Mary Connealy by Golden Days

yesterday, leaving Meredith home alone all day. Now here she planned to do it again. Maggie would never have done that. Maggie would have stayed to the house where she belonged.
    Glaring, his temper came rapidly to a boil to cover his guilt. “If you’re going to go off on your own and leave Merry, you’d better tell us so someone can be there in case she needs help.”
    Amy’s jaw dropped. He saw the tracks of tears cutting through her grubby face, tears she’d cried for him. She’d worked up a sweat building the chimney, then apparently scratched her nose and cheeks with dirty hands.
    Maggie kept herself neat and clean.
    “Braden, what is wrong?” Amy’s kindness only made him more furious. He felt like a polar bear, lashing out at her for no reason except his own bad temper. But he couldn’t stop.
    “Are you going to keep lying to Ian or not?”
    “We did not lie. We just—”
    “Just didn’t tell the truth.” Guilt rode him like the gnawing hunger of an empty belly after a long winter’s hibernation. “Don’t dress it up fancy to make excuses for yourself. That makes you a liar.”
    Amy’s head jerked back as if she’d been slapped.
    Braden had to lock his muscles in place to keep from reaching for her and telling her she was wonderful, beautiful, brave, and strong.
    Amy met his eyes, as if she accepted his condemnation and believed every word. “I—I will tell Merry. Now that you know, she will need to tell Ian, of course. I think we should let her be the one to tell him.”
    Braden held her gaze for a moment longer. Then with a single nod of his chin, he said, “Do it before the end of the noon meal, or I will.”
    He turned and plunged into the woods, afraid to be near her for another second.
    ❧
    Amy sank onto the nearest rock. What had happened? One second she’d been in Braden’s arms, comforting him, feeling closer to him than she ever had to another human being. The next, he’d been calling her a liar and threatening her if she didn’t admit everything to Ian.
    She should never have hugged him. The mission teachers had told her about a woman’s proper demeanor. She’d shocked Braden and once again reminded him of how poorly she compared to the refined wife he’d lost.
    A gust of wind carried a thick blanket of fish-flavored smoke over her, setting her to coughing. If it hadn’t been for that, she might have sat on that rock forever.
    The smoke reminded her of dinner, and, fighting back tears of shame for the way she’d flaunted herself at Braden, she hurried toward the house. She needed to give Meredith a few minutes to prepare herself before Ian got home.
    She strode toward the cabin, her mind jumping around like a speared salmon fighting its fate. A sudden crackling in the brush drew her attention. She turned to face the noise, resting her hand on the hilt of her knife, tucked in its scabbard and tied around her waist with a thin leather belt. She always carried it in case she needed to cut saplings or dig for roots.
    Ian and Tucker had warned her that they’d seen the white fur of a polar bear and its tracks in the woods, but not this near. She knew how hungry the huge animals were in the spring. The smell of smoking salmon would draw them. That’s why she’d used the heavy rocks to build the smokehouse, rather than just hang them over an open fire. Keeping a watchful eye on the woods, she listened for the heavy breathing of a bear, watched for a flash of white fur against the brown of the trees and the green of the cedar branches.
    She heard something more but it didn’t sound like a bear, more like a footstep. Human. A cold chill raced up her spine as she backed away from the thick undergrowth and remembered the menace of those soft footfalls that late night aboard the Northward and how she’d never stayed on the deck alone again. She pulled her knife. “Who is there?”
    She continued backing away, keeping her eyes open, listening for movement that meant someone circled