The Grieving Cowboy Hadn’t Smiled In Years, Until A Clumsy Mail Order Bride Made Him Laugh Again

Chapter 6

Elias went to see his brother the next morning. He found Caleb in the back room of his barber shop, sharpening a straight razor with practiced ease.

“You look terrible,” Caleb observed.

“I haven’t been sleeping.”

“Because of the pretty governess sleeping in your spare room?”

Elias grabbed his brother by the collar and slammed him against the wall. The razor clattered to the floor. “You had no right. No right at all, Caleb.”

Caleb did not struggle. “You’re right. I had no right. But I was desperate. You were killing yourself, Elias. You were a ghost walking around in a living body, and I couldn’t watch it anymore.”

“I was grieving.”

“Three years, Elias. Three years of not eating, not sleeping, not smiling. Three years of working yourself to death because you were too afraid to live.”

Elias released his brother and stepped back, his hands shaking. “She told me she doesn’t want to be a replacement. She told me I’m still in love with Anna.”

“Are you?”

The question hit Elias like a bullet. He opened his mouth to answer, closed it, opened it again.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I loved Anna. I will always love Anna. But Lydia —”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t give voice to the terrifying truth that had been growing in his chest for weeks.

“But Lydia makes you feel alive again,” Caleb finished for him. “But Lydia makes you laugh. But Lydia makes you want to come home.”

“Yes,” Elias whispered.

“Then you have to decide,” Caleb said, picking up his razor. “Are you going to spend the rest of your life mourning the love you lost? Or are you going to let yourself love again?”

Elias walked home in a daze. The sun was setting, painting the snow in shades of gold and pink, and he found Lydia standing in the doorway of his house, wrapped in a shawl, watching him approach.

“Caleb told me everything,” she said when he reached the porch. “About the letters. About the scheme. About why he did it.”

“Lydia —”

“He also told me about Anna. About how she died. About how you haven’t let anyone close since.”

Elias stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up at her. The sunset caught her hair, turned it to fire. She was so beautiful it hurt.

“I’m not going to leave,” she said. “Not until you ask me to. But I need you to be honest with me, Elias. I need you to tell me — is there room in your heart for someone new?”

The question hung in the air between them, delicate as glass, terrifying as the truth.

“I don’t know,” Elias said honestly. “I want there to be. I want it more than I’ve wanted anything in three years. But I can’t promise you that I won’t still grieve. I can’t promise you that I won’t still sometimes feel like I’m betraying her.”

Lydia descended the steps slowly, stopping when she was inches from him. She reached up and touched his face, her fingers cold against his cheek.

“I don’t need you to be perfect,” she said. “I just need you to be willing to try.”

Elias covered her hand with his own, pressing her palm against his cheek. “I’m trying,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m trying so hard.”