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“ I s this Marshal Devlin Goodrich’s house?” A young man asked when Tresia answered the knock on the door just after noon.

Her gaze swept over him. Big and brawny, he wore a slouch hat, a light jacket and a big smile. “It is.”

“Got your trunks.” He gestured to the wagon on the dirt road in front of the house then reached into his jacket pocket and removed a folded sheaf of papers.

Once he had the papers in hand, he fished around in his pocket a little more and came up with a small stub of pencil.

“You gotta sign for ’em.” After handing them to her, he signaled to his companion.

Tresia took both and paused as the other young man—just as big and brawny—climbed down from the wagon and grabbed a small trunk from the wagon bed.

He lifted it to his shoulder like it weighed nothing, strolled up the walkway and deposited it on the porch.

She looked at the trunk, then back at the young man.

“Would you mind terribly bringing that upstairs?”

“Uh, we were paid to deliver, ma’am, not bring ’em in.”

“Please.”

They looked at each other.

“I just made some gingerbread men. You’re welcome to them if you’ll bring the trunks upstairs.”

Again, they looked at each other and the first young man said, “Uh, sure.”

“If you’ll leave them in the hallway upstairs, I can do the rest.”

By the time they were done and had gingerbread men still warm from the oven in their hands, the hallway upstairs contained four small trunks and two big ones. She closed the door behind the delivery men and went upstairs. Now to figure out which trunk belonged to who and put everything away.

She knelt down on the floor and flipped open one of the bigger trunks as Avery watched.

It was filled with frilly dresses in all the colors of the rainbow and shoes in Avery’s size.

She picked up a shoe, recognizing high quality when she saw it, then glanced at the well-worn boots on her charge’s feet.

Those were high quality, too, but old and well-worn.

She pulled one of the dresses out of the trunk and shook the wrinkles from it as nothing seemed to have been folded—just tossed, like whoever had packed them had been in a hurry.

Bright pink, it possessed an inordinate amount of bows, both big and small, and lace—lots of lace.

She glanced at Avery, taking in her plain calico dress, sans bows and lace and fancy buttons.

It definitely did not match the garments in the trunk.

These dresses looked like the little girl who wore them was more porcelain doll than flesh and blood, a child who did not know the freedom of running around, getting all dirty, a child who was put on display—seen but not heard.

She didn’t know Devlin well but hardly thought he would insist upon that kind of behavior.

In all the interactions she’d seen between Devlin and Avery, she witnessed none of that.

Oh, he loved his daughter, that much was evident, but he didn’t treat her like she’d break.

Had it been Hannah? Perhaps.

Her gaze rose up to Avery’s face and her heart melted a little. There was a smudge of jam on her cheek from lunch and her hair was a curly mess around her head, a soft brown halo of sorts as she had brushed it herself, refusing all help.

“We should put all this away. What do think?”

Avery nodded. Tresia had decided to try to engage the child in conversation.

She picked herself up off the floor, closed the lid, then bent low and pushed the trunk toward Avery’s bedroom.

It was heavier than she thought. She pushed again but only managed to move the thing a few inches.

She should be able to do this. She was a strong woman.

Hadn’t she spent years receiving and unpacking goods at the store?

She glanced at Avery, who simply stood off to the side, clutching her doll, but there was a certain gleam in her blue-gray eyes. “How would you like to give your doll a ride?”

The gleam turned to curiosity.

“Let’s put…uh…what did you name her?”

“Cecily.”

“Right. Cecily. Why don’t you sit Cecily—” she patted the top of the trunk— “right here and we’ll push her into your room?”

Avery needed no further urging. Gently, she sat Cecily on top of the trunk then joined Tresia at the back, placing her little hands beside hers.

“Ready?”

Avery nodded, her smile wide.

“Push!”

Avery let out a startling whoop as they pushed and slid the trunk into the other room. She even managed a giggle, which warmed Tresia’s heart.

“We did it,” Avery said quietly before she grabbed her doll from the top of the trunk and cuddled her in her arms, pride beaming on her little face.

