Then he left her there, right in the middle of the kitchen doorway.
Silence filled the room behind her, and a fresh burst of fire swept her face. She turned to find everyone’s gaze exactly where she’d expected—on her.
It wasn’t fair. No one had ogled Elijah when he’d hugged Victoria, and that had lasted longer than the brief brush of her and Thomas’s lips.
Because everyone expects it from Elijah and Victoria, but not from me and the husband who left me for five years.
“Ah… I’m going to go with the men, see if I can be of help. Maybe Isaac and Thomas will get a quiet Christmas.” Elijah bent down and pressed his lips to the top of Victoria’s head, then rubbed her arm. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Victoria sniffled and wiped at a tear on her cheek. “Go ahead. No sense in staying here. I’d just be a watering pot with you around.”
“I love you.” Elijah brushed a strand of hair out of Victoria’s face, then bent and gave her another kiss, on the lips this time, and he wasn’t in any hurry to finish it.
Heat climbed back into Jessalyn’s face, and she forced her gaze to the window. Frozen rocks and an icy harbor greeted her, but she’d take that over watching a man kiss his wife in a way she’d insisted Thomas not kiss her.
“Ma.” Little Megan came up and tugged on her skirt. “How come you and Pa don’t kiss like that?”
“Sorry.” Elijah pulled away from Victoria, his voice low and rough. “Forgot about the young’uns.”
“That’s quite all right.” Jessalyn pressed a hand to her cheek. Surely the heat in her face had something to do with the warmth of the kitchen at this point. It was impossible to blush for five straight minutes, wasn’t it?
“Can I have a cookie?” Claire asked from where she stood at the table.
“Me too.” Megan ran to the table and peered at the plate.
Elijah’s bootsteps echoed through the kitchen behind her, the door to the lighthouse opening and closing a moment later.
Jessalyn headed over to the table. “I thought you wanted to play outside.”
“After we eat some cookies.” Olivia tugged at her ear before reaching for a second cookie off the platter.
Jessalyn handed her two younger daughters cookies, then sank into her chair and took a cookie for herself. “Girls, do you know what happened to your pa’s shoulder?”
“The mine collapsed on him.” Claire’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “May I please have some milk, Mrs. Oakton?”
“The mine collapsed?” Jessalyn’s bite of cookie turned to sawdust in her mouth. Why hadn’t he told her he’d been hurt? And here she was worried about his lawman job being too dangerous, but in truth, walking around town with a gun strapped to his hip probably wasn’t half as dangerous as going underground.
“It’s why he came back.” Olivia tugged at her ear again. “He wanted to see us and make sure we were all right. Didn’t he tell you?”
She shook her head, her throat suddenly too tight to speak. What if he’d died in that mineshaft? Would she have ever learned what happened to him? About his hotel in Deadwood? That he’d made his fortune?
But hadn’t Thomas owned his hotel for four years or better? If so, then he shouldn’t have been in a mine before he came back to Eagle Harbor.
“Why would Pa tell us and not you?” Claire scrunched up her nose.
Probably because she’d never thought to ask why he’d suddenly returned. She’d been too busy fuming that he’d arrived at all, let alone expected them to walk away from their lives in Eagle Harbor and go to Deadwood.
“How did the mine collapse on him?” she asked it absently. Carelessly. Forcing a lightness into her voice she didn’t feel. Never mind that it was a silly question. There wasn’t exactly a “how” behind a mine collapse. Gravity was the how, and it happened to workers all the time. Anything from a small smattering of pebbles to large chunks of rock to an entire tunnel cave in.
“Olivia.” She looked at her oldest daughter, now busy dunking her cookie into her milk. “Tell me what happened to your pa.”
Olivia finished the bite of cookie in her mouth before speaking. “He saved a girl like me. She went into an old mine even though her ma told her not to, and she got lost. Pa and some other men were looking for her, but then some rocks fell on Pa. He was stuck there a whole day before the helpers could get him out, and his shoulder got hurt.”
“And the doctor made him lay in bed for a long time, but when he got better, he decided to come home and see us.” Claire shoved her final bite of cookie in her mouth.
“And make sure we obey you so we don’t go into any old mine shafts.” Olivia’s cookie plunked into her milk, but she didn’t bother to fish it out, just tugged on her ear instead.
“’Cept the mine’s all the way in Central, not here.” Megan wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t it silly Pa thinks we’ll go into one?”
