Page 93 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“So are you going to marry her?” Emmett asked.
“Pearl? My children need a mother, don’t they?” His back was screaming, and his arms were wilted as onion tops. His palms were blistering, but he stayed on the shovel.
“What’s Marigold going to do in Denver?” Emmett pressed. “You shouldn’t have left her there by herself.”
“She wanted to stay.”
“Marigold has never been short of suitors.” Owen shook the box. “She’ll find herself a husband soon enough.”
“She doesn’t want one!” Virgil shouted.
All three men straightened from what they were doing to look at him.
“Say it louder, Virge. I don’t think the rest of the camp heard you,” Owen said mildly.
Sometimes Virgil wanted to smack a shovel across Owen’s smirk, he really did.
“She had a rough end to her marriage and changed her mind about getting into another one. Maybe she was already having doubts, and when Pearl turned up, she saw her chance to back out. I don’t know what made her stay there, but I didn’t walk away from her.Sheturned her back onme.” Figuratively. He had actually done the physical walking away.
He hadn’t walked away from her, though. He’d needed distance from that sensation inside him that had said,Please don’t reject me. Recognize me. Want me.
He knew what that painful longing was. A desire to be loved. There was no forcing such a thing, either. That only begot rejection. Even if you did earn the love of someone, it didn’t mean you wouldn’t fail and disappoint them. He’d never saved his mother from his father’s wrath, had he? And Clara had been so disillusioned, she’d taken up with another man.
Look at his children, crawling into his bed for solace last night. No matter how hard he tried, he always let down the people he cared about.
“How will she live if she doesn’t marry?” Emmett asked.
“Is she going to work in a saloon, do you think?” Owen asked. “She’d be good at that.”
Virgil jabbed his shovel into the stream bed so he wouldn’t run it through his friend. “I’m warning you, Owen.”
“I mean—” Owen held up a hand. “She’d be good at running a business. She has a head for ledgers and counts your pennies like they’re her own. If I ever get away from here for more than a day, I’m going to open a saloon of my own. I’d trust Marigold to take charge of it.”
“You want to give her a roomful of unruly drunks to manage?” Virgil’s ire climbed several more notches.
“I’d teach her to shoot first.”
Virgil swore under his breath while the rest of them started bantering about how dangerous she was with a chamber pot.
He was dog tired and discouraged to the bone when he limped home in the heavy rain that had cut their workday short. There was a warm glow of a candle in the window, and he was looking forward to seeing his children, but his steps were heavy and slow. Marigold wasn’t there.
“The children said they usually eat without you.” Pearl paused in serving their dinner when he entered.
“We were all soaked through, so we called it a day.” He moved into his room to change into dry clothes. When he came out, he said, “The days are getting shorter, too, so I’ll be home for dinner more anyway. How was your day?”
“Good.” She smiled but avoided his eyes. “Nettie and Harley walked me down to meet Mr. Gristle and Mr. Yeller. They’re both full of stories.”
“That they are.” Did he detect something in her tone? If he did, he had to wait while the children had monopolized the conversation with the day’s trappings and a new knitting stitch and additions to Harley’s growing vocabulary.
When the children were finally ready for bed, Nettie hesitated at the bottom of the ladder to the loft. Harley stood next to her, holding her hand and looking at her expectantly. Levi scratched his elbow and pretended he was interested in the underside of the loft.
“My bed?” Virgil guessed.
Nettie nodded.
“One more night.” He was turning into the biggest duck-down pillow. “I’ll tuck you in, but no giggling or you go straight upstairs.”
“Yes, Papa.” They all beamed and hurried into his room.
