Chapter 19
Kate had never known a household could feel like this.
She sat at the round work table in the kitchen, afternoon light streaming through the window as she worked her needle through the worn cuff of a flannel shirt.
Around her, the comfortable sounds of women at work filled the space—the rhythmic thump of Mandie kneading bread dough, the soft scrapings of Rose’s knife as she peeled potatoes, and through the open door down to the cellar, Clara’s bright laugh at something Mrs. Wang said.
Or rather, Bea. The older woman had insisted all the women call her by her Christian name. Her dark eyes had warmed as she’d pressed Kate’s hands between her own. “You are family now. My girls call me Bea.”
Family. The word still felt so foreign, like a language she was only beginning to learn.
Two days. Kate had been married for two days, and already the rhythm of the Balfour household had begun to seep into her bones.
Breakfast at dawn with the whole family crowded around the massive dining table, voices overlapping in easy conversation.
Then the men would disappear to the barn and pastures, leaving the house to settle into its own quieter industry.
And Kate had found her place in it.
She’d discovered the mending basket on her first morning—overflowing with shirts missing buttons, trousers with torn seams, stockings worn thin at the heels and toes.
A ranching household of four brothers generated no small amount of work for a needle, and from the state of the pile, it had been neglected for some time.
Now the mending pile had shrunk by half, and Kate moved on to washing—scrubbing work shirts clean, then reinforcing seams and patching worn spots before they became holes.
“Kate.” Mandie’s voice pulled her from her work. The woman stood at her shoulder, flour dusting her apron, examining the shirt in Kate’s hands. “Is that Enoch’s old work shirt? The one with the tear along the shoulder?”
Kate lifted the garment so Mandie could see the repair. “I added an extra layer of fabric underneath, then reinforced the seam with a double stitch. It should hold through another season at least.”
Mandie’s eyes widened. “I was going to use that for rags. I thought the fabric was too frayed.”
“I think it can go through the spring.” Kate smoothed her hand over the nearly invisible stitches. Good work, even if she wasn’t objective.
“You’re wasted on simple mending.” Rose leaned forward to peer over the pile of potatoes. “These repairs are works of art.”
Heat climbed Kate’s neck. “They’re just practical. No sense throwing away something that can be fixed.”
Bea appeared at Kate’s other side, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Practical and beautiful can live in same.” She lifted one of the finished shirts from the stack beside Kate’s elbow—one of Thomas’s, the blue cotton she’d washed and mended that morning.
“Look at this buttonhole. Perfect. And this elbow—I can barely see where the hole was.”
“It’s what I was trained to do.” Kate set down Enoch’s shirt and reached for the next item in the basket—another of Thomas’s shirts, if she wasn’t mistaken. He’d worn this green flannel the first morning after they reached the ranch, when he gave her the three choices, and she chose marriage.
The fabric held the faint scent she was coming to know as his—horse and leather and something uniquely him. Something that made her pulse quicken.
She worked her needle quickly through the worn cuff, her fingers coaxing the fraying threads back into order. This, at least, she understood. Fabric and thread—problems with clear solutions.
So much simpler than the complicated tangle of emotions whenever she thought about her husband.
Her husband. Two words that still didn’t quite fit together in her mind.
Last night had been their second night sharing a bed.
Like the first, Thomas had kept carefully to his side, maintaining the space between them.
But this time, that distance had felt smaller somehow.
A foot instead of two. Close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him in the darkness, could hear each shift of his breathing.
And in that darkness, they’d talked again.
It seemed to be their ritual—this strange intimacy that only existed when they couldn’t see each other’s faces. In the night, with the covers pulled up, and the world reduced to darkness and murmured words, she said things to him she’d never told anyone.
And Thomas... He listened in a way no one ever had. Not even Clara. Not waiting for his turn to speak. Not judging. Just...listening.
He told her about the first horse he’d ever trained on his own—a half-wild mare everyone else had given up on. How he’d spent weeks just sitting with her, letting her come to him, earning her trust inch by inch. The triumph he’d felt when she finally let him touch her.
