Was it like that with God? Was God guiding Blue’s steps even when he didn’t believe it?
Maybe someday he would be ready to believe again.
Someday.
In the meantime, he would finish up the pews and get back to the ranch. He’d ask Eddie to let him be the one to check the cows grazing on the lower pastures. He’d get back to forgetting about his past.
Another week should see him done.
He lit the lamp, throwing a patch of light into the room, sat on one of the pews and opened his book. But he couldn’t get his eyes to follow the line of print.
He pursed his lips. For the next week all he had to do was concentrate on the work and avoid Clara and the girls as much as possible—which might prove a bit of a challenge since they spent their days helping him and took meals at the same table.
But he’d had plenty of practice at pulling his thoughts away from others and what they were doing. He knew he could do it again.
The next morning he managed to eat breakfast without looking directly at Clara, managed to respond to Libby’s cheerfulness without thinking about her sweetness. He even managed to give Eleanor a reassuring smile when she looked at him with her face wreathed in worry. He did well throughout breakfast, then hurried to the church.
Soon Clara and the girls would join him; then he’d get to see if he was as good at keeping his thoughts under control as he thought he was.
“Good morning,” Clara called, and the girls echoed her greeting, smiling at him so sweetly his resolve wavered.
“Morning.” It entered his mind to warn them he meant to keep their activity focused entirely on the job at hand but the words never reached his mouth.
While Clara hung up her coat, the girls grabbed his buckets.
“We’ll fill them to the top,” Eleanor informed him as they went outside.
Clara took the planer and set to work on pieces they had cut yesterday.
He turned his back to her as he measured another piece of wood.
“Is the weather always so pleasant this time of year?” she asked, which brought a chuckle to his throat.
“Last winter we got an early snowfall that buried some of the cows up to their bellies. If Eddie wasn’t so conscientious about bringing them down to lower pastures for the winter, he might have incurred heavy losses. Some of the other ranches weren’t as fortunate.” Realizing he had turned to talk to her, and had said far more than a man who meant to shut himself off from others would, he clamped his mouth closed and turned back to the wood. He had only measured once, but it was enough this time. He sawed, making further conversation impossible.
Not that it deterred Clara. She waited until he was done. “I suppose as long as the snow holds off travel is possible.”
“I suppose so. Though it depends where you mean to travel.” He shifted enough that he could watch her.
She shrugged. “I’m just making conversation.”
He knew it was more than that, but she said no more and bent over her work.
“I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
She smiled at him. “I should. You’re the one who taught me.”
He wasn’t talking about the woodworking and guessed she knew that as well as he. “I haven’t taught you everything.”
Their gazes fused. His perhaps a little challenging and a touch regretful. Hers full of resistance.
“I think we are more alike than you know,” she said after some length.
“Alike? In what way?”
She lowered her eyes, freeing him to gather his thoughts. Yet he found it impossible to sort out the confusion that accompanied his conversations with her. Shouldn’t he be in more control of his words and feelings when she was in the room? Shouldn’t he be less ready to enter into conversation with her? Shouldn’t he be able to remember that he meant to keep his memories locked away?
“I think we are both trying to outrun something.” Her words were so soft he barely heard them.
He recalled something she had said. “In your case, not something but someone? Perhaps your father?”
She did not answer him.
“What did he do?” Had he tried to influence her decisions? He could see her taking objection to such.
She kept her head down and didn’t say a thing.