Supper that evening was made up of the last of the vegetables Mama had put away and a mess of fish that Grandfather Valmont caught that afternoon. Ellis had just set the table for two when the door opened and Clay Gentry stepped inside.

Clay was taller than she remembered, taller and leaner but with a breadth of shoulder that hadn’t been evident until now. He wore one of Thomas’s buckskin shirts with a pair of patched and mended trousers that had to have belonged to Papa.

It took a moment to realize those trousers were tucked into a pair of bloodstained boots that could only have been the ones Clay was wearing when he was found. Now they were shined and polished, a feat that must have taken him most of the afternoon.

His dark hair appeared damp as if he’d just come from a bath. No one would believe this man had been at death’s door a week ago. Only the slight paleness to his complexion gave any indication that he had been unwell.

She glanced down at the hat in his hand and recognized it as the hat the soldier had been wearing when he arrived. Likely it needed a good cleaning, unless he’d seen to that too.

Their gazes met and locked. “My apologies. I don’t mean to interrupt.”

“Come in and join us, Clay,” Grandfather said. “You are welcome in this home until such time as you give me reason to say otherwise. I made that clear, didn’t I?”

“I couldn’t, sir.” He tore his attention away from Ellis to focus on Grandfather Valmont, his hands now worrying that hat. “I would be obliged if I could get a fresh cup of coffee. I smelled it brewing in the summer kitchen but didn’t want to take any without asking.”

“Nonsense.” Grandfather nodded to Ellis and then the cupboard. “Child, get this man a plate and a mug. And fetch that coffee off the stove too, please. He’s got to be starved given what he’s been through.”

Clay winced, and Ellis wondered if it was from pain or from what her grandfather just said. “Thank you, sir, but I generally work for my supper.”

Grandfather Valmont chuckled. “I reckon you respect your elders too, don’t you, son?”

“I try to,” he said, “at least best as I can recall.”

“Well then,” her grandfather said, “whether you used to or not, you can get started on it right now. You can respect your elder by taking a seat down there by my granddaughter at the end of the table and helping yourself to some supper. You might even pretend you’re hungry and get seconds if you really want to make a good impression. Tomorrow you can earn your keep by starting on a list of chores long as my arm.”

Clay looked reluctant. Knowing her grandfather, the soldier would be convinced, so Ellis slipped out the back door to head toward the summer kitchen. The air held the promise of a chill, though the wind had died down. Summer was well behind them, and the fall would soon turn to winter in this part of Texas.

Removing the coffee from the place in the chimney where it had been warming, she returned to the house to find Clay sitting at the table just as she expected. She poured coffee into three mugs and brought two to the table.

“So, Clay,” her grandfather said, “I figure we’ll start with our field hand Mack’s jobs, and then once you can get those tasks mastered, I’ll add more. There’s a fellow we like a lot named Lucas who just took off on a trip with family. He and Mack are going to be hard to replace, but I am going to let you try.” He spared Ellis a covert wink and then returned his attention to Clay. “How does that sound?”

Ellis stifled a grin as she handed her grandfather his mug.

Clay nodded, though he did look a little concerned. “I’d say that’s fair,” was his quick response. “Like I said, I earn my keep.”

“Good man,” Grandfather Valmont said. “If you’re intent on earning, I’ll certainly put you to work.”

The poor man thought he was about to get a lengthy list of difficult jobs instead of taking over for an absent six-year-old. Ellis almost took pity on him. Instead she set the mug down on the table in front of him and then returned to the cupboard for her own.

Because Grandfather Valmont insisted Clay be seated at the other end of the table, the two men spent the evening talking across her. Had Ellis intended to join in the conversation, which she decidedly did not, then she would have had to turn her head back and forth just to speak with both of them.

Thus, she ignored the men’s conversation of weather and cleaning leather and such to think about the verse she was attempting to memorize from the Psalms. Though that was her intention, she couldn’t help but occasionally slip a glance out of the corner of her eye at their guest.

Had she seen him walking down the street, she might have noticed him. Indeed, of all the men she saw sign the roster that morning, his was the only face she could recollect. Never in a million years would she have expected that the handsome New Orleans Grey who signed on as a brand-new citizen of the Republic of Texas would end up sitting at her mama’s table chatting away with Grandfather Valmont.

And to think she had actually entertained the thought that Clay Gentry was mute. Of course, that was long before she heard his fevered ramblings and began wondering if he was friend or a foe.

She still wasn’t certain which it was. But then, Clay probably didn’t know either, not unless his memories had returned and he just hadn’t bothered to tell her.

Ellis considered the possibility. Yes, Mama had said the lack of recall could be temporary. She glanced over at Clay and found him staring at her.

“Ellis,” Grandfather Valmont said, “did you hear me?”

She shifted her attention to her grandfather as heat rose in her cheeks. “No, I’m sorry. I had my mind on something else.”

“So I see.”

The heat rose higher. She refused to allow even a glance at their guest. All she could do was hope he hadn’t noticed. “What were you saying?”

“I was telling Clay to be watchful while walking around the property. I saw fresh bobcat tracks down by the river this morning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more than one of them. Best keep a weapon on you if you’re going out to gather herbs tomorrow.”

