Chapter 23
Kate leaned against the doorframe of Clara’s room, watching her sister push herself higher against the pillows. The movement was still slow, still careful, but it was movement. Five days ago, Clara had barely been able to lift her head.
“You’re hovering again.” Clara’s voice had regained some of its familiar sweetness, though it came out thinner than usual. “I can feel you worrying from here.”
“I’m not hovering. I’m observing.”
“You’re hovering.” Clara smoothed the quilt over her lap, her fingers still pale beneath the red splotches that were starting to peel. “And you look exhausted.”
She was exhausted—eight days of sleeping in fitful bursts, of straining to hear every sound from Clara’s room, of holding her breath each time Robert emerged with an update.
Even with Thomas holding her through these last five nights since they’d ended her quarantine, even with his steady presence anchoring her, the fear had carved itself into her bones.
But Clara’s fever had finally broken two nights ago. Today she could sit up and had even regained enough strength to tease.
Kate had thanked Thomas a hundred times in her mind for staying.
But now, with Clara’s eyes clearer and her voice stronger, a different, unfamiliar gratitude tightened inside her—directed upward, not sideways.
Had God been the one to heal her sister? How could she ever really know?
She forced herself to straighten, to release her grip on the doorframe, and refocused on her sister. “I’ll stop hovering when you stop looking like a strong breeze could knock you over.”
“Fair enough.” Clara’s smile was weak but genuine. Loose strands of her honey-blonde hair had escaped her braid and hung limp around her face. But her eyes held their familiar warmth.
“Thomas says you need to get out of the house.” Clara folded her hands atop the quilt, her gaze too knowing. “He mentioned it to me this morning when he brought up my breakfast.”
Of course he had. Thomas had been suggesting it since yesterday—gentle hints that fresh air would help her feel better, that Clara was improving, that sitting vigil wouldn’t make her sister heal any faster.
“I’m fine here.”
“Kate.” Clara’s voice carried that blend of affection and exasperation she’d perfected over the years. “You’ve barely left this hallway in over a week. Mrs. Wang told me you haven’t even been down for meals.”
“Someone needed to be close in case—”
“In case I needed you. I know.”
“Kate.” Thomas’s voice came from the direction of the stairs, and she turned as he strode down the hallway.
Mrs. Wang had trimmed his copper-brown hair sometime this week, though it still fell across his forehead in that unruly way that fit his personality so exactly.
“I need to ride into Walnut Springs for Clara’s medicine and a few supplies. ”
“Of course.” She nodded. “I’ll stay with Clara while you—”
“Actually.” He stopped beside her in the open doorway.
His gaze scanned Clara before finding hers with that steady warmth that had become her anchor these past days.
“I thought you might come with me. My family’s here to watch Clara, and Mrs. Wang has promised to check in every hour. You could use some fresh air.”
Fresh air. The words tugged at something deep inside her—a longing she’d been pressing down beneath layers of worry and duty. She hadn’t breathed anything but the close air of sickrooms and hallways for days.
But leaving Clara, even for a few hours…
“Go.” Clara’s voice cut through her hesitation. “Honestly, Kate, there’s nothing for you to do here except stare at me and fret. I’m mostly just bored now.”
Thomas’s hand found the small of her back, warm even through the layers of her dress. “We won’t be gone long. The afternoon at most. And if anything changes, James can ride out to meet us.”
She looked between them—her sister’s earnest expression, Thomas’s patient waiting. Both of them asking her to trust. To let go, just for a moment.
The tightness in her chest eased a fraction. “All right.”
Relief flicked across Thomas’s face. “Good. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.”
The moment she stepped onto the porch, the cold nipped at her face, and she drew a sharp breath at the clean bite of it. This winter wind carried the scent of pine and snow—so different from the stale air of a sickroom.
Thomas helped her into the wagon with his hands at her waist. The simple courtesy shouldn’t affect her—she’d climbed into wagons countless times without assistance—but something had shifted between them these last few days.
Something she didn’t have words for yet.
She settled onto the bench beside him, and when he released the brake and guided the horses forward, she let herself lean into his side. He lifted one arm, and she tucked herself against him as he wrapped that hand around her.
So easy, letting herself be with this man.
She’d spent so long holding herself apart, keeping walls in place.
But Thomas had sat outside her door for three days, reading her books and telling stories into the darkness.
Thomas had broken through when she needed him most. Thomas had held her while she fell apart and promised she’d never be alone again.
Maybe he was right.
The wagon rattled down the trail, and she let her gaze drift across the landscape.
A fresh coat of snow now blanketed the hills in soft white, broken only by the dark spires of pines.
The sky stretched overhead in the shade of winter blue that seemed to only live here in the Montana Territory—rich and sharp and impossibly vast.
“Better?” Thomas’s voice rumbled near her ear.
“I didn’t realize how much I needed this.” She tilted her face up to the weak winter sun, filling her chest with cold air. “I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for over a week.”
