Chapter 11
Reuben reached the sleigh first.
He caught Jonas by the forearm before Jonas had fully shifted his weight off the bench of the sleigh, while Tobias came around the other side and took hold beneath Jonas’s shoulder. Martha clearly expected them to help him down carefully.
Instead, Reuben hauled him upright and wrapped both arms around him.
Jonas made a startled sound that turned into a laugh.
“Easy,” he said, though he hugged his brother back just as hard.
Tobias joined them a second later, one hand clasped behind Jonas’s neck while the three men stood together in the snow. They looked less like grown brothers reunited after less than two weeks and more like boys who had once been afraid one of them might not come home.
Martha stayed beside the sleigh.
She had seen brothers fight, bargain, drink, and work beside one another. She could not remember ever seeing men hold each other without embarrassment.
Reuben stepped back first and looked Jonas over from head to boots. “You look terrible.”
“I’ve been told I’m improving.”
“By someone blind?”
Tobias crouched to inspect Jonas’s leg as though he expected the wound to be visible through his trousers. “You rode all the way here?”
“Dr. Keller said I could.”
“That doesn’t mean you should.”
Jonas glanced toward Martha. “I have been hearing variations of that sentence for days.”
Reuben followed his gaze and gave her a short nod before turning back to Jonas. His expression remained sharp, but the relief beneath it was impossible to miss.
“You owe Eliza an apology for me.”
Jonas frowned. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That answer rarely means nothing.”
Reuben shoved both hands into his coat pockets and looked toward the cabin. “I haven’t been into the general store in several mornings.”
Jonas stared at him.
Martha did too.
Reuben noticed them and scowled. “What?”
Jonas’s mouth twitched. “You want me to apologize to Eliza because you haven’t gone shopping?”
“Just tell her I’ve been busy.”
Tobias stood, brushing snow from his knees. “He has.”
Reuben gave him a grateful look.
“That still does not explain why Eliza requires an apology,” Jonas said.
Reuben’s ears had begun turning red despite the cold.
Martha remembered Eliza standing in the stable, insisting that Reuben was difficult while refusing to explain exactly how often she encountered him at the general store.
So he looked for her too.
The thought amused her, but only briefly.
Reuben turned away before either of them could say more. “You brought supplies with you?”
Martha nodded toward the sleigh. “Not much.”
His attention moved to the blankets, sacks, and bundled clothing stacked behind the bench.
“That looks like plenty.”
“It isn’t.”
“It will help.”
The certainty in his voice left no room for argument.
Tobias had already begun unloading. Jonas moved to help him, but Reuben blocked his path with one arm.
“You just arrived.”
“I can carry a blanket.”
“You can sit.”
“I’ve been sitting for most of two weeks.”
“Then you have plenty of experience to get you through.”
Jonas pushed his arm aside and took one of the lighter bundles.
Martha watched the exchange with a smile she could not quite suppress.
For all Reuben’s gruffness, there was no mistaking the care between them. Tobias said little, but he stayed close enough to Jonas that he could catch him if the injured leg gave way. Reuben complained about everything Jonas touched, then quietly carried the heaviest load himself.
Their affection was loud in ways Martha had never known.
It unsettled something in her.
Or perhaps softened it.
The cabin door opened before she could dwell on the thought.
A young woman stepped outside with a little girl bundled against her hip. She had fair hair tucked beneath a wool cap and a face reddened by the heat of the stove inside.
“I’m Martha Bellamy,” Martha said, moving forward. “Jonas brought me along, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mrs. Bellamy, it’s a pleasure to have you. I hope you’ll forgive our lack of hospitality.”
“Martha, please.”
The woman smiled. “Then I’m Nell.”
She shifted the child higher. “And this here is our little Annie.”
Annie regarded Martha with solemn gray eyes from inside a quilted bonnet.
Martha’s heart tightened immediately.
“Come on in and warm yourself by the stove.”
She followed Nell inside while the men unloaded the sleigh.
The cabin was little more than a single room, but it was warmer than Martha expected. The walls had been chinked with mud and moss, and a small stove stood near the rear. Rough bunks had been built along one side. A table made from uneven planks occupied the center.
Evidence of recent work lay everywhere.
Tools rested near the wall. Fresh-cut wood gave the room a sharp, clean smell. One corner had been covered with canvas until the roof could be completed properly.
Nell noticed Martha looking.
“It isn’t beautiful.”
“It’s home.”
“That has become my standard.”
Martha laughed.
Nell’s relief seemed to deepen at the sound.
