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Theo shrugged, but kept his arms around her. “I don’t know. I suppose I saw how they glance at each other. And then there’s the fact that none of you look even remotely alike.” He pressed a brief kiss on the top of her head.

“We have different fathers,” she protested meekly.

“I suppose that is true,” he agreed. “Don’t worry. I’ve only ever talked to Jake about it, so there really isn’t much⁠—”

Maggie cut him off by stepping back sharply. “Jake knows?”

Theo dropped his arms to his sides. “Well, yes. I mean, we discussed the possibility. We didn’t … know, know.” His color was rising, and Maggie would have found it endearing if she wasn’t feeling a bit betrayed. “Just idle talk. Between brothers.”

“And what did Jake have to say?”

Theo’s mouth opened and shut again, the flush creeping into his cheeks growing darker. Whatever Jake’s opinion of her brothers was, Theo clearly didn’t want to share it.

“Oh, God,” she said, putting her hands on her stomach. “Lou knows, too. She said something the other day. Oh God.”

“Maggie, it’s really all right.” He took a step forward and she retreated, too angry to be touched. He stopped, abruptly.

“It isn’t all right, Theo,” she snapped. “A friend of Tom’s was hanged because the wrong men found out about him. People do not approach two men together with kindness and compassion; they approach them with hate. I know. This is why I didn’t want to come here.” She was babbling now, pacing around the kitchen and ignoring the baffled look on Theo’s face. “Settling down isn’t safe. Now we’re trapped. This was ridiculous. I knew this was a mistake. This has never happened before, in the—” She cut herself off, and Theo watched her quietly.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I can see how upset you are. I’ll clean up and go.”

Pure, unadulterated rage shot through Maggie. “We have to leave,” she said as he gathered the dishes from the table and carried them to the basin.

“Leave?”

“We can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

“Maggie, I’m going to say something that is going to make you angry.” Theo leaned against the basin and crossed his arms.

“I’m already angry!”

“I know, and I think you’re overreacting.”

All the air in Maggie’s lungs whooshed out in one long breath. “You think I’m overreacting.”

“I’m not trying to dismiss you. I just think that you’re working yourself up into a panic when you don’t need to.”

She opened her mouth to say something eviscerating—she hadn’t decided on what—when he held up a hand.

“Please. No one knows anything for sure aside from them, you, and me, and if you want me to swear I won’t tell anyone, I swear on my daughter’s life.”

Her fury snuffed out like a doused candle. “That isn’t necessary.”

“I think it is.” Theo sighed. “Maggie, I care about you, and about Tom and Bridgers. I want to keep you all safe, and even if I never breathe a word of this to anyone on this Earth, I can promise you that there would be no danger here.”

She snorted.

“You don’t have to believe me,” he said, “and I don’t blame you if you don’t. But I know the people here, and I know what they’re capable of, and I trust that your brothers are safe.” He turned back to the basin, piling the rest of the dishes into it, and pulled his hat from the coatrack in the corner of the kitchen.

“Theo.”

He stepped over to her, kissed her forehead lightly, and left.

Maggie stood still in the middle of the room, feeling dizzy. The terror at the possibility of Tom and Bridgers being discovered was a constant weight she had grown used to, pressing down on her every moment. Tom and Bridgers, presumably, felt the same, and they circumnavigated it by remaining untethered and rootless. It was driving a wedge between the two men, and she knew that their fear was as much a living thing as hers was; believing Theo, trusting him to be right, was the sweetest siren song she’d ever heard.

She just didn’t want to be dashed upon the rocks if she was wrong.

Chapter