“That’s what I felt like,” Kate admitted into the darkness. “After my mother died. After Father remarried so soon. And his choice seemed to hate me so. I felt like a wild thing everyone had given up on. Only there was no one patient enough to sit with me.”
“But later you had Clara,” Thomas said quietly.
“Yes.” Kate swallowed against the thickness in her throat. “Clara became the one person.”
A pause. Then, “And now you have me too.”
She hadn’t known how to respond to that. Hadn’t trusted herself to speak around the pressure in her chest.
But somehow, in the silence that followed, her hand had found his across the space between them. Just the lightest brush of fingers. A connection as fragile as spider silk.
They’d fallen asleep like that, barely touching. And when she awoke at dawn to find her hand still resting near his on the mattress, something had budded inside her.
Something terrifying. Something that felt almost like hope.
Now, in the bright light of midday, that midnight vulnerability felt distant.
Unreal. She was Lady Katherine Balfour—the title still sat awkwardly on her shoulders—wife of a viscount, sister-in-law to three English lords turned Montana ranchers.
She had a place in this household, work to do, people who seemed to value her presence.
It was more than she’d ever dared imagine for herself. It should be enough.
It was enough.
So why did some traitorous part of her keep wanting more?
The sound of boots on the porch scattered her thoughts. In the great room, the front door opened, followed by male voices—James and Robert, from the sound of it. Maybe Enoch too.
But no Thomas.
Kate’s hands stilled on the fabric, her ears straining even as she told herself not to. She’d become too attuned to the particular cadence of her husband’s voice, the way it carried differently than his brothers’.
Lower. Warmer.
The other women had slipped into action, gathering coffee cups and food they’d already prepared.
Kate set aside her work and stood to help. Mrs. Wang placed a tray of mugs in her hand and nodded toward the open door to the dining room. Kate followed Rose, who carried twin plates of sliced bread.
James entered the dining room first, stamping snow from his boots, followed by Robert and Enoch.
They moved with the easy coordination of men who’d worked together their whole lives, unfastening coats and settling around the table while the rest of them laid out the simple meal—thick slices of bread, cheese, cold meat from last night’s supper, and a heaping pot of coffee.
She’d just started to turn back to the kitchen when Thomas stepped through the doorway.
He looked...different in the daylight. His copper-brown hair tousled from the wind, his cheeks flushed from the cold. He moved with that easy grace that was his own, all loose-limbed confidence, as though the world had been built specifically to accommodate him.
His eyes found hers across the crowded dining room, and warmth flickered in their depths.
Heat crept through her. This man. This incredibly handsome, far-too-charming man was hers.
Thomas broke the moment first, offering her that easy half-smile of his—the one she was beginning to realize hid more than it revealed. He crossed to the table and took a seat beside James, accepting a cup of coffee from Mandie with murmured thanks.
But his gaze kept drifting back to her.
And she didn’t return to the kitchen. Instead, poured coffee while Mandie laid out plates. Thomas’s gaze tracked her progress, the weight of it like a physical touch. She had to work to keep her hands from trembling.
“How are the new horses settling in?” Mandie laid a dish in front of her husband.
Enoch smiled his thanks. “Well enough. The bay mare’s still skittish, but Thomas has been working with her.”
“She just needs patience.” Thomas leaned back in his chair. “She’ll come around.”
James snorted. “You always say that. Hopefully she won’t turn out like that stallion.”
“She won’t.” Thomas’s tone was light, but there was a slight tightening around his eyes. She was learning to read the small signs—the places where his easy charm was a mask rather than a mirror.
The conversation continued as they all sat to eat, ranch talk she only half followed—something about feed stores and the condition of the north pasture and whether the early March thaw would hold.
She watched Thomas more than listening. The way his hands moved as he spoke, the play of light through the windows across his features. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners when Robert said something dry and clever.
As Rose started collecting used plates, the rumble of approaching hooves outside made them all lift their heads.
A rider coming fast at midday couldn’t be normal. Not in this remote place with the nearest neighbor an hour’s ride away.
James rose from his chair and moved to the window.
“Single rider from the south. I think that’s Mary Jenkins.”
The young family Thomas had mentioned, the one with the baby less than a year old.