Chapter 13 #2
She spent another few minutes talking with Nell about Annie’s appetite and the supplies they had brought in from town. Then the needs of the inn pulled her away again.
She checked Percy first.
He was helping an elderly guest carry bedding into the dining room, his hair sticking up from sweat despite the cold outside.
“You ate?”
He nodded without stopping.
Martha narrowed her eyes.
Percy sighed. “Eliza watched me eat an entire bowl.”
“Good.”
He looked around at the blankets spread between the tables. “What happens if the storm is still here tomorrow?”
Martha tucked a pillow beneath one end of a pallet. “Then we deal with tomorrow when it arrives.”
Percy stopped.
She looked at him. “What?”
“You never say things like that.”
Martha pointed toward a stack of folded linens. “Go make yourself useful.”
He grinned and obeyed.
As evening deepened, Martha heard the comments she had expected.
A woman near the stairs whispered that giving away rooms would not pay for repairs. Someone else wondered aloud how Martha expected to keep the inn open if she treated it like a charity house.
Martha heard them and kept walking.
Outside, the snow was thick enough to kill a person within sight of home.
Inside, there was food, fire, and somewhere to sleep.
If the town wanted to judge her for providing those things, it could.
Tonight, Martha knew exactly what mattered.
By the time the last child settled, and the final lamp upstairs had been turned low, Martha’s feet hurt so badly she considered taking off her shoes where she stood.
She returned to the common room near midnight.
The room was still and quiet. The pallets held the guests that had arrived after all the rooms were full. Everyone was asleep.
Jonas sat beside the fire with a book open in his lap. One oil lamp burned on the nearby table, its small flame throwing more shadow than light. Beyond the windows, the storm had weakened to a steady whisper against the glass.
Martha stopped in the doorway.
Jonas looked up.
“You’re still awake.”
“So are you.”
She crossed the room and lowered herself into the chair opposite him with a tired sigh.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The quiet felt strange after the day.
Jonas closed the book around one finger. “You took care of everyone all day; I’m sure you’re tired. It was a wonder, watching you.”
Martha rubbed one aching foot against the other. “I moved people around until they stopped looking frozen half to death.”
“That isn’t all you did.”
She glanced at him.
Jonas leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees. “I watched people come in frightened. You gave them something to do, somewhere to sit, something hot to hold. Most of them stopped being afraid before they even realized it.”
The praise made her uncomfortable.
Martha looked toward the fire. “I wanted them to feel safe.”
Jonas waited.
She watched one of the logs settle deeper into the grate.
“When I was at the orphanage, safety never seemed like a sure thing.” Her voice dropped with the late hour. “You could get comfortable with a room or a person, and then everything changed. Children left. Beds changed. Sometimes someone was there at breakfast and gone by supper.”
Jonas did not interrupt.
Martha folded her hands in her lap. “I used to think that if I ever had a place of my own, people would know they were welcome there. No one would have to wonder whether there was room for them.”
His expression softened.
“I’ve never wondered here.”
Martha smiled faintly. “You were unconscious when you arrived.”
“I’ve been awake since.”
His gaze held hers. “I’ve felt safe here, Martha.”
The words struck harder than he could have known.
She wished she could say the same.
Instead, Silas’s face came to mind. He had his quarters in the barn, and with the weather as bad as it was, she supposed he had made himself comfortable and warm there for the day.
A threat spoken quietly in the barn. A secret sitting close enough to reach out and tear apart everything she had built.
Martha forced her attention back to Jonas.
Her eyes dropped to the book.
“What are you reading?”
He looked at the worn cover. “A love story.”
That surprised a laugh out of her. “Really?”
Jonas shifted his chair slightly closer to the fire. “I read more than tracking manuals.”
“What kind of love story?”
“The frustrating kind.”
Martha leaned toward him despite her exhaustion. “That tells me nothing.”
Jonas lowered his voice as footsteps sounded in the hallway behind them. Two guests crossed toward the dining room, whispering so they would not wake anyone.
“The hero loves the heroine,” Jonas said once they passed. “He has spent most of the book trying to convince himself he doesn’t.”
“And she?”
“Loves him too.”
“Then where is the problem?”
Jonas’s mouth curved. “Everywhere.”
Martha found herself moving a little closer so she could hear him without making either of them raise their voices.
“Family. Pride. Obligation. Neither believes wanting the other is enough.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“It is.”
She nodded toward the book. “Read it to me.”
Jonas looked genuinely surprised.
“A chapter.”
“You’re demanding.”
“I’ve had a difficult day.”
That won her a smile.
He opened the book again.
Jonas read quietly, his voice settling into the hush of the room.
The chapter had reached the moment when the hero could no longer pretend indifference. His confession was not graceful. He admitted that he had fought his feelings because loving her would cost him too much and then admitted the fight had become worse than the cost.
Jonas paused before reading the next line.
“‘I have spent months trying to leave you behind in my thoughts,’” he read softly. “‘Instead, I have carried you into every room I entered without you.’”
Martha swallowed.
The heroine’s answer came later.
She loved him.
That was the tragedy of it.
Love did not undo the obligations between them or the harm already done. She refused him because wanting a life together could not make that life possible.
By the time Jonas finished the page, Martha’s eyes burned.
He looked up.
A tear slipped free before she could wipe it away.
“Martha.”
She gave a small, embarrassed laugh and lowered her eyes. “I’m being silly, I know. It’s only a book.”
“It isn’t silly.”
When she looked back at him, Jonas had set the book aside.
His hand lifted slowly enough that she could have moved away.
She did not.
His thumb brushed the tear from beneath her eye.
Martha’s breath caught.
The touch should have lasted no more than a moment, but neither of them seemed willing to move. Jonas’s palm settled against her cheek, warm and steady.
Martha went still.
Her heart began beating so hard she was certain he must be able to hear it.
She had spent the past year telling herself she did not need anyone. She had been lonely, certainly, but loneliness was something a person could survive. Wanting someone was different. Wanting someone gave them the power to hurt you.
Yet when Jonas touched her, she found herself leaning into his hand.
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Martha's pulse fluttered wildly.
She could feel his breath now, warm against her lips despite the cold air that crept through the inn. He moved closer, slowly enough that every second seemed to stretch.
She did not move away.
Neither did he.
Martha leaned toward him.
The common-room door slammed open hard enough to strike the wall.
Martha jerked back.
Jonas pulled away at the same instant, his hand dropping from her face as both of them turned toward the doorway.
“Martha.”
Silas stood there, breathing heavily.
For one suspended second, Martha could do nothing but stare at him.
Martha straightened so quickly the chair creaked beneath her.
“There’s water coming through the roof near the rear stairs,” Silas said. “It’s getting worse.”
Martha pushed herself up, but Jonas was already standing.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You don’t know where—”
“Silas can show me.”
The two men disappeared into the hall before Martha could object.
She remained beside the fire.
Jonas’s book lay open on the chair between them.
Martha touched the place on her cheek where his thumb had been.
A few seconds.
That was all they had lost.
She could not stop wondering what might have happened if they hadn’t lost them.