A quick glance at the coats hanging on the wall told him Jessalyn’s was still there, the deep red color sticking out like a single beam of sunlight through storm clouds from the drab brown, blue, and mackinaw coats everyone else wore. Of course his wife would have the most stylish coat of the lot. And knowing her, she’d bargained with Mr. Foley at the mercantile until he’d sold her the entire bolt of fabric for a dollar, then made the coat herself. He shoved his arms into his own mackinaw coat before snagging hers and heading out the door.
She hadn’t gone to the outhouse but stood on the porch, leaning against the log wall of the house, her arms clasped tightly about her.
“I’m sorry, Jess. I shouldn’t have answered Olivia’s question about the letters, at least not in front of all those people.” He held out her coat.
She extended her arms, letting him hold it while she slipped it on. “Don’t apologize. I bullied you into telling me. Just like I bullied you about things when we were married.”
Weremarried? “Are married, Jess. Wearemarried.” And if one of them claimed the title of bully, it should be him. Jessalyn could be stubborn about certain things, but not nearly as stubborn as him.
She wrapped her arms around herself again and looked over the porch railing into the quiet, windless night. “Six months ago would have been when Henry died.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. What was there to say? He’d never cared much for Jessalyn’s cousin-in-law, not even when he’d been a new immigrant just off the boat from Cornwall and Henry had offered him a job at his warehouse—a job where Thomas had quickly worked his way into a foreman position.
“That’s when you started getting my letters back, isn’t it? After he died.”
“Yes.” He and Mathilda had figured out that much when he’d finally made it to Chicago. “Mathilda never knew about the letters or the money. When she started getting the mail after Henry’s carriage accident, she promptly returned the letters to me. Before he died, it appears as though Henry was forging your signature on the banknotes and keeping the money for himself.”
Jessalyn leaned her arms on the porch rail and hung her head. “Can you get the stolen money back?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Mathilda seemed like she was in a rough place when I saw her. Evidently I wasn’t the only one Henry had less than honorable dealings with. The authorities in Chicago are looking into it, and the banknotes are traceable.”
“I had no idea, and I can’t believe Henry would have…” She shook her head, her shoulders still slumped over the railing. “No, that’s not true. I had an idea of what he was capable of, but I’d never realized he’d turn his ill intentions on you.”
Something about the hard edge in her voice caused him to take a step nearer. “What he was capable of? What do you mean?”
She stared out over the yard, still and quiet even though Lake Superior lay on the other side of the cabin. “I tried to go back there after you left. Not right away, but there was a time, maybe a year later, when the money was gone and Megan was a babe and I had barely any work and no way to eat. I sent Mathilda a letter asking if we could come.”
“I was already sending money by then, though not as much as I was able to send after I built those boardinghouses.” Thomas’s hands curled into fists. “The thief. He was stealing money out of your hands, and then he wrote and said you weren’t welcome in Chicago? If he wasn’t already six feet under, I’d?—”
“He didn’t write.”
“What?”
She kept her gaze on the snowy yard, the full moon illuminating the ground and casting its pale glow over her delicate face. “He didn’t write. He came to Eagle Harbor in person, demanding to know what was going on.”
“As though he couldn’t figure it out from the letters he was stealing?” Thomas huffed a breath into the cold.
“Henry said he’d take me back, but not the children. Said he knew of a nice orphanage in Chicago where the girls could be placed with good families and be better taken care of than I could care for them on my own.”
Henry had donewhat?
“Jess…”I’m so sorry.The words didn’t seem like enough. He gripped her elbows and turned her to face him. “Had I any wayof knowing, I would have left Deadwood and come to collect you and the girls, regardless of how much money I did or didn’t have, regardless of the kind of life I could have given you. At least we’d have all been together.”
And maybe he’d have had a better chance at restoring his relationship with his wife.
Jessalyn dropped her gaze to the snowy porch, though she didn’t pull away from him. “Henry told me he’d decided who I should marry next. Someone more advantageous, even better than Walter Shunk.”
“Someone you should marry?” Thomas’s thunderous voice echoed across the snow, only to be swallowed by the silence of the pristine night. “You were married tome.”
“He wanted me to get a divorce. Had some idea about getting one on grounds of abandonment. By that point, I was already wondering if you were dead. Even with our argument before you left, I knew you weren’t the type to turn your back on us for good.”
He sucked in a breath, sharp and cold. Did she realize what she’d just admitted? She might have put up a fight about him disappearing for five years, but deep down she’d known he’d never meant to do such a thing.
“I couldn’t give up the girls like Henry wanted though, which left me here alone. But it also gave me a certain determination. Without anyone else to turn to, I had to provide for the girls, so I started taking in sewing. One thing led to another, and here I am today.” She opened her hands and let them fall, drawing attention to the trim cut of her winter coat and the flawless way the thick fabric drifted over her. “I’m giving work to needy women in Eagle Harbor. I have dresses commissioned for a bridal party in Chicago next summer and a solid client base there that I can call on when I move my shop. And I plan to open afactory where I can help even more women who find themselves in situations similar to what mine once was.”
He took a step back and let his gaze skim down her, the reflection of the moon on the snow so bright they might well be standing beneath the gas chandelier in his Deadwood hotel lobby. Her deep coat provided a perfect splash of color against a night bathed in white. Her silky blonde hair was starting to fall from her updo. She’d curled her hair tonight too, similar to how she’d worn it the first time he’d met her, in the office of Henry’s warehouse, waiting for a suitor who’d gotten drawn into a conversation with Henry.
He tried to swallow, but his throat muscles were so tight the task was nearly impossible. “You did well for yourself. I never had any doubt that you could. But now that I’m here, you don’t have to do everything alone.”