A little shocked, but oh so pleased, Tresia responded in kind. “Yes, we did. Now we can unpack and hang everything up in the armoire.” She pointed to the bed she’d made earlier in the morning. “You can sit Cecily on the bed so she can watch.”

Avery did just that, placing the doll against the pillows before she started pulling clothing from the trunk.

It didn’t take long before the trunk was nearly empty, just a few more items that needed to be folded and placed in a drawer.

Tresia pulled out a folded piece of cloth.

It wasn’t an article of clothing, but something hard.

Carefully, she unwrapped it, revealing a silver-framed photograph.

The woman in it was beautiful with almost an ethereal quality, an angel among humans.

She studied it, noticing the hint of a sweet smile, the wide eyes expressing kindness, the carefully coiffed dark hair and looked at Avery, who had stopped moving and simply stared at the photograph.

“Is this your mother?”

Avery nodded as she took the picture in her hand, holding it with a gentleness that belied her age. Her eyes grew big in her face, yet a slight smile curved her lips. She traced her finger over the glass protecting it.

“She was very beautiful.”

Again, Avery nodded and placed the picture on her bedside table. “I miss her,” she admitted, surprising Tresia with another full sentence.

She sat on the bed, her heart hurting for this little girl who’d lost her mother at such a young and impressionable age.

Though she’d been much older when her own mother passed, she knew that the hurt didn’t just suddenly go away.

“I lost my mother, too,” she said quietly, hoping to draw a few more words from her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Avery shook her head, looked at the photograph one last time, and snatched up her doll before she ran back into the hallway, prepared it seemed, to push the other big trunk into her father’s room.

Tresia watched her go then rose from the bed and joined her in the hallway, reasoning that when she was ready, Avery would talk a little more than what she had.

It didn’t take long to empty the other trunks.

The marshal didn’t have as much clothing as Avery did, and the smaller trunks were filled with incidentals, books, some personal papers and old letters, tied together with a pale yellow ribbon.

They looked like love letters, the handwriting on the envelope elegant and definitely feminine.

She resisted the urge to look closer. It wasn’t any of her business.

There was another photograph, again in an ornate frame, this one with a younger Hannah standing beside Devlin.

She held a bouquet of flowers in her hand.

He was in a dark suit. She paused and studied the photograph and couldn’t help smiling.

They looked so happy, so in love. It must have been taken on their wedding day.

She placed it on the bedside table so it was the first thing he’d see when he woke up in the morning.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, pleased with the progress she’d made, she glanced at her charge, who sat on the floor on a throw rug and put together a puzzle she’d found in one of the trunks, Cecily keeping close watch by her side.

“How would you like to go see my friend Lucy?”

Avery looked up from her puzzle, her big blue-gray eyes shadowed with—what was that?

Anxiety? Fear? Both? She said nothing though.

Didn’t nod or shake her head as was her usual way to answer a question.

She didn’t look away either, those eyes of hers seeming to see into Tresia’s soul, as if looking for trust, for assurance.

Tresia understood shyness, but this seemed to be something more. Was it too soon to start introducing her to other people? She hadn’t appeared to be shy or uneasy around Elsie last night when they stopped at the Wagon Wheel, but then Elsie was so friendly, no one could resist her.

She studied Avery then said, “You’ve met Lucy before. Yesterday, in fact, when your father picked up the key to the house. Do you remember?”

Avery still didn’t respond, oh, but those eyes of hers spoke volumes.

“Lucy’s a very nice lady. She’s been my friend for a long time. She might even have her niece or one of her nephews at the house. Would you like that?”

Avery blinked and the anxiety Tresia knew she saw seemed to disappear. “Okay,” Avery murmured, then rose from the floor, grabbed her doll, and clutched it to her chest.

“We’ll bring some of the cookies. What do you think?”

Avery nodded but didn’t move until Tresia held out her hand. Avery moved forward, then slipped her little hand in hers.