Blackwell Bounty

Chapter Seventeen

By the time Edith's eyes opened again she'd steeled herself against the emotions she felt. Tears of frustration threatened to unravel her, but she wouldn't allow them to take control. Edith didn't want Cal to see any sort of weakness in her. That was why he was doing this, wasn't it? He thought she wasn't strong enough to withstand whatever a future with an outlaw held. 

She wanted to yell--yelling always got someone's attention--and she was barely holding back her frustration. Why couldn't he see what she saw? Enduring together was easier than enduring alone. 

Calm. Calm. Calm.

Edith repeated the mantra several times until she was sure that she could speak in a level tone. 

"Right now, Amos isn't the one who's hurting me." Her statement came out more clipped than she'd meant.

But words couldn't be unsaid. 

Cal flinched. It was almost imperceptible, but Edith had trained her eyes to see the motions he liked to keep hidden. She felt a twinge of guilt for hurting him, but his words echoed in her mind, reminding her that she'd been provoked. 

He refused to look at her for a prolonged moment. Then, in a blink of thick lashes, she was drowning in obsidian.

"Well, you were warned," Cal replied. His voice had turned cold in mere seconds. "I told you plenty o' times that you would get hurt. Don't tell me it slipped your mind that easily."

The tears were winning the silent war they had waged with her pride.

Edith crossed her arms and turned her back to him. It was as if they were strangers again. Had they ever been anything except strangers? Did she know him or was she only pretending for her heart's sake?

She wanted to kiss him. It would make her forget all of the dreadful complications that had suddenly overtaken her mundane life. However, her problems wouldn't be destroyed by a kiss, and her Papa had not raised a daughter who wouldn't face a dilemma. 

If she spoke loudly she knew her voice would waver like a tree limb in a fierce wind. So, she whispered, "You should go. No doubt, you'll want to get back on the trail as soon as possible."

She heard him sigh.

Then silence blanketed the room. Edith expected him to say something else. Anything else. But he didn't. 

The door clicked shut, and Edith glanced over her shoulder to see that he was gone. She stared at the closed door, wishing he'd slammed it. She couldn't remember an argument that had passed between them where he'd been unresponsive. Calvin McClain always had to have the last word. They always revealed their irritation with each other through storms of anger that did not cease until everything that needed to be spoken had been said. 

It was as if he had nothing left to say. 

It was as if he'd given up completely. 

___________________________________________

Edith stared down from the hotel room, looking into the busy street of Milford. Cal had left her room a few hours before without saying another word. Since then, she had been alone with her thoughts, plagued by the haunting words Calvin McClain had said to her. 

He'd told her that he cared about her. He'd told her he cared. 

Why did things have to be this way?

Suddenly, Edith thought about her mother and father. She tried to remember a time in her childhood when Emmy Lou or even Wyatt had seemed unhappy in their marriage, but there were no memories she could recall that might've foreshadowed what was to come in the future.