"If you were a decent man, an adult, instead of the scum-"

A sharp whistle stung his ears. The stranger glared at him. "I said talk to."

To, at, what did it matter if Ned refused to let him see his son? One more minute of Ned's belligerence and his anger would avalanche. "He's ten years old, Ned." His teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. "He doesn't get to decide where to go without telling his parents."

Still draped on his sledgehammer as if he were only taking a breather, Ned leaned over to spit. "My parents never gave a rat's tail what I did. I was fending for myself by the time I was eleven. I didn't need or want my parents, so if the boy says he doesn't want to talk to you, I'm not forcing him."

Silas clenched his jaw. Was that where Ned's meanness came from? "I'm sorry your parents didn't care, but I care for my son and I need to see him."

Ned shrugged and gave him a dismissive wave with the back of his hand. "He's in the barn. Take him off my hands." He hefted his sledgehammer with a warning in his eye.

The barn? Silas left Ned behind. Just thirty yards away, Anthony could've heard them arguing and bolted already. Silas picked up his pace. He wasn't dumb enough to go after a man with a sledgehammer anyhow.

Shoving the big barn door aside, he stared into the sunny haze, where bits of straw and dust and fur stirred in the updrafts. The air hung heavy with the smell of droppings.

In the corner, Anthony tossed manure with a pitchfork too large and unwieldy for his slender body.

Silas blew out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

Anthony stopped in midtoss, hay and muck falling and splatting beside him. He scowled at Silas.

Staggering over to a stall, Silas gripped the short wall, giving his lungs time to work like normal again.

Thank you, God.

No bruises he could see, and if the boy still had an attitude, his spirit hadn't been beaten out of him.

Anthony heaved the rest of the manure off his pitchfork and stabbed the tines into the dirt with a peeved huff. "How'd you find me?"

No apology, no look of guilt or shame? "Have you any idea what we've been through the past two weeks? Looking everywhere, not knowing if you were dead or alive . . ."

He sputtered and took a calming breath. He had to be composed, be the adult, be the parent, especially given that he had no notion why Anthony had run from him in the first place.

The boy rolled his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. "You didn't have to come looking. You could've left me alone."

"I can't leave you alone. You might not care that I'm your pa, but I am, and God wants me to protect you from here on out. And Mr. Parker's is not a good place for you to be."

"But Madam Star's place is good for Miss Dawson?" The boy's eyes narrowed, his voice filled with contempt.

Silas straightened and blinked. "What do you know about a place like Madam Star's?"

He shrugged. "Heard Ned talking about how Miss Dawson might end up there, and Jedidiah acted as if that'd be real bad."

Silas let out the breath he'd been holding. "I wouldn't have let Kate go anywhere bad."

"But you weren't marrying her or giving her any money, so I had to do something."

He had to do something? "What are you doing besides running away?"

"Miss Dawson paid for Mother and me to stay at Mrs. Grindall's, so I figured I'd pay for her train ticket to go back home."

Silas's body felt numb. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I figured you wouldn't let me work for Mr. Parker instead of going to school."

"No, I wouldn't have."

"See?" Anthony grabbed the pitchfork and scooped another shovelful of manure, throwing a glare that dared Silas to stop him. He tossed a cow chip into a waiting wheelbarrow.

"How long did you expect to work here without anyone finding out?"

"Mr. Parker said I could earn enough for a train ticket in three months." The boy heaved a forkful again, the long handle too much for him to move with grace, but most of the mess landed in the barrow.

Three months? Looked as if Ned was working him like a full-grown man. "How many hours a day are you working?"

Anthony scooped up some more litter. "All of them."

Silas's hands fisted and he took a calming breath despite the rancid dust clogging his nose. Ned had Anthony doing a man's job for a boy's pay. "After you got Kate a train ticket, then where were you going?"

"Back home."

"To Missouri?"

Anthony's face screwed up, and his eyebrows folded in bewilderment. "To you."

He suddenly couldn't breathe, and his heart raced up into his ears. "To . . . to me?"

"Of course. You're my pa."

Silas's knees went soft and the weight on his chest lifted. He grabbed the stall's wooden wall again to steady himself. "You were coming back to me?"

Anthony set the hayfork against the wall and crossed his arms, but not before Silas saw the blisters covering the boy's fingers. A surge of pride over his son working so hard without complaint threatened his eyes with moisture.

"You weren't helping Miss Dawson much, but you've been good to me." Anthony coughed and waved away whatever he'd inhaled. "Mother never cared much for me except for the times Richard was around."

"I'm sorry you didn't feel as if she cared." Seemed Anthony wouldn't have learned anything new from Lucy's journals.

He shrugged again. "Miss Dawson has always been nice though. Just wish she didn't have to leave."

"She's not leaving." He couldn't help but smile at the certainty filling his voice and his heart.

Anthony frowned. "When I get her enough money she can."

"She won't-not now that she's married."

His frown grew deeper. "Who'd she marry?"

"Me."

Anthony swallowed hard.

The utter relief and joy crossing his son's face made him shake his head. "I told Kate I made stupid decisions. I thought not telling you about our problems would keep you from worrying or getting your hopes up or throwing fits. But here you are, being the man I wasn't." He took off his hat. "Will you forgive me?"

Anthony ran over and squeezed his middle. "Only if you take me to see Miss Dawson."

He smashed the boy's head to his midsection and ruffled his soft brown hair. "She's not Miss Dawson anymore."

