“What?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
His face collapsed.
“No.”
“For your daughter.”
“I cannot.”
“It is not charity.”
“What is it?”
“A loan.”
He stared.
“Terms?”
“One dollar a month after she recovers.”
Ben began crying.
Caleb stood nearby.
Silent.
Ben looked toward him.
“I don’t deserve…”
Caleb interrupted.
“This is Clara’s money.”
“I know.”
“Take it.”
Ben did.
His daughter survived surgery.
He repaid every dollar over seventeen years.
Clara kept the ledger.
Of course.
Spring changed Black Hollow.
Legally, the property became a formal partnership.
Clara refused immediate marriage.
Caleb did not ask.
That irritated her.
One evening she confronted him.
“You haven’t proposed.”
He blinked.
“You said land and marriage should remain separate.”
“They should.”
“So?”
“So that does not mean you are forbidden from asking.”
Caleb stared.
Clara crossed her heavy arms.
He smiled slowly.
“You want me to propose.”
“I want to know why you have not.”
“Because if I ask immediately after you gain half the ranch, it looks like I’m marrying your land.”
“That is irritatingly sensible.”
“Yes.”
“How long were you planning to wait?”
“Until you complained.”
She stared.
“You planned this?”
“Maybe.”
“You manipulative mountain rat.”
Caleb laughed.
She grabbed a dish towel and hit him.
He caught it.
Pulled gently.
Clara stepped closer.
Their bodies met.
Caleb looked down.
“Now?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Are you proposing while holding a dirty towel?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He kissed her.
Three days later he did it properly.
Not with a ring.
With a key.
The brass key marked seventeen.
He polished it.
Attached it to a simple leather cord.
Clara found him outside Room 17.
He held it out.
“I spent most of my life thinking this cabin was mine.”
She listened.
“Then I found out half the land belonged to someone I hadn’t met.”
“I thought that would frighten me.”
“It did.”
He smiled.
“Then I realized the only thing I was truly afraid of was you deciding the land belonged to you but the life did not.”
Clara’s eyes filled.
Caleb continued.
“I cannot give you half the ranch.”
“You already own it.”
“I cannot give you this cabin.”
“You have more legal claim than I do to some of it.”
Clara laughed through tears.
“Excellent proposal.”
“I’m getting there.”
He stepped closer.
“What I can give you is a choice.”
“Stay as my partner.”
“Leave as my equal.”
“Or marry me because you want the same ridiculous life I do.”
Clara looked at the key.
Then him.
“What ridiculous life?”
“Cornmeal for breakfast.”