My love for you won’t stop with my leaving. Come an evening over the years, when you step outside your door and hear the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, that’ll be me, thinking of you, whispering your name, and loving you.
If I am never to have you again after this night, this moment, you will remain the wife of my soul. Keeper of my heart.
What I’ve learned of love, I’ve learned from you. I don’t believe in anything, but I believe in you.
I couldn’t let him have you, Jessalyn,” he said, his throat raw. “I know that I am worthless, a degenerate Trelawny buried in debts. But you’re all I’ve ever wanted out of this life, the only thing I will ever need. Without you I have no reason to live.” He held his hands up to her, spreading them in supplication, and they shook as if he had an ague. “I have no pride left. You have it all.