Abigail heard the whistle just as she was finishing her mending. The sound of it cut through her as it did every time it blew. They hadn't found Noah's or Peter's bodies yet, but it was understood that the eight men who had yet to be found were the ones who had been furthest into the mountain.

Cat Montgomery, Molly Sullivan, Abigail and two other women were still waiting to bury their loved ones. After three months, they'd long ago ceased to believe that they could still be alive somewhere deep in that mine shaft.

With her teeth set, Abigail calmly put aside her sewing basket and stood, methodically removing her apron and straightening her skirt. She'd done this four times already, and this time, she refused to run along with the other wives. This time, she would walk. She'd had enough talks with Noah and Peter that they knew how much she cared. Four times she'd run and been disappointed, and she simply couldn't do it again.

There were a few stragglers heading out to the mine by the time she got to the main road in town.

"Abigail," she heard to her left and she shaded her eyes with her hand as she saw Nathan riding up from his investigation on the road to Murrayville. He got down from Newton when he pulled up next to her. "What's going on?" he asked.

"They've found more of the men," she said softly. "In the mine."

Nathan exhaled. He knew the names of the eight that were still missing, and he knew that Noah and Peter were among them. Also Cat Montgomery's husband, Joseph, and Molly Sullivan's Patrick. There were four others - two men who left no wives or children, and Michael Stonelake and Arthur Crocker.

Eight miners. Still, after three months, in that cold, dark shaft.

Nathan began walking with Abigail, leading Newton behind him. "I'm so sorry, Abigail. I can't think how hard this has been for you."

Nathan had found that he admired Abigail Stanton immensely, and in the short time he'd been in Coal Valley, they'd become friends. Abigail didn't seem to be in a hurry, and they did have a bit of a walk ahead of them, so they settled into a slow, easy pace.

She looked over at him and gave him a sad smile. "It would be nice to finish it, is all. I know they're gone, but I want a service, and headstones. I want a place to put flowers."

Nathan looked down at his boots as he walked, and said softly, "I understand."

Abigail smiled and looked over at him again. "I believe you do, Nathan." She took a deep breath. "Grief recognizes grief, you know?"

Nathan looked over at her and nodded. "I do." He looked ahead at the path in front of them. "I just don't know how to get past it. In five months you'd think I'd have made some sense of it..."

Abigail nodded. "That would assume it makes any sense at all."

They began to hear voices being raised and they could see that Herbert Ansvil, the foreman of the mine, was speaking to those assembled around the mine office.

Nathan saw Elizabeth right away. She was in the middle of the crowd holding one of the smaller children, and was surrounded by students from her class. He tied Newton's reins off loosely to a low branch of a tree and walked with Abigail to the back of the group.

"We found something else today," Herbert was saying. "And I hope it will bring comfort to at least one Coal Valley family." He held up a plank of wood that had the words, Forgive me, Pa, on it, written with a piece of coal.

Next to him, Abigail gasped. They were far enough at the back that her reaction was lost in the noise of the crowd, but Nathan turned and looked closely at her. Abigail turned to him and he saw the recognition in her eyes, along with the tears that had formed there. Very softly he asked, "Peter or Noah?"

She broke eye contact with Nathan, and then said, almost in a whisper, "Noah."

Nathan started to step forward, and Abigail put her hand on his arm. "No," she said, and he turned and looked back at her with a question in his eyes.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't... I don't want to set myself apart... from the other wives. Maybe it will give them some comfort if they think their men wrote it."

Nathan looked up as he heard the crowd getting louder. Now instead of Herbert holding up the plank, Henry Gowen was walking to his car, carrying it.

Then one of the miners, Franklin Palmer, moved in front of Gowen's car. Things were escalating quickly.

"I won't tell... yet," Nathan said to Abigail. "But I need to stop this."

Abigail nodded, rooted to the spot.

Nathan walked swiftly through the crowd, his red serge causing people to turn around and move aside. He walked right past Elizabeth and couldn't prevent himself from reaching out and touching her arm quickly, letting her know he was there.

Gowen's voice held an ominous threat. "Step aside, Mr. Palmer."

"Or what, you'll run me down?"

"Mr. Gowen," Nathan called out, his voice deep and confident.

Henry Gowen turned and glared at him from the back seat of his car. "This is none of your business, Constable," he said, his voice icy.

"I'm afraid it is," Nathan said, now standing next to Franklin Palmer at the front of Gowen's car. He moved Palmer gently but firmly off to the side so that he was the only one stopping Gowen's forward progress.

