“Thank you.”

The kitchen was a catastrophe.

Mabel stared at it.

Gideon cleared his throat.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Were you attacked?”

His brow furrowed.

“By dishes?”

She looked at a stack leaning precariously beside the basin.

“Apparently.”

Annie covered a laugh.

Gideon looked at her.

The girl instantly became serious.

But Mabel saw something startling.

Gideon Cross smiled.

Barely.

It transformed his face.

Then it vanished.

He brought bread, beans, dried apples, and milk for the girls.

Mabel tried to refuse the food as part of her wages.

Gideon ignored her.

While her daughters ate at the kitchen table, Mabel rolled up her sleeves.

She worked.

And worked.

And worked.

Dust disappeared beneath wet cloths.

Grease surrendered to boiling water and lye soap.

Dishes reappeared from beneath crusts of forgotten meals.

Mabel discovered shelves whose actual color surprised Gideon when he entered.

“You own blue dishes,” she told him.

“I do?”

“Apparently.”

By midafternoon, Gideon stopped pretending he was entering the house for tools.

He was watching her.

Not the way men at the saloon watched women.

He watched the details.

Mabel dividing a leftover biscuit into three pieces.

Mabel repairing Clara’s torn sleeve while waiting for water to heat.

Mabel kneeling beside Rose after the child knocked over a cup.

“It’s only water, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Then help me wipe it up.”

No anger.

No humiliation.

Only patience.

He watched Annie quietly take her mother’s hand when Mabel thought no one was looking.

And Gideon began understanding what Cinder Creek had completely failed to understand.

Mabel Harlo was not weak.

She was exhausted.

She was frightened.

She was hungry.

But whatever strength remained inside her, she gave to her daughters before keeping any for herself.

At sunset, the house looked different.

Not perfect.

Alive.

Clara had discovered an old wooden horse and was making it gallop along the floorboards.

Rose sat near the window drawing pictures with a charcoal nub Gideon found.

Annie was reading an ancient newspaper aloud to them.

Their voices moved through rooms that had heard almost nothing but wind for years.

Gideon stood in the hallway.

Something inside his chest hurt.

He had thought silence meant peace.

Now, listening to children laugh in his house, he realized silence had only been absence with better manners.

Mabel dried the final plate.

“That should do.”

She lowered her aching hands.

Gideon glanced outside.

Night had fallen.

“I’ll pay you.”

“Whatever you think is fair.”

He counted coins into her palm.

Mabel stared.

“This is too much.”

“No.”

“It is.”

“Then come tomorrow and earn the difference.”

Her fingers closed around the money.

“All right.”

She gathered the girls.

Gideon watched.

“You’re going?”

Mabel hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

She looked toward the door.

“I’ll manage.”

“Where?”

Mabel straightened.

“The church porch has an overhang.”

For several seconds Gideon said nothing.

Then his eyes went toward Clara, already asleep against Annie.

Something hardened in his jaw.

“No.”

Mabel turned sharply.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not sleeping on a church porch.”

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

“No.”

Heat rose inside her.