Chapter 31
The wagon was still rolling to a stop when Samson noticed something wrong through the front window, Ella behind the counter where Maria ought to have been, and no sign of Maria anywhere at all.
"Ella?" He came through the door, glancing around the empty store. "Where's Maria?"
"She had an errand," Ella said, and came around the counter toward him, closer than the moment called for. "I've been minding things."
"What kind of errand?"
"Never mind that now." Ella's hand found his arm, resting there in a way that made him step back before he'd decided to. "Samson, I need to speak with you. Truly speak, not the careful way we've been talking around each other since I arrived.”
“Careful how?”
“The way we’ve had to be careful about everything with her here.”
"About what, now?”
"About us." She held his gaze, steady, searching.
"I've watched this family all week. Watched how easy it's been, me stepping back into the middle of things.
The children know me. Trust me. The customers, half of them can't look at me without seeing Livvy, and it's not just my face that reminds them of her, Samson, it's how I move through this store. I fit here. You know I do."
"Ella—"
"Let me finish." Her voice had gone urgent now, and she stepped closer again, close enough that Samson found himself uncomfortably aware of how little space remained between them.
"Maria's a sweet girl. I won't say a word against her.
But she's a stranger still, and strangers take years to become what I already am to this family.
Why wait on that, when what you need is standing right in front of you? "
"That's not—" Samson stepped back again, more firmly this time, putting the counter between them. "Ella, whatever this is, I don't want it. I've said it before and been plain about it, I don't want a copy of Livvy standing behind that counter. I want Maria."
"She'll never know this town the way I know it. Never know these children the way I know them. She’ll never love any of you like I can. You’ll spend years teaching her what I already carry.
" Ella's eyes had gone bright, something desperate creeping into the edges of her composure.
"Marry me, Samson. Today. Now. Take me to the church and we'll settle the whole matter before it goes any further, before you've made promises to a woman who'll only ever be learning what I was born already knowing. "
"Ella, stop." Samson's voice had gone hard now, alarmed by how far she'd let the conversation run. "This isn’t… I won't be doing any such thing. Not today. Not any day."
"You don't mean that."
"I do mean it." He said it plainly, wanting no room left for misunderstanding. "I'm sorry if I've given you cause to think otherwise, but I haven't, not once, wanted this for a moment, and I won't stand here and let you?—"
"I was here the whole time."
Meg's voice came from the back room doorway, steady and clear, and both Samson and Ella turned to find her standing there, arms folded, her face set in an expression far older than her ten years. Samson frowned.
“The whole time what?”
"Meg." Samson felt something cold settle in his chest. "How long have you?—?”
"Long enough." Meg came forward, not looking at Ella at all, her attention fixed entirely on her father.
"I sent Billy after Maria already. A boy came in a while back, said you needed her out past the hill west of town.
Auntie Ella sent him. I watched her do it, through the window, before she came in acting like she didn't know anything about it. "
"That's not true," Ella said, but something in her voice had gone thin.
"Then a man came in," Meg went on, ignoring her. "Said he knew Auntie Ella from back home. He had papers with him, and he told her you had a claim to some mine, and that it had come in good, and that you were rich now, Papa. And Auntie Ella told him she was your wife."
"I never said any such thing," Ella said, but her face had gone pale in a way that argued otherwise.
"You did," Meg said, and reached behind her, into the back room, and produced the folder Trunk had left behind, holding it out toward her father. "She put this back here, behind the flour sacks.
Samson took the folder slowly, his eyes moving between the papers inside and Ella's face, watching her expression shift from denial into something more desperate, then something that looked almost like defeat.
"Ella," he said, quiet now, dangerous in its quiet. "Is this true?"
"Samson, I can explain?—"
"Is it true?”
The silence that followed answered him more plainly than anything she might have said.
He looked down at the papers again, at figures and claim numbers that meant, he was beginning to understand, that his life had changed in ways that had nothing to do with anything happening in this room, and looked back up at Ella with something that had gone cold and clear in his face.
"You knew about this before you ever came here," he said, understanding arriving all at once, the pieces of the last week rearranging themselves into a shape he didn't like at all. "That's why you came. Not for the children. Not for family. For this."
"It isn't only that," Ella started, but the protest came out weak, unconvincing even to her own ears, by the sound of it.
"Meg," Samson said, not taking his eyes off Ella. "Did Billy find Maria?"
"I don't know yet. I sent him as soon as I understood what had happened."
The door opened before Samson could ask anything further, and Billy came through it first, breathless, and behind him, Maria, her face pale and confused, taking in the scene in front of her, Ella's stricken expression, Samson's cold one, the folder of papers still in his hand.
"What's happened?" Maria asked. "Billy said something was wrong, but he wouldn't explain, he only kept saying I needed to come quickly?—"
"Nothing's wrong," Samson said, and something in his voice, looking at her, had already begun to soften from the hardness it had held for Ella a moment before. "Nothing's wrong at all, not anymore."