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No explanation.

I went back.

“Sure.”

She tried to push her chair away from the table. It caught against a seam in the floor, and she frowned at it as if it had introduced an unnecessary complication.

“I can carry you,” I said. “Would that be all right?”

Her eyes opened enough to find mine.

She nodded.

“Please.”

There were men who’d have known what to do with the way that word landed.

I wasn’t one of them.

I moved the chair back slowly. Set one arm behind her shoulders and the other beneath her knees.

“Ready?”

She lifted her hand to my shoulder.

I picked her up.

My left shoulder gave a low, familiar complaint. I adjusted, keeping her close enough that the weight sat against my chest instead of pulling on the joint.

She didn’t notice. Or she was too tired to comment.

Her head settled against me.

I had carried feed sacks, fence posts, drunk friends, injured riders. Things that fought you and things that sagged and things that needed getting somewhere in a hurry.

This was a woman who’d been staying out of reach, putting her hand against my shirt because she’d asked me to help her.

I walked carefully.

The doorway was narrow. I turned sideways to keep her boots from catching the frame.

Her room held the faint clean smell of the towel I’d put there, a folded flannel on the shelf, her bag tucked beneath the hook. She had made almost no mark on the place.

Except the bed.

The blanket had been turned down with tidy corners, waiting for someone who apparently needed to finish every calculation in the state before she could use it.

I lowered her onto the mattress.

Her hand slipped from my shoulder to my forearm. Rested there.

I stayed bent until she let go.

“Boots,” I said softly. “I’ll get those.”

She made a sound that might have been yes.

I sat on the edge by her feet, leaving space between us, and worked the first boot off with one hand braced behind her heel. The leather held stubbornly around the instep.