Page 32 of Mail-Order Lady

She turned back. “What happened?”

“Enoch came downstairs to breakfast with only one boot on. He put the other on the table in front of Thomas’s plate and sat down.”

She laughed before she could stop herself. “He didn’t say anything?”

“Not a word.” Robert’s voice held something dry and warm at once. “Scooped himself food. Waited for Mr. Wang to come sit down and lead the blessing.”

“What happened to the snake?”

“It escaped.” Robert’s voice stayed perfectly even. “Into the kitchen. Mrs. Wang couldn’t speak to Thomas without scolding for two days.”

He finally cut a look her way, and the sparkle in his eye made her grin even more.

“Poor Bea.”

“She found the snake eventually.” He shifted the reins in his hands. “Behind the flour bin. She made Thomas clean the kitchen floor on his hands and knees.”

She leaned back against the wagon bench and let herself breathe. It had worked.

Not perfectly—she wasn’t foolish enough to think two stories had dismantled whatever wall he’d built since the ceremony. But the silence was different now. The edges had softened.

Small victories. Kate had taught her to count them.

“How old were you when you came to the ranch?” She kept her voice easy.

Robert considered the question with that seriousness he brought to everything. “I turned four on the ship over from England.”

She’d not realized he was so young. And to celebrate his birthday on a sailing ship. It likely wasn’t much of a celebration.

She tried to summon an image of Robert small enough to be carried up a gangplank. She couldn’t quite manage it. He seemed to have arrived in the world already deliberate, already careful.

“Do you remember England at all?”

“Pieces.” He watched the trail ahead, where it curved around a stand of pine. “A garden with a stone wall. The sound of rain on a particular window.” A pause. “My mother’s hands.”

An ache pressed in her chest. “How old were you when she died?”

“Five.” He said it the way he said most difficult things—plainly, without dressing it in anything extra.

She turned her face toward the trail ahead so he wouldn’t feel watched. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” He shifted again. “I don’t remember much.”

Her hands, he’d said.

She should let it rest. He’d offered the detail simply, probably without meaning it to be a conversation, and the last thing she wanted was to press on a place that hurt.

But the way he’d asked about her father... It had helped her open up to the heart of things. Maybe he needed that too.

“Did you get to spend time with her in her last days?”

He didn’t answer right away.

The horses moved through a patch of shadow where the pines crowded close to the trail. Cool air seeped in before the road opened again into light.

“Some.” His voice had gone careful. Not closed—not the way it had been all morning—but careful like a man testing how much weight ice would bear before he stepped onto it. “Mrs. Prescott, her lady’s maid, was with her mostly. And Bea. She knew what to do for fevers. The older boys were put to work outside—I think Will and Enoch understood more than the rest of us what was happening. They wanted to be useful.”

Will was the eldest, the brother who’d passed a few years ago from a riding accident. The brothers spoke about him occasionally, always with a bit of longing in their voices.