"And how's that?" Gowen said, nearly spitting out the words.

Nathan placed his hand on his holster and narrowed his eyes, which were now like blue steel. His voice held the same warning as Gowen's had. "Because I believe, Mr. Gowen, this has now become an investigation. And investigations not only happen to be my specialty, they're my duty. That plank is evidence, and by the authority of the North West Mounted Police, I'll thank you to hand it over."

The entire town watched as the two men stared each other down. A long minute stretched out before Gowen said, "This is a distraction we can ill-afford, Constable. There's work to be done in this mine."

"Then we're agreed. You let me do my job, and I'll leave you to do yours." Nathan had a feeling if he stepped away from the front of the car, Gowen would simply nod to Spurlock to drive away with the plank in his hands, so he didn't move.

Instead, he looked at Franklin and said, "Kindly allow Mr. Gowen to give you the plank, Mr. Palmer. And then I will take it to my office and will begin my investigation as to the identity of its owner."

Sitting in his car looking at this upstart Mountie, Henry Gowen was livid. He'd been able to do pretty much what he wanted for a number of years in Coal Valley without a fight, so this was all new to him.

But as he narrowed his eyes almost to slits at the brash young man in the red serge, he wondered if this was the battle he wanted to pick. A weather-beaten piece of wood with a few scrawls of coal on it was nothing to him. But losing in front of the entire town was a different thing.

Nathan saw it. He needed to find some way for Gowen to save face. He softened his eyes and his stance. "Mr. Gowen, you're a businessman. I know that having the benefit of a Mountie in Coal Valley is new to everyone, but I'm sure that an important man such as yourself doesn't have the time to speak to every widow in this town about whether that's their husband's handwriting." He inclined his head toward the plank in Gowen's hands. "That's my job."

Elizabeth watched in wonder as Nathan smiled, and she felt the whole crowd calm. There was a transparent honesty about him that showed he could be trusted, and she knew that what had been rapidly turning into a mob had already decided they would rather have that plank in Nathan Grant's hands than Henry Gowen's.

And Gowen knew it too. His smirk turned slowly into a smile as he exhaled. "I am a busy man, Constable Grant. And my time is better spent on running my business. I'll let you do the dirty work," he added with a sneer.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. A part of him wanted to fight back, but he decided to take yes for an answer. He nodded to Franklin, who stepped over and took the plank that Gowen held out to him. Once that was done, Nathan stepped aside and motioned with his hand that Gowen could proceed.

The crowd exhaled a collective breath and Gowen drove off in a cloud of dust and smoke.

Elizabeth was spellbound. The Nathan Grant she knew, the one who sometimes had trouble getting a sentence out when talking to her, was absolutely magnificent standing tall and square-jawed in his red serge. She watched him in wonder, her lips apart and her heart beating as if she had just run miles.

And then, miraculously, he looked directly at her. His eyes had gone from steel back to the mountain blue she already knew so well. Then he smiled at her.

Elizabeth smiled back, softly breaking into a laugh, her eyes dancing. As she watched Nathan receive the grateful slaps on the back from the miners, she wondered how in the world he would ever get all that coal dust off of his red serge.

"Very few people knew that we called each other that," Abigail said, holding the precious piece of wood in her lap. She smiled at Elizabeth and Nathan. "Right after Peter was born, I started calling Noah Pa, and he called me Ma, and Peter naturally picked it up." She ran her fingers lightly over the lettering, not wanting to disturb the coal marks. "Noah was asking us both to forgive him. Peter never wanted to be a miner. He did it for his father, and Noah knew that."

Elizabeth put her arm around Abigail, wishing there was something she could say that would ease the pain she saw in her friend's eyes.

Abigail took a deep breath and turned to Elizabeth, patting her on the knee. "It's over," she said, nodding. "There's a great comfort in that. Now I can lay them in the cemetery where they belong. I couldn't bear that they were still in that mine shaft."

Nathan sat across from them, leaning his elbows on his knees. "What will you do with it?" he asked Abigail.

She smiled at him. "Well, I wanted to talk to you about that." She took a long look at the plank again and then she handed it to Nathan. "It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to this town. For Coal Valley to heal and move on, every woman who lost a husband, and every child who lost a father needs to give their men that forgiveness."

Abigail stood and went over to put the kettle back on the fire. "If we had a church, I would say we should hang it there, but we don't." She looked at Elizabeth. "But you have a school, and every day those children can look up and know that their fathers loved them, so I think it should go there."

After thinking for a moment, Nathan said, "And my investigation?"

