She Whispered Goodbye to the Wounded Cowboy — Then He Opened His Eyes and Repeated Every Word

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PART 3

The day passed in a fog. Lydia cooked breakfast she couldn’t taste, cleaned rooms she couldn’t remember cleaning, and said nothing to Caleb beyond a lie about being tired. He noticed anyway — he always noticed — but he’d learned by then which silences to leave alone. She told herself she could still run, could pack the bag she’d arrived with and slip away before supper. But she’d already proven, walking eight months and hundreds of miles, that there was nowhere far enough. William had found her once. He would find her again. Better to face whatever this was on ground she’d chosen than ground he’d forced on her. So at half past five, with dinner warming on the stove and her heart hammering in her throat, she walked the twenty minutes to the western fence line alone.

He was already there when she arrived, hat in his hands, thinner than she remembered, a new scar at his temple. He turned at the sound of her boots.

“Lydia.”

She stopped ten feet away, keeping the distance like a wall between them. “William. What do you want?”

“Is that any way to greet your husband?”

“You’re not my husband. Not anymore.”

“The law says different. We’re married until death or divorce, and I’m not dead. Despite your best efforts.” He smiled, and it didn’t reach his eyes. “Took me the better part of a season just to get back on my feet after that pan of yours. By the time I could ride, you had a long head start. But I’m a patient man. Followed your trail town by town after that. Took months, but I got here.”

“So talk.”

“Come home. We can start over.”

She almost laughed at the audacity of it. “You think I would ever go back to you?”

“You’re my wife.”

“I was your victim. There’s a difference, and if you’re too stupid to see it, that’s your failing, not mine.”

His face hardened. “Careful, Lydia. I could go to the sheriff right now. Tell him you tried to kill me. You’d hang for it.”

“Then why haven’t you?”