“Here’s a pot of tea, love.” Mrs. Miller shuffled into the predawn shadows balancing a loaded tray, a lace scarf covering her silvered hair. “Nothing heals what ails you better than sweet tea. I brought up some honey and a sourdough biscuit straight out of the oven. Eat up, now. Breakfast is served at six prompt. I’m making pancakes.”

“Thank you.” Katelyn took the tray, the cup and saucer rattling as she lowered it to the small table beside the wing chair where she sat. “Can you tell me if Mr. Hennessey will return this morning?”

“He didn’t say.” Mrs. Miller straightened her full-length calico apron before retreating into the hall. “I expect Mr. Hennessey will be here before long. He lives just south of town. Such a fine man. He sure was concerned about you, dear. At least you have a little color in your cheeks.”

Katelyn thanked the innkeeper and, as soon as she was alone, her thoughts returned to Hennessey. She’d dreamed of him that night. Of being enfolded in his arms, snug against his chest and breathing in his night and winter scent.

When she’d awakened alone in her room in the lonely dark before dawn, her first thought was of him. As every thought had been since.

Was that him? She could feel his nearness like a change in the air. Or, maybe, the change was within her. She was not surprised when she heard the first strike of his boot down the hall. It was his unhurried gait in the corridor. It was his rapid-fire knock on her door.

“Come in.” The words felt trapped in her throat, but he must have heard her.

The door creaked open and there he was, his face as expressionless as stone, his silence as impressive as a snowcapped mountain. “How are you feeling this fine day?”

“Better. Stronger.” She drew the afghan around her lap. Even though she was dressed, she felt exposed. “Would you like some tea?”

“No. Here, let me.” His broad hand closed over the dainty china pot, dwarfing it as he poured a cup. The delicate handle was too small for his fingers, and he looked awkward as he handed her the brimming cup. “Anything else I can get you?”

“I’m fine.” She bit her lip. He was doing it again. Being overly accommodating.

“Do you want breakfast? I can head downstairs and dish you up a plate from the kitchen. Or do you want pastry? I could run over to the bakery. Pick you up some of those fancy treats they have.”

“No, thank you.” She sipped delicately, her fingers dainty on the tiny handle, and set the cup on the table with a clink. So perfect and proper.

While he was an inept suitor. He felt big and awkward and stupid. There was one silver lining in all this heartache, for if Katelyn rejected him this time, then he would never need to court another woman again.

It was tough enough to make a real man cry.

All right, ask her again, Hennessey. Try not to look like a fool. Just set out her choices and let her decide. It was as simple as that.

Not so simple. She was radiant this morning. The rest had helped, and surely, so had escaping the tension and worry she felt in her stepfather’s house. Her skin was creamy, no longer ashen. The circles beneath her eyes were fading.

She was luminous, like a bright star shining in a perfect night sky. His angel. No, she was more than an angel. She was a seraphim, the highest order of angels, who stood closest to God.

When she spoke, her soft resonant alto could have belonged in paradise. “I’ve been enjoying the book.”

The book? He blinked, and suddenly his mind started functioning again. She was talking about the Dickens novel he’d bought her. Why wasn’t she wearing one of the dresses he’d bought her? He glanced around the small room and it was easy to see why. He didn’t need to ask. The presents were still wrapped in brown paper. “You didn’t open them.”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate them.”

Did she have to be so good? Kind? Dillon would bet there wasn’t a cherub in heaven that could reject a man more gently. “I had to try to win your fancy. It isn’t often a woman like you comes into a man’s life. Especially a man like me.”

“Like you?”

Was she going to make him say it? “I’m a common man. I work with my hands and my back and my heart. I don’t wear ties and I don’t spend my day in a building being polite and proper. I’m not the kind of man you probably want for a husband, but I’m stubborn and I’m persistent. That’s what makes me good at what I do. So here.”

He didn’t look at her as he opened his billfold and dropped one greenback after another on the small table in front of her, next to the teapot.

“Don’t worry about the hotel or the doctor bill. I’ll take care of them.” He dropped the last greenback in his wallet on the small stack and folded the leather with pronounced concentration. “This ought to get you anywhere you need to go. And this-”

He reached into his shirt pocket and laid a slim gold band with a single square-cut diamond on top of the money. “This is my way of asking you to choose.”

