Ah, Emmett. With a grumble, she tossed the horrid mourning bonnet on the bed, unraveled her braid, and swept her brush through her long tail of vulgar error. Remembered Emmett’s fingers there, and sighed. In his way, Emmett had a decent husband. Never raising a hand or his voice. And, at first, she had longed for his touch. Perhaps that’s why she had made her dreadful promise, and intended to keep it.
Downstairs, the parlor was empty, full of worn yet snug wingchairs wrapped in a brown plaid, and a hard straight settle. A china teapot hunkered beneath a knitted cozy and Lila warmed her hands at the roaring fireplace. Two rocks and a large pinecone balanced atop the mantel, and a cheap porcelain princess danced in the middle of it all.
“Rebekah? Rebekah? Is it you?”
A man’s low drawl from behind all but stopped her heart. Oh, she heard grief and pain every day, gulped, and planned her virtuous little homily. Had he lost Rebekah? Or was he running from her?
Lila wheeled around, and her heart stopped for real. He was so magnificent, this cowboy in front of her, her breath ran away from her. Then she called it right back. Miss Frieda might have left them alone on purpose, but she didn’t know the truth. Lila’s spirits sank for the thousandth time. Emmett had made it clear, all she lacked to be a true woman. But once she’d studied Art. It was natural to admire such beauty as stood before her.
Oh, and beautiful he was. Dark unruly hair, mussed by a hat. Stubbled cheeks that somehow would feel soft under a woman’s touch and a mustache tickling lips that, well, a normal unmarried woman might desire to kiss. Eyes the color of a moonless sky at midnight filled with shock, dismay—or delight? She couldn’t tell which.
Shock had so furrowed the man’s brow she somehow ached to smooth his forehead. Closed arms, bent head...either holding Rebekah close or hiding himself from her. What had this woman done to him? Emmett had taught her well how to read people, but this tale she couldn’t cipher.
His arms tightened. No. He didn’t seem delighted at all. And she, she was not free to give her heart. It landed on her toes.
“No, I’m not Rebekah.” Lila cleared her throat. “Whoever she is, she isn’t...isn’t me.”
“I see that, now.” The man facing her suddenly smiled, but he didn’t explain more. His furrows turned to joy, and her breath stopped one more time, just looking at him.
Oh, he was truly the type of man who might spark the heart of a regular widow. Should he not have a wife of his own, of course. Or was Rebekah a wife who had run off from her man? What might he have done?
It didn’t matter. She swallowed hard. Lila was a married woman with a memory for a husband. And a married woman who’d failed her man every night. His disappointment flooded her now, had diluted her grief even before Emmett died.
But the fact remained. One simply didn’t break a deathbed vow. Much less, one given to a preacher man.
“I truly regret startling you, ma’am.” He tipped two fingers to an imaginary brim. “For a flash, I saw in you someone I remember from the past. I’m...Bronx Sanderson.”
A slight hesitation over the name, as it might not be real. As if he weren’t used to it yet. A dash of misgiving fluttered, for Leadville held secrets, caused them. But no matter. She calmed the niggle. She had been taught not to judge.
Lila mustered her manners and offered her hand. His fingers flickered over it. “Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m...Mrs. Brewster.”
The name pained her to say, but Emmett’s face surged before her, and she had no choice. “I’m Mrs. Brewster,” she said again, in case he hadn’t heard.
He dipped his head slightly. “Charmed to meet you.” Careful tenor, but shaky…relieved. As if Rebekah was not someone he ever cared to meet up with again. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Brewster.”
When he said her name...did she merely imagine a flash of disappointment in her marital stance? Not that it mattered, for she was married to a ghost.
“Well, I hope a good remembrance, then.” She swallowed a grumble, doubted it, but still smiled the smile that comforted anybody. The lost, the hopeless, the dying.
The fake, lugubrious smile Emmett had taught her. Oh, not that he didn’t mean his somber smiles. But hers? Early on, he’d instructed her in the proper behaviors a dutiful pastor’s wife, no matter how false. And somewhere along the way, she’d lost herself.
And now, here she was, stuck here at the top of the world...married to a dead man.
“Your long red hair is like hers. At first glance. Not the rest of you. Your face, I mean.” His sun-brushed countenance darkened at the cheekbones. “I mean, there are many differences between you.”
It struck her that he hadn’t actually admitted to a pleasurable memory. Maybe long red hair reminded him of something dark, something bad. Some vulgar error of nature. Someone he longed to forget. Her fingers shook, so she tightened them together in a tight knot. She knew well how powerfully memories intruded on one’s life. Heart.