“If not the heat, Henry, what is it?” Isabella shaded her eyes from the sun. At this angle, her white hat did little to protect her from the sun’s rays.

“I can’t do this.” Agony deepened the lines in his lean cheeks. His brown eyes were pools of conviction.

Her skin flushed hot from crown to toe. Beneath many layers of clothing, her temperature spiked.

He referred to something far more important than the ongoing Independence Day celebrations.

“I must go.” Henry paced four steps away, then turned, pacing back to her.

She’d pretend to misunderstand—until she locked herself in the oven of her boardinghouse room. She’d not dissolve into tears and hysterics in the middle of a celebration. Never would she be that woman who won what she wanted with tears.

“I understand.” She forced the brightest of expressions. “The day is unusually warm. No need to stay.”

Her breaking heart managed to pound harder, her pulse too loud in her ears.

From the direction of the park, a brass band struck up “The Gladiator March.” She adored the popular John Philip Sousa piece. Focusing on the music barely held her together.

“I’m so very sorry.” He looked anywhere but at her. Into the soda water fountain. At his shoes. He clicked open his pocket watch. Snapped it shut. “You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Her smile widened, as did the fissure in her heart.

Didn’t he care how greatly his rejection crushed her spirit?

Hadn’t he listened when she’d explained her greatest heartache? How desperately she needed love and how unwilling her family had been to love her no matter what?

The street had grown quiet, the crowds having moved on toward the events at the park. Even Naomi and Sophia had left them alone for this conversation. They waited with their husbands in the shade of a tree at the end of the block.

In the growing calm, Isabella acknowledged the truth. She’d allowed herself to believe that this time, things would be different. This time, she’d magically prove worthy of love.

Forever and always, no matter what.

Conveniently, she’d not embraced his truth.

Henry’s pacing halted several feet from her. “I told you how I feel, about my need for a secure home. Someone who will make our home comfortable within my income.”

His stiffness pained her. “Yes, Henry, I heard.”

But she hadn’t. She saw that now. Somehow, that ill-fated conversation hadn’t impressed upon her Henry’s determination to wed the right kind of woman.

That woman was not Isabella.

For if she had truly heard, she never would have allowed the slimmest scrap of hope.

All the wishing in the world hadn’t solved matters with her family. She’d held on for years, fighting for common ground.

Why would Henry be different?

Tears threatened, and this time, they wouldn’t remain hidden.

Henry stood with hands splayed, reflecting the hope and desperation in her own heart. “Even if I had adequate income—” A growl blending hopelessness and aggravation ripped from his throat. “Even if. Are you the woman I need, Isabella?”

Her heart tripped over itself, tearing in two. The irregular rhythm raced.

As if her broken heart spilled its deepest, most secret contents, clarity shone light on the most painful truth of all. She’d lost him. The one man she’d believed she could love and live with in happiness. The marriage that would please her mother and allow her to keep her dream.

The perfect solution—the proof that her sacrifice of timely marriage and motherhood, sacrifice of her family’s love and support, had ultimately been worth it.

But Henry was so much more than a man she could to live with.

Henry was the one man, the only man, she could not live without.

He scowled. “Do you want to embrace homemaking? Raise children? Make the home your domain?”

He’d made himself clear. Now. And months ago. He’d told her the greatest, deepest desires of his heart. How could she ask him to give up his dreams?

Her family had asked, cajoled, and demanded she abandon her dreams.

After all she’d been through, the thought of leaving dentistry eviscerated her.

Even if she tried to remake herself into the woman he wanted, she would, inevitability, disappoint.

He knew she’d chosen dentistry over husband and children.

Why taunt her with prizes she would never win?

“No.” Her voice broke. “I can’t.”

She could not abandon her career.

Not even for Henry.

At the breakfast table the following morning, Henry fought to hide his sour mood.

He’d made an enormous personal sacrifice, the hardest decision of his life. The rewards would last decade upon decade.

So why hadn’t he slept like a baby?

True, the temperature had remained in the nineties overnight, and though the sun had been up all of an hour, the thermometer rapidly approached triple digits.

The single window in Henry’s small bedroom opened six inches. The usual Wyoming wind had failed to blow. He’d lain atop the bedsheets and wished for winter’s icy wind.

