Chapter 4
Even through the gray cloud of his hazy vision, Jonas saw the woman flinch at his words.
Her brown eyes widened and her hand tightened around the cloth pressed to his leg. A younger woman stood beside her, holding a basin of pink-tinged water. Both stared at him in shock and fear.
“Sir,” the brown-eyed woman said, leaning closer. “Who? Tell me who you’re so concerned about.”
Jonas dragged in a breath and forced the words out; his tongue felt thick and unwieldy, his lips numb and heavy. “The… the family.” For a moment, he couldn’t think of their name. He couldn’t picture their faces. Who was he so concerned about? He grasped for answers in the darkness of his mind.
The dark-haired woman holding the basin glanced at the other one. “What family?”
Jonas tried to sit up. Pain tore through his thigh before he lifted his shoulders from the couch. He fell back against the cushions, his vision flashing white. The room tipped around him.
“Don’t,” the woman beside him said.
She placed one hand against his shoulder. She was smaller than he had realized when he first opened his eyes, but her grip was strong.
Jonas looked down.
Someone had cut away part of his trousers. A folded cloth had been tied tightly around his upper thigh, though blood had soaked through the center. Wool blankets covered him everywhere else. His boots and coat lay near a stone hearth where a fire burned low and steady.
He remembered the river.
The mare slipping. Ice cracking beneath him. Water closing over his legs.
Then nothing.
“How long?” he asked.
“How long have you been here?” The woman glanced toward the mantel clock. “Less than an hour.”
“No. How long was I outside?”
“I don’t know.”
Jonas turned his head toward the windows, his memories clearing in his head. Frost clouded the lower panes, but daylight filled the room, it was early morning. He had left the Dalrymples—that was there name he recalled—shortly after sunrise.
That meant a full night had passed.
He pushed against the couch again.
The woman caught him before he could rise. “I told you not to move.”
“I have to go.”
“You can’t stand.”
“Maybe not, but I can ride.”
The second woman set the basin on a small table. Water sloshed against its enamel sides. “He’s not quite as sensible as he looks,” she said drily.
Jonas ignored her and tried to swing his legs from beneath the blankets. The injured one barely moved. A fresh pulse of pain left sweat gathering beneath his hair despite the cold that remained deep in his body.
The woman beside him caught the edge of the blanket and pulled it back into place.
“Be still.”
“There’s a child who needs my help; I can’t afford to delay.”
Her expression changed.
Jonas forced himself to speak before the dizziness closed over him again. “A family northwest of here. Fergus and Nell Dalrymple. They have a young daughter.”
The woman looked toward the windows.
Snow tapped softly against the glass. Beyond the sitting room, footsteps crossed the inn’s lobby, followed by the dull strike of wood being placed near a stove. Voices carried through the closed door, too muffled for Jonas to understand.
He was in Willow Crossing. He could smell coffee, baking bread, damp wool, and the sharp soap used on linens.
The woman turned back to him. “Where did you leave them?”
“On their claim.”
“That tells me very little.”
“North of the river. Past the ridge above Miller’s Creek.”
Her brow furrowed. “In a tent?”
“A canvas shelter against their wagon. They were unprepared; it was the best they could do.”
The younger woman muttered something under her breath.
Jonas looked at the woman holding him in place. “I told them I’d return tomorrow with help.”
“Tomorrow?”
He nodded once.
The movement made the room tilt again.
She waited until his eyes focused. “What is your name?”
“Jonas Numa.”
Recognition moved across the younger woman’s face, though she said nothing.
The woman beside him gave no sign that she knew the name.
“I’m Martha Bellamy,” she said. “This is my inn. This is Eliza Henshaw, who works with me.”
Jonas looked at Martha more carefully.
He had heard of her. The widow who owned the old inn near the center of town. Men mentioned her because they thought a woman’s refusal to marry was public business. Women spoke about the failing building and the certainty that she would lose it.
Jonas had pictured someone older.
Martha appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Her blonde curls had been pinned into a hurried knot, with loose strands at her temples. Her dress was plain and damp along the hem. A thin scar crossed one eyebrow.
He remembered a face above him near the river, though he had assumed it belonged to a dream.
“You’re the one who found me,” he said.
“I did.”
“How?” He had been sure that was the end for him, fading into unconsciousness in the snow. The end for him and for the family anxiously awaiting his return.
“I was checking fish traps.”
Jonas glanced toward the window again. “You carried me all the way here?”
“With help for the last stretch.”
