Six months Later

Valerie’s bakery had acquired three small tables beside the front windows. Dawned with checkered cloths and small vases filled with fresh wildflowers, Isabell couldn’t help but smile as she marveled at the tables from beside the counter. Miles had spent several weeks measuring, sawing, and building tables and chairs until the bakery looked exactly as Valerie had envisioned.

“He made this happen,” Valerie smiled as she admired the renovations.

Isabell glanced around at the crowded tables and lifted her coffee with a smile. “I think you had a little something to do with it.”

The little addition had changed the bakery more than either of them had expected. Especially after Sunday service, people now lingered instead of carrying their purchases home. They sat over coffee and sweet rolls, traded news, discussed sermons, and lingered long enough for Valerie to appear with the coffee pot again, quite certain that another cup would eventually lead to a second cinnamon roll.

That afternoon, nearly every chair was occupied. Isabell moved to sit near the window beside Mark. Across from them, Miles leaned back in his chair with his coffee balanced comfortably against his middle, wearing the expression of a man who had nowhere else in the territory he would rather be.

Tom and Jessie had been given their own little table nearby, though that decision was rapidly proving questionable.

“You had two,” Tom protested.

Jessie folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “I had one,” she said, her eyes slipping to the left. Isabell had learned by now that Jessie always looked that way when she was lying.

A laugh escaped Isabell as she watched Jessie pull the plate containing the last sweet roll closer to herself, only for Tom to immediately pull it back.

Isabell glanced at Mark. “Should we interfere?”

“No,” he replied quickly with a soft chuckle.

Isabell smiled into her cup. Tom and Jessie had grown so comfortable with one another that the peaceful moments now seemed almost suspicious. They could spend half the morning defending one another against the world and the other half arguing over a biscuit as though inheritance rights depended upon it.

Valerie came from behind the counter carrying another pot of coffee. Jessie looked up. Her eyes narrowed, then widened.

“Miss Valerie!” she gasped.

Half the bakery turned. Valerie stopped.

Jessie pointed. “You have a ring!”

Silence fell for perhaps one heartbeat. Then every head in the room seemed to turn toward Valerie’s left hand.

Valerie’s cheeks went scarlet while Miles closed his eyes in resignation. Mark broke into laughter, and Isabell could only stare.

“Valerie…” she murmured, almost offended. “How could you not tell me?”

Her friend made an unsuccessful attempt to hide her hand beneath the coffee pot, but Isabell was already out of her chair. She caught Valerie by the wrist and gently pulled her hand forward.

There it was, a modest gold band set with a small stone, simple and lovely and very much Valerie herself.

Isabell looked from the ring to Valerie. “You said nothing…”

“I was going to,” Valerie said quickly, her gaze darting away. Isabell caught it at once and nearly laughed.

“That excuse may work for Jessie,” Isabell teased, “but you’re a grown woman, Valerie.”

Valerie’s face turned an even deeper shade of red. “I was going to tell you,” she insisted, with such guilty earnestness that she looked suddenly and adorably young.

“When?” Isabell went on with her questions.

“This afternoon,” Valerie murmured. Then, seeming to realize that afternoon had already arrived, she added quickly, “I was waiting for a quieter moment.”

Isabell looked at her friend for a moment longer, and suddenly Valerie’s face blurred before her. Refusing to cry in the middle of the bakery, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her instead.

Valerie hugged her back tightly. Isabell closed her eyes, holding on for a moment. When she opened them again, she saw Mark clapping Miles on the back.

“You finally did the right thing,” he said with a grin, and both men laughed.

Isabell and Valerie drew apart, keeping hold of each other’s hands. “I’m so happy for you,” she said softly. “You deserve to—”

“Does this mean there’s going to be a wedding?” Tom called from the table, abandoning the disputed sweet roll altogether.

Jessie’s eyes widened. “Will there be cake?”

Tom turned to her. “There’s always cake at weddings,” he scoffed. “You’re ten. You ought to know what weddings have, what they don’t have, what sort of food there is, and…”

While he was busy explaining these apparently obvious matters, Jessie seized her chance and quietly pulled the sweet roll onto her own plate.

