Chapter Fourteen
That night, Nora had a hard time falling asleep. Dinner had passed in a quiet kind of haze. Weston had eaten with them, said little, and soon disappeared in the dark, offering some vague excuse about checking the fence line. He hadn’t come back in by the time she’d put Mary Jane to bed.
Nora lay stiff beneath the quilt with her eyes open to the darkness long after the oil lamp sputtered out. The night stretched thin and quiet around her, but her mind churned like a stormed-up river.
She kept seeing Nash’s face in the lamplight, how still it had gone when he made his accusations.
Nash’s words echoed like a bitter draft in her ears.
She had wanted to believe it wasn’t true, had told herself it was just Nash twisting things, the way he always did when he didn’t get his way.
But the seed of doubt had been planted all the same, and no matter how she tried to ignore it, it had taken root in her chest.
Still…Weston wasn’t the man Nash painted him to be.
She’d seen him rise at dawn to fix the barn roof after the storm.
He took care of Mary Jane without saying a word about it.
He kept to himself, yes, but there was care in his quiet, a kind of sorrow that made her want to reach for it.
She knew what grief looked like. She knew the shape of it by heart.
Nora sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, feeling the cold wooden floor against her bare feet.
She couldn’t keep walking around half-believing and half-doubting.
If Weston had done something terrible, she’d hear it from him, not from a man like Nash Colter.
And if he hadn’t…then maybe it was time she started trusting her own instincts.
She lit the lamp with shaking hands and dressed quickly, braiding her hair back with sharp, angry fingers. The morning would break soon. She’d wait no longer. It was time to look Weston Crane in the eye and ask him who he really was.
***
The air outside was crisp. It was the kind that bit at the skin and woke a body straight through.
Dew clung to the grass, catching morning light like a thousand tiny stars.
Nora walked quickly with her arms wrapped around herself, though the cold wasn’t the only reason for the tightness in her chest.
She found Weston behind the barn. He was splitting wood, as the steady rhythm of an ax on log echoed through the quiet morning.
He’d shed his shirt, and his back was slick with sweat, despite the chill.
Muscles flexed with each swing, but there was no grace to the motion.
There was just force, the kind of fury dressed up as work.
Nora hesitated. She should’ve waited. She should’ve called his name from a distance, given him time to gather himself. But instead, she stood there staring like a fool, while heart kept thudding unevenly. When he turned and saw her, she jolted as though caught doing something she shouldn’t.
Weston stilled, resting the ax against his thigh. “You need something?”
His voice was low and measured. No doubt, it was guarded.
Nora cleared her throat, willing herself not to look away. “I…can we talk?”
He studied her for a moment, wiped a hand across his forehead, then nodded once and bent to pull his shirt back on. Somehow, the act made her feel like she’d broken something fragile.
She stepped closer. “It’s about…what Nash said. About you. And your family.”
Weston’s jaw worked slightly, and a muscle started ticking in his cheek. “You talked to him?”
Nora nodded. “He came and told me stuff.”
Weston just shook his head. “Don’t pay Colter any mind.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He didn’t respond.
“I just…” Nora hesitated. “I need to know, Weston. I need to hear it from you.”
He turned back to the stump, placed another log on it, and raised the ax. “Hear what?”
“Did you let them die?” she asked, and she noticed her voice cracking. “Your mother and sister…did you abandon them, leave them alone in Ash Hollow, and let them die?”
The ax missed its mark. Weston stared at the half-split log. He didn’t move, and his breath became somewhat shallow. When he finally looked at her, his face had gone pale. Cold, too, like something had iced over behind his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said quietly.
“I know exactly what I’m asking.” Her throat was tight. “You said you came here for a new start, but that past, whatever it is…it follows you, Weston. And now it’s following me. So tell me the truth. If it’s not what Nash says, then what is it?”
For a moment, he looked like he might answer.
His eyes softened just slightly, like the door might open.
But then it slammed shut. “You’ve already made up your mind,” he said.
Nora noticed the shift in his voice that sounded much sharper all of a sudden.
“I don’t blame you for asking, though. I just don’t know how to say it without it sounding worse than it already is. ”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she protested. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is life,” he said and dropped the ax. The sound of it hitting the dirt made Nora flinch for a second. Then he turned and walked off without looking back.
Nora stood frozen, watching his retreating figure until he vanished around the side of the barn. The wind tugged at her skirts and stung her eyes, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t.
A hollow ache opened in her stomach. It was part shame, part sorrow.
She’d come out here demanding the truth, believing she was owed it.
But it seemed to her that the truth wanted to have two sides.
It twisted, dragged and cut both ways, like a blade.
Weston hadn’t denied what Nash said. He hadn’t confirmed it either.
He’d just…shut down, again. Locked himself away behind those guarded eyes and vanished into the silence.
Why can’t he just tell me? If it isn’t true, if he didn’t abandon them…why let me believe otherwise?
Nora didn’t want to believe Nash. His words were always poison dressed up as concern. But today, they made sense. She was letting a man she barely knew live under her roof, share her table, speak to her sister. What if she was wrong about him?
But then she thought of Weston’s hands. They were steady, careful, always gentle with the animals.
The way he never raised his voice, never demanded anything.
How his sadness seemed older than he was.
There was something buried in him. She could feel it, same as she might sense a storm coming just by the stillness in the air.
She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she could keep the doubt from sinking in any deeper.
I wish he’d just be honest with me.
It wasn’t too much to ask. Not after everything. Not if he truly wanted to stay. Nora turned back toward the house, her boots heavy in the dew-wet grass. Behind her, the wind rustled through the trees, carrying no answers. Only silence.
