Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020) Read Online Free PDF Page A

heart the only place she’d ever belonged was with Noah.
    â€œRuth, we’ve known each other a long time.” Leon sat next to her on the bench and took her hand.
    â€œEver since I arrived you were kind to me.”
    Leon was kind to everyone. Leon enjoyed helping the whole wide world.
    â€œYou’re easy to be kind to, and I want to take care of you.”
    Ruth knew what would come next. Leon and her father had decided some time ago that it would be best for Kelly Creek if Ruth, the reigning belle, and Leon, the town’s most eligible bachelor, married.
    Leon had asked her to marry him at least five times already. He said all the right words. She had no doubt he loved her, or at least believed that he did. But each time he asked, Ruth said no. Both Leon and her father were getting impatient. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to say yes.
    Ruth extricated her hand from his and looked west, then north, then south. Nothing and no one. She sighed. Perhaps she should reconsider Leon’s offer.
    While Leon was a good man, a strong man, and she liked him, Ruth didn’t feel any passion for him, no consuming and abiding emotion. To spend her life with a man, it would seem she should feel something stronger for him than friendship.
    Perhaps her hesitancy had something to do with the fact that Leon was devoted to Kelly Creek and its people. That devotion was what made Leon, Leon. But his love would always be split between her and everyone else. Was she so selfish that she needed to be the most important thing in someone’s life? She wasn’t sure, since she never had been. What she really needed was time to think about all of this.
    Ruth glanced down the street. “Don’t you have to go?”
    â€œIn a moment.” Leon went down on one knee and took her hand back. “Won’t you please marry me, Ruth? Your father approves. We’ll suit. You know we will. Let me take care of you.”
    â€œOh, Leon.” She sighed, and her gaze drifted back to the flat, empty landscape.
    â€œI love you, Ruth.”
    All of her life she’d longed for love. Her parents had taken her in, given her shelter, clothes, food, and a name, but neither of them had loved her. Her mother had been too ill, too lost in the past, to worry about Ruth. And her father . . .
    The light had gone out of him when his wife died. Ruth wasn’t sure if he was capable of loving anyone anymore, no matter how much Ruth might need the love.
    She’d always imagined that when someone at last said they loved her, the entire world would become wonderful. But the words only complicated things.
    Ruth had begun to wonder if she were capable of deep emotion. Every boy she’d ever known, every single young man, had left her cold and unmoved—except for one, and that had been so long ago. She’d been a little girl. She’d known nothing of love. But the memory of what she’d felt then was like nothing she’d ever felt since.
    Only Leon was tolerable. Perhaps that was all she could hope for. Ruth touched his cheek.
    He must have seen something new in her face, because he caught his breath and his eyes lit with hope. “You’ll marry me?”
    â€œI’ll think on it.” She was surprised at her own words. But now that they were said, she realized she
would
think about marrying Leon this time. Her father approved, and Robert Kelly approved of precious little. How many years would she wait at the train station for someone who was never going to come?
    Leon frowned, then opened his mouth as if he meant to say more, but a “Ho!” from down the street brought him to his feet, his gaze already on the distance and not on her. “I have to go. Should I see you to the wagon?”
    â€œNo. I’ll think awhile right here. It’s a lovely night.”
    His concerned brown eyes turned back to her. “I don’t like leaving you alone.”
    â€œI sit here