“I tried to get help,” Boone continued. “Neighbors. Kin. Folks come for a week, maybe two. But nobody sticks around long when the work’s backbreaking and there ain’t much sweet to come home to.” He glanced at her like he expected her to flinch, but Bellar didn’t. She knew what it was to live where sweetness had to be made by hand.
“The boys need a woman’s voice in the house,” he said. “Someone steady. Someone not afraid of hard things.”
Bellar’s throat tightened. “I’m not offering pity,” Boone added quickly, as if he heard her old fears stirring. “You look like a woman who’s had enough of that.”
“What are you offering, then?” she asked.
He breathed out slow. “A name. A place. A chance to be something more than what that coward left behind.”
Bellar stared at him, the world tilting. “You’re asking me to marry you?”
“Not asking,” Boone said, blunt as an ax. “Putting it plain. You don’t have to say yes.” He paused. “But you ain’t got to sit on that bench until your pride freezes solid, either.”
“You don’t know me,” she whispered.
“I seen enough in five minutes,” he replied. “You didn’t cry when he left you. You sat straight. Held your pride even when your world cracked.”
“I wanted to cry,” Bellar admitted, and the honesty felt like removing a splinter. “But I didn’t.”
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