Without Words by Ellen O'Connell

Author:Ellen O'Connell [O'Connell, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Published: 2014-09-29T23:00:00+00:00

BY THE END of the next day, Bret had mastered the alphabet. Hassie couldn’t believe it. She and Mama hadn’t learned so fast. Of course she and Mama hadn’t had long, rain-filled days with nothing else to do.

Some of the miners and other people in town nodded to them now, spoke a greeting. The owner of the only restaurant Bret was willing to take her to wasn’t so friendly even though they were eating there three times a day. The restaurant provided no choice of fare. Everyone ate what the owner chose to cook and that was that.

“Venison stew tonight,” the owner said as he smacked two cups on the table and poured coffee, slopping it all over.

Bret signed at her as the man stomped off. “C-l-u-m-s-y a-n-d r-u-d-e.”

The meaning of the words hardly registered as the wonder of what he’d just done hit her. She reached out and touched the back of his hand, pulled back, met his eyes.

His cynical smile didn’t change the gleam of knowledge in his eyes. He knew full well what he’d done.

They had a private language. The intimacy of it took her breath away.

Her eyes puddled.

“D-o-n-t d-o n-o-t.” He frowned. “Is there an apostrophe?”

She forgot herself and laughed, and at least here in the restaurant it didn’t make him get up and leave. In fact one side of his mouth curled past the smile in a grin. “If there isn’t, I’m going to use this,” he said, hooking his right index finger through the air.

Outside the rain drizzled down. Inside Hassie felt the sun breaking out from behind black clouds, a door long locked swinging open.

He made everything better. She couldn’t bear the thought of being left somewhere when winter came and never seeing him again. Wherever he left her for the winter, there had to be a way to persuade him to come back for her in the spring.

Asking him now would be too dangerous. What if he said no?

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