“You have been.” His arm tightened around her. “We all have.”
She let herself sink deeper into his warmth as the wagon wheels crunched through snow-packed ruts. The rhythm of it—the steady plodding of the horses, the creak of wood and leather—worked its way into her bones, loosening the knots a little at a time.
Somehow Thomas had known what she needed.
Each night this past week—after they’d ended her quarantine—they’d returned to his room to sleep, and he’d held her in the darkness, his body warm against her back. They’d talked for hours sometimes, trading stories and secrets she’d never shared with anyone.
He’d told her about the latest letter from his father.
How the duke had mentioned that his cousin, Reginald Balfour—the one who’d kidnapped Thomas’s oldest brother when they were all young boys, the man who’d been the reason the boys came to America to begin with—had begun pestering the queen again about their family’s title.
Thankfully, the monarch shut him down quickly this time.
Thomas had laughed when he’d said it, a low, humorless sound in the dark, and Kate had felt the tension in his body.
Even an ocean away, that man’s shadow still reached for them.
And the kisses. Heat bloomed low in her stomach at the memory. The desperate press of his mouth against hers that first time, salt-tinged with her tears. The gentler ones that followed—in the hallway, in the quiet hours before sleep, stolen moments when the house was still.
He hadn’t pushed for more. Hadn’t asked for anything beyond what she was ready to give. That restraint, more than anything, had healed something inside her. She’d spent so long bracing for men to take, to demand, to prove her stepmother right about the nature of the world.
Thomas simply gave. Over and over, without asking anything in return. He made her feel safe.
“Thank you.” The words came out before she could stop them. “For everything this week. For staying. For…all of it.”
He turned his head to press a kiss against her hair. “There’s nowhere I would have rather been.”
The sincerity in his voice made her chest ache. She’d been so certain, that first day she met him in Butte, that she couldn’t trust him. That his easy charm was just another mask, another manipulation. Now she couldn’t imagine facing the past week without him at her side.
The road wound down through the pines, and Kate sank into the moment. The creak of wagon wheels. The steady warmth of Thomas beside her. The clean bite of winter air against her cheeks. For the first time in days—weeks, maybe—something close to peace soaked through her.
“We should reach Walnut Springs within a quarter hour.” Thomas adjusted the reins.
“We’ll stop at the doctor’s first to get the medicine for Clara.
Then I need to pick up some supplies from the mercantile.
” He paused, and the tone shifted in his voice.
“And the livery. I’m hoping to get the last of what we’ll need for California. ”
She froze as the word twisted inside her.
California.
She’d thought—hoped—maybe he’d set that aside. He hadn’t mentioned leaving once since Clara fell ill. In the quiet hours of the night, wrapped in his arms, talking about everything and nothing, California had never come up. She’d let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, he’d changed his mind.
But he hadn’t.
He was still planning to leave. To uproot them from this place that had begun to feel like home and drag them across the wilderness to an unknown future.
She pulled back a little—not far, just enough to create space where there had been none. The cold air rushed into the gap between them.
“Kate?” Thomas glanced down at her, confusion flicking in his hazel eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Everything. Yet she couldn’t say that. Could she?
She’d started to love this place. The sprawling ranch house with its massive stone fireplace.
Mrs. Wang’s quiet wisdom and fierce protection.
The brothers who teased each other mercilessly but would clearly die for one another.
Even Enoch, with his gruff exterior and gentle heart.
Mandie and Rose, with their warm smiles and easy acceptance. And that precious baby.
They’d welcomed her. Made her feel like she belonged somewhere for the first time since her mother died.
And Thomas wanted to take her away from all of it.
“Nothing.” Mayhap her voice came out a little too sharp, so she softened it. Though she couldn’t quite bring herself to lean back into him. “I’m just…surprised. You haven’t mentioned California in a while.”
“The timing wasn’t right. With Clara and everything.” He guided the horses around a bend in the road, keeping his focus on the road. “But she’s recovering now. Once she’s well enough to travel, we can start making plans.”
Plans. As if uprooting their lives was as simple as packing a trunk.
She tightened her jaw. Could she say something? Tell him that she wasn’t sure she could leave? That the thought of abandoning this fragile sense of home made her chest ache with a grief she could barely put into words?
But they were approaching Walnut Springs now. Wooden buildings emerged through the trees ahead. This wasn’t the time or place for the conversation they needed to have.
She swallowed the words pressing against her throat and fixed her gaze on the town ahead. “Let’s just focus on getting Clara’s medicine for now.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “We can talk about the rest later.”
Thomas didn’t answer for a moment, and his gaze warmed the side of her face, though she kept her focus ahead.
At last, he said, “All right. Later.”
The word hung between them—a promise and a threat all at once.
She drew a breath of cold mountain air, but it didn’t hold the same crisp freshness. Just a burning ache.