Evelyn could feel her heart hammering against her ribs. This was it. The moment where everything either came together or fell apart. If Holden admitted what they'd done, the town would either be grateful or resentful. Probably both.
And resentment had a way of turning into something uglier. But if he lied, if he denied it, then everything they'd risked would become invisible, meaningless. Just another act of charity that nobody knew about and nobody could appreciate. Holden looked at the five men on horseback. Then he looked back at his brothers, at Evelyn.
And then he told the truth. "Yeah," he said simply. "We did." Morrison blinked. "You you reopened the irrigation channels?
The ones everyone said were impossible to fix?" "Yeah. Took us most of a day, but we got it done." "Why?" Garrett demanded.
"Why would you risk your necks for a town that's done nothing but" He stopped, his eyes sliding to Evelyn. "Nothing but talk about you." "Because people needed help," Holden said. "That's reason enough." Morrison swung down from his horse, and for a second Evelyn thought he was going to start something, but instead he pulled off his hat and held it against his chest.
"I don't I don't know what to say." "You don't have to say anything." "Yes, I do." Morrison looked at each of the brothers in turn, and when his gaze landed on Evelyn, he didn't look away. "We've been cruel to you, especially.
Said things that weren't true, made judgments that weren't fair, and you still" He stopped, struggling for words. "You still saved us." Evelyn felt her throat tighten. She wanted to say it was nothing, wanted to brush it off, but the words wouldn't come. One of the other men dismounted, too.
He was older, with gray in his beard and lines carved deep around his eyes. "My daughter was sick," he said quietly. "Fever. Needed water to break it. We were down to our last bucket when the well filled up again.
Doctor says she wouldn't have made it another day." His voice cracked. "You saved her life." "We just moved some dirt," Caleb said. But his usual bravado was gone.
"You did more than that." The old man looked at Evelyn. "And I'm sorry for what my wife said to you in the store. She was wrong." Evelyn remembered the woman with the stone face and the cruel words.