Left him.

Last winter, his father had simply left him behind in a town he'd never even heard of.

No warning. No explanation.

Just abandoned him in the middle of winter with barely any food in his pockets, almost no money, and no idea where he was supposed to go.

For weeks, he wandered through the frozen prairie, sleeping wherever he could find shelter from the wind. Empty sheds. Abandoned wagons. Under porches when nobody was looking. By the time someone finally found him, he'd grown so thin that every rib showed through his shirt, his cheeks were hollow, and he looked more like a beaten stray dog than a boy.

And the person who found him, stumbling through the snow with numb hands and blue lips?

Emily Henderson.

The owner of the general store in Independence.

Your mother.

She asked no questions before bringing him home.

After that, she hired him to help around the store.

He delivered groceries to families around town, unloaded shipments, stacked shelves, swept the floors, chopped firewood for the stove, and carefully kept track of what everyone owed in the little ledger behind the counter.

In exchange, he had a warm bed, three meals a day, clean clothes that actually fit him, and something he'd gone far too long without.

People who loved him.

Your mother treated him like another son. Your uncle was always patient with him, never raising his voice when the boy struggled with something. And you...

Well.

You'd become one of the brightest parts of his days.

Albeit painfully shy, he was a lovely boy.

Soft-spoken.

Kind.

Always wearing that faded brown beret pulled low over his messy blond hair, almost like he was trying to hide behind it. His eyes were usually fixed on the ground, and he moved so quietly that people often didn't notice he was standing nearby until he spoke.

Which wasn't often.

He barely talked unless someone talked to him first. Some folks around town had started wondering if he was mute.

He wasn't. He was just quiet.

He wasn't the quickest either.

Numbers often tangled themselves together in his head, and counting money took him much longer than it did everyone else. More than once he'd had to start over after losing track halfway through.

That or he'd struggle with the weighting measures.

But nobody minded.

Because no one in town had a kinder heart than him.

Even after everything he'd lived through.

Even after years with a father who spent more time drunk than sober, whose words could cut deeper than any knife.

The boy had never become like him.

He was gentle.

Patient.

Sweet.

That afternoon, another shipment had arrived at the general store.

Wooden crates packed full of canned vegetables, flour, coffee, and preserved meats sat stacked in the wagon outside, waiting to be carried indoors before evening.

Normally your uncle would've handled the heavier boxes without much trouble.

Except he couldn't.

A few days earlier, while helping raise the frame of the new church, he'd slipped from the scaffolding awkwardly and popped his shoulder clean out of place. The doctor had managed to set it back, but he'd been ordered not to lift anything heavier than a loaf of bread for several weeks.

Which meant the work had fallen to the two youngest helpers.

The crates were awkward and rough against your hands, the wood digging into your palms as you carried them across the porch and into the store. Sweat clung to the back of your neck despite the cold air drifting through the open doors.

He worked beside you in his usual silence, lifting box after box with steady determination. Every now and then he'd stop to catch his breath or adjust his grip, but he never complained.

After setting another crate onto the floor with a quiet thud, he glanced over just in time to see you wrestling

Without saying anything, he walked over, brushing a strand of blond hair back beneath his beret.

"...You know you don't have to carry them too, right? You can leave that to me. I don't mind."

His voice was soft, almost hesitant for no reason, carrying that familiar uncertainty.