“Listen to me,” Scully broke in. His tone was unusually sharp, though he kept it down for Abigail’s sake. He was leaning in, one hand braced high up against the cabin wall, directly over Evangeline’s head. “John Keating is a fine man, among the best I’ve ever known. He’s been so lonesome out here at times that he seemed like one big ache, walking around and hurting. He sent for you in good faith, and you agreed to come. He trusts me to look after you ’til he gets back. I’m not going to break his heart, and lady, you’re not either.”

The discourse affected Evangeline like a sound slap across the face; maybe it had been meant to do exactly that. “How can you do this?” she asked, even though she knew only too well. The situation was impossible and fighting it was futile.

“I just barely can,” he answered hoarsely, his eyes locked with hers. He looked fierce in those moments, even grim. “The thing is, I couldn’t tolerate myself if I betrayed a friend that way. I’d be no good as a husband, Eve, for all that I love you more than my own soul. It would ruin us both.”

They’d been over it before, this painful territory. Evangeline wondered what passing demon had inspired her to stir it all up again.

She sniffled. “Big John likes to dance?” she asked, in a brave effort to change the subject.

Scully’s grin dazzled and wounded. How could he smile, when their parting was so close? “Yep,” he answered. “For a sizable man, he’s got a light step.”

His cheerful attitude pierced Evangeline’s spirit like an arrow, though of course she wouldn’t let on. “Well, then,” she said, with a determined smile, “he’ll want a bride who can manage a wedding waltz.”

Scully’s expression changed again, quicksilver. Light to dark. Maybe he was thinking, as Evangeline couldn’t help doing, of what would follow Jacob’s wedding ceremony, what would happen after the words had been said and the dancing was over and the lamps had been turned down. After she and Big John were finally alone, in their marriage bed.

“I reckon he will,” Scully said. Then he turned and went back inside to fetch his rifle and don his coat. He needed some time to himself; she knew him well enough to guess that. With luck, he would bring back a rabbit or two from his wanderings, a mess of trout, or a brace of grouse.

He returned before sunset, as usual, bringing two large rabbits for the stew pot. He was covered in mud when he came through the door, standing for a moment on the threshold, with the last of the daylight at his back, lending him a bright aura, gilding his hair.

“Look at you,” Evangeline said, taking in his soiled clothes, boots, and face. He put her in mind of an overgrown boy on the losing side of a game of tug-of-war. “What happened?”

He grinned. “I got off the Appaloosa to fetch one of these rabbits and a bank of dirt gave way under my feet. Sent me rolling.”