So why wasn’t she eating it?
Once his appetite was slaked, Jackson sat back and sipped his tea. Amanda was nursing hers, too, but she’d only downed a few spoonsful of soup. He gestured at the remains of Noah’s loaf. “Would you like some bread?” he asked her.
“No, thank you.”
“It’s very good,” he pressed.
She glanced at her son. “All right. But just a small piece.”
Jackson tore off a portion that was small by his standards and handed it over.
Amanda nibbled on it and praised Noah then set it aside.
Jackson’s jaw ached with the urge to interrogate, but he held his peace. “So, Noah,” he said, taking up his tea again, “I thought you wanted to be a rancher. Have you changed your mind and decided to become a baker?”
“No, sir. But I liked making the bread.”
“A little cooking knowhow is good for a man to have, in case he has to fix a meal when he’s away from home.”
Noah stopped eating and looked up. “Have you ever had to cook?”
Quite a few times during the war, but that topic was off limits, for several reasons. “When I go hunting, I sometimes go far enough to camp overnight.
“A night or two of hunting is nothing, though,” Jackson went on, Noah staring at him, soaking up every word. “The men who drive horses and cattle are gone for months. One man goes ahead of them and takes a special wagon filled with food. His job is to make all the meals, enough to feed the entire group.”
Noah’s mouth dropped open. “I like cooking, but not that much,” he said, shaking his head.
“What about hanging up the clothes? Did you enjoy that?”
“I didn’t hang them. I handed them to Mama so she could hang them. She got a funny look on her face every time she bent over.”
Amanda squirmed in her chair, but it didn’t look to be from pain. “Finish your supper,” she said to Noah. “It’ll be dark soon.”
Anger flared in Jackson’s chest with the force of a powder blast. Amanda was hiding illness from him. Noah’s observations confirmed it. His hands fisted in his lap, and it was all he could do not to yell chastisements at her. But she didn’t deserve wrath—especially when it was nothing but a mask for his fear.
Jackson’s ire burned away, turning his sense of control to helpless ashes at the mercy of the breeze as a cannon ball of dread lodged in his gut. “Leave the dishes for me,” he said as he stood, his voice sounding as drained as he felt. “Noah, come help me bring the laundry in.”
“I can carry the basket,” he said brightly, trailing Jackson’s heels.
Jackson removed the clothes from the line and did his best to fold them neatly, while Noah held the cloth bag open to collect the pins.
“Why are you taking in the laundry, Papa? This is Mama’s job.”
“She’s tired today. I’m letting her rest.”
“Yeah...” Noah replied in a subdued voice. “She said she was all right, but I don’t think she was telling the truth.”
Amanda sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, one hand pressed against her stomach, and the other gripping a wad ofquilt. Her pain had worsened throughout the day, and now the conversation she knew was coming had magnified it further.
Jackson had told her to wait for him in their room as soon as he’d put the children in their beds. Then he’d gone back down to finish the evening chores—both his and hers. He’d spoken softly, but it was the type of calm a person displays when they’re restraining powerful emotions.
By the time his masculine steps creaked back up the stairs, the fire he’d lit in the hearth had died down to a low glow, flickering orange across the floorboards. And dread had made her absolutely bilious.
He closed the door softly behind him and came to stand before her. “I understand why you put on a brave face for the children, but now it’s time to stop pretending. How badly are you hurting?”
“Not too much.”
“Amanda...”