“Jessie!” Tom protested.

“What?” She took a bite. “We’re discussing the wedding now.”

The children went on arguing, and before long the whole bakery was talking again, though now half the conversations seemed to concern flowers, dresses, how many cakes Valerie could possibly bake for her own wedding, and how much money she might save by not having to pay another baker for a single one of them. By the time Isabell and Mark finally left, Valerie’s wedding had been planned at least three different ways by people who hadn’t yet been invited to it.

The next morning brought another beginning of Isabell’s own. For the first time, she opened the front room of Tom’s ranch as a proper practice.

She stood in the doorway before sunrise and simply looked at it. Mark had finished the last shelf three days earlier, and had added another because, according to him, she already owned more jars than any reasonable person did. Now jars lined both walls, carefully labeled in her handwriting. Dried herbs hung from hooks above the worktable, and clean cloths had been folded into neat stacks, while a narrow examination table stood beneath the window where the morning light was strongest.

Upon the desk lay open Aunt Hilda’s remedy book, the pages worn soft at the corners from years of handling, and beside Aunt Hilda’s worn remedy book sat two newer volumes Isabell had ordered from the east, Bartholow’s A Practical Treatise on Materia Medica and Therapeutics and Flint’s A Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Medicine. Their stiff bindings were still brand new, though the growing number of slips of paper marking their pages suggested that wouldn’t remain true for long. Isabell had begun reading them slowly, comparing what physicians wrote against what Aunt Hilda had taught her, keeping what made sense and questioning what didn’t. There would always be more to learn, and the thought excited her.

A knock at the front door drew Isabell attention from the books. She glanced toward the clock. It wasn’t yet eight, though her first patient had already arrived.

The young mother who stepped inside looked as though she hadn’t slept properly in a week. The infant in her arms screamed with astonishing determination.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said immediately, desperation trembling through every word. Her tired eyes searched Isabell’s face as though she might find an answer there. “He’s been doing this since before midnight. I fed him, changed him, and I walked with him. Nothing helps.”

“You needn’t apologize,” Isabell said gently, and held out her arms. “May I?”

The woman surrendered the baby with visible relief, and the child continued wailing against Isabell’s shoulder.

“Alright,” Isabell murmured. “You have quite a complaint.”

The mother gave a tired little laugh. Isabell adjusted the infant against her forearm, supporting his stomach the way Aunt Hilda had once shown her when Susan was small. She moved slowly across the room, rubbing gentle circles along the baby’s back.

“There,” she whispered. “Let us see whether we can negotiate.”

The mother watched anxiously. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Sometimes pressure against the belly helps,” Isabell explained. “Not hard, though… Just enough to ease him.”

The baby’s crying faltered, then resumed, but not quite as fiercely.

“We may be making progress,” Isabell smiled.

She prepared a very mild tea for the mother and explained what she might safely take herself while nursing, what foods might trouble the child, and what signs would mean the baby needed further examination.

By the time they finished, the infant had gone quiet, his little cheek resting against Isabell’s arm.

“How…” The mother stared. “How did you do that?”

“Patience,” Isabell said simply. “It usually feels like a very difficult thing to apply when you haven’t slept.”

The woman’s eyes filled unexpectedly. “I thought I was doing something wrong,” she gasped.

Isabell’s expression softened. “You’re just tired,” she said quietly. “That’s not the same thing.”

The mother breathed out. When she left some time later, the baby remained asleep against her shoulder, and Isabell stood in the doorway, watching them go.

When she closed the door, silence filled the practice. Isabell’s eyes moved over the jars, the hanging herbs, the examination table, the books. Slowly, she walked toward the nearest shelf, and her fingers passed over the smooth wood. Mark had sanded it twice because the first time she had found a rough edge and mentioned, without accusation, that patients had a remarkable talent for catching sleeves on everything, he had disappeared into the shed without a word, and the shelf had been smooth by supper.