Through the thin wall separating his room from the Lindens’, his inability to sleep had been exacerbated by the bawling child. And bickering between Mr. Linden and his wife.

So much for his long-held belief that Mr. and Mrs. Linden lived in their own Garden of Eden.

“Toast?” Linden passed the plate to Henry. “Ham?”

Henry accepted both, then picked up his coffee cup, only to find it empty.

“Gertrude,” Linden snapped, “get the man his coffee.”

Any husband who treated his wife like the enemy and strangers with kindness, deserved—

“I told you yesterday, we have no coffee.” Heavily pregnant, the woman held her sobbing child on one hip. She blotted perspiration from her forehead with her sleeve. Red mottled her fair skin. She’d cried. Much. And recently.

From the beginning, Henry had wanted the Linden home to be like Dr. Ullman’s home—that place where home and heaven were one.

“Can’t you do anything right?” Linden stood, his chair crashing to the floor.

The child wailed louder.

She bounced the baby, urging him to quiet. He reached for the skillet on the stove, and she pulled his little hand away.

“It’s your responsibility to keep necessities in the house.” Without acknowledging his wife, Linden grabbed two pieces of ham from his plate and the remaining slice of toast. “Do yourself a favor, Dr. Merritt. Never marry.”

The man slammed the door behind himself. Seconds later, the squeak of the gate’s hinges carried through open windows.

Mrs. Linden turned away. Her body shook, probably fighting sobs.

What was the right thing to do?

“Mrs. Linden, please sit and eat.” He hadn’t a clue what to do for a miserable child, but he offered anyway. “I could take the child outside for a moment.”

“Eat what, Dr. Merritt?” The usually sweet-tempered, hard-working woman showed her temper. “My husband ate my breakfast, and our child’s.”

The man needed a lesson in decency, and Henry itched to deliver it.

Instead, he pulled out his chair and held it for her. He’d not eaten more than a bite, and the single slice of toast and ham seemed insufficient for a hungry child and an expectant mother.

He was their boarder. Not a brother, not a friend.

What would Mother have believed right?

Better, what would Isabella do? She always knew the right way to approach challenges and how to offer help and kindness without offending.

“Please sit. Eat. Feed the child.”

The boy wriggled, reaching for the toast on Henry’s plate. He cried louder.

She sagged into the chair. The child grabbed bread in one hand and meat in the other. He bit into the toast and chewed. His cheeks shone, and his nose ran.

Mrs. Linden spilled fresh tears.

Henry reached to touch her shoulder but thought better of it. “How can I help?”

“You pay room and board. That’s plenty.”

No. A sorry excuse for a man had eaten while his child cried for bread.

As a boy, he’d known desperation, but never hunger.

Had Mother?

The child hiccupped. He sighed heavily and rested his head upon his mother. The child ate, unaware of his mother’s hunger.

How long had it been since she’d eaten? How long since she’d eaten her fill?

“Has Mr. Linden gone to work?” If he were paid today—

“Union Pacific fired him for neglect of duty.”

Henry’s gut twisted.

No income. No affection in times of trial.

Not what Mrs. Linden had anticipated when she’d wed.

A good man, a decent man, did not walk away.

Truth slammed into Henry—as if he’d been caught unaware by an oncoming train.

A decent man did not walk away.

He, Henry Merritt, had walked away.

All because he’d been determined to protect himself, to ensure his own heart’s safety.

What of Isabella? What about her protection? And her heart?

He’d brought this misery upon himself by his own selfish choices.

How had he deluded himself? Isabella wasn’t merely the best woman for him. She was the only woman.

Linden’s grievances were no less severe than his own.

He removed his pocketbook from his coat pocket and withdrew the bills. Every last one. He set them on the table.

Sometimes, the needs of the helpless ate at him.

“No, Doctor.” Tears of anger and frustration streamed down her face.

“My mother worked tirelessly, desperate to make ends meet.” He paused. “I’m sorry I wasn’t aware. I won’t make that mistake again.”

He picked up one of the bills. “I’ll walk to the market presently and return with groceries to see you and the child fed.”

She hid her face in her child’s hair. “Thank you.”

Step one, rectify what he could, here.

Step two, face his own dazzling error in judgment.