“I know.”
“If you want it, I’ll bring you back.”
“You trying to get rid of me already?”
“No.”
His answer was so immediate that she almost laughed.
“I’m making sure you know the road works both directions.”
That stopped her.
For years, men had offered Mara choices that disappeared once she made the wrong one.
Abel seemed determined to leave the door open before she had even stepped through it.
She climbed into the wagon.
“Drive, Mr.
Stone.”
He did.
Mercy Hollow fell behind them slowly, first the depot roof, then the dry street, then the last scattered buildings shrinking beneath a haze of dust.
For the first mile, neither spoke.
Mara preferred it that way.
She watched Abel handle the reins.
Even his strength seemed restrained.
He did not jerk the horses or shout at them.
A touch of leather, a low word, and they understood him.
Eventually he nodded toward her bloody sleeve.
“You sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“I’m sure.”
“What happened on the train?”
“I told you.”
“You told me the ending.”
Mara looked ahead.
“He said I was sitting in his seat.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I showed him my ticket.
He said a woman alone ought to learn when a gentleman was speaking.”
Abel’s mouth flattened.
“He took hold of my wrist.”
Her voice changed slightly on the last sentence.
She hated that Abel noticed.
His hands tightened once around the reins and then relaxed.
“And you struck him.”
“With the heel of my hand.”
“Good.”
Mara turned sharply.
“Good?”
“He wanted your answer.
He got one.”
She stared at him long enough that he finally glanced over.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
It was not nothing.
She simply did not trust it yet.
The road climbed through pine and broken stone.
Heat surrendered gradually to mountain air.
By late afternoon, Mercy Hollow had vanished completely behind them.
Mara’s uneasiness returned with every mile.
Abel must have sensed it.
“You can ask,” he said.
