioned to the
sealed jar of pickles on the table in front of him.

More than happy to do anything for
her, he nodded and did as she asked.

Chapter Eight

Penelope had some time alone in the
cabin while Cole worked on the fence, so she closed the door to the
cabin and took a bath. Stepping out of the tub, she wrapped the
towel around her body and walked over to the dresser. She noted the
trembling of her hands as she pulled the drawer open and pulled out
her brush, mirror and barrette. It’d been over a year since she
gave any care to her appearance.

Cole’s words gave her hope. She
confessed that she couldn’t have children, and he didn’t seem to
mind. Other men had. But he hadn’t. Maybe he wanted to stay with
her after all. The thought made her heart skip a beat. She could
think of nothing better than to have him stay.

After she towel dried her long blond
hair, she ran the brush through it. It fell softly past her
shoulders and down to the middle of her back. When it completely
dried, it would be wavy. She recalled how Randy liked that. Maybe
Cole would too. She picked up the mirror. Living on the prairie had
made her skin tougher than it used to be. The sun had done that to
her. She rarely wore a bonnet or hat unless it was too bright
outside and she wanted protection for her eyes. Most of the time,
she exposed her fair skin. That wouldn’t have happened back east.
Her hands weren’t as smooth either. But she thought she was still
pretty. Hopefully, Cole would agree.

She set the mirror down and pulled her
hair back with a barrette so that the wind wouldn’t blow it in her
eyes. That part of living on the prairie bothered her, which was
why she started putting her hair in buns.

She placed the mirror and brush back
in the drawer and shut it before she turned to get dressed. There
was nothing she could do about her attire. If he decided to stay,
she’d buy a better dress. If he didn’t...She sighed. If he didn’t,
then what would be the point?

Gathering her courage, she opened the
front door and dragged the metal tub so she could empty it on the
grass. Then she placed it out in the sun to dry. Wiping her hands
on her dress, she went to see where Cole was. She decided she would
ask him what he wanted for lunch. That was innocent enough, and it
gave her an excuse to see him. And let him see her.

She found him hammering a wood post
into the ground with a sledgehammer. Examining the distance between
him and the barn and the erected posts, she said, “You are making a
long fence.”

“
I want the horses to have
plenty of room to roam,” he replied. He tested the post, seeming to
be satisfied, and turned to her. His eyes widened, and he took a
moment before he spoke. “I see you finally got that bath you’ve
been wanting.”

“
Yes.” Despite the cooling
wind, her face felt hot. If she could calm the racing of her heart,
it’d help. “I feel better. Cleaner.”

He smiled. “You look nice.”

She returned his smile despite the
nervous flutter in her stomach. “Thank you.”

“
Did you come out to watch
me build the fence?”

“
Actually, I came to find
out what you want to eat at lunch.”

“
Anything you make will be
fine.”

She nodded. This wasn’t exactly
conducive to a conversation. Glancing at the stack of fence posts
six yards away from them, she asked, “Do you want to teach me how
to do this, like you did with the roof?”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“I can teach you how to repair this fence, but that should wait
until I’m done. There’s no sense in you knowing how to do this
part.”

“
Are you
thirsty?”

“
A little.”

“
I’ll get you something to
drink.” She turned to go back to the house when he stopped
her.

“
I found a canteen in the
cellar. It’s never been used, so I filled it up with water and
brought it with me.”

She sighed. She didn’t know what else
to talk about, and she had no reason to come back before lunch was
ready. But she didn’t want to be alone. Maybe she’d be fine with it
if she knew he’d stay. She didn’t know though. She watched him as
he went to retrieve several posts and brought them beside
them.

“
There’s no sense in
running back and forth for each one,” he explained as he picked one
up. He found a place for it and pressed it into the ground. “It’s
been ten years since I did anything like this.”

Finally, something to go on! “What did
you do for those ten years?”

He took the sledgehammer and pounded
the top of the post. “I think you could say I was a scientist. I
tried to figure out if some things were possible or
not.”

“
Really? Like
what?”

He hesitated for a moment. “You know
Thomas Edison?”

“
You worked with
him?”

“
No. I do things similar to
what he does. I invent things.”

“
What kind of
things?”

He finished pounding the post into the
ground and took a deep breath before he faced her. “I don’t know
how to explain it. I mean, it’s nothing you would be familiar
with.”

