“Look at me, Mama!” she shouted. “Look at me!”

Evangeline was fearful for her daughter, but she didn’t let it show. Abigail would grow up in the West, and therefore it was important for her to ride well. It would be unfair to let her own dread of horses overshadow her daughter’s accomplishment. She clapped her hands together in a show of applause and smiled as she made her way down the slope of the knoll.

“You ride now, Mama,” Abigail said.

Evangeline was formulating a refusal when she noticed the moving bulge beneath Scully’s woolen shirt. She squinted.

Scully laughed. “Hortense,” he explained, just as a small face peered out from between the buttons. “The little critter likes to be part of things, like Abigail here, and we didn’t want her to get stepped on.”

Something shifted inside Evangeline in that particular instant, as though a spiritual fracture had been made whole. A lump of despair swelled in her throat, and it was all she could do not to take up her skirts in both hands and flee into the house, there to fling herself down onto the bed and sob inconsolably.

“Mama?” Abigail prompted, from high on Sugarplum’s back, sounding concerned.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” Scully added.

Evangeline looked from one to the other, her teeth sunk into her lower lip.

Scully was still watching her as he reached up for Abigail with both hands. She allowed him to lift her down, accepted the kitten when he took it out of his shirt and held it out to her. During all that time, he didn’t look away from Evangeline.

“Mama’s scared of horses,” Abigail confided, in a stage whisper. “She got her foot stepped on once and there’s still a mark.”

Scully nodded, acknowledging the child’s words, but Evangeline suspected that he saw in her eyes what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what she was wishing.

“I can do a little hunting before sunset,” he said, at length. “Maybe get a turkey.”

Evangeline’s eyes burned; she sniffled valiantly. She was going to have to stop being such a crybaby if she wanted to make a life for herself and Abigail in the wild west. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and set about gathering the linens and quilts from the bushes where she’d spread them to air.

Abigail joined her inside the house, somewhat unwillingly, carrying Hortense in both arms. Scully presently appeared, too, to get his coat and take the rifle down from over the door.

“You’ll be all right?” he asked.

Never, Evangeline thought. She had never been in love in her life, but she knew what she felt for Scully was something more than friendship. Furthermore, pledged to Big John as she was, the situation was utterly hopeless. “Yes,” she lied. “We’ll be fine.”

“Bolt the door,” he said, tugging his hat down over his eyes. “I’ll be back in time to do the chores, so leave them to me.”

Evangeline didn’t trust herself to speak again; she just gave another nod.