At God for taking her. At the world for keep spinning when his stopped. Eliza listened, not interrupting. Levi's seven, Bo continued. Quietest child you'll ever meet.
Hasn't said more than a dozen words since the funeral. The twins are five, Nathaniel and Meera. Meera is the only girl. He paused, his jaw tightening. She doesn't understand why her mama doesn't come when she calls.
Keeps asking when she's coming home. And you tell her the truth, that her mama is with God now, that she's not coming back. But truth doesn't mean understanding. Not at 5 years old. Bose's hands tightened on the res.
My wife, Catherine, was her name. She was the heart of everything. The house, the family, the whole ranch. When she died, it was like someone ripped the center out of our world and expected us all to just keep standing. "I'm sorry," Eliza said softly.
"That's a terrible loss. " "Yes," Bo was quiet for another long moment. "Then I need to be clear about something, Miss Morland. I didn't bring you to my ranch to replace Catherine. No one could do that. And I didn't bring you to be my wife.
I'm not ready for that. May never be ready for it. I brought you because my children are drowning in grief and I can't reach them. I'm not good with words. Never.
Never have been. I can mend a fence, deliver a calf, break a horse, but I can't fix what's broken in my children's hearts. I don't know if I can either, Eliza admitted. I've never lost anyone the way they've lost their mother. I don't know if I'm capable of I'm not asking you to fix them, Bo interrupted gently.
I'm just asking you to be there to keep the house from falling apart. To make sure they eat and wash and sleep, to be a steady presence when everything else feels like it's crumbling. Can you do that? Eliza thought about it. Really thought about it.
She'd spent the last year feeling like a failure, marked as defective by every person who'd known about her inability to conceive. She'd been measured against a standard she could never meet and found wanting every single time. But this man, this stranger who'd bought her for a single dollar and promised she wouldn't be judged anymore, was asking her to do something she might actually be capable of. Not to give birth, not to provide heirs, just to show up, to be present, to care. "Yes," she said, surprised by the steadiness in her own voice.