Both boys leapt off the porch, running barefoot through four inches of crusted snow toward the road, their small faces red from the cold, tears streaming down their cheeks.
“PLEASE DON’T GO!” Denny shrieked, stumbling and falling knee-deep into a snowdrift before scrambling back to his feet. “DON’T LEAVE US!”
Ruth didn't wait for the driver to set the brake. She scrambled over the side of the wagon, her heavy skirts catching on the wooden sideboard, and dropped into the snow. She ran toward the boys, meeting them halfway down the driveway.
Cal threw his arms around her waist, burying his face in her woolen coat so hard his body shook. Denny threw himself against her knees, sobbing so hard he could barely draw breath.
“Cal! Denny!” Ruth cried, dropping to her knees in the freezing snow, pulling both boys into her arms. “You’ll catch your death! Where are your boots? Where are your coats?”
Cal grabbed the wooden wheel of the stopped wagon, his small hands turning white against the iron rim. “You can't go!” he sobbed. “You can't!”
“Shh, sweet boy, shh—”
“He cleaned the room!” Cal shouted, his voice cracking across the silent, snow-covered yard. He pointed a trembling, red finger back toward the house. “He cleaned Mama’s room before you even came here!”
Ruth froze. Her hands paused on Denny’s back.
She slowly lifted her head, looking across fifty yards of snow toward the porch.
Jacob was standing there. He had run out behind the boys, his coat unbuttoned, his big hands raw from the cold.
Ruth stared at him, her gray eyes wide with sudden, shocking realization.
“What did you say, Cal?” Ruth whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind.
Cal wiped his wet nose on his sleeve, looking up at her. “Two weeks before the wagon brought you from Laramie... Pa went into Mama’s room. He took down the old dirty curtains. He scrubbed the floors with lye. He bought new blankets from the mercantile and put them on the bed.”
Cal choked back a sob, grabbing Ruth’s glove. “He told us it was going to be your room. But then... then he got scared.”
The entire yard went dead quiet. The wind died down to a faint whisper through the pine trees.
Ruth stood up slowly out of the snow, her eyes never leaving Jacob’s face.
She walked toward the porch. Step by step. Her heavy boots crunching into the frozen crust.
She stopped three feet away from Jacob.
Jacob stood before her, his broad shoulders hunched, his hands shaking at his sides. The proud, quiet rancher who could face a winter blizzard without flinching looked broken, vulnerable, and completely exposed under the cold sky.
Ruth looked at him for a long, searching moment.
“Your sons just did what you should have done three months ago, Jacob Hale,” she said quietly.
A rough, ragged breath escaped Jacob’s throat. He looked down at his raw, calloused hands, then lifted his eyes to meet hers. The wall he had built around his heart for three long years cracked and crumbled into dust right there on the wooden porch.
“I cleaned it because I wanted you to have a room that belonged to you,” Jacob said, his voice raw and trembling. “I bought those green curtains because I saw a piece of green ribbon in your hair the day we signed the papers in Laramie. I wanted this house to be yours.”
Tears spilled over Ruth’s lashes, freezing on her cheeks, but she didn't wipe them away.
“I watched you every morning through the barn window,” Jacob whispered, taking a trembling step closer to her. “I loved the sound of your boots on the kitchen floor. I loved the way you listened to my boys when they were hurting. I loved what you brought back into this house.”
His voice broke completely, turning into a raspy sob.
“And I nearly let you drive away today because I was more afraid of loving again than I was of dying alone in this cold house.”
He reached out, his big, rough hand hovering inches from her face, afraid to touch her.
“I want you here, Ruth,” he choked out. “Not as help. Not because the boys need a mother.”
He looked into her gray eyes with a desperate, naked truth.
“Because I do.”
Ruth stayed.
The wagon was sent back to town empty, save for a generous tip Jacob gave the driver for his trouble. Cal and Denny were hauled into the kitchen, their frozen feet wrapped in warm flannel towels while Eleanor fed them hot tea sweetened with wild honey.