Alex blinked at the package and horror dawned in her eyes. The plum fell from her fingers, and she clutched the blanket with both hands. “John, no! I’ll never wear it.”
He untied the string and opened the cloth wrapping. She stared in revulsion at moonlight gleaming softly on the wooden leg. In a horrible way, it was a work of art, she could see that. Knowing anatomy as he did, John had shaped the wood to approximate an actual leg. At the top was a padded canvas cup with a harness contraption that would hold the leg firmly in place. At the bottom was a large wooden knob.
She scurried backward on the blanket as if he held a snake in his lap.
He caught her icy hands in his. “Alex, please listen.” Ashen-faced and trembling, she jerked free and clapped her hands over her ears. “I can tell you a hundred times that Payton’s death was not your fault, but you’ll never believe me. So I’ll tell you this. However Payton Mills died and for whatever reason, you have punished yourself enough. Nothing you do will change what happened that night. You can confine yourself to a wheelchair and shrink the world around you. You can deny yourself convenience and happiness. You can seclude yourself and define your life by the stairs you cannot climb, by the pleasure you will not allow yourself. And Alex? None of your misery or self-punishment will bring Payton back or change one minute of that night.”
“Payton would be alive if it weren’t for me!”
“The time has come to forgive yourself and go on. Would Payton want you to punish yourself for the rest of your life? Was he that kind of man? I can’t believe it, Alex. You wouldn’t have chosen a cold, vengeful man for a husband.”
She had always assumed that Payton would be as unforgiving as she was of herself. Odd that she could forgive others, but not herself. Never.
“I can’t,” she whispered, staring with abhorrence at the wooden leg. “I’m sorry, I just… I can’t.”
John caught her hands and stroked them. “Alex, I beg you. Put the past behind you. Do you really think you were spared that night so you could live in misery and blame? Is that why you didn’t die, too? So you could make yourself unhappy for the rest of your life?”
White-faced and choking, she jerked her hands out of his and reached for her clothing. “I don’t want to hear this!”
“I love the woman who had the courage to face down a stampede. I love the woman with the determination to pick herself up every time she falls. I love the woman who drives those stubborn mules and shoots the snakes. That is the woman I want to build a life with. Not the woman who wants to retreat to her wheelchair when this cattle drive is over.”
“You don’t understand. No one does.” Hurrying, she dressed herself and fastened her buttons with shaking fingers. She had longed to hear him speak, imagined it a hundred times. But now all she wanted to do was escape the torrent of words. Her need was so intense that she would have crawled to her chair if John hadn’t stood, pulled on his pants, then pushed the chair to her.
“Please, my love. Stand upright and give us a future. Live again.” He met her eyes in the starry light as she rose to her knees and gripped the arms of the chair. “Walk into my arms and let me love you forever.”
“Please. Just take me back to camp.”
He stood behind her for a long moment, his hands on her shoulders. Then he silently pushed her back to the campfire. “John…” she said, when they reached the chuck wagon. But she couldn’t tell him that she loved him. He would interpret her love as a promise for a future together.
But they had no future. He could throw away her ring, but not her obligation to Payton. Not her guilt. Tonight, she had betrayed Payton in a way she had never dreamed she would. It was madness to consider even for an instant that she would reward her betrayal by walking upright again.
“Please,” she whispered, rolling away from him toward her bedroll. “Burn that thing.”
In the morning, she found the wooden leg on her worktable. Furious, she would have hurled it into the campfire except Caleb and Dal were already up and waiting for their coffee. They watched her with smiling expectation and she remembered John explaining that everyone in the outfit had helped craft the hideous appliance.
Tears glistened in her eyes as she threw the leg into the bed of the wagon, then concentrated on preparing breakfast.
“The worst thing that can happen is if the cattle panic and go into a mill in the water,” Dal warned, addressing them all. “We’ve got solid footing on either side, and we won’t have the sun in our eyes. The point steers will follow a horse, so I’ll lead us in and we’ll swim the herd as a unit. If we break into smaller bunches, we’ll never get the beeves to enter the water. Keep the herd compact and don’t allow any gaps. Keep them moving.”