Because he’s cock deep in Mary-Louise Walker right now while you’re weeping over him. The words sat perched on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them—he couldn’t bear to hurt her like that, and frankly he didn’t want to villainize Cain like that, not even if meant winning Ginger.
“I see you with me, not him,” he said simply. “Darlin’, I’d be so good to you. Don’t you know that?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her lovely face, limp with sadness.
Reaching down, he took her hand gently, lifting it, bringing it to his chest and placing it directly over his heart.
“You can have this heart to break,” he said softly, devoutly, surrendering everything to her—his dignity, his control, his very soul—“if there’s even the smallest chance you might want it someday. Because here is what I know: even if you can’t ever give me yours, mine already belongs to you.”
Tears coursed down her cheeks and fell to her chin, dripping onto her lap as she stared at her hand, flattened against his shirt. When she raised her eyes, she tried to smile at him, but more tears spilled from her eyes instead. “God damn it, Josiah. Why’re you s-so good to me?”
“Why’s the sky blue, Ginger?” he asked, raising her hand to his lips and kissing the translucent skin on the underside of her wrist before entwining his fingers through hers. “Because it don’t know no other way to be.”
“I’m so tired,” she said, letting her head fall to his shoulder. She took a deep, ragged breath that shook her whole body, and he put his arm around her, pulling her into his side and using his good foot to push off the ground again and set them in a gentle motion. Back and forth. Back and forth. Woodman sighed and let his head lean over to rest on top of hers.
“Then you go ahead and rest,” he said. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Gin. My heart belongs to you. If you’re ever ready to give me yours, well, you come find me, darlin’. I’ll be waitin’.”
She tried to catch her breath but ended up sobbing and sniffling before continuing. “You d-deserve the best, W-Woodman.”
“Which is why I’m waitin’ for her to come to her senses,” he said, chuckling lightly.
“You love me that much?”
“That much and more,” he said, the words coming easily and feeling right. “Close your eyes and rock awhile beside ole Woodman. I love you, Gin. I’ve got you covered. You just take your time, darlin’.”
The next breath she drew was finally clean and deep, and he felt her relax against him, her fingers still braided through his, her head heavy against his shoulder. And Woodman closed his eyes too, his heart strangely content in its surrender, in giving up any remaining control to the woman he loved, and placing his destiny completely in her hands.
Chapter 14
Ginger
Dinner with the Woodmans was an exercise in torture after what had happened with Cain, and it didn’t help that her mother drank too much Chablis and started in on her and Woodman getting married someday. After her charged exchange with Cain, it was the very last conversation she cared to have or listen to. All she really wanted to do was curl up in her bed and cry herself to sleep, so she stayed quiet and pushed her food around her plate as she tried not to burst into tears at her mother’s dinner table.
Woodman, who seemed to sense her despondency, suggested they take a walk, and finally they excused themselves to sit on the porch swing. Though she couldn’t tell him what had transpired with his cousin—not that she wanted to, it was almost too humiliating to bear—at least she wasn’t subject to her mother’s unbearable teasing anymore.
“You’d think it wouldn’t be so much fun for them after ten years,” she said.
Woodman chuckled softly. “They were worse’n usual today.”
“They treat us like Daddy’s horses. Go breed us some grandbabies, daughter! It’s disgustin’.”
“Aw, come on, now. They’ve always been a little silly about us.”
She’d cried all the way from the old barn back to her cottage this afternoon, and then for an hour or more on her bed, until the Woodmans arrived for supper. And now her tears threatened to return again so she summoned anger to try to negate her deep sorrow. “It’s just a big game for them—who we love, who we want.”
“Ginger—”
“I’m nobody’s puppet, Woodman,” she said, turning to look at him as he sat down beside her on the swing.
“I know that,” he said gently, his face grieved. “You’ve always had a mind of your own, darlin’.”
“Even if you want to control people, you can’t. Our hearts make decisions that our heads don’t even approve. We can barely control ourselves. And nothin’—nothin’ on earth—ever works out the exact way you want it to.”
She was talking about Cain, of course—about how she’d stupidly thrown herself at him, believing that he’d draw her into his arms, make love to her for days, and declare his undying devotion. And he had soundly rejected her, trouncing her heart, humiliating her, and closing the door on whatever future she’d dreamed they could have.
So Woodman’s next words surprised her because he must have assumed that she was talking about him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For tryin’ to force you to love me.”