“Gray!” she gasped. “Where have you been? You didn’t respond to my telegram!”

Gray swept her into a hug. “We came back the moment we heard Luke was home. Now he’s landed himself in the hospital?”

Caroline glanced over his shoulder. Annabelle stood a few feet away, looking cold and out of place.

“Annabelle,” she said with a frosty nod, and Annabelle returned it with a hesitant smile.

Caroline had nothing else to say to Annabelle and turned her attention back to Gray, filling him in on how Luke’s hands got burned in a foolishly heroic attempt to salvage papers from a fire.

“He’s awake if you want to go in and see him,” she offered.

“No, I need to know how you’re doing,” Gray said, both hands on her shoulders as he peered into her face, his eyes crinkled in concern. “I’m sorry about President McKinley. I know how much you admired him.”

A sheen of tears prickled. She nodded, for speaking right now would be difficult. Buffalo seemed like another lifetime, but the president had died only three weeks ago. Since then she had planned his funeral, welcomed a new administration into the White House, and helped Luke take down Captain Holland. Gray knew none of those things. He’d been completely cut off out in Kansas and could have no concept of the bone-numbing ordeal she’d been wading through.

“I’m doing okay,” she managed to say without meeting his eyes.

“I have a carriage. Can I arrange for it to take you back to the White House?”

The question took her aback. Gray didn’t even know about what had happened.

“No,” she said, her lip beginning to wobble.

Gray looked closer. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Caroline, tell me.”

“Ida fired me,” she choked out. “I don’t work there anymore.”

Her face crumpled and two fat tears spilled over, and then a terrible, keening wail came out of her throat. Was that noise really from her? Gray pulled her into his arms, rocking her like a baby, and the last thread broke. She bawled like an infant.

“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” he murmured, his voice rough with sympathy.

It made her cry harder. Why was she breaking down like this? She hadn’t shed a single tear after the president died. It had been a week since Ida threw her out of the house, but the pain of rejection hadn’t lessened. How mortifying to collapse in front of Annabelle, but Caroline cried so hard she couldn’t even breathe. The exhaustion, the grief. It was all too much. If Nathaniel was here, she wouldn’t feel so fragile.

As if he could read her mind, Gray said the least helpful thing possible. “Where’s Nathaniel?”