His little chin lifted.
“Why?”
“Because supper is about to improve.”
There was almost nothing in the pantry.
Cornmeal.
Beans soaked from that morning.
Salt pork.
A shriveled onion.
Several eggs.
Dried chilies.
A little molasses.
Nora smiled.
She had spent half her life learning that having little and having nothing were two entirely different conditions.
Within minutes, the kitchen changed.
She rendered the salt pork until the fat shimmered.
She browned onion in it, added beans, crushed chili, and enough water to make a thick stew.
She mixed cornmeal with eggs and hot grease and poured it into an iron skillet.
The smell of baking cornbread crept beneath the doors.
Cade appeared first.
Then Porter.
Then Reeve.
Eli stopped sharpening the knife.
Even Thomas eventually entered from outside, shoulders stiff, expression guarded.
Nora pointed at the table.
“Sit.”
Six boys obeyed.
That might have been miracle enough.
Then the front door opened.
The room went silent.
Harlan Greer stepped inside.
He was taller than Nora had imagined, broad through the shoulders, his shirt stained with dust and sweat. Dark hair curled beneath his hat. His face had been carved hard by weather and exhaustion.
His eyes moved over the table.
His sons.
The food.
Rue with cornbread crumbs already on his cheeks.
Then Nora.
For several seconds, nobody breathed.
Nora wiped her hands on the borrowed apron tied around her waist.
“Mr. Greer.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Yes?”
“Supper’s ready.”
A strange expression crossed his face.
Shock, perhaps.
Or fear.
But he removed his hat.
And sat.
The boys ate with the concentration of starving wolves.
Harlan spooned up the beans.
Took one bite.
Stopped.
Nora waited.
Finally he looked at her.
“This is the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time.”
No one laughed.
No one praised her.
Yet beneath the table, Cade quietly pushed an empty chair toward Nora with his boot.
An invitation.
Small.
Reluctant.
Unmistakable.
Nora sat.
And for the first time since reaching Sorrow Creek, she wondered whether she had walked into a terrible mistake…
or into a family that had been waiting for her without knowing it.
Later, the boys disappeared upstairs.
The house settled into uneasy silence.
Harlan stood by the kitchen window while Nora washed the last tin plate.
“You should have been met in town,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I apologize.”
“I noticed you weren’t there.”
His mouth tightened.
“I didn’t know what to do.”
Nora dried her hands.
“With your wife arriving?”
Harlan looked at her sharply.
For the first time that evening, Nora felt cold.
“Why did you agree to marry a stranger with six boys?” he asked.
She folded the dishcloth carefully.
“Because I was tired of being somebody’s burden.”
His expression changed.
“My aunt died in March,” Nora continued. “The house belonged to her husband’s family. I could work as a seamstress and spend the next twenty years renting one room above a laundry, or I could answer an advertisement from a man who claimed he wanted someone useful.”
She held his gaze.
“I chose useful.”
Harlan looked away.
“Nora…”
“What?”
“There is something you need to know before you decide you’re staying.”