Isabell smiled as her gaze fell upon Aunt Hilda’s book. For a moment, she could almost see her, standing over a table with her sleeves rolled back, sorting herbs while explaining why fever required watching rather than panic.

Aunt Hilda had never called herself remarkable—she had simply helped whoever came through the door. And that morning, Isabell stood in a room of her own, doing exactly the same thing, without replacing anyone. She was simply carrying on the work Aunt Hilda had begun, and perhaps, one day, someone else would carry it forward after her.

By evening, the house was noisy again. Mark came in from tending the horses just as Tom and Jessie began arguing about whose turn it was to set the table.

He stopped beside the washbasin and looked at Isabell. “Do you know whose turn it is?”

“Yes,” she said, stirring the pot once more before lowering the spoon and reaching for the loaf of bread beside her.

“Are you going to tell them?”

Isabell looked at him “No.”

“Good.” He nodded approvingly.

Isabell laughed as Mark rolled his sleeves and began washing the dust from his hands and forearms. The sight of him still caught her unexpectedly sometimes, not because he had changed, but because he belonged here now in a way she had once been afraid to imagine.

His hat hung beside Tom’s now, and Jessie’s shawl had been abandoned across the back of a chair while Isabell’s herbs scented the kitchen. Two lives had become one so gradually that Isabell could no longer remember exactly where one household ended and the other began.

The door opened again. Miles entered carrying a covered dish, with Valerie close behind him.

“I brought pie,” Valerie announced.

Jessie abandoned the table argument instantly. “What kind?” she insisted.

“Apple.”

“Can we eat it now?”

“Don’t ask me,” Valerie said diplomatically. “I’m not the one raising you.”

Jessie leaned closer to Tom and pointed toward Isabell. “She might say yes,” she whispered.

Without looking up from what she was doing, Isabell shook her head. “I won’t.”

Tom’s face fell. “You didn’t even think about it,” he murmured.

“I did.” Isabell glanced over at him, fighting a smile. “Very quickly.”

Miles laughed and set the dish down.

Valerie removed her bonnet, and something in her expression caught Isabell’s attention.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

Valerie looked at Miles. He nodded.

Mark dried his hands. “Did something happen?”

“It’s Joseph,” Valerie said at last. “He’s been found guilty.”

Isabell felt the name pass through her without the old fear. Clearly, it belonged to the past now.

She looked at Valerie. “On all the charges?”

“The principal ones,” she replied. “Agnes and Clara Bell, and that rancher from outside town.”

Miles pulled out a chair. “He’ll be imprisoned.”

For a moment, Isabell could only stand there as a rush of relief swept through her, loosening something deep inside that she hadn’t realized was still held tight. What Valerie and Miles had just said felt almost unreal after everything that had happened, and yet, beneath the disbelief, there was a quiet certainty that this was how things were supposed to be.

“So it’s finished,” she said at last.

Valerie nodded. “It’s finished.”

A brief silence followed, heavy with everything the news meant, but thankfully, Tom broke it before the feeling could settle too deeply.

“Is the food ready yet?” he asked. “I’m starving.”

“So am I,” Miles said at once.

“Count me in.” Mark nodded gravely. “I’ve been trying to behave like a patient man, but I’m afraid I’ve reached my limit.”

“Men…” Valerie looked at Isabell. “Impossible to feed.”

“Entirely impossible,” Isabell agreed.

Miles frowned. “We’re sitting right here.”

“I know,” Valerie said sweetly. “That’s how I reached the conclusion.”

Within moments, the kitchen had filled with noise again. Chairs scraped across the floor. Jessie and Tom hurried to help with the plates, when Isabell and Valerie brought the supper to the table between them, a deep dish of roasted beef with onions and potatoes, green beans cooked with butter, thick slices of fresh bread, and a bowl of stewed apples still warm from the stove. Valerie set down the bread while Isabell carried the meat, the rich smell rising with the steam.

