The Spinster (Emerson Pass Historicals 2)

“Is it really that simple? I just will away all the memories and regrets?”

“It’s not that simple,” Fiona said. “But all that might be easier when a new chance at happiness shows up at your door.”

“Fiona, how did you get so smart?”

“I’m not really. I just know a good person when I see one.”

After my talk with Fiona, I decided to go outside for fresh air. If she was right and I should forgive myself for mistakes, perhaps a walk through the powdery snow would help me sort out exactly how to do so. We’d been blessed with another sunny cold day. Icicles hung from the roof of the house like long, pointed teeth. Several winter sparrows twittered from bare aspen branches.

I wore tall boots and had hiked up my skirt to keep it from brushing along the snow, allowing me to walk briskly. My restless and tormented thoughts eased the farther I walked. I took in the smell of the firs as I passed over the meadow and into the forest. The more steps, the better I felt. Perhaps my wise little sister was correct. I’d made a mistake, but not one that I couldn’t forgive myself for. Mama always said there were no mistake

s we couldn’t learn from. What a large mistake I’d made. Would my growth equal the mistake?

I turned back and traipsed out of the forest and back over the meadow. A movement caught my eye as I approached the house. For a moment, I thought it was a deer behind a group of aspens. As I drew nearer, I realized the object was Theo. Wearing nothing but his long underwear, he sat under an aspen with his knees pulled up to his chest. He stared with blank eyes into nothing. My heart pounded hard and fast. My mother had been alone in the snow when he’d found her. Seeing him here was eerily similar. Wearing so little, he would be nearly frozen. How long had he been there?

“Theo?” I called out to him as I ran toward him as quickly as I could.

He didn’t respond. I fell to my knees in front of him. “Theo, what are you doing out here?”

This time, his eyelids flickered. He raised his gaze to me, then blinked. “Jo?”

“Yes, it’s me. What’s happened? Why are you here?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure how I got here.”

I rose to my feet. There was no time to waste. I needed to get him inside as soon as possible. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house.” I took off my coat and put it over his shoulders.

Surprisingly docile, he allowed me to take his hand and assist him in standing. He was heavy, but I managed to get him upright. I gasped when I saw his feet, which had been buried beneath the snow until now. He wore wool socks, wet from the snow. Depending on how long he’d been out here, he could have frostbite. I was beside myself by now, shaking from cold and fear.

I took hold of his arm and pushed him forward. “Go, quickly.”

We began the trudge through the snow to the house. “Do your feet hurt?” I asked.

“No. Numb, that’s all.”

Walking out here had seemed quick. The trip back seemed to take forever. I wanted to lift him in my arms and run, but that was impossible.

I shouted for help when we reached earshot of the house. Seconds later, Jasper and Papa came running. “My God, what’s happened?” Papa asked when they got to us. The terror in his voice brought tears to my eyes.

“I found him in the snow,” I said. “Just sitting there.”

“Theo?” Papa shook him slightly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Take one side of him and I’ll take the other,” Papa said to Jasper. “Theo, lift your feet. Get them out of the snow.”

Theo, like me, had started to cry. “I’m sorry, Papa.” He repeated the same statement three times as the men lifted him up and out of the snow and carried him into the house.

Once inside, they set him on the bench by the door. Papa knelt and stripped Theo of his socks. “Rub one and I’ll do the other,” he said to Jasper.

I sat next to Theo and took both his cold red hands and rubbed them as vigorously as I could. A moment later, Mama came rushing down the stairwell with Fiona on her heels.

“What happened?” Mama had both hands over her mouth and stared at Theo as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“I found him like this in the snow over by the aspens.” My voice sounded wooden even to myself. Perhaps it was my turn to be in shock?

“Oh, my poor boy,” Mama said as she broke away from Fiona and hustled toward my brother. She sat next to him and took one of his hands in hers and began to rub it as I continued to do the other. “What were you doing out there?”