“Choose? Between marrying you or accepting your money?”

“No, between leaving and going where you want or accepting me. Heaven knows I want to marry you. I’ll do my best by you. I’ve already told you that. But I don’t want you to marry me because you have no other choice. I won’t be someone you settle for. If you marry me, know that I’m the best husband you are ever going to get. And if not, then good luck and goodbye, Katelyn Green. The best to you.”

He nodded in her direction, his movements quick and jerky, his hard body as tense as steel as he marched to the door and out of her life.

Five hundred-dollar bills stared up at her, creased in thirds from his worn leather wallet. That was a small fortune for a workingman. More than a year’s wages.

She was nearly penniless. He could have pressured her. He could have used her situation to persuade her to marry him. And he hadn’t.

“Wait! Dillon, please, don’t go.”

He stopped in the hallway. Splayed a sun-browned hand on the door frame. In his eyes she saw pain.

“You could live a long time on five hundred dollars, if you were careful.” He winced, and pain shot across his face before his eyes shuttered completely, hiding all his light. “I suppose that isn’t a lot of money to you.”

“It will see me a long way. It’s just what I need to start a new life. I was going to take the teacher’s examinations come spring and see if I could get a school.”

“You’d make a fine teacher.”

How dark he looked.

How intimidating. So much pain emanated from him, she could feel it all the way across the room like a tug of emotion in her chest. In her heart.

He’d given her the means to be on her own. And he didn’t need to do that. She could recover, find a job and pay her own debts. But she knew, if she did that, she would always wonder. Always regret that she had never found out what this was she felt in her heart for this man.

The timing was all wrong. Her emotions were still scarred, and her grief…Her chest fisted tight with a killing pain. No, she did not dare think about that.

She only knew she could not let him go. “Do you know the reason I didn’t open your gifts? Because I don’t want you to think I’m saying yes because of what you’ve bought me. I’ll marry you because of how you’ve treated me.”

“What did you say?”

“This ring could be just what I need to start a new life, too. If you are a man of your word.”

“If? Angel, I’m that and more.” Dillon couldn’t believe his ears. He crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of her. “You know what I am. I’m a horseman, not a judge.”

“I noticed.”

“I’ve got a log house, not a fine mansion on a tree-lined street. You know that, right? I’m not wealthy. There won’t be servants and maids and a cook.”

“I wasn’t expecting any.”

If she married him, he wanted her to know what was in store for her. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint her. “I’m not a lot of things that you’re used to. Polished and civilized and educated. I am what I am.”

Were her eyes twinkling at him? Was she trying not to laugh at him? What was he doing wrong now? A shaft of pain bored through his left temple. He was glad this courting nonsense was over. He couldn’t survive much more of it. “Am I amusing you?”

“Yes. There’s something you should know before you keep going on about how humble you are.”

“Now you’re mocking me.”

“You don’t have to worry, Dillon. My father was a horseman, too.”

His hands framed her face with tenderness and his mouth found hers in a kiss that lifted the soles of her feet from the floor.

Overwhelmed, she pulled away, chuckling, catching her breath. She hadn’t expected this reaction. She hadn’t even known what she would choose until she saw him walk through that door.

Marrying him was a practical decision. That was all. She was still weak, and being on her own, even with money in her pocket, would not be her best choice.

But marriage was permanent. Panic licked at her like a greedy fire at a log, and she couldn’t deny she could be making a mistake. If you marry me, know that I’m the best husband you are ever going to get.

Look how happy he was. Surely that was a good sign. That meant he was going to treat her well.

Marriage was a practical, legal arrangement in her social circle more often than not. That was what had motivated her mother to marry. As it had been Katelyn’s duty to wed her stepfather’s good friend, a man who had brought many benefits to the family. She didn’t see that kind of alliance had ever brought anyone happiness. Certainly her marriage had been sad and lonely and miserable.

Maybe that was simply the experience of matrimony. But surely being bound to a man who cared for her was a far better option than living alone for the rest of her days.