Chapter 19
Martha woke to the sharp crash of breaking glass.
For several seconds, she lay perfectly still beneath the blankets, her heart pounding as she listened to the silence that followed. Another crash never came. The inn remained standing around her, cold and dark, but the sound had been unmistakable. Glass breaking downstairs.
Her first thought was the east wing. After the west wing collapsed, she had begun to wake at every groan of the old building, expecting another wall or floor to give way beneath her. She held her breath and listened again, but there was no settling timber, no rumble of falling plaster.
Someone was downstairs.
Martha pushed herself out of bed and pulled her dressing gown tightly around her. She slipped into the hallway, moving quietly toward the kitchen. The floorboards felt cold beneath her bare feet, and she paused at the top of the stairs when she saw a faint glow coming from below.
There was someone in the kitchen.
Her stomach tightened. For one terrible moment, she wondered if everything she had spent the past year running from had finally found her. Perhaps this was how it happened.
She reached the bottom step and saw the man standing near the pantry.
He turned.
Silas looked straight at her.
A grin spread across his face as he tipped his hat.
Then he stepped through the kitchen door and ran.
Martha couldn't move. She stood there staring at the empty doorway, her fingers tightening around the edge of her dressing gown until her knuckles hurt.
He had broken glass in the middle of the night, forced his way through a door that he could open anytime, purely to cause destruction. Why?
He had wanted her to know he could.
The fear that had followed Silas from the moment he arrived settled over her again, heavy and familiar.
She had known he would never simply leave her alone.
Not after Amos had betrayed him. Not after Amos had taken what belonged to the gang and disappeared with it, leaving Silas to face the consequences alone.
Martha had lived with that knowledge every day since.
Amos had made his choice. He had turned on the men who had once called him brother, taken the money, and run. She had gone with him.
She had believed they could leave everything behind and become different people somewhere no one knew their names. She had wanted to believe that badly enough to ignore everything she knew about what the gang had done and what men like Silas were capable of.
But there was no leaving something like that behind.
Not when people had been hurt. Not when people had died. Not when Silas had spent years paying for a betrayal Amos had planned.
And now Silas wanted her to pay for it too.
She didn't know how long he intended to torment her.
She only knew she could not tell anyone in the life that she was living now the truth.
If she went to the sheriff and admitted what she had done, everything she had built would disappear.
The inn. Her livelihood. Her name. Percy.
The small, fragile life she had managed to build after Amos died.
And Jonas.
That thought hurt more than the rest.
Martha turned abruptly and hurried down the hall toward Percy's room. She needed to know he was safe before she did anything else.
She pushed his door open and found him sitting upright in bed, a book open in his lap.
Percy looked up in surprise. “Miss Martha?”
“Are you all right?” She crossed the room and looked him over before she could stop herself. “Did you hear anything?”
“No, did something happen?” He glanced toward the hallway. “I could go check on things for you.”
“You are staying right here.” Martha's voice came out sharper than she intended, and Percy blinked at her. She softened immediately. “Please. Just stay in your room until I come back.”
He nodded, then looked down at the book in his lap.
Martha recognized the worn cover. “Where did you get that?”
“Jonas gave it to me this morning.” Percy ran a finger along the edge of the page. “It's about horses.”
Despite everything, warmth moved through Martha's chest. “I bet,” she said with a smile.
Percy smiled. “He said I should learn how to care for one before I start asking for one.”
Martha almost smiled back. Almost. Instead, she touched his shoulder and said, “Stay here. I mean it.”
“I will.”
She closed the door behind her and returned to the kitchen.
Two lamps burned on the table by the time Jonas arrived, having apparently heard the commotion from wherever he had been sleeping. Martha looked up when he came through the doorway, and guilt struck her so quickly that she nearly looked away.
Another lie.
Another thing she would have to keep from him.
She wanted to tell him. God, she wanted to tell him.
