When she’d parted from Sandy, he’d been nineteen, a bachelor with a good job and a house, so he’d been quite a catch among the local girls, but he’d only ever been enticed by her. She hadn’t paused to wonder if one of them might have snagged him for a husband.
What if one of them had? What would she do? She had to be glad about it, didn’t she?
A boy opened the door. He was eight or so, and with his being blond and blue-eyed, he was a little version of Sandy. Her heart dropped to her shoes.
Was he married? In her time away, she’d never pondered whether he might be. Was his wife inside? Would Margaret have to be introduced to her and feign cordiality? She nearly spun and slunk off, but she wasn’t a coward.
“Is Sandy at home?” she inquired. Then she changed her question to, “I mean Mr. Sanders?”
“Yes. Shall I fetch him for you?”
“Would you?”
He raced off, calling loudly, “Pa! Pa! It’s Miss Ralston!”
Sandy replied to his son, “Are you a barbarian, Tim? Why are you shouting? And why would Roxanne Ralston be here? Is there an emergency at the stables?”
“I didn’t think to ask,” the boy said.
Margaret entered the parlor without being invited, and she tried to recollect if she’d ever been in the house, but if she had, she couldn’t remember.
Sandy strolled in, the boy dogging his heels. He was holding a towel, as if he’d been drying the supper plates in the kitchen. His coat was off, his sleeves pushed back. It was such a cozy domestic scene that she could have wept.
“Oh,” he said on seeing her. “Margaret! I was expecting your cousin. May I help you? What’s amiss?”
“Everything’s fine. I . . . ah . . . I just wanted to chat, but it’s obvious you’re busy.”
“We’re done eating. I’m not busy.”
Another boy popped in too, and Sandy said to her, “Have you met my sons?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“This is Tim who answered the door—and who was so rude about it. He’s the younger, and this is Tom. He’s the older.”
“Hello, Tim and Tom.”
They didn’t respond to her greeting, but gaped at her as if she had purple skin or five legs.
Sandy’s affection for them was clear. He snorted with fond exasperation. “Have you two idiots been struck dumb? Haven’t you been taught how to act when we have company? You make me look as if I’m rearing a pair of heathens.”
In unison, the boys chirped, “Hello, Miss Ralston.”
“That’s more like it,” Sandy grumbled, “but she’s not Miss Ralston. She’s Mrs. Howell.”
They murmured her married name, as if tasting it on their tongues, then Sandy gave his towel to Tom. “Finishing cleaning up while I talk with Mrs. Howell.”
“May we have pie?” Tom asked.
“One slice each.”
“Am I in charge while you’re away?”
“No one is in charge. I won’t be gone that long.”
Sandy gestured outside, and they went out together. She distinctly noted that he hadn’t been keen to have her tarry in his home, and she couldn’t decide if she was irked by his attitude or not. With his sons there, they couldn’t have discussed much that mattered, so it was probably better that they’d left.
He led her out into the park where there was a bench positioned under a rose arbor, but they didn’t sit on it. The interval was very awkward. They trudged forward like strangers, or if not strangers, then as if they didn’t like each other very much.
They turned to face one another, squared off like pugilists in the ring.
“Are you married?” she asked.
“I was. I’m a widower.”
The admission cut through her like a knife, and she scolded herself. Of course he’d have wed. He was thirty, and she’d been away for over a decade. What woman wouldn’t have grabbed hold when he proposed?
She was the only one who’d been conceited enough to refuse.
“I didn’t realize,” she said.
“She died several years ago. I’m raising the boys on my own.”
“It’s just the two of them?”
“Yes, and they’re a handful.”
“Did I know her?”
“No.”
“What was her name?”
“Actually, it was Margaret, but we called her Maggie.”
“Was she like me at all?”
“No, she was nothing like you.”
There was scorn in his voice. Had she been insulted?
“When did you start courting her?”
He studied her, his expression irritated. “I can’t have this conversation with you.”
“Were you happy?”
His reply was very brusque. “What is it you need, Margaret? I don’t mean to be rude, but my day begins very early, and I have a ton of chores to complete before my evening is over.”
He was glaring as if he’d never been her dearest companion, as if he was a servant—which he was. But she’d never thought of him that way, and she’d never treated him that way, except for that terrible night when she’d parroted her mother’s condescending words to inform him that she had to wed according to her class and station.
Obviously, he hadn’t forgotten the comment. Nor had he forgiven her for it.
“You’re so upset with me,” she said, “and I don’t blame you. I’ve been back for two months, and I should have sought you out sooner, but I was confused about what to say.”
“What is there to say? And what would be the point of saying it?”
“I’ve been so despondent.”
“I appreciate that you have been. I hear plenty of gossip, and I hate that your road has been so bumpy, but I can’t help you. If you require some healing, I can send for Miss James.”
“Weren’t we friends in the past? I assumed we were. Could we be friends now?”
He scoffed with derision. “We weren’t ever friends, Margaret. You’re rewriting our history.”
“We were friends. Don’t you dare claim we weren’t.”
“I was a passing fancy, but you moved on. I moved on too. It’s futile to look on that period with any nostalgia.”
“Even after Jacob marries Roxanne, I’m staying at Ralston Place. Can you stand to have me strolling around the property, but to pretend you don’t
