Page 106 of Waiting for Love

“And what?”

“And she pointed out that I was giving most of my food to Hannah anyway.”

“God, Benjamin.” He lowered his chin, shaking his head. “That does not surprise me.”

“Simpson said…” He swallowed. “They should abandon her too.”

“His own daughter?” Jasper’s voice thickened with disgust.

Benjamin nodded. “Sometimes, deep in his cups, he would claim she wasn’t. But she looks just like him. He was a jackass. If I’d had a clue how to get back to the fort, I swear I would have stolen a canoe that night and Hannah too.”

Jasper pushed the brandy bottle closer, but Benjamin shook his head.

“We traveled another few days. Then we were hit with a snowstorm and had to burrow in. Simpson got sick first. Marie nursed him as best she could, but he failed pretty quickly. Then she got sick.”

“They both died.”

“Yes. I couldn’t bury them, Jasper. I couldn’t even do that. I put everything I could into one canoe and just kept going down river, praying I would find somebody.”

Jasper sat still. He didn’t interrupt or prompt. He just waited.

“A band of Cree found us. We were half-frozen and half-starved, but they took us in even though they looked half-starved themselves. I gave them the guns and blankets that were left. The whiskey was already gone.” He sniffed. Simpson had polished that off. “We spent a solid month there. Maybe more. And then, I came to myself and told them I would give them all the pelts, too, if they could get us back to the fort. Or close enough to it that I could find my way. I don’t know why they agreed. They could have taken the pelts, and I couldn’t have stopped them. But they were more honest than…than anyone else I’d met in Canada.”

“And so, the adventure came to an end.”

“Yes.”

“God, Benjamin.”

“Well, wait. No. There is Hannah. I said I didn’t steal anything, but I stole her. The Cree wanted me to leave her with them. And since I am being honest, I did consider it.”

Jasper argued, “That isn’t stealing. She’s an Englishwoman!”

“Half French.”

“Well,” he sniffed a laugh, “we won’t hold that against her.”

“The Cree would have adopted her. I might have left her with them if they were not so ravaged themselves. Disease has hit them hard. The beaver are almost gone. But the main thing was, she had family. Simpson’s parents.”

Jasper made a face. “Who did such a fine job raising him.”

“A guide took us back to the fort along with the pelts to trade. Your letter was waiting for me there. Jasp, I’ve said before, it was like a gift from God. I hadn’t any money but with that letter I had credit. Credit enough to get to Halifax to look for Hannah’s grandparents. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“You once said they wanted nothing to do with her.”

“They had already disowned Simpson for taking up with Marie.” He didn’t reveal that Simpson had met her in a brothel. That was not something anyone ever needed to know. “They didn’t believe me when I told them their son was dead. I think they suspected I had come to extort money from them, though I certainly didn’t ask for any. I booked passage on the first ship out. But, Jasper, I didn’t give them any time to reconsider. I gave them one chance and never went back.”

“It doesn’t sound as if they deserved a second chance. She was their granddaughter. There shouldn’t have been anything to consider.”

“But she is their granddaughter. And I took her across the ocean. Sometimes I worry that I misled them. Made them think there was a possibility she was my daughter. She was clinging to me so much by then.” He shook his head. “And I clung to her.”

“You are her father. Moreso than that devil who would have abandoned her. You didn’t steal her.”

“I should have told you all this before I accepted the position. You said once that if you’d thought I would engage in ‘no one will know’ you would not have hired me.”

He snorted. “I say a lot of things. And I should have asked. I was ‘irresponsible.’”

“Jasper—”