Caleb stopped sleeping properly after the shooting.
He pretended otherwise.
Clara pretended not to notice.
Neither fooled the other.
For four nights, Caleb sat near the front window with his rifle across his knees. When Clara woke before dawn, she would find him staring into darkness.
On the fifth morning, she placed a cup of coffee beside him.
“You cannot guard every tree on this mountain.”
“No.”
“You cannot go without sleep.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“That doesn’t make it intelligent.”
Caleb glanced at her.
“You always this stubborn?”
“Yes.”
“Good to know.”
She sat across from him.
“Henry is coming?”
“Sheriff Reed sent money for his train fare. Three days, maybe four.”
“Then we need only make it until then.”
Caleb wanted to believe her.
He didn’t.
Edwin Vale had crossed nearly two thousand miles to recover evidence.
Men like that did not wait quietly while their lies unraveled.
Caleb began preparing.
He moved ammunition into the cabin.
Checked every fence.
Brought the horses closer.
Jonas insisted on staying several nights, but Caleb refused.
“You’ve done enough.”
Jonas winced.
“That sentence is going to haunt me.”
“It should.”
Despite his anger, Caleb no longer truly wanted to hit him.
Jonas’s interference had been unforgivable.
It had also brought Clara to the mountain.
Caleb did not know what to do with that contradiction.
The month Clara had asked for was nearly over.
Neither mentioned it.
Every morning she rose and began work as if another day had already been agreed upon.
Every evening Caleb found a reason not to ask what she planned next.
On the twenty-eighth day, Clara found Sarah’s blue shawl in a cedar chest.
She immediately folded it back.
Caleb had been standing in the doorway.
“You can use it.”
Clara turned.
“No.”
“You’re cold.”
“It was hers.”
“She’s not using it.”
Clara gave him a look.
“That may be the least romantic statement ever made about the dead.”
Caleb almost smiled.
“I mean she would have hated seeing something useful stay in a box.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she yelled at me for saving good candles.”
Clara touched the shawl.
“I don’t want to take her place.”
The words struck him.
“You aren’t.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She looked at him.
Caleb entered the room.
“I don’t want another Sarah.”
Clara’s expression became uncertain.
“I spent years thinking that if I cared about anyone again, it meant what I had with her mattered less.”
He looked toward the window.
“I was wrong.”
Clara whispered, “What changed?”
Caleb met her eyes.
“You arrived.”
The room became very still.
Clara’s breath caught.
Caleb had faced stampedes, mountain lions, blizzards, and armed men.
Nothing had frightened him like the three steps separating them.
He crossed one.
Clara did not move.
He crossed another.
She looked at him as if asking a question neither dared speak.
Then a horse screamed outside.
Caleb turned.
Smoke rose beyond the barn.
“Fire!”
He ran.
Flames had caught the hay shed and were racing toward the barn roof.
Clara followed.
“Get the horses!”
Caleb grabbed buckets.
Wind pushed sparks toward the cabin.
The blaze was too fast.
Too deliberate.
“Kerosene,” Caleb shouted.
Someone had soaked the wall.
Clara opened the barn gate.
Three horses burst out.
Then she disappeared inside again.
“Clara!”
“Belle!”
Caleb swore.
The roof groaned.
He ran after her.
Smoke filled the barn.
Belle was trapped beneath a fallen beam.
Clara pulled at it.
“Leave her!”
“No!”
“Clara!”
Together they lifted.
Belle scrambled free.
A burning timber fell behind them.
Caleb shoved Clara toward the door.
They emerged as part of the roof collapsed.
Outside, someone fired.
Caleb spun.
A rider stood near the tree line.
Another shot.
Clara screamed.
Caleb fell to one knee.
“Caleb!”
Blood spread across his upper arm.
“It’s nothing.”
“That is not nothing!”
He raised his rifle with his good arm and fired.
The rider fled.
Clara tore fabric from her petticoat and wrapped the wound.
“Pressure.”
“I know.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
They fought the fire for another hour.
The barn survived.
The hay shed did not.
