Chapter 14
Jonas woke before the rest of the inn.
The storm had weakened sometime in the night, leaving Willow Crossing buried beneath a fresh weight of snow. Through the frosted window of his room, he could see only the pale outline of the stable roof and one drift banked nearly to the lower sill.
Inside, the inn had gone quiet at last.
That would not last.
Half the town seemed to be sleeping under Martha’s roof, and all of them would wake hungry.
Jonas dressed carefully, testing his thigh before putting full weight on it. The wound still pulled when he moved too quickly, but the hurt had settled into something manageable.
He followed the smell of woodsmoke downstairs, where the kitchen was already warm.
Martha stood at the long worktable with her sleeves rolled past her elbows and a dusting of flour along one forearm. Two lamps burned near the stove, their light yellow against the dark windows. A kettle steamed over the fire, and several loaves sat beneath a cloth near the warmer edge of the room.
She looked up when he entered.
“You’re awake early.”
“So are you.”
“I work here.”
Jonas glanced at the mound of flour spread across the table. “That sounds like an excuse.”
“It’s a very good one.”
There was something easier in her manner this morning, though tiredness still showed beneath her eyes. Jonas thought of the night before, of her cheek warm beneath his palm and the way she had leaned into his touch.
He had spent far too much time thinking about the few inches between them.
Martha seemed determined not to mention it, so Jonas followed her example.
“What needs doing?”
She nodded toward a sack near the pantry door. “You could bring that flour over.”
He lifted it easily.
Martha noticed.
“Carefully,” she said.
“I am.”
“You say that often.”
“You tell me that often.”
He set the sack beside the worktable without argument.
Martha divided dough into two portions and pushed one toward him.
Jonas looked at it.
“What?”
“You’re making bread.”
“I offered to help.”
“You did.”
He placed both hands on the dough, his fists sinking into the sticky dough, and he frowned down at them as they came up too slowly, the dough coating his knuckles instead of remaining together.
Martha watched him press once.
Her mouth tightened.
“What?”
“You’re fighting it.”
“It’s bread.”
“You’re still fighting it.”
Jonas looked down at the flattened lump. “It isn’t fighting back.”
“That isn’t the point.”
She came around the table.
Jonas expected another explanation.
Instead, Martha stepped behind his shoulder and placed both hands over his.
“Like this.”
The contact startled him.
Her fingers were warm from the kitchen, smaller than his and lightly dusted with flour. She guided his hands forward, pressing the heel of his palm into the dough, then folding it back.
“Don’t crush it,” she said close beside him. “Push. Fold. Turn.”
Jonas tried again.
Martha’s hands remained over his.
A pleasant current ran through him from the point where her fingers rested against his.
He concentrated on the dough with more effort than the task deserved.
“Again,” she said.
He pressed and folded, his movements now smooth and clean.
“Better.”
Martha shifted her grip slightly, one hand covering his wrist.
Jonas had known women before.
He had enjoyed their company, admired a few, even thought once or twice that he might marry if the right person made the idea seem less inconvenient.
None of them had unsettled him like this.
Martha stepped away.
The absence of her touch registered immediately.
Jonas kept kneading.
“That all?”
“For now.”
She returned to her side of the table and began shaping the second loaf.
Jonas watched her hands.
“You could have done something else.”
Martha glanced up. “With the dough?”
“With your life.”
Her brows drew together.
Jonas nodded toward the charcoal smudge still faintly visible along the side of one finger from two days earlier. “You draw well.”
“That does not generally feed people.”
“Neither does owning an inn, according to your butcher.”
Martha gave him a dry look.
Jonas smiled.
“I mean it. Why this?”
She slowed.
For a moment, the kitchen seemed quieter despite the fire snapping in the stove.
Martha looked around the room.
“This was the place where I stopped.”
Jonas waited.
She folded the dough once more before continuing.
