The rest of her, her emotions, her ability to feel, was numb, as if her insides were wrapped in a quilt to keep anything else from breaking.
She was in the back porch, doing laundry, when Mother opened the door. “Betty, there’s someone at the front door. They want to speak to you.”
Betty plucked a sheet out of the washer to run through the wringer. No one ever came to the house to see her. “Who is it?”
Mother wrung her hands together. “The man you cleaned the house for—he’s here to pay you.”
Henry. Her mouth went dry, but her insides, still shrouded in that heavy quilt, helped her maintain the unequivocal calm she’d mastered the past couple of days. He shouldn’t even be in town. Betty shot a glare toward Jane. They’d barely spoken the past few days.
Jane shrugged and shook her head.
“Betty?” Mother asked.
Betty dropped the sheet back in the water. “I’ll talk to him.”
“I wish I knew where your father was working today,” Mother said to Jane as Betty walked past her.
Betty sucked in air and breathed it out, several times while walking through the house, telling herself she could do this. She could see Henry. She could do anything she set her mind to. Even face him. The man she’d forever dream about.
She grasped ahold of the doorknob on the front door, and stood there for a moment, knowing he was on the other side of it. Her body knew it, too. Despite that invisible quilt she’d come to depend on, parts of her were growing warm, tingling.
Pulling open the door, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
He was leaning against one of the tall white pillars on the front porch, wearing a white shirt with black suspenders and pants, and looked even more handsome than any memory. Any dream. That made her tremble harder. Her knees threatened to buckle, as if forgetting she needed them to stand straight.
“I came to talk to you,” he said, pushing off the pillar.
This—doing what she knew she had to do—would be so much easier when he was gone. “I thought you’d already be in Washington, DC, by now.”
“No, I still had some work to do here.” His eyes never left hers. “Lane just told me you’re marrying James on Saturday. Why?”
She did her best to make a shrug look natural. “It’s as good of a day as any.”
Something, anger perhaps, flashed in his eyes. “Don’t make light of this, Betty.”
“I’m not.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“The truth?”
She nodded, even as her entire body flinched inside.
Henry was fighting hard to maintain his anger. Harder than he’d ever fought before. He’d been dumbfounded, shocked, and furious when he’d hung up from Lane this morning, after learning that Betty was marrying James in three days.
Three, damn, days.
He grabbed her hand. “I’ll show you the truth.”
She pulled her hand away. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I can’t. I’m—”
He glared at her. “You can’t? You can get married in three days, but you can’t leave the house without permission? What are you? A woman or a child?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Fine.” She followed him to his car and climbed in. “Show me.”
This was not going as he’d planned, as he’d imagined, but that was typical when it came to having anything to do with her. He should have walked away before she’d opened the door. Should never have come here in the first place. It was as if he was a glutton for punishment.
Or he was trying his damnedest not to feel. Not to care.
He shut her door and walked around the car, got in the driver’s side.
She was staring straight ahead.
He started the car, backed out of the driveway, and drove up the hill, toward Bauer’s building site. He’d show her just what kind of a man she was marrying. He’d cursed her father a hundred times over when Lane said that on the phone, and had made Lane repeat what he’d said because he’d been sure he’d misunderstood.
According to Lane, he hadn’t misunderstood anything. William Dryer wasn’t forcing her to marry Bauer on Saturday. It had been her idea. She was the one pushing for the quick wedding.
The silence was more than he could take. “Why, Betty? Why are you pushing to marry him so quickly?”
“It’s what my father wants.”
“But it’s not what you want.”
“How do you know what I want?” she snapped. “You don’t. No one does except me.”
“And this is what you want? Marrying James?”
“Yes, it is.” She looked out the passenger window. “Now, what did you want to show me?”
“We’re almost there,” he said, fully prepared to let her see the type of man she was pushing to marry.
They drove the rest of the way in silence. He shouldn’t be excited to show her that Bauer was a lazy bum, but as he turned onto the road leading up to the building site, a mean streak of enjoyment formed inside. She was about to see Bauer’s continued disregard for the law herself. Then she could decide to not marry him.
However, as the site came into view, he was the one who couldn’t believe his eyes. There were men everywhere. Sawing boards, pounding nails, putting up walls, a roof. What the hell? He’d been here yesterday and the site looked exactly like it had last week. Nothing but a two-by-four frame.
“Is that what you wanted me to see?” she asked. “The house that James is building?”
Hell no. He didn’t pull off the road. Continued right past the building site swarming with men. That shot his investigative work all to hell.
“Take me home, Henry.”
Huffing out a breath, he said, “No one was working on that house yesterday.”
“Because
