Chapter 15 #2
Finally, she eased back. She wiped her face with unsteady hands, fingers still catching on small tremors she couldn’t hide.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where did you go?”
“Back home,” he said. “Christmas Eve, 1878. Walked straight into a town meeting.”
“What kind of meeting?”
He guided her toward the couch. She sat but didn’t let go of his hand.
“Your kin, Captain Murray, stood at the front of the room, telling folks he meant to run for Territorial Delegate.”
“Murray." She curled her upper lip.
“He’d be the one speaking back east for Montana. That’s what the post amounts to.”
“Okay.”
“He didn’t stand a chance. Not against the man running against him. A war veteran folks knew by name. Medals, papers, the whole thing. Murray’s just a cattle captain. No shine to him.”
“He certainly wasn’t brave enough to go into a blizzard.”
“And the railroad’s coming. Everybody knew it. Towns live or die by where those tracks land. Murray needed somethin’ big enough to make people believe he could fight for Evergreen Springs.”
Her breath shortened. “He needed something heroic.”
Holden nodded. “He needed the blizzard ride.”
“So you gave it to him.”
“I did. Told him he could claim it. Told the room the same. They all had to back up the story. Nobody stole anything. I put it in his hands.”
She pulled away from him and crossed to the window, arms folding tight across her middle.
“Megan—” It hurt him that she was hurting.
“You gave it away.” Her voice stayed low, but her shoulders rose and fell on a hard breath. “The story I fought to restore.”
“I did.”
She turned, jaw set hard. “I risked my job. I rewrote a pageant. Children said your name because I fought for you. And you handed it back to him.”
“I had to.”
She shook her head once. Sharp. “Did you? Or did you want to be the hero again?”
Holden stood. “Those families—”
“People survive. Towns change. They move. They rebuild. But your name is gone again because you chose to erase it.”
“To keep them from losing everything.”
“You don’t know that. You couldn’t know the future.”
Holden let her words sit in the quiet before he answered. “You’re asking what your choice meant. What the pageant meant.”
She didn’t speak, just stared at him with her arms still locked around herself.
“It meant I had a choice at all.” He stepped toward her. “You gave me my name back long enough to decide what to do with it.”
She blinked hard but didn’t move.
“I mattered because of you,” he said.
Her throat flexed on a swallow he could see but not hear.
“Your mother hid the truth to protect people,” he said. “Carried that weight alone. She left the proof for you because she believed you had the grit she didn’t.”
Megan sighed.
“If I hadn’t stepped through time, and you found her letter without knowing me, what would you have done?”
She didn’t answer, burying her face in her hands.
“Megan. Tell me.”
Her hands dropped from her face. “I would’ve put everything back in that drawer.
Not because I’m timid or scared. Because I can’t afford to fail.
Not at my job. Not in front of those parents.
Not in this town. I’ve spent my whole life performing, being competent.
The one who gets things done. Being the version of myself people expect.
I don’t take risks unless I know I’ll land on my feet. ”
“Then why didn’t you this time?”
She met his eyes, raw and certain. “Because of you.”
He stilled.
“I met you,” she said. “And I wasn’t safe anymore. I didn’t rewrite the pageant for moral conviction. I did it because you mattered more.”
He stepped to her, giving her time to stop him if she wanted. She didn’t. “When you say I threw your fight away, it wasn’t that.”
“It feels like it.”
“I know.” He brushed his fingertips along her cheek. “I gave Murray the story because it was the right choice from where I stood. But that don’t wipe away what you did. You let me hear my own name said honest. You let me stand tall again.”
She drew a slow breath.
“You’re sayin’ it’s gone again,” he said. “It is. In my time. Not yours.”
She stilled, breath caught halfway in.
“I saw your Evergreen Springs,” he said. “Your school. Those houses. Walmart. All of it stands because the railroad came through this town. And that railroad came through because I gave Murray that story.”
Her fingers rose to her chest, light, as if she wasn’t sure what she was touching.
“You didn’t lose anything. Your world already knows the truth. Kids said my name tonight. Folks heard it. That stands.”
Her breathing eased by inches.
“My mother made the safe choice,” she said. “You made the heroic one. And I made the foolish one.”
He lifted her chin with one knuckle. “No. You made the brave one. Brave can look foolish ’til the dust settles.”
She took in a shuddering breath.
“We both laid something down. I let go of being remembered in my time. You let go of trying to be your mother’s perfect echo. We set history aside for each other.”
Her eyes softened as she studied him, as if learning every line of his face.
“So maybe the question ain’t whether it was worth it,” he said. “It’s whether we’re bold enough to see what comes next.”