One From The Heart by Cinda Richards, Cheryl Reavis Page B

didn’t answer him.
    “What was his name—Williamson?”
    She looked at him for a long moment. Elizabeth had told him more about her than he’d ever said. “Yes,” she said finally. “Williamson. Nathan Williamson.”
    “Libby said he broke your heart. Did he?”
    “Yes, Ernie, he broke my heart. We wanted different things. I had a career. He wanted a housewife. I loved him; he loved me, but somehow we missed knowing that about each other until it was nearly time for the wedding. He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t give up my job and be just Mrs. Williamson, the mother of his children. I couldn’t believe he’d ask me to do it. I thought we could work it out—compromise. I thought that right up until the time he married somebody else. Okay?”
    “That’s why you got so caught up in your job at the big station downtown,” he said perceptively.
    “That’s why,” she agreed. “It was the least I could do, considering my degree of sacrifice and personal pain.”
    “And you regret it?”
    She thought before she answered. “No. There were other differences, things I thought wouldn’t matter then, but they probably would have eventually.”
    “What things?”
    “Ernie—”
    “Hannah, I want to know. Tell me.”
    “He grew up in a stable traditional family. I didn’t. And I don’t think he would have ever let me just up and throw the kids in the car and drive them to the Mississippi River so they could spit in it.”
    “No?” he asked, grinning.
    “No,” she assured him.
    “Hannah, about last night,” he said abruptly. “It didn’t come out the way I meant. I said it all wrong—”
    “I don’t want to talk about that, Ernie. I mean it.”
    “Hannah—”
    “Ernie, it doesn’t matter! Elizabeth is my sister. I love her.” We both do , she thought. She was afraid he was going to insist, but he didn’t, probably because Petey chose that moment to interrupt her chat with Cowpoke and look up at them. The conversation turned to lighter things, to more about Little Girl Hannah and to how long it would be until they could stop for a brown milk shake. Hannah could feel that Ernie was only postponing his explanation of his abrupt departure last night. One of life’s little quirks, she thought resignedly. When they’d first met, she’d given him the chance to tell her about his commitment to Elizabeth. He hadn’t taken it, and now, when she didn’t want to hear it, he was going to insist on telling her.
    They stopped along the road for something to eat, Petey and Hannah waiting in the truck while Ernie dashed inside a place with a flat roof and chipping paint and a neon name, Starlight Café, in the big front window. He was a regular, she could tell by the big hug he got from the woman in pink hair curlers at the cash register. He brought the woman closer to the window and pointed at his pickup truck. The woman smiled and waved, and Hannah and Petey dutifully returned the silent greeting. And the Starlight Café—as Ernie had promised—served excellent hamburgers and brown milk shakes. The cab of the truck was filled with the wonderful aroma of toasted bread and onion-flavored meat.
    “Come here often, do you?” Hannah asked, because the entire staff was now in the window waving as they pulled away.
    He grinned. “I’d take you inside if we had the time. That’s Ozelle—the one with the curlers. The woman’s crazy about me.”
    Hannah grinned in return, relaxing a bit in the truce they were enjoying. She had no idea where they were—somewhere between McAlester and Muskogee to the best of her calculations. They’d passed all those bodies of water—or perhaps it was one large and irregular body of water. She really couldn’t tell in the rain with the daylight nearly gone. Petey remained chipper and wide awake, much to Hannah’s relief. As long as she was awake, Ernie wasn’t likely to insist they talk about last night.
    It was dark by the time they neared Muskogee, and Ernie pulled