Abigail smiled and tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "Inconclusive?" she said.

Nathan smiled and nodded, looking down at the floor. Then he looked back at Abigail. "The paperwork will need to contain the truth, but we're able to grant anonymity to witnesses who request it. For purposes of safety."

Abigail said firmly, "Constable Grant. I wish to remain anonymous, for my safety."

Nathan's mouth formed into his crooked smile and he looked at Elizabeth. "Witness?"

She grinned and raised her hand. "Absolutely."

Abigail went to a drawer and pulled out a hammer and some nails. She walked over and touched the plank one more time. "I would appreciate it if you would hang this on the wall of the schoolroom where the children can best see it. But I'd rather you didn't do it this time of day when the saloon is filled. It would be better early in the morning, before school."

Then Abigail turned to Elizabeth and smiled before turning back to Nathan. "And you should probably take our schoolteacher with you." She raised an eyebrow. "To hold the ladder."

The sun was just beginning to set as Elizabeth walked Nathan out to the porch. "What time do you pick Allie up?" Elizabeth asked.

"I have a little time," Nathan said. "She loves her friends here so much that I try not to get my feelings hurt when she wants to stay instead of coming home."

Elizabeth sat down on the top step and patted the wood next to her. "Sit with me for a bit?"

Nathan smiled and folded his long legs down into a sitting position. He and Elizabeth weren't touching, but there was a warmth between them that was unmistakable.

Looking at him, Elizabeth said, "You were incredible today. That situation could have turned very bad, and you took control of it so quickly." She smiled. "How did you know just what to do?"

"I didn't. It's mostly instinct, I guess. But there's a Henry Gowen in every town I've ever been in. They're pretty easy to read. If you flatter them with their own importance, they tend to come around."

When he looked at her again, Elizabeth was smiling at him with an inscrutable look on her face.

"What?" he said, frowning slightly.

"I'm just wondering... why is it that sometimes you can talk to me so eloquently, and other times, it feels like such a struggle?"

Nathan took a deep breath and laughed softly. "I think I know, but I'm not sure I want to tell you."

Elizabeth laughed too. "Why, because it might let me know too much about what goes on in that head of yours?"

"Yes," he said seriously, turning and looking directly at her. The sun was setting, but she could still see how blue his eyes were. She had to look away before she got lost in them.

He turned too, and watched the sunset for a moment. "The house I grew up in, well, it's on a ranch, but we have a porch with a swing on it." He nodded his head toward the setting sun. "With a perfect view of the sunset."

Elizabeth looked out over the meadow and saw the green of the grass turning from gold to red in the dying light. "It sounds lovely."

All Nathan could think was that he wanted to be on that swing this very moment, sitting next to Elizabeth, watching the sun go down. He would have been surprised to know that she was thinking the same thing.

Nathan opened his mouth to say something and then stopped himself.

"What?" Elizabeth said.

"I wanted to say... I appreciate what you said about how I handled that situation today, but..." he stopped and Elizabeth could see him struggling again. He set his mouth in a line, as if he was resolving to say something the right way. "Elizabeth, I don't want you to set me up as something more than I am. I may not be the person you imagine."

The sun was down now and the deep blue beginnings of twilight lit his face as she looked over at him. His hand was leaning on the wooden boards between them, and before she knew it, she had covered his hand with hers.

Nathan closed his eyes and let out a breath, feeling the warmth of her hand on his skin. It was a simple matter of turning his hand over, and suddenly they were clasped tightly together. With his eyes still closed, he lifted her hand and brought it tenderly to his lips, holding it there.

Elizabeth's heart was beating so fast she thought he must have felt it. Neither of them could say a word because anything they might say would be more dangerous than silence.

It felt too soon for this. How can you know so quickly that another person is your person?

Nathan turned with his lips still touching the back of her hand, and looked into her eyes. She saw tenderness and fear mingled together, and then he closed his eyes again and allowed himself to properly kiss her hand before moving it gently into her lap and letting go.

"Goodnight, Elizabeth," he said softly, before he stood and walked down the steps. Then she could dimly see him smile in the encroaching darkness. "What time does school start?"

"Eight o'clock," she said, her voice a little shaky.

"I'll be here at seven-thirty," he said.

She nodded and smiled back. "I'll be ready to hold the ladder for you."

Nathan smiled and turned. When he was down on the path he looked up. "Sleep well," he said softly.

Elizabeth nodded, her eyes bright. Again, she watched him as long as she could, and then stood and went inside to Abigail.