Chapter Fourteen
The figures refused to improve no matter how many times Caleb checked them.
He sat behind Jonah's scarred desk with ledgers spread across nearly every inch of the surface, adding columns by lamplight while the rest of the house settled into a peaceful evening.
The coming cattle sale might carry them through the winter if the herd stayed healthy and no more stock disappeared, but every hopeful calculation unraveled beneath the weight of another repair, another unpaid account, another expense Jonah had been too sick to settle before he died.
And two heifers still remained unaccounted for.
Russ believed they'd slipped through the cut fence before anyone had discovered the damage, yet Caleb had ridden every neighboring pasture and found no tracks that gave a clue as to where they'd gone.
Missing cattle gnawed at him far worse than broken fences.
A broken fence announced itself plainly enough.
Missing stock left a man inventing explanations until every shadow looked suspicious.
He checked the figures again anyway. The answer refused to change.
If another fence came down, or disease reached the herd in autumn, they wouldn't have enough cash to keep every ranch hand through winter.
Selling breeding stock would solve one problem only to create another, while borrowing money meant risking the land he and Jonah had spent half their lives building.
Caleb rested his forearm across the ledger and rubbed his tired eyes before looking back at the final pages.
Jonah's handwriting changed almost imperceptibly as the months passed.
Earlier entries carried the broad, confident script Caleb had known since they were boys, usually accompanied by some complaint about stubborn calves or buyers who couldn't tell the front of a cow from the back.
Those remarks disappeared toward the end. Illness had stolen his friend’s easy humor first. The last entries contained little beyond dates, figures, and careful arithmetic scratched onto the page by a man determined to keep working long after his body had begun surrendering.
Caleb traced one finger beneath Jonah's final line. Less than three weeks later, his friend had been gone. He closed the ledger halfway before opening it again with a weary sigh. Pretending the books didn't exist had never balanced an account.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway. He looked up, expecting Amy to appear carrying a tray or to gently remind him that supper had cooled while he argued with numbers.
She had developed the habit of checking on him every evening, never with reproach, always just a quiet concern that made him feel cared for in ways he'd almost forgotten were possible.
Since apologizing outside her bedroom, he'd found himself watching for little signs that she'd accepted his remorse.
She smiled when he entered a room and included him in conversations with the children, though caution still lingered in her eyes whenever silence stretched between them. He couldn't blame her for that.
Another soft scrape came from the doorway, and a small face appeared around the frame.
Maggie stood there clutching Eloise beneath one arm, her nightdress rumpled and one blue ribbon hanging halfway undone from her braid.
In her other hand she carried a folded sheet of paper with the importance of someone delivering official business.
Caleb leaned back in the chair. "I thought sensible little girls were asleep by now."
"I tried," Maggie replied gravely as she stepped inside. "Sleep said to come back later."
"Oh?" He folded his arms. "Sleep's getting bossy."
"She only bosses Eloise."
Caleb glanced at the rag doll. "I should have suspected Eloise was encouraging bad behavior."
Maggie immediately covered one of the doll's cloth ears. "Shh! She can hear you."
"I'll apologize if she promises to behave herself."
Satisfied that Eloise had been defended, Maggie wandered farther into the office until the ledgers caught her attention.
She frowned thoughtfully. "Those look boring."
Caleb looked down at the endless rows of figures. "They are."
"I like Amy's stories better." She held out the folded paper to him. "I found another one. Will you read it to me?”
Amy had been reading to the children every evening, filling their room with queens, dragons, talking crows, brave boys, and clever girls who always seemed to rescue themselves long before anyone else arrived.
Maggie climbed onto the chair opposite him and tucked Eloise closer to her. "The princess yesterday wouldn't marry the prince."
Caleb unfolded the paper without really looking at it. "Sounds like a wise girl."
"He talked too much."
"That'll do it."
Still smiling, Caleb lowered his eyes, expecting one of Amy's fairy tales. Instead, neat handwriting covered the page.
My dearest Mother...
His smile slipped away. The paper in his hands wasn't a story at all. It was the letter Amy said she had been writing to her mother earlier. He began folding it, meaning to carry it upstairs without reading another word, when his own name caught his eye.
Caleb works harder than any man I've ever known.
Maggie's heels tapped the chair rung as she waited. "What happens in the story?"
Caleb heard her voice, though the words on the page held him where he sat. His gaze dropped before he could stop himself.
Mother, I fear I may have been foolish again.
His chest tightened. The words struck him hard because he knew exactly who had given her reason to feel that way. He kept going before he could stop himself.
I don't know whether I'll ever truly belong here... whether he'll find a place for me beyond duty.
He stared at the sentence until the letters blurred together. Duty.
Was that all she'd found beneath his roof? A man who kept food on the table, but every feeling worth speaking locked so far behind his ribs that she'd begun wondering whether she'd ever belong anywhere beyond the chores he handed her?
Heat crept into his face and nausea rolled through him.
He folded the letter with careful hands and laid it on the desk, ashamed he'd read even that much.
Amy had trusted this house enough to leave her letter where she thought it would remain unseen, and he'd repaid that trust by wandering into thoughts she’d never intended to share.
Maggie leaned in closer. "Why are you not reading it to me?" she asked, tilting her head curiously.
Caleb rested his hand over the folded page before her curiosity carried her any farther. “This isn’t one of Amy’s stories,” he said. “It’s a letter she’s writing to her mother.”
Her bright expression faded. “Oh.”
“I’ll take it back to her now."
She studied the paper for another heartbeat before looking up. "You'll read me a story tomorrow instead?"
A smile found him more easily this time. "I will."
"The whole story?"
"The whole story,” he promised. That seemed to satisfy Maggie at last. She slipped her hand into his, and he walked beside her upstairs.
Amy sat beside Noah's bed, arranging the covers over him where he’d drifted off. She looked up when Maggie hurried into the room, relief softening her features before a teasing smile appeared. "There you are. I wondered who'd stolen you away."
"Caleb did," Maggie declared. "He got distracted."
Amy looked across the room at him, amusement warming her eyes. "Did he now?"
"I did," Caleb admitted. "The blame's mine."
Caleb lingered in the doorway long enough to watch Maggie settle into bed as Amy came over to tuck her in again. The room felt warmer with her in it than the rest of the house ever had. He eased the door closed and returned downstairs.
The folded letter waited where he'd left it.
He picked it up, turning it over once before setting it back on the desk.
He'd already learned all he needed to know.
Amy believed she filled a place in his household only because Caleb needed a wife.
She'd come west hoping to build a marriage, yet she'd found a husband who worked from dawn until dark and kept the rest of himself locked away.
Until tonight, Caleb had believed a roof over her head, honest work, and his name to protect her fulfilled every promise he'd made.
Amy's letter stripped that comfort away with painful clarity.
She deserved more than just a place in his house.
She deserved a place in his life.
As he listened to Amy's soft footsteps upstairs, Caleb made a quiet promise to himself. He would stop treating Amy like a guest he happened to marry.
He would make sure she knew she belonged.