“When Amos and I came to Willow Crossing, I was tired of moving. We found the inn at a time when I needed somewhere to stay.” Her voice softened. “Not simply a room. Somewhere that felt like refuge.”
Jonas leaned one hip against the table.
“And it did?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly.
He wanted to ask what she had needed refuge from.
The question rose almost naturally.
Martha turned the loaf and reached for the flour tin before he could voice it.
“I want more stories about your brothers,” she said. “Those are always good for a laugh. Tell me more about them.”
The change was deliberate.
Jonas recognized it and let her have it.
“They’re loud, to start with.”
Martha looked amused. “Both of them?”
“Tobias only when Reuben convinced him something was worth arguing about.”
She sprinkled flour across the table and nodded for him to keep working.
Jonas found the rhythm again.
“Reuben was difficult from the beginning,” he said. “Tobias watched everything. He used to follow me around silently for hours, then repeat something I had said three days later to prove I had contradicted myself.”
“That sounds irritating.”
“It was.”
“You loved it.”
Jonas smiled despite himself. “Sometimes.”
The smile faded as memory shifted.
Martha must have noticed. “How old were you when you started caring for them?”
“Seventeen.”
Her hands stopped.
Jonas kept his gaze on the dough. “Our father died that year.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded once.
For years, the facts had become simple enough to say.
“He was working near the railway then. This gang, they’re called the Voss Gang, had robbed a train farther east. My father was caught in the pursuit afterward.”
Martha went completely still.
Jonas looked up.
The color had drained from her face, aside from two high pinpricks of color in her cheeks.
He nodded knowingly. Most people in Oregon knew of Gideon Voss’s gang. Stories followed them from mining camps to rail depots. Robberies. Shootings. Men disappearing on lonely roads.
“They killed him,” Jonas said.
Martha’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice had gone thin.
Jonas regretted the bluntness. He looked back down at the dough. “It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t make it less terrible.”
“No,” he agreed. “It doesn’t.”
Martha swallowed.
Jonas saw grief in her expression as her lips trembled. That was another thing he had learned about her. Other people’s pain seemed to reach her too easily.
“I raised the boys after that,” he continued. “We managed.”
“Seventeen is too young to raise two children.”
“I didn’t have much choice.”
Martha looked as though she wanted to say more, but the kitchen door opened then.
Silas stepped inside and the warmth in the room changed immediately.
Once again, a moment of warmth interrupted by this man. Jonas stared at him, wishing one of the two would give up their history and speak plainly.
Silas brushed snow from the shoulders of his coat and crossed toward the stove. His gaze moved from Jonas’s dough-covered hands to Martha.
“Well,” he said. “How nice.”
Martha stiffened again.
Silas smiled.
“I remember when you and Amos used to make bread together.”
Jonas looked toward Martha, who swallowed hard. Her hand rested flat against the table.
Silas opened the stove door and added a small piece of wood as though he had said nothing unusual.
“Never thought Bellamy had the patience for it.”
Martha’s voice came carefully. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”
Silas glanced over his shoulder. “I can smell it.” He closed the stove and straightened.
For a second, Jonas thought he might say something else. Instead, Silas took an empty mug from the shelf and filled it with coffee.
“Need anything outside?”
“No.” Martha’s answer came too quickly.
Silas looked at her. Then at Jonas. “Suit yourself.” He left through the rear door, taking the cold with him.
Silence settled behind him and Jonas wiped flour from his fingers.
“Martha.”
“I’m fine.”
She began shaping the dough again.
“You don’t look fine.”
Her movements sharpened, but she said nothing.
“It was a strange thing for him to say,” Jonas pressed, analyzing the man’s words once more.
“He knew Amos.”
“I know.”
Jonas waited.
Martha folded the dough harder than necessary.
“He likes reminding me of things I don’t care to remember.”
Jonas watched her. The answer did not explain enough. Still, he remembered what happened the last time he pushed.
“If you want me to stay—”
“I need to work.”
