Silver Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #1) by Amelia Rose

unless you watched close.  Then you might see a tiny smile on her lips.  She watched life like it was a play, really.  She never jumped in."
                  I leaned forward, interrupting her thoughts because she was falling inward.  "Did you like her?"
                  "Ellie?  Yes, very much so.  She was kind and quiet and where I'd actually have expected Hutch to marry someone more like – " she hesitated, then said, "Well, your mother, someone with spirit, someone who could ride and climb and hike with him and maybe catch tadpoles better than him.  He fell in love with her."
                  She released my hands and slapped hers onto her apron with a There! Gesture, and started to rise.
                  I put out a hand and stopped her and she sank back down to her chair as if she'd known that wouldn't satisfy me.  "He fell in love with her.  But Matthew did first?"
                  Annie closed her eyes briefly, and took a breath.  "Matthew did first.  Which is not to say our Matthew doesn't fall in love indiscriminately, by which I mean no slight, but he's very free with his favors.  And Ellie – Ellie loved them both.  She loved me and John and our children.  She loved her family and she loved being outside.  And she loved children." 
                  She sighed and stood, and I let her this time, because I didn't think she was going to stop talking.  She focused on me again.
                  "Not much more to tell.  She loved them both.  She loved Hutch more.  I think she fell in love with Matthew first, but he hadn't settled, was still seeing other girls and by the time he had fallen hard enough to seriously court her, she'd fallen in love with Hutch."
                  She went back to the bench, now starting to peel potatoes, and it was time for me to return to, if not home, to Mr. Longren's house and start my own preparations.  I stood and gathered the basket along with a few early apples she'd given me.  Two questions now circled in my mind, one I could ask, the other I could not.
                  "Did Hutch know?" I asked.  She had her back to me and I saw her stiffen, then slump a little.
                  "He found out.  But by the time he found out, Matthew was himself again, seeing this girl this week, this girl the next, avoiding ever promising himself so he had no contracts to breach.  After that, Ellie and Hutch were married and very much together.  We all just ... went on."
                  I crossed the kitchen to give her a quick hug, the basket with the new apples bumping between us.  "Thank you," I said. 
                  Annie smiled.  "They're just apples.  The pies will be done soon.  Will you stay and take one back?"
                  It was quite a bit more than apples but I appreciated her discretion.  "I can't wait.  I have my own supper to see to."
     
                  Out on the street again, this time not running but probably still disheveled, I walked through the early evening with the basket on one arm and my thoughts in a storm.
                  I had asked Annie if Hutch knew and she had answered that he had, too late.
                  I had not asked her if Matthew, then, had wanted nothing more from me than to be used as a weapon against his brother.
     
                  Hutch didn't talk at dinner, except to thank me for preparing it.  I tried to leave him be.  I could wait it out.  If he still meant to marry me, we would have to talk.
                  Wouldn't we?
     
                  I had nothing to look forward to, for now.  A long summer's night waited after the kitchen was cleaned and the dishes washed, and the summer sun was not yet down.  I had my books, the mystery novel that had so caught my attention before I headed West.  I had