The Husband Maneuver by Karen Witemeyer

Author:Karen Witemeyer [Witemeyer, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042030, FIC042040, FIC027050
ISBN: 9781441229120
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

Marietta stood at the kitchen table, folding the linens she’d brought in off the line. His linens. The sheets and coverlet she’d taken from his bed the morning after the storm and replaced with fresh ones from the private store in her hope chest. She didn’t know what perversity had led her to place the sheets she’d stored away for her married life on the bed of the man she wanted most for a husband but could never have. He had no idea where they’d come from, of course. To him, they were just clean sheets.

To her, they were dreams—dreams she couldn’t completely release, even at the cost of her own heartache.

She ran her fingers along the edge of the unadorned white pillowcase in her hand, seeing in her mind’s eye the brown pattern she’d worked into the ones now cradling Daniel’s head. A rancher’s daughter in love with a rugged cowhand knew better than to trim the sheets she hoped to one day share with him with daisies and tatted lace. She’d kept her design simple. So simple, one might think it merely a jagged line if one glanced at it too quickly. But it wasn’t a line. It was a fence—a barbed-wire fence, representing strength, protection, and home.

Tomorrow, she’d remove the embroidered linens from his bed and put his old sheets back on. She’d pack away her dreams and set him free.

Marietta’s eyes had just fluttered closed on that melancholy thought when the back door, still not properly rehung, flew in on its hinges and crashed against the kitchen wall.

She jumped a foot, a gasp clutching her throat. She spun around to face the intruder, pressing the pillowcase she’d been folding to her breast in a desperate bid to keep her riotous heart from escaping her chest.

Daniel strode into the kitchen. Eyes fierce. Jaw set. Arms tense at his sides. She should be relieved it was him and not some villain come to pillage her home, but something about the way he looked at her stole her breath. She backed up a step and promptly bumped into the table.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she skirted the chair beside her and eased backward toward the hall.

He had no right to come in here looking at her like that—like he was ready to do battle for her honor. There wasn’t even anyone to battle, for Pete’s sake. He was the one who’d made it clear that she was nothing more than a duty to him.

Yet he followed her, stalked her, his eyes never straying from her face. “I don’t care about the books.”

“What?” Marietta knocked into a chair and stumbled slightly.

“I don’t care that you like to read those infernal Dead-Eye Dan novels,” he said, his voice hard, insistent. “Shoot, I’ll even buy you a new set to replace the ones you burned.”

He continued his advance. She continued her retreat.

“You don’t have to do that. I . . . I don’t need them anymore.”

She backed past the table into an area free of furniture.

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