Anthony tipped his head back and smiled. "You're the best pa in the whole world."

Oh, he certainly wasn't, but he couldn't tell his son otherwise when his face glowed like that. Maybe, with God's help, he could spend the next decade living up to his son's opinion. "I love you, Anthony, more than I knew was possible."

Chapter 25.

"You sure you don't want a cookie?" Jedidiah shoved the platter of snacks Fannie had brought into the sitting room toward Kate. "They're delicious."

Fannie's mouth screwed up as she looked at Jedidiah askance and refilled Kate's tea.

Since they'd arrived, Jedidiah had complimented everything from the boardinghouse's decor to the food. For a man who'd dragged his feet as he escorted her to Fannie's after closing the post office, he seemed ready to admire anything and everything about the building and its owner.

Silas had abandoned her to Jedidiah hours ago without an explanation, and it ruffled. He wasn't running away certainly, but it annoyed her not knowing where he was.

Had her sister felt the same when she'd left with Aiden?

No letter had come from her sister yet, even though plenty of time had passed for a reply. Were they well? Were they still in Georgia? Would she ever know?

"Where do you think Silas went?" Fannie sat tentatively in the chair next to the sofa her husband had deposited himself on. She kept giving him sideways glances as if to check if he was still there.

"I don't know." Kate took another sip of her tea. "I read all the advertisements, trying to figure out what triggered him to rush off. Something must have given him an idea of Anthony's whereabouts, though I don't know why he couldn't waste the breath to tell me."

"Women-always needing explanations when they're just supposed to submit."

Kate joined Fannie in giving Jedidiah a withering glare.

He shrank a little. Good.

"Sorry, I'm used to, uh, . . . saying whatever I'm thinking." He held up his hands, palms out. "Now, I know you ladies probably think it's necessary to know everything, but if you trust the man, why you worrying?"

"Easy for you to say," Kate muttered.

"Not all men are trustworthy," Fannie muttered, her gaze glued to her teacup.

"No, they aren't." Jedidiah smashed his hands between his knees. "But I trust Silas."

Yes, she trusted Silas, but she still had the irrational urge to leave Fannie's and go search for him, or go to the creek and sit and stare so when he returned he'd get a little panicked over her leaving with no explanation too-which would be terrible to do to a man with Silas's fears and something she'd vowed not to do.

She rubbed the top of one new boot with the sole of the other. Even with what these new boots symbolized, the urge to run when life was tough pulled at her.

But she wouldn't run. She could talk to Fannie about curtains and cookies while waiting for him to return. And once he did, she'd explain how she felt rather than bottle her emotions inside until they pushed her to disappear.

If Silas was trying to be a better man, she'd work to become a better woman.

She grabbed a gingersnap and nibbled. Running while eating would be poor manners. She took another bite and chuckled at her attempt to anchor herself with a cookie.

The front door opened, and a burst of Kansas wind knocked it against the wall. "Kate?" Silas's voice called.

Throwing the cookie back onto the plate, she rushed to the foyer and fell to her knees. "Anthony!" She held out her arms and he ran into them. She planted kisses along the part in his hair and squeezed him tight. Then she held him out at arms' length and scowled. "Don't you ever run away again. How many times do I have to tell you this?"

He hung his head, his neck coloring. "I didn't run away. I went to work."

Silas pulled off his hat and clamped it against his leg. "Sorry about running off on you, but when the stranger in the post office said there was a boy at Ned's, I wasn't sure it'd be a good idea to take you with, and well, I didn't want to get your hopes up."

"Ned Parker's?" The nasty man who'd asked her to be his woman? Hadn't they gone by his place last week? "He knew where you were this whole time?"

Anthony nodded. "I was working for him so I could buy you a train ticket since Pa didn't have the money to send you back to Georgia."

She pressed the boy's head against her heart. Not just because he'd been worried about her, but the word Pa had rolled off his tongue so easily. "Silas gave me plenty of money to get home the day you disappeared."

"He did?" Anthony's chest deflated. "But I thought he said you'd got married?"

"We did." She couldn't help but smile over Anthony's shoulder at the man she'd rather run to than from. "But he gave me money just the same."

"Then you don't need mine?" Anthony's shoulders drooped.

She gathered his hands, noting the blisters and depositing a kiss in one of his reddened palms. "Well . . . I don't have enough for ice cream. How about you take us out for a treat?"

Silas clomped forward. "Now, wait a minute, aren't we spoiling the child with two ice creams in a year? Especially since he left without telling us where he was going."

She frowned up at him, making her eyes as plaintive as she could. "But he missed the wedding, and we didn't have cake."

"Ned said you'd leave just like every other woman." Anthony's voice tripped with emotion. "But you're really staying?"

Warmth flooded her chest at the look of adoration in Anthony's eyes. "Yes."

He threw himself at her, almost knocking her over with a fierce hug. "I love you, Miss Dawson."

"I love you too, son." She squeezed him tight, then broke away to stand and beckon to Silas. "But I'm not Miss Dawson anymore. In fact, we're thinking of changing our name as a family. Though Silas wants to keep Jonesey as his middle name, he found out his real last name last week, and unless you want to play stump the teacher for the rest of your life, we thought we'd decide on a brand-new surname together-once we found you."

Silas came over and wrapped his arms around both of them. "I'm thinking something easy, like Shelby or Presby, or maybe we could just spell my crazy last name like it sounds."

Anthony shrugged and looked up at Kate. "I don't care what it is, as long as you're happy with it . . . Ma."