Chapter Eighteen
Caleb found Amy kneading bread before sunrise, and the steady rhythm of her hands told him she'd already decided how much conversation she intended to allow that morning.
Her sleeves were rolled past her elbows, a loose curl had escaped beside her cheek, and she acknowledged his arrival with little more than a glance before returning her attention to the dough.
The small dismissal left the kitchen colder than the creek.
Unlike their first weeks together, this morning, Amy's silence carried judgment.
Caleb removed his hat and rested it on the table, wishing that the simple act of setting it down might also lighten the burden he'd carried through a sleepless night.
Every apology he'd rehearsed had sounded reasonable while he lay awake, yet each one unraveled as soon as he pictured Amy standing across from him.
She believed his recent kindness had grown from pity after reading her letter, while he knew the letter had only forced him to admit he'd begun caring for her long before Maggie ever found it.
Asking Amy to believe that now would require trust he hadn't earned.
She dusted more flour across the board and folded the dough with calm, practiced hands.
"I can bring in more wood before I leave," he said, reaching for work because it had always come easier than difficult conversations.
"Noah already filled the box."
"He shouldn't be carrying the heavier ones."
Amy finally looked at him, her expression calm enough to make the distance between them feel even wider. "He wasn't. I handed him the smaller logs, and he spent ten minutes arranging them until they looked exactly the way he wanted."
Caleb glanced toward the stove. Every piece sat stacked with Noah's usual care, and he could picture the boy stepping back to admire his work before deciding one crooked log spoiled the whole arrangement. "I was wrong," he said. "I shouldn't have assumed you’d let Noah carry the heavier ones."
Amy folded the dough again beneath her palms, her hands never breaking their steady rhythm, though she finally lifted her eyes to meet his. "He likes helping," she said. "He'd have been disappointed if I'd sent him away."
Caleb gave a small nod. She understood the children better every day, and he'd fallen into the habit of expecting her to prove herself when she'd already done so countless times.
"I'll fix the loose board on the steps before I ride out," he said quietly, reaching for another task to ease his way through the chilly silence.
His gaze drifted across the kitchen, searching for another excuse to remain useful while avoiding the conversation he'd come to have.
“I could also look at the pantry latch."
Amy started pounding the dough lightly. "It works well enough unless somebody insists on treating it like a stubborn gate."
A reluctant smile touched Caleb's mouth before fading again. Her dry remark sounded more like the Amy he'd come to know, though she returned her attention to the dough as if their exchange was already over.
He crossed the kitchen until the table stood between them. Walking away would be easier. Staying meant saying words he'd spent most of his life avoiding. "About last night..."
Amy kept working the dough beneath her hands, folding it with slow, practiced movements before she answered. "I'd rather leave last night where it belongs." Weariness lingered in her calm voice, and the shadows beneath her eyes told him she hadn’t slept much more than he had.
Caleb rested his hands on the table. "Leaving it there won't change what I did."
Amy began shaping the dough before she finally looked at him. "Reading my letter changed quite a lot."
“I know that.”
The hurt in her eyes when she looked at him cut deeper than anger ever could. "Do you?"
"I knew I should've stopped as soon as I realized the letter was yours," Caleb said quietly as guilt filled his veins. "I kept reading anyway."
Amy dried her hands on the cloth beside the bowl, every measured movement revealing how hard she was working to hold herself together. "That almost sounds like an apology."
Caleb had spent the whole night searching for an explanation, convinced that if Amy understood how the letter had reached him, she might also understand why he'd failed her. Instead, he’d confessed what had happened without once telling her he was sorry.
"I shouldn't have read it," he repeated, hearing how hollow the words sounded almost as soon as they left his mouth.
Amy held his gaze. "You've already told me that."
Caleb’s shame settled deeper. He was still explaining himself when the only thing she wanted was for him to acknowledge what he'd taken from her.
Caleb moved around the table toward Amy, leaving enough space that she could step away if she wished.
"I'm trying to tell you I understand why you're angry. "
Amy lifted the dough and placed it inside the greased pan. “Understanding my anger won’t help if you still believe your reason matters more than what you did.”
“That isn’t what I believe.”
“Then tell me what you do believe.”
Caleb looked at her flour-covered hands and remembered those same fingers brushing his when she’d passed him tea.
That quiet evening inside the office had felt closer to a real marriage than anything he had allowed himself to imagine before, and he had ruined it through an old instinct to protect himself.
“I believe I hurt you,” he said. “I believe you trusted this house enough to put your thoughts onto paper, and I took them before you chose to share them.”
Amy’s expression softened around the edges, though caution remained in her eyes. “That’s true.”
“I also believe you’ve decided everything I’ve done since then came from pity.”
Her shoulders drew back, and she fiddled with the edge of her apron. “You changed after you read the letter.”
“The letter forced me to see what my behavior had done to you.”
“Which means I was right.”
