“Silly, yes.” She croaked through a throat that felt as though it had been filled with crushed mine rock. He’d not been lying when he said he’d come back for them, that he still cared about them even though he’d left.
She raised her gaze from her daughter’s face and met Tressa’s eyes.
Her friend drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “I told you there was a reason, Jessalyn. I told you he’d changed.”
Yes, yet despite the time he lavished on the girls and the hundreds of small ways he’d tried to help her, she’d been so focused on herself, on how he’d hurt her in the past, that she hadn’t been willing to look beyond herself and see how fully he’d changed.
Or maybe that had been the problem with their marriage from the beginning. Maybe she’d always been too concerned about herself and what Thomas could do for her. He could take her away from the slums she’d grown up in. He could promise her affection—at least more affection than Henry’s pick of Walter Shunk for her husband.
She had a whole list of things Thomas could do for her, but had she ever asked what she could do for him? Up until the day he’d left, everything had been about her and how they needed to set aside money soshedidn’t end up back in the slums whereshe’dgrown up.
Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.But she hadn’t been letting the Lord build anything at all. Instead, she’d been standing in the way, insisting everything go exactly how she desired or she didn’t want any house at all.
She dropped her head into her hands and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Oh, what a fool she’d been.
“The town is too still. Too ready for something to happen.” The packed snow on the road crunched beneath Thomas’s boots as he swept his gaze over the houses and shops lining Front Street.
“Maybe I should stay on patrols with you tonight.” Elijah turned to Isaac, who was walking beside Mac. “Don’t suppose I can get one of those tin stars you gave Thomas?”
“Go home to your wife.” Thomas headed toward the Fletcher’s warehouse. Not that another visit would yield any more clues given the six inches of snow that had been dumped on them last night, but he had to do something other than stand around and wait for the next burglary or arson. “This is a horrible day to give the O’Byrne children to Virgil.”
“I asked him to wait until after Christmas.” A sharp edge cut through Elijah’s voice. “But he wouldn’t be swayed.”
“I’m sorry, Elijah.” Mac rested a hand on Elijah’s shoulder, pulling his brother to a stop in the road.
“I keep asking myself if I was wrong for volunteering to watch them. I thought it would be good for Victoria, give her some young’uns to spend time with and whatnot. Guess I didn’t think it through hard enough. She was attached to those young’uns the day after we brought them home. So I thought we needed to look harder to find their pa so she didn’t get even more attached, but I assumed their pa was the honorable type. Thekind that would do right by his children, not…” Elijah shook his head.
The hair on the back of Thomas’s neck rose, and he looked around. Was someone watching them? Nothing seemed out of place. On the contrary, really. Everything seemed too easily in its place.
“I’m sure it’s not as hopeless as it seems.” Isaac gave Elijah a couple thumps on the back.
Thomas turned back to Elijah, keeping the shipping office across the street just visible from the corner of his eye. “Does Victoria know that you tried to wait until after Christmas to give the children back? Or that you worked so hard to find their father?”
Another shake of Elijah’s head.
“I think you should go home and tell Victoria everything you’re telling us. Be honest with her. There are a lot of things you seem to want for your future, but one thing you don’t want is to start keeping things from the woman you married.” If there was anything he could go back in time and redo, it wouldn’t be staying in Eagle Harbor, but rather being honest instead of letting little grievances go unspoken. Maybe then he wouldn’t have gambled their savings, or hid the truth from Jessalyn, or felt that he needed to leave before he got himself into more trouble.
“Just be honest,” he muttered more to himself than the others.
“I’m probably worse at that than you might think.” Elijah wiped at his nose with his sleeve.
“All the more reason to be honest with her then.” Mac surveyed the buildings surrounding them.
Did he feel it too? The sense that someone was watching? The inkling that things were unnaturally calm?
“All right, enough about me. Aren’t we trying to catch some thieves?” Elijah started down the road.
“And arsonists,” Thomas growled, watching the shipping office for another moment before following the others.
“Maybe between the arson and the thefts, the Town Council can push that tax increase through and hire a couple deputies.” Elijah picked up his pace. “Actually pay Thomas here, not that he needs it.”
“It’s being fought a little too hard if you ask me.” Isaac started down the path to the warehouse, where no new footprints lay in the snow.
“What do you mean?” Thomas checked the door. Locked up tight, but the hair on the back of his neck still stood on end.
Isaac surveyed the perimeter of the clapboard building, even walking to the far side and checking the wall that faced the water. “We’ve raised taxes before without everyone on the Town Council getting voted out of office. I think someone doesn’t want the law in town to change. Someone with money and influence. Someone who has an interest in keeping the lawmen preoccupied with bar fights and arsonists we might never find. Then there’s less time to look into the thefts.”
“Never thought about it that way.” Elijah rubbed the stubble on his chin.
