Gideon’s expression remained calm, but a faint redness appeared above his beard.
“I need a partner. Not payment.”
The silence became enormous.
“You built yourself a smaller bed.”
“Yes.”
“In your own house.”
“Yes.”
“For a woman who hadn’t even agreed to come.”
“Yes.”
Martha laughed.
Then, unexpectedly, she covered her mouth and began to cry.
Not prettily.
Not quietly.
Years of humiliation tore out of her.
She sank onto the large bed and wept until her shoulders shook.
Gideon took one step toward her.
Stopped.
“Should I go?”
That made her cry harder.
“Yes.”
He immediately turned.
“No.”
He stopped.
Martha wiped her face.
“I don’t know.”
“All right.”
“You’re very irritating.”
“I hear that.”
She laughed through tears.
Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
Gideon’s eyes softened.
“Sleep.”
He closed the door behind him.
Snow came overnight.
By dawn, the ridge had become white and silent.
For the first time in months, Martha woke without fear.
No landlord pounding on the wall.
No children asking about breakfast.
No empty flour tin.
She lay beneath a thick quilt listening to the strange sound of Caleb snoring.
Then she smelled bacon.
Martha sat up.
Gideon was cooking.
Poorly.
When she reached the kitchen, black smoke floated near the ceiling.
Caleb was laughing.
Sarah was beating flames out of a towel.
Gideon stood over a skillet looking personally betrayed by it.
Martha folded her arms.
“I thought you said you needed someone to cook.”
“I was proving my argument.”
She laughed.
It surprised everyone.
Especially her.
The next three weeks changed them.
Martha baked bread.
Caleb learned to split kindling.
Sarah collected eggs from the small chicken house.
Bess followed Gideon everywhere.
The mountain man pretended not to notice.
One morning Martha found him repairing a tiny wooden stool because Bess had complained that her feet did not touch the floor at breakfast.
Another afternoon Sarah returned from the barn wearing Gideon’s enormous hat.
“He said I can have it.”
Gideon appeared behind her.
“I did not.”
“You said maybe.”
“I said, ‘Maybe when I’m dead.’”
Sarah nodded seriously.
“So it’ll be mine eventually.”
Martha laughed until she had to sit down.
At night she and Gideon talked.
Slowly at first.
He had come west at seventeen.
Trapped beaver.
Cut timber.
Worked mines.
Lost a younger brother to fever.
Never married.
“Why?” Martha asked one night.
Gideon stared into the fire.
“Never met a woman who needed me.”
“That’s a terrible reason to marry.”
“I know.”
“People shouldn’t marry because they’re needed.”
“No.”
“They should marry because they’re wanted.”
Gideon looked at her.
The fire cracked.
Martha suddenly became very aware of her hair hanging loose over her shoulders.
She looked away.
“Thomas wanted me,” she said.
Gideon went still.
“He loved me before I became… this.”
Gideon’s brow furrowed.
“This?”
She gestured toward herself.
“You know.”
“No.”
“My size.”
Gideon stared at her so long she became annoyed.
“What?”
“Thomas married you when you were smaller?”
“A little.”
“Hm.”
“What does ‘hm’ mean?”
“Means he was lucky twice.”
Martha blinked.
Gideon stood and added wood to the fire.
Her cheeks burned for twenty minutes.
The first crack in their peaceful life came from Caleb.
He was in the barn unpacking the last of their belongings when he found Thomas Higgins’s rock hammer.
