Isaac chuckled. “He’s married, if that’s what you’re glowering about. Happily so. Got himself hitched this spring.”
“And do you have yourself a wife too?” After all, Jess had listened to Isaac about not slapping him. Isaac had also been the one to go into the corner and play with the younger girls while Olivia was in the sickroom.
Isaac watched him over the rim of his coffee cup. “For a man who’s been gone for five years, you seem awful concerned about your wife all of a sudden.”
Thomas stood to his full six-foot, five-inch height and crossed his arms over his chest. “Answer the question.”
“No, I don’t have a wife. I’ve got myself a badge instead.” Isaac jerked a thumb toward the shiny star on his chest. “You can call me sheriff.”
“Sheriff? How old are you?” He bit the inside of his cheek. He shouldn’t be mouthing off to the town sheriff, even if he could remember a time when the sheriff had been as gangly as a string bean and spoke with a voice as high as a woman’s.
Isaac probably should have issued some kind of veiled threat to lock him up if he kept running his mouth, but the younger man only laughed. “I’m not still seventeen, if that’s what you mean.”
Thomas gripped the back of his neck, half because he needed something for his hands to do, and half because it was a good way to stretch his shoulder without making others aware of his injury. “Sorry, I guess in some ways, I thought everything in Eagle Harbor would be the same as when I left.”
“Things change, and I imagine Jess is halfway home by now, so you may as well take off your wet boots and have some soup in the kitchen with everyone else.”
Thomas looked around the empty room. Hot soup did sound good, and maybe some coffee to warm the parts inside that still felt frozen from his swim in the lake. But he had other business to attend. “I need to find a room to rent. Is the boardinghouse still on Center Street?”
“It is, but you won’t find a room there. Mrs. Kainer’s been all full up for a while now.” Isaac took another sip of coffee.
Thomas tried not to notice the steam wafting from the mug, tried not to think of the rush of liquid sliding down the other man’s throat to warm his belly. “Is there another boardinghouse?”
Isaac shook his head.
“A hotel?”
Another head shake.
“Where else can I try?”
“Somewhere in Central, maybe. Most people aren’t exactly looking for rooms to let this time of year.”
“Central?” The mining town was five miles away. “That’s too far from Jess.”
Isaac raised his eyebrows, and Thomas swallowed. Yes, he’d been much farther than five miles away for the past several years, but he was here to fix that now, and the rest wasn’t the other man’s business.
“There isn’t anything closer.” Isaac warmed his hands against the coffee mug. “Used to be rooms for let above the bakery, but an Irishwoman’s renting those now.”
That left him with only one place to go. So much for giving Jessalyn time. “Is my wife still living in the little blue house a block from North Street? Or Elijah mentioned something about a shop. Does she live there now?”
The coffee mug wobbled in Isaac’s hand, sloshing a bit of dark liquid over the side. “You’re just going to show up on her step and demand she take you in?”
“You have a better idea?”
Isaac took a long sip of coffee. So long, in fact, that he might well be using his drink to stall for time. “How long do you need this room for?”
That was a good question. Jess didn’t truly mean to make him wait until spring, did she?
He’d been planning to return to Deadwood before Thanksgiving and had told his hotel manager to expect exactly that.
Which was even more frustrating. If he’d known she was here instead of in Chicago, he could have arrived a week ago, packed everything up, and sailed them to Duluth just ahead of the storm. From there they could have traveled to Deadwood by rail. But now they just might need to wait until the harbor opened—probably sometime in May—before they could leave.
Could they travel overland to the train station in Calumet before then? That would be a long, dangerous trip in the winter with three little girls.
“Don’t know.” Thomas scratched his chin and looked at Isaac. “At least long enough to pack up Jessalyn’s things and arrange for them to be shipped in the spring.”
Isaac set his mug on the table. “And you don’t care what she has to say about leaving?”
