Chapter Seventeen
Amy carried the tea tray through the quiet hallway.
The children had gone to bed with fewer protests than usual, although Noah had argued that older boys should be allowed to finish important drawings after dark, while Maggie had insisted Eloise felt poorly and required another blanket.
Caleb had settled both disputes without raising his tone, which would have seemed impossible only weeks earlier.
He seemed changed by the successful cattle sale.
He still rose before daylight and worked until supper, yet the strain around his eyes had eased, and he had begun making it to the table before the food had cooled.
Earlier that evening, he had listened attentively while Maggie explained why Eloise deserved her own chair, then asked Noah whether he planned to show Russ the drawing he had made of the repaired gate.
Caleb’s humor remained dry, though warmth had softened it enough that Amy no longer felt compelled to study every remark for hidden displeasure.
She had also caught him looking at her several times, and each glance stirred up the hope she tried to keep under control.
Amy reached the office and shifted the tray to one hand before knocking. Caleb’s chair scraped across the floor, followed by the rustle of paper. “Come in.”
She nudged the door open and found him surrounded by ranch records.
Ledgers covered one side of Jonah’s scarred desk, while loose receipts rested near Caleb’s elbow beneath a stone paperweight.
Lamplight warmed his dark blond hair and deepened the shadows beneath his eyes, though the exhaustion there no longer carried the same defeat that had worried her before the sale.
“I brought tea,” Amy said as she stepped inside. She set the tray near the corner of the desk and lifted the teapot, expecting him to simply thank her before returning to his work. Instead, Caleb began gathering the papers closest to the empty chair.
“You can sit, if you’d like.”
Her hand paused above the cup. “In here?”
His brows rose slightly. “Unless you prefer drinking tea in the hallway.”
Amy studied him, unsure whether mere politeness had prompted the offer or whether he genuinely wanted her company.
Caleb kept the office door closed most evenings, retreating there whenever the ranch demanded more attention than daylight allowed.
Being invited into that space felt more intimate than it should have, especially after the past few days had encouraged her to believe he might finally be allowing her closer.
"I thought ranch accounts required silence," Amy said.
Caleb’s fingers brushed hers as he finally took the cup from her before he nodded toward the chair opposite the desk. "They require figures that stop changing every time I look at them." He smiled faintly. "You're welcome to see if they'll behave better for you."
Amy laughed and settled into the chair as he turned the open ledger toward her.
"Mercer's payment will cover the north fence repairs and wages through early winter," he said, tapping one of the columns. "We're still short, but we've finally bought ourselves a little breathing room."
Relief eased through her. "Then you won't have to sell the breeding cattle."
Caleb looked up, mild surprise softening his expression. "You've been listening."
"You keep forgetting I'm nearby."
That earned her a quiet chuckle before he reached for another stack of papers. "Then perhaps you can make yourself useful." He slid the bundle toward her. "Jonah's contracts. I need them sorted by date."
Amy rested her hand on the papers without picking them up. "You're trusting me with ranch business?"
His gaze met hers as if the answer should've been obvious. "I'd hardly hand them over if I didn't."
Warmth spread through her at the certainty in his voice.
She untied the string while Caleb worked through a pile of invoices, occasionally explaining which repairs still needed attention before winter and which buyers Jonah had always preferred dealing with.
The figures meant little to her, yet listening to Caleb speak with quiet confidence made the ledgers seem less intimidating. ”
"It sounds like Jonah kept everything."
Caleb huffed out a small laugh without looking up. "He did. Finding what he wanted again, though, depended entirely on whether he remembered where he'd hidden it."
Amy laughed. "So there isn’t a system."
"Only one Jonah understood."
The easy conversation settled around them while they worked, interrupted now and then when their hands reached for the same paper.
Caleb no longer pulled away as quickly as he once would have, and each brief touch left Amy wondering if he noticed it as much as she did.
After a while, she looked across the desk at him.
"You made negotiating with Mercer sound almost easy. "
Caleb rested his pencil on the ledger in front of them. "Most men tell you exactly what they want if you give them enough time."
Amy smiled faintly before the memory escaped her guard. "Theodore talked endlessly, yet I never truly understood what he wanted."
The words settled between them, and she wished she could gather them back before Caleb spoke. "Theodore?"
Amy lowered her gaze to the invoice in her hands, tracing the edge of the paper with her thumb. "The man I thought I was going to marry."
Caleb didn't rush to fill the silence or offer easy reassurance, and somehow that made it easier to keep talking.
"He could make anyone feel as if they were the only person in the room,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips before fading.
“He remembered every little thing I’d ever mentioned, always knew the right words to say, and made the future sound so certain that I never questioned it.
" Heat crept into her cheeks as the memories returned.
"Looking back, I can see how carefully he chose what he told me, but at the time...
" She shook her head. "I wanted to believe him. "
Caleb watched her with quiet patience, his expression steady enough to keep the shame from swallowing the words before she could speak them. "What happened?" he asked, his voice low.
Amy drew a careful breath, gathering the courage she'd once thought she'd buried with the memory. "I discovered he'd never intended to marry me." Her fingers stilled on the paper as she finally met Caleb's eyes. "He already had a wife."
Caleb held her gaze while her words settled between them. His hand remained on the pencil laying across the ledger, though he no longer seemed aware he was holding it. "He lied to you."
Amy lowered her eyes to the invoice in her hands as embarrassment swirled through her. "I should've seen it," she said. "There were likely signs I ignored because I wanted the life he promised me."
Caleb leaned forward, his forearms resting on the desk as he searched her face.
"A man who means to deceive someone hides whatever serves his purpose.
" His voice stayed calm, though she could hear anger beneath it.
"A skilled liar makes honesty feel foolish.
