Outside, Red Willow had gone white. Snow blew in thin sheets along the boardwalk, gathering against hitching posts and wagon wheels.
Most storefronts on Main Street were dark, except for the telegraph office lamp and a faint yellow square above the doctor's rooms. The temperature had fallen sharply since supper.
Nathan stepped from the boardwalk, then stopped. Emily noticed why. The packed snow beside the curb had turned slick.
Without a word, he offered his arm. She looked at it, his sleeve strained around a forearm nearly as thick as some men's calves.
"I can manage."
"I know."
He kept his arm there.
Emily studied his face. There was no amusement in it. She took his arm.
They crossed Main Street. Nathan shortened his stride almost immediately. Emily noticed that, too.
The Willow House stood two blocks east of the saloon beside the freight road. It was a narrow two-story hotel with a porch sagging slightly at one corner and a painted sign that had lost most of its green lettering to Wyoming wind.
Inside the lobby smelled of coal smoke, wet wool, and boiled coffee.
The desk clerk looked up. "Mr. Reed. Evening."
"Carl."
"Mrs. Foster still upstairs."
"Room seven."
His eyes shifted to Emily, then back to Nathan. Nathan gave him no explanation.
They climbed the stairs. Nathan's boots made the steps complain beneath his weight. At the second-floor landing, he stopped outside a door and knocked softly.
A bolt slid back.
Helen Foster opened it wearing a gray shawl over her nightdress. She was somewhere past 60, silver-haired and narrow as a fence rail, with the direct eyes of a woman who had spent 30 years dealing with cattle, weather, and foolish men in roughly equal measure.
"Nathan."
"Helen."
Her gaze moved to Emily. Emily waited for the question. It never came.
Nathan said, "This is Emily Parker."
"I know who she is."
Emily raised an eyebrow.
Helen opened the door wider.
"Red Willow isn't Denver, dear."
Emily almost smiled.
Nathan cleared his throat.
"Is Lucy asleep?"
Helen looked back into the room.
"She's supposed to be."
That answer carried something underneath it. Nathan heard it, too.
He stepped inside.
The hotel room was small: one iron bed, a wash stand, a pitcher with a chipped handle, and a round table holding the remains of supper. A kerosene lamp burned low beside the window.
Lucy sat on the floor beside the bed, fully dressed.
Nathan stopped.
"Lucy."
The girl looked up. She had her father's dark hair and Nathan's gray-blue eyes, though hers were red around the edges. Beside her sat a flower sack tied at the top with string.
Nathan's face changed.
Not much. Emily saw it anyway.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
Nathan crouched. Even kneeling, he seemed too large for the room.
"That doesn't look like nothing."
Lucy grabbed the sack. Nathan reached toward it, then stopped before touching it.
"May I?"
The girl hesitated.
Then she nodded.
Nathan loosened the string. Inside were two folded dresses, a small Bible, stockings, a hairbrush, and a wooden horse worn smooth along its back from years of handling.
At the bottom lay a faded blue ribbon.
Nathan stared at it. Emily saw his thumb brush the ribbon once.
"That was Jacob's," he said quietly.
Lucy lowered her head.
"He gave it to me."
"I know."
"Papa said Blue was lucky."
Nathan put it carefully back into the sack.
"Why are you packed?"
Lucy said nothing.
Helen moved toward the window, giving the child space.
Nathan waited.
Finally, Lucy whispered, "Uncle Charles said Judge Briggs might send me with him tomorrow."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
"He told you that before the hearing."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"Outside the courthouse."
Nathan looked toward Helen. She shook her head. She hadn't known.
Emily stayed near the door. This was the moment when she could have let Nathan handle it.
Instead, she removed her coat and laid it across the chair. Then she crossed the room and lowered herself onto the floor opposite Lucy.
The child looked at her. Emily did not offer a smile. Children knew when smiles were being used to coax them.
"My name is Emily."
"I know."
"You do."
"Mrs. Foster told me you fix clothes."
Emily glanced toward Helen. Helen looked innocent.
"I do."
Lucy touched the flower sack.
"Can you fix anything?"
"No."
The answer seemed to surprise her.
Emily continued.
"Anyone who tells you they can fix anything is probably trying to sell you something."
Lucy stared at her for a second. Then the corner of her mouth moved.
Nathan saw it. He sat back on his heels.
Emily nodded toward the sack.
"Were you planning to leave?"
Lucy shook her head quickly.
"Then why pack?"
"In case they make me."
The words were so quiet that Nathan looked away.
Emily didn't.
"Where do you want to live?"
"Double Pine."
"Because your uncle Nathan told you to say that?"
Lucy frowned.
"No."
"Because Mrs. Foster told you?"
"No."
"Then why?"
Lucy pulled the wooden horse from the sack. She ran one finger over its carved mane.
"After Papa died, everybody talked about me."
Nathan's eyes returned to her.
"They'd say maybe Mrs. Foster could keep me or maybe Uncle Charles or maybe there was a school back east."
Lucy swallowed.
"They always talked like I wasn't there."
Emily's hands rested quietly in her lap.
"And Nathan?"
Lucy looked at her uncle.
"He asked me."
Nathan lowered his eyes.
"He asked what?"
"Where I wanted to go."
The wind pushed snow against the window with a dry whisper.
Lucy tightened her grip on the wooden horse.
"I told him home."
"And what did he say?"
"He said we'd go home."
Nathan rubbed a hand slowly across his jaw. Lucy looked back at Emily.
"Uncle Nathan never sends people away when they're hard to keep."
The room went still.
Emily felt something inside her pull tight. She knew something about being treated as a burden before she'd asked anyone to carry her.
She reached for the faded blue ribbon lying across the sack.
"May I?"
Lucy nodded.
Emily lifted it. One end had torn almost completely through. She examined the frayed silk.
"This can be fixed."
Lucy's eyes followed her fingers.
"You said you couldn't fix everything."
"I can't."
Emily folded the damaged end carefully.
"But I can fix this."
Lucy looked at Nathan, then back at Emily.
"Are you the lady Uncle Nathan's going to marry?"
Nathan inhaled.
Emily saved him from answering.