***
Nora found Duke near the paddock, mending a broken fence rail with his usual quiet focus. He looked up when she approached, gave her a polite nod, then went back to his work.
She stood watching him for a moment with her arms crossed over her chest, as the morning sun had just started to warm the air. Her thoughts still churned from the confrontation, from the way Weston’s voice had gone sharp, like something old and wounded had cracked beneath the surface.
“I can give you a hand with that,” she said, nodding toward the rail.
Duke blinked in surprise, then smiled shyly. “Sure, Miss Nora.”
They worked in silence for a few minutes, passing nails and wood, the occasional clink of the hammer the only sound between them.
When she finally spoke, her voice came quieter than she’d meant it to. “Duke…can I ask you something?”
The boy glanced over. “Course.”
“What have you heard about Weston? In town, I mean.”
Duke leaned back on his heels, running a hand across his jaw as he thought it over. “Well…folks talk. You know how they are.”
“I do.” She looked at him, her brow furrowed. “But what do they say?”
He hesitated. “Not much good, if I’m honest.”
Nora didn’t say a word. She waited to gather the information she desperately needed.
“They say he’s got a dark past. That he left his folks behind when things got hard. Some say he drank too much, got into fights. Others claim he’s hiding something worse. But…” He sighed. “Most of it’s just whispering. No one’s got proof.”
She swallowed. “Who spreads those rumors?”
Duke gave her a knowing look. “Who do you think?”
Nora didn’t need him to say the name. Nash’s influence stretched long and quiet, like a shadow at noon.
“People trust him,” Duke added carefully. “He’s got money. A name. When he says something, it sticks, even if it ain’t true.”
Nora looked down at her hands; her skin was raw from fencing work. “And what about you? What do you believe?”
Duke leaned against the fence. His eyes were more thoughtful than usual.
“All I know is…Weston’s been a good man to me.
Taught me things without making me feel like a fool.
Never raised his voice, never treated me like I was beneath him.
He listens. Really listens.” He paused. “Ain’t many folks like that. ”
Nora felt something catch in her throat.
She wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe in the man who had gently talked to all of her horses.
The man who fixed broken things around the house without being asked.
The one who had stared at her with something like pain in his eyes when she’d asked about his past. Still… the doubt lingered like a thorn.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
Duke shrugged, but she could sense kindness in his voice. “I figure a man’s not the worst thing he’s done. He’s the way he carries it.”
After Duke left to check the water troughs, Nora remained by the fence with her hands braced on the rail, and her eyes fixed on the horizon though she wasn’t really seeing it. His words stayed with her. A man’s not the worst thing he’s done. He’s the way he carries it.
That should’ve brought her comfort. It almost did. But the trouble was, Weston wouldn’t let her see how he carried it. He wore his past like armor, and she was left guessing at the shape beneath. And it gnawed at her.
She had opened her home to him. Let him near her sister. Let him near her, in small, uncertain ways she hadn’t let anyone since her father died. And now she found herself standing in the in-between, teetering between trust and fear, drawn to a man she couldn’t quite name.
Nash’s voice returned again, oily and persistent. You don’t know the kind of man he is. And wasn’t that the heart of it?
If Weston Crane was carrying something dark, she would see it for herself. If he was dangerous, if he had let his family die, God help her, she had to know. She wouldn’t protect a man like that. She wouldn’t fall for one.
She exhaled, slow and cold. I’ll ask him again. And again, and again. If I have to.
***
By the time Nora returned to the house, the sun had climbed higher, casting long rectangles of light across the floorboards.
The kitchen smelled faintly of cinnamon and old coffee, the kind of scent that made the house feel like home over and over again, even if her chest still ached from what remained unsaid.
She had barely stepped into the sitting room when Mary Jane looked up from the worn rug where she’d been playing with her cloth doll.
“There you are!” the girl cried, springing to her feet. “Will you read to me now? Please, Nora? Just the part where Jo cuts her hair. I like that part best.”
Nora managed a tired smile. “Of course.”
Mary Jane beamed and ran to fetch Little Women from its usual spot on the shelf. The book’s spine was nearly worn through from so much use. Nora sat on the settee, smoothing her skirts as Mary Jane curled up beside her, with the book open between them.
She had just begun reading, “‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo…”, when the door creaked open behind them.
Weston stood in the threshold with a hat in his hand. He had a clean shirt on, though a bit more wrinkled than it should be.
Mary Jane’s face lit up. “Weston! We’re reading! Come sit with us!”
He hesitated, as his weight shifted slightly in the doorway. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding!” Mary Jane piped, already scooting to make room on the rug. “You have to come for the hair part. That’s the best part!”
Weston glanced at Nora. Their eyes met and, despite the sharpness of what had passed between them that morning, she didn’t look away. Her heart thudded once, hard, but her face remained calm.
“It’s all right,” she said quietly.
Nora noticed how something softened in his shoulders, and after a beat, he stepped into the room and sat cross-legged beside Mary Jane, careful not to sit too close. Nora cleared her throat and returned to the page. “Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning…”
As she read, Mary Jane leaned her head on Weston’s arm without hesitation, and to Nora’s surprise, he let her. He didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. Just looked down at the girl with a quiet sort of wonder, as though not quite sure what to do with the warmth she offered so freely.
Nora kept reading, indeed, but her thoughts were faraway from the page.
She could feel Weston’s eyes on her sometimes, between sentences.
And secretly, she adored it. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.
Didn’t know if the truth he carried would break what little trust they’d built.
But here, in this soft moment, with Mary Jane nestled between them and the past momentarily held at bay, she allowed herself to feel the thread of connection that had not yet snapped.
Instead, and to her surprise, it quietly remained.