That doesn't make the person who believed him a fool. "
Amy simply looked at him. Nobody had ever said such words to her.
Her mother had wrapped her in love after the scandal, and Clara had defended her with fierce loyalty.
Caleb, though, was the first to plainly say Theodore's deceit had revealed nothing shameful about her, only about the man who'd chosen to betray her.
The shame she'd carried for so long eased just enough to let her breathe.
She hadn't realized how desperately she'd wanted someone to believe that until Caleb did. She wished there was something she could say in return, but there was a thick knot of emotion lodged in the base of her throat.
They continued sorting through the ranch’s records until the tea cooled.
Amy found a set of cattle weights Jonah had recorded the previous spring, while Caleb discovered two unpaid invoices tucked inside a packet marked completed.
He muttered that Jonah had been an optimistic bookkeeper, and Amy began creating separate piles so Caleb could compare expenses more easily.
When she reached toward the far corner of the desk, the edge of a folded page caught her eye beneath another ledger.
The paper was familiar enough to stop her hand.
A faint ink mark near the fold drew her attention, and unease moved through her as she pulled it free.
She recognized the page before she opened it because her fingers remembered every crease she had pressed into the paper after deciding she couldn’t send it.
My dearest Mother.
The greeting blurred beneath the lamplight.
Amy’s fingers went cold as humiliation moved through her with such force that every tender exchange from the past few days seemed to rearrange itself inside her mind.
The unfinished letter should have still been beneath the abandoned pages in her bedroom.
She remembered folding it after Caleb left and placing it beside her journal, tucked beneath the other attempts.
Yet it lay on his desk.
Why? Every private thought she'd poured onto those pages lay scattered across Caleb's desk, and she couldn't begin to understand how they had found their way there. Her eyes lifted slowly to his face, searching for an explanation before she asked the question already rising in her throat.
Caleb looked up from the ledger. “What is it?”
Amy stared at him, and the hope she had carried into the office collapsed beneath the recognition that crossed his face as he saw the page in her hands.
The color faded from his features before he could hide it, and shame entered his eyes.
“Why do you have this?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice controlled.
Caleb set his pencil down carefully, though the control in the motion only deepened her certainty that he had known exactly what rested beneath the ledger. “Amy, let me explain.”
The words reached her through the rush of blood in her ears. “You read it.” The hurt in her own tone sounded distant, yet Caleb reacted as though the accusation had physically struck him. His shoulders lowered, and he actually looked to be at a loss for words.
“I shouldn’t have,” he said after a moment. The admission pierced more deeply than denial would have.
Amy rose so quickly that her chair nearly toppled over. “You went into my room!”
Caleb shook his head, urgency sharpening his expression. “No.”
Her grip closed tightly around the letter while she tried to decide whether she believed him or not. “This was beneath my journal, hidden under other pages.”
“Maggie found it.” The answer came quickly, though Caleb’s gaze dropped to the desk before returning to her.
That explanation alone would not absolve him.
“She brought it in here because she thought it was a new story you had written to tell the children.
I opened it without thinking." Regret crossed his face.
"I realized what it was as soon as I saw the greeting. "
“Maggie found it,” she repeated, “but you decided to read it even after you realized it was a personal letter?” Her heart thundered so loudly in her ears she could hardly hear him as he spoke.
Humiliation swept through Amy until every private hope she'd poured onto those pages seemed to burn in her hands.
Caleb had read the words she'd never intended another soul to see, including the desperate confession that she had begun wishing for a place beside him, and the quiet happiness she'd found over the past few days collapsed and disappeared.
She struggled to lift her eyes to his. "How much did you read?"
Caleb held her gaze for a heartbeat before looking down at the desk again. The silence that followed told her what she needed to know even before he spoke. "Enough."
She crumpled the paper slightly as her hand curled into a fist, wishing she could hide the words all over again even though the chance had long since passed. "So when you started treating me differently..." She swallowed against the ache rising in her throat. "You already knew."
"No." The denial came without hesitation. Caleb rounded the desk, stopping well short of her as though he understood instinctively that coming any closer would only drive her farther away. "I found the letter after I apologized."
Amy drew a slow breath, trying to steady herself against the disappointment spreading through her. "You've only been kind because you felt sorry for me."
His expression changed, regret replacing the shame and worry on his face. "It wasn't pity."
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it badly enough that hope rose before caution could smother it, yet the letter remained in her hand, impossible to ignore. "Then what was it?"
Caleb looked at her for so long that she thought he might leave the question unanswered, but when he finally spoke, his voice carried the same quiet certainty that had persuaded Nicholas Mercer to buy the yearlings and comforted the children during their darkest nights.
"Reading your letter made me understand how deeply I'd hurt you," he said.
"It forced me to see what I'd refused to see before, but it didn't put feelings inside me that weren't already there. "
His words caught her completely off guard. "What feelings?"
The question slipped between them almost unnoticed, though the silence that followed seemed to fill every corner of Jonah's office.
Caleb never looked away from her. She watched understanding move across his face as he realized what she'd asked, and with it came another emotion she hadn't expected to see from him: fear.
He wanted to answer. She saw it plainly enough that her own heart began to beat harder, every instinct urging her to hold her breath and wait. But he said nothing.
The hope she'd fought so hard to bury crumbled all over again.
Amy lowered her gaze to the letter still clutched in her hands and gave a weary shake of her head. "Forget I asked." She turned before he could stop her and crossed the office, each step feeling heavier than the last.
Caleb followed as far as the doorway, though he let her go without reaching for her, and somehow that hurt almost as much as the silence he'd chosen.
He had seen every fear she'd hidden inside those letters, yet when she'd finally asked him for the truth, he had still chosen the easier path: saying nothing at all.