Neither did half Caleb’s winter feed.
By dusk, black smoke curled over the mountain.
Sheriff Reed arrived with four men.
One found tracks.
Another found an empty kerosene can bearing a Redemption mercantile stamp.
Jonas recognized the purchaser’s description.
“One of Vale’s hired men.”
Reed’s face hardened.
“That gives me reason to hold him.”
“If you can find him,” Caleb said.
Clara sat beside him while a doctor stitched his arm.
When the needle entered skin, Caleb didn’t flinch.
Clara did.
The doctor smiled.
“Ma’am, I think this hurts you more than him.”
Caleb looked at Clara.
“I think you’re right.”
Her eyes filled with anger.
“You almost died.”
“It missed anything important.”
“You consider your arm unimportant?”
“I have another.”
The doctor laughed.
Clara did not.
She stood and walked outside.
Caleb followed after the doctor finished.
He found her beneath the pine.
Sarah’s pine.
Clara wrapped her arms around herself.
“You should be resting.”
She spun.
“No.”
Caleb stopped.
“I am tired of hearing you say everything is nothing.”
“I didn’t—”
“You were shot.”
“I’m fine.”
“You could have been killed!”
Her voice cracked.
Caleb stared.
Clara wiped angrily at her eyes.
“I watched that roof fall. I heard the rifle. And for one second I thought—”
She stopped.
Caleb approached slowly.
“What?”
“I thought I had lost you.”
Something inside him broke open.
He lifted his good hand and touched her face.
Clara froze.
Caleb had imagined touching her more times than he would admit.
The reality was gentler.
Warmer.
More terrifying.
“I’m here,” he whispered.
Her eyes closed.
She leaned into his palm.
Caleb lowered his forehead to hers.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Want someone.”
Clara opened her eyes.
“You think I do?”
“You crossed half the country to marry a man you’d never seen.”
“A decision that does not support my good judgment.”
He laughed softly.
Then she kissed him.
Or perhaps they moved at the same time.
Caleb would never know.
It was not a dramatic kiss.
No thunder.
No music.
Just Clara’s lips against his beneath an old pine while smoke from a burned barn drifted across the evening sky.
Caleb trembled.
He had not kissed anyone since Sarah.
Clara pulled back first.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t apologize.”
She searched his face.
“Was that wrong?”
Caleb swallowed.
“No.”
He touched her cheek again.
“That’s the problem.”
The following morning brought Henry Doyle.
He arrived in Sheriff Reed’s wagon, thin and nervous, wearing spectacles repaired with wire.
When Clara saw him, she ran from the porch.
“Henry!”
He climbed down.
“Miss Whitfield.”
“You’re alive.”
“Barely.”
Caleb watched them embrace.
An unexpected feeling tightened his chest.
Jealousy.
He disliked it immediately.
Henry released her and looked at Caleb.
“You must be Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“I owe you thanks.”
“For what?”
“Keeping her alive.”
Clara looked at Caleb.
“He did more than that.”
Caleb’s jealousy vanished.
Inside, Henry produced documents hidden beneath the lining of his suitcase.
Original invoices.
Shipping receipts.
Bank records.
Enough to demonstrate that Edwin Vale had created false purchases and diverted money.
“Why did you disappear?” Clara asked.
“Vale threatened my family. I sent my mother to St. Louis and ran.”
“Will you testify?”
Henry’s face paled.
Then he looked at Clara.
“Yes.”
Relief filled her.
Sheriff Reed stood.
“That should be enough to stop extradition.”
Caleb exhaled for what felt like the first time in weeks.
Then hoofbeats thundered outside.
Jonas burst through the door.
“Caleb!”
“What?”
“Vale’s at the telegraph office.”
Reed reached for his gun.
“So?”
“He sent a message to Chicago.”
“Let him.”
Jonas shook his head.
“He wasn’t sending for lawmen.”
Caleb went cold.
“What was the message?”
Jonas swallowed.
“Burn the evidence. Silence Doyle.”
Everyone looked at Henry.
Then the cabin window exploded.