Chapter 10 #2
He had first taken Martha for a woman who belonged entirely inside the polished front rooms of the inn. He knew better now. The same woman who could balance accounts and soothe an offended guest knew how to set a river trap, handle a rifle, and ride alone through winter woods.
He also knew she could barely afford the things she was giving away.
The side door opened then, and Eliza came outside carrying a cloth doll and a small wooden horse with most of its paint worn away.
“Both of these were left behind by some guests I can no longer truly remember. I expect they’ve spent enough time in a storage trunk. It’s time they had a child to enjoy them.”
Martha turned the doll over in her hands, smoothing one frayed yarn braid. “Annie is two?”
Jonas nodded.
“This ought to suit her nicely, then.”
Eliza tucked the wooden horse beside it. “For when she gets tired of the doll.”
Before climbing into the sleigh, Martha turned back toward the inn and began giving instructions.
Rather than firing them off from memory, she had written several things on a scrap of paper for Eliza: which rooms were checking out, which guest still owed for supper, when the bread needed to come from the oven, and where Percy had left the coal shovel after losing it that morning.
She reminded Eliza about the hot water requested upstairs and warned her that the latch on the rear pantry door had begun sticking.
Eliza listened until Martha circled back to the bread a second time.
Then she took the paper from her.
“The inn will survive one afternoon without you.”
Martha glanced toward the west wing.
Eliza followed her gaze and grimaced. “I realize that was poorly phrased.”
Jonas laughed before he could stop himself.
Martha did too, although hers carried a little reluctance. She looked back at the front doors once more before letting Jonas help her onto the sleigh.
By the time they left Willow Crossing, she had stopped looking behind them.
The road north of town passed between low hills and stands of pine, snow piled against the shaded sides of trunks.
Bare branches scratched lightly together whenever the wind moved through them.
The sleigh runners made a steady whisper over the packed surface, and the gelding's bells gave a muted jingle with each step.
For a while, neither spoke.
Martha sat beneath the buffalo robe with her gloved hands folded over it, watching the country with an attention Jonas recognized.
She was not merely taking in the scenery.
She noticed the creek disappearing beneath ice, rabbit tracks crossing the road, the places where snow had drifted over the fence lines.
Jonas nodded at the landscape. “You look different outside town.” It was true. Her posture was lighter, the furrow between her brow had eased. Even her eyes had a new spark.
Martha considered that before answering. “I think I’d forgotten what it felt like to be somewhere without a bell ringing for me.”
Jonas glanced toward her, but she was still watching the land rather than him. The road had narrowed between the trees, and the gelding’s hooves broke through patches of crusted snow with a dull crunch.
“At the inn, there’s always something waiting,” she continued.
“A guest who needs hot water. A bill that should have been paid yesterday. A hinge that suddenly decides it no longer wants to be attached to a door.” The corner of her mouth lifted.
“Out here, none of it can reach me, at least for a while.”
“So you like getting away.”
“I like remembering there’s something beyond the front desk.” Martha shifted beneath the robe, settling more comfortably against the sleigh bench. “I used to spend much more time traveling. Before Willow Crossing, staying in one place for very long felt unusual.”
Jonas kept his attention on the road ahead as it dipped toward a frozen creek. “With your husband?”
“With Amos, yes. And before that, when I was young.” Her expression softened at some private memory.
“Before I ended up in the orphanage, my parents brought me west when I was a child. They understood cities. Books, accounts, proper meals at proper tables. They did not understand what winter could do when there wasn’t a shop around the corner. ”
The gelding slowed near the creek crossing, and Jonas gathered the reins until the animal found firmer ground. “That must have been a hard lesson.”
“It was.” Martha watched the dark water moving beneath a break in the ice.
“But there were parts I loved too. Waking somewhere I’d never seen before.
Passing through settlements so new that half the buildings still smelled of fresh-cut lumber.
Seeing a road disappear over a ridge and wondering what was on the other side. ”
She paused, then added more quietly, “For a long time, I thought I wanted nothing more than to stop moving.”
Jonas looked at her then. “And now?”
Martha’s gaze stayed on the open country ahead.
“Now I think perhaps I only wanted somewhere I could choose to leave.” Jonas heard no bitterness in the words, only weariness.
Martha rubbed her thumb along the seam of one glove, and for a moment he thought she might dismiss the question. Instead, she glanced toward the trees moving past them. “I draw.”
Jonas turned his head. “You draw?”
The surprise in his voice made her smile. “You sound as though I told you I perform on a stage.”
“I’ve just never seen you do it.”
“That would require me to sit still for more than five minutes.” She shifted beneath the buffalo robe as the sleigh runners whispered over a stretch of packed snow. “I don’t get much time for it anymore.”
“What do you draw?”
“Whatever catches my attention. Buildings. Horses. People, if they don’t notice.”
Jonas thought of the dark smudge he had occasionally seen along the side of her hand. He had assumed it came from the stove or one of the endless repairs around the inn. “Charcoal?”
“Mostly. Pencil when I can spare one.” Martha looked down at her hands. “My mother had a sketchbook. There were empty pages left in it when she died, so I started filling them.”
The ease that had entered her voice faltered, though only slightly.
Jonas kept his attention on the gelding as the road bent around a stand of pine. He did not want his curiosity to turn the conversation into another interrogation. “Do you still have it?”
“I do.” Her answer came with a small smile. “It’s held together better than most things I own.”
The gelding flicked its ears as a crow rose noisily from the branches overhead. Jonas steadied the reins, then asked, “Did Amos ever let you draw him?”
Martha gave a soft laugh. “He pretended he hated it.”
“Pretended?”
“He complained that I always caught him looking tired or irritated.” Her smile grew as she watched the road ahead. “Then I discovered he’d kept every sketch I’d ever made of him.”
Something in Jonas eased at the sight of her expression. She spoke of her husband with grief, but there was warmth there too, and he was glad she had memories that could still make her smile.
“He sounds like he cared more than he wanted you to know.”
“He did that sometimes.” Martha fell quiet, watching a line of rabbit tracks disappear beneath the brush at the side of the road.
Jonas let the silence stretch before saying, “You must have felt like you’d found a family with him.”
Her eyes remained on the trail. When she answered, her voice had softened. “I did. I’d spent so much of my life feeling temporary that being somebody’s wife seemed almost impossible at first. Like I’d finally been chosen to keep around.”