“I ran away from home,” he said. “It wasn’t the least bit brave.”
She shook her head. “Running takes a lot of courage, especially when you choose to do it for the right reason.”
His gaze fell to the blood still trickling on her hand. “You’ve hurt yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. It stung a little, nothing else.
“We have to clean it.”
“No.”
Standing up, he reached for her good hand. If she were thinking clearly, she would have refused, but she followed him to the edge of the bank. He scooped cool water from the river and gently washed her palm. After the blood was gone, he wrapped his dry handkerchief around the wound and stepped back.
She stared at the gray cloth around her hand before looking back up at him. “Thank you.”
“Isabelle,” he started, locking her gaze. “If I were a gambling man, I’d bet a pile of gold that I’ve seen you before, long before Isaac and I came to California.”
Her gaze returned to the handkerchief. “Have you been to Baltimore?”
“No—did you ever visit Boston before you came west?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure there are plenty of women who look like me.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone else in this whole country quite as lovely as you,” he said tenderly.
Her heart seemed to flip with his words, her fingers trembling. She didn’t dare glance back up at him.
He cleared his throat. “I think it’s very courageous of you to not only run a hotel on your own but help Persila escape as well.”
She put her hands back down at her sides, hiding them in the folds of her dress so he couldn’t see them shaking. Plenty of men back in Sacramento City had called her beautiful—men desperate for female attention—but no one had ever called her courageous.
“I wish you would have met my aunt before she died. She was a truly brave woman.”
When she looked back up at him, his gaze was still intense. “I wish I could have met her too.”
“She would have liked you.”
When Alden smiled back at her, it seemed as if everything would be fine now. As if he could take care of her and Isaac alike. She nodded back toward the camp. “I’ve never eaten antelope before.”
“Me either, and I’m starving.” He laughed. “There will be plenty of new things for us to try out here.”
She trekked back through the rocks and grass, Alden at her side. It seemed like they both had run away from their pasts. Just as she’d worked to break free from the Duvalls, she needed to offer him the same grace if he sought redemption from the sins of his family.
It was a new season for both her and Alden now. And a new season, she hoped, for the boy back at the camp too.
No matter what happened, she would do anything she could to rescue her son.
Chapter 39
Sacramento City
August 1854
Sacramento City was still smoldering a week after the flames had been extinguished. The fire left behind charred skeletons of buildings on at least twelve of the city’s blocks, the crumpled walls reeking of smoke and slag. Ashes shrouded the once-planked streets, and every structure that remained was blackened with soot.
Mallie’s hotel had resisted the inferno, but the metal shutters and doors were welded together from the heat. Victor had walked down K Street every day since the fire, searching, but after he’d followed Mallie into the alleyway, it seemed as if she’d blown away with the smoke. Like she’d known he was looking for her.
But no one knew he was searching for Mallie except Fanny, and she’d disappeared as well, taking with her the cache of coins she must have stolen when she rifled through his portfolio. He’d hoped the fire had taken her life, but the only bodies found in the aftermath were those of three workers who’d perished behind the shutters of a mercantile.