She shook her head. “How did you know I was going to do that?”

He shrugged. “Your mama always did her gathering on Wednesdays. I figure you’re doing the same since you’re taking over for her.”

She smiled. True, she had planned on filling the emptying stores of herbs before cold weather took them all, but that had nothing to do with the day of the week. Rather, it got her out of the house and away from the men for the day, a much-needed respite given the events of the last week.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

Then a thought occurred. So it was Wednesday already. How had that happened? The days had all run together since the soldier landed on the riverbank. She hadn’t given a thought to anything related to a day of the week since then.

Which meant she’d missed Sunday services too.

Mama had been kind not to mention it. Or perhaps she’d done what they sometimes did and held church right there in the parlor with Mama playing the out-of-tune piano that she insisted be hauled here from their home in New Orleans.

Either way, Ellis realized she was due for some time with the Lord. All the better to go out tomorrow looking for herbs. She would bring her book of psalms and hold a little church service of her own right out there.

She returned to her meal and ate in silence. When the men were done, they took their coffee out on the porch while Ellis washed the dishes and then slipped upstairs. With Clay occupying her parents’ bedchamber, Grandfather Valmont had insisted Ellis move into a room upstairs at the far end of the house for propriety’s sake. He would take her bedchamber so that he could keep watch over the soldier.

Or at least that was the reason he gave Ellis. She figured it was more likely that Grandfather wanted to keep watch over her and know when she came and went from the upstairs of the house.

She settled into a bed nearest the window at the front of the house, tucking the quilts up to her chin. For the first night in more than a week, her eyes fell shut before she’d completed her prayers. After rousing herself enough to finish her lengthy prayer list, and adding a prayer for safe travels for Mama and the little ones and a thank-you to the Lord for her new baby brother or sister, Ellis finally settled onto the pillow.

Outside her window, the murmur of male voices drifted up like woodsmoke on a winter evening, lulling her to sleep.

Apparently Mack the farmhand had a list of chores that even a man with a limp and a hole in his shoulder could complete. Gathering eggs had almost been his undoing on his third consecutive day of completing the list, however. Clay stepped into the chicken coop only to be confronted with a chicken snake set on finding its breakfast.

The snake dispatched, he had finished the job and delivered the eggs to the summer kitchen. There he spied Jean Paul Valmont surveying the ruins of the small barn and went over to join him.

“Looks like it went up pretty quick,” he said when Clay stopped beside him. “I’d say it’s God’s own miracle that you and my granddaughter weren’t harmed.”

“I wish I remembered more of the details clearly, but I was still trying to get over whatever the ladies had given me for sleep.”

“I do understand,” he said. “But maybe you’ll remember more than you think once you get to talking about it.”

“All right,” he said slowly. “What I do recall is that there was a lot of lightning and thunder. And a hard rain. Beating on the roof until you could hardly hear yourself think. Might even have been hail at some point.”

“We had hail down in Velasco. I was afraid we’d get boats damaged. The Lord was kind and that didn’t happen.” He paused. “Go on. What else do you remember?”

“Then there was a flash of light that looked almost blue that went down the wall opposite where they were keeping me. Next thing I know the place is on fire and we’re trying to save ourselves.”

Valmont glanced at him. “Ellis told me her dress caught on the hinge. Said she was stuck with the fire coming right at her.”

“I reckon she was,” he said.

“Said you hauled her from right here”—he gestured to the pile of rubble then turned toward the house—“to over there. How do you figure that happened, because I’m trying to sort it out and cannot.”

“I picked her up and carried her,” he said. “It wasn’t far.”

He gave Clay a sweeping glance and then shook his head. “Son, you were like as dead a week ago and couldn’t stand up straight without falling over after a few minutes just yesterday. How do you figure you just ‘picked her up and carried her’?”

Clay looked into the old man’s eyes and gave him the only answer he knew to be true. “Because I was supposed to.”

Valmont nodded and then looked away. His eyes seemed misty, though he said nothing.

After a moment, Clay cleared his throat. “I got Mack’s chores done and killed a chicken snake in the process.”

“Good man. I’ve been after that snake. Mack won’t go in if there’s a snake inside, so I’m glad it was you who went in there this morning.”

“Sorry, sir, but it would have been hard to miss,” he said, wondering just why a man like Mack was still in their employ when he didn’t have much in the way of responsibilities. He couldn’t even kill a snake?

“Need a rest yet?”

“No, sir,” he said, though he probably did.

“Ellis left without her breakfast this morning. Why don’t you go find her and see if she’s hungry? Bring her a few of those boiled eggs I saved on the sideboard.”

He nodded and then paused. “Sir, I have noticed that you’re the one who does the cooking around here. First the fish and then the eggs. It is probably none of my business, but doesn’t your granddaughter know how to cook?”

The old man chuckled. “Of course she does, but I enjoy it more than she does. Why? Are you worried she’ll starve her husband when she marries?”

It was his turn to smile. “I doubt a man who marries her will be worried about whether she will starve him. He’d have much bigger problems than an empty belly if he were to take that lady on as a wife.”