She looked at him then, and the strain in her face made him stop.
“There are thirty people sleeping in this inn,” she said. “Breakfast needs to be ready before they wake. Please, Jonas. Find something else to do.”
The dismissal stung more than it should have, but he nodded. “All right.”
Martha looked as though she might call him back.
She did not.
Jonas left the kitchen, intent on finding Silas. But the man was nowhere to be found.
The stable was empty except for Percy feeding the gelding. The rear yard showed fresh tracks disappearing toward the alley, already filling with snow. Jonas checked the woodshed and the side passage before stopping himself.
He had no reason to hunt the man through town.
Still, the disappearance bothered him.
Silas had been inside less than five minutes earlier.
Jonas returned to the inn before breakfast.
There was too much to do for suspicion without evidence.
By late morning, the storm had broken enough for people to begin leaving.
Jonas helped Fergus load their supplies into the sleigh while Nell wrapped Annie beneath two blankets. The road remained deep, but the sky had cleared and the wind had dropped.
The Dalrymples were eager to get home.
Jonas rode with them far enough to make certain the road was passable, then turned toward the Numa homestead once they reached the safer stretch near Miller’s Creek.
Reuben and Tobias were splitting wood when he arrived.
Reuben looked up first.
“You finally remembered where you live.”
Jonas dismounted carefully. “I’ve been busy.”
“Clearly.”
Tobias leaned his axe against the stump and came over.
“How’s the leg?”
“Healed enough.”
Reuben looked toward Jonas’s horse, then back at him.
“You staying in town?”
“For a while.”
That earned a pause. Reuben folded his arms. “Why?”
Jonas had expected the question, but he had not prepared an answer. “The inn needs work.”
“That inn has needed work for years.”
“Martha can’t manage it all alone.”
Tobias’s mouth moved slightly, but he seemed to swallow his words.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Reuben grinned.
Jonas frowned. “What?”
“You said Martha.”
“That is her name, you know.”
“We know.”
Tobias picked up the axe again.
Reuben’s grin widened. “Do you usually stay two weeks in town because someone’s building needs repairs?”
Jonas ignored him and walked toward the woodpile.
“The west wing collapsed.”
“So I heard.”
“She helped me when she didn’t have to.”
Reuben followed.
“You like her.”
Jonas picked up a split log.
“I respect her.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
Jonas tossed the wood onto the stack.
Behind him, Tobias laughed quietly.
Jonas turned.
“You’re both very irritating.”
Reuben looked pleased. “You definitely like her.”
Jonas considered throwing the next log at him.
Before he could decide, Reuben checked the position of the sun. “I have to go.”
Jonas looked over. “Where are you going?”
“Into town.”
“You were just complaining that I’m in town too often.”
“That’s different.” Reuben went toward the barn.
Jonas followed him with his eyes. “Why?”
Reuben pulled his coat from a peg beside the door. “I’m meeting a friend tomorrow. We’re walking along the river.”
“A friend?”
Reuben looked back. “Yes.”
Jonas waited, but Reuben gave him nothing else. He disappeared into the barn and Jonas remained beside the woodpile.
Tobias lifted the axe again.
“You know who he’s meeting, I suppose?”
Tobias set another piece of wood onto the stump. “Yes.”
Jonas stared at him as Tobias swung. The log split cleanly.
“You aren’t going to tell me.”
“No.”
Jonas looked toward the barn.
For most of their lives, he had known nearly everything about his brothers.
Who they fought with.
Who they liked.
What frightened them.
Which one had eaten the last of the jam and lied about it.
After their father died, there had been no room for secrets. Survival required too much cooperation.
Now Reuben had plans Jonas knew nothing about.
Tobias apparently knew more than he did.
The realization sat strangely in his chest.
Jonas had spent weeks in Willow Crossing because Martha needed help.
Because he wanted to stay.
For the first time since he was seventeen, he wondered what he was missing at home while he did.