Thomas healed slowly.
For three days, Eleanor practically ordered him to remain indoors.
For three days, Thomas behaved like the most difficult patient in Montana Territory.
“I can walk.”
“You can limp.”
“I can review the herd reports.”
“You can review them sitting down.”
“I need to check the south barn.”
“You need to avoid tearing open your stitches.”
Thomas glared at her.
Eleanor glared back.
Samuel whispered to Daniel, “She’s winning.”
Thomas heard him.
“So did I.”
Despite his protests, Thomas obeyed.
Something softened between husband and wife during those days.
Eleanor brought his meals to the study.
They spoke about more than cattle and lessons.
Thomas told her how he had built the ranch from a small inheritance and eighty cattle.
Eleanor told him about Ohio.
About her mother teaching her to read before she was five.
About her father losing the farm after borrowing money during two bad harvests.
Thomas listened.
He did not offer empty sympathy.
That was one thing she appreciated about him.
When she described her former fiancé ending their engagement, Thomas’s face hardened.
“What was his name?”
“Why?”
“So I know who to dislike if he ever comes west.”
Eleanor laughed.
“You’ve never met him.”
“Don’t need to.”
“He made a practical decision.”
“No.”
Thomas’s voice changed.
“He made a cowardly one.”
Eleanor became still.
Thomas looked at her.
“A man who only wants a woman when she has money doesn’t want the woman.”
Something inside her cracked open.
For years, she had quietly wondered whether she had been foolish.
Too proud.
Too difficult.
Perhaps not valuable enough to marry without a dowry.
Thomas spoke as if the answer were obvious.
Her former fiancé had been the one lacking something.
Not her.
She lowered her eyes.
“Thank you.”
Thomas’s voice softened.
“For what?”
She smiled.
“You ask that a lot.”
By March, winter showed signs of weakening.
Snow still covered the range, but daylight lingered longer.
Eleanor began planning spring lessons for children from nearby ranches.
Word spread.
Parents who had protested the closure of Bitter Creek’s school began sending messages.
Could Mrs. Caldwell teach their children too?
Thomas cleared out a large unused room on the ground floor.
“You don’t have to do this,” Eleanor told him.
“You said you wanted to teach.”
“I said I wanted permission.”
“You have permission.”
“That doesn’t require building desks.”
Thomas looked toward the ranch hands carrying lumber.
“I like building things.”
Within a week, the room had twelve small desks.
Eleanor stood in the doorway staring at them.
Thomas approached.
“Enough?”
“For now.”
“For now?”
She smiled.
“I have ambitions.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
Then the problem came.
Chairman Willis visited the ranch.
He arrived with his wife Beatrice and another school board member.
Eleanor received them in the parlor.
Willis cleared his throat.
“We’ve secured emergency territorial funding.”
“That’s good news.”
“We’re reopening the school.”
“Even better.”
“We want you back.”
Eleanor had not expected that.
Thomas, standing near the fireplace, said nothing.
Willis continued.
“The board believes you’re the best person for the position.”
Eleanor nearly laughed.
“A few months ago, education could wait.”
“We were facing financial realities.”
“And now?”
“Now circumstances have improved.”
Beatrice smiled thinly.
“Of course, it might also be healthier for everyone if you returned to respectable employment.”
Thomas shifted.
Eleanor noticed.
“What exactly does that mean?” she asked.
Beatrice glanced around the expensive room.
“People talk.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“A woman marrying a wealthy widower days after losing her income invites speculation.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“My wife does not need to defend our marriage to you.”
Beatrice stiffened.
Willis raised his hands.
“No one meant offense.”
“You brought her into my house,” Thomas said.
“I assume you intended something.”
Eleanor touched his arm.
“I can handle this.”
Thomas looked at her.
Then nodded.
Eleanor turned to Willis.
“Thank you for the offer.”
His face brightened.
“But I won’t return under the same conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“The school remains open through the entire academic year.”
“That depends on funding.”
“Then secure funding before hiring me.”
Willis frowned.
“Mrs. Caldwell—”
“You dismissed me with three days’ notice. Children lost their lessons, and I lost my income and home. I won’t help the board pretend none of that happened.”
Beatrice said, “Perhaps wealth has made you demanding.”
Eleanor smiled.
“No. Poverty did.”
Beatrice had no answer.
After they left, Thomas turned to Eleanor.
“Are you going back?”
She looked at him.
“Do you want me to?”
His expression became guarded.
“It’s your decision.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Thomas walked to the window.
“I told you before we married that you could work.”
“Thomas.”
He remained silent.
Eleanor understood.
He did not want her to leave the ranch each day.
But he refused to tell her what to do.
The realization warmed her.
“I haven’t decided.”
Thomas nodded.
Unfortunately, Daniel overheard only part of their conversation.
Later that evening, he passed the study and heard Eleanor say, “If I return to the schoolhouse…”
He heard Thomas answer, “You have every right to go.”
Daniel stopped.
Go.
The word lodged inside him.
By morning, he had disappeared.