“
Can you describe
it?”

He glanced at the sky before he
exhaled and shook his head. “No. I can’t.”

“
Are you going back to
it?”

As soon as she asked the question, she
cut off the eye contact with him. Instead, she focused on the post
and mentally noted the precision with which he had managed to set
it up. He obviously was better trained for this kind of thing than
Randy had been.

“
No, I’m not,” Cole
replied.

She dared a look in his direction.
Should she even ask him what he was planning? Deciding to hedge on
the topic, she said, “You’ve done a lot to help me out here. I
appreciate it.”

“
It’s the least I can do.”
He smiled and grabbed another post. “This is actually fun. I didn’t
enjoy construction as much as I enjoy this.”

“
Maybe you can keep doing
this.” This time she didn’t look away, even though her heart raced
and cheeks grew warm. She fiddled with the fabric on her
dress.

He glanced her way, and she wished she
could decipher the message in his eyes but she had no idea what he
was thinking or what he meant when he answered with a vague
“Maybe.” Then he returned to his task.

Deciding against bringing up more of
this topic than she already had, she said, “I’ll get started on
lunch,” and strolled back to the house.

Maybe. Why did he tell her “Maybe”?
Cole chastised himself for saying that word. But then, one could
reason that he didn’t mean that he’d do this kind of work
here...with her. No. He knew what “Maybe” implied, and it was wrong
for him to hint that he might stay here. It wasn’t fair to her. A
woman who spent a year of her life alone didn’t need to believe
that she’d never be lonely again.

Cole knew all too well the bitter
sting of loneliness. Marriage didn’t guard against the emotion.
After all, he’d been married and felt more alone during that
disaster than he had after the divorce when he was physically
alone. In some ways, being married to a woman who committed
adultery was a worse kind of loneliness. It meant outright
rejection. Yes, there were times when one was better off staying
single.

Being married to Penelope wouldn’t be
like that. It’d actually be everything he hoped his first marriage
would have been. He sighed. Penelope was a good woman. Why hadn’t
anyone married her yet? It couldn’t be because she couldn’t have
children. That was the stupidest reason he’d ever heard for a man
not to marry a woman.

He shook his head and returned to
setting up the fence posts. Just as he didn’t understand some
women, he guessed it was fair to say he didn’t understand some men
either. Maybe some people, in general, were dumb.

Chapter Nine

The day came when Penelope had
exhausted all of her supplies and needed more. She’d delayed the
trip for as long as she could. Cole hooked up the horses, and he
had the clothes he’d been wearing when she found him. There was no
reason to believe he was coming back with her. He’d given her no
indication he was. Though she did her best to look pleasing to him,
he hadn’t said anything more than that she looked nice...and that
was the day when he started putting up the fence.

She didn’t know whether to scream or
cry. Or she could slap him. What was wrong with him anyway?
Couldn’t he tell she loved him and would do what she could to make
him happy? Wasn’t she pretty enough for him? Or was the place he
came from so important that he couldn’t stay? Or maybe he planned
to come back with her. Just because he wore his clothes instead of
Randy’s, it didn’t mean he was leaving.

She groaned. There was only one way
she’d know. She was going to have to ask him. Then she’d know and
be prepared for it if he was leaving. Taking a deep breath, she
left the cabin and shut the door behind her.

“
Are you ready?” he called
out to her.

She nodded and walked over to him. She
waited until he faced her before she spoke. “Will you stay in
town?” There. She couldn’t get any more blunt than that. Exhaling,
she anxiously waited for his response.

But he didn’t answer her. Instead, he
held his hand out toward her. He wouldn’t even look her in the
eye.

This wasn’t good. It
couldn’t
be good. But she
needed those supplies, so she had to go to town. She accepted his
hand, even though a part of her wanted to stand still and demand an
answer. If he was leaving, why wouldn’t he just say it? Why make
her hope?
And when did he ever give you
hope? Really, he didn’t give an indication that he was going to
stay.
Knowing that didn’t make the sting
any less painful.

He walked to the other side of the
wagon and hopped in beside her.

She gathered the reins and released
the brake. He had every right to go. She wished she knew where he
was going to. What was more important than her? It wasn’t his job.
It had to be something. Maybe...Could he be married? The thought
hadn’t occurred to her before.