Fergus entered through the back carrying an armful of split wood. He was broad-shouldered and tired-looking, with windburn across his face.
“You must be Mrs. Bellamy.”
“Martha, please.”
He set the wood beside the stove and extended his hand. “Fergus Dalrymple. I owe you thanks.”
“You owe Jonas and his brothers more.”
“I’ve been told.”
From outside came Reuben’s voice correcting Jonas about lifting something.
Fergus grinned. “Frequently.”
Martha found herself liking them at once.
There was no polish to the Dalrymples and no attempt to pretend their circumstances were easier than they were. Nell laughed when she admitted that they had carried a walnut side table halfway across the country only to burn one of its drawers for kindling during the first cold night.
“We thought we were prepared,” Nell said, settling Annie onto her lap. “We had lists.”
“Lists are dangerous,” Martha said. “They create a sense of confidence. I’ve learned that lesson myself.”
Fergus laughed from beside the stove.
“We left New York with enough dishes for twelve people and one axe that broke in Missouri.”
“You kept the dishes?”
“Every one.”
Nell shook her head. “I told him to sell them.”
“You said they were your mother’s.”
“I also said I preferred not freezing to death.”
Their teasing carried the ease of people who had been frightened together and survived enough of it to laugh afterward.
Martha sat across from Nell and passed Annie the wooden horse. Annie reached for it eagerly, her eyes lighting up.
“Oh,” Nell said when Martha handed it over. “She hasn’t had a toy since we lost one of the trunks.”
Annie took the horse in both hands and immediately put one ear in her mouth.
Martha smiled. “Eliza predicted she wouldn’t mind the missing paint.”
Nell shifted the child toward her. “Would you like to hold her?”
The offer caught Martha off guard. So did her own response.
“Yes.”
Annie came into her arms heavier than she expected. She smelled faintly of milk, woodsmoke, and wool. For a moment, she studied Martha’s face with serious suspicion. Then one small hand caught the edge of Martha’s collar.
Martha went very still.
She had held children before. Guests sometimes handed her babies, smaller ones usually, while searching for coins or luggage. This felt different, perhaps because the room was quiet enough for her to notice it.
Annie leaned against her chest.
Martha looked down at the child’s round cheek.
Would she ever have this?
The question came without warning.
At twenty-five, she had once assumed there would be children. Later. When the inn was stable. When Amos recovered. When life stopped feeling temporary.
Life had continued without asking whether she was ready.
Now Amos was gone, the inn was failing, and Martha could not picture what came after either of those truths.
Annie looked at one of Martha’s fingers, lifting each and dropping them.
Martha curled her hand around the tiny fist.
Across the room, Nell watched her with a quiet smile but did not comment.
Martha was grateful.
By the time the supplies were carried inside, Jonas had ignored enough of Reuben’s instructions to be put to work beside Fergus near the unfinished fireplace.
Martha stayed with Nell for a while longer, listening to stories from the journey west. The Dalrymples had begun in New York with relatives convinced they would return within six months. They had crossed rivers in flood, lost a horse, and spent three weeks delayed by illness.
Nell described the first time she saw the mountains with such disbelief that Martha laughed until her eyes watered.
When she finally stepped outside, the afternoon had brightened. Snow reflected light hard enough to make her squint.
Jonas was kneeling beside Fergus near a low stone base built along the exterior wall, their faces serious and focused.
Martha walked closer.
“Not that one,” Jonas said, stopping Fergus before he placed a broad stone onto the course. He tapped one corner with the handle of a small hammer. “It rocks.”
Fergus shifted it. “Barely.”
“Barely becomes a crack once the mortar dries and the heat starts working through it.”
He took the stone, rotated it, then tried another position.
This time it settled firmly.
“There.”
Fergus crouched beside him. “And the mud?”
“Thicker.”
Jonas scooped a handful from the bucket and worked it into the gap with his fingers, pressing until the mixture filled the space between the stones.
“If you leave air behind it, it will dry weak. Pack it deep.”
Fergus copied him.
Jonas watched without taking over.
Martha had seen men teach by grabbing the tool away the moment someone made a mistake. Jonas did the opposite. He corrected, demonstrated, then waited until Fergus tried again.
His patience seemed endless.
Even injured, he had spent the entire visit thinking about what someone else required.
Martha leaned against the side of the sleigh.
“Does he always do this?” she asked Tobias, who was splitting kindling nearby.
Tobias glanced toward Jonas. “Tell people what they’re doing wrong?”
“Help them.”
He considered the question.
“Yes.”