“Mrs. Tremaine?” Alberta asked. “What’s happened?”
“I’m going to marry Lieutenant Prescott,” she said, the words seeming to glow in the very air.
Alberta clasped her hands together. “Oh, marvelous! Just marvelous! Our family is growing!”
“And he’s going to be with us forever,” Danny said, starting to jump up and down.
Forever. ’Til death do them part. She’d made that pledge once before. She’d feared to make it again. But Will was strong, sure, clever, and capable. Whatever the future held, she could count on him.
He’d planned to woo Kate with flowers and romantic gestures, but Will couldn’t be sorry Danny had forced his hand. The decision felt right. He was on a good path at last, with the best possible guides: Kate and Danny. He was going to be a husband and father, and he had his heavenly Father’s blessing. He felt lighter, cleaner, than he ever had.
Thank you, Lord!
The praise kept repeating itself in his mind as they made sure of Jessup. Waxworth met them coming out of the Geyser Gateway yard. He joined with Lercher and O’Reilly in volunteering to take the poacher north. Some of the fire had gone out of Jessup. His head was bowed as he rode off that afternoon. As soon as they were on their way, Will went to the Fire Hole Hotel to telephone Mammoth Hot Springs. He discovered a message waiting for him.
“I was about to send someone to deliver it,” the manager of the Fire Hole Hotel confirmed as he handed it to Will. “Your commanding officer has decided to tour the park before winter sets in. I promise you, we will be ready.”
So would the Geyser Gateway. Will would make sure of it.
Kate sprang into action as soon as he told her that evening. He and Smith had come through on their final sweep to find all the current denizens of the hotel on the veranda. Kate was at the rail, Alberta and Danny sat on the bench, and Elijah was on one of the dining chairs, polishing the brass of a stagecoach door handle.
“Three days!” she exclaimed when he told her the news. She turned to Alberta, who rose from the bench. “Huckleberry pie and whipped cream.”
“So he sees the virtue of keeping a cow,” the cook agreed with a nod.
“We’ll have to bleach and press the tablecloths and polish the chairs and banister. Oh, what a shame Pansy’s gone for the year.”
“I’ll help, Ma,” Danny offered.
Kate’s gaze was off in the middle distance. “Is there time to put in another porch swing?”
“Kate,” Will said, climbing the steps and reaching for her hands.
They fluttered away like startled birds. “And your stagecoach, Elijah! I don’t want Captain Harris to think we lack transportation.”
“I’ll have it ready, Mrs. Tremaine,” Elijah promised. “I’d like to stay in his good graces too.”
“Kate,” Will tried again.
She started pacing, skirts flapping. “I’ll need to repaint the trail markers, air all the beds, sweep the porch, clean the chicken yard . . .”
“Kate!” He managed to catch her hands as she passed. “Make a list. Delegate. My men and I stand ready to help. It’s the least we can do after all you’ve done for us. But even if you sat on your hands for the next three days, the Geyser Gateway would still be the finest hotel in the park.”
“Three days.” Her eyes gleamed. “Three days is a very short time. We should start now.”
And they did.
Will had had difficult details before—escorting peaceful tribes through hostile territory, chasing outlaws through rugged canyons—but nothing prepared him for Kate’s campaign. She was already working when he and his men rode in just after dawn each morning, and he feared she kept working when they left as dusk was falling. And always she complimented them on their efforts.
“Not a squeak from the third step now,” she told Franklin, passing him with a rug she had just beaten. “Well done.”
“Such elegant lettering,” she marveled to Smith, who was repainting the trail markers. “Our visitors will be impressed.”
“So shiny,” she commented to Elijah when she came to see the progress he and Will were making in fixing the stagecoach. “I can almost see myself in that yellow varnish.”
She was everywhere, doing everything. His most important job was to make sure she had enough rest. He thought she might fight him on that, but she seemed to sense that she needed more than work. They played baseball one evening on the field across from the hotel, with Elijah and Alberta taking positions. They laughed together as they finished the map she had first promised Will, and he was pleased to see how many of the places he could remember now that he knew the park better. And she took him and Danny up to the bison’s home to confirm they were all there and safe.
“They know how to hide too,” Danny said.
Kate met Will’s gaze over her son’s head. “And when to show themselves for who they are.”
And Will could only marvel once again that this woman cared for him.
The letter he finally had a chance to read one night proved as much. Indeed, her words humbled him.
Dearest Will, she’d written. Thank you for telling me what happened years ago in Oregon. I grieve for those who were so cruelly slain. I grieve for the anguish their deaths caused those who loved them. And I grieve for your broken heart.
It is that broken heart which proves you are a better man than you know. Who else would encourage Private Smith despite his insolence? Give Private Franklin a chance to show his skills? Who else helps everyone around with no thought of recompense?
You are a good friend, a guide, a warm light in the darkness. I will be forever grateful you came into my life. I can’t wait to see what the future holds, together. Kate.
He let a tear fall, unashamed.
