Chapter 25
Christmas Eve,1898, Eagle Creek, Montana
Rachel was not feeling particularly festive, but she let Meredith and Elise drag her to the Christmas Market and even stayed for a few dances once the band began to play. She saw David dancing with someone else, and smiled at him. She was glad that he had finally moved on. She snuck away while Meredith was dancing with Aidan, whose leg had healed so well that nobody would ever believe how badly it had been damaged earlier in the year. He barely even had a limp when the weather was damp and cold.
Elise, however, was not so occupied, and caught up with her outside the saloon. “I know you miss him, still,” she said, hugging Rachel. “It will get easier.”
“So everyone tells me,” Rachel said. “It just reminded me a little of the May Day dance. I think that was when I knew, though I still kept trying to deny it.”
“It was certainly when we all saw it,” Elise said. “Now, you are to come to us for dinner tomorrow, once you’ve finished your rounds. I’ll not have you alone on Christmas.”
“I already promised Mrs. Garfield to enjoy the day with her. She’s invited Andrew and Marsha, and Maud, too. I will most certainly not be alone.”
“Well, if you need to get away from their elderly concern,” Elise said with a wink.
“There is plenty of more youthful concern for me up the mountain, I know.”
Elise kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, for everything you tried to do. I am so very sorry it ended as it did. I truly hoped he would see that you were just doing what you do, look after everyone else.”
“Maybe he did, but he has his reasons for going. I always knew he would.”
“You’re never going to tell us all he revealed to you, are you?”
“Never,” Rachel said.
“I’m glad to hear that,” a familiar voice said behind her. Elise’s eyes were wide and her mouth dropped open as Matthew emerged from the darkness. “Thank you for your letter, by the way, Elise. I did see what you wanted me to.”
“Then what took you so long to come back, Matthew,” Elise said, having regained her composure. Rachel could not stop staring at him. His face looked somehow different, it was less lined, less troubled. She could hardly believe he was here. It made no sense. The Matthew she knew, the one Caitlin knew, well, he would not have come back. So was this even really Matthew?
“I had things to reconcile,” he said softly, looking directly into Rachel’s eyes. Her stomach fluttered and she felt lightheaded. “Things I will tell Rachel about later, if she will let me.”
Rachel nodded, unable to bring herself to speak. In her wildest dreams, she had not let herself believe that she would ever see him again. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. She wanted to hold him tight and never let him go. And she wanted to tell him how sorry she was for letting him down. But she seemed to have lost the ability to utter a word. He tucked her arm through his. “May I escort you home?” he asked her. “I think we need to talk somewhere warm.” She nodded, and turned to Elise who was beaming and almost clapping her hands with delight.
“Go,” she said. “We’ll see you both at church in the morning.”
They walked to Mrs. Garfield’s in silence. When they arrived, the older woman was delighted to see her prodigal son returned and she made a fuss over him with hot chocolate and cake, before leaving them alone in the parlor when Mrs. Barrowman called on her to go and join the festivities in town.
“Your favorite,” he said nodding to the pot of chocolate on the tray between them on the table.
“Would you rather have coffee, I know it’s your favorite?” she said, fussing with the cups on the table.
“No, chocolate is fine. It’s been a long day, I’d quite like to get a good night’s sleep, and the way you make coffee, I’d be up all night.”
“Do I make it too strong? You said you liked it that way!”
“You make it perfectly, and I love it that way,” he said, taking her hands in his across the table. Rachel stared at them for a moment, not sure what to say. He reached over and tilted her chin upwards, so he could look into her face.
“You look different,” Rachel finally managed to say.
“I feel it,” he said.
“How was New Orleans?”
“I never made it there.”
“Oh.”
“I went to see my father’s family.”
“Oh.”
“He didn’t die.”
Rachel stared at him, her mouth open wide. “How could he be still alive? You saw him die in front of you!”
“It turns out, it wasn’t as severe a heart attack as I had presumed. He is a miserable husk of a man though.”
“What did he say?”
“Everything he had before, but differently, if that makes any sense. The people I thought his daughters sent to find me weren’t there to ruin me, but to find me for him, which makes some sense, I suppose. Nobody was hounding me.”
“Well that is a relief.”
“Yes, and I wish I had known sooner. I feel I have wasted so much of my life on him and his petty, fearful nonsense. Seeing him, I realized that I was just like him. Imagine that! I spent my whole life trying to deny him, but I turned out just like him.”
“But you don’t have to be,” Rachel reminded him.
“No, I don’t. I can choose to let go of the fear.”
“And you came back to tell me that.”
“I did.” Now it was his turn to just stare at their hands.
Rachel was glad of it. His gaze was unsettling at the very best of times, and she needed to clear her head enough to tell him all she had longed to say. “Matthew, I am so very sorry. I never meant to hurt you, you must believe that.”
“I do,” he said. “You were doing what you always do, looking after everyone else, and when it became impossible to care for me and Elise, you tried to step away.”
“But I couldn’t keep lying to you.”
“So you came back and told me everything, and I spurned you for it.” He looked up, his eyes full of tears. “You are the only person in my life who has ever come back to tell me why. To tell me they are sorry. To tell me that they did it because of love.”
“And it was because of love. Everything you had told me. I felt your pain, but I knew I couldn’t carry that burden, knowing that one day you would find out that she wasn’t real. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of you hating me, but you did anyway.”
“I have never hated you. I never could. It hurt so much because of that. Since my mother died, I have never let anyone in as I did you, and Caitlin, but you were always the same person, and I should have seen that much earlier. There were so many parts of you in her.”
“I tried to be as honest as I could without revealing myself. Even Caitlin isn’t really a lie, it is my middle name.”
Matthew laughed at that. “How could I have ever accused you of deception? Even within that deception you were telling me the truth all along.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“I already have. Can you forgive me, for not trusting you, for not believing you had your reasons?”
She nodded. “I can, of course I can. After everything you went through, I never felt your reaction was unreasonable. There was nothing to forgive.”
They sat quietly, just looking at one another. Rachel didn’t dare ask if he was back for good. But she wanted to know. It was so wonderful to see his face. Even if he just wanted them to be friends, just knowing he was here, where he belonged would make her happy. She simply wanted him to be where he was loved.
“Will you go and see Andrew and Maud while you are here?” she asked when she could bear the silence no longer.
“Well, I can’t expect them to give me a job if I don’t,” he said with a grin.
“You’re staying?” she exclaimed, so happy she couldn’t hide it.
“I rather thought I might, if you might agree to let me take you walking after church on Sundays.”
“Oh, I’d be delighted to. I love you Matthew, I think I did from the very first, but I knew it for sure on May Day.”
“That’s funny, because that was when I worked it out, too. That I love you, I mean. Because I do, with every beat of my heart. And if you will be patient with me, while I try and become the man you deserve, I promise I will never walk out on you again. I’ll stay and fight for you, for us. I will not be weak like my father.”
“I don’t need you to promise that. I love you as you are. If you wish to change, for yourself, that is up to you. But you need not change a hair on your head on my behalf. I love you, Matthew Inglis, dark past and all.”
“I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to hear you say that,” Matthew said, getting up from his chair and moving to her side of the table. He took both her hands and pulled her up onto her feet, then kissed her passionately on the lips. “Or how long I have wanted to do that,” he whispered in her ear as he held her close to his heart. “I suppose I should go and find Tom.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I may have actually lost the bet properly this time. You will marry me, won’t you?”
“In a heartbeat,” Rachel replied.