Hannah felt suddenly unable to breathe.
“Jonas…”
He stepped closer.
“I meant what I told you that first day.”
“What part?”
“That I’d spent fifteen years eating alone.”
His voice grew quieter.
“I didn’t know how lonely this house had become until your children started breaking things.”
Hannah laughed through tears.
Jonas continued.
“I love Luke’s questions even when he asks them while I’m trying to fix fence.”
Luke shouted from twenty yards away.
“I can hear you!”
“I know!”
Jonas looked back at Hannah.
“I love Elsie’s flowers in water glasses. Ben putting frogs in my boots. May waking me at sunrise because she thinks six years old gives her authority over breakfast.”
He stopped.
“And I love you.”
Hannah closed her eyes.
There it was.
The sentence she had feared.
Because she wanted it.
Because she had wanted it for longer than she could admit.
“I’m not asking you for the spring,” Jonas said.
“I know.”
“I’m not asking because of the children.”
“I know.”
“I’m not asking because you work for me.”
Her eyes opened.
“You don’t.”
“What?”
“I ended the contract this morning.”
Jonas stared.
“You can’t.”
“It says thirty days’ notice.”
“You read the contract too carefully.”
“I live with a man who prefers contracts.”
He laughed.
Hannah reached for his hand.
“I don’t want wages from you anymore.”
His smile disappeared.
“What do you want?”
She squeezed his fingers.
“A partnership.”
His voice dropped.
“What kind?”
She moved closer.
“The kind that includes children breaking cups.”
“Risky.”
“Chickens in kitchens.”
“Dangerous.”
“Arguments.”
“Expected.”
“And possibly…”
She hesitated.
“Marriage.”
Jonas went utterly still.
Then May’s voice called across the courthouse yard.
“Are you kissing yet?”
Hannah covered her face.
Jonas shouted back.
“No!”
Ben yelled, “Why not?”
Everyone in the yard laughed.
Even Hannah.
Especially Hannah.
Jonas leaned toward her.
“Your children lack subtlety.”
“Our children.”
That silenced him.
Hannah saw the words reach him.
Our children.
Jonas’s eyes shone.
He touched her cheek.
“Our children.”
And kissed her.
They married six weeks later beneath the cottonwood trees.
Nothing about it was grand.
Hannah wore blue.
Jonas wore the only suit he owned.
Luke stood beside him.
Elsie carried wildflowers.
Ben lost one shoe before the ceremony.
May insisted Bunny deserved to attend because Bunny had “saved everybody.”
No one argued.
Afterward, they held supper outdoors.
Ranchers who had once lost land to Voss came from three counties.
Someone brought a fiddle.
Someone else brought whiskey.
The children danced until long after sunset.
Late that evening Hannah stood beside Cottonwood Spring.
Jonas joined her.
“What are you thinking?”
“That six months ago I thought having four children made me undesirable.”
Jonas shook his head.
“Poor judgment.”
