The room was too small. Mary excused herself and made a beeline for the back door. You never have to leave New York again, once you get home, she reminded herself. Someone else can keep that western door.

What a relief it was to step outside and take a deep breath of . . . corral. Mary shook her head at her own folly and walked around to the bench by the front entrance. She toed the spittoon out of sight under the bench and sat down, trying to pretend she was on her own front porch, snapping green beans with Mama.

Sergeant Blade was so quiet. She started when he sat down beside her, then turned her head away, embarrassed. “I really was worried for you,” she said finally.

“I was, too,” he admitted, “right up until Mrs. Shell gave you that medicine pouch.”

She had to smile at that. Who wouldn’t?

“Let me fill you in on Shell,” Rowan said. “After I routed out Captain Patzki, I went to the barracks where I knew another troop of the Fifth was quartered. When I told Thad Mueller—he’s another sergeant—about the whole experience and mentioned Smooth Stone and Shell, his eyes nearly bugged out.”

“Why?”

“She’s the favorite wife of His Pony, quite the warrior among the Brulé.” He moved closer to her on the bench. “Rest assured that no one in that jolly band would have dreamed of bothering us further, not with Mr. and Mrs. His Pony on our side.”

Mary produced a smile from somewhere, wondering if she could lean against his shoulder a little. She was tired of feeling alone and useful for nothing except for a minor talent in dressmaking.

She took a grand chance and leaned, which had the remarkable reflex of causing his arm to go around her shoulder as he pulled her closer. She took another chance and tipped her head against a suddenly available chest. It was just a small lean. He didn’t have to think anything of it.

“I don’t belong here,” she said. “I’m tired of officers’ wives convinced I am just another Indian in a dress and shoes, who maybe thinks she is higher in station than is legally allowed.”

He chuckled at that. “Mary, they’ve never met anyone like you. I’ll give them that, but just barely.” He hesitated, as if he had his own doubts. “But you don’t mind being here on this porch?”

She took another chance. “Not a bit.”

He must have taken one, too, because Rowan Blade kissed her. She took another chance and kissed him back, wondering how it was that a body could feel so miserable a mere twenty seconds earlier and then feel this way.

The kiss came to a natural conclusion. He kept his face close to hers, which meant he was out of focus, blurry but reassuring. She knew down to her marrow that this was not a man to kiss and tease.

He sat back. “I haven’t kissed a lady in ten years,” he said. “My goodness, Mary Blue Eye. It’s nice to feel human again.”

“I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“Then you have a natural talent.” He leaned against the bench but kept his arm around her. “I’ve complicated things, haven’t I?”

She thought about his comment, thinking of the many times she had blurted out words that fell with a thud, and her father’s patient reminder to think once, think twice, and then speak or don’t. She was leaving Fort Laramie when her six months were up; she had fifteen dresses to make in two weeks; army life was never going to be to her taste. On the other hand, there was this man seated beside her.

“That remains to be seen, Rowan.”

“Fair enough.”

They pushed hard and arrived at Fort Laramie the next evening, just as a snowstorm of daunting proportions rolled in. Sergeant Blade helped her from her horse and walked her to the Mastersons’ quarters, two troopers carrying the fabric and her valise.

Victoria Masterson opened the door, her face wreathed in smiles to see the fabric. She told the privates to set the fabric in the dining room. When they looked around, she frowned and jabbed her forefinger at that portion of the meager sitting room designated as the dining room.

Aren’t we pretentious, Mary thought, and felt like a servant once more.

Sergeant Blade must have noticed how her face fell. He moved closer and even stepped slightly in front of her, as if to shield her. The gesture was instinctive; she knew it.

“We had quite a return trip, Mrs. Masterson,” he said. “Indians attacked, Mary tended a wounded man, and she gave away enough commissary raisins to placate a whole bunch of Brulé Sioux.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “As long as the fabric came through! No wonder Captain Hayes’s wife said I should not go! Mary, we’ll set up the sewing machine in the kitchen lean-to. I’m having a card party here tonight, and you would be in the way.”

Humiliated, Mary walked Sergeant Blade to the porch as quickly as she could, because she saw the slow burn rising north from his uniform collar. “At least I don’t have to sew outside,” she joked. “Two weeks and I’ll be done with those blasted dresses for a calico ball no one needs.”

“I’d like to wring her neck,” he said.

“That would land you in the guardhouse and then off to Fort . . . Fort somewhere.”

“Leavenworth. I’m throwing you to the wolves, and I don’t like it.”

He stood on the porch, which meant she had to stand there, too, feeling more cheerful than he did, because she had realized something: Victoria Masterson had never been her friend. There was no point in thinking otherwise, so she needn’t waste any more energy on the matter. Over and done.

“Rowan, let me tell you a longhouse story that my great-grandfather told me once when I was impatient about something I can’t even remember now.”

“A longhouse? You told me you live in a regular house.”

“I do, but every year we travel to the longhouse, eat too much, laugh a lot, and listen to our elders tell stories. I have one for you: There was Spider, who spun a beautiful web. She would get it nearly completed, and bad-tempered Badger would break it and stomp away laughing. She began again, and the same thing happened. Over and over, she worked on her web, each part more lovely than the time before.” She folded her hands in front of her. “That is the end of the story.”

“That’s no ending,” the sergeant argued.

“It is if you are an Indian. She persisted, and so must I.”

He squeezed her hand. “I’ll think about that story.”

Mary watched him cross the parade ground, head down against the snow, with that purposeful stride she had become accustomed to. He stood still a moment on the other side by the guardhouse, then turned and walked toward the stables. Still she watched, and smiled when he waved to her and made ushering motions, as if doing more than suggest she go inside. He was a sergeant, after all, and used to obedience.

She watched until Rowan was out of sight in the swirling snow. She thought of Shell, Smooth Stone, and His Pony and hoped they were at least close to Spotted Tail’s agency.

As tired as she was, she knew she would lie in bed and think about Sergeant Blade, and getting kissed, and helping Smooth Stone, and worrying and maybe, perhaps, falling in love. Sleep could wait.