Samuel rested his hands on the counter. “If you hadn’t brought me back to health after I was deposited on your dock, half starved, half frozen, and crippled, I’d have died. But you wouldn’t let me, and for that I’m grateful.” Sun seeped through the shutters, slanting across his face. “I don’t wish to escape for my own sake this time. I must deliver information to the British that would drastically alter the course of the war. It would speed its end. Isn’t that what we all want?” He moved his hand toward hers, and she dropped her fists to her sides. “I need you again, Catherine.”
    Indignation built inside her. It reared up with the force of a breaker until she was helpless to hold it back. “How dare you,” she seethed quietly, and watched his eyes widen. “What? Do you pretend to be surprised that I’m angry with you? I’m livid.” She gave vent to it, voice growing stronger with every syllable. “You waltz back into my life—”
    “I’d hardly call being captured by the enemy and purchased as a slave waltzing—“
    “After five years without a word, you just appear and expect me to act like you didn’t dice my heart to pieces. Not only that, you’re asking for my help, manipulating me, preying on old sympathies.” Pulse pounding at her temples, she spilled every ounce of emotion she’d bottled and corked and sealed. “You offer no hint as to what kept you away, not even the faintest glimmer of what happened to you after you parted ways with Bright Star in New York. Did you even get home? Did you find Joel?” She hated that she cared enough to even ask the questions.
    Samuel blanched. “Joel?” His hands splayed wide atop the counter as he leaned forward. “You’re asking about Joel?”
    “He’s the reason you left me, isn’t he? Of course I want to know about him!” Catherine whisked to the front window, slamming the shutters open. Light streamed into the post, gilding everything it touched. “Which you would know if you had read a single letter I sent!”
    “You assume I received all your letters!”
    They were yelling at each other and over each other in a way they had never done before. Their voices ricocheted against the walls, and when they paused, the kettles rang and reverberated with their anger.
    Catherine crossed her arms. “How can you ask me for help when you haven’t the decency to explain why you never came back?”
    He turned from her, staring at the muskets on the rack until he calmed. “I thought you’d be married by now and away from your father, you and Thankful both. I didn’t think this would still matter so much to you.” His tone dulled. “I didn’t imagine I would still matter to you.”
    Whirling from him, she stared through the lead panes of the window toward the St. Lawrence River and wished she were there instead. The idea that Samuel pitied her was a fire that burned her pride to ash. “I moved on,” she said to the glass. “But since you came back, bitterness beats a drum against my chest until I fear my skin may wear away. I don’t ask for your love or affection, Samuel, but I deserve to know what happened.”