Chapter 9 #2
She stopped. The silence that followed felt fragile, like ice too thin to bear weight.
“Ever what?” But part of him already knew the answer. Had seen it in the way she positioned herself between Clara and every potential threat, in the fierce protectiveness that colored her every move.
“Seen me.” The words came out cracked. “Really seen me. Not the disappointing stepdaughter. Not the common girl with the dead mother. Just...me.” And then her voice grew strength again.
“Every decision I’ve made, every plan I’ve laid—it’s all been about keeping her safe.
And now she’s across that river and I can’t—”
The words cut off. Her whole body was rigid.
“You can’t protect her from everything.” The truth tasted bitter even as he said it. “No matter how hard you try.”
“Watch me.”
The fierce certainty in those two words made something tighten in his chest. He’d heard that same tone in his own voice when his brothers tried to tell him California was too risky, too uncertain. The stubborn refusal to accept limitations that other people tried to place on you.
Except Kate’s stubbornness came from love, not restlessness. From wanting to shield someone else rather than escape. Her protectiveness wasn’t weakness—it was the only form of love she’d been allowed to give. The only relationship where she’d been needed, wanted, chosen.
“And what about you?” The question slipped out before he could stop it. “Who watches out for you?”
Her breath hitched—just for a moment, but he felt it through the layers of wool between them. “That’s not the point.”
“Isn’t it?” He adjusted his arm slightly, giving her room to pull away if she wanted. She didn’t. “You’ve spent so long protecting Clara that you’ve made yourself invisible. Who looks out for Kate McKinney?”
“I don’t need looking out for.”
The automatic response wasn’t a surprise. He’d used the same deflection countless times when his brothers tried to involve themselves in his plans. The difference was his brothers kept trying anyway, kept pushing until he wanted to punch something. Or leave for California.
Kate had no one pushing. Just her, carrying the weight of keeping Clara safe, keeping them both fed, keeping everything together through sheer force of will.
The realization settled in his chest like a stone.
“Everyone needs someone.” He spoke the words to the back of her head as firelight danced across the dark strands that had escaped her chignon. “Even you.”
She didn’t answer.
The silence stretched until it seemed almost like she’d fallen asleep. Then her voice came again, so quiet he had to strain to hear it over the fire’s crackle.
“My mother died when I was four. Father promised he’d protect me.”
He kept himself motionless, barely breathing. Anything to keep from ruining whatever had loosened enough for her to offer this piece of herself.
“My father remarried within the year, said it would be good for me to have a mother. Clara was born a year later. I thought...” She paused, and he felt her swallow. “I thought I’d have a family again. A mother and a sister. That the house wouldn’t feel so empty anymore.”
The wind howled beyond their shelter, but inside the hollow, everything had gone quiet except for the fire and Kate’s voice.
“But my stepmother made it clear from the start that I was an obligation. An inconvenience to be tolerated.” A bitter edge crept into her words. “I was the reminder that my father had loved someone else first…perhaps more.”
Thomas’s chest tightened. He wanted to say something, anything, but the words stuck in his throat. What could he offer that wouldn’t sound like empty platitudes?
“When I was eight, I overheard them.” Her voice had gone flat, stripped of the emotion that colored her earlier words. “My stepmother and father, in his study. The door wasn’t closed all the way.”
She stopped again. With his arm still draped over her waist, he could feel the rapid thump of her pulse where his hand rested near her ribs.
“She told him I was common. Like my mother had been. That I’d never be a proper lady, no matter how much money he spent on tutors and deportment lessons.
” The words came out emotionless, as if she’d rehearsed them so many times, they’d lost their power to wound.
“She said I embarrassed them in company. That Clara would be tainted by association if they weren’t careful.
And then, Clara wouldn’t be able to marry well enough. Like even Clara was a prized filly.”
His jaw clenched. He forced himself not to speak, not to interrupt with the anger building hot in his chest.
“My father said nothing.” Those four words carried more weight than everything that had come before. “Not a single word in defense of me or my mother. He just...sat there. Let her say those things. Agreement in his silence.”
The fire popped, and Kate flinched against him.
And then she breathed out. “Clara was different though. She never saw me as competition or a burden. She just...” Her voice softened.
“She just wanted a sister. And I wanted someone to belong to. So we held onto each other while my stepmother poisoned my father against me. At one point, he told me that if I didn’t accept a marriage, he would trade Clara to the highest bidder.
I agreed for her sake. But then I heard about their plans for her and I couldn’t… ”
His throat tightened so it was hard to breathe. Her walls made sense now, the suspicion she wielded like armor. She’d learned early that the people who should protect you would turn their backs without a second thought.
His own family wasn’t perfect—far from it. But even when his brothers drove him to the edge of sanity with their meddling, even when he felt invisible as the youngest son, he never doubted they loved him. That they’d fight for him if it mattered.
Kate had grown up with a father who wouldn’t defend her when his new wife belittled her.
“I’m sorry.” The words felt inadequate, but he said them anyway. “You deserved better than that.”
“Deserving has nothing to do with it.” Her voice regained some of its edge, the vulnerability closing like a wound stitching itself shut.
“Life doesn’t care what we deserve. It just keeps moving, and we either adapt or get crushed.
” A pause. “Clara was the only one who ever told me different. Who made me feel like I was worth something beyond what I could do for other people.”
“She’s right.” The words came out before he could stop them. “Your stepmother was wrong.”
Kate’s ribs expanded against his arm, a slight hitch in the rhythm of her breath. “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”
“I know you dragged your sister across a continent to save her from a marriage she didn’t want.
I know you walked into a situation you knew was dangerous because the alternative was worse.
I know you haven’t complained once about being trapped in an ice cave with a man you don’t trust, even though you have every right to complain.
” He tightened his arm around her, just slightly.
“That’s not common. That’s extraordinary. ”
The silence that followed felt different than the ones before—charged with something he couldn’t quite name. His body became acutely aware of every place they touched. Her back against his chest. Her hair brushing his chin. The warmth building between them that had nothing to do with survival.