Clara climbed down from the wagon stiffly and followed Eli toward the front door. He opened it without knocking. The kitchen hit her first, warmth, lamplight, the smell of something cooking. A woman sat at the kitchen table with a mending basket in her lap.
She was older, silver-haired, with a straight back and hands that had done decades of hard work. She looked up when the door opened, and her eyes moved immediately past Eli to Clara. Her expression did not change, but her hands went still. "Mother?"
Eli said, "This is Clara Whitfield. She's going to help out for a few days while the coach is blocked." Ruth Callaway set down her mending very slowly. She looked at her son.
She looked at Clara. Then she looked at her son again. "Eli James Callaway," she said quietly, "you want to explain to me what exactly you brought home out of that storm?"
"A capable woman who needed a place to be," Eli said, hanging his coat on the door hook. "And we needed the help. You know we did." Ruth's expression remained hard.
"I know no such thing." "Ruth, I'm standing right here," Clara said. Both of them looked at her. Clara set her bag down near the door and looked directly at the older woman.
"Mrs. Callaway, I understand why you're concerned. You don't know me. Your son brought me home from town in a snowstorm, and that sounds a great deal worse than it is." She kept her voice even.
"I'm not here for anything except a warm place to sleep and honest work until the southbound coach runs again. If at any point you want me to leave, I'll leave. That's a promise. And I don't make promises I don't intend to keep."
Ruth Callaway studied her for a very long, uncomfortable moment. "Can you cook?" the older woman finally said. "Yes, ma'am." "Biscuits?"
"From scratch." Ruth's expression shifted almost imperceptibly, but Clara caught it. "The boys haven't had proper biscuits in two weeks," she said. "My hands have been aching something terrible."
She picked up her mending again. "You can have the room at the end of the hall. There's a hook on the back of the door for your coat." Clara let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
"Thank you, Mrs. Callaway." "Ruth," the older woman said without looking up. "We don't stand on ceremony in this house." Clara was pulling her coat off when she heard it.
A small sound from the hallway, too quiet to be accidental and too deliberate to be innocent. She turned. Two boys stood at the edge of the kitchen doorway in their nightshirts, shoulder to shoulder, staring at her with enormous dark eyes. They were identical in the way of twins.
Same dark hair. Same broad forehead. Same shape of their father's jaw, except one of them was leaning slightly forward with an expression of pure, fascinated curiosity. The other was holding onto his brother's sleeve and watching Clara with careful, measuring eyes.