Chapter 36
Every breath still pulled tight against Jem’s ribs, a dull ache that flared sharper whenever he shifted, but Jem had stopped paying much attention to it.
He lay propped against a folded blanket inside Theda’s wagon, staring at the canvas overhead, and waiting.
Just like he had been before, when he’d first joined the wagon train.
Those days felt so far away.
He heard Theda’s voice outside, low and quick, asking Phineas something, and all the pain in his body seemed to recede into the background like a sound he'd simply stopped listening to.
The canvas lifted.
Theda climbed in, and the moment her eyes found his, something in her face broke open. She crossed the small space quickly and knelt beside him, and Jem smiled. An angel, that's what he saw her as. Every time she showed up, she brought so much light to his heart; it was unreal.
“There you are,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
Her eyes were glassy, tears gathering at the edges without falling. “Are you all right?”
“I am now.” He meant it completely.
She let out something between a laugh and a sob and reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his with a grip that told him she had no intention of letting go anytime soon.
“Jem.” She said his name carefully. “I was so worried. I kept waking last night, thinking of you, wondering if…” she shook her head.
“I have to tell you, whatever you did before. Whoever you were as Josiah. I forgive you.” Her thumb moved gently over his knuckles.
“Because I saw the man you really are. I saw him every single day since the storm brought you to us. I especially saw him in your brother’s camp, risking everything to save me. ”
He tried to speak, but she wasn't finished.
“You found another way. God's way.” Her voice steadied. “You chose what was right, even when it cost you everything. And I believe, with my whole heart, that there's a future waiting because of that choice.”
Jem squeezed her hand, unable to find words that matched what he was feeling.
He could only look at her, the dirt still smudged faintly along her jaw, the exhaustion shadowing her eyes, the steady strength underneath all of it that had carried her through the worst day either of them had ever lived.
She had never looked more beautiful to him than she did at that moment, kneeling beside him in her wagon with tears she wasn't bothering to hide.
“The last time I told you,” he said slowly, “I don't think we had the chance to talk about it properly.” He held her gaze, his heart pounding hard.
“I love you, Theda. You've changed my whole life.
I don't expect anything from you in return for saying it. I just need you to know that you have my heart. All of it.”
Her breath caught audibly.
He reached up, ignoring the protest from his ribs, and brushed a tear from her cheek with the back of his fingers, slow and careful.
He had to tell her what was on her heart.
If their experience had taught him anything, it was that they were all on borrowed time, and not another minute was guaranteed.
Theda laughed softly, the sound watery and full at once.
“You must not be very good at reading people,” she said, “because I love you right back.”
The words landed somewhere deep in his chest, warm and unbelievable. How could someone like her, who deserved so much better, love him?
“I'm not leaving your side again,” she continued, her voice thick.
“Not today, not tomorrow, not for whatever comes when we reach Oregon.
I don't care what the future holds for you, Jem. I will fight for it. For us.” She leaned closer.
“I already decided that, somewhere on that ride back to the camp, when I didn't know if you were going to wake up again.”
He couldn't hold back any longer. He pulled her gently toward him, ignoring the sharp protest on his side, and she came willingly, careful of his injuries even as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder.
He held her like that for a long moment, breathing in the smell of her hair.
He felt the warmth of having her near. The feeling in her chest was one that he hadn’t felt in such a long time.
Perhaps he’d once had it long before the storm, long before Ransom, but it had never been as strong as it was right then with Theda.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He was happy. Her arms around him, her heart freely given, and the quiet, solid knowledge that whatever came next, they would face it together.
That was all it took. There were no guarantees, and no way to erase the past, and yet, that didn't matter. He had her heart and had given her his. Everything else would work itself out.
---*---
Four months had a way of becoming a single day in Jem's memory, all the miles and weather and small griefs of the trail folding together into something that felt shorter than it had been. But the ridge above the Willamette Valley, when they finally reached it, stretched the moment back out again.
He sat on his horse beside Theda and looked down at the green spreading wide below them in the late afternoon light. Farmland, forest, a river catching the sun in long silver threads through the middle of it all. After everything, it was there. Real, and waiting, and there's to walk into.
“We made it,” Theda said softly. She looked over at him with sparkling eyes.
“We made it,” he agreed.
They made their last camp on the ridge that night, all of them together one final time, fires lit in a wide circle the way they'd been lit for months across a thousand miles of prairie and mountain and river crossing.
Phineas stood near the largest fire and spoke the words that formally released the company, thanks, blessings and a few words of hope for the future. Come morning, everyone would scatter toward their separate claims.
Tonight, they were still one company.
Jem sat with Theda near the edge of the firelight, her hand resting easily in his, and watched the camp move through its last evening together.
There was something tender in the air. He was going to miss it.
The camaraderie, the feeling of so many people surrounding one another, while having their own families, but also being a part of something bigger.
Jem was going to miss it.
Late that night, Leland found Jem near the supply wagons. Jem hadn’t expected much from Leland. After all, they’d held a simple truce to try and save the people they loved. Over the past four months, they’d slowly grown into a friendship, one that was deeper than a need to cooperate.
“I'll ride down with the company in the morning, just wanted to say goodbye in case we don't have a chance tomorrow,” Leland said with a shrug as if it weren't a big deal.
“Split south once the trail forks toward my uncle's land.” He cleared his throat, suddenly looking less composed than Jem had ever seen him.
“Della and Oren will be coming with me.” That bit of information didn't surprise him.
Everyone had noticed that Leland had grown closer to Oren and Della the past several months.
Once Leland let go of Theda, it was like his heart had opened to Della.
Jem’s eyebrows lifted, then a slow grin spread across his face. “I’m happy for you all. Don’t be a stranger. Oregon isn’t so big. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”
“I know we will.”
“I’ll see you around.” Jem clapped him on the shoulder, still grinning. “Glad for you. Truly.”
Jem watched him go, then carried the wood on toward the fire, thinking of all the months he'd known Leland. It was good to know his friend had a bright future ahead of him, full of love and friendship. Hopefully, a future he would remain a part of in some small way.