“No,” he says. He weaves his fingers in between mine, looking at our hands folded together. Then he pulls our fingers up to his mouth and kisses them. “I mean, I want you to leave the plantation with me when I go. I want us to stay together. I mean to make a life with you.”

I feel like I got all the happy in the world mixed up with all the sad. I close my eyes against the tears but they spill out anyhow.

He rubs at the wet on my cheek with his thumb and cradles my face in his hand.

“How we gonna do that?” I say. “They ain’t gonna let me go.”

“I’ll figure it out,” he says. “But I’m leaving here with you. That is, if you’ll have me.”

I reach up and kiss him right on his mouth. “Henry Taylor,” I say, “I would go anywhere with you.”

Once I would have thought it can’t never be, but, the way Henry’s talking, he’s got me believing in it too and, Lord, if it don’t feel good to be hoping for it. Seems like between Henry and me we could almost wish the stars down from the sky.

Chapter 45

Henry

Lying alone in the coach house, missing Sarah next to me, I come up with a plan. But, like everything else in the world, it needs money.

First thing in the morning, I go to see Matthew Johnson. He doesn’t understand me wanting to move on when he’s still got work for me here. I don’t explain to him that I need it faster than I can earn it. I pack my supplies and harness my horses. I’m ready to go, but I wait for Sarah to get a chance to break away.

When she comes, I lead her into the coach house. Tucking her against me, I rest my chin on her head. I feel the weight of her arms against my back and the rush of her breath into my neck.

“I won’t be long,” I tell her.

She nods, but when she looks up at me her eyes are shining.

“A week. Maybe two,” I say.

I’m selling my forge and horses. With that plus the money I’ve got saved, I can get her free. Then we’ll get the hell off Jubilee Plantation. Go back to New York, maybe, or keep heading south.

I take her hands in mine and kiss her fingers. She opens my palm and presses her lips to my healed scar.

It’s time to go, but instead of leaving I pull her back into my chest. “I’ll be as quick as I can,” I say.

“I know,” she says so quiet I don’t so much hear it as feel her saying it.

When I bend down to kiss her, she hooks her hand around the back of my neck, making me want to carry her up to our hayloft, or smuggle her into my wagon and ride off with her right then and there.