“I was promised something rather different.”
A nervous laugh came from somewhere near the rear.
Abby’s stomach tightened.
“Elias?” she whispered.
He looked directly at her.
Then he smiled.
“I ordered a bride,” he announced, loud enough for every person in the church to hear, “not a prize sow in lace.”
Silence swallowed the chapel.
Someone gasped.
A child whispered, “Mama?”
Abby heard cloth rustle as people shifted uncomfortably.
Her father did not rise.
He did not strike Elias.
He did not even look at his daughter.
He lowered his eyes.
That hurt worse than the insult.
Abby’s bouquet began shaking.
For several terrible seconds, she stood beneath the veil feeling as though every person she had ever met was staring through her skin.
She imagined laughter starting.
She imagined pity.
Pity was worse.
Elias leaned closer.
“You understand,” he murmured.
Abby looked into his face.
Then something inside her went still.
Not broken.
Still.
She reached up, pulled the veil from her hair, and let it fall.
It landed at her father’s boots.
Her father finally looked up.
“Abigail—”
“No.”
It was the only word she trusted herself to speak.
She turned.
She walked down the aisle alone.
No luggage.
No horse.
No destination.
Behind her, Elias called something she refused to hear.
The chapel doors opened.
Kansas sunlight struck her like fire.
And Abby Whittaker kept walking.
She walked until Bellweather disappeared behind the horizon.
She walked until the lace at her collar scratched her skin raw.
She walked until dust had turned the white hem of her gown brown.
She walked until one shoe filled with blood from a broken blister.
And every mile, she heard Elias’s voice.
Prize sow.
Prize sow.
Prize sow.
By late afternoon the words had begun to sound like her own thoughts.
That frightened her more than the empty prairie.
She reached a dry creek bed surrounded by scrub oak and loose stone.
Her foot slipped.
Abby fell hard.
A broken branch sliced through her sleeve.
Pain flashed white through her arm.
She landed on her side and stared at the blood spreading across the lace.
For a while, she did not move.
The earth was warm beneath her cheek.
The sky above the creek looked impossibly blue.
She thought of her father lowering his eyes.
Maybe Elias was right.
Maybe everyone had always thought what he had simply been cruel enough to say.
A faint sound came from beneath a rock.
Rattle.
Abby froze.
The snake was three yards away, coiled beneath an overhang.
Its head lifted.
Another dry rattle.
Abby stared at it.
And a horrifying thought entered her mind.
Maybe dying here would be easier than going back.
The thought lasted only seconds.
Then hoofbeats sounded above the creek.
A horse stopped.
A man’s silhouette appeared against the sky.
“Ma’am?”
Abby shut her eyes.
Of course.
Even dying required an audience.
Boots slid down the embankment.
