Free A Marriage of the Heart by Kelly Long Page A

then she flung her napkin down on the table and ran from the room and out the back kitchen door.
    “She left her cloak,” Luke observed, rising to wrangle with his crutches. “I’ll take it to her.”
    He swung himself from the room, listening to the murmured comments behind praising his romanticism and foresight, and grimaced. He had the distinct feeling that he’d won the battle but was about to lose the proverbial war.

Chapter Eighteen

    R OSE TOLD HERSELF THAT IT WAS FOOLISHNESS TO CRY so, simply because Luke had bested her in an argument. Then she admitted to herself that she was really crying over the drawing in her pocket and the terrible lie he’d told when he’d really been fixing that cabin for another woman.
    She nestled more deeply between the hay bales of the barn, her sobs dissolving into hiccups, as she tried to warm herself.
    “This might help.” Luke’s voice echoed from above her, and her cloak fell about her shoulders.
    She scrambled into the garment and rose, not wanting to feel trapped by the hay and Luke’s presence. “Go away. You’ve had your bit of fun.”
    He sighed. “Rose. I’m sorry.”
    “ Ach , yes you are, Luke Lantz—as sorry a man as I’ve ever seen.” She pushed past him, almost knocking him off balance as she angrily swung a milk bucket down from a hook on the wall.The barn cats begin to entwine about her as she plunked down on a milking stool near Bubbles, the milch cow.
    “Look, I should have been more honest with you yesterday, and I shouldn’t have let you take the worst of that in there. Please forgive me, and listen.” His voice was the husky, cajoling voice of the stranger, and she shook her head furiously as she concentrated on the rhythm of milking, trying to ease away her hurt.
    “Rose, come on, please.” He bent near her.
    She took deep breaths as she filled the cats’ pans, then turned to look up at him from the stool. “Fine. Say whatever you like, but I already know the truth. Or . . . at least one person of it.”
    He straightened. “What do you mean?”
    “Who’s Ally?” she asked, staring him straight in the eye.
    She watched him blink in surprise. “How do you—”
    “Just answer me, Luke. Who is she?”
    “A little girl.”
    “Is she—yours?”
    He shook his head in obvious disbelief. “You’d think that?”
    Rose lifted her chin stubbornly. “I went back to the shack last night. I found this.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and withdrew the coloring sheet. She handed it up to him without a word.
    She watched him balance on his crutches to open the page; then he lifted his head to stare at her, anguish and anger lighting his blue eyes.
    “I was wrong,” he said slowly. “I thought I was the one wearing the mask, but it’s you. You, who would marry me, think that I’d leave a child unclaimed, hidden, who was my own? How little you must truly believe in me.”
    “Well, what am I supposed to believe, Luke?” she cried. “How does all of this look? You just told me yesterday that you couldn’t tell the secret, that it belonged to another woman—an Englisch woman! Do you know how much that hurt?” Rose could feel the blood pounding in her ears and knew that she was raising her voice.
    He drew a deep breath. “All right. You’re right. I can see how this must look to you.”
    She rose and came to stand in front of him, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, her words softer now. “Can you, Luke? Can you understand? I don’t think badly of you. I just wanted to know for sure. I—I didn’t know if I could accept it, if you’d hidden her from me all this time.”
    “I didn’t hide her from you,” he whispered low. “Not intentionally.”
    Rose reached out to touch the coloring page. “Why is she so sad . . . this Ally? Her clouds are crying.”
    He stared down at the paper. “That’s the part that’s not mine, Rose. It’s not mine to tell, but I need you to trust me. To help me, even. To help Ally and her