His jaw tightened.
“Dunar.”
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Enough.”
Clara stood.
“He says Henry’s survey was wrong.”
Amos looked toward the mountains.
“It wasn’t.”
Clara froze.
“How do you know?”
Amos looked at her.
“My father surveyed this valley.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Twenty-eight years ago.”
“Before territorial maps were cleaned up.”
Clara stared.
“Did Henry know?”
“Maybe.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
Clara stepped closer.
“Can you prove the boundary?”
Amos looked grim.
“My father’s field books burned with the old ranch house twelve years ago.”
Hope collapsed almost as quickly as it rose.
Clara looked away.
Amos continued:
“But boundary markers may remain.”
“Where?”
“Stone cairns.”
“Blazed trees.”
“Old iron pins if we’re lucky.”
Clara looked toward the forest.
Forty acres suddenly became a mystery.
Amos folded the paper.
“We start tomorrow.”
Clara shook her head.
“No.”
His expression changed.
“What?”
“You are not making this your problem.”
“It already borders my land.”
“Convenient.”
“Clara.”
She stepped closer.
“You have helped enough.”
“More than enough.”
“I owe you.”
Amos’s face hardened.
“Stop.”
She stared.
“I do not keep a ledger on you.”
Clara looked down.
Amos continued.
“I lifted a beam because you needed another pair of hands.”
“I fixed a roof because you were carrying my neighbor’s child.”
“I found Ruth because you were in labor.”
“None of those things bought a piece of you.”
Clara’s eyes lifted.
Amos’s voice softened.
“And helping you fight Dunar will not either.”
Silence.
Clara swallowed.
“Why?”
Amos stared.
“You know why.”
Her heart accelerated.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
He looked toward the cabin.
Then back.
“Because when I wake up, I wonder whether you slept.”
Clara stopped breathing normally.
Amos continued.
“Because I ride the north fence farther south than necessary.”
“Because when you laugh, I forget whatever I came to say.”
“Because I have spent months trying to decide whether caring about you is disrespectful to a dead man I never met.”
Clara’s eyes burned.
“Henry is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because you loved him.”
Clara looked toward baby Henry.
“Yes.”
She had.
Not perfectly.
Not dramatically.
But truly.
Amos stepped closer.
“I’m not asking you to stop.”
Clara looked at him.
“I don’t know how to do both.”
“Neither do I.”
That honesty loosened something inside her.
Amos continued:
“So we find your boundary first.”
“Then we solve everything else badly later.”
Clara laughed through tears.
He smiled.
They searched the following morning.