Montana Promise
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 5
Ellie Mae woke to sunlight streaming through the loft window and the unfamiliar weight of an arm across her waist. For a moment, she didn’t remember where she was. Then it all came flooding back—last night, Elias, the way he’d been so gentle with her, so patient, so utterly different from what she’d feared marriage might be.
She turned her head carefully. He was still asleep, his face relaxed in a way she’d never seen during the day. There was a scar above his left eyebrow she hadn’t noticed before. Gray threading through his dark hair at the temples. He looked younger in sleep, the constant worry lines smoothed away.
She should get up. There were chickens to feed, eggs to gather, breakfast to make. They’d both overslept—the sun was already well up, which meant it was probably past six.
But she didn’t move. Just lay there in the warm nest of blankets, watching him sleep, marveling at how much her life had changed in a month. Six weeks ago, she’d been in Boston, desperate and alone, answering advertisements from strange men. Now she was in Montana Territory, married, a rancher’s wife, and—she felt her cheeks warm—thoroughly, completely loved.
Elias’s eyes opened. For a second, he looked confused, then his gaze focused on her and his whole face softened.
“Morning,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
“We overslept.”
“We did.”
Neither of them moved.
“I should go tend the animals,” he said.
“You should.”
“In a minute.”
“In a minute,” she agreed.
He pulled her closer, and she tucked her head under his chin, feeling his heartbeat steady and strong against her cheek. This. This was what she’d been missing without knowing it. Not just the physical intimacy—though that had been revelation enough—but this quiet morning closeness, this sense of being exactly where she was supposed to be.
“Ellie Mae?” he said into her hair.
“Mmm?”
“I love you.”
Her breath caught. They’d been married a month, but they’d never said those words. Had danced around them, implied them, shown them through actions, but never spoken them out loud.
She pulled back enough to look at him. “I love you too.”
His smile could have lit the whole valley. He kissed her—soft, sweet, unhurried—and she thought maybe they could stay in bed a little longer, maybe the chickens could wait, maybe—
A rooster crowed, loud and insistent, right outside the window.
Elias groaned. “That’s George. He’s not going to stop until we feed him.”
“George?”
“The rooster. You named all the hens. I named the rooster.”
She laughed and sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest. Her clothes from yesterday were scattered across the loft floor—she’d never been that careless with her things in her life. “I suppose we should get up then.”
“I suppose we should.” But he was looking at her in a way that made her blush, made her very aware that the blanket wasn’t covering very much.
“Elias McKinney, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, those animals are going to stage a revolt.”
“Worth it,” he said, and reached for her.
They finally made it downstairs an hour later, both rumpled and grinning like fools. The animals were, indeed, staging a revolt—George crowing non-stop, the hens making indignant noises, the cow lowing mournfully from the barn.
“You go deal with the chickens,” Elias said, pulling on his boots. “I’ll handle the cow and horses. We’ll pretend this morning never happened.”
“Agreed.” She started to turn away, then turned back and kissed him quickly. “But I’m glad it did.”
“Me too.”
She watched him head toward the barn, admiring the way he moved, the breadth of his shoulders, the confident stride. Then she shook her head at herself—she was mooning like a schoolgirl—and went to face the chickens.
The hens forgave her quickly once she scattered their feed. She gathered eggs—ten this morning, a good haul—and was heading back to the house when she heard a wagon coming up the road.
She shaded her eyes. A buckboard, moving fast, throwing up dust. Probably Haugen’s man coming to measure the trees. But no—the driver was a woman, and as the wagon got closer, Ellie Mae could see she was young, blonde, and clearly agitated.
The wagon pulled up in a spray of gravel. The woman jumped down before it had fully stopped, her calico dress dusty from the road.
“Is this the McKinney place?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes. I’m Ellie Mae McKinney.”
The woman’s eyes widened—she clearly hadn’t expected a Black woman—but she recovered quickly. “I’m Sarah Brennan. I live about five miles south. I need help. My husband’s been hurt.”
Brennan. Like Ellie Mae’s maiden name. No relation, probably—it was a common enough name—but the coincidence was strange.
“How bad?” Ellie Mae asked.
“Bad. He was clearing brush, and a branch came down on him. His leg’s crushed. I—” Her voice broke. “I don’t know what to do. The doctor’s in Bozeman, and I can’t leave him alone that long, and I thought maybe—”
“Elias!” Ellie Mae called toward the barn. Then, to Sarah, “We’ll help. Let me get supplies.”
She ran inside, grabbed the medical kit she’d assembled—bandages, carbolic acid, laudanum they’d gotten in town. Her mind was already racing through what she knew about compound fractures, what her mother had taught her about field medicine during the war. Not much, but more than nothing.
Elias came out of the barn at a run. “What’s wrong?”
“Her husband’s hurt. Bad leg injury. We need to go now.”
He didn’t waste time with questions. “I’ll hitch up our wagon. Faster than riding together in hers.”
Five minutes later, they were following Sarah’s buckboard down the road at a pace that rattled Ellie Mae’s teeth. Sarah was pushing her horses hard, clearly terrified.
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