Chapter Ten
“No.” His voice was easy. “But you will notice when you are not, and you will set it right.”
Ella thought of Chapter One of her own life in Yeti.
The mercantile. Lula’s sleeve beneath her fingers.
David removing his hat and saying he was pleased she had made it safely.
The small shelf he had cleared before knowing whether she would ever speak to him easily.
The pallet by the stove. The first night when safety had been only a possibility.
She had come to the edge of the world certain she would be useful if she was quiet enough, careful enough, invisible enough.
She had thought usefulness might earn her a place.
She had not known that a place could be made for her before she earned it.
She had not known friends could trust her without demanding she become someone else.
She had not known a husband could see her silence and not mistake it for emptiness.
Now she had work that mattered, friends who looked for her, a town full of people who listened when she spoke, and a home she had helped shape with ledgers, meals, mended gloves, quiet corners, and choices made one small brave moment at a time.
David offered his hand at the bridge.
Ella looked at it. Broad hand. Work-roughened. Patient. Waiting.
She took it, not because the bridge frightened her, and not because she needed him to lead her across.
She took it because she chose him. For the rest of her days, she chose David.
David’s fingers closed around hers. “What is it?” he asked, perhaps hearing the change in her breath.
Ella looked up at him beneath the dark Alaskan sky. The words did not come loudly. They did not need to.
“I am glad I married you,” she said. “You’ve always tried to understand me and cared for me with no explanation. I love you, David.”
David went very still, the way he did when something mattered too much to answer quickly. Then his thumb moved once over her glove.
“Ella,” he said, and her name held so much tenderness that it was answer enough.
“I never thought I’d hear you say that. In the beginning, I never thought you’d say anything.
” He chuckled for a moment. “You’ve changed my entire life.
Brought order to the whole town. I never would have believed there was a woman like you. I love you, Ella.”
They crossed the bridge together. Beyond it, the cabin waited with smoke lifting from the chimney and lamplight faint at the window. Ella no longer felt like she had to earn a place there. She felt like a woman walking home.
Not because she had learned to be louder.
Because she had learned her quiet voice mattered.
As she walked into her home, she looked around, thinking about how much it had changed already, and how much it would still change. When babies started coming their way, she’d have to adjust things, but she already knew how she would. That was how her mind worked.
“I’ll get supper,” she said.
“I’ll get enough wood in to last until tomorrow evening.”
She could hear him chopping wood as she quickly chopped carrots, potatoes, and onions for a soup she was making. It felt...oddly good to hear him, to know he was there and always would be.
For the first time she let herself daydream about their future children.
She wanted a boy just like him. She wanted a dozen girls who were just like him.
Then she realized she simply wanted all of her children to be like David.
She even pictured his face on a little girl, dressed in a cute little dress. She shook her head, laughing slightly.
She paused. She’d laughed three times in the past two weeks. She didn’t remember laughing much after her mother had remarried.
She sighed. Her stepfather had done much to silence her tongue and had made her leave the only home she’d ever known and go to work in a hotel, but suddenly she wanted to write him a letter, thanking him.
She wouldn’t be where she was without his influence. And where she was just happened to be the only place in the world she wanted to be.