She looked impatient.
“This seems like a poor time for conversation.”
Silas laughed softly.
Then became serious.
“If we go farther, I need you to want every part of it.”
Her expression changed.
He continued.
“No freezing.”
“No enduring.”
“No waiting for it to end because that’s what you think wives do.”
Clara stared.
Nobody had ever named her marriage so accurately.
She looked away.
Silas touched her cheek.
“Not tonight.”
Clara’s gaze returned.
“What?”
He smiled slightly.
“You’re not angry?”
“I am.”
“Good.”
“But not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because right now half of what you’re feeling is proving you can choose.”
Clara’s cheeks burned.
Silas continued.
“I want the day you choose me to be because you want me.”
“Not because you’re trying to erase Thomas.”
She stared.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent years trying to erase people with worse decisions.”
Clara lowered her hands.
Some embarrassment turned into gratitude.
“You are infuriating.”
“I know.”
She rested her forehead against his chest.
Silas put both arms around her.
For the first time in her adult life, Clara let a man hold her without wondering what she would owe afterward.
She nearly cried.
Silas felt the change.
He kissed her hair.
No more.
The secret under the house revealed itself two days later.
Jake found it.
He was searching for a lost marble near the cellar steps when one floorboard shifted.
Underneath lay a small leather ledger.
Clara recognized Thomas’s handwriting.
She had seen enough ranch accounts.
Jake handed it over.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
She opened it.
Numbers.
Names.
Dates.
Cattle sales.
Payments.
Then entries she did not understand.
J.H.
Wages withheld.
$137.
Horse compensation.
$48.
Debt adjustment.
$315.
Total.
$500.
Clara became cold.
Jake looked over her shoulder.
“That’s my pa’s initials.”
She stared.
Jake Hartley’s father.
Jonah Hartley.
The ranch hand who died repairing fence three months before Thomas’s death.
The man whose son Clara had taken in because there was nobody else.
The five hundred dollars hidden in the flour sack downstairs.
Her stomach turned.
Silas entered carrying firewood.
He saw her face.
“What happened?”
Clara held up the ledger.
“You know this.”
Silas stopped.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Clara saw it.
The world shifted.
“You know.”
Silas set down the wood.
“Clara.”
Her voice hardened.
“How?”
Jake looked between them.
Silas looked at the boy.
“Jake, go feed the chickens.”
The boy crossed his arms.
“I’m twelve.”
Silas sighed.
“Yes.”
“And apparently the grown people are lying.”
Clara almost smiled despite fear.
Silas did not.
“Please.”
Jake looked at Clara.
She nodded.
He left reluctantly.
The door closed.
Clara turned toward Silas.
“Who are you?”
“You know my name.”
“Apparently that’s the only thing.”