“It’s my turn to give something toward our marriage. If you’ve built a life for us in Deadwood, then I can lay aside my plans to move to Chicago and go to South Dakota instead.”
It wasn’t that she had no more desire to sew or could even stop new dress patterns from springing into her head. But if Chicago was what she needed to give up to have a good marriage, then she’d find a way to be happy there.
Thomas swung her up into his arms and twirled her around, a laugh lighting his face. And then his lips descended on hers.
His mouth was firm against hers, his lips confident, as was the way he held her in his arms, pressing his hands into her back and tilting her so she had no choice but to relinquish her balance and rely on him to keep her from falling.
She sighed and let her eyes slide shut, surrounded by her husband’s strength and heat. If last night’s kisses had been about tenderness and forgiveness, about healing the broken places in their relationship, then this morning’s were about the future. Bright and full of hope, with promises of life and love and laughter, of future secrets waiting to be shared and adventures ready to be explored.
A burst of cold hit her back, followed by the sound of the door closing.
“Look, it’s just like Mr. and Mrs. Cummings,” Megan’s voice rang out.
“Are you always going to be kissing now that Pa’s back?” That from Claire, of course.
Jessalyn grinned against Thomas’s lips, but couldn’t force herself away from him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung tighter.
His lips left hers, but only for a moment. “I told you kisses were a necessary part of the truce.”
He had indeed, and she’d been so very wrong to have resisted. What other things had she been wrong about?
She couldn’t wait to find out.
Isaac blinked through the dimness, his eyes narrowed on Virgil O’Byrne’s shadowy form across the table. The man’s jaw was clamped as tight as a sprung bear trap, his eyes flickering with belligerence.
“Answer the sheriff’s question,” Thomas spoke from where he sat in the chair beside Isaac. “What do you know about the items stolen from Aileen Brogan the day before last?”
“Well, it sure wasn’t me. You can ask Jack here. We spent the day unpacking.” Virgil’s gaze flickered to where Jack and Alice stood mixing some sort of batter near the stove.
When the O’Byrnes had been staying with his brother, Elijah’s home had been filled with constant chatter and giggles, and an endless mess of paper and paint and toys had always been strewn about. But with their father, Jack and Alice were far from the exuberant, happy children he’d seen just three days ago.
Isaac rubbed the back of his neck and eyed the scruffy man seated across the table. “Did you see anything unusual or suspicious?”
The lumberman shook his head. “Nothing. Ain’t that right, Jack?”
“Yes, sir. That’s true.” Jack came to the table inside the small, two-room cabin that was so newly built it still smelled of pine. Rather than go to his father, the boy stopped by Isaac. “We were here all day on Christmas Eve. Pa wouldn’t even let us go to church for the candles and singing.”
Isaac placed his palms on the table and leaned closer to O’Byrne. “That seems to be the trouble with you and your friends, O’Byrne. Nobody ever sees anything, which is mighty suspicious considering all the things that have been happening lately. I have prostitutes and respectable women alike claiming to see strange shadows, business owners and Cousin Jacks all saying they’ve heard strange noises and footsteps. Yet you and your friends never see or hear anything out of place. That tells me straight off you’re lying, and it makes me wonder if you know a whole lot more than you’re letting on.”
“Now see here, Sheriff.” O’Byrne slammed the side of his fist onto the table, which wasn’t nearly as new as the cabin. The worn wood bent under his hand. “You can’t prove nothing.”
“He’s not asking what he can prove.” Jack’s lip turned into a snarl. “He wants to know if you helped scare Miss Brogan, the lady with the nice voice who buys us cookies whenever we visit the bakery.”
Something tugged on Isaac’s sleeve, and he looked down to find little Alice standing beside him, her lip caught between her teeth.
She raised onto her tiptoes and leaned close to his ear. “If Pa goes to jail, can we go back and live with Mr. Elijah and Miss Victoria? Please?”
Isaac settled a hand on her shoulder. Though she’d filled out some during the time she’d been in Eagle Harbor, her frame was still alarmingly slight beneath her faded dress. “Mr. Elijah and Miss Victoria wouldn’t want things any other way.”
She smiled. “Can you take me to visit them when you leave? I miss them.”
“What’s that you’re talking about, girl?” O’Byrne’s fist hit the table again.
Alice turned to her father, her jaw trembling, and ducked her head to the side.
Isaac patted her back. “She wanted to know if I’d take your children to visit my brother and sister-in-law when we leave.”
“I keep telling you, girl, you’re my young’uns, not theirs. Now didn’t I tell you to make biscuits?”
