have done that sooner.”
She lit a lamp, then looked down at Mitch, who was rubbing his leg. The damp spot on his pants indicated he’d probably cut it open. “I’ll get some bandages.”
Polly quickly gathered the supplies she needed, lighting a few more lamps along the way, then returned to the sitting room, where Mitch had made himself comfortable on the sofa.
“You’ve done a nice job rearranging things. It’s much more open, yet cozy in here.”
As she knelt in front of him, Polly gave him a smile. “Thank you. I found that it’s easier to give the children their lessons if I can see the older ones working at the table, and I can help the younger ones here. It’s so hard for Isabella and Thomas to sit still, so having some open space for them to move around in makes it easier.”
As she spoke, she’d rolled up his pant leg to find a deep gash. “You’ve got quite the injury here.”
He smiled down at her, warming her in a way she hadn’t expected. Like a sudden burst of sunlight through the clouds.
“Like my children, I suppose I don’t do anything halfway.”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “I don’t suppose any of us do.”
Polly dabbed at the wound, trying to ascertain its depth.
“You’re good at this.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. In the mining camps, there aren’t many doctors, if any, so you have to learn a lot on your own. I can tend most injuries, deliver a baby and, if things get truly desperate, I’ve taken a bullet out of a man.”
She could feel his gaze on her. “A refined young lady like you? But how?”
Meeting his gaze without taking pressure off his leg, she shrugged. “What you see is the product of a lot of hard living, a few refinements here and there, and a good dose of God’s grace. I mentioned how Pastor Lassiter’s involvement in our lives changed everything for us. Before that, we spent our days in mining camps, doing whatever it took to survive. You couldn’t wait for someone more qualified to come do a job if you were the only body around to do it. I’ve been helping deliver babies since I was ten years old. There aren’t too many womenfolk in the camps, and you learn pretty quickly to stick together.”
Which is how Polly knew that marriage wasn’t always a picnic. She hadn’t just experienced her mother’s pain, but watched as the other women in the camps struggled as well. She neglected to mention to Mitch that she’d learned to treat a gunshot wound after a woman in camp was shot in the arm by her drunken husband. He hadn’t meant to shoot her, of course, but he’d been drunk and... Polly shook her head. It didn’t matter.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” The warm look Mitch gave her made her squirm. Amazing? Her stomach flipped, not in an unpleasant way, but in a way she couldn’t explain. Didn’t want to explain, because it meant...
Polly shook her head. “Thank you, but in all honesty, I just did what I had to do. You and anyone else would do the same in a similar situation.”
* * *
Mitch wanted to argue with her, to let Polly know that there was something more to how wonderful she was, but he couldn’t find the strength to put it to words. Besides, how could he start thinking of a nanny as being wonderful?
“How are the children?” he said instead, as she finished bandaging his wound.
Her smile filled her face, lighting her eyes. When had anyone smiled giving a report on his children?
“They’re doing quite well, all things considered. They miss you terribly, but we’re getting along. It would have been easier had you at least sent word.”
He’d forgotten about how readily she spoke her mind. This was the second time in a matter of minutes she’d taken him to task as if he were one of the children instead of her employer. As much as he should remind her of propriety, he knew her chastisement of him came from a place of caring for his children.
Yet the gleam in those blue eyes told him she wasn’t finished with him yet.
“My lawyer was in contact with my brother. I believe he kept you apprised of the situation.”
“Apprised?” Polly’s voice rose slightly, but then she lowered it again, looking over her shoulder at the bedrooms. “If by apprised, you mean he let us know you were alive, then yes. We were apprised of the situation. However, when one engages a nanny and tells her of the scandal of his wife’s death, he should also apprise the nanny of the fact that he is considered a suspect.”
Polly was right, of course. He should have told her. But he hadn’t realized his arrest was so imminent. He’d already known that getting anyone to care for his difficult children was challenging enough, but then to have his extenuating circumstances on top of that...it seemed like madness.
“My lawyer has advised me not to speak to anyone about the case. It didn’t occur to me that they would arrest me like that.”
She frowned at him. “The press perhaps, but the person entrusted with your children should know what to expect. You should have at least informed me of the potential issues and how you’d like me to address them with the children.”
Mitch let out a long sigh. Right again. But Polly didn’t understand what was at stake here. He’d sheltered the children from the truth about their mother for years.
“I haven’t known what to say,” he said quietly, looking down at his hands. He’d always tried to be strong for his children, and yet now, when they faced the biggest challenge they’d ever faced, he had no idea what to do.
“They just lost their mother, and now their father has gone off without word and I’ve had no explanation for them. You have to say something.”
Mitch’s heart clanged to the bottom of his stomach, threatening to pull him under. How did a man tell his children that their beloved Mummy was dead, and everyone thought their father did it?
He didn’t look up at her. Couldn’t really, considering that he already felt the weight of her eyes on him, and to have to face them would be too much. Why was Polly affecting him this way? She was practically a child, and yet the wisdom and experience coming from those eyes...
“I don’t know what to say,” he said, repeating his earlier words, looking forlorn, still not meeting her gaze.
“How about letting them know you didn’t do it and that you’re working to find the real culprit?”
Her words hung in the air between them, and it should have been easy enough to agree with her.
But then Polly spoke again, so quietly, it was almost indecipherable. “Unless, of course, you killed her.”
Had she tossed a red-hot coal and hit him squarely in the chest, it would not have burned as hard as her words. Mitch jumped up from his chair and stood, towering over her, where she knelt.
“Get out!”
Polly calmly picked up the supplies she’d used to bandage his leg, then rose. “And who will watch your children the next time the deputies come for you?”
Even the accusations from the investigators hadn’t stung so much. They’d spewed horrible, disgusting details about Hattie’s death, and never had he felt so violently toward them.
“How dare you?”
“How dare you?” Polly stepped into his space, mere inches from him, bringing her face as close to his as possible, given that she stood nearly a head shorter than he. “You hire a woman to care for your children, get arrested for a grisly murder and don’t have the courtesy to tell her the truth about what happened. At least be so good as to declare your innocence.”
The sparks flying from her eyes only served to stoke the fire in him. “I told them when they arrested me that I didn’t do it. What