The Endless Forest
Page 99

When Martha started awake, the window had been opened and a soft breeze touched her face. She was alone, and for the first moment confused. She sat up just as the chamber door opened.
“I thought I heard you,” Daniel said. “There’s tea, if you want some.”
And he walked off without waiting to hear if she had an answer. Martha followed him. The cold hearth had been stoked and fed, and a pot sat on the grate next to a battered kettle.
“You needed sleep more than food,” Daniel said.
Her stomach growled in agreement. She took the teacup he offered her and sat at the table taking small sips and trying to make sense of things.
“How long did I sleep?”
He cocked his head. “Maybe two hours. I was asleep myself for most of the time. On the settle.” A small curve at the corner of his mouth, as if she had accused him of something silly.
“And no word?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But I doubt it will be much longer.”
She said, “You can take it back. It’s not too late.”
Because, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say, they hadn’t gone very far beyond kissing, and wasn’t that fortunate? He owed her nothing.
Daniel took the cup from her hand and set it aside. “What are you talking about, I can take it back. What can I take back? You think I’m so scared of Jemima that I’d tuck tail and run?”
“No,” Martha said, and she felt herself smiling. “I don’t think that, but I wanted to give you the chance to prove me wrong.”
He studied her face for a long moment and then he cleared his throat. “We could just take off,” he said. “Elope, right now.”
“That would be very ungrateful after all your mother’s kindnesses,” she said, and that earned her a real smile from him.
She studied the wood grain in the tabletop, and when she had gathered her courage she said, “Maybe we should just go down to the village.”
“I can think of a few reasons why not,” he said slowly. “But the most important one is, my folks are down there right now with their heads together, and they’ll come up with a plan. They always do. We can give them a little more time, can’t we?”
Martha nodded, but he saw her hesitation.
“What?”
“I feel like a fish in a barrel,” she said.
He seemed to understand that. “We could go back up to Lake in the Clouds,” he said. “Or under the falls, even. That’s a tradition in the family, hiding out under the falls.”
There were many rumors in the village about a secret hideaway on Hidden Wolf, and Martha had heard them all. And still, she found it hard to credit the notion.
“Behind the falls?”
He nodded. “Two caves. We store food there, and pelts. Only the family knows how to find the opening. And that includes you now too.”
She felt herself coloring with surprise and pleasure. Martha hardly knew what to do with the extremes that day had brought, and might continue to bring. Fear and embarrassment and utter happiness and anger that gripped her like a fist. She could not think of her mother without bile rising into her throat, but then there was Daniel. His calm certainty and absolute conviction about her, who she was and what she could be. And what if he was simply wrong?
“It’s a lot to deal with in one day,” he said to her. “And I understand if you need to keep to yourself until you sort it through. One thing though is, I’m not going to get mad at you for speaking your mind. I can see you’ve got things to say, so go on and say them.”
That made her laugh aloud. “You never get mad, Daniel Bonner? What kind of saint are you?”
He looked surprised. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t get mad. I don’t doubt we’ll have our share of disagreements, and I can lose my temper now and then. What I meant was, I wouldn’t ever strike out at you in anger. I may walk away to get myself under control, but I’ll always come back.”
Just that simply he stole her breath away, but he wasn’t finished.
“I expect the same from you,” he said. “It’s the way my folks have always handled things and I think it will most likely work for us too. We can get through anything that way.”
“Your ma and da can get through anything that way,” Martha heard herself say. “What makes you think I’m equal to your ma?”
His smile faded and he slipped his hand behind her neck to pull her face up close to his. “Are you trying to scare me off? Because let me make something clear, Martha Kirby. I see who you are, even if you cain’t see yourself.”
She lowered her face so her forehead touched his. “I never thought I’d say this, but my mother did me a good turn.”
Daniel turned his head and his breath moved the hair at her temple. “And how’s that?”
“If it weren’t for her, I’d be married to Teddy right now and on a ship headed for England. And I think that would have been a mistake.”
His mouth trailed from her temple, across her cheekbone and down to her mouth. The kiss was short, a brief soft touch that set every nerve on edge and made her collapse forward, into the sheltering curve of his arm.
Martha felt him tense. He turned away from her, his brows folding together in concentration. He said, “Horses.”
They moved toward the door together. Martha’s stomach lurched and for that moment she would have lost the little she had eaten but then she saw that it was Ethan who had come. He was riding his own roan and leading two others, Ben’s Florida and Hannah’s Jiminy.