The distance from the river was not insignificant, especially through snow.
“You should have left me and gone for someone.”
“You would have frozen before I returned.”
Her answer held no expectation of praise. She simply stated what she had done.
Jonas tried to raise himself on one elbow, but Martha pressed him down again.
“I need my horse.”
“I didn’t see one.”
The answer sparked a fresh blaze of panic inside of him, but he tried to temper it. His mare might have returned to the homestead. She might also be wandering with her reins caught in the brush.
“Mrs. Bellamy—”
“Martha, please. I like the people whose lives I save to address me informally.”
He paused. “Then call me Jonas.”
“Jonas, you have a deep wound in your leg, your clothes were soaked through, and your hands are still cold, even now. I’m going to fetch Dr. Keller.”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
Eliza picked up the basin. “That’s fortunate, because he only lives several miles outside town and we’re in the dead of winter.”
Martha stood. “He needs one.”
Jonas reached for her wrist, but his hand fell short.
“You can’t leave.”
“I believe I can.”
“The family—”
“Will remain exactly where they are while Dr. Keller looks at your leg.”
“They may not.”
Martha bent to retrieve her coat from a chair near the hearth. The wool was still damp from her earlier journey.
“Then you should cooperate so I can leave sooner and thereby get you on your own way sooner.”
Jonas stared at her.
She slipped one arm into the coat and looked toward Eliza. “Keep him warm. Not too close to the fire. If the bleeding worsens, send Percy to the livery and have someone ride after me.”
Eliza nodded.
Martha crossed the room and opened the door. Voices from the lobby grew louder, along with the clink of breakfast dishes.
Martha looked directly at him. “Stay there.”
The door closed behind her.
Jonas listened to her footsteps cross the lobby. A moment later, the front door opened and shut, letting in a rush of cold air that reached the sitting room through the gap beneath the door.
Eliza carried the basin away without speaking.
Jonas waited until her footsteps disappeared toward the kitchen.
Then he threw back the blankets.
His feet touched the floor. The boards were cold beneath his wool stockings. Someone had removed the wet pair and replaced them with dry ones.
Jonas gripped the arm of the couch and pushed himself upright.
The room narrowed.
He held still, breathing through his nose until the dizziness eased. His coat lay near the fire, but his boots were several feet away. He could reach them if he crossed the room.
He placed weight on his uninjured leg.
The wounded one buckled as soon as his foot touched the floor.
Jonas caught the edge of a side table. A lamp rattled on top of it, its glass chimney shifting against the brass base.
He lowered himself back to the couch before he brought the entire table down.
The door opened. Eliza entered carrying a cup and saucer. She stopped when she saw the blankets on the floor.
“That was quick.”
Jonas leaned back against the cushions. “I was cold.”
“And so you attempted to walk across the room.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I’m sure the pain had nothing to do with it.”
She set the cup on the table he had nearly overturned and lifted the blankets from the floor. Unlike Martha, Eliza made no effort to conceal her irritation.
“This is chamomile tea,” she said. “Drink it.”
“I don’t need calming.”
“Maybe not, but everyone else does.”
She tucked the blankets over him again, then handed him the cup.
The tea smelled faintly of apples and dried grass. Steam warmed his face.
Jonas took a cautious drink.
Eliza pulled a wooden chair closer to the couch and sat. From the lobby came the scrape of chairs and the steady murmur of guests eating breakfast. Someone complained that the coffee was weak. A child ran overhead until an adult called for them to stop.
The inn did not sound like a place about to fail.
It sounded alive.
Jonas looked around the sitting room. The wallpaper had faded from green to gray near the windows. A narrow crack ran through the plaster above the mantel. The furniture was well made but worn, with polished arms and carefully mended upholstery.
Everything had been maintained beyond its natural life.
“How far is the doctor?” he asked.
“Twenty minutes by horse if the road is clear.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Longer.”
Jonas took another drink. “Martha should not be riding alone.”
Eliza raised one eyebrow. “She found you half-frozen beside the river and hauled you uphill. I expect she can manage the road to Dr. Keller’s house.”
“That doesn’t make it safe.”
“No. Winter isn’t safe.”
Jonas looked at her over the rim of the cup.
Eliza rested her hands in her lap. “You’re one of the Numa brothers.”
“You know us?”
“I grew up here.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
A flush rose faintly beneath her cheeks.
“I know who you are,” she said.
Jonas waited.
People in Willow Crossing knew many things about him and his brothers. Most of them had never spoken to any of the three.