At first, Thomas assumed the boy was in the barn.
Then Samuel found Daniel’s coat missing.
So were his boots.
His small saddle horse remained behind.
Panic moved through the house.
“Daniel!” Thomas shouted across the yard.
No answer.
Fresh snow had begun falling.
Eleanor found footprints leading north.
Thomas’s face drained of color.
“The creek.”
“What?”
“There’s an old line cabin near Bitter Creek. Margaret used to take him there when he was small.”
“Why would he go there?”
Thomas looked at her.
He knew.
“He thinks you’re leaving.”
Eleanor’s heart stopped.
They rode immediately.
Snow thickened.
Daniel’s tracks appeared and vanished beneath the wind.
Thomas’s injured shoulder made riding painful, but he refused to stop.
After nearly two hours, Eleanor saw something near a stand of pines.
A scarf.
Daniel’s scarf.
“Thomas!”
They dismounted.
The footprints led toward the creek.
Ice covered much of the surface, but spring water had begun weakening it.
Then they heard a cry.
“Papa!”
Daniel stood on a narrow shelf of ice fifteen yards from shore.
A dark crack spread behind him.
Thomas moved forward.
“Don’t move!”
Daniel was sobbing.
“I’m sorry!”
“Stay where you are.”
Thomas tested the ice.
It cracked beneath his boot.
Eleanor grabbed his arm.
“You’re too heavy.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“You’ll both go through.”
Thomas looked at her.
Eleanor was smaller.
Much lighter.
“No.”
“Thomas.”
“No.”
The ice cracked again.
Daniel screamed.
There was no time.
Eleanor dropped to her stomach and crawled onto the frozen creek.
“Eleanor!”
“Keep talking to him.”
She moved slowly, spreading her weight.
Daniel stared at her.
“I thought you were leaving.”
“Not today.”
Crack.
Eleanor froze.
Water seeped over the ice.
“Look at me, Daniel.”
His teeth chattered.
“I heard you.”
“I know.”
“You said you were going.”
“I said I might teach in town.”
“That means you’ll leave.”
“No.”
She moved closer.
“Teaching somewhere else during the day doesn’t mean leaving a family.”
Daniel cried harder.
“You promised you’d stay.”
“And I meant it.”
Another crack.
Thomas shouted from shore.
“Eleanor, come back!”
She ignored him.
“Daniel, lie down.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
“You are?”
“Terrified.”
He stared at her.
“Brave people are still scared, Daniel. They just decide something else matters more.”
Daniel slowly lowered himself.
“Good.”
Eleanor reached him.
“Take my hand.”
The instant his fingers touched hers, the ice collapsed.
Daniel plunged through.
Eleanor screamed.
Thomas ran onto the ice despite everything.
Eleanor grabbed Daniel’s coat as freezing water swallowed her arm to the shoulder.
“Hold on!”
Daniel thrashed.
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can!”
Thomas reached them.
The ice cracked beneath his weight.
He seized Eleanor’s belt with one hand and Daniel’s collar with the other.
“Pull!”
Together they dragged the boy onto solid ice.
Then all three crawled toward shore.
Ranch hands arrived minutes later.
They wrapped Daniel and Eleanor in blankets.
Thomas climbed into the wagon beside them.
His hands shook violently.
Not from cold.
Rage and terror fought across his face.
Eleanor expected him to yell at Daniel.
He did not.
He pulled his son against his chest.
“Never do that again.”
Daniel sobbed.
“I thought she was leaving.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“No.”
His voice broke.
“She isn’t leaving.”
Eleanor looked at him.
The certainty in his voice startled her.
Back at the ranch, the doctor declared Daniel dangerously chilled but unharmed.
Eleanor had mild frostbite on two fingers.
Thomas paced outside her room while the doctor treated her.
When he finally entered, his face was pale.
“You could have died.”
“So could Daniel.”
“That doesn’t make it acceptable.”
“What would you have had me do?”
“Let me go.”
“You would have broken the ice.”
Thomas slammed one hand against the bedpost.
“You could have died!”
Eleanor stared.
His voice cracked on the final word.
Thomas looked away.
Suddenly she understood.
This was not anger.
This was the memory of another woman dying while he could do nothing to stop it.
“Thomas.”
He turned.
“I am not Margaret.”
His face changed.
“No.”
“I’m here.”
He stared at her.
“You don’t know that.”
“What?”
“You don’t know what can happen tomorrow.”
“No one does.”
“That’s the problem.”
Thomas stepped back.
“It was easier when this was an arrangement.”
Eleanor’s heartbeat quickened.
“Why?”
His eyes met hers.
“Because arrangements don’t terrify a man.”
Silence filled the room.
Eleanor whispered, “And wives do?”
Thomas looked at her for a long time.
Then answered with painful honesty.
“You do.”
He left before she could respond.
And Eleanor sat in the fading light, finally understanding what neither of them had been willing to name.
Thomas Caldwell was afraid of loving her.
Which meant, somewhere along the way, their loveless marriage had already become something else.
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