Everyone settled in almost at once, and conversation began before the first plate had been filled. Tom wanted to know whether Floyd Higgins might be caught before his birthday, and Jessie wanted to know whether prison food was terrible. Miles declared that this wasn’t suitable supper conversation, then immediately offered his own opinion on the matter. Valerie laughed at him as Mark reached for the bread and told Tom to pass the beans before they vanished entirely.

Isabell smiled as she listened, content to let their voices tumble over one another. Then, quite suddenly, the smell of the beef reached her again, and her smile faded. A strange wave of nausea rolled through her stomach, sharp enough that she lowered her fork.

She stared at the slice of meat upon her plate. Only moments ago she had been hungry. Now the very thought of taking a bite made her stomach turn.

“Isabell?”

Valerie’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. Isabell lifted her head and found her friend watching her closely.

“Are you feeling all right?” Valerie asked, her brows furrowed.

“I think so…” Isabell hesitated, then glanced down at her untouched plate. “I’ve just felt… different lately. Tired in a way that doesn’t seem to come from work… hungry at the strangest hours, and then not hungry at all when there’s food in front of me.”

Her gaze fell to the meat again, and her stomach gave another unpleasant turn.

“Especially meat,” she added quietly.

Isabell turned to Mark. He sat beside her, his attention fixed upon her face, the easy humor gone from his expression and worry already gathering in his eyes.

She slipped her hand beneath his. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said softly as a smile began to tug at her mouth. “Quite the opposite, I think.”

Mark’s brow furrowed. Isabell looked around the table, suddenly aware of every face turned toward her.

“I believe there may be five of us by spring,” she said quietly.

For one long moment, no one moved, and the entire table seemed to fall perfectly still. Then Mark covered her hand with his free one and held it there, saying nothing, as though words couldn’t possibly add to what was already passing between them.

Tom was the first to recover. “We’re going to have… a brother?”

“Or a sister,” Jessie corrected at once. Then she added, with complete seriousness, “I hope it’s a girl. Boys are stupid.”

Isabell wasn’t able to answer immediately. She looked from him to Tom, to Jessie, to Valerie and Miles, all of them staring back at her with the same bright, astonished happiness. And for one dizzy instant, the whole thing felt almost too perfect to belong to ordinary life. Yet it did. This crowded table, these startled smiles, Mark’s hand wrapped around hers, the children beside them, and the possibility of another child by spring. Somehow, the fairy tale had become her life.

Isabell laughed softly and reached across the table toward them. “It doesn’t matter whether the baby’s a boy or a girl,” she said gently. “What matters is that the little one comes to us healthy and knowing how very much it’s loved.”

“We’ll love it,” Tom said at once.

Jessie nodded fiercely. “More than it can even imagine.”

“Much more,” Tom agreed, apparently unwilling to let Jessie have the greater share of affection.

Their voices carried on around her as they began discussing all the things they would teach the baby, all the games it would play when it was old enough, and which of them would be allowed to hold it first. Gently, Mark lifted Isabell’s hand and pressed a quiet kiss to her knuckles and she turned to him, and for a moment they simply looked at one another, smiling while Tom and Jessie continued their spirited planning across the table. Neither of them seemed willing to interrupt the children, so they sat there together and listened.

Gradually, their chatter softened into the background as Isabell’s thoughts wandered ahead. She pictured spring sunlight spilling through the windows, Mark with a tiny bundle cradled awkwardly and tenderly against his chest, Jessie and Tom hovering so close that neither would give the child room to breathe. She imagined first smiles, first steps, another little chair drawn up to their table someday, another voice joining the happy noise that already filled their home.

And of course, Valerie and Miles were there too. She saw them married, still laughing together, perhaps with a little one of their own toddling between the two households while Jessie and Tom immediately claimed the children as theirs to spoil. There would be birthdays and Christmas mornings, scraped knees and sleepless nights, arguments, laughter, more weddings, and countless ordinary days she couldn’t yet see.

With Mark’s hand wrapped around hers and the children’s laughter filling their home, Isabell looked toward the future, certain of all the love it still had left to give.

THE END