I Am Not Yours

I Want To Know Everything

August 1916

As a man of few words, he did not say anything when he finally realized how long they had been standing there and he moved aside to let her into the house. Closing the door behind her, he watched as she headed toward the dining room.

"Oh! The food is in the living room." He told her just in time before she went in the wrong direction.

At first, Abigail wondered why the food would be in the living room, but once she walked through the threshold, she smiled. Henry had the coffee table in front of the fireplace set up with a lovely silver candelabra in the center and a pillow was laid on the floor on either side of the coffee table where two plates with silver covers were set up. "Oh, Henry." She smiled at the sight. "This is wonderful." She watched the flames in the fire crackle as they lit the room just enough for them to be able to see their food and each other.

"Have a seat." He told her, gesturing toward the table.

She gladly went around to the left side of the fireplace and sat down on the pillow that lay on the floor at the end of the coffee table. Henry sat across from her and they each pulled the cover off of their food before they began to eat.

They didn't talk much while they ate as they decided silently to just take in each other's presence before Abigail would leave tomorrow. They drank wine and smiled at each other before Abigail would look at the fireplace, studying the carved wood and the details in it.

Meanwhile, Henry would study her and the way she blinked or breathed. His eyes would fall to her chest and he would watch it rise and fall as if no one else breathed the way she did. He would move his gaze up to her lips, watching the way she would lick them after a sip of her wine and his heart would leap at the little things she did, just existing in front of him.

He began to realize that maybe this was what love was. He had seen other women breathe before. But why did Abigail make him feel like he could burst at any moment just by breathing? The V-neck cut of her dress finally caught his eye as he realized he hadn't seen her dress like this before. His body slightly shook as he realized...this was for him. She dressed up for him. The way the dress seemed to invite him to her made him remember what she had told him four months ago before she left for Fulton Hills. She was his. And he couldn't believe it.

"Do you like it?" She finally broke the silence.

"What?" He asked her, finally looking up into her eyes.

"The dress. Do you like it?" She asked him. "You keep staring." She told him, smirking a bit to herself.

"Do I?"

"Yes. You know you do." She softly chuckled. "Do you like it?"

He smiled shyly. "Yeah." He nodded. "It looks very good, Abigail."

"You don't have to be so shy, Henry. It's just us."

"I'm not shy." He tried to argue, though Abigail knew the truth. She smiled to herself and took another sip of her wine before looking down into her half-empty plate of food. "Are you finished packing?" He asked her, knowing that she had been a bit stressed out trying to help Cody finish his packing earlier that day.

"Yes, almost." She told him. "There's only a few more things that I need in my suitcase which I can handle taking care of tomorrow morning before the stagecoach arrives." She had another few bites of her food as she watched him look at the fire. "Are you going to come see us off tomorrow to say goodbye?"

"Of course I am." He looked back at her.

"Good." She told him. "How have you been feeling? Any dizzy spells lately?"