An Unwilling Husband by Tera Shanley

her it was your birthday. It don’t mean the same to the Indians, but she wanted to make you something anyway.”
    Bloody hell. Right in that moment, he could have knocked her over with a feather. “How did you know it was my birthday?”
    “I remembered. From before.” As he ducked into the kitchen to reheat the plate of her half burnt cooking in his hand, she could’ve sworn a blush darkened his tanned cheeks.
    She took the gift from Lenny and sat on the chair, as excited as she’d been as a child on Christmas. She’d rarely ever received a gift.
    From the wrappings she pulled out a pair of moccasins, much like Lenny’s, and clutched them to her chest. “Oh, they’re just brilliant!” she exclaimed to Lenny, who was grinning. Garret poked his head out of the kitchen, and she thought she caught him smiling too.
    Then and there, she peeled off her shoes and put on the moccasins. Lenny showed her how to lace them properly. How long it had taken the girl to make them, she couldn’t guess but admiring the detailing, Lenny’s absence as of late made sense.
    Laughing, she stood then crept around the furniture, miming a rabbit hunt with her hands up like guns. Lenny stood and scuffled and bumbled noisily around the room impersonating their first excursion, much to her delight. Garret grinned as he watched their antics.
    Lenny talked to him in her language and made gestures good humoredly. He laughed but Maggie wasn’t offended. How could she be at such a time? She couldn’t take her eyes off the new and undeniably comfortable footwear. And the deep timbre of Garret’s unfamiliar laugh warmed her heart in tender ways she happily kept to herself. Another unexpected gift.
    After they had settled, Lenny and Garret ate her cooking and didn’t even make awful faces at it. It had shaped up to be a right happy birthday after all.
    Lenny left after dinner and Garret, no doubt, would escape to the solitude of his bedroom soon after. But he sat at the table with his hands clasped in front of his mouth. She fingered the stitching on a napkin, sensing he had something to say.
    “That’s nice of you,” he said. “The way you treat Lenny. Not many women—not many people,” he corrected, “would be kind to her like that.”
    “Why wouldn’t I be? She is my friend. Probably the nicest and most sincere friend I’ve ever had.”
    Garret searched her face for a long moment. “See, that’s what I mean. You didn’t ever think you were better than her or Cookie.” He cleared his throat. “I got something for you. For your birthday.”
    He pulled out a bright, fragrant orange and placed it on the table in front of her. Shocked into silence, a feat which didn’t happen often, she reached out and touched the peel gently with her fingertips. She had only eaten a few oranges in her lifetime.
    “Where did you get this?” she whispered.
    “I got it in town a couple of days ago. I pulled a couple of favors,” he said.
    Shyness crept over her. “Thanks for remembering,” she said softly.
    He nodded, and she peeled the orange slowly, savoring the smell. After she’d divided it into slices with care, she pushed half of them in front of him.
    “It’s your present, Maggie. You don’t have to share.”
    Arguing with Garret had never gotten her anywhere. So, she tucked her legs under her and ate the fruit piece by piece, relishing the flesh’s tanginess and the juice’s refreshing tartness. He watched her with an unreadable expression while she ate. Only after she was finished did he pop his first slice into his mouth. His eyes glowed with amusement as the angles of his jaws worked around the tart fruit.
    “What?” She felt her chin to make sure she didn’t have juice running down it or some other such embarrassment.
    “Nothing.”
    Silence stretched between them like the walls of a wide valley, but pushing Garret into a conversation he didn’t want wouldn’t work.
    “It’s just when you eat something you really