Chapter 20
Jonas was halfway through replacing another porch board when Martha came outside.
He drove the hammer down, setting the nail with one final strike, then straightened and glanced toward her. She stood near the front steps with her hands tucked into the pockets of her dress, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
“Do you have some time to walk with me?”
Jonas rested the hammer against the porch railing. “I'd love to.”
He climbed down from the porch, favoring his injured leg only slightly now. The pain had become little more than an ache, though he knew Martha was always keeping an eye out to make sure he wasn’t doing more than he should.
As they started down the road, Jonas wondered if this was the moment she'd finally tell him what had been weighing on her.
The thought followed him as they left the inn behind.
Martha had admitted the night before that she had a past she wasn't proud of, but she had stopped there.
He had accepted that she wasn't ready to tell him more, even though his curiosity had not disappeared.
Neither had the concern he felt whenever he saw fear cross her face.
He wanted to understand her, but not because he thought she owed him an explanation. He understood better than most what it meant to carry pieces of your life that other people might never understand.
Martha had seen those pieces in him and never turned away. She had tended his wound, welcomed his brothers, listened to stories about his father and his childhood, and never made him feel as though the things he had endured made him less of a man.
He wanted to give her that same acceptance.
They walked toward the river, where the road narrowed and the sounds of Willow Crossing gradually faded behind them. The air was cold enough that Jonas could see the faintest trace of his breath, and the bare trees along the riverbank shifted softly in the breeze.
Martha stopped beside the water.
“This is my favorite place.”
Jonas looked across the river. “Why?”
“I don't know.” She smiled a little. “It just feels quiet here.”
He understood that.
Martha lowered the basket she had been carrying and sat on a smooth stretch of ground near the bank. When she opened it, Jonas saw paper and pencils tucked inside.
“You brought your drawings.”
“I did.”
She pulled out a sheet of paper and settled it across her lap. “Would you mind if I sketch while we talk?”
“Not at all.”
Jonas sat beside her, stretching his injured leg carefully in front of him. Martha studied him for several seconds before putting pencil to paper.
“You're drawing me again.”
“I am.”
“You've already drawn me.”
“And I'm still not satisfied.”
He smiled. “What's wrong with the first one?”
“Your face.”
Jonas laughed. “My face?”
“There's something about your features that I can't quite capture.” She glanced at him before returning to the paper. “They're captivating.”
He wasn't sure what to say to that.
Martha seemed pleased by his silence and continued drawing.
Jonas watched the river instead, though he found himself stealing glances at her. Her concentration changed her expression, making her look younger somehow, and the faint movement of her hand as she drew reminded him of how naturally she seemed to belong to this quiet place.
“I feel that way at the ranch,” he said.
Her pencil paused. “About what?”
“About never quite being able to capture what makes a place feel like home.”
She looked at him.
“When I'm with my brothers, I don't have to think about it,” Jonas continued. “I know where I am. I know who I am there.”
Martha's expression softened.
“What was it really like raising them?” she asked. “Not just the good parts.”
Jonas leaned back on his hands.
“It was hard.”
She waited.
“Reuben was angry for years. Tobias kept everything inside. And I was trying to raise them when I was still trying to figure out how to take care of myself.”
“You were so young.”
“I didn't have much choice.”
Martha lowered her eyes to the drawing, but Jonas could tell she was listening.
“There were times I was afraid I'd make the wrong decision,” he said. “What to feed them when there wasn't enough. Whether to send one of them into town for something we needed. Whether I should keep them close or let them learn to make it through on their own.”
“You did make it through.”
“Eventually.”
He smiled faintly. “They'd probably tell you I didn't do very well at it.”
“I doubt that.”
Jonas looked toward the river. “The hardest part wasn't the work. It was watching them try to understand where they belonged.”
Martha's pencil slowed.
“We all struggled with that,” he said. “Reuben fought against it. Tobias tried to disappear into it. I spent years believing I had to choose which part of myself mattered more.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Jonas shook his head. “I don't think any of us did.”
He had spent enough of his life trying to answer questions other people asked about him that he had finally stopped believing he needed to provide answers. His brothers were different from each other, and neither of them needed to become something else to make the world more comfortable.
“I think we're still figuring it out,” he said. “All three of us.”
Martha gave him a small smile.
“What about you?” he asked. “What did you dream about?”
She looked down at her paper.
“A family.”
The answer was so quiet that Jonas almost wondered if he had heard her.
“I thought I'd have one,” she continued. “A husband, children, a home full of people.”
Jonas watched her pencil move across the paper.
“But now it's just me, Eliza and Percy.”
“You're close.”
“They’re like family.” Martha's mouth curved sadly. “But Eliza won't stay forever.”
Jonas understood before she explained.
“Reuben?”
Martha glanced at him, surprised.
“You've noticed?”
“Reuben isn't particularly difficult to read.”
She laughed.
“I think she's getting closer to him,” Martha said. “And I'm happy for her. I am. But someday she'll leave the inn, and it'll just be me again. And Percy.”
Jonas looked at her for a moment.
“You won't always be alone.”
She didn't answer.
He wasn't sure whether she believed him.
Martha returned her attention to the drawing, and Jonas found himself thinking about the question she had asked him. For years, he had measured his future by what his brothers needed. There had never been much room for anything else.
“I used to think I didn't have any dreams,” he said.
Her pencil stopped again.
“I suppose I never had time to think about them.”
“What about now?”
Jonas looked at her.
“Now I'm starting to wonder what it would be like to have a family of my own.”
Martha lifted her eyes from the paper.
Their gazes met.
For a moment, Jonas forgot about the river and the cold and the ranch waiting beyond the hills. Something warm settled in his chest, and he could feel his heartbeat change beneath his ribs.
Martha looked down first.
Her pencil moved again, though more slowly than before.
Jonas smiled to himself and let her finish.
When she finally lowered the pencil, she turned the paper toward him.
“All right.”
He took it carefully.
The drawing was good. Better than good, really. She had captured the shape of his face and the fall of his hair, the lines around his eyes and the set of his mouth. It looked like him, but somehow more thoughtful than he felt.
“You captured me well this time.”
Martha smiled. “I told you I was trying.”
Jonas looked at the drawing again.
“You made me look better than I am.”
“I drew what I saw.”
He looked up.
She was watching him.
Jonas held her gaze for a moment before glancing back at the picture. He wasn't sure what to say to that, so he didn't say anything.
Then the wind shifted.
Jonas's expression changed as he smelled something sharp, something acrid.
“Martha.”
She looked at him.
“Do you smell something?”
Her smile vanished.
Jonas turned toward the road, breathing in again.
There it was, unmistakable.
Smoke.