Caleb’s patience began to fray. She had taken his clumsy explanation and turned it toward the conclusion he had been trying to undo. “It means I’d been treating you poorly enough that your private thoughts were the only way I understood what I was doing to you.”
Amy flinched, and Caleb immediately regretted his words. “That came out wrong,” he said.
A humorless smile touched her mouth. “Indeed.”
He pushed one hand through his hair, resisting the urge to retreat toward the door before he caused more harm. “I’m saying the letter showed me what I should’ve seen without reading it.”
“And afterward you decided to be kinder.”
"I decided to stop pretending I didn't care whether you were happy here."
Amy lowered her gaze, smoothing the cloth over the bread pan with careful hands before folding it over the edges. "You couldn't answer me last night."
The truth rose so quickly it almost reached his tongue.
He wanted to tell her she'd become the first person he looked for when he came home, that the house felt different when she smiled, and that somewhere along the way she'd become part of every future he'd begun imagining.
The words crowded against years of silence until they tangled together, leaving him standing helplessly in front of the woman who deserved to hear them most.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Amy held his gaze for another beat before the hope in her expression quietly slipped away.
"You shouldn't have to ask," he said, hating how empty the words sounded, “but I need a little more time."
She carried the bowl to the washbasin and set it down with quiet care.
"You found plenty of words when you read mine."
Shame settled heavily inside him. She'd stripped away every explanation he'd hidden behind, leaving only the apology he still hadn't managed to give. "I came in here to make this right."
Amy turned back to him, hurt shining plainly in her eyes. "Then stop dancing around it all and tell me you're sorry."
The words struck with painful accuracy, but before he could answer, a floorboard creaked in the hallway. Amy glanced toward the sound, drew a steadying breath, and looked back at him. "We'll finish this later."
He wanted to promise that he would find the words before evening, although another promise he might fail to keep would only deepen the hurt. Caleb placed his hat on his head and walked outside while the apology remained trapped behind pride he had once mistaken for strength.
Russ waited near the corral with a coil of rope draped over one shoulder, and his gaze traveled over Caleb before settling on the kitchen window. “What’s going on? You don’t look best pleased.”
Caleb strode toward Daisy’s stall and lifted the latch without answering. “Come on. The north pasture fence won’t mend itself.”
Russ fell into step beside him. "That bad, then?"
Caleb shot him a look. "What are you talking about?"
"Your expression looks more sour than curdled milk." Russ shrugged. "Either the cattle learned to talk back, or you've got another problem."
Caleb reached for Daisy's saddle blanket. "You've got work to do."
"Fair enough." One of Russ’s eyebrows lifted. "Though I did notice Amy didn't come outside to see you off. She usually does."
Caleb settled the saddle across Daisy's back. "Amy and I had words."
Russ cinched his own before giving it a firm tug. "I gathered as much."
They rode in silence until they reached the broken stretch of fence. Caleb set to work digging the first posthole while Russ unloaded the wire, each of them falling into the familiar rhythm that made conversation easier than when looking directly at someone.
"I tried to make it right," Caleb said at last, driving his shovel into the ground.
Russ looked up from the coil of wire. "Did you apologize?"
Caleb scraped another shovel of earth aside. “I tried when I explained myself…”
"I'd have started with the apology." Russ stepped forward to plant the post and hold the wire steady while Caleb reached for the staples. "Explanations make more sense once people know you understand you've hurt them."
The words settled over Caleb heavily. Amy had trusted those pages with the fears she'd hidden from everyone, and he'd broken her privacy and helped himself to her thoughts.
He started securing the wires with staples before asking the question that had been circling his thoughts all morning. "What would you do?"
Russ brushed the dirt from his palms and gave a faint shrug. "I'd tell Delilah I was sorry, then I'd listen until she'd said everything she needed to say. My turn can wait."
Caleb looked along the length of the repaired fence, wishing people could be mended as easily. "Amy may not want to hear it."
Russ picked up the tool bag. "Then be patient and keep trying."
Caleb let the words settle over him while he looked across the pasture.
Giving Amy time sounded simple enough. Giving her the power to decide whether he deserved another chance did not.
He'd spent years surviving by relying upon himself, and trusting another person with an answer he couldn't control felt downright dangerous.
Russ carried the toolbag toward the next post. “Delilah wants to attend the harvest festival on Saturday.”
Caleb frowned. “What does your wife have to do with this?”
"She enjoys the music, and it's one day she doesn't have to think about cooking." Russ placed the bag beside the fence. “Your wife might appreciate the same opportunity.”
The festival drew nearly everyone from the surrounding ranches into town, though Caleb hadn’t attended since the year before his name became tied to missing cattle.
“She may refuse,” he said slowly, reluctant to think about the possibility of Amy turning him down.
Russ rested one forearm against the post. “She might.”
“Copper Bend hasn’t exactly welcomed me home.”
“But it also might be exactly what you both need.”