But how could she explain any of it? How could she look into his eyes and tell him she had once belonged to the same gang that had left scars on his life?
Even though she had not been there when his father was killed, even though she had never taken a life herself, the men she had ridden beside had done terrible things. She had helped them. She had made choices that allowed them to keep doing them.
And Jonas had trusted her.
That was what made the guilt unbearable.
“Martha?”
She realized he was looking at her.
“I'm all right,” she said quickly. “Just frightened.”
Jonas stepped farther into the kitchen, his eyes moving over the broken glass scattered across the floor.
“What happened?”
“I don't know.”
He looked at her again.
Martha forced herself to turn toward the pantry. The shelves were a wreck. Jars of preserved vegetables had been knocked from their places, and broken glass covered the floor beneath them. Pickles, beans, fruit, and other food she had spent months preparing lay mixed in a terrible mess.
“He destroyed all of it,” she whispered.
Jonas crouched beside one of the shelves, careful not to touch the glass. “Did you see who did this?”
Martha's throat tightened.
“No.”
The lie tasted bitter.
Jonas studied her for a moment, but he did not press her. Instead, he found the broom and began sweeping the larger pieces of glass into a pile.
Martha picked up a cloth and began gathering what she could save. For several minutes they worked without speaking. The only sounds were the scrape of the broom, the clink of glass, and the occasional hiss of Martha's breath when she found another ruined jar.
Their hands brushed once as they reached for the same piece of broken crockery.
Martha pulled back, but Jonas's fingers remained close to hers for a moment.
She wanted to turn toward him.
She wanted to forget Silas, the gang, Amos, the money, the fear, all of it. She wanted Jonas to put his arms around her and hold her until she could believe the nightmare was over.
Instead, she picked up another shard of glass.
“I'll speak to Sheriff Crane in the morning,” she said.
Jonas nodded. “You should.”
Martha swallowed. “There's something else.”
He stopped sweeping.
She kept her eyes on the floor. “I have a past I'm not proud of.”
Jonas waited.
Martha's hands trembled slightly as she wrapped the broken pieces in the cloth. “I don't want to tell you every detail tonight. I can't.”
“You don't have to.”
She looked at him then.
“But I need you to understand that I've done things I regret,” she said. “A long time ago, I was a criminal. I made choices I wish I could undo.”
Jonas's expression remained steady.
“I never hurt anyone,” she continued, and the words nearly broke her. “I never took a life. But I was part of things I shouldn't have been part of.”
Her mind flashed with faces she tried not to remember. Men who had laughed together around a fire. Men who had ridden beside her. Men who had treated violence as though it were simply another part of the work.
She had never pulled the trigger on a person, but she could not pretend that meant she had been innocent.
“I wish I could change it,” she whispered. “I wish I could go back and make different choices.”
Jonas leaned against the counter, watching her quietly.
“Is this the past that Silas knows about?”
Martha's heart stumbled.
She looked away. “Partly.”
It was all she could give him.
Jonas didn't ask another question.
“I will tell you everything one day,” Martha said. “I promise I will. But there is just too much happening right now, and I don't know how to explain all of it without losing everything.”
She drew a shaky breath. “You're the one bright spot I have. I don't want to lose you before I've even had the chance to figure out how to tell you the truth.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Jonas stepped closer, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. He took his time doing so, giving her the chance to object if she wanted to, or step away if she felt uncomfortable. She did neither. “It can be enough for now,” he said gently, eyes searching her face.
Martha stared at him.
“You don't have to tell me everything tonight,” he said. “If someday you decide you're ready, I'll listen.”
Her eyes burned.
Jonas reached out and gently brushed a piece of glass dust from the back of her hand.
“I have things I'm not proud of too.”
Martha gave him a sad little smile. “Nothing like mine.”
“You don't know that.”
She almost asked him what he meant. Instead, she let the question go.
For tonight, she had given him more truth than she had ever intended to give anyone.
And somehow